Mystery of Iniquity

Mystery Babylon

Chapter 2

M Y S T E R I E S

Different mysteries are mentioned in the New Testament, such as: the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, the mystery of God, the mystery of Christ in you, the mystery of Iniquity, the mystery of godliness, and lastly, the mystery of MYSTERY BABYLON.

Each of the mysteries in scripture are important pieces in the overall development of God's eternal purposes. Col. 1:26 speaks of "the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but NOW is manifest to his saints". God’s plan and central purpose was always …a reality with Him by the indwelling of the Spirt of ..”Christ in you”. Christ in one body, one people, of both Jewish and Gentile peoples, one “the hope of glory”. The Mystery of Christ!

A mystery to the people of God in one age, later became "present truth" (2 Pet.1:12) and "meat in due season" (Matt.24:45), when unveiled by the Spirit of God, to believers of a later age. Do you remember God's reply to Daniel's request for more understanding? God instructed Daniel that the visions and truths spoken to him were closed and would not be revealed until the time of the end, ...the end-time. (Dan.12:9) The unveiling of truth only comes to a people or generation as that truth is needed to further develop God's purposes in the earth. Thus, that which was a mystery to the people of God in one generation or age, ...as they "looked through a glass darkly", later became understood more clear "in the light" when it came time for that understanding to be opened.

THE MYSTERY OF INIQUITY

"For the mystery of iniquity doth already work"... These words of instruction were spoken under the direction of the Holy Spirit almost two thousand years ago, in about A.D. 55, to the believers in Thessalonica. He, this mystery of iniquity, was to "be revealed in his time" (2 Thess 2:7 8). This mystery of iniquity or lawlessness was present then (AD.55), ..but was not revealed or unveiled at that time. It was standing in the shadows where only the light of the Spirit of Christ could shine upon it.

This Iniquity (spirit of lawlessness) was then working to weave itself into God's New Plan, ...Christ in His Church. This was not a new iniquity, ....but the same iniquity of lawlessness and rebellion against Jehovah God, which had touched every race, culture, and generation since Adam and Eve's seduction in the garden. The pronouns "He" and "She" are both used as God veils the nature of this Mystery. God’s Spirit is unveiling a spirit which has neither sex nor gender, however, describing its attitudes and character in terms of ..."he, she, or it" help us comprehend it’s manifestations. When God uses "he" or "she" or "it", ....it is the outworking of Satan's deceptions which are being described.

Religious mysteries of an unholy nature were upon the face of the earth, deeply in-grained into human cultures and confronted the spread of the good news preaching of Jesus, the apostles, and the early saints in the book of Acts. These mysteries of evil were woven among the religious rituals and ceremonies of those prevailing pagan cultures in their worship of false deities, images, animals, and heavenly bodies.

The Mystery of Iniquity had already shaped the pagan systems of religion throughout the earth and had even influenced Judaism. This Iniquity had crafted Israel's worship of Jehovah during Jesus' day, into such a mingled, mixtured, mongreled religion, ....that only "a remnant (in Israel) according to the election of (God's) grace" would receive Jehovah's ”more excellent ministry” of Jesus Christ. (Rom.11:5) Judaism at the time of Christ was a fabric so woven and interlaced with Mystery Iniquities' blinding elements of ritual, tradition, and rebellion, ....that the kingdom was taken from them and given to another people that would bring forth fruit. (Matt.21:43) As a nation, the cancerous effects of religious confusion had brought Israel to an almost un redeemable level; so "that the blood of all the prophets which was shed from the foundation of the world, from the blood of righteous Abel", was to "be required of this (that) generation" of Hebrews. (Luke 11:50,51)

Wherever the truth was preached in villages, markets, heathen temples, and even Jewish synagogues, ...those evangelists of the Book of Acts confronted “Mystery Iniquity’s Religion of Babylon”, ...the same spirit of religious confusion which first bloomed at the tower of Babel.

Babel means confusion. It was there that the minds and efforts of men united to work together to get to heaven. God brought confusion and scattered them. At Babel the seeds of religious confusion were sown which later bore fruit in EVERY kingdom to which mankind had scattered. All religious confusion and iniquity, whether Pagan, Judaic, or Christian comes from the same seed bed, ...Mystery Religion of Babylon, ...it is simply one Mystery of Iniquity. The cities of Babel and Babylon long ago disappeared into dust and ruins thousands of years prior to the 1st century. Those same powers and principalities of darkness birthed the Pagan Babylonian mysteries and doctrines of religious confusion which were manifested at Babel. They were still present in 55 AD. within the hearts, minds, and religious practices of the men and women to whom Christ was preached in the 1st century. It was only a matter of time until that same "spirit of lawlessness" (iniquity), which had corrupted the Pagan world and the 12 tribes of Israel, ...would begin to breed its rebellious nature of iniquity within the unsuspecting New Testament Church. And just as it was in Israel, not everyone would become ignorant, blind, and overcome. The Spirit was already forewarning and reminding those early believers of Thessalonica of what they had been taught through Apostle Paul, ..."Remember ye not, that when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know..." (2 Thess 2:5) The Mystery of Iniquity was to keep unfolding.

INIQUITIES MANY FACES

The veil which has cloaked Mystery Babylon's deceit is ripped away when any individual begins to understand that kingdoms, civilizations, and cultures live and die. Each kingdom has it's time of influence upon the stage of man, only to be replaced in a few years, decades, or centuries, ... by another. But this process of life and death among kingdoms is not true of religion. Civilizations have come and gone; but their religious systems have lived on under the cloak of different names or different images. All the kings of the earth HAVE drunken of the intoxicating wine of her religious adulteries, lusts, and spiritual fornications. (Rev. 18:3) She has not known any permanent relationships.

Revolution and war have not affected the Great Harlot Mother of Abominations in the Earth. This religious Harlot has not cared who ruled the political realm, nor has it mattered where wars were fought. She did not mind being called Isis or Osiris in Egypt, Ashtaroh in Assyria, Diana of the Ephesians, Aphrodite in Greece, Jupiter or Mercury in Rome, or even called Pharisees and Sadducees in Israel. She clothed herself in the religious garb of whatever suited the need of that time with her ultimate goal to cause rebellion against the God of creation through the might and influence of idolatry. She was that spirit of iniquity always operating behind the scenes, so she could continue to exist in spite of political upheavals and kingdom shifts. She would simply change her clothes, change names, switch alliances, and continue to stay in control of men's souls and hearts through false religion, whether pagan, ...rebels of Judaism, ...or apostate Christianity. Yet, beneath the new garb was always the same religious harlot who could not submit to God's revealed WORD as He spoke it in each age. Each harlot religious system always had their own words, their own teachings which were held in higher esteem than God's Words.

As each civilization was replaced by another, Mystery Iniquity grew in religious deceit and knowledge. She kept learning and developing apostasy over the ages and centuries until we see Her today robed in her most splendid, deceitful, and adulterous attire. She portrays herself as the seat of truth and orthodoxy, when all the while she is the seat of Satan. She is presently alive, thriving, and reigning within the religious Christian and Non Christian communities of this earth. She is not of the future; … but of the present. She is not one woman, one city, or one church. She is religion which is untrue to God Almighty.

PARALLEL MYSTERIES

The Mystery of God and the Mystery of Iniquity, ...are Parallel Mysteries, ...which have both unfolded down through time. God's plan of the ages from the garden of Eden kept unfolding and being revealed to mankind during each age according to God's design and timing. Satan's plan of Iniquity, deception, and rebellion was always designed to match and counter God's plan in each age. The devil, the master of disguise, has used the same spirit of deception which he used to defile Eve. He used it to defile all nations in every age down through history.

Iniquity deceptively veiled itself in each age with just the right approach at just the right time. No matter the method, Satan's purpose was always to combat, hinder, resist, and stop, if possible, God's plan and purposes for His called out people during each age. Satan knew from personal experience that subtle defilement, spiritual impurity and mixture always brought God's wrath and judgment upon God's People. Regardless of the manner of attack, Satan's ultimate purpose was to create a religious behavior among humans, always contrary to God's desire, so that God could not fellowship them any longer; ....thus he would have to separate from them and judge them.

In the garden Satan began by beguiling Eve to fall from God's Word. This resulted in Paradise being locked away from all mankind with the curse of death. In Abel's day, Satan fathered murder and lying through Cain which marked and separated him from his family and God. Later, the Noah generation witnessed Satan's seductive ability to create mixed marriages between the Sons of God and the daughters of men (Gen 6:2) which brought forth such a depth of violence and evil upon the earth that God sent the flood.

In Canaan, Satan's influence incited idolatrous, sexual pagan worship practices of creatures, images, astrology, and witchcraft. Consequently the children of Israel became anointed to establish a beach head for righteousness in the heart of Amorite territory and to cast out those offending nations when the cup of Amorite Iniquity (Gen.15:16) came to fullness.

Satan seduced and defiled Israel by prompting them to walk in the statues of the heathen by building high places, setting up groves, shaping images, burning incense and just like the heathen, serving idols, worshipping the host of heaven, serving Baal, offering their children in sacrifice and enchantments (2 Kgs.17:6 20), .....and whose ultimate rebellion was in rejecting Jesus Christ. Satan watched the effects of Iniquity as God's people (because of their pollutions), became cursed and victims of divine judgments. Later, Satan's plan bore fruit as the kingdom was taken from them (Matt 21:43) and their house left desolate. (Matt 23:38)

The One Mystery of Iniquity continuously played out in lawlessness and spiritual rebellion within human hearts by using the deceptive elements of the Mystery Babylon Religion.

When Jesus came upon the scene, none had fought the Mystery of Iniquity Religion openly, with any measurable results, for many years. Iniquity held sway over the whole world. Jehovah had been silent nearly 400 years until the fullness of time came for God to speak. Jesus of Nazareth came preaching and teaching the true unadulterated religion of Jehovah which was pure and free from any elements of the Mystery of Iniquity and Babylon's religious confusion. To God's people and his “called out” church of that day God’s word came in his expressed human image form of a Living Christ. The word was made flesh and dwelt among us. He came to His own "people which sat in darkness (they) saw great light and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is (was) sprung up". (Matt.4:16) Similar to that exists today. Darkness covers the earth and gross darkness the people. (Isa.60:2) But, praise God, there is a light in the darkness.

OLD TESTAMENT SAINTS FOUGHT HER

This woman, this Mystery Babylon of Revelation 17, is no stranger to God's people of every age. They had to overcome her enticing wiles and resist her from age to age for the right to worship the true and living God    Jehovah. She is that WOMAN, that SPIRITUAL CITY, which has ruled over the kings, governments and souls of men upon earth. The saints and prophets of every age fought and resisted her religious harlotry, "abominations, and the filthiness of her fornications". (17:4) Her lusts for the "souls of men" (18:13) cost multitudes their lives as they held faithful to Jehovah. She pursued their blood, literally and spiritually, with such a lust that in time she became "drunken with the blood of the saints" of the Old Testament "and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." (17:6) In fact, she is responsible for the blood "of all that were slain ." (18:24)

She reigned "over the kings of the earth" (17:18) from her throne. She sat "upon many waters" (17:1,15), of peoples, nations and generations spanning the centuries and cultures preceding Abraham's day to the Present. Abraham sojourned among HER as "he looked for a city, ...whose builder and maker was God" (Heb. 11:10) Moses faced her in the courts of Pharaoh as he gave Jehovah's decree..."Let My People Go" ! As Joshua and the Judges of Israel struggled to reclaim the land of Canaan for Jehovah, they encountered HER deceptive influence, always inviting them,    as Balak did   , to enjoy the pleasures of lusts, sin, and rebellion. David faced her as he warred against neighboring nations who were under Mystery Iniquities’ intoxicating religious influences, as he attempted to bring the worship of Jehovah to greater heights.

In time SHE, ...that Mystery of Iniquity, ...Mystery Babylon, managed to manipulate the religious character of Israel from within the King's palace. Elijah fought to break Her strangle hold upon Israel. Elijah felt that he was alone, but God said,.."Yet, I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal." (1 Kings 19:18) (That figure could have represented less than 1% of Israel's population still holding onto Jehovah.) Could you imagine that over 90% of God's people and church (in Northern Israel) of that day had bowed to Baal ...to HER, ...to the GREAT HARLOT, ...to MYSTERY BABYLON, ...to the spirit of religious harlotry in that generation. It teaches us the potential of great error in following the majority and the masses.

Daniel and the Hebrew children resisted HER advances as they kept themselves faithful to their covenant vows in the middle of her enticements, sorcery, and wooing from the kingdom of Babylon’s numerous religious spirits. As Jesus walked among the people during the days of His Flesh, he wanted them to know that His teachings came from the Father and were not borrowed from HER. "My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me." (John 7:16) None of Jesus' doctrine was borrowed from HER influence upon the surrounding pagans, nor borrowed from the Rabbi's or scribes of Israel, ...who had corrupted themselves by committing spiritual fornication with the Mystery Harlot, ....by exalting their traditions above the WORD of GOD. (Matt 15:6 9)

NEW TESTAMENT SAINTS FOUGHT HER

Certainly the Apostles and Paul spread the good news of Jesus Christ into the depths of the religious harlot's own territory. The entire earth at that time worshiped under the Mystery Iniquity’s religious spirit. Everywhere they went there were Jewish and Gentile souls ready and waiting for release from her bondage and spiritual captivity, ....wanting to be free.

After the Apostles passed from the scene, the Harlot's seductive advances made their impact upon even the Church of Jesus Christ. Not even God's New Covenant church people were beyond the reach of Her wiles; nor could they withstand all of her advances. Apostle Paul instructed the Thessalonians that "the Mystery of Iniquity doth already work" even in 55 AD. and that the restraints upon him, (this Mystery of Iniquity) would in the future be removed "that he might be revealed in his time." (2Thes. 2:7,6) Within a few hundred years this Mystery was in full bloom and had stolen the name of "Christianity". Many departed from the faith, as man's intellect borrowed non Biblical doctrines, religious principles (principles not previously taught by Jesus nor the 12 apostles) and attitudes from the Greek and Roman philosophies. These non-scriptural principles and philosophies were incorporated into the Church by the early church Fathers? whose teachings were adulterous to God's WORD and commandments. They presumed to change, modify, and shape the church to the designs of their own intellect, which was really a Greek & Roman intellect. Men’s natural religious intellect separated them from a Christ’s intellect that only comes from Christ’s indwelling Spirit.

As Jesus spoke to John on the isle of Patmos in ?95 AD., he addressed some of the prevailing situations which had developed since Paul's exhortation to the Thessalonians of nearly 40 years earlier. The Mystery of Iniquity had not been idle during those 40 years. Over that 40 year period, she had brought forth such a change in the churches from God's original intent, that Jesus had to speak a rebuke to nearly every church of Asia he addressed.

Listen to Jesus speak of the spiritual conditions which existed at that time (A.D. 95) within the Seven churches of Asia..., some "say they are apostles and are not and thou hast found them liars" (2:2)..., "I know ...where satan's seat is" (2:13)..., "thou hast ...the deeds of the Nicolaitanes which I also hate" (2:6)..., "some hold the doctrine of Balaam, ...and the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes, which thing I hate." (2:14 15)..., some "say they are Jews (the original church) and are not, but are the synagogue of satan" (2:9), and even the spirit of "Jezebel" had surfaced again among God's people. (2:20)

Jesus' statements recognized what had been going on and he also forewarned the churches of God in that 1st century ….of Mystery Babylon's spiritual web of unfaithfulness, fornication, and rebellion that was beginning to engulf the church as a spider does its prey.

ONE SYSTEM OF UNFAITHFULNESS

The true identity of Mystery Babylon as the Mystery of Iniquity has been gradually unveiled in the earth as that of one system of Whoredoms and Spiritual Fornication. Satan has lived and influenced mankind through her ONE whorish spirit. She has expressed Satan's character as she has ridden that ONE beast of Rev. 17; ....not 7 beasts, ....not 7 women, ...one system of harlotry. "So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness : and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns." (v.4) This religious Harlot spirit was "Mother" to all other "abominations of the earth," (v.5) as she was carried by the devilish 7 headed beast through each of the seven great kingdoms or civilizations of earth, ...from the Egyptian Pharoahs till the present, ...satisfying her lust for "the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth." (18:24)

Abraham, Moses, David, Daniel, Jesus Christ, the saints of the book of Acts, those martyred by the Pagan Roman Empire, those killed by the Roman Catholic church, ....and even those fearless men of the Reformation faced Her, ....the same Prostituting Spirit. The same religious Harlot influenced the crowd to cry that day in Jerusalem..... "Away with this man, release unto us Barabbas."

Even today we are either resisting Her advances, ...or we are yielding to Her advances for the sake of convenience or for the gratification of our own desires.

When a person fails to see that her influence and life has spanned generations and cultures, he is blinded in his perception of Her in THIS generation "upon whom the ends of the world are come." She, Mystery Babylon, the Great Whore, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations in the Earth is the ENTIRE SYSTEM OF RELIGIOUS CONFUSION, whether it be Paganistic (worship of gods besides Jesus Christ), Judaic (with its traditions and rejection of Jesus Christ) or Apostate Christianity (those who confess belief in Jesus but walk after the flesh). Each of the kingdoms which carried Her represent only 1/7th of the whole. Each of the 7 kingdoms in turn have produced a more refined religious machine dominating the souls of men through religious fraud and spiritual darkness.

As we share that which the Lord Jesus bids us, we hope that you will understand that Roman Catholicism is not the present manifestation of the Mystery of Iniquity, as it once was in the past, …NOW the Harlot has daughters.