Featured Come out of Babylon, what does that mean?

We have the following scripture:

Revelation 18:1-5 King James Version (KJV)
1 And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.
2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.
3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.
4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
5 For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.

So we see that it is a entity that has become the 'habitation of devils' and full 'fornication', and God will punish this entity. And we have more scripture"

Revelation 14:6-11 King James Version (KJV)
6 And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,
7 Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.
8 And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.
9 And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,
10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:

We see again this Babylon, that is full of fornication, and that God will punish but now we see that those who worship this entity, they also will 'drink of the wine of the wrath of God". So who is this entity.

 

We get a clue from the name...

1. Babel or Babylon = "confusion (by mixing)"
   
   1. Babel or Babylon, the ancient site and/or capital of Babylonia (modern Hillah) situated on the Euphrates
      

Strong’s Definitions H1101; confusion; Babel (i.e. Babylon), including Babylonia and the Babylonian empire:—Babel, Babylon.

The term “Babylon” is derived from “Babel,” and signifies confusion. It is employed in Scripture to designate the various forms of false or apostate religion. So now lets look closer at what this is at what this entity does:

Revelation 17:1-6 King James Version (KJV)
1 And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:
2 With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.
3 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.
4 And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:
5 And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon The Great, The Mother Of Harlots And Abominations Of The Earth.
6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

In Revelation 17 Babylon is represented as a woman, a figure which is used in the Bible as the symbol of a church, a virtuous woman representing a pure church, a vile woman an apostate church. So we can see now what the entity is and we see that not only is it full of fornications but persecutes and is 'drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus'.

 

Numerous verses in the book of Revelation warn against Babylon, and admonish God's people to come out of Babylon. Moreover, the message in Revelation 14 is repeated in Revelation 18 with a much stronger admonition reflecting the spiritual decay of the system.

The 'unclean and hateful birds' appear to be a reference to a counterfeit Holy Spirit that would power the system and lead people to believe that they are working with the power of God when it is a deception masquerading as truth. In Revelation 18:4, John hears a clear warning, saying:

Revelation 18:4
Come out of her My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

God would not admonish His people to come out of Babylon if it were impossible for them to identify Babylon. During the early Christian centuries, Jewish and Christian literature referred to the city of Rome as Babylon. We get a clue when scripture refers to Rome as Babylon, since Peter wrote these words whilst in Rome, and literal Babylon no longer existed:

1 Peter 5:13
The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Marcus my son.

 

So what is this mystery:

Revelation 17:5,9
5 And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon The Great, The Mother Of Harlots And Abominations Of The Earth.

9 And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.

In the day of the Apostle John, the city of Rome was famed for its situation of encompassing seven hills, i.e., Capitolinus, Palatinus, Aventinus, Esquilinus, Coelius, Viminalis, and Quirinalis, as noticed by Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Claudian, Starius, Martial, and others.

The mystery of Babylon had been a entity which has brought corruption of man and lawlessness. It had been known more by what it did to deceive and substitute itself above God, but is there even more.

The description given in the book of Revelation clearly identifies the attributes of Babylon. Most Protestants of the Reformation and Post Reformation era referred to this apostate church as spiritual Babylon, the great enemy of God's people. In the Bible the symbol of a woman represents the church:

Jeremiah 6:2
I have likened the daughter of Zion to a comely and delicate woman.

Isaiah the prophet extends the symbol of a woman to that of a bride. The pure bride represents the pure church:

Isaiah 62:5.
As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.

Turning to the New Testament the same symbolism is employed:

2 Corinthians 11:2
...for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.

Babylon is described in Revelation 17 as the "mother of harlots", "Mystery" and the "abominations of the earth". Obviously if God's people are the chaste woman faithful to her husband, then Babylon is opposite of that system of true worship, and has a mystery religion and teaches and practices abominations. Its not hard to see who this apostate church, full of idols and pagan rites and rituals that has corrupted the worship of God.

 

No, not quite. It is a entity that emerged out of Pagan Rome, and brought its idols, rites, rituals and power in a man rather than God. It persecuted the true believers for centuries and continues to this day with a worldwide influence and religious reach that will continue till the end. It holds others who have split from it as misguide churchs and lost souls unless they return to it, and uses ecumenism for this purpose.

Babylon is said to be “the mother of harlots.”, and this gives us a clue as the message of Revelation 14, announcing the fall of Babylon the mother religious entity, must also apply to religious bodies that were once pure and have become corrupt.

As we see in Revelation 18, the people of God are called upon to come out of Babylon. According to this scripture, many of God’s people must still be in Babylon. It is a antichrist power which will show its true colors when its shaken in the plagues falling in the last days, trying to deceive even the very elect, and at that time those who are still in its power will come out her and stand for the truth.

 

The prophecy of Revelation is clearly for the end time, and Christians are grafted in, so its not about the Jews.

Romans 11:17-24 King James Version (KJV)
17 And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree;
18 Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.
19 Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in.
20 Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear:
21 For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.
22 Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.
23 And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again.
24 For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?

 

No, this was the view of the Reformers and even those before them.. Here is some background...
Historicist interpreters commonly used the phrase "Whore of Babylon" to refer to the Catholic Church. Reformation writers Martin Luther (1483–1546, author of On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church), John Calvin (1509–1564), and John Knox (1510–1572, author of The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstruous Regiment of Women) taught this association.[36][37]..Whore of Babylon - Wikipedia

"BABYLON REPRESENTS ROME

“So, again, Babylon, in our own John, is a figure of the city Rome, as being equally great and proud of her sway, and triumphant over the saints.” – Tertulian Answer to the Jews Chapter 9

“Abraham was born, which was about the 1200th year before Rome was founded, as it were another Babylon in the west.” – Augustine The City of GOD Book 16, Chapter 17

“Rome herself is like a second Babylon..... To be brief, the city of Rome was rounded, like another Babylon, and as it were the daughter of the former Babylon, ” – Augustine The City Of GOD Book 18, Chapter 2, 22

“And Peter makes mention of Mark in his first epistle which they say that he wrote in Rome itself, as is indicated by him, when he calls the city, by a figure, Babylon” – Church History Eusebius Book 2 Chapter 15.

THE HARLOT OF REVELATION 17 IDENTIFIED AS ROME.

“The seven heads are the seven hills, on which the woman sitteth. That is, the city of Rome”. – Victorinus [lived around 250AD] -Commentary on the Apocalypse

“Tell me, blessed John, apostle and disciple of the Lord, what didst thou see and hear concerning Babylon? Arise, and speak; for it sent thee also into banishment [Rome Banished John]. “And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters; with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.” – Hippolytus [170-236]Treatise on Christ and AntiChrist.

“Read the apocalypse of John, and consider what is sung therein of the woman arrayed in purple, and of the blasphemy written upon her brow, of the seven mountains, of the many waters, and of the end of Babylon. “Come out of her, my people,” so the Lord says, “that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.” It is true that Rome has a holy church... the faith has been preached there by an apostle, heathenism has been trodden down, the name of Christian is daily exalted higher and higher. But the display, power, and size of the city, the seeing and the being seen, the paying and the receiving of visits, the alternate flattery and detraction, talking and listening, as well as the necessity of facing so great a throng even when one is least in the mood to do so — all these things are alike foreign to the principles and fatal to the repose of the monastic life.” – Letters of St. Jerome, letter 46.

“[Rome] That powerful state which presides over the seven mountains and very many waters, has merited from the Lord the appellation of a prostitute.” – Tertulian Book 2 Chapter 12"...churchfathersprophecy

and a description of the reasons..
"Perhaps the most popular view concerning the identity of Babylon is that she represents the city of Rome.

Tertullian, Irenaeus, and Jerome use Babylon as representing the Roman Empire. In the Middle Ages Rome is frequently styled “the Western Babylon.” The sect of the Fraticelli, an eremitical organization from the Franciscans in the fourteenth century, who carried the vow of poverty to the extreme and taught that they were possessed of the Holy Spirit and exempt from sin—first familiarized the common mind with the notion that Rome was the Babylon, the great harlot of the Book of Revelation.1

This interpretation goes back at least to the time of Tertullian (AdvMarc iii.13). It was adopted by Jerome and Augustine and has been commonly accepted by the Church. There are some strong reasons for accepting it. (1) The characteristics ascribed to this Babylon apply to Rome rather than to any other city of that age a) as ruling over the kings of the earth (Rev. Rev. 17:18+); (b) as sitting on seven mountains (Rev. Rev. 17:9+); (c) as the center of the world’s merchandise (Rev. Rev. 18:2+f Rev. 19:2+); (d) as the persecutor of the saints (Rev. Rev. 17:6+).2

Because Rome, with the Vatican, is home to the global system of Roman Catholicism, the identity of Babylon as the city of Rome has often gone hand-in-hand with the view that The Great Harlot represents Roman Catholicism, possibly wed with other religious systems. See Mystery Babylon? The identity of Babylon with Rome has been bolstered by three events of history:

1. The fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 - In a similar way that Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and Solomon’s Temple in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, Rome destroyed Jerusalem and the Second Temple under Titus. This established Rome as a key enemy of Israel and Jerusalem prior to the time of John’s writing. Thus it is thought to be only natural that Babylon would be used as a code name for Rome.3
2. Christian Persecution - For the early church (remembering that John wrote from exile on Patmos during the reign of Domitian), the modern-day persecutor of the saints was Rome. Although John’s prophecies concerned the time of the end, those who have sought to restrict fulfillment to his immediate audience can find no other viable candidate outside of Rome. At that time, she was indeed “the center of the world’s merchandise [and] the persecutor of the saints.”4
3. The Reformation - When the reformers broke away from Roman Catholicism, the prophecies concerning Babylon and the Beast provided ready ammunition against Rome. By identifying the papal system and Rome with the Beast and Babylon, it could be clearly seen that Roman Catholicism was the predicted enemy of the true faith and destined for eventual destruction. Due to its great utility, this view has dominated Protestant interpretation for many years. “The Romish Church is not only accidentally and as a matter of fact, but in virtue of its very PRINCIPLE, a harlot, the metropolis of whoredom, ‘the mother of harlots’; whereas the evangelical Protestant Church is, according to her principle and fundamental creed, a chaste woman; the Reformation was a protest of the woman against the harlot...."1.3.3. Babylon is Rome Commentary - A Testimony of Jesus Christ

 

Even the Baptist writers admit it, too bad he goes political..
"Christian biblical exegesis has historically associated the “whore of Babylon” with the Antichrist of Revelation. The term “whore” has less to do with any sexual transgression and more on the act of idolatry — specifically, “whoring” the church to serve the political interests of rulers. Not surprisingly, much speculation swirled around who this “whore” signified. Biblical scholars have mostly interpreted Babylon to be the Roman Empire of the time which was engaged (until 313 CE) in sporadic persecution of Christians throughout sectors of the empire. An interpretative clue is found in verse 9, where the “whore” sits on “seven mountains,” a possible reference to the seven hills of Rome, where she rules over the kings of the earth (Rev. 17:18).

During the Medieval Age, reformers and critics within the Catholic Church (some who eventually were elevated to sainthood) equated the papacy with the whore of Babylon, specifically for its internal corruption, practice of simony, and most importantly, its political maneuvering to enhance its earthly powers and dominions. Leaders of the Protestant movement (i.e., Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Knox, Wesley), strengthened this association by generalizing the entire Church as corrupt, rather than a more complex analysis that would criticize specific periods and/or popes. The pope as Antichrist, leading the Catholic Church as whore into apostasy, was not only a mainstream interpretation during the rise of Protestantism, but has remained a popular interpretation, especially among many fundamentalists, dispensationalists and right-leaning evangelicals today."... The Whore of Babylon: Pimping the Body of Christ to the highest political bidder – Baptist News Global

 

That is why they need to let go of the pagan system of worship that Rome instituted which nearly wipe out the early church, but there still remained some faithful believers from the true church of Christ. We find many in history including the Waldensians..

Soon after the Eastern Roman Empire fell, and the Roman Catholic Church unveiled its true nature, Waldensian teachings came into conflict with the Roman Catholic Church. By 1215, the Waldensians were declared heretical and subject to intense persecution; the group endured near annihilation in the seventeenth century.

The Roman Inquisitor Reinerus Sacho writing c. 1230 held the sect of the Vaudois to be of great antiquity, thus long preceding Waldo by centuries. In the Waldensians, Sabbatati or Insabbatati, there was a more or less continuous tradition of Sabbath-keeping from the early church of the Apostles, throughout southern Europe. There are also accounts of Paulicians, Petrobusians, Pasaginians along with the Waldenses of the Alps, who kept the Saturday for the Lord's day or Sabbath, which was in conflict with the change to Sunday held by the Roman Catholic Church. The Sabbatati were known also by the name Pasigini. In reference to the Sabbath-keeping Pasigini, one scholar wrote: "The spread of heresy at this time is almost incredible. From Bulgaria to the Ebro, from Northern France to the Tiber, everywhere we meet them. Whole countries are infested, like Hungary and southern France; they abound in many other countries; in Germany, in Italy, in the Netherlands and even in England they put their efforts."

Another scholar, Bonacursus, is also quoted in writing against them:

"Not a few, but many know what are the errors of those who are called Pasigini. ... First, they teach that we should obey the sabbath. Furthermore, to increase their error, they condemn and reject all the church Fathers, and the whole Roman Church" In Spain the persecution was specifically directed at the Waldensian Sabbath-keepers.


“The Vaudois of the Alps are, in my opinion, primitive Christians, or descendants and representatives of the primitive church, preserved in these valleys from the corruptions successively introduced by the Church of Rome into the religion of the gospel. It is not they who have separated from Catholicism, but Catholicism which has separated from them by changing the primitive religion.” “History of the Waldenses,” Vol. I, p. 17, 1875.

The noted Waldensian authority, William S. Gilly, M. A. states the same essential fact in these words:

“The terms, Vaudois in French, Vallenses in Latin, Valdesi, or Vallesi in Italian, and Waldenses in English ecclesiastical history, signify nothing more or less than ‘Men of the Valleys;’ and as the valleys of Piedmont have had the honor of producing a race of people, who have remained true to the faith introduced by the first missionaries, who preached Christianity in those regions, the synonyms Vaudois, Valdesi, and Waldenses, have been adopted as the distinguishing names of a religious community, faithful to the primitive creed, and free from the corruption of the Church of Rome.

“Long before the Roman Church, (that new sect, as Claude, Bishop of Turin in 840, called it,) stretched forth its arms, to stifle in its Antæan embrace the independent flocks of the Great Shepherd, the ancestors of the Waldenses were worshiping God in the hill countries of Piedmont, as their posterity now worship Him. For many ages they continued almost unnoticed.” “Waldensian Researches During a Second Visit to the Vaudois of Piemont,” p. 6. London: Printed for C. J. G. & F. Rivington, 1831.

Speaking further of these relationships, he adds:

“The Waldenses of Piemont are not to be regarded as the successors of certain reformers, who first started up in France and Italy at a time, when the corruptions of the Roman Church and priesthood became intolerable, but as a race of simple mountaineers, who from generation to generation have continued steadily in the faith preached to their forefathers, when the territory, of which their valleys form a part, was first Christianized. Ample proof will be given of this, as I proceed, and without attempting to fix the exact period of their conversion, I trust to be able to establish the fact, that this Alpine tribe embraced the gospel as it was first announced in all its purity, and continued true to it, in the midst of almost general apostasy. Nothing is more to be regretted than the mistakes which have been made upon this point, even by Protestant authors.”

The country in which we find the earliest of these protesters is Italy. The See of Rome, in those days, embraced only the capital and the surrounding provinces. The diocese of Milan, which included the plain of Lombardy, the Alps of Piedmont, and the southern provinces of France, greatly exceeded it in extent. It is an undoubted historical fact that this powerful diocese was not then tributary to the papal chair...

'Withstood Rome a Thousand Years
But the bishops in the region of Piedmont and the adjoining provinces did more than decline to go to Rome for ordination.

“In the year 590, the bishops of Italy and the Grisons (Switzerland) to the number of nine, rejected the communion of the pope, as a heretic.” Dr. Allix’s “Remarks on the Ancient Churches of Piedmont,” chap. 5, p. 32, quoted in “The History of the Christian Church,” William Jones, chap. 4, sec. 1, p. 244.

About a century later, Paulinus, Bishop of Aquileia, in Italy, stood firmly against the domination and the innovations of the papacy, and was joined by other bishops in condemning the worship of images as idolatrous.

Turin, an important city a short distance to the west of Milan, was the center of an important diocese at the beginning of the ninth century. About the year 817 A. D. Claudius was appointed Archbishop of Turin, by Emperor Louis. Of him we read:

“This man beheld with dismay the stealthy approaches of a power which, putting out the eyes of men, bowed their necks to its yoke, and bent their knees to idols. He grasped the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, and the battle which he so courageously waged, delayed, though it could not prevent, the fall of his church’s independence, and for two centuries longer the light continued to shine at the foot of the Alps.” “The History of Protestantism,” J. A. Wiley, Vol. I, p. 21.

This is all supported by Lawrence, the learned essayist, who writes:

“Here, within the borders of Italy itself, the popes have never been able, except for one unhappy interval, to enforce their authority. Here no Mass has been said, no images adored, no papal rites administered by the native Vaudois. It was here that Henry Arnaud, the hero of the valleys, redeemed his country from the tyranny of the Jesuits and Rome; and here a Christian church, founded perhaps in the apostolic age, has survived the persecutions of a thousand years.” “Historical Studies,” Eugene Lawrence, p. 199.

“Soon after the dawn of Christianity, they assert, their ancestors embraced the faith of St. Paul..."

"The Scriptures became their only guide; the same belief, the same sacraments they maintain today they held in the age of Constantine and Sylvester. They relate that, as the Romish Church grew in power and pride, their ancestors repelled its assumptions and refused to submit to its authority; that when, in the ninth century, the use of images was enforced by superstitious popes, they, at least, never consented to become idolaters; that they never worshiped the Virgin, nor bowed at an idolatrous Mass. When, in the eleventh century, Rome asserted its supremacy over kings and princes, the Vaudois were its bitterest foes. The three valleys formed the theological school of Europe. The Vaudois missionaries traveled into Hungary and Bohemia, France, England, even Scotland, and aroused the people to a sense of the fearful corruption of the church. They pointed to Rome as the Antichrist, the center of every abomination. They taught, in the place of Romish innovations, the pure faith of the apostolic age. Lollard, who led the way to the reforms of Wycliffe, was a preacher from the valleys; the Albigenses of Provence, in the twelfth century, were the fruits of the Vaudois missions; Germany and Bohemia were reformed by the teachers of Piedmont; Huss and Jerome did little more than proclaim the Vaudois faith; and Luther and Calvin were only the necessary offspring of the apostolic churches of the Alps.” The Advocate, 200, 201."

 

Now interestingly the Waldensians held and preached a number of truths as they read from the Bible. These included:
1.The atoning death and justifying righteousness of Christ
2.The Godhead
3.The fall of man
4.The incarnation of the Son
5.A denial of purgatory as the "invention of the Antichrist"
6.Valued voluntary poverty

They held that temporal offices and dignities were not meant for preachers of the Gospel; that relics were simply rotten bones which had belonged to one knew not whom; that to go on pilgrimage served no end, save to empty one's purse; that holy water was not a whit more efficacious than rain water; and that prayer in a barn was just as effectual as if offered in a church. They were accused of having scoffed at the doctrine of transubstantiation, and of having spoken of the Roman Catholic Church as the harlot of the apocalypse.

They also kept the text of the early church which they held and passed to the Protestant Reformers, which was then passed on to us in the form of the Textus Receptus or Majority Text. Here is the line of the various versions which followed the reading of the Textus Receptus and you can see why the Waldensians were persecuted and their Bibles and manuscripts burned as they showed that the Roman church was not following the truth.

These versions include: The Pesh*tta Version (AD 150), The Italic Bible (AD 157), The Waldensian (AD 120 & onwards), The Gallic Bible (Southern France) (AD177), The Gothic Bible (AD 330-350), The Old Syriac Bible (AD 400), The Armenian Bible (AD 400 There are 1244 copies of this version still in existence.), The Palestinian Syriac (AD 450), The French Bible of Oliveton (AD 1535), The Czech Bible (AD 1602), The Italian Bible of Diodati (AD 1606), The Greek Orthodox Bible (Used from Apostolic times to the present day by the Greek Orthodox Church). [Bible Versions, D.B. Loughran]
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Jerusalem had been destroyed by 70 AD and its people and influence broken, so thus not fit any of the prophecies, but Rome fits squarely in it. The papacy grew out of its fallen ashes of the empire and used its pagan system of worship and even its titles.
Pontifex Maximus...

1. (in ancient Rome) the head of the principal college of priests.
   • (in the Roman Catholic Church) a title of the Pope.)

It persecuted the faithful and destroyed as best as it could the truths of the early church, and the teachings of Christ. It instead brought in pagan idols and the worship of Mary as intercessor, and a system of works to replace faith. It replaced the teachings from God, with traditions of man and false doctrines, subtly replacing the Sabbath and bringing in essentially the worship of the dead and wiping out the life and resurrection that is Christ.

And just think of it, it does not deny any of this, and continues to this day, with its abominations, just a bit hidden, but still there.

 

Need to see with your eyes and hear with your ears..clearly this apostate entity claims it has the power to forgive and the Pope has the authority of God and even more, and so its foretold..

Revelation 13:5-7 King James Version (KJV)
5 And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.
6 And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.
7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.

Daniel 7:7-8 King James Version (KJV)
7 After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.
8 I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.

The men before the Reformation saw it and stated it. You have Wycliffe, Huss, Jerome, and Savonarola all boldly asserting that "Babylon" represents the corrupted church of Rome, and warning of her destruction at the end foretold in prophecy.

Then you have in the Reformation whose leaders taught essentially the same, from Luther, in 1520, onward. William Tyndale, Bishops Ridley and Hooper, Archbishop Cranmer, Bishops Bale, Jewell, and Coverdale, and John Knox. They repeatedly referred to the apostate church of Rome as "Babylon," and called for separation from Rome.

Even after the Reformation, you have Sir Isaac Newton, Bishop Thomas Newton, John Wesley, and John Cotton, and many others that believed this and taught it.