The truest meaning of �Apostasy� (i.e., �the falling away from the faith�) in its �Babylonian context� has far less to do with �sorcery� (Revelation 18:23) and the accouterments thereof (e.g., �the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, and the soothsayers� (Daniel 2:27); or channelers, diviners, new age movements in general, self-actualization/realization, theosophy, transcendental meditation).
However, not to demean the significance of the threatening blast to True Christianity that these �winds of doctrine� pose to the Church, yet they are in no way equal to the image of the Woman who rides the Beast!
Pointedly: Apostasy, akin to what took place in ancient Israel�especially in the reign of King Ahab and his Gentile-born Queen Jezebel of Tyre and Sidon�is the absolute convergence of the religion of the One True God with that of the power of the State! Here we have a princess, Jezebel, whose father, Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians, was a zealous participant in the worship of Baal. Well did she know the mysteries of the Canaanite religion and its entanglements with the mystery religion of Babylon.
Her peculiar familiarity with religion and politics, as well as Tyre�s commercial intrigues and how their international trading empire incorporated temple �worship� to spread its economy throughout the Mediterranean, represents an ideal Trinitarian form of apostasy wherein religion, politics and commerce depict prophetic Babylon.
Her expertise in religious subterfuge and commercial exploitation, coupled with political power�and how to manipulate the three�was unexcelled. King Ethbaal was unsurpassed in his ruthlessness, having been High Priest of Baal; he now sought, through assassination, the kingship of the ancient Phoenicians. Indeed, he sought to bring the �counsel of peace� between them both: The State and Religion � the kingship and the priesthood, the Church and the State. So, it is within this context, did �that woman Jezebel� and Israel�s seventh and worst king (I Kings 16:33) ascend the throne of Israel and become her king and queen.
