The information in this post can be found in Joel Richardson’s book – Mystery Babylon – Unlocking the Bible’s Greatest Prophetic Mystery.

When you grasp that the final Empire in Revelation prior to Jesus return is a revived Ottoman Empire and that a “good fit” candidate for the Antichrist is the Mahdi, the soon expected Messiah of Islam, then identifying the final Babylon of Revelation is as simple as identifying the spiritual and financial capital of the Islamic world. Mecca is the religious heart of the Islamic world, and Saudi Arabia is the financial heart of the Muslim world, providing over 90 percent of the global funding of Islam.

If you need help with seeing Islam’s role in the end times please check out these resources: The Islamic Antichrist, Mid East Beast – The Scriptural Case for an Islamic Antichrist both by Joel Richardson and Arab Spring, Christian Winter: Islam Unleashed on the Church and the World, From 9/11 to 666: The Convergence of Current Events, Biblical Prophecy and the Vision of Islam both by Ralph Stice.

The Scriptures reveal that Babylon is the capital of the seventh and eighth beast empires, which arguably is a reference to the Islamic empire, the only Middle Eastern Empire to have “crushed all the nations it conquered” and to have followed the Roman Empire.

The Bible indicates that the harlot city is a port city, or at least close to the sea. Mecca sits fifty miles inland from Jeddah and the emerging King Abdullah Economic City, NEOM (New Future) which are both presently being built specifically to become the world’s most technologically advanced and active seaports. The three cities form a triangle and will be linked by a fast train service.

The last-days harlot Babylon is a very real and identifiable geopolitical entity. So are both the city of Mecca and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

A Desert City: The harlot city sits specifically in a desert. Mecca/Saudi Arabia obviously match this description perfectly.

Babylon “the great” is called “the mother of harlots and … abominations” (Rev. 17:5). She is the greatest source of false religion and idolatry ever known. Because Islam is the world’s second-largest religion, with 1.61 billion Muslims, the city of Mecca is absolutely the unqualified greatest city of idolatry that has ever existed.

The harlot brags, “I sit as queen” (Rev. 18:7). This is a direct allusion to Isaiah 47, which reflects the attitude of the last-days Babylon, who in her wickedness also says, “No one sees me” (Isa. 47:10). The picture is of a city governed by both arrogance and secrecy. Despite all of her abundant sins, she somehow manages to fly under the radar of most. This describes Saudi Arabia nearly perfectly. Even as the Saudi royals have bought nearly every major American politician, they now also control various media outlets in the USA and other countries, even Iran International (a 24 hour channel), which broadcasts via satellite to the Middle East, Europe and the USA and can be viewed in Iran. Thus the Saudis have corrupted the most powerful nation in the world, and then they have bought that nation’s silence.

The harlot is “clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls” (Rev. 17:4). These colours and adornments speak of the woman as royalty. Saudi Arabia is not a nation in the traditional sense; rather, it is a kingdom. The House of Saud.

The Scriptures state that the Harlot is “drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus…. In her was found the blood of prophets … and of all who have been slain on the earth” (Rev. 17:6; 18:24).

Saudi Arabia is not only the single greatest financier of the Palestinian Intifada, and the greatest lobbying power at the UN against the State of Israel, but it is also the primary ideological and financial fountainhead of nearly every radical Islamist jihadi organisation in the world. ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, and other jihadist groups that murder Christians,

The last-days Babylon is an importer of “slaves and human lives” (Rev. 18:13). Literally one-third of the entire population of Saudi Arabia are foreign workers, many of whom are treated worse than slaves. Secular human rights groups report endless stories of poor treatment, abuse, imprisonment, and rape that affect the roughly nine million foreign workers living in Saudi Arabia.

Both “merchants” and “ship-masters” have “become rich through the abundance of her luxury” (Rev. 18:3, 9). All of this material wealth is directly responsible for the kings of the earth joining in with her spiritual corruption and bloodshed (17:2; 18:3). Needless to say, Saudi Arabia has not only corrupted the “kings of the earth,” but she has also seduced innumerable banks, corporations, “great men of the earth” and, in fact, “all the nations” (Rev. 18:23).

The last-days harlot is a city of extreme luxury and material excess (Rev. 17:4; 18:7). Saudi Arabia, unlike any other nation on earth, is specifically known for its absolutely excessive materialism and luxury.

That the harlot “reigns over the kings of the earth” (Rev. 17:18) and that they in turn “commit acts of immorality with her” (Rev. 18:3) makes it clear that the influence of this city is indeed global. Saudi Arabia exerts its influence over much of the world either through Islam or through outright bribery and oil blackmail. For the past few generations, no corporation, nation, or bank in the world has given a fraction of the money that the Saudi royal family has given to the past several American presidents.

The last-days Babylon is specifically a missionary-sending force, spreading her false religion all over the world and holding sway over “kings, … peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues” (Rev. 17:2, 15).

Over the past forty years, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has spent well over $100 billion to spread Islam all over the world. No religious, political, or national evangelistic or propaganda campaign in human history has ever come close to equalling this.