The year 1948 was significant in that it was the year of the re-birth of Israel.  Yet, 1948 was  also the year of the birth of the Ecumenical Movement and the World Council of Churches.  I believe this was the official start of the global church of the latter days predicted in Revelation 17.  It is interesting to me that these two happened the same year:  the re-birth of Israel, and the birth of the ecumenical global church.  There is no coincidence here, because the false church has been one of the biggest persecutors of the Jews for centuries.  And she is persecuting Israel today.  The ecumenical church, as represented by the WCC, today habitually sides with Israel’s enemies. They are generally, pro-choice, anti-traditional marriage and family, pro-Palestinian, pro-global government.  They reject the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture, the need for salvation through faith, and the existence of hell.

In Revelation 17:1 we read of a “great harlot” that “sits upon many waters.”  Here is the description of apostate Christendom. It looks churchly and sounds religious, but at heart it is full of corruption spiritually, morally and politically.  In verse 2 we see that this is a global church, because the harlot “sits upon many waters,” (verse 1), and “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.”  This speaks of the global influence and power of this latter day false church.  In verse 3 we read the description of the ecumenical and false church as that of a “woman (sitting) upon a scarlet colored beast full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.” This indicates that the Antichrist will help empower the global church, at least until he destroys the Harlot when he is through using her (Revelation 17:16).  I believe the spirit of Antichrist is already at work in “mystery” form behind the rise of the ecumenical church. This global false church, plainly pictured in the WCC is the religious Babylon of the latter days.  Therefore she is called descriptively: “Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots, and Abominations of the Earth.”(vs 4-5) 

We can recall how the original purpose of Nimrod, in attempting to establish Babylon, recorded in Genesis 11, was to gather all people under one great religious and political kingdom with the tower of Babel as the symbol.  Interestingly, the European Union’s symbol today is the unfinished tower of Babel with the slogan:  “Europe, many tongues, one voice.” The rebellious spirit of Babel has continued through the centuries!  It has always sought to compromise and confuse truth.

Here is what A.W. Tozer writes about this global church, also known as the Ecumenical Movement:  “The seventeenth chapter of Revelation tells about that great mystery the Babylonian, the great mother of harlots, the abomination of the earth.  This harlot has children. She not only is a harlot but she is the mother of other harlots, and these harlots are nothing else than apostate churches claiming the name of the Lord but not living the truth of the Lord. I am not a good enough prophet to know what direction things are going to take.  But I do know that I hear strange things in evangelical circles these days.  I hear people rethinking things.  We are rethinking inspiration; we are rethinking the deity of Christ; we are rethinking sin; we are rethinking morals and trying to equate it with what they call morays, or habits and customs, of certain cultures.  We have gone to anthropology and have learned that what is a sin in one country is not necessarily so in another and, therefore, we Christians have to accept whatever is there.  We are rethinking things.  We are even rethinking whether God created the heavens and the earth, and man after His own image. The
evangelicals are now rethinking things that evangelicals took for granted a generation ago.  So I do not know what direction we are going to go from here.  But I believe we ought to obey the Word of God and withdraw from all that deny it in any fashion.” (Reclaiming Christianity, A.W. Tozer, pp. 69-70)

We see through Scripture that God always keeps Israel and the Church distinct.  God has a purpose for Israel and a purpose for the Church.  The true Church will be raptured off the earth when Jesus comes in the clouds (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).  This can happen any day or any hour.  Israel will be left on the earth with the Gentiles to go through the Great  Tribulation.  After the rapture, the Devil will be in a better position to destroy Israel with no resistance from the Holy Spirit empowered true Church.   He is laying the ground work today through corrupted church organizations like the WCC.  I believe he is getting the false church that will be left after the rapture ready to use as a tool to persecute the Jews. Remember, Israel had their re-birth in 1948, and the false ecumenical church had, in a very real way, its birth in the start of the World Council of Churches, also in 1948.
Coincidence?  I do not think so.

So, as true believers and members of the one true, blood bought, Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, let’s stay vigilant, virtuous and victorious, through Holy Scripture, the Holy Spirit, a Holy sanctification and separation from all that is false.  Let’s be about the business of leading people to salvation in Christ through preaching the gospel to every creature (Mark
16:15).  Finally, let’s surrender to the Lord and maintain a full commitment to witness for Jesus Christ through every area of our lives.  Setting forth the truth of His cross,  resurrection, and coming, may we do what He commanded when He said:  “Occupy until I come!” (Luke 19:13)