The Pergamum Connection: Babylon, Balaam, The Beast & the Final World Religion (CLW-15)

Oh thank you thank you so much John and all eight wonderful musicians well I can't think of a better way to invest the only day we're sure we have for the rest of our lives that's today right we don't know if we'll be alive tomorrow and yesterday has already been invested good or bad so that you're investing today with the Lord as he gathers with this church I can't think of anything more precious than sharing that with you let's open the end of our Bibles Revelation chapter 2 as we open their we're looking at what what I call the Pergamum connection and that is the connection between Babylon which you find from the opening pages to the closing pages of the scripture Balaam who's mentioned here in chapter 2 and he's mentioned in the Old Testament as well as in the New Testament as a part of as an infiltration of the true people of God with error and then the beast the ultimate counterfeit Christ the Antichrist and finally the the global religion that characterizes the world in the tribulation all of those things are swirling around it's kind of like the merging of storm cells you know when they talk about supercell this passage brings together all of those pieces that that for many who are studying the Bible when they really take the time to understand this it opens for them for the first time they see the whole panorama of what's going on from Genesis to Revelation you see Satan is totally committed to disrupting the the absolute essential truth of the gospel and the essential truth is that a substitute that is a perfect sacrifice will give their blood for me from my sense that idea of a substitution airy atoning bloody sacrifice that is the if you keep going down and reducing down what is most important in the gospel because remember the devil's believe in Jesus and they tremble they know he's God they know he's alive they know heroes all that stuff what do you have to come to that is the quintessential or the most important aspect of salvation it's the idea of a substitution Airy atoning sacrifice that Jesus Christ took the place of sinners he took my sin on himself and so that truth that the very heart of the gospel Satan wants to obscure and so he has invented religion religion is any way to God but that one anyway to God but the one got picked so Satan is the father of religion all religions he is the one who's permeated every form of worship on the planet to make sure that that idea of God becoming flesh becoming a perfect sacrifice shedding his own blood on a cross for the sin of the world is obscured in some way or another either make God not God mccammon angel jovah's witnesses and Mormons make him a God who is not a perfect sacrifice who does not atone Mormonism and Muhammad is amor Islam or make him a God who dispenses that only through works not through faith which is Roman Catholicism just obscure it any way possible but don't let people see the truth that's the Pergamum connection well look at chapter 2 verse 13 the Lord says this in Revelation 213 I know your works and where you dwell where Satan's throne it's this morning I'm going to begin and Lord willing if we're still here next week I'm going to continue explaining what pergolas has to do with all this but to give you the thumbnail you know for the people that they want it now because they're going to forget it anyway pergolas is where all of the real legend of Babylon all of the the original religion of the world that started the Tower of Babel when the Persians came in 539 BC and conquered belta Shazzer the handwriting on the wall remember the whole thing with Daniel when they came in the priests of Babylonian ISM migrated because it got a little too hot for them they moved from Babylon and they went westward and they settled in the chief city of Asia called yeah pergamum and they stayed there until 133 BC when their last king died and then they began looking for a new place to move and none other than Julius Caesar as in you know Julius Caesar from Rome came to Pergamum and brought the mystery religions of Babylon and centered them in Rome and the title of the the priests of Babylonian ism in Babylon he had a title two words that were the high priest title and he had that in Babylon and when it moved to pergolas the high priest of the Babylonian mystery religions had that title and Julius Caesar wanted that title and when he brought it to Rome he conferred that title upon himself as he remember that's why Brutus and Cassius killed him because he wanted to become the Emperor and when he brought purga mice's religion to Rome he took the title you know what the title is Pontifex Maximus and every Roman Emperor from Julius Caesar onward became that until Constantine took over Christianity and he conferred and his successors conferred that to the Bishop of Rome the Church of Rome the Catholic Church and they became the and to this day ratzinger whatever whatever his name i forget what title he's taken but Ratzinger the newest pope the theologian from germany he on his coronation became the Pontifex Maximus of the world you know what that is it started in Babel and that's we're going to see this morning in fact the only way to understand this is go back to Genesis let's back to Genesis chapter 4 and I want to take a little journey with you through the scriptures and have you be able to to locate and mark in your Bibles what I'm talking about because from the earliest days after creation when Adam sinned and all of mankind was to follow him in his fallen to send God made away from an kind to come back and that way was to worship God through a substitution ery sacrificial blood sprinkled offering and God first showed that by coming to the hiding and guilty and their sin Adam and Eve who had covered themselves with with their own coverings that they had made from plants and they had covered themselves from the glory of God and Lord says no no you need to be covered and he killed two animals shed their blood sacrifice them because Adam and Eve sinned and covered Adam and Eve with animal skins because a innocent sacrifice had to shed its blood to cover since and so from the very beginning of the fall God talked about this substitution ery blood sprinkled atonement and the key to understanding all of world history since the fall of humanity into sin comes from God's Word in fact I've always loved history I burned the midnight oil in high school and has ladai I was a history major all the way through college I did my doctoral work in history and the only way to understand and connect history is to see it through the lens of Scripture because the Word of God is the only absolutely trustworthy and accurate account of the beginning days of both universe and humanity and the only way to understand what's going on out there is to not try and interpret it through the lens of where I am today but through the absolute accurate first hand on the scene eyewitness account that God has breathed out that Jesus Christ by the way affirmed Jesus went systematically in his teaching quoting from different parts of Genesis and he said that Moses wrote all those things as well as Exodus Leviticus numbers into I mean Jesus alludes to all of them said Moses wrote all of them and all of them are scripture that means that this is according to Jesus Christ the breathed out in errant flawless account from God so what does it say well in Genesis for you see the very first description of the deadliest evil humanity has ever faced you know what it's called religion religion religion is any way to God but the way that God said and religion will do anything it can to obscure to obfuscate to hide to cover up to counterfeit the truth religion religion is mankind offering any kind of worship to God other than what God's Word is commanded religion is the self-styled offering of a humanly designed worship it's the idea that come on god this is the best I have or this is all I can do or this is what I think is best and that describes every religion of the world it's all a human self-styled offering to God by whatever name they make God and it's all false and the the refusal to offer spirit prompted worship that the Word of God commands is at the heart of all religions that's why people will take anything but you talking about Christ because Christ mushy ack means the anointed deliver he is the one who came from God who was the fulfillment and the essence of all the promises of God in human flesh he was perfect he was God and he innocently substitutional II took the sin of the world and that is the most repulsive idea to religion because they don't want they don't want a substitute they want me to accomplish whatever it takes they don't want God to have achieved once and for all the sacrifices and they want it to be self produced so that means they're only two choices in the universe if you want to offer true worship that's acceptable to God you only have two choices what God reveals he wants in his word and everything else so this morning you can take every religious group Church mosque synagogue gathering tribal entity or New Age fellowship or animistic polytheistic paganism you put them all in the table and either they are what God's Word commands or they're not and the only one that God started is the one that his word commands everything else was started by humans at the prompting of the devil because Satan is the high priest of religion Satan is not working down you know boiling some cocaine or heroin or you know some meth lab he doesn't need to work there humans are really good at that he is not working down in the CD red light you know fornication and homosexuality districts humans are very good at that Satan works in religion he second Corinthians 11 says transforms himself into a minister of God an angel of light and all he does is he comes right next to the truth and counterfeit sit and makes an alternate a second choice and that's his plan Satan always counterfeits God's plan when Satan was a serpent in the garden when he tempted Eve he made it a question whether God's plan was best memory says did God was it God said are you sure about what God said see he was trying to say there's only one choice and it's not good to only have one choice you should have two choices and let me tell you there's another choice other than God's right from the beginning Satan always counterfeits God's plan and Satan offered to Eve his own plan it was a counterfeit that was meant to derail humanity from what had been revealed in the Word of God and when we get here to chapter 4 that was in chapter 3 when we get to chapter 4 he is expanding it out now that he's gotten human race to fall into sin and be separated from god and then god coming and saying there's only one way to be right with me through this offering of a substitution ery sacrifice Satan says well then I'm going to counterfeit that too I'm going to say we got two choices not just one and that's what we see with Cain and Abel in their first appearance of Satan's plan to destroy the true worship of God it's clearly seen as we contrast Kane's response to what God asked and that's what's in chapter 4 with Abel's response now we already know from the New Testament that were able was righteous and Cain was wicked and we know that Abel was a a hero of the faith and we know that Cain was empowered by the evil one the wicked ones Satan so we already know when they had this matchup what they're coming in as they're coming in as representatives of the two sides look at chapter 4 verse 8 of Genesis we're going to read the whole passage in a moment but in the eighth verse when it came to pass and they were in the field Cain rose up against able and killed him Kane shows his true colors Genesis 48 it's it's the start of religion mankind trying to make his own way to worship God by self effort and trying to suppress the truth why did Cain kill Abel because he didn't want him to represent that that was the true way he was angry because just that proper representation was a rebuke to his false way of worshiping God in fact it says in 1st John 312 back by Revelation it says Cain was of the wicked one that's of Satan he murdered his brother and why did he murder him John asked because his works were evil and his brothers righteous what Abel offered was righteous do you know what Righteous means it means lining up with what God has revealed so what we know is somehow God communicated to Canaan to Abel what he wanted and Abel said God what you want i want enable was righteous and Cain said no I don't like that I think I'm gonna do it this way and he started human styled religious worship you know people say all their many worship styles no they really aren't be careful saying that there's only one way to worship God the way he has laid down in his word there are not many ways to God not many roads there's one jesus said it's narrow he said few find it Jude the book just before revelation verse 11 also has a similar warning about King keynes a big fat cane is the only person mentioned in first John it's amazing how how he is such a target of teaching about false worship Jude verse 11 says woe to them they have gone in Cannes way so obviously Cain started away and then Jude says this and they have greedily run after the error of Balaam now we're back to Revelation 2 in our passage Pergamum and Balaam are in the same passage and the only way to understand Balaam in Pergamum is to go back here to Genesis and find Cain so let's do Cain canes life is forever tied to one of the most dramatic moments in sacred history let's listen to God's on-the-spot report okay Genesis for 128 stand together with me and follow along your Bibles and I'm going to read this passage it says now Adam Genesis 41 New Eva's wife she conceived in Port Caynn and said I've acquired a man from the Lord verse 2 and she bore again this time his brother Abel now Abel was a keeper of sheep but Cain was a tiller of the ground and in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit the ground the Lord able also brought the firstborn of his flock and of their fat and the Lord respected Abel and his offering but he did not respect Cain and his offering and Cain was very angry and his countenance fell now look up for a second from your Bible I can in my mind you know I have a phone graphic mind that means what I am thinking about I talk about well I can see in my mind Cain coming in with the world's largest pumpkin you know can you see it was just one of those milk-fed kind and he put it on the altar just beaming I mean no one grew on that big I was just the right color and everything and he backs up and God says pushes it off the elder says no I don't want that that's not what I asked for an able comes quietly and places this skinned and cut up and blood collected sheep and he lays it on the altar and dumps the blood out and God goes and says that's just what I wanted and the the smile right off Kane's face his countenance fell verse 5 look at verse 6 so the Lord said to Cain why are you angry why has your countenance fallen if you do well will you not be accepted if you did what I asked you to do I would have accepted you you didn't do well you didn't do what I asked for and then he says if you do not well sin lies at the door and its desire is for you but you should rule over it verse 7 says sin is crouching right next to Cain ready to pounce on him and he should have resisted and said no I'm not going to send do my own way god I'm going to do what you asked for but he didn't and and he began this self-styled worship of religion ever say came talked with Abel his brother and it came to pass when they're in the field Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him and that's the story of religion starting and what has been every since and that's by the time we get to revelation 17 it says that the harlot religion a Babylon is drunk with the cup of the blood of the Saints and the martyrs of Jesus the Old Testament and the New Testament believers have been most martyred by false religion than by anything else amazing let's bow forward a prayer father I pray that you would open the eyes of our understanding that your spirit would quicken us to understand this vital truth that ties together your revelation from cover to cover and I pray we wouldn't just learn facts and trivia and knowledge but that we would understand your truth and respond to it in Jesus name Amen you may be seated and as you're seated can enable portray the eternal truths that there are only two choices and that there are only two destinations in life there are not three there are not many there's not a stopover for people that didn't quite make it and they can kind of get purified and purged and finally make it there are only two choices in life that you have to make while you're alive and breathing unconscious and they're only two destinations depending on which choice you made that's the message of God's Word and two lines run through the history of mankind the line of Christ and the line of the Antichrist the line of the woman's see Genesis 3 15 and the line of the Serpent's seed and the way we know that is by the time we get to John chapter 8 verse 44 Jesus looked at a group of highly religious people I mean these people wore white clothes most of the time these people would go through their garden and they click off every tenth leaf in their garden they would give one tenth of everything to the Lord and they were constantly you know quoting scripture and offering sacrifices and Jesus looked at them the single most righteous and religious visible people of his day and he said your father is the devil now they didn't appreciate that they got very angry and they tried to stone him but what he was saying is there's only two families and if you're involved in a religion of keeping man-made rules and of trying to accomplish enough goodness to please whatever you call God you're in religion and your father is the devil by the way we were all born as the devil's children we have to be born a second time to become a son and daughter of god if you're just counting on your first birth you're a son or daughter of Satan you have to have a second new birth to have eternal life to get into gods family well there are only two groups of people always on earth and they're headed two very different destinations number one there is the way of the God followers they are like able he is an example they kneel before a substitution ery bloody sacrifice that points4 able appointed forward to Golgotha for us today it points backward to gaga tha's wonderful offering once and for all of Christ but they kneel at a substitution ery blood sacrifice pointing to Golgotha and are justified only by faith not by works they're justified by faith and they go to heaven that's the way of the God followers there's also the way of the Satan followers and they're just like Cain they kneel at the altar of their good works they're self-styled coming to God and they point to Babel because we're going to see in a moment we get to chapter 10 and 11 that all idolatry and all self-styled pagan religion we see around the world and even what we see in the heart of Roman Catholicism goes right back to Genesis 10 and 11 solomon put it well there's nothing new Under the Sun that Pontifex Maximus that was imported from pergolas to Rome in one the the first century BC by the 4th century bc its conferred upon the Holy Catholic Church and it became the holy or i should say the unholy Roman Catholic Church in the 4th century that is the way of Cain and condemned by their own sins by the way Ezekiel 33 says our sins are like an avalanche and it's like every sin we've ever committed is just cascading down the hill toward us and unless someone stands in the way of our sin and takes it upon himself that sin follows us into the grave and it's what sinks us in the lake of fire forever did you know one sin is enough to sink forever and most of us have committed exponentially more than once in and only one person can take my avalanche of sin and not just say oh it doesn't matter but he absorbs it on himself and that's what Kane refused and he went to the lake of fire so there are two families everyone's a part of either gods or Satan's there only two destinations ahead of every human that's ever lived on this earth heaven or hell and life is reduced to one of the two choices repent or reject each of us today belongs to one family of the other it's what you have chosen have you chosen to come God's way through a blood bloody substitution Airy atoning sacrifice of a perfect God man are you coming any other way by keeping these rules and trying real hard and hoping and praying this or that or trusting in the sacrifice well here in Genesis 4 i'm going to show you that cain and abel are not only two actual people who lived and walked on earth a few thousand years ago they represent the two roads the two groups the two families the two directions and basically if we look at their choices and I just want to to go with you through the simple observation of the choices that can enable make if you look at their choices you can see which family there in because remember they're so similar both Cain and Abel were born outside of Eden both were sinners and fallen both were lost in guilty of in each of their own personal sins but only able was willing to admit that cane wouldn't admit it and so they have remarkably different trajectories first of all Genesis contrasts in chapter 4 Satan's followers by Cain and God's followers by the life of Abel and to help us understand the magnitude of the doctrinal lesson I want to look at their lives separately at first I was going to make this a contrast chart with two columns but I thought when you go like this back and forth you lose the the flow of the life so let me just do Kane first the Satan's religion is the wicked way of Cain that's what it's called in both Jude and 1st John it's called the way of Cain what is the way of Cain number one Cain neglected God's example of a bloody substitute for covering sinners remember God said I'll be well pleased if you do what I do offer a blood sacrifice a substitute k neglected that and he got angry when God corrected him that's the first sign of one of these self-styled practitioners they get angry if you tell them that's that's you know interesting but that's not true this is true how do you know that's not true I've studied everything I've surveyed all the world religions uh-huh and there are a lot of them and Satan is going to keep showing you more of them you believe the revelation or you take the lie of religion there there's no middle ground and Cain believe the lie rejected and got angry when God corrected him secondly Cain portrays a salvation that's based on human merits it embodies the natural self righteous self-sufficiency of a lost person they are formal they follow some set of rules that that they have adhered to they have external only professions it is not transformed them on the inside and the Bible says that they are trusting in their works one form another they're trusting in their works thirdly Cain was rejected and cursed by God God summarily rejected that religion he said no and and Cain because he didn't respond was cursed by God he came denied he was lost he refused the divine remedy and he became merely religious but he still was lost so you can be very religious but lost that's why Jesus said in Matthew 7 in the church he said there are going to be many religious people I mean they're just around it they know how to pray they've learned a lot of Bible stories they can do all the stuff they can teach they go on missions trips but they're not trusting personally invisibly in the substitute Jesus Christ and Jesus will say yet you did all that stuff you're in church and everything else but I didn't know you personally you never came my way through one door my way next came look for help from inside of himself to please God he thought oh what can I do this is what I'll do and it was a self internal prompting rather than doing what God revealed he offered an unbloodied he ignores the curse removing substitution Airy blood sacrifice his brother Abel offered next Cain was the father of all those who seek their security in the earth remember he brought from the fruit of the ground and by the time we get that's in Genesis by the time we get to Revelation you know how God describes people going to hell in Revelation he calls them earth dwellers their whole life is encompassed by the earth and everything here is what they live for finally Cain turned from the true altar of worship to God he ignored the message God's warning and you know he does by verse 17 he founds a whole bunch of cities I mean he shows that this is what he's living for the earth not for the pursuit of god in heaven well that's Satan's religion that's the wicked way of Cain what is God's revelation what if we distill down what God revealed in his word and that Abel did what would that be it's the righteous faith of Abel number one Abel followed God's example he offered a bloody substitute as an offering for his sin he offered the very best of his flock you know what he did he humbly gave God what God asked him to give I me that's all we're supposed to do God doesn't ask us to think up something new and spend our whole life you know trying to think up something he said just give me what I'm asking for humbly what I asked for secondly able portrays a salvation it's only by grace its divine grace a spiritual person becomes broken spirited they take God's side against themselves and they are saved because they're a genuine believer and possessor in in Christ finish work they believe jesus paid it all and all to him I owe able accepted and was blessed by God he acknowledged his personal sins he believed God's testimony he put his faith in the substitute and it says in Hebrews he was accounted righteous he was a genuinely saved person he's the first example of someone we know of in fact if you think about it he was the first person in paradise in in the place God promised for those that loved him he was first to be able to enjoy the worship of God forever Abel came to the true altar of worship he heated God's message and he found it led to a grave stained with blood did you know following the Lord isn't always easy he got murdered for his faith and because he was a witness well the way of Cain in the way of Abel go on until the time of the flood turn over to chapter 7 with me in Genesis real quickly I we're going to have to read faster and I'll have to talk less okay notice there's no mention of idolatry if you read this four five six seven and eight and nine there is no mention of idolatry before the flood is over before God floods the earth he only floods him because their works were so evil they were completely united in their rebellion against God and the demons had intruded and that whole Genesis 6 thing was going on of a genetic change of humans to no longer be completely human I thought was interesting this week that Britain finally uncovered the fact they have great britain has secret labs where they're cloning animals and human embryos and they're trying to make creatures that are partially human and partially animals as very similar to demon human things that were going on before the flood and God stopped that and that's just another reason why we're very close as soon as man has the ability to genetically alter and make something that's not fully human God stops it because Jesus only died for humans didn't die for asteroid dwellers and you know people in another galaxy far away he died for humans and it's that's amazing but we won't go into science fiction this morning look at chapter 7 verses 21 to 23 God destroyed the whole earth in the flood if you pause in Genesis 721 you notice that God's Word says every human in every air breathing animal let me read it you just follow along you might want to circle this and all flesh died that moved on the earth verse 21 says birds and cattle and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth and every man that did you get it verse 21 well God says you might not have been listening look at verse 22 all and whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life all that was on dry land died verse 23 did you get it maybe not verse 23 so he destroyed all living things which were on the face of the ground both man and cattle creeping things and birds of the air they were destroyed from the earth only Noah and those who were with him in the ark remained a lot now with with a simple 2nd grade education or even a first grade education what would you conclude from studying that would you conclude that it was a localized flood in the Black Sea region that National Geographic just announced they said oh they finally found noah's flood it's in the Black Sea region they found a part of the Black Sea that is I don't know 1,500 feet deep and there's a village at the bottom of the Black Sea that's all still there the houses all of the tools and implements and it's in super cold water it's in 32-degree water that hasn't frozen and everything is preserved perfectly and they're sending their little submarines down they said ah they're going to look for Noah and find them down there they think you know well God says all of the earth every animal every human not just in Mesopotamia not just along the Nile Valley not just in the Black Sea region God destroyed the whole earth in the flood and by the way that's why next year lord willing in April the week after easter were having Ken Ham from the answers in genesis coming here and he is going to present the facts that if there was a global flood that covered the whole earth that you would find fossils at the top of the Andes at the top of the Himalayas at the top of the Rockies at the top of everything and guess what you do there are fossils and the mountain tops of every mountain range in the world because God flooded all the earth look at chapter 8 verse 18 the next point is this worship God first worship his way so no went in his sons look at verse 18 went out of with him when I the ark and every animal verse 19 every creeping thing in every bird and whatever creeps on the earth according their families they went out of the ark in verse 20 what is the first thing as soon as they landed as soon as the ground dried as soon as the ark was emptied what was the very first thing that God desired verse 20 then soon as everybody had disembarked Noah built an altar to the Lord approach God in worship first and when you worship Him worship his way do it God's Way and he offered of every clean animal and of every clean bird he offered burnt offering on the altar and the Lord smelled the soothing aroma and on and on by the way just a side note and and we have just enough time from you tell you this did you know the Ark of Noah is one of the most profound pictures of Christ and salvation have you ever thought about that I mean just just the the minor details God invited them in did you ever think about that it says and God said come in if you read the account God was in the arkies come on in anybody that's saved God initiates salvation God invites us to come to him secondly there was only one door you know if I had designed the ark I would have not designed it the way God did I would have had a little ramp for the little creatures I'd had a little hole for all those wiggly worms and hope they hadn't found it and wouldn't get on the ark I would had a great big one for the big animals I'd had a landing strip so that the birds didn't have to walk in let him fly in you know God had one door to the ark and the door didn't have a handle I bet that puzzled Noah there was no handle it says that God shut the door himself Noah didn't pull on something god shut the door there's only one door in and it's amazing the word he covered the ark with pitch you know they made it of go forward wood and they pitched it with pitch you don't the word pitches and Hebrew kuffar you want kuffar is translated everywhere else in the Bible atonement atonement means to cover an end to two separate so that nothing can get to it it's covered over with a covering just like the blood of the sacrifices covers over our sins so they're not seen any more the ark was a toned with pitch in other words anybody that was inside the ark was covered atoned for so that that's fascinating but look at verse 16 in chapter 7 I want to show you something because the ark portrays eternal security you know when the earliest doctrines in the Bible is grace Noah found grace knives Lord Genesis 6 you know what the second earliest doctrine of the Bible is eternal security what is that Genesis 7 verse 16 and says so those that entered male and female of all flesh went in as God commanded and the Lord shut him in okay now turn over to chapter 8 verse 19 real quickly every animal every creeping thing every bird whatever creeps on the earth according their families went out of the ark did you know everything that went in the one door and that God shut and sealed you know it says that we're sealed by the Holy Spirit that we come to Christ and the Bible says we are in Christ we are sealed by the Holy Spirit held by our father's hand it's a three-part security system and everybody who got in the ark man woman animal creeping thing survived the whole flood and God opened the door and look at verse 19 of chapter eight every animal every I would have said most of the creeping things most of the birds God says they all did it's amazing the Ark is a picture of all who come to Christ through his way of salvation the one-door are kept safely to the end and arrived safely home so for all of you that are slugging through Hebrews 6 you know what it doesn't mean okay it doesn't mean that someone got in the Ark of salvation and one of the boards got loose and they fell out and they drowned that's how some people interpret Hebrew 6 you always interpret one hard to find verse in the Bible with the totality of everything else the Bible says and the Bible says if you come to Christ he shuts the door you can't get out you're safe forever well real quickly look at chapter 10 this is where we're going to end Genesis 10 starting in verse 8 introduces us to the mighty Nimrod the founder of Babel now most people don't like history but this is some of those fascinating history in the world Satan has already begun in Genesis tend to counterfeit what God would do we can see that as we study this passage that Nimrod was the human mind behind the first system of false religion and Nimrod found a city called babble babble on and was the home for the beginning of idolatry see what it says in verse 8 cush begat Nimrod he began to be a mighty one and the earth he was a mighty hunter before the Lord and don't think hunt deer that word is used everywhere else for hunting people this guy was a commando army man hunter he was a warrior is what would be a better word for us to understand he was a warrior before the Lord in the beginning of his kingdom of Nimrod was babel erech accad calnan the land of Shinar and from that land he went to to assyria and built Nineveh and rehoboth her means city in rehoboth is the city of rehoboth and kalna and resin between Nineveh and Kalinin that's a principal city and all that to say this that Nimrod is a very influential person now Nimrod was the grandson of him that means that he was the great-grandson of Noah that means that he would have had direct knowledge of God from before the flood so he is what the Bible would call an apostate apostate and English is from pistacia in Greek and it means to fall away from to no longer hold this belief so he had this belief taught to him as a child of the one true and living God that was to be approached one way and he fell from that and he starts a different way to God and he does it by building this tower a ziggurat probably this this stepped and pathway up to the heavens it was a gateway to God or to the gods and he builds the Tower of Babel and what I'd like to read you just where I go these details and there are lots of them in fact there's tremendous amount of literature that's written about this event because this is the the anthropological religious background of humanity where all of world religions come from it all stems from here and what I'm going to read to you now I found both in the writings of dr. James Montgomery boys 10th pres of Philadelphia Harry Ironsides the pastor of moody church John MacArthur from grace community church Harold Wilmington from Liberty University in Virginia John Wesley the founder of methodism Adam Clark the theologian of methodism Jade white Pentecost of Dallas seminary Martin Luther Luther wrote a whole book called the Babylonian captivity the church talking about how this all harkens back to romanism harkens back to Babylon but secular history and tradition tell us Nimrod married a woman who was evil and demonic and it was worse probably than he was her name from history as Semiramis she seems to have understood God's promise of a future Savior Genesis 3 15 God says to Eve that you're going to that the woman not Eve but the woman is going to have a seed now you know right away women don't have seed men have seen women are the carriers and the the one who receives and who gives birth to the child but they didn't initiate the child the man does it says a woman is going to have a virgin birth that's what Genesis 3 15 says as soon as Satan heard God say that to Eve he went Wow another thing I can counterfeit you know what the first plank of every pagan society is all of them all the Greek religions all the Roman religions all the Phoenician religions all the Babylonian religions all of the Egyptian lore all of them have a sunbeam hitting a goddess and the king of the gods through the sunbeam causes a virgin birth a child without a human father and so some Eramus yet babel says I had that my firstborn son Tammuz is not the child of Nimrod he is the fulfillment of the prophecy of God and he is the promised deliverer you say that's strange well building on that promise of the woman's seed that was to come summer amis began to counterfeit the promise of the virgin birth of Christ that's what Satan's always into he is trying to bring something right next to it so you have two choices God's in the easier one and that's what she offered and thus was introduced the mystery of a mother and a virgin born child and that form of idolatry is older than any other idolatry on the planet if you go back into the history of civilization you find that that is the oldest form of idolatry there is the mother son virgin born sunbeam conceived child it was satan's effort to delude mankind with an imitation so like the truth that God that people wouldn't know the true seat of the woman when he came in the fullness of time in fact one of the earliest Church historians Justin Martyr wrote in the 2nd century heavily about this because of the mystery religions coming into the church ok now go to chapter 11 look what happens in chapter 11 this Nimrod guy builds a city he builds babbles tower his wife starts babbling mystery religions and it becomes organized religion the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 1 through 9 was the advent of organized religion it was 2400 plus years before Christ nearly 4,500 years ago and the Tower of Babel was the first Idol it became the first object of man's worship it was the point of their pride and from it spawned all of what we call mystery religions and you remember what God does God reaches down and confuses them they all spoke one language it was kind of like one world everything language and government everything and God divided everybody off into people groups based on languages now if you know anything about language you know the indo-european language and Sanskrit you know people really want to learn English go to study Sanskrit in India why would they go there to learn English because there's a fountain from which all the indo-european languages come and that is just one branch that goes from the Tower of Babel but they didn't just take language with them they took this mother child worship with them basically the gospel of Satan is religion he's made sure it got to every corner of the earth at the Tower of Babel worship Ziggler out the Babylonian mystery religions fill the pages of ancient history they're everywhere and they're still with us today and they all have common elements no matter where you are on the planet Alexander hislop a 19th century theologian and historian spent his life tracing all of the false religions under the the guise of their different names and making charts and finding the similarities and this is what he found that's amazing summer amis scattered into multiple language groups becomes a goddess under many names she became Ishtar of Syria Ashtaroth of Phoenicia Isis of Egypt Aphrodite of Greece and Venus of Rome just to name a few by the way when when Jesuit missionaries first got to Tibet they were amazed at the mother-child paintings they look like they've been imported from Rome they worshipped a mother goddess with a virgin born son and they quickly converted to Christianity because it sounded so similar to the mother child goddess and God she conceived Tammuz her virgin born son who became named bail how does that ring a bell Ashtaroth of the Canaanites the Phoenicians became the mother of bail who was the snare with Balaam bringing it into the tune of Israel with Jezebel bringing in do you understand that the whole Old Testament is about this desire for Satan to infiltrate he wants to bring in bail as the substitute for the coming Christ the Son of the Living God that's the whole message of the Old Testament it's what he lied she was saying which one you're going to pick are you going to pick the religious idol of bayeux or are you going to choose the true and living God who's going to come in human flesh Jesus Christ that's the message he becomes not only bale of Phoenicia but Horace of Egypt eros of Greece and cupid of Rome Venus's child cupid you know as in the Valentine's a little naked kid you know what they bow and arrow is this representation of the Divine Son of the Divine Mother the celebration of Tammuz had this element that most people don't realize when Sam Eramus had this child she said he's the Promised One all of a sudden he was out with his dad and he got killed by a wild boar and torn into pieces so Tammuz was in all these pieces so semih rammus picks him up and puts him in a basket and and weeps puts her head over the basket and weeps for 40 days and 40 nights at the end of 40 days and 40 nights Tammuz rises from the dead and that 40 day morning is in every pagan religion and in the fourth century it was brought in to Roman Catholicism and called what blent now where is lent in the Bible it's only in one place it's in Ezekiel 814 it's weeping for Tammuz and God condemned it as false idolatrous paganism all that to say this when babo was confounded it became the fountain of all false religions and that's why by the time we get to Revelation chapter 17 God portrays religion as a drunken woman with a big chalice filled with the blood of saints that's Old Testament believers and martyrs of Jesus that's New Testament believers and she's drinking that and the Bloods flowing down her face really gross and what that is that's Babylon the mother of all mystery religions what's religion anyway to God except the way he said that is Satan's desire to get people to avoid the one door and build a ramp in a different way that's why there's no salvation in any other there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved other than the name of Jesus let's stand together for word of prayer as you stand with me I'm going to pray at the end of the prayer the elders will be here if you have come today maybe you just came to church today didn't know you're going to get a history lesson but you've never met Jesus Christ and maybe today the Spirit of God it clicked in your heart that you're just like able that you are hopeless and helpless can't save yourself and you've been trying to build a little bridge to God and it hasn't worked and all of a sudden you found out that Jesus is the way to God you could call on him today right where you're sitting or you could come up and pray with some of the elders are here to pray to counsel to comfort and courage I'm going to be in the visitor reception if you're new if I've never met you I mean I meet about 15-20 people in every visitor receptions can take me 10 years to meet everybody but come I'd love to meet you there we have a gift for you tonight if you want to see this is even more exciting than whatever is on TV we're going to study covenant theology dispensationalism Romans 11 what it means to be the remnant what's the future of Israel how'd the Bible get to us how do we know it's accurate what's God's desire for Christians about alcohol and questionable things in grey areas and what is your schedule as a pastor my schedule is to avoid question-and-answer times no let's uh and that's what we'll do tonight so let's bow for where to prayer dear father in heaven thank you for the lens of Scripture thank you that it interprets for US history we know our origin we know the purpose you've left us here and we by faith have embraced our destiny which is in a sinless substitute you Lord Jesus who poured out your life's blood as the atoning sacrifice for the sin of the world and we place our faith our hope our trust in you and I pray that you would help anyone here who is confused to find out that your word dispels the confusion and when you take your word for what it says finally everything makes sense and I pray that you draw to yourself those who this morning have never met the Savior and those that know you that they'd be encouraged and we ask that in the precious name of Jesus and for his glory we pray and all of God's people said amen god bless you as you go

Channel: DTBM

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Keywords: john barnett, dtbm, clw, christ's last words to his church, revelation, church, pergamum babylon, balaam, the beast, world religion

Id: VuZmhXv1mT8

Length: 54min 37sec (3277 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 08 2014