So tonight, we're going to look into the 17th chapter of Revelation. The title of tonight's message is "The Religious Lady of the Night," from Revelation 17, and as we look into the 17th chapter, next week, we'll actually go into the 18th chapter, these passages were most likely revealed to John at a time earlier in the Tribulation period before the Antichrist assumed his full power in the world, and so it's important for us to point that out tonight, that chapters 17 and 18 do not fit the chronology of the book of Revelation. If you followed the chronology literally, you would go right out of the last verse of chapter 16 directly into the first verse of chapter 19, so whereas the Holy Spirit inspired John to record these visions and to place them where they are, we qualify it by saying though they do not fit chronologically, they do fit thematically because the theme is simply that the system of the Antichrist, which is referred to figuratively in Revelation as Babylon, Babylon is going to suffer defeat, and Jesus Christ will triumph over this system called Babylon in Revelation, which is the one-world order of the Antichrist, and what we are going to read about is one of the two prongs of the Babylonian fork, if you will, the manifestation of the Antichrist's empire. It will be spiritual and political, and those are the two Babylons that we're going to talk about: one in chapter 17, one in chapter 18, and I want to warn you before we get into this, there are lots of details in tonight's study, and I don't want you to lose sight of the fact that if you get lost in some of these details, tonight is about the destruction of the religious system of the Antichrist. Simply put, the destruction of the religious system of the Antichrist. It will be wedded to the political system and to governments and nations, but the focus is on the religious aspect and how it will be judged and defeated, so chapter 17 is really about the judgment and destruction of religious Babylon. Let's look in verse 1. John says: One of those seven angels who had poured out the seven bowls came and talked with me, saying to me, "Come, and I'm going to show you the judgment "of the great harlot who sits on many waters, "with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication "and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk "with the wine of her fornication." Now, one of these angels who had poured out the bowls of wrath is the tour guide for John in the vision that we have in chapter 17, and this vision is about the judgment of the great harlot. Our question is who is this great harlot who is described in chapter 17? As I mentioned a moment ago, I just wanna put this little chart on the screen for you. The fall of Babylon, chapter 17, is about the fall of the spiritual and religious Babylon. Chapter 18 is about the fall of political Babylon. That's easy enough to remember. Chapter 17, the fall of the religious system, chapter 18, that fall of the political system, here symbolized as a prostitute and thus, the title of the message, "The Religious Lady of the Night." We believe that this harlot or prostitute that John sees in this vision represents the religious system of the Antichrist. The concept of adultery is often used figuratively in the Bible, as well as the concept of harlotry or whoredom in reference to those who outwardly profess faith in the true God, but who either have departed from Him, or have so seriously compromised His righteous truth with ungodliness that they are no longer recognizable to Him. In the Old Testament, this was a repeated theme by the prophets who prophesied to Israel, where God was seen as the husband to an unfaithful bride, who was Israel, and he would accuse them of harlotry, prostituting themselves out by the worship with false gods and with the people groups around them like the Canaanites and all the tribal groups once they got into the land of Canaan. They committed spiritual adultery, and God called it that, and then we see this same concept used in the New Testament. For instance, in the book of James, James calls Christians, to whom he is writing that little letter, those who've compromised their Christian values by giving in to the world, he calls them adulterers and adulteresses, and it's not referring necessarily to sexual sin. It's referring to spiritual prostitution. It's selling oneself out to other religions, to idols, to the ways of the world. Now, while there's probably some aspect of that kind of unfaithfulness implied in the designation of this religious system as a harlot, it is more probably an actual false religious system in general that is being depicted here, the false religious system that will sweep the world under the rule of the Antichrist, but here's something to keep in mind when you think about a false religious system that'll be in sway during the Tribulation period. If, as we believe and interpret, the Church is raptured before the Tribulation, and even if you don't believe that's the case, just imagine that it is, that means that all true born-again believers in Jesus are gonna be taken away from the earth when the trumpet sounds and will be raptured up to heaven. Do you realize that left behind there will be probably millions of professing Christians who claimed to be Christ's followers, who claimed to be Christians, who were religious or who belonged to a church, but because they had never been truly saved, there will be millions of so-called Christians left behind because they weren't really Christians, and so I have to believe that many of those professing Christians who were illegitimate believers, having been left behind, they will become part of this worldwide false religion of the Tribulation period. There will be churches whose doors will still be open after the Rapture. There will be denominations who don't miss a beat because so few among them are true born-again believers. This is a sad commentary on the condition of Christianity, especially when you look at the history of Christianity through the years, whether it is mainline religious denominations, or religious institutions, like colleges: Harvard, Yale, Georgetown, to name a few, that were started being anchored to the authority of Scripture. There is an inherent leftward drift into liberalism in all Christian institutions, and you can see this when you go through the continent of Europe. You see the great cathedrals that are now empty, and they are museums. They're tourist attractions. Why? Because they departed from their Christian foundations and eventually died. Europe is post-Christian. I have recently been able to go in the just in the last two years and discover some of the states of New England, in particular, New Hampshire, and Vermont, and Maine, and New England, as you know if you studied early American history was the center of Puritan presence in colonial America, and it was also the seat of the Great Awakenings, and when you go through there now, it is very difficult to find very visible expressions of evangelical Christianity. In fact, many of the historic churches that were founded to preach Christ have drifted so far from Christian recognition that they no longer have any residual resemblance to the faith of the Bible. What I'm telling you is that liberal Christianity, and it's not just mainline denominations, it can be many of these contemporary nondenominational churches that have compromised their biblical faith, they will have many adherents left behind after the Rapture, so that there will be a Christian presence in name carried into the Tribulation after the true regenerate church is taken out, and so I'm only telling you this to let you know that there will be an ecumenical coalescing of religious systems into a one-world religion that will be to the benefit of the Antichrist and his political ambition, and he's gonna use religion to do it, so in verse 1, this harlot is said to be sitting on many waters. Now, what does this mean? Well, guess what? The angel who's revealing this to John decodes it down in verse 15 of chapter 17, when the angel says, "Let me explain the waters. "The waters which you saw, where the harlot is sitting "are the peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues," so the angel tells John that this harlot whom we believe to be a religious system, has an influence that is global in scope, and sitting on the waters of the world, that means that she reaches into every nation and every part of the world with this religious system. Verse 2, the angel explains that this harlot has enjoyed having the kings of the earth committing fornication with her, which, again, is spiritual because this is a figurative reference. He also says the inhabitants of the earth have become drunk with the wine of her fornication, so her influence as a religious system is over political leaders and the governments that they lead, but her influence is also over the general population of the world according to verse 2. Now, remember with me if this is a global religious system that is symbolized by this prostitute John sees in the vision, we've already been told that this religious system, who is just being symbolized by a prostitute, this will be an actual religious system that will be headed up by a human leader, and the False Prophet is what he is called. He'll be the head of the global religion, and he is referred to as the False Prophet in the 20th chapter, but you know that's who he is. He is the third member of the unholy trinity, so during the Tribulation, remember, just as God is a Holy Trinity, Satan has an unholy trinity. Satan is the head. The Antichrist is Satan incarnate, just like Christ is God incarnate, and the False Prophet will oversee a worldwide religion like the Holy Spirit is the one who assembles the true Church, the false prophet, a human being, will assemble the the false church, the cult of the Antichrist, so this is the False Prophet. Just to review some of the things that John already knows about this false prophet, he was seen in the 13th chapter as the beast coming from the land. Forgetting about all that imagery, let's just read some of those verses that tell us about this False Prophet. Verse 12 of chapter 13 tells us that the False Prophet will facilitate the personality cult of the Antichrist. John wrote that, "He exercises all the authority "of the first beast," which is the Antichrist, "and he causes the earth and those who dwell in it "to worship the Antichrist, whose deadly wound was healed," so the False Prophet uses religion to cultivate worship towards this human being, who is the Antichrist, the False Prophet. His religious system is coercive and murderous, and we read about this in verse 15, where it says, "He was granted power "to give breath to the image of the beast, "that the image of the beast should both speak "and cause as many "as would not worship the image of the beast "to be killed," so there you see it. It's not just going to be that this False Prophet over this religious system uses polite and diplomatic tactics. No, he's gonna grow his religion by the power of the sword, meaning unless you worship our world leader, I will put you to death, so he's coercive and murderous. We also saw, in the 13th chapter, that his religious power will be linked to finances. In verses 16 and 17, back in the 13th chapter, "This False Prophet is going to cause all, "both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, "to receive a mark "on their right hand or on their foreheads, "and that no one may buy or sell "except one who has the mark, or the name of the beast, "or the number of his name." The reason I'm going back into chapter 13 just to show you how powerful this False Prophet is going to be is to let you know that the system that the False Prophet leads, the religious worldwide system that is going to be deadly in force, that religious system is what is being depicted as this prostitute that John sees in the vision of chapter 17, so I just wanted you to understand the harlot is the religious system, but the False Prophet, we've already been told, will be the human being who leads that religious system. Let's look in verse 3 of chapter 17: "So this angel carried me away," John says "in the Spirit, into the wilderness, "and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, "which was full of names of blasphemy, "having seven heads and 10 horns. "The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet "and adorned with gold, and precious stones, and pearls, "having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations "and the filthiness of her fornication," so I want us to break down these verses. John describes being carried away in the Spirit. This is an expression he used in the very first chapter, and it appears again in several other places, and he sees this harlot now depicted as riding on the back of a beast, and as we read there in verse 3, this beast has seven heads and 10 horns, so if I stop periodically and repeat things, I'm just wanting you not to get confused by the introduction of so many different visions and images. We are talking tonight about the great harlot who represents the religious system of the Antichrist. In this verse, John is carried away by the Spirit and has a vision of that harlot, the religious system, riding piggyback atop the beast, and we have no doubt as to who the beast is on whom she's riding. The beast on whom she is riding is the Antichrist in whose service she will do what she does, this religious system. Now, how do we know that the beast on whom she's riding in this vision is the Antichrist? And because we read it in verse 3, that this beast has seven heads and 10 horns, right? Well, when we go back to the 13th chapter, verse number one of Revelation 13, John says, "Then I stood on the sand of the sea, "and I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, "having seven heads and 10 horns." Remember, that's what he said in chapter 17, in verse 3, seven heads and 10 horns, "and on his horns, there were 10 crowns, "and on his heads a blasphemous name," so when we studied chapter 13, we identified the first beast of chapter 13 was the Antichrist. He had seven heads and 10 horns, and now we see that that beast with seven heads and 10 horns from Revelation 13:1 is the beast on which this prostitute is perched, is riding, so the scarlet beast on whom the harlot is riding is the Antichrist, the one-world ruler, and John actually decodes this identity of the beast further in verses 7 and 8 of our chapter tonight, and when you read about that, he just says the beast is the one who was, and was not, and is again, and we know the Antichrist is going to undergo some type of death and resurrection, whether real or simulated. He will mimic Christ in a death and resurrection, and this miraculous resurrection is going to be the bait that the religious system that he uses will put forth in a marketing campaign to cause people to worship him, so all of this fits together. Now, the beast on whom this woman is riding is said to be scarlet, which is a regal color, and this is indicative of his global rule as the king of the world, which he will eventually become, but the focus is not so much on the beast or the Antichrist as it is on the prostitute's association with the Antichrist. Think about this with me. The harlot riding on the back of the Antichrist, this is all imagery, prostitute riding on the beast, all of this is symbolic. Don't get lost in the symbolism. Right now, we're just talking about two entities. We're talking about the one-world religious system and the Antichrist, who is the political leader of the last days. The fact that the woman is riding the beast is indicative of the fact that the beast provides her with the power that she uses, but the fact that she is riding atop the beast also indicates that the beast is allowing her to play a dominant role for the moment, and we're going to see, later in this chapter, that eventually, he will turn on the religious system when he no longer needs the religious system any longer, so this religious system, who is the prostitute riding on the beast, the two of them have a synergistic relationship. They are working in sync with each other for the purpose of luring the nations of the world into what I wanna call the end times delusion, which is what the cult of the Antichrist is going to be during the Tribulation. It's going to be the universal end times delusion, and all of this has already been programmed by God. All of this has already been predetermined by God. All of this has already been set into motion by God. That's why it is prophesied so specifically in these details of the book of Revelation. In verse 4, we read that John says this, the woman riding on the beast, who is the religious system, she was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and also adorned with gold, and precious stones, and pearls, and she was holding a golden chalice, which is the symbol of power and aristocracy. She's holding this golden cup, but the cup is full of abomination and filth, so by wearing the colors purple and scarlet, the religious system is going to parade itself in the colors of authority, of royalty, meaning that the beast is scarlet. The woman is dressed in scarlet and purple. She is going to be invoking the full authority of the state power, of the global alliance power, so she's religious in nature, but she has the power of the Antichrist and his authority, which gives her her legitimacy and force. If she were not riding on the back of the beast she would have no power, but the beast is he, along with his governmental rule, who gives her the power, as a religious system, to do what she does, so what John sees here, by how she is arrayed with scarlet and purple, the colors of power and regal authority, this religious system is going to be rich, well-funded. It's going to be powerful, and it is going to be shameless because her golden cup is filled with filth, and blasphemy, and abomination, so it is a very corrupt and perverted religious system, and I want us to move into verse 5 now: "On her forehead, this harlot, a name was written: "MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT "THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS "AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH," and John says, "I saw the woman, "drunk with the blood of the saints "and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus, "and when I saw her," look at what John's reaction was. He says, "I marveled "with great amazement." Now, I think it's fascinating when you see that, we're just in verse 5, by the way, that he's now getting the full picture up close and personal with this spiritual harlot, and he says she had written on her forehead a name, and then it's spelled out in all caps. Now what's so fascinating to me is that historians tell us that the prostitutes in the days of the Roman Empire, which were the days in which John was seeing these things and writing these things, Roman prostitutes would write their name on a headband and put that headband over their head so their name would be visible, and this was a way of their distinguishing themselves and making themselves easily identifiable such that they could even be called by their name and summoned to render their services, and here, this harlot even follows suit in the vision that God gives John by having such a name written on her forehead, much like a Roman streetwalking prostitute would have in the day in which John lived. Now, notice the first word of her name is Mystery, and in the Bible, the word mystery means something that was hidden in times past, but which is now revealed, something that has been hidden, but either is now revealed or will one day be revealed, so this Mystery, Babylon the Great, is called not just any harlot, but she has her name written as the Mother of All Harlots and the Mother of Abominations. This is clearly a spiritual force that is being referred to here. The origin is not the woman herself or the religious system itself. We know, ultimately, that all perversions of religion have as their source Satan, but for her to be called the Mother of Harlots and the Mother of Abominations, we have to step back and say, "Okay, although Babylon is being used figuratively "as her name for the last days Tribulation "one-world religion," okay? We have to go back to the the first appearance of Babylon in history. We've talked about this before. It was in Genesis 10 where the people went into the Plain of Shinar, and they constructed a high place. Historians refer to these high places as ziggurats, but we call it the tower of Babel, and what you have there at the tower of Babel was a coalescing of political power where they were establishing a government instead of continuing to move on to populate the earth. They violated God's Word to establish a centralized power. They started building this tower as if to approach God, and it was this combination of politics with religion devoid of the true and living God. That place was called Babel, but that became the birthplace of Babylon because when you advance hundreds of years later from the Genesis 10 account of the tower of Babel, the ancient kingdom called Babylon was birthed in that very same location. It is the Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar, sixth century before Christ, the time in which Daniel lived and wrote his vision, the nation that invaded Jerusalem, plundered the city, and deported its inhabitants, and so ancient Babel then became the kingdom of Babylon that we have read about in the Old Testament, and then, in the time of Jesus, and in the time in which John was receiving this, the Roman Empire was ruling the day, and the code word for the Roman Empire among Christians was Babylon. They dubbed Rome Babylon, again, figuratively speaking, because Rome was such a persecutor of the early Christians, just as the Babylonians had persecuted the Jews six centuries before then, and now we have this religious system in chapter 17 being called the same name, but the fact that she's called the Mother of all Harlots and the Mother of Abominations means that we've got to go back to where this whole union of church and state with a religion in violation of the worship of the true and living God began. It started at Babel, so this woman on the back of this beast has her origin back in Genesis, chapter 10 in the satanically inspired plot to deceive human beings into thinking that they could establish a union of church and state, of government and religion, while forsaking the worship of the true God who was revealed in the Scriptures, so this is very intriguing to me to connect the dots of this harlot of Babylon all the way back to Genesis 10, to ancient Babel. In verse number six, she was drunk with the blood of saints and the martyrs, and this means that throughout her history, this false version of religion, the many false versions of religion have always despised those adherents to the true faith. This religious harlot of Babylon has persecuted and killed the saints of God throughout the ages, and the saints of God are those who are true followers of God by faith. It was this spirit of Babylon that was alive in Jezebel, the the first lady of Israel, the wife of wicked King Ahab, and if you'll remember, she used the power of her throne to kill the true prophets of God all because the true prophets of God, like Elijah, they would not yield to a religion that wedded Jehovah God to the baal gods who were the false gods. They said, "There's only one true God," and therefore, this Babylonian-type religion that fuses false religion with government power, it is fiercely intolerant of any dissidents, so you have Jezebel, as an Old Testament example. In Christian history, we have the horrific example of the Roman Catholic Church killing those whom it declared to be heretics, many of whom were simply pointing out the pervasive corruption that had infiltrated the Roman Catholic Church which resulted in a gospel of works-based righteousness which undercut the gospel of grace through faith in Christ alone. This works-based salvation was joined together with the cultic veneration of the Virgin Mary and of praying to intermediaries, like saints, whom the church canonized as saints, when the Bible clearly says there is only one mediator between God and people, and that is the man Christ Jesus, so the Catholic Church, for years of its history, actually murdered people who were trying to point out the errors of their church which had inculcated so many pagan religious rituals into their Christian traditions and dogmas, most of which remains a part of Catholicism to this day, so that, in itself, is a Babylonian type of religious system, and then, today, the harlot of Babylon also thrives in those majority Islamic countries, and in a nation like India that is majority Hindu, where true saints of God are persecuted or killed simply because they profess that Jesus Christ alone is God, and of course, this harlot of Babylon, I'm talking about the wedding together of religious dogma with state power, this Babylonian system thrives in China where the Communist Party is the national religion, demanding total allegiance to itself with no tolerance for those who pledge allegiance only to the true God of heaven, so this false system, depicted as this harlot, she has been present throughout all of history, and her wrath is always directed against the true followers of Jehovah God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, so historically, the harlot of Babylon is all forms of religious perversion, from the tower of Babel to the Antichrist and his system of the last days, but in this context, in chapter 17, this harlot has reached her culmination in the manifestation that she has as the system that will be used to lure the nations and population of the world into a cultic worship of the Antichrist. The great Lutheran scholar who wrote the classic volume on Revelation, Reverend Joseph Seiss, who wrote the commentary simply called "The Apocalypse," he said, "It requires but a glance at history "to see that spiritual harlotry "has ever been the particular pet and delight "of all the Beast-powers of time." What a powerful statement that is. He refers to all of the secular Gentile governments, which have fused a religious type of requirement to their state power. He refers to them as the Beast-powers of all time. There's a sense in which, although the Antichrist is a human incarnation of Satan in the last days, the spirit of Antichrist has prevailed from the time that sin entered the world. It will just reach its culminating point during the days when the Antichrist, as a man, will embody the presence of Satan on planet Earth, but the Beast-powers have always existed. The judgment of Babylon, remember, was already announced in the 14th chapter. In chapter 14, in verse 8, John saw another angel that said, "Babylon is fallen, "is fallen, that great city, "because she has made all nations drink "of the wine of the wrath of her fornication," and that language is very similar to verse 2 of chapter 17, but the point of all of this is that it was foretold that Babylon was going to fall in the 14th chapter, and we are simply reading about it in greater detail. Now, we read a moment ago, the last sentence in verse 6, John says, "I, when I saw this prostitute, "I marveled with great amazement," and when he's marveling with great amazement in the seventh verse, the angel says, "You don't need to marvel at this. "Let's move on," so we already mentioned that verses 7 and 8 really elaborated on the identity of who the beast that the woman is riding is, so we're gonna skip and go to verse 9. This angel goes on and says to John, "Here is the mind which has wisdom: "The seven heads are the seven mountains "on which the woman sits," so the seven heads are on this beast the woman is riding, who is the Antichrist. We know from Revelation 13:1 he has seven heads and 10 horns. Here he appears again. Now he's carrying the harlot on his back, and the angel is explaining that these seven heads are actually seven mountains on which this harlot is said to be sitting. (chuckles) I remember someone saying that's a mighty big woman to be sitting on seven mountains. Many interpreters have understood these seven mountains to be referring to the city of Rome, which was known to be the city of seven hills. This was actually a phrase that was inscribed on certain Roman coinage, so think about it this way. If that's correct, and many Bible interpreters of Revelation have surmised that this religious harlot sitting on seven hills, that this means that it is a religious system that is centered in the city of Rome, so if the religious system of the Antichrist is led by one leader at the top of that system, and it is a religious system that is headquartered in the city of seven hills, which is the city of Rome, you don't have to think very hard about what a possible fulfillment will be: a religious system led by one man, and the headquarters is in the city of Rome. However, I am not one who tends to opt for that interpretation so quickly. As Rome grew, it eventually encompassed a geographical region that included more than seven hills, up to nine different hills, but another interpretive point to make is that the word mountain in Scripture often refers not to a literal mountain, but mountain can be figurative, referring to a kingdom, and I could give you several examples of that, but for time's sake, we won't do that, so it is possible, and I want to believe it's even probable, based on the next verse, that seven mountains is not a specific geographical reference, but instead refers to seven kingdoms, and that makes sense when you look at the next verse, and here's where we look at the next verse. "There are also seven kings. "Five have fallen, one is, "and the other has not yet come, "and when he comes, he must continue a short time. "The beast that was, and is not, "is himself also the eighth, and is of the seven, "and is going to perdition." Now, we'll stop right here. I'm gonna tell you this is the place where you would probably say AG, hit the brake, land the plane. I'm at a saturation point, but I'm gonna keep pressing on because I wanna finish this chapter, so I'm gonna run the risk of going beyond our saturation point, and if you think it's overwhelming to take in all this information in one presentation, you have no idea how overwhelming it is to prepare and try to be the one presenting it all in one presentation, and I'm not trying to pat myself on the back. I'm just saying this is a challenge for me and for you to take in all this information, but let's back up for a moment before we try to dissect verses 10 and 11. I hope everybody understands that, simply put, we are talking about the Tribulation kingdom of the Antichrist is going to have two parts: a religious part, and a political part. The focus of chapter 17 is the ultimate judgment of the religious part of his empire, and you'll see that in just a moment, but because the religious system is riding piggyback on the power of the Antichrist, whom that religious system symbolized as a prostitute, she is serving the interests of the Antichrist. We have to look at how her affiliation with the Antichrist is broken down into these symbols, and so this beast who is the Antichrist has these seven heads, and these seven heads are said to be seven mountains. I believe that by looking into verse 10, where it says, "There are also seven kings," that the connection there between seven mountains and seven kings means that the symbolism here is of seven kingdoms, not literally seven mountains, like the seven hills of Rome, so I want us to think about the fact that we're decoding this beast on whom the woman is riding, and if we stop here, and think about successive kingdoms, do you remember, for those of you who were with us when we were studying the book of Daniel, that Nebuchadnezzar had a dream about a warrior? We called it the warrior image, and he required Daniel to come and interpret the dream because none of his magicians and astrologers, by the way, all of those magicians and astrologers were part of Nebuchadnezzar's religious system. There you have that Babylonian combination of religion with political power. It was all there in Daniel's day. Daniel interpreted the vision and the vision of the warrior image we talked about was that the warrior image depicted these four successive kingdoms with another one to come later. Then, you may remember, Daniel had a vision of four different beasts, and they resembled animals. The fourth one, though, had no corresponding natural counterpart. It was just an unsightly, horrific beast, and those four, same four kingdoms were depicted by the four beasts that had been depicted by the warrior image with his head, and his chest, and his torso, and his legs, so I thought I would just throw up on the screen the visions that Daniel had, the kingdoms depicted in those visions. They were Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome, and then you'll see there parenthetically, there was a Revived Roman Empire, which we talked about, so I just wanted you to see that. You don't need to remember this, but in those kingdoms that Daniel had revealed and interpreted for Nebuchadnezzar, and it was revealed to him himself, in the visions that he had, they started with Babylon because that's when Daniel lived. They didn't take into account superpowers prior to that of Babylon, but here in John's vision, the angel says of these seven kingdoms that five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come, so what that means is that prior to the the time in which John was receiving this, when the Roman Empire was in existence, five had fallen, which means there had been five empires before the Roman Empire, one is, now, that would be the Roman Empire of John's day, John the Apostle, who's writing the book of Revelation, and the other has not yet come, which would be a revived Roman Empire. Verse 11 says that the Antichrist is going to be an eighth power, although he is of the seventh, but he will eventually go to destruction, so he is, backing up, this religious system, harlot, sitting on these seven mountains, it lets you know that this Babylonian religious system has existed through these successive histories, successive empires and kingdoms of history rather, and that if the seventh one is going to be a revived Roman Empire, and it says the Antichrist is the eighth, but he comes from the seventh, this makes sense. This Antichrist or beast that the woman is riding is going to come from this Revived Roman Empire. If you've studied Daniel, you already knew that, so we believe that the seven mountains, that they are kingdoms on which the harlot has sat, and they include those seen by Daniel, but they go back before that time, and in particular, there were two more that should be included before the vision that Daniel received. Don't get overwhelmed by this, but I just want to show you the seven that we believe are referred to in the symbols of the seven mountains on which the harlot is sitting. They're the seven world empires, I wanna say. If you'll notice, Egypt and Assyria are ones that would be added prior to those kingdoms that Daniel saw, and I've only put an asterisk beside the four: number two, four, five, and six. Those are the four that were part of Daniel's vision. The seventh was also, but we infer that from Daniel's vision, so if you're interested in going back and looking at this, I believe that those seven empires that I just listed are the seven mountains on which the religious system is seated, and it means that the religious system of the end time is not the first manifestation of false religion, but that religious expression goes all the way back, even to the mystery cults of the Egyptians who worshiped the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and those who've excavated the pyramids can see all of the different pagan religious systems that they followed, so even though this Babylonian religious harlot has infiltrated all of the main empires of history, she is now at the zenith, at the apex of her power in luring the people of the world into a satanic delusion, which is the personality cult, the worship of the Antichrist. All right, let's look at verse 12. "The 10 horns which you saw "are 10 kings who have received no kingdom as yet, "but they receive authority for one hour "as kings with the beast. "These are of one mind, "and they will give their power and authority to the beast. "They will make war with the Lamb," and by the way, that happens in chapter 19, "and the Lamb will overcome them," well, praise God for that, "for He is Lord of Lords. "He is King of Kings, "and those who are with the Lamb "are called, chosen, and faithful," and by the way, that includes you and me tonight. We are called, we are chosen, and we are faithful because we adhere to the truth of who Jesus is and to the Word of God, so to contrast these 10 kings with the seven kingdoms embodied in those seven mountains, those seven kingdoms are kingdoms throughout history. It's almost panoramic, if you will, and I just listed those for you in the chart, but these 10 kings are a 10-nation confederation, a 10-nation alliance that will actually be in existence and out of which will come the Antichrist, so rather than these 10 representing some panorama of history, like the seven mountains on which the harlot sits represents, these 10 kingdoms are going to be 10 nations that come together and form the nucleus of the power that is given to the Antichrist. In fact, it says they're going to be aligned philosophically because, did you read it? It says they're gonna be of one mind. They'll share the same ideology and philosophy. They're going to give their power to the beast, which tells us they will give him the platform on which to stand to emerge as the one-world ruler, but they're only going to rule for a short time. Fact, he's told one hour, and we believe that's a figurative expression for very limited duration of this 10-nation alliance that is symbolized by the 10 horns on the head of this beast, who is the Antichrist. I love what verse 14 says. If you don't get anything else out of tonight's message, verse 14's where you just need to hang your hat because it says these 10, who are going to be the nucleus of the Antichrist's power, and of course, that power's going to extend far beyond just his 10-nation alliance with which it starts, but these 10 are going to be the ones who remain true to him and will be around to wage war against Jesus when he returns, but they are going to be utterly destroyed and decimated by the wrath of the Lamb of God, and that's what verse 14 says, and we've already looked at verse 15, which was the interpretation of the waters on which the woman sat, but let's close out tonight with the last three verses: The angel continued, "And the 10 horns "which you saw on the beast, "they're going to hate the harlot. "They're gonna make her desolate. "They're gonna make her naked. "They're going to eat her flesh and burn her with fire "for God has put it into their hearts "to fulfill His purpose, to be of one mind, "and to give their kingdom to the beast "until the words of God are fulfilled, "and the woman whom you saw is that great city "which reigns over the kings of the earth," so think about this with me. The woman is the religious system. She's riding on the back of the beast, having the time of her life, and she's doing the bidding of the beast. She's luring the people of the world with a deceptive religious system that is very coercive and murderous in nature. It's going to be tied to economic power. Unless you're part of this cult, you can't buy, and sell, and get groceries, and live. This woman's riding piggyback on the beast, and the 10 horns, which are the 10 nations that give the beast his power, this verse, in 16, tells us they're gonna get to a point where, when the beast and his cronies are finished using the prostitute, they're going to turn on the system, the religious system. That's what verse 16 says, and they will hate the harlot, make her desolate, naked, eat her flesh, burn her with fire. They are going to betray the harlot once they're finished using that system, and what the Bible says the reason they're going to do it is in verse 17 is 'cause God is gonna put it in their heart to turn on each other, (chuckles) and by the way, you just need to know this is how the devil's people will eventually implode is that in the last days, the political system of the Antichrist, according to verse 16, is going to turn on the religious system of the Antichrist, and the fact that they are turning against each other is a token that God put it in their hearts to turn on each other, so their self-destruction is the precursor to God's judgment. God's directing. They're turning on one another. Powerful thought, isn't it? Because God will put it in their hearts to fulfill His purpose. You need to know God can put it into the heart of anyone to do whatever He chooses to program someone to do. He reserves that right. He leaves us up to free choice, but there will come a time when people will do what He ordains them to do, and in this case, the 10 nations that supply their power to the Antichrist are gonna turn on the religious system all because God programmed them to do that, and then it says the woman whom you saw as that great city, here, the woman is said, in verse 18, she's said to represent the great city from which the Antichrist will rule, and it's a perfect segue into chapter 18 because it lets us know that if Babylon is the figurative title of the capital city where the Antichrist in his kingdom will reign, then it's a perfect segue to remind us that just as there is a capital city from which he will reign, this kingdom of his has a spiritual, and a political, and geographical aspect to his power, so we're done with chapter 17. Wow, that was a whole lot of information, but I really believe this. If you will go back and look at the notes, review it, you can watch this again from the archive, this will all make sense to you as to the relationship between the false religious system and the Antichrist whom this religious system promotes, and knowing that this satanic type of Babylonian religious system goes all the way back through time and history, it's just reaching its pinnacle when it is at the service and doing the bidding of the Antichrist, but even before Christ returns, the Antichrist and his cronies will turn on that religious system and crush it because they will consider it no longer valuable to them, and then Jesus will come back. What a glorious moment. Father, thank you for letting us study all of this rich Bible prophecy, and we know that this Babylon harlot is alive and well today through perverted religious systems and the defilement of Biblical truth, much of which is done under the guise of Christianity. We do not wanna be part of the harlot of the end times. We want to be part of the true blood-bought righteousness-robed bride of Christ, the true church that'll go up when the trumpet sounds, not the false church that will be left behind to be assimilated into a one-world religion. Help us to be true to You and true to Your Holy Word in Jesus' name, amen.
