Our Bibles now and turn to the
book of Revelation Chapter 17. Revelation Chapter 17. Let's have a word of prayer. Our Father, Thank you again for
this time that we can speak to you by and through the Lord Jesus
Christ, knowing that He is the way. He is our only Mediator
between you and your people. We ask you to bless this Word
Lord, cause us to hear and to understand, to perceive the mercy
that you've shown us for Christ's sake. We ask these things. Amen. I'd like to just pick up without
going back over anything that we've said before. In Revelation
chapter 17, John is beholding the actual
one upon whom the judgment of God is being spewed out right
now in this world. And John says in verse 6, I saw
the woman drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood
of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I wondered,
with great admiration. False religion, according to verse 2 of this
chapter, has actually been made drunk with the wine
of her, that is, this harlot, with her fornication. False religion, let me just try
to say this so that we can understand exactly what is being said. False religion is the wine of
this world. It's the wine of unfaithfulness. you have Almighty God, His infinite
power, wisdom, mercy, grace, and that which is in absolute,
total rebellion to all that is good and all that is wonderful
and all that is kind is summed up as false religion. That's the epitome of rebellion. Now, just as the body of Christ
is actually His people, the body, because, I mean, you know, we
talk about false religion. It's almost like when we talk
about it, it's almost like we can kind of separate that false
religion out. False religion. Remember this. is the exact opposite of the
body of Christ. All that are in rebellion against
God, they are the body of this harlot. A believer, the body
of Christ, the body of this harlot, the members that make up that
So this harlot is actually made up of all of these exhibitions
of false religion. And the Scripture says in verse
6, I saw the woman. All the members, all, you know,
I mean, we can kind of think of a woman and kind of try to
isolate it, but let me tell you something. Every place of false
worship that is dying and shall die in unbelief is part of this
body. I say that, that is dying and
shall die. This world is actually possessed. by many that are in false religion
right now that the Lord very likely shall call out of darkness. There's some here that I know
have sat under false religion before. I'm one of them. I know.
But that the Lord would leave a man or leave a woman to themselves,
and they die in unbelief. They die in that. They're the
body of this harlot. They're the actual body of rebellion. But the Scripture says that,
John said, I saw this woman and she was drunk with the blood
of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. You know, wine,
strong drink, makes a man think that things are believable. when they're not. Wine causes
a man to think things to be so when they aren't. I was watching
one of these police videos the other day, cops or whatever it
was. It's amazing. starts drinking and how they
think. Number one, they think that they're
expert drivers. Number two, they think that they're
going to outrun that cruiser. They think they're going to get
away. They think that they have the ability to evade the authority. That's exactly what a man left
to himself thinks. False religion is the wine. is the strong drink that exhibits
or causes a man to think that he's wiser than God. He's in
a stupor. He's in this crazed rebellion
against God and against God's people. And John said, I saw
this woman and she was drunk on the blood of God's people. in rebellion against God Almighty. John said, I saw her and I wondered
with great admiration, wasn't impressed with her. God's people
are not impressed with false religion. I look, you do too. You look around and you see these
great, I love old buildings. I just, I love, I like that.
I like looking at architecture and I think it's just wonderful. It's got some beautiful buildings
right here in Fairmont. I mean, you go down and you can
see, I mean, gorgeous. I wonder what it cost to build
a building like that. That's what I think sometimes. Man,
I tell you what, I'd hate to have to pay the bill on paying
that. Go inside and you see these beautiful, I mean, I just look
up there and I see those big old stained glass stuff and I
think, man, this is gorgeous. I love that. I love the architecture. But despise what's preached there. I mean, I'm just honest with
you. I like the stone part of it. I like, you know, the beauty
of it. But what is... John, the Scripture says, he
wondered with great admiration. He marveled at her. He was astonished
at her. God's people look and see with
amazement the hatred and resentment that this world has against God
Almighty. John says in verse 7, And the
angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell
thee the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carryeth
her. which hath the seven heads and the ten horns." It's amazing
when you stop and think for just a minute. I'm going to tell you
what the absolute true heart and purpose of all false religion
is. You know, you look around and
it's not hard to realize. Obviously, there's a lot of places
in this world, in this community, that is not in agreement with
what's being preached here. That's not hard to admit. I mean,
it's not hard to stop. There are a lot of places that
are meeting right now. And they have nice, nice billboards
out on the, you know, nicely constructed billboards. And they
have nice, you know, and everybody's looks good and everybody's pretty
and everybody, you know, they're they're meeting together and
they're coming together and they're going to give an invitation and
they're going to sing some of the same songs that we sing.
Same same words. And they're meeting this morning
and they're saying that they're there. Jim to worship God. That's
what they say. We're here because we love the
Lord. We love, you know. John looked and he marveled. This is what he marveled at. He marveled with great, Scripture
says, admiration. Astonishment is what that word
actually means. It is amazing to realize that
according to this Scripture, according to that, I saw the
woman. She was drunk. She was drunk. She was drunk
with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.
And I was astonished at her. Where did you marvel? I'm going
to tell you the mystery. Let me tell you, the angel said,
let me tell you, Freddie, what's hidden. Let me tell you the mystery. of this woman. Let me tell you,
John, what is not obvious to you unless it's revealed to you. The purpose of every place of false religion,
the heart, the desire, is the destruction of God's people. You say, now wait a minute now. Hold on just a second. I think that every place really,
they may not believe exactly like we believe here. Listen to me. John said, this
angel said to me, I'm going to show you the mystery. This harlot,
this world's religion is drunk. is in a drunken spiritual stupor. What? On the blood of the saints.
On the martyrs of Christ. Every place that is not preaching
the gospel of free grace, the gospel of sovereign, saving grace
in Christ, is a spiritual whorehouse. It's a whorehouse, and that's
all it is. Is that too honest? Is that too, you know? The Lord
called her the great whore, the great harlot. Every place that
is in rebellion against this message, Paul said that. He said, if we or an angel from
heaven preach any other gospel than that which we've preached
unto you, let them be a curse. I'm telling you, does it matter
what you hear? You write it down. It matters.
It matters. Well, what about those that are
sitting under another gospel? Unless Almighty God calls them
out of darkness, unless God Almighty calls me out of darkness and
you out of darkness, they're going to perish. But what if
they don't believe exactly as we believe? Let them be accursed. They are sitting under a message
that is dishonoring to Almighty God. You let a man go out and
buy him a bottle of booze and just drink a fifth of whiskey
and then get him behind a car and expect him to make it with
perfect sense from here to wherever he's going. It ain't going to
happen. He thinks he can drive. He thinks
he can make it. If God Almighty leaves a man
under the drink of false religion, he is drunk, the Scripture says,
on the blood of the saints, the martyrs of Christ. He's drunk. This woman, false religion, John
saw her and he said, I marveled with great astonishment. And the angel said, I'm going
to tell you the mystery of the woman and the beast that carried
her which has the seven heads and the ten horns, the care of
this world, that which is in direct rebellion. Her aim is
to destroy the heritage of Almighty God because It hates God. I want to close this first message
with this thought. Why does the world hate God's
people? Why does the world hate? Now,
we've read that. I want you to turn to John 15,
18. John 15, 18. I want to explain this to you.
The reason I want to explain it to you is because I wanted
to know what it meant. I've read this before. I've read
this thing of God, the Lord Jesus Christ saying the world. John
15. Let me just read this to you. John 15. 15, 18 and 19. If the world hate
you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were
in the world, the world would love his own. But because you're
not of this world, but I have chosen you out of the world,
therefore the world Hated you. Why does the world hate God and
God's people? I got to thinking about that.
Why? What is it that we preach that
would cause the world to hate? Here's what we preach. There's
hope only in Christ. Man cannot of himself do anything. Alright, you're just exposing
his inability. There's hope in Christ. In Romans,
we're going to deal, Lord willing, in the next service. What does
it mean to call on the name of the Lord? Here's the only hope. Here's the only hope. Here's
the only hope that a man or a woman has. It's that God shows mercy
to them. Why does the world hate God and
God's people. I know they do, because the Lord
said they do. He said, if they hate you, He
said, you know this, they hated Me. Turn over to Hebrews 11,
7. I want to show you something here. Two verses. I'm going to
read this one and one more. Hebrews 11, 7. Why does the world
hate God and God's people? Hebrews 11, 7. Hebrews 11, 7, "...By faith Noah
being warned of God of things not seen as yet." Now let me
ask you this. Let me just stop right here.
Is this not what we say? Noah warned his generation of
things not yet seen. It hadn't rained when Noah first
started preaching. It had never rained before. It
had never rained. Noah said it was going to rain.
I've never seen rain. The earth opened up, water gushed
out, water came down, and it flooded this world. By faith,
Noah, being warned of God of things not yet seen, moved with
fear, with respect, and prepared an ark to the saving of his house,
by the which he condemned the world. and became heir of the
righteousness which is by faith." Now, let me ask you this. When
it says that Noah condemned the world, does that mean that Noah
is going to be the one that is going to actually be the judge
that stands in judgment? No. There's one judge. It's the
Lord Jesus Christ. What does it mean when it says
he condemned the world? It means this. It means that
Noah's presence in the midst of wickedness was a condemnation
to those that were around him. They didn't want to be around
him. Why? Because his very presence and
consistency condemned him. We don't like to be around somebody
that makes us look bad. Last verse, Matthew 4. Matthew
4. Why does this world hate God's
people? Why does this world, why is the
harlot drunk on the blood of the saints? Matthew 4, 8 to 10. Again the devil, now this is
when the Lord is being tempted. Matthew 4, 8. The devil taketh
him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all
the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them." The care
of them, the wonderful things of this world. And he saith unto
him, that's the Lord Jesus, all these things will I give thee
if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him,
get thee hence, Satan, for it is written, thou shalt worship
The Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve." Whenever Satan
said in verse 9, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. You know, I always read that
and I thought that he was just talking about maybe one time.
If you'll just do this one time. It's not what it means. That
word fall, there's two words means that's translated fall. One of them means to sidestep
and just kind of trip, you know, it just that's the word fall.
It just kind of tripped. It means to err. It means to
make a mistake is what it means. That's not what this word means.
This word means to fall under judgment and to fail completely."
That's what this word means. I'll give you all of this if
you will fail completely. You worship me, fall down under
judgment and worship me, and I'll give you all of this. You
know, evil desires company. If somebody is doing something
that is disrespectful, that is dishonorable, they want you to
do it too. And if you'll do it too, I'll
love you. Someone's caught doing something.
Somebody catches them and they'll try to pile up real fast. You
know what? You want some of this? You know,
how about you do it, too, and say, no, no, I'm not going to. You condemn them. They're condemned. They're wrong, and they know
they're wrong. Why does the world hate God's people? For the same
reason that they hated Noah. The same reason they hated Abraham
and Paul and every other believer. Because they condemned the world.
They despise them because they won't go along with them. We
preach a sovereign God who is truly God. They preach an imp
who is no God at all. They preach an unable little
nobody. I don't say that and worry about
being disrespectful because I know the God that they're preaching
is not the God of this Bible. The God of this Bible rules and
reigns, and He's in control. And whenever you stand and proclaim
God Almighty that is deserving of respect, He's deserving of
it. He's deserving of honor. He's
deserving of everything else taken Second place. Second fiddle. When you preach
him, you condemn the world. And they hate you. Because you
don't go along with them. John saw this harlot. And he was astonished. He looked
on her with great admiration. Astonishment. And the angel said,
I'll tell you. Let me tell you about the mystery.
The one that's drunk in a drunken spiritual stupor. The one that
thinks that she's ten foot tall and bulletproof. This is her
purpose. This is what she desires. This
world hates God and hates God's people because they're condemned
by the message that's being preached, by the consistency of God's saints. Boy, you know, inconsistency
doesn't want to be around consistency. Why? Because they're condemned.
Let's stop for a few minutes, and Lord willing, we'll come
back and look at Romans in just a minute.