As you look through the book
of Revelation, to say that this is a difficult book is an understatement. And I've told you that there
are so many different views of Revelation, approaches to it.
I've emphasized as we've studied through it that this is a gospel
book. This is a book of Jesus Christ. It's the revelation of Jesus
Christ. Now that means two things. It means, number one, that it
is revealed truth given by God through Jesus Christ to the Apostle
John. So it's the revelation of Christ
in that he reveals it. That means an uncovering, the
word revelation. You've heard the word apocalyptic,
if I can get it out. And it's an uncovering of truth. It's an unfolding. These are
things that we do not know naturally. These are things that God reveals.
But not only is it a revelation from Jesus Christ, it's a revelation
about Him. So that when we look at these
symbols, and I know they're difficult, I know scholars will disagree
over what this particular symbol means and all of that, what that
particular symbol means. As I've told you, I believe that
if you'll follow the responsible rules of scriptural interpretation,
we'll come very, very close to the true meaning. And one of
the things that we see in the book of Revelation is how we
must go back a lot of times to the Old Testament. to find the
key to unlocking the meaning of this symbol. Look at verse
11, it says, the beast. Now you remember we had, in the
book of Revelation, you have revealed what we call the unholy
trinity. Remember we have the holy trinity,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And that's one God
in three persons. And there's no way we can understand
and grasp in our human limited minds the trinity. People have
tried to explain the Trinity. We cannot explain it. People
have tried to illustrate it. We cannot illustrate it. It's
just one of those things, you know, where the psalmist said,
such things are so high above me, I cannot attain to it. That's
it. We know it's so. We don't worship
three gods. You know, the Muslims say we
worship three gods. We don't worship three gods.
We worship one god in three persons. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And each person of the Holy Trinity has an office, the official capacity. God the Father represents the
sovereignty of the Godhead. God the Son represents the redemptive
work, the connection with his people. God was made flesh. The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us. You see, God, sometimes we'll
say God became a man. I'm not sure that's the right
way to say it. But God, we have Jesus Christ who is Emmanuel,
Matthew 1, 22, 23, which being interpreted as God
with us. He is I am. That word I am. You remember before Abraham was,
I am, John chapter eight. And then we have God the Holy
Spirit, and it's His office to apply the work of the Father
and the Son in the salvation of people through the new birth.
We must be born again by the Spirit. Well, in Revelation,
you see an unholy trinity. You see the red dragon. That's
a symbol for Satan. Satan is an entity. Satan is
not just an idea. Somebody said one time that Satan's
greatest deception is to convince people that he did not exist.
And that's true. Now, Satan is not like what most
people think. When I was growing up, I went
to a high school called Russell High School, and our mascot was
the Red Devil. We were the Russell Red Devils.
And I used to call it the Russell Rednecks, but we were the Russell
Red Devils. And in our gym, we had a big
picture of a devil with horns and a pitchfork and a tail. Well,
that's not the devil. If you read the Bible, the Bible
tells us that the devil is disguised deceptively as an angel of light. And he peppers his lies and deception
with truth. Think about when Satan tempted
the Lord on the Mount of Temptation. You know, he quoted scripture.
So understand that. Now that's important for us to
see. Satan, you know, the movies, Hollywood has portrayed it like
exorcisms and stuff like that. Satan, read 2 Corinthians chapter
11 where Paul wrote, marvel not if Satan's ministers, if they
come preaching some truth and they're angels of light because
Satan himself, he disguises himself. So that's the red dragon. And
the reason they use that symbol, red is the symbol of sin. Remember
in Isaiah 118, though your sins be scarlet, they shall be white
as snow. Red is the symbol of sin. The
dragon shows his ferociousness and his power to deceive. So
there's the first person of that unholy trinity. The second one
was the beast that come up out of the sea. And that's what we're
dealing with here, verse 11, the beast that was and is not.
In other words, the beast that come up out of the sea representing
unholy nations and governments, empires, kingdoms, states that
are in opposition to the kingdom of Christ. And that's any empire,
any government that stands in opposition to the gospel of God's
free and sovereign grace in Christ. And then you had the beast that
come up, I think this was Revelation 13, you had the beast that come,
or 14, I can't remember. But the beast that come up out
of the land, that represents false religion. And so there's
that unholy trinity. Well, here we've been studying
Revelation 17, what we call the Babylon, mystery Babylon. Remember back in verse five?
All right, that mystery Babylon. Why is that called a mystery?
Because we don't know this naturally. It's not the kind of mystery
we think of that you have to get clues and figure out by putting
the clues together. What that means is that no one's
going to recognize this Babylon unless God reveals it. That's
the mystery. That's a mystery in scripture.
God has to reveal it. And he does so through his word.
That's how he does it. So don't think, well, I've got
to be like Sherlock Holmes and figure out these clues to find
out what this is. That's not going to help you.
All right, so mystery Babylon. Now Babylon, you know the story
of Babylon. We talked about it. It goes all
the way back to the Tower of Babel. And you remember what
Babel means originally? We think about Babel as being
gibberish, you know, confusion. Well, that's what it means today.
That's the etymology of the word. But Babel originally meant gate
of God. That's what the word originally
meant. And that's what they were trying to build. Some people
say it's a tower, some say it's a city, doesn't matter. They
were trying to work their way by their own efforts to God. That's what Babylon was all about,
Babel. And then later on it became Babylon. You know that the history
of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian Empire that conquered
Judah and took them into captivity. You have the book of Daniel,
the book of Ezekiel. That was at the closing of Jeremiah's
ministry and how they kept the people of God, Judah, Israel,
in captivity for 70 years and it was an ungodly empire. And you remember the story of
Daniel and the prophecy of Ezekiel. So Babylon represents that which
would keep the people of God in confusion, in bondage, and
in false religion. And here in verse five, Babylon
is called the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.
Now what's happening over here in verse 11, it says, the beast
that was and is not, even he is the eighth and is of the seven
and goeth into perdition. It's talking about kingdoms here.
The beast and seven kings that were mentioned before. And what
he's saying, the eighth kingdom here is the collection. It's
an unholy confederacy. It's an unholy union between
the beast, the nations, the empires, the governments, the state, and
false religion. They come together. And the reason
it's called the eighth, you know, the number eight in the Bible,
you know what it represents? It represents a new beginning.
Seven is the finishing of a work. That's the Sabbath, remember?
Seven-day Sabbath. Well, Christ is our Sabbath.
Remember on John 19, 30, He's hanging on the cross, dying for
the sins of God's elect, and what does He say? It is finished. And then what happened? He arose
again the third day. And that's what the number eight
when it comes to the church, the true church represents a
new beginning. Why were the Hebrew males circumcised? What day were the Hebrew males
circumcised on after birth? The eighth day. And that circumcision,
that physical circumcision of the Hebrew males was a picture,
a type, a symbol of spiritual birth, the new birth. Now, That's
significant. We must be born again. You know
the Bible calls that circumcision of the what? Heart. And remember
Paul wrote about that in Romans 2, 28, 29. He said, he is not
a Jew which is one outwardly, and circumcision is not that
which is in the flesh, but circumcision is that which is of the heart.
And so what he's teaching there is that once a person is born
again by the Spirit and comes to believe the true gospel and
submit to the righteousness of Christ as the only ground of
salvation, that person has been circumcised in heart. And that's
a new beginning, isn't it? That was a new beginning for
me, a new beginning for you who have been born again by the Spirit.
Just like your physical birth was a beginning for you. So you have that spiritual circumcision. And here we have a new beginning
in the confederacy of the beast and Babylon, the harlot. She's
riding on the beast. Well, what's new about that?
Well, turn to Acts chapter 4. What this is referring to, Acts
chapter 4, what this is referring to is a new beginning of evil
and sin which shows itself in opposition to Christ and His
church and His truth and His gospel. And it says in Acts chapter
4 and verse 26. You know, back in the Old Testament,
you see a separation of these ungodly Gentile empires, for
example. and the Jewish state. Now, not
that the Jewish state was any better off because they were
mainly a rebellious people. The scripture tells us that.
If you want to study the history of the Jews under the Old Covenant,
you know what it is. It's a history of failure. Now,
that's not shown to us that we can be proud and look down upon
them because we're in the same shape by nature. We're sinners. You see, we don't have any righteousness
in ourselves. My righteousness is Christ. And
incidentally, that's really the theme of the book of Revelation.
The only way that I am going to escape the wrath of God in
His justice against my sins is to be found in Christ, not having
my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is
through the faithfulness of Christ. See, what can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
And I'll tell you what now, just because I'm standing up here
behind this pulpit and you call me pastor, that doesn't make
me any better off than you on my own. I often say this, and
it kind of shocks some people, but I'm telling you the truth.
I even had one person come and say, what do you do? Or what's
wrong with you? Sit down, we'll talk. Have you
got a couple of weeks? If God were to judge me, right
now, based on my best efforts to obey Him, what would I earn? What would I deserve? Eternal
death. Does that shock you? It shouldn't. Well, what is my hope then? Well,
my favorite hymn. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. And I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name, on Christ the solid rock
I stand. All other ground is sinking sand.
But look here at Acts chapter 4. Here's this new unholy alliance. Verse 26, the kings of the earth
stood up. That's the state. That's the
empires. That's the political entities. The rulers were gathered
together. You know, the rulers is referring
to the Sanhedrin. You've heard of the Sanhedrin?
That was the high Jewish court, so here's the Jews. And it says,
gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ.
All right? For of a truth against thy holy
child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, who was Herod back
then, he was king of Israel. and Pontius Pilate, he was the
representative of Rome, with the Gentiles and the people of
Israel were gathered together. And here's a mind-boggling thing,
look at verse 28, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined
before to be done. That's God's work. So we see
even this opposition is in line with God's purpose because God
is in control. Go back to Revelation 17 now.
So this 8th kingdom that he's talking about is a reference
to the new beginning of an alliance against Christ of the state and
false religion. Now you can get bogged down,
I've told you before, going through Revelation you can get bogged
down in the details and miss the message. And you might say,
well, I'm going to do a study and I'm going to find out who
these seven here, these seven kings, they're mentioned back
up in verse 10. There are seven kings, five are
fallen, one is. And people have written books
over these things. And to me, it's just a waste
of time, to be honest with you. Because you're never going to
be able to pin it down. But here's the message. Here's
the message. He says, the beast that was,
verse 11, is not. In other words, that beast that
kind of rose up and then everybody thought it was gone, but now
he's coming back up. He's the eighth and is of the
seven and go with him to perdition. Perdition is damnation. Some,
you know, the reformers were often, they often related these
things to the papacy. And I know a lot of people don't
want to hear that today. But any, it's any form of works
religion. And I had somebody, I had somebody
ask me about this, said that, talking about what about Islam?
Now Islam, well, Islam is a state religion, which is in opposition
to the message of Christ and the gospel. And that message
of Islam is salvation by works. But I believe the emphasis here
is on false religion that comes in the name of Christianity.
That's what John, the Apostle John, was so amazed at. When
he, you know, when he was looking at it, he's seeing this vision,
he stood in astonishment. And he was amazed that there's
going to be so much religion that comes in the name of Christianity,
but denies the truth of Christianity. And that's the real deception.
2 Thessalonians 2 speaks of that. Also, the seven churches in Revelation
2 and 3. Remember the church at Sardis? He said you have a name that
you live, but you're dead. In other words, you call yourself
Christian. Now if you're truly Christian, you're spiritually
alive. But he says you're really dead. So it's Christian in name
only. Well look at verse 12, he says,
the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, rulers of the
world. They're raised up for brief periods
of time, he says, and these rulers, they aim to make war against
the church. Someone said they're not really
mighty emperors, just little presidents, senators, congressmen,
whoever you want to name. Well, you can focus in on that,
but look here. It says in verse 12, these 10
horns, the horn is representative of power. And these have political
power. Which thou sawest are 10 kings,
10 rulers, which have received no kingdom as yet. And that's
why someone said these are not really emperors or like Caesar
or anything like that, but they're just people who have some power. But it says, but receive power
as kings one hour. Now that one hour represents
a short period of time. That's all it's saying. In other
words, this isn't gonna last long, see. Now, a lot of times
in the Bible, you gotta be careful with that, because somebody said,
well, it seems long to me. Well, what seems long to us is
a very short time with God. I think about 2 Peter 3, where
he says, a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is
a day to God. You know, we come on this earth,
and we live three score and 10, and if we're blessed of God,
a little farther than that. And you know, when you're young,
Jordan, you young people, you listen to me on this. When you're
young, you think that's gonna be forever. I'll be 63 in a couple
of weeks, and I, man, how fast it has gone. I mean, it's amazing
to me. Where has my life gone? And now
I'm having to deal with physical problems. Of course, I've been
dealing with physical problems since 1990, November 4th, 1990, that
I've been dealing with this heart problem. But it just seems like
such a short period of time, doesn't it? But it's a matter
of perspective. So when you go in and you see
these time frames, like one hour, that's a short period of time.
But now it could be 100 years. could be 200 in God's time span. But it says they receive power,
verse 12, as kings one hour with the beast. Verse 13, look at
it. These have one mind, they're united, and shall give their
power and strength unto the beast. In other words, they follow the
beast, this unholy government, this unholy, ungodly Government
that is opposition to the world, but look at verse 14 now This
is where we're going to close today, and this is a positive
note. You know all those sounds so negative that Opposition to
Christ, but look here these shall make war who they're going to
make war with the lamb Now who's the lamb that's Christ? the Lamb
of God the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world why was
he slain for the sins of his people and Scripture says He
was made sin. Christ was made sin. Christ who
knew no sin, the only perfect person that ever lived on earth,
suffered the worst agony and curse and wrath of His Father
for the sins of His sheep imputed, charged, accounted to Him. And
He paid that debt by His blood. That's why we talk about the
blood. That's why the blood is so important. You know, when
I went to seminary back in the late 70s, I had professors who
were denying the blood sacrifice. I really did. Of course, I didn't
know anything then either. And they were, you know, I had
the Reverend Dr. So-and-so and the Reverend Mr. Something that had the doctrine
of divinity. We called him Dr. Twiddle-Dee-Dee,
Doctor of Divinity. And all of that, and you know,
they knew Greek, they knew Hebrew, and that's what we were learning.
They knew biblical criticism. But I had a professor, a New
Testament professor, who stood in front of the class, and he
said the idea of a blood sacrifice for our salvation, he said, is
detestable to me. And I didn't know much then,
but I knew that was wrong. You know the Bible says that
without the shedding of blood, there's no remission or forgiveness
or pardon of sin. Now why is that? Is it because
God is mean? Is it because God is just fed
up with us? Is the wrath of God, God throwing
a temper tantrum? And, of course, we don't want
to think about God as being angry. You know, I've been talking about
love and hate. I'm going to continue that in
1 John chapter 3. And people don't want to talk
about a God who hates. God doesn't hate anybody. Well, the Scripture
says He does. Now, the problem that we have, the reason people
have such a problem with that is because they see and define
God's hatred like our hatred. Now, our hatred is sinful. Isn't
that right? When we hate, Christ called it
murder. When we hate, it's sinful because
our hatred comes out of selfishness, greed, envy, it comes out of
vengeance, and what does the Bible say? Vengeance belongs
to God. But God's hatred, now listen
to me, God's hatred is nothing more than his justice against
sin. He told Adam in the garden, in
the day that you eat thereof, you shall surely die. And we
go around quoting scripture and we don't think about what it
means. Romans 3.23, anybody know what that says? The Roman road? For all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. And then we go to Romans 6.23,
and here's what we say. The wages of sin is what? Death. Now the gift of God is eternal
life. You understand how that means?
Wage is something you earn. The wages of sin is death. But
it doesn't say the wage of eternal life. It says the gift of God
is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Death is something
we earn because of sin. Eternal life, we don't earn it
and don't deserve it. That's called grace. Now, God
is love, God is grace, But how does grace come? Not just through
God's intentions. You see, God's love and grace
is not just good intentions unfulfilled. God's love and grace comes through
justice satisfied. Proof, Romans 521. You know,
we have at Eager Avenue Grace Church, we have Reign of Grace
Media Ministries. Where do we get that name, Reign
of Grace? Romans 521. that as sin hath reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign through what? Righteousness unto
eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. What does it take to
save a sinner like me? It takes perfect righteousness,
and I don't have it in myself. And no matter how hard I work,
I'm always going to fall short. That's called iniquity. Where
am I going to find righteousness? in the Lord Jesus Christ by His
blood. And that's it. And there's no
other way of salvation. These people who say, well, there
are other ways. No, there's not. Not if you believe the Bible.
Now, if you believe philosophy and modern-day religion, you'll
say, well, there are other ways. Well, what are those other ways?
Well, you've got to be baptized, or you've got to walk an hour,
or you've got to do this, or you've got to give your time.
Those will not make you righteous. The only thing that'll make a
sinner like me righteous is the blood of Jesus Christ. And that's
what the lamb talks about. That's what the lamb means. Remember
the Passover lamb? They had to put, had to slay
the lamb and had to put the blood on the door. And God said, remember
what he said in the Passover? When I see the blood, I'll pass
over you. No blood, death. We need a substitute. We need a righteousness we can't
produce. But now look at verse 14. These shall make war with
the Lamb. This beast, the harlot, this
unholy trinity, they're gonna make war with the Lamb. Because
that's what they can't say. They'll have a Jesus that they
can manipulate, but not the Lamb. Not the true Jesus. And he says,
and the Lamb shall overcome them. There's the positive. Christ
will overcome. Victory is in the bag here. Remember
Christ told his disciples in the book of John, he said, you
shall have tribulation in the world, but be of good cheer,
I have overcome the world. And how do we know he's overcome
the world? He died on the cross. He was buried, he arose the third
day. The resurrection of Christ shows
his victory on that cross. In his death, which looks to
man naturally, like defeat, is victory over everything. And he says, for he is Lord of
lords. He's the king of kings. He is the king of kings. And
it says, look here, and they that are with him. Who's that
talking about? That's not talking about everybody
without exception now. And that's why we plead and beg
sinners, come to Christ, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
what that means, they that are with him. They who were chosen
before the foundation of the world, they whose sins were charged
to him, they for whom he died, they are called. That's the calling
of the Holy Spirit under the preaching of the gospel. Must
be born again, begotten again by the word of truth. The gospel
is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believe it.
and chosen, chosen of God. How can I know if I'm chosen
of God? I'm called and faithful. That means they persevere by
the power of God. That's the whole thing, you see.
Those who are saved by grace are kept by grace, saved by the
grace of God. They cling to Christ and they
will not let him go. You know why? There's no place
else to go. There's no hope for us except
in Christ. All right, thank you.