Mind which hath wisdom. You know,
as you go through the book of Revelation, there are a lot of
things that will jump out at us, but which we cannot really
understand unless God reveals them to us through His Word.
And the more and more I go through this book and study it, And I've
done it, this is probably around the fourth time that I've done
it in my preaching. I'm convinced more and more that
the symbolism of revelation can only be determined by what we
see in the Old Testament, the types and the pictures and the
commentary that we have. But here's the bottom line. The
Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge
and the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. As we go
through Revelation, you may find points of interpretation that
you say, well, you know, I'm not sure what this means or what
that means, or you might even find points of interpretation
that you disagree with me, even though you're wrong, as I've
always told you. But that's not the issue. You
know, and there are believers who disagree over points of interpretation
of Revelation, but we don't disagree on the gospel. And that's the
key. What we're reading here in Revelation
has to do with the wrath of God poured down upon an unbelieving
world. God exposing the mystery Babylon. Look at verse 5 of Revelation
17. Upon her forehead was a name, Mystery Babylon. Babylon signifying
false religion. That's what it is. the mother
of harlots and abominations of the earth, doctrines, political
systems, economic systems that are against Christ and against
the truth of the gospel of how God saves sinners. So the main
issue that we have to be convinced of and understand out of the
book of Revelation, whether we understand all the intricacies
of the symbolism is how can sinners who deserve that wrath, how can
we avoid that wrath? In other words, Babylon's going
down. That's what this thing says.
That's what this revelation. Babylon's going down. Right now, Babylon, false religion,
is intent on taking as many people down
with her as she can. Look at verse 6, I saw the woman
drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of
the martyrs of Jesus. That's her warfare against the
church. And when I saw her I wondered
with great admiration, I believe the word there would be astonishment. Now John is not expressing astonishment
just over false religion and false governments. He grew up
with that and he's being inspired to write this revelation because
he's on the Isle of Patmos where he's been taken by an ungodly government He's not astonished that the
world is, as we say, going to hell in a handbasket. What I
believe the astonishment is over here is that there's so much
false religion that comes in the name of Christianity. And
the reason I believe that is if you read 1st, 2nd, and 3rd
John. which are letters that John was
inspired to write, especially when he talks about the fellowship
of faith. And we're studying through 1
John 3 in the messages, the main messages. In other words, John
understood that the Roman Empire was an evil empire. And though
it's sad, that's not astonishing. Caesar is an evil ruler. He claims to be God. That's not
astonishing, that's the world as it is. But there's so much
religion now that's coming, it's beginning in John's day, that
comes under the name of Christianity that denies the truth of the
gospel, of the righteousness of God in Christ. Remember John
said in 1 John 2, he said, they went out from us, they were not
of us. He said, he told them, he said,
Test the spirits. Don't believe everything you
hear. Just because a man says he's a Christian, doesn't mean
he's a Christian. Just because I say I'm a Christian,
that doesn't prove anything. The proof is in the Word of God.
Do I preach according to this Word? Isaiah had it in his day.
Isaiah 8.20, to the law and to the testimony. If they speak
not according to this Word, it's because there's no light in them.
Do I preach the wisdom of God? He talks about the mind that
has wisdom here. What is the wisdom of God? Well,
1 Corinthians 1, and not just that one, but that one stands
out to me because it says that Christ crucified is the power
of God and the wisdom of God. How can God be just and not pour
his wrath down upon me, a sinner? There's the wisdom of God if
you can answer that question correctly from the Bible. And
of course the only way is to flee to Christ as the Lord our
righteousness. It's His blood alone, His righteousness
alone. So my point there in introducing
this is to show that, look, Babylon is being exposed here. And people
may not understand all the intricacies of the symbolism here, but the
main issue is the gospel issue of how do we flee from this wrath
to come? How do we, as sinners who deserve
wrath, who've earned wrath, how do we avoid that wrath in a way
that shows God's glory? That's the wisdom that we're
talking about. Well, look at verse 7. He says,
And the angel, this messenger, said unto me, Wherefore didst
thou marvel? Why are you astonished, John?
He said, I will tell thee the mystery of the woman and of the
beast that carrieth her. There's the woman riding the
beast, you know, scarlet colored, which had the seven heads and
the ten horns. Now, mystery Babylon, the mother
of all spiritual harlots, abominations of the earth, John's astonished
now. And this angel says, why? Why
are you astonished? I'm going to tell you. He's astonished
over this apostasy, this great falling away. Paul, remember
he wrote in 2 Thessalonians 2, before Christ comes again, there's
going to be a great apostasy. Now, that means falling away
from the church, the visible church. You all have heard the
term Christendom? You've heard that term? Well,
that refers to the influence that what the world calls Christianity
has had over the world. But Christendom is mainly consisting
of the tears that Satan sows throughout the world. False churches.
How much blood has been shed in the history
of the world in the name of Christianity? A lot, hadn't there? And none
of it, none of it was true Christianity. And we talk about the Judeo-Christian
ethic, you see. Well, see, all this is being
exposed now. The mind that has wisdom is the
one who recognizes all this by the revelation of God. So he
says, I'll tell you the mystery of the woman. I'm gonna tell
you the mystery of the beast that carries her. I'm gonna tell
you about the seven heads and the 10 horns. And then the explanation
comes next. Think about what Paul wrote to
the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 11. I've got this listed or quoted
in your lesson. This is 2 Corinthians 11, 13.
Now listen to this. He says, for such are false apostles. Now, why does he call them false
apostles? Because they claim to be apostles
of Christ. What is an apostle? It's one
sent from God with a message. Well, these are false apostles.
He says, deceitful workers. And he says, transforming themselves
into the apostles of Christ, claiming to be apostles of Christ.
And he says, and no marvel, don't be astonished at this. Now this
goes back to, you know, John said he wondered with great admiration,
he was astonished. Alright? For Satan himself is
transformed into an angel of light. Now light is what in the
Bible? It's truth. It's truth. And he says, therefore it's no
great thing if his ministers also be transformed as ministers
of righteousness. Now, I've heard preachers deal
with that, and they say, well, they preach the righteousness
of men. Oh, no. I don't believe that's so. They
do preach the righteousness of men, but they don't have to transform
to do that. That's what comes naturally.
Men do that by nature. Just like what we were talking
about, what the guy said, you know, he said, maybe this is
my only chance to get into heaven, you know, all that stuff. I always
think about that country song, you know, where I come from,
we're working hard to get to heaven. And people don't see
anything wrong with that. Oh, it's just a country song,
you're just splitting hairs, blah, blah, blah. No, that's
the way man thinks naturally. What he's saying here, I believe,
is that these false apostles can speak a lot of truth. But they have to transform to
do it, and the tense of the verb, the idea of transformation is
a temporary change. In other words, they can say
right things at certain times, but they cannot stay there. They
cannot abide there because that's not where their heart is. So
therefore, they may talk about the imputed righteousness of
Christ one day, but the next day they're talking about the
righteousness of man. It's kind of like a Reformed
Baptist preacher. Here's what he said. He's talking
about the Christian life, all right? How would you describe
the Christian life? Well, here's how he described
it. He said, the Christian life is like walking on a tightrope.
And you know, a guy walks on a tightrope, he has a bar, doesn't
he, to balance him. He said, on one end of the bar
is the imputed righteousness of Christ. On the other end of
the bar is the righteousness of man. Now you know what that
is? That's a false apostle. False
minister. You see, the Christian life is
not walking a tightrope. I'll tell you what the Christian
life is. It's standing on a rock. The rock Christ Jesus. Standing
on a righteousness that cannot change. cannot be contaminated
or corrupted, and cannot be taken away. Now there's assurance right
there. Not walking the tightrope. You see the difference? But that's
a, you know, most people won't recognize that. What do you have
to have to recognize that? You have to have the mind that
has wisdom. You have to have the revelation
from God, the wisdom of God. So in other words, these false
apostles, they are transformed as the ministers of righteousness
whose end shall be according to their works. And I've got
written out here, the point is that we as God's people are not
left to ourselves to figure these things out. Now it takes a lot
of study, a lot of work to go through a book like Revelation
and to understand the symbolism of it and all of that, I know
that. How many times have you heard me say the gospel is a
simple message, but the Bible is not a simple book. It takes
some time and effort. And most of all, it takes a revelation
from God. He has to open up the scriptures.
He has to turn the light on that sins. But here's the issue. The issue is this. What is that
wisdom of God? It's how a sinner like me can
avoid the wrath of God, the wrath I deserve, the wrath that I've
earned, and stand before a holy God and be declared righteous
and justified. There's only one way, and that's
through the imputed righteousness of Christ. So, God reveals this
in his word, and it's all related to Christ and the gospel. Blessed
are those who die, blessed are they which die in the Lord, So that's the issue now. Look
at verse 8. He says, well, the seven heads
and the ten horns. Now I've told you about this.
In John's day, when he talks about the seven hills, the seven
heads, that would probably have, in their minds, related to Rome,
the Roman Empire. It is symbolic here. The ten
horns could, you know, historians talk about the succession of
the ten emperors, the Roman emperors and all of that. And maybe that
would have brought into their minds Rome. And that's okay. But here's what we have to understand.
Rome, at that time, is an example of all ungodly empires, all ungodly
governments, all ungodly leaders, that stand in opposition to Christ. Okay? So what I'm saying is you
can't restrict this to that time. What we're seeing here is things
that are happening throughout the New Testament age leading
us up to the end. And even though there are no
Roman Caesars today, Rome is still alive in its false religion
and in its false government. That kind of spirit, the spirit
of Antichrist, that John spoke of. He said, it's in our day,
he said. It's in our day too. And if somebody says, well, I
believe that's one guy that's going to be raised up. Well,
that's OK. But the Spirit is still here.
I disagree with that, but I could be wrong on that. But the Spirit
of Antichrist is here because it's any, listen, any message
that causes sinners to look anywhere but Christ and His blood and
righteousness alone is an anti-Christ message. It's the spirit of anti-Christ. It's the spirit of Babylon. It's
the spirit of Rome. You see all of that. We'll look
at verse 8. He says, the beast that thou
sawest was and is not. and shall ascend out of the bottomless
pit and go into perdition. And they that dwell on the earth
shall wonder whose names were not written in the book of life
from the foundation of the world when they behold the beast that
was and is not and yet is." Now here's this beast. I believe
here he's referring to the same beast that was back in Revelation
13, which is the beast that arose out of the sea. Again, representing
all ungodly kings, nations, empires, all of that that oppose Christ.
Governments that want you to depend on them for salvation,
that kind of thing. That's what he's talking about.
He says, and this beast wants people to worship and depend
upon him, serve him, and ultimately Satan, who is the head of it
all. And it says, which was. Well, that refers to the past. You know, back during the early
days of the New Testament church, this beast was readily understood
and seen. You know, think about it again,
what I mentioned before, Caesar. It was a command from Caesar
that you call him God. And there were many believers
who lost their lives because they wouldn't say Caesar is Lord.
Some people say, I think it's the church at Smyrna, that their
pastor was a man named Polycarp who was martyred because he would
not say Caesar is Lord. I don't know if all that's true,
but that's just what some church historians say. But that beast
was, and then he says, and is not, And that, you remember back
in Revelation 13 where it talked about the death of the beast
or what it's called the beast, that beast, that one head, you
know, and all that and how it was dead and then rose again.
Well, I think this is referring to the Roman Empire. The Roman
Empire is not now as far as what they saw back then in the Roman
Caesars. You know, the famous book, The
Fall of the Roman Empire. So it appears to what seems to
be the death of the beast, and as stated back in Revelation
13, some scholars point back to the Roman Emperor Nero and
his death and all that, and people celebrated, but then it came
back. But it says here, he shall ascend
out of the bottomless pit and go into perdition. And that refers
to the reappearance of the beast to lead sinners to ruin. Lead them away from Christ. And this is what happens here.
It reappears in the form of the Roman religion. The world religion. The beast under the guise of
false religion. And it says, they that dwell
on the earth shall wonder. Those who are connected to the
earth. Remember the earth dwellers. What separates God's people from
those who dwell on the earth? You say, well, don't we all dwell
on the earth? Well, we all live here right now. But we're all
not citizens of the world. We're citizens of a heavenly
kingdom. We who are saved by grace. We who are washed in the
blood of Christ and clothed in his righteousness. We're citizens
of a heavenly kingdom. We're in the world, Christ said,
but we're not of the world. Remember he said, in the world
you'll have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I've overcome
the world. He said, if you were of the world,
the world would love its own. I'm going to be referring to
that this morning in the main message. But it says here, those
who are connected to the earth, that's talking about the unbelievers,
who are content to be tied to this sinful world, they wonder,
that means they stand in awe at the presence of the beast.
And it says, what it's talking about is the deadliness of the
message of this beast, that false gospel, won't be revealed to
them. They're in awe of it. They're truly amazed, not like
John was astonished before, but they're amazed in wonder. This
is impressive to them, that's what he's saying. And who are
they? Well, he identifies them. whose
names were not written in the book of life from the foundation
of the world. When they behold the beast that
was and is not and yet is, yet is means that beast, that spirit
of that beast in some form is going to continue and that's
the resurgence of the Romish religion or the Romish ungodliness
in religion, false religion that teaches salvation by the works
and the wills of men. but whose names were not written
in the book of life from the foundation of the world." If God chose us from the foundation
of the world in Christ, that means our names were written
in the Lamb's book of life. That's it. One time. You know,
I told you about the preacher I saw on TV one time when he
was dealing with that out of Revelation 13. And he made this
statement. He said, well, we can surmise
That's the first place we go wrong, you understand that? But
he said this. He said, we can surmise that
God is up in heaven, and the moment you're born into this
world, he writes your names in this book of life. And the moment
you sin, when you first sin, he erases your name out. And
then when you, at some time, accept Jesus as your personal
savior, he writes your name back in. That's not the way it happens. That's the surmisings of false
preachers, false believers. The Book of Life, and you understand
now, this is not a literal book that God writes in. It's the
mind of God. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? God has imputed their sins to
Christ. and imputed righteousness to
them. He knows their names. He knows each one of them by
name. The book of life, that's God's purpose of election before
the world began. It's God's record in his eternal
mind of his chosen people. It's the election of grace, which
reigns through Christ, and it's all based upon what he accomplished
in his redemptive work. Christ redeemed us. And go back
there now, verse eight, he says, when they behold the beast that
was and is not and yet is, again, symbolizing the ungodly, unchristian
empires and governments that then appeared to be dead, then
reappeared in a more deceptive form, the beast, and the beast
is not dead yet, but his doom is certain, it's still alive
today. Look at verse nine, he says, and here is the mind which
hath wisdom, the wisdom of God. The seven heads are seven mountains,
there's the reference that John would probably refer to Rome,
the seven hills of Rome, on which the woman saith. And he says,
and of course, seven heads are seven mountains, they could be
seven kings, the allusion to Rome as I said, the word mountains
means to rise or to rear up, that's what it means. We see
that in a historical way at the death of Christ. Remember what
Luke wrote in Acts 4, verses 26 through 28, listen to this,
I've got this referenced in your list. It said, the kings of the
earth stood up and the rulers were gathered together against
the Lord and against his Christ. That's what that references.
All of that. It's a rebellious spirit. Look
at verse 10. He says, and there are seven
kings, five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet
come. And when he cometh, he must continue a short space.
Now, read your lesson on this one. Seven kings, five are fallen. Indicates in John's time, five
of these kingdoms had already fallen. One is present in John's
day. And then there's one to come.
And there's a lot of this. Listen, when biblical, so-called
biblical scholars get to this verse, there's as many theories
almost as there are scholars on this issue. Some identify
these from the Old Testament, the five that are following.
You think about Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, the Medo-Persian, Greece,
Alexander, Those are five empires that had fallen. They were all
in opposition to Christ, all in opposition to the gospel.
And then the one that's present would be Rome, because that's
the government that was in power when John was writing this. The
one to come would be the resurgence of that Romish spirit in false
religion that would prevail over the earth. But he said it's going
to exist for a short time. What is that short time? That's
the gospel age. That's the age we're living in
now. That's the new covenant age. And like I said, don't get
bogged down and confused in trying to identify specifically every
little detail of these symbols because I don't care where you
arrive at, somebody's going to disagree with you. You can't
be that dogmatic about it. I believe that what that's talking
about is those five that have fallen, Rome and John's day,
and then the Roman religion that pervades the earth for a short
time in the new covenant. But the mind that hath wisdom
is the mind that turns to Christ for all salvation, for all forgiveness,
for all righteousness, for all eternal life and glory. That's
how we avoid the deception, the lies, and the natural wonders
that impress men. That's how we avoid all of that,
because we look to Christ. I had a fellow, let me just close
with this. I had a fellow who asked me about the charismatics. You know, the Charismatics are
those who come in the name of Christ, but they talk about the
second work of grace, the filling of the Holy Spirit, as evidenced
by things like speaking in tongues and healings and all of that,
which I don't believe is even available for us today. Not that
God doesn't heal and all of that, and I'm not saying that God doesn't
perform miracles, but that's not part of the ministry of the
gospel today. And the reason is because we
have the completed written word of God. Our authority, you know,
those things the apostles could do by way of miracles back then
were to confirm the word. In other words, what I'm telling
you is true. It's from God. It glorifies God. And here's the proof of it. Here's
the power of it. Well, what we have today is the Bible. We speak,
this is our authority. I can show you in this word where
these things are true. And I can show you in this word
where other things that false preachers say are not true. But
he was asking me about the charismatics. And I've gotten to the point
that I don't argue with them over their miracles or their,
you know, I do with over the tongues thing because that is
so blatantly false. Read 1 Corinthians 14. It's talking
about preaching the gospel in other languages, because you
had such a hodgepodge of cultures and languages back then. And
they, you know, they couldn't just go take a course. What is
that? Rosetta Stone? They couldn't
do that back then. So God gave them the ability
either to speak the gospel in the language that a person can
understand, or he gave the ability of the person to hear it in his
language. And that's what that is, it's
language. It's not some kind of heavenly gibberish. And there
was always, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 14, he said, if they speak in
tongues, there's got to be an interpreter. So I mean, all that. But I don't argue with them about
their miracles and all. Here's the point. I don't care
what they do, how impressive it is, how many people they have.
Do they preach Christ? His person? His finished work,
His righteousness imputed as the only ground of justification
before. If they don't preach that, I
don't care what else they do, they're false apostles. And that's
the wisdom that God gives His people.