If you will, take your Bibles
and turn with me to Revelation chapter 17. Our subject has been
for several weeks talking about the judgment of God upon what
the Scripture calls the great whore, which is nothing more
than just worldly religion. So let's begin reading in verse
6, Revelation 17 verse 6. And I saw the woman, that great
whore of religion, 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. I mentioned this last week, that
word admiration, I think is an unfortunate word that they used. He didn't admire the great whore
when he saw her, but this is talking about he wondered with
a great amazement. He was amazed when he saw her
and saw how powerful she was and how influential she was and
saw how she had corrupted the whole world. And he was amazed. He was amazed and he just sat
and wondered. And then another word that you
might insert there is the word respect. I had no, and I'm not
really sure how to explain this or put it in a way you can understand,
but I had no respect for religion as far as being any kind of a
superpower when I was growing up. It was just religion. It was a good thing if you had
it, and if you didn't have it, you were okay too. But I didn't
see them as any danger to anybody's children, or I didn't see them
as being any kind of a world influential object. I had no
respect for it. When John saw religion in its
reality, He gained respect for it. He saw how powerful it was. The idea of evil forces ruling
over men and women in a general population, it doesn't instill any kind of
fearful respect for the rulers of the darkness of this world
to those who've never seen it. I remember years ago there was
a comedian, his name was Flip Wilson, and whenever he got in
trouble he'd say, the devil made me do it. And he said it jokingly
and laughingly and everybody would laugh. So the idea of an
invisible force so wise and so subtle that it works in men in
such a way as to corrupt them and defile them and cause them
to believe things contrary to the Word of God without any detection
of its presence in them is totally out of the question with this
world. They don't see that. And they look at you when you
talk about it like you're from another planet. We had some ladies
visit us one day. It was Kathy's hairdressers. And they wanted to come up and
visit with us, and they did. And as soon as I started talking,
that was my subject that day. And I was talking about that.
Oh, man, I never seen three women want to get out of a place so
bad in all my life. The world has no concept of what
I'm talking about here. John was carried in the spirit
out into the wilderness to see these things. And that's the
only way you can see them. But when you see them, You see
them. You see them as they're described
in the Word of God, and you see it in its reality. You see them
working. You see how they work. You see
all of these things, and that's what we've been talking about
here, and that's what the Spirit carried John out to see. When the minister of God teaches
such things to men, and the power of the Holy Ghost, and they see
their enemy as he is, they immediately begin to acquire a healthy respect
for that force, that principality and power. Religion, worldly
religion, is a product of Satan. He's the prince of the power
of the air, and this great whore rides around on the back of the
beast. That's how she moves. He's the
spirit who now worketh in the children of disobedience. He
works right now in men and women. Every unregenerate child, every
unregenerate man and woman out here, religious or irreligious,
doesn't make any difference. He works in them. And those religious
principles are working in them. He's the prince of the power
of the air, the spirit who now worketh in the children of disobedience. And worldly religion carries
out the devil's design, now listen to me, while believing they're
doing God a service. John 16, 2, our Lord said, they
shall put you out of the synagogues. Yea, the time cometh that whosoever
killeth you will think that he doeth God a service. That's deception,
isn't it? Paul stood there while they stoned
Stephen. And I told our folks not too
long ago, when the Jews stoned a man, they didn't go out here
in the parking lot and get these little gravels. They had rocks
as big as they could hold in their hand and still chunk at
the man. These were big rocks. They meant
to kill him with them, not bruise him. And here was these men,
these religious men, these self-righteous men, and they all had stones
in their hand and they were stoning Stephen to death. You know what
Paul was doing? He was holding their coats. And he was justifying Stephen's
death, thinking that he did God a service. In Philippians 3, Paul talked
about the things that once made up his confidence. And when he
came to his religious zeal, he said, concerning zeal, religious
zeal. You know what that is? That's
being convinced that what you're doing is right. Religious zeal. He said, concerning zeal, persecuting
the church. Zeal. Religious zeal. When the
Holy Spirit reveals the power and influence of sin and the
working of Satan and antichrist religion, all who truly see it
gain a healthy respect for it. All right, back to Revelation
17 and verse 7. And the angel said unto me, wherefore
didst thou marvel? I'll tell thee the mystery. I'm
going to tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast
that carrieth her. which hath the seven heads and
ten horns. Now Paul said to the Corinthians
concerning false accusations and such, he said, lest Satan
should get an advantage of us, for we're not ignorant of his
devices. Paul understood these things.
These things that we're looking at here in Revelation 17 are
revealing to us how Satan works in men. so that we, as Paul was,
will not be ignorant of his devices. You know, there in 2 Corinthians
chapter 4, I think it is, Paul talked about denouncing the hidden
things of darkness. Those things were hidden to him.
He didn't know that he was doing those things. He said in the
book of Galatians, I did those things being deceived, being
ignorant. And that's how men do this. They
don't know that they're persecuting the church of God. They think
they're persecuting heretics. And this is how Satan works.
Revelation 17, 8. 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
How many of them? All that dwell on earth are going
to wonder whose names were not written in the book of life from
the foundation of the world when they beheld the beast that was
and is not and yet is. Now let me begin by calling your
attention to the origin of the beast. Where does the beast come
from? Out of the pit of hell. Can you say that, I mean with
full understanding in your heart, can you say that religion, I'm
talking about the First Baptist Church down here, the Nazarene
Church down the road, the Methodist Church over here, can you say
with an understanding and confidence that these things are out of
the pit of hell? Huh? You will if you ever see
it. If you ever see it, you will. The beast, as he is revealed,
is carrying the great whore. He ascends up out of the bottomless
pit. The Pharisees said to Christ,
listen to this. Now here's the most religious
people who ever walked the face of God's earth. They were clean
as they could be. You couldn't find an open accusation
to bring against one, a Pharisee. And the Pharisees said to Christ,
we'd be Abraham's children. That is, we'd be covenant heirs,
heirs of the promise seed. But the Lord said to them, if
you were Abraham's children, you'd do the works of Abraham.
But now you seek to kill me, a man that has told you the truth,
which I've heard of God. This did not Abraham. You're not Abraham's children. And they said, now wait a minute.
We've been not born of fornication. We're not Gentile heathens. We're
not dogs. And Jesus said to them, if God
were your father, they said, we have God our father. He said,
if God was your father, you'd love me because I proceeded forth
and came from God. I'm God come into the flesh,
and you hate my guts. You're not children of God. Well,
whose children are they? What did he tell them? You children
of the devil. That's your father and the lust
of your father you will do. That's what we're talking about
here this morning. That's what this minister in
the power of God's Spirit has carried John out into the wilderness
and he begins to see these things. Now I'm telling you these visions
are describing what's going on in these last days in this gospel
age before this whole world is folded up. And these ministers
are performing a task for the Lord. And John's in the Spirit
on the Lord's Day and this minister is taking him out and showing
him things. And John's seeing these ministers and what they
do and what follows them and all of these things. That's what's
going on. Same thing that's going on in here this morning. Very
same thing. Make no mistake about it, those
who despise the Lord Jesus Christ as He reveals Himself in His
life and death on the cross are of their father the devil. The
beast rises up out of the bottomless pit. He's got no claim to heaven
or any of the good and perfect gifts which God sends down to
man. He's got no claim on those things.
All of these things are given unto us by His Son. God hath
blessed us, Paul said, with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ. All those blessings come through
him. And then secondly, let's talk a little bit about how God
describes this beast. He said he is the beast that
was. He was. He's the beast that is
not. And yet is. That's the beast. He's the beast that was. He was
in heaven at one time. You can read about it on the
book of Isaiah. I think it's chapter 14. How
art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? What happened? What happened?
For whatever purpose, now I know that the angels, according to
Hebrews chapter 1, are all ministering spirits sent forth to minister
to those who shall be heirs of salvation. That's what he says,
the angels. Your angels stand before God,
your Father, all the time. And therefore we have to watch
how we treat one another. Their angels stand before the
Father all the time. And our Lord said, it'd be better
for you that a millstone was tied about your neck and cast
into the deepest part of the sea than for you to offend one
of these little ones. So this is what these angels,
and at some point God made known to these angels something about
manifesting His glory in the salvation of men through His
Son, Jesus Christ. And when he did, Satan said in
his heart, oh no, he said, I will ascend. He was the greatest of
the angels. He was the son of the morning.
He might have been the first angel created. I don't know.
But whatever he was, it was too much for him. He said, I'll do
this. Not a man, I'll do this. I will
ascend under the throne. I'll speak to the congregation.
I'll do these things. He just said it in his heart.
That's all the farther it got. God kicked him out of heaven.
He's the beast that was. He was. And he was in the garden,
wasn't he? I appeared to the woman, said,
hath God surely said? Tempted her, caused her to fall,
and through her fall caused the fall of her husband. He's the
beast that was. He was in the garden. And he
was at the first worship service. Adam taught his two children,
Abel and Cain. Taught them how to worship. Taught
them what God taught him in the garden. Salvation through the
Lamb. A Lamb has to be sacrificed.
A substitute must be provided. You approach God on the basis
of the blood of the Lamb. And here they were at the first
worship service. But Satan was there too. He was
there, and he began to speak with Cain and said, well, look
at that old bloody lamb. Think about what you're doing.
God don't want to see that stuff. You're a farmer. You grow these
beautiful vegetables. I can't even imagine what a vegetable
looked like back before all the corruption. He described some
of that fruit coming out of Cain, and it was just unbelievable.
And can you imagine what this fruit must have been back then?
He brought all this fruit and he laid it all out and he expected
God. Satan convinced that man that
God would have respect to his sacrifice. But he didn't. He
didn't respect it at all. This is the beast that was. And
in the seventh from Adam, he talked about him. He talked about
all these ungodly men who followed after him. The city of Babylon
describes him to a T. Fact is, the word Babylon is
the name given to the great whore. It wears it on her forehead.
It's a symbol of religion from that day to this. And you can go on and on and
on with these things. He was the beast that was. He
was before the flood. causing every thought of the
imaginations of men to be only evil continuously and he was
at the birth of the Savior. Working in men to deny him a
place in the end. Let him be born in a stable.
Let him be born down there with the cattle. Seeking to deny him as a child,
seeking to defile him. Waiting before the woman is how
it was described to John, ready to devour the child as soon as
it be born. He's the beast that was, and
he's the beast that is not. He can't be seen. Men say, where
is he? Where is this Satan you talk
about? Where is this power you talk about? Where is he at? Huh? You can't see him, can you? You
can't detect him, even when he works in your heart. You can't
detect him. He's invisible. He's a spirit. He works in you very similar
to the way the Holy Spirit does, but in the opposite direction.
You do these things and you do them as though it were your idea
from the start. But he influences you in such
a way as to cause you to do them. and you're an easy mark for him.
He takes men captive at his will because of our fallen nature. He's the beast that is not. He
can't be seen by the natural eye and his working is so subtle
and deceptive that his presence is denied altogether. Only those
who see him by faith and have been shown by God his presence
and shown by God his working in men have any knowledge of
him. So he's the beast that was, he's
the beast that is not, and then finally, he's the beast that
yet is. Make no mistake about it, he
is. And he's actively working on a universal scale, deceiving
and making disciples after himself. Transforming men, as how Paul
described it, into ministers of righteousness. And he said,
that's no big thing, for Satan himself transforms himself into
an angel of light. Now, go back and look at that
verse again. I think it's verse 8 in Revelation
17, in the middle part of that verse. 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. Paul asked a question
over in 1 Corinthians 4 verse 7. If you take a note, you can
write that down and look at it this afternoon. But here's what
he asked. Who maketh thee to differ from
another? Why do you understand the things
that I'm teaching and others don't? Why is that? Why is it I have some understanding
of the gospel and 95% of my family don't? Who maketh thee to differ? I'm going to ask you another
question. Why does God make you to differ? Because He chose you
and His Son by His grace and out of love for you. Jacob have
I loved? Why? I don't know. I don't know. I understand perfectly
why he hated Esau, but I don't understand why he loved Jacob. Because he would. Because he
would. Who maketh thee to differ from
another, and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if
you received it, why do you glory like ye did? I'm a self-made
man, fully on you. You ain't a self-made nothing.
Every person who dwells on the earth shall wander and go after
the beast that carries the whore, whose names are not written in
the book of life from the foundation of the world. God has an elect
people. chosen by his divine purpose,
wisdom, and love. And they are not chosen to chance
or circumstance, but to salvation through sanctification of spirit
and belief of the truth. And therefore, Paul told the
Thessalonians, he sent me with the gospel for you to obtain
the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our election has set us apart
from all for all spiritual blessings which were given us by way of
Christ before the foundation of the world. Do you know in
Revelation 21-27 the same book that he's talking about here
is called the book of the Lamb? This is the Lamb's book of life. This book of life. And he's the surety. of the everlasting
covenant. He's their appointed priest and
their names are written upon his shoulders and over his heart
to bear them up before God. And every man, woman, and child
whose name is written in this book shall be delivered from
the curse and influence of the beast and the horror that sits
upon him. They're going to be delivered.
And when they are, they're all going to know it wasn't me. It was Christ. It was Christ. He said, all that the Father
has given me are going to come to me. They're going to come
to me because they're all going to be taught of God, and they're
all going to be drawn to the Father. And they're all going
to come to me. And when they come to me, I'm
going to give them everlasting life. And I'll never cast them
out, and they'll never perish. I'm going to hold them in my
hand. And my father, they're being held in his hand too, and
he's greater than all. And all the other inhabitants
of the earth shall wander at the beast. They're going to follow
after him into perdition. Verse 9, Revelation 17, 9. And
here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains
on which the woman sitteth. The seven heads of the beast
represent the kingdoms. all of the kingdoms and all of
the empires of the world. Well, why does he use this number
seven? Is he talking about Russia and certain? No. He's using that
number seven because it means completion. And what he's talking
about here is the universal, the universal influence of Satan
over the nations. It's used to describe the universal
acceptance of false religion under the deception of the beast.
And the ten horns of the beast represent the rulers of the world
who each in their own time make war with Christ. How do they
make war? You know, I listen to preachers
today and they're talking about Armageddon and they're talking
about those last days and they're talking about these nations rising
up and having tanks and bombs and they're all going to come
down on America as though America was God's elect. That's not what
he's talking about here at all. He's talking about that spiritual
battle that goes on in this world completely unknown and unseen
by men. The calling out of God's elect.
Paul said our weapons, the weapons of our warfare. What warfare? The calling out of God's elect
out of darkness. The weapons of our warfare are
not carnal. We don't ride in tanks. We don't carry machine guns.
We don't use planes to bomb. But our weapons are mighty through
God to the pulling down of strongholds and refuges and all of this type
of thing. That's the war that goes on. Well, how do the nations war?
How do they war? You want to know how they war?
I'm going to tell you. They invite the Pope. They invite the Pope. And a Baptist president, like
Jimmy Carter, puts his arm around the Pope. And it calls him the
greatest spiritual leader of our day. How did the nations war? They
get on television and they promote the principles of false religion.
They promote free will. Have you ever heard, our country
has one of the worst economic downturns since the Great Depression,
if not worse. Did they talk about God's will
or God's judgment upon this country, bringing this country down? No.
No. No. It's just a freak circumstance,
wasn't it? Huh? You ever heard a president get
up there and talk about God's elect or God's sovereignty? God
sends these storms, plants his footsteps on the sea and rides
upon the storm. You ever hear one talk about
that? And they never will. But they're in perfect union
with the doctrine of religion. That's how they war. These seven kings are figurative
and they speak of the universal influence of Satan even over
the ideals and understanding of the rulers of this world. And then he tells us that five
are fallen, and one is and the other is yet to come. He's telling
us that we're living in the last days. Some of these things are
in the past. Some of them are yet to come. Verse 11. And the beast that
was and is not, even he is the eighth and is of the seven that
goeth into perdition. And the ten horns which thou
sawest are ten kings. which have received no kingdom
as yet, but received power as kings with one hour with the
beast. The most influential people,
presidents and kings and governors and so on, have spent very little
time in religion and even less time in the word of God. They
only spent one hour with the beast. That's a short time, isn't
it? But through their time with the
beast, And though it was short, yet their influence was great
and sufficient to show him favor and to promote his cause. You
know, some of the people who argues the hardest for false
religion are people who've never read their Bible. That's right. They'll argue with you from sunup
to sundown, and they've never read the book. If they read the
book, they might not argue. I go in my life experience all
the way back to the days of Eisenhower, and I've never heard any solid
doctrine quoted or endorsed by any elected official from that
time to this. Never. Have you? That's what
he's telling you. That's what he's telling you. They give all of their strength
to the beast. They got no honor for Christ,
for his gospel, for his word, or for the sovereign God of glory.
And the scripture says that they have one mind. They all just
have one mind. You see, there are just two kinds
of religion, works and grace. That's it. The Antichrist religion
is all works. They're all one mind. They might
vary in church government. They might vary in the mode of
baptism. They might vary on some other
thing. But they all believe the same thing. Works is going to
get you to heaven. They've all got one mind. And
that's the mind of free will works religion. And they all
give their power and strength to the beast. And they make war.