we saw last week the fifth vision
in chapters fifteen and sixteen and in it we saw the end of history
the end of this space-time creation and it culminated in the battle
of Armageddon if you read in judges as we happen to be reading
this morning and you keep reading about this place called Megiddo
and the plains of Jezreel. Well, they're the plains where
Israel, the people, the symbolical people of God, fought crucial
battles with their enemies. And Armageddon is just that.
It's pictured in those Old Testament things. And what is it? It's
false Christendom. Anti-Christendom. having this
final battle with those that Satan and his demonic forces
try to convert to that false religion, which is the nations
that scripture calls Gog and Magog. It may sound kind of medieval
and weird these days, but it's the nations that were never influenced
in any way by the Christian religion. You know, the great swathes of
humanity that have never had any influence of that. And rather
than them converting, they've come together to this battle
of mutual self-destruction. That's the seventh vial poured
out of the wrath of God. And it's the end of history.
But chapter 16 is not the end of the book of Revelation. All
these seven visions are a bit like news reports of the same
scene. Those of you that can remember
the 9th of, it's the 11th of September 2001, 9-11 as it's
called, the day that the planes were flown into the Twin Towers
in New York City and into the Pentagon, the news for the next,
well, it was just solid wasn't it, for the next week, and it
was this reporter giving his account from the time he first
saw it to the current time. And then another reporter would
give his angle on right the way through. When that reporter had
finished, what the next one said didn't follow on, it was the
next reporter's view of it. And if you can imagine that these
seven visions are a bit like that. They're the seven scenes
of God, of this space-time creation, but seen from different perspectives,
all saying the same thing. Basically, all Scripture speaks
of God saving his elect people out of the kingdom of Satan and
the coming of his own glorious kingdom of peace and righteousness. All of the reports of Scripture,
the history of Scripture, all of it. They all report the same
theme, but through differing scenes of history, narrative. They tell the story. The Old
Testament history books tell the story. The Gospels tell the
story. The Acts of the Apostles tell
the story. And then there are other books
that tell the same theme of God saving his elect people through
poetry. the Psalms, through poetry, through
the love books, the Song of Solomon, through the wisdom books, Ecclesiastes,
and then through the medium of prophecy. They tell the same
thing, God saving his elect people out of the kingdom of Satan.
And then in the New Testament, predominantly, they tell the
story through epistles, letters to individual churches of the
day. And so it is with chapter 17. it starts the next vision
that runs through to the end of chapter 19 and it's just showing,
this is another reporter showing his divine view of aspects of
that space-time creation and it coming to an end as God brings
in his kingdom of righteousness and of peace. So I've called
this message The Woman Named Babylon. The woman named Babylon. Look at verses 1 to 6 with me.
There came one of the seven angels, one of the ones that had been
in chapter 16, pouring out the seven vials, the seven last vials
of the wrath of God. One of those seven angels which
had the seven vials came and talked to me and said, come here,
I'll show you the judgment of the great whore that sits on
many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication. and the inhabitants of the earth
have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication." You
see, what we're looking at is an aspect of how we got to this
total destruction that was described in chapter 16, the end of history. Our reporter is one of the seven
angels. that one in verse one, one of
the seven angels with the seven vials, now here's his report
he says I'm going to tell you about the whore the great whore
that sits on many waters whore? what is a whore? we're in polite
society aren't we? we don't talk about such things
do we? I mean this is really this is really kind of this is
the sort of language of gutter fiction isn't it? we don't want
to be talking about this sort of thing, this is the word of
God And he's talking to us. And he's telling us. What's he
talking about? What is a whore? A whore is a
woman who is unfaithful. She's unfaithful. She commits
adultery. She's unfaithful to her husband.
And she sits on many waters, it says in verse 1. What are
these waters? She's buoyed up. She's floating
on, if you like. She's buoyed up by waters. You
don't have to look far. Look at verse 15. He tells us. The angel tells us, the waters
which you saw are the peoples and multitudes and nations and
languages of the earth. These are peoples, the peoples
of the world. And this woman who is unfaithful
is in league with world powers. And she's drunk. She's drunk. When you're drunk, you've lost
rational wisdom. You can't walk straight. You
can't think straight. You can't talk straight. You
can tell. You only have to listen to somebody
who's drunk speaking. They can't speak. That's the
image of it. Loss of rational wisdom. With
a distorted view of things. Things don't look clear. This
is obviously opposed to the holiness of God, and he's deserving of
judgment. I will show you the judgment
of the great whore that sits on many waters. Now, verses 3
and 4. So, he said, I'm going to show
you, so he goes to show him. He carried me away in the spirit
into the wilderness What's this wilderness? We've seen a wilderness
before, but this is a different one. The wilderness that we saw
before was the wilderness of world separation. Separation
from the world into which God puts his church. That's the wilderness
we've seen before, but this isn't that wilderness. This wilderness
is the wilderness of godless sinfulness. You know, the scripture
speaks of being without God and without hope in the world. It's
not the wilderness of the church's separation from the world, it's
that world of sinfulness, of godlessness. When he goes there,
he sees a woman who's sitting on a red beast, a scarlet-coloured
beast that's covered in blasphemous names. Blasphemous names? Names
that decry the honour of God. Names that speak against the
honour of God. And he's got seven heads and
ten horns. We've seen him before, haven't
we? That was the beast coming up out of the sea at the start
of chapter 13. And what did we decide he was
there? It's Antichrist. It wasn't the dragon. The dragon
is Satan, and the beast that came up out of the sea, what
was it? It was that united political world power which is Antichrist,
which is against the things of God, which is Satan's primary
means of his kingdom holding sway, a united world power, and
we'll get to it shortly, but remember back to the Tower of
Babel and Nimrod in chapter 11 of Genesis. This is that beast. He's the beast of Antichrist.
He's supported by the second beast, which is from the earth,
that does all his technological whizzy wonders that everybody
is so googly-eyed about today. They are, aren't they? Everybody's
bewitched by it. Everybody's drawn by it. Everybody must have a slice of
it. It's so appealing. It's so desirous. And this is
Satan's kingdom of Antichrist. That's what this beast is, that
the woman sits upon. So, she's sitting on a beast,
and she's gorgeously clothed. You know, the woman was arrayed
in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and jewels,
expensive adornments. And she's got a golden cup, lovely,
but look what's in it. It's full of abominations and
the filthiness of her fornication. It's vile contents. And the woman's
name? Verse 5. Mystery. Babylon the
Great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.
You know in scripture, The name is more than just a set of letters
and a sound which says who you are. The names that we are called
in this room don't really mean that much, do they? People don't
look and go, oh, there's a Timothy, and that must mean such and such
a thing. They just don't think like that, these days. But in
scripture, the names mean something. The names always have a meaning.
And this name, Mystery, means hidden. This woman's name that
he's looking at. In his vision he's seeing a woman,
gorgeously arrayed. What's her name? Mystery. It's
hidden. It's not clear. It's not obvious.
The name is the character. What's the true character? The
name is the true character in scripture. The name of somebody
is the true character. You know, when God says, you're
no longer going to be called Abram, you're going to be called
Abraham. Why? Because he said, I'm going
to make you a father of many nations. That's why he changed
his name. and Sarai became Sarai, she's going to be the mother
of those many nations. That's why the name means something. It's the character. It has significance. But this woman, although she's
got the appearance of a glamorous woman, she's got the character
of a city that is called Babylon. A city called Babylon. Babylon. Babylon. Now if you were a Jew
reading this, Everything in your education would have told you
what a vile thing Babylon was. It was the place where your people,
your fathers, your ancestors had been exiled to. It was the
kingdom of that brutal empire of the Chaldeans that took all
your people away and ruined your city, and so on and so forth.
It didn't have good connotations. This woman that looks so good
is actually, she's got the name, the character of a city called
Babylon. And she's drunk, verse 6, with
excess of saints' blood. This woman, who looks so gorgeous,
sitting on this beast, who is Antichrist, She's drunk with
saint's blood. And he says, I wondered, look
at the end of verse six. I wondered with great admiration. Now, do you know, our translators
haven't got that quite right. Because when you read that, you
think he's going, wow, look at that. He's not. He's not. It
actually better would be astonishment. It would be shock. It is a woman
who looks like an honourable woman from the outside, but when
he looks and sees her name, she's a whore called Babylon, and he's
shocked. Now, let me give you an illustration,
and please don't anybody quote me out of context. But you imagine
our Queen, right? I mean, by anybody's standards
in this world, the Queen of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth
is a highly gracious lady who has carried off the role of being
the Queen with great dignity and honour down many, many years.
And I think that the vast majority of people treat her with the
greatest of respect. And she's been married to her
husband Philip, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, for now
well over 60 years. And she's coming up for her 90th
birthday. And just imagine that it became
known that in the 1960s she had an adulterous affair with somebody. Now, I don't care what you think
of royalty, I don't care how immune you are to it, if you
heard that, I bet every one of you would, you'd be shocked,
wouldn't you? I think everybody in society would be, that's the
feeling of John. Let me stress again, I'm using
that only for illustration, and perish the thought that our Queen
ever had any sort of a relationship, but do you see the strength of
what I'm trying to get across? He's shocked! It's as if he's
looked at the Queen and found out she's had an adulterous affair.
He's shocked. This woman isn't what she seems.
She looks so gorgeous, but she's a whore called Babylon. She's
drunk with the blood of the saints. This woman He's shocking him. Why is she shocking him? What
in scripture is the woman a symbol of? Have we seen the woman before? Chapter 12. The vision of chapter
12. There was a woman who gave birth
to a child and the dragon tried to devour the child. and tried
to destroy the woman. And the woman had more children.
And God drove the woman into the wilderness where he had a
place for her, where he fed her and kept her for a time, times
and half a day. Who is the woman in scripture?
It's the people of God. The woman is the church. The
woman is God's people. Throughout the Old Testament,
Israel is the bride of God, the wife of God. You read the scriptures,
God, again and again, I'm not going to spend time looking at
references. because you know it's true. The
scriptures again and again talk of national Israel, the symbolical
people of God, as being God's bride, of being his wife, of
being in union with him. The Song of Solomon is a picture
of God and his bride being together. Ephesians chapter 5 in the New
Testament, husbands, love your wives. Wives, be obedient to
your husbands. Love your wives as Christ loved
the church. in all things, and he says, this
is a great mystery, but I'm actually speaking of Christ and the church.
And we get to the end of Revelation, which we haven't got to yet,
and the church, the New Jerusalem, is a bride adorned for her husband,
coming out of heaven. Why is John shocked? Because
he sees a symbol that in Scripture is always the symbol of the true
people of God, and yet she's a whore. and she's called Babylon. Why is what looks like the Church
of God drunk with saints' blood? Why is what looks like the Church
of God drunk with saints' blood? Because her name, her true character,
is Babylon. What's Babylon? Genesis chapter
11. Nimrod. Nimrod? That rebellious
panther, not Mighty Hunter as the text has it, that rebellious
panther, rebellious against the rule of God. Nimrod initiated
the kingdom of Antichrist at Babel. He built Babel. And they
were all of one language. They were all in one worldwide
political union with one language. They built a tower. Whatever
that was, whatever it actually was, it's symbolical, isn't it?
They tried to get to heaven. How did they try to get to heaven?
Without the satisfaction of divine justice. The kingdom of Antichrist
always promises a sort of heaven without the satisfaction of divine
justice. If you look in the bulletin,
I've put three separate articles in, all which talk about the
key points of the true gospel, and one of them is by Spurgeon,
on the satisfaction of justice. But Nimrod's kingdom, which Satan
prompted, obviously, but Nimrod initiated, the kingdom of Antichrist. It's the last time, the only
time, there has been worldwide political unity. They built Babel,
from which Babylon gets its name. You know in chapter 13 we saw
that beast come out of the sea and he had the seven heads and
the ten horns but do you remember one of the heads had a deadly
wound in it? But that deadly wound was healed,
wasn't it? Remember? What was the deadly
wound? The deadly wound was when God confused the languages at
Babel. When God split up the kingdom
of Antichrist, when Satan's attempts to have this worldwide union
of political power, he split it up there. But it was healed,
because it's going to form again. The rise of Babylon is a symbol
of the oppression of God's people. That's what it is, the symbol
of the oppression of God's people, those who are called, who are
chosen, who are faithful. But its fall is repeated in Scripture. You read it in Isaiah 21, verse
9. Babylon is fallen. Remember then, when Isaiah wrote,
it was before they were taken away into captivity in Babylon. And he was speaking prophetically
that Babylon will fall. The literal Babylon will fall.
But of course the literal Babylon was only a picture of the spiritual
Babylon, which is this kingdom of Antichrist. This kingdom of
Antichrist, and we read it, Babylon is fallen. We've read it already
in Revelation 14 verse 8. We read it in Revelation 16 verse
19. The nation fell and great Babylon
came in remembrance to God to give her the cup of the wine
of the fierceness of his wrath. This Babylon, which is Satan's
kingdom of worldwide unified power and Antichrist, is fallen. What looks at first sight like
God's church is in fact a hall named Babylon. We've seen it
before in chapter 11. If you remember chapter 11, at
the start of it John was given a measuring rod with which to
measure the temple, the core of the temple, the true people
of God, those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of
Life, those who, it says, keep the commandments of God. Not
in legal obedience, but by faith. How do we fulfill the law? Romans
3.31. By faith we establish the law. By faith we establish the law.
And they have the faith of Jesus. No, he said, don't measure the
outer court of the temple. Oh, but isn't that part of it?
No, don't measure that. That only looks like the temple. It
isn't the true temple. Only measure the core of it.
Because there's an awful lot that looks like the people of
God that is not the people of God. Oh, what about the city
of Jerusalem? Is that not the city of God? Oh, give it to the
Gentiles. That's what Revelation 11 says.
Remember it. The Gentiles. Jerusalem appears as the city
of God, but that city really is Babylon. It's Sodom and Egypt
in Revelation, isn't it? Where was Jesus crucified? In
Jerusalem, outside the wall of Jerusalem. What does Revelation
say? Sodom and Egypt, where the Lord
Jesus Christ was crucified. That's what he calls it. That
which looks like God's city is actually false. It's the kingdom
of Antichrist. They crucified Christ. They killed
the prophets. We repeatedly read of Israel
seeming to be God's true people. We read the first six chapters
of Judges this morning, just because it came up in our reading.
The first six chapters of Judges, and you will see, Israel was
given a judge who led them in the right way, in the true worship
of God. And then what did they do? That judge died, and Israel
did evil in the sight of the Lord. What did they do? They
went after false gods. They committed spiritual fornication. They committed spiritual whoredom. Being married symbolically to
God, they went and ran off with idols. They went and ran off
with the gods of the nations, the heathen nations round about.
They committed whoredom. That which looked like the true
people of God wasn't. It was a harlot. They played
the harlot. You read the book of the prophet
Hosea, where Hosea, the prophet of God, was told, go and marry
a harlot. Go and find this woman and marry
her, she's a harlot. And all the time he was married
to her, she kept running off with other men, because she was
a harlot. And why did he do that? It was an illustration of what
Israel, the so-called people of God, constantly did, in the
sinfulness of their flesh, running after other gods. You read Ezekiel
16, you'll see the same. I could go on, but we haven't
got time. Spiritual harlotry with idols. Now, there's an awful
lot that you think looks like Christianity. An awful lot. You delve. Sometimes you don't
have to delve far, it's obvious. But you delve. You measure up
those three little pieces I've put in the bulletin this week
against their statements of faith if they haven't. More importantly,
what do they preach from their pulpits? And you'll see. It's
harlotry. It's spiritual fornication. How
do we recognize, this is my next point, recognizing the woman
named Babylon? The woman is the church as she
appears on the earth. It's Christendom. Yeah? There's
loads calls itself Christianity, isn't there, in this world? There's
loads. You look at the news, the BBC's religious correspondent
takes everything that calls itself Christian to be truly Christian. And they're all wanting to be
friends with one another and produce one great big united
thing. It's all the same as this idea
of Antichrist. producing this single, earthly,
unified system. This is what they're all after
doing. Whether it be Roman Catholic, or Anglican, or the majority
of Presbyterianism, or Eastern Orthodoxy, Christendom, right? Christendom. This is the church
as she appears on earth to the people of the earth. You ask
your neighbors, what's the church? Oh, they'll go, oh, it's that
one down the road there, it's Trinity and it's Christ Church
and it's this one, oh, it's that little one on the corner over
there, and oh, down, if we go down that road there, there's
Christ Church there, and there's all sorts, they're all, they're
all, they're all. As far as the world is concerned,
that's Christianity. They've got all the outward signs,
haven't they? All the outward signs that people expect. You
know, they talk about, that's a proper church. What do you
expect to see, to see a proper church? Oh, well, you want to
see a building. And it's got to be a special type of building.
You know, you can't have a proper church if it doesn't have a special
type of building. And it's got to have ministers
that dress up like ministers. You can't go and get buried or
get your kids christened or get married by somebody that isn't
dressed up in gorgeous robes, for some reason. It's got to
have its office bearers, and its organisation. Oh, and it
has its Bibles! You even go on Desert Island
Discs, I know I keep saying it, but they always give... It just
bemuses me as to how many of the guests on Desert Island Discs
would actually think, if they were being honest, they'd say,
well you can keep that book, I don't want that, but they all get the
Bible. They all get the Bible to take with them. They don't
really want it though, nobody wants it, but these churches
have all got their Bibles, it's just they never look at them.
They've got their sacraments, haven't they? They've got their
sacraments. Roman Catholicism's got no end of them. Marriage
is a sacrament. They're all things which bestow
spiritual good. They've got their good works.
Oh, do you know they do such good works that they all or deny
effectual salvation. They may even use the words,
but they deny effectual salvation. They deny Christ. When you look
at 1 John chapter 4 and verse 1, try the spirits whether they
be of God. Whoever confesses that Jesus
Christ has come in the flesh is of God. Oh, well, don't they
all confess that? No, they don't. They don't confess
that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah of the Old Testament
in every respect of his particularly redeeming coming into this earth
to save his people from their sins. They don't believe that.
They don't believe, they deny that. They flatly deny it. Therefore,
they're not of God. They're not of God. They despise
his grace. They hate particular redemption. What's particular redemption?
The Lord Jesus Christ died for the people the Father gave to
him before the beginning of time. He died for his elect. That's
who he died for. When he said, it is finished,
he didn't say, I have died for the sins of the whole world.
And so they sing their songs, don't they? I remember we used
to sing it, lovely tunes, in Christ alone my hope is found. And every sin on him was laid.
Do you remember I used to change that before I decided no we're
not singing that anymore. Because every sin wasn't on him
laid. It wasn't the sins of his people
were laid on him. Particular redemption. But this
woman that looks like the church, but is actually a whore named
Babylon, hates that. Hates the doctrine of particular
redemption. They don't need blood. They don't
want to talk about the blood because they don't need blood
to be right with God. Because the kingdom of Antichrist is
an aspiration of attainment of heaven without that. Without
it. They've invented an unbiblical
religion. I'm not telling you to go to
their services, but if you did, you would see what an absolute
outrage the majority of them are. They're nothing other than
a circus of worldly entertainment. And what pathetic entertainment
it is, too. They want to be called the Bride
of Christ, but they commit spiritual fornication with the Kingdom
of Antichrist. I'm not just talking about Catholicism,
Anglicanism, Orthodox, but so-called evangelical too. The latter talk
of redeeming blood, but it's universal redeeming blood. Remember
last week's message, it is finished, it is done. Remember that. It's
either one or the other, it's not both. It is either finished
at the cross of Calvary where it was finished for the sins
of his people, And all the rest, it is done in the final day of
judgement. It is done. The wrath of God
is finally poured out on all of sin. It's not an offer. They offer a gospel to free will. If you're making an offer, you
must be offering it on the grounds that you think the people have
got the free will to accept the offer. But what is the gospel?
Does it anywhere in the scriptures say that the gospel is an offer?
Do you know there are people up the road who fall out with
us because we don't agree that the gospel is an offer? It isn't
an offer. What is the gospel? It is not an offer. The gospel,
Romans 1.16 will tell you, the gospel is the power of God unto
salvation. If somebody comes trying to tell
you something, offering you something, You've got the power to say no,
haven't you? If somebody comes with the power to make you accept
it, that's the power of God unto salvation. That's the true gospel. They mix law and grace. They
deny what Galatians says, and again and again. They flirt with
the music of heresy. They do what they do because
they fear isolation. and so they espouse all sorts
of ecumenical associations, and they call it fellowship. Christ
is not the centre of their creed, not the centre of their preaching,
not the centre of their message, not the centre of their devotions.
They do not worship God in the spirit, they do not rejoice in
Christ Jesus, and they have no end of confidence in the flesh.
Internet listener. I know there's you here, but
there's others that will listen later. and I know you attend
here, but I'm talking to people who will listen to this separately
from us here. Do you attend a church? That
may be fine, but does it look like a true church? The woman
looked like the woman. The woman who is the whore looked
like a real woman, but she turned out to be one whose name was
Babylon, a whore named Babylon. Is the church you attend really
Babylon? Does it, sincerely, does it keep the commandments
of God and the faith of Jesus? Is it flirting with idols? You
know, there's a lot of this stuff, do you know, you know, the marriage bond is
such a picture of this union between God and his people. And
do you know something people say, oh, do you know, you'll
hear the world speaking about how it's nice to have a bit of
flirting, it doesn't hurt. Oh, I tell you it does. I tell
you it does. You know, if any of you watch
the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing show, and there's always rumours
about how the dancing teacher and the celebrity dancing partner,
you know, there's flirting going on! Flirting going on in that
situation. Well, religiously, these places,
they flirt with the idols of false religion. They compromised
with Balaam's doctrine. Read the letters in chapters
2 and 3 of Revelation. Read the things that our Lord
Jesus Christ said to the churches about allowing the false doctrine
of Balaam. He said, I've got this against
you, you've got to be strictly against it. That woman Jezebel,
that false prophet Jezebel, who's teaching the people to commit
false, she's talking about spiritual adultery. If yes, take he, because
what is the message of scripture? Look at verse 4 of chapter 18.
I heard another voice from heaven saying, he's talking about the
downfall of Babylon, come out of her my people and be ye not
partakers of her sins that you receive not her plagues. Now
in the few minutes that I've got left, I'm going to try and
explain to you those complicated words in verses 7 to 13. Because
the angel says to him, in verse 7, he says, why are you shocked? Why are you staggered, John?
I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that
carries her, which has seven heads and ten horns. Do you find
it shocking? Do you find it shocking? Are
you expecting? I mean, lots of people have taught
us that before the end comes, there's going to be this massive
great big revival, worldwide revival. I personally don't think
that the scripture tells us that at all. I really don't. I really
don't. The witnesses, when they revive,
they go straight to heaven. They're taken straight up to
heaven. Maybe we thought it was the church, but we find it is
Antichrist. The angel tells us the mystery. And in so doing, the history,
the development, and the future of the woman and the beast. Verse
8, the beast, the beast. It was, it says, the beast that
you saw was and is not. It was, it was a reality. The
beast that you saw with the seven heads and the ten, it was a reality.
When? At Babel. Genesis 11, Nimrod. But it was a reality. It was,
but it isn't now. When John was writing, there
isn't a unified worldwide power. No, not at that time, there isn't
now, is there? There's no unified worldwide
power now. Is not, And not now, as it was. He comes up out of
the bottomless pit. It's Antichrist, it's Antichrist.
It's the same one that comes up out of the sea, chapter 13,
verse 1. It's the unified political power
of the world that is the basis of the kingdom of Antichrist.
This is what Satan wants to achieve. Supported by the second beast,
with his technical signs and wonders. Universally worshipped,
you have to admit that. The only ones that don't worship
him? Those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. This
is the dragon's kingdom. This is Satan's kingdom of Antichrist. In verse 9, the seven heads are
seven mountains on which the woman sits. In scripture, again,
I'm not going to take the time to show you the references, but
there are several. In scriptures, again and again,
kingdoms. World political powers are described
as mountains. Mountains. The kingdoms, the
earthly powers. Verse 10. There are seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and
the other has not yet come. Well, if we take that when John
says, one is, that's at the time that John was writing, that he
was given this vision. What was the world power when
John was writing? It was the Roman Empire. The
Roman Empire fell in 472 AD, something like that, when it
was finally overrun. But at this time it was at the
height of its power and its worldwide influence and its decadence.
That's the one that is. These seven mountains, these
are seven kings. Five have already gone, they're
fallen. Who could they be? Well if you look at world history
there are only five credible contenders. The kingdom of Egypt,
the kingdom of Assyria, the kingdom of Babylonia, Nebuchadnezzar's
kingdom, the kingdom of Persia, Darius, that came and took over
from him. Do you remember the statue of Nebuchadnezzar's dream,
which was from him the head of gold onwards? From Persia, Greece,
The Grecian Empire? Who was the head of that? Alexander
the Great? No, this isn't fiction, this
isn't fairy stories, this is true. There are five. Egypt,
Assyria, Babylonia, Persia and Greece. Five are fallen. Rome? One is. And another is yet to
come. And they're all attempting, all
of those empires were attempting to be world unifying kingdoms
like Nimrod's Babel, but they fail, because they don't quite
do it. Alexander the Great went a long way, impressively, but
he didn't conquer the world. None of them conquered the world.
Even the Roman Empire, you know? Any of our Scottish brethren
listening will be proud of this. Hadrian only got as far as Hadrian's
Wall, Carlisle to Newcastle, and couldn't go any further.
You see? He tried to be a worldwide power, but he couldn't cope with
the Scots. Defeated the soft English, but he couldn't cope
with the Scots. He had to put a wall up to keep the Scots out.
And Eflin, who is hailing from Scotland, is smiling at that.
But you see, it tried to be a world power, but it failed. They all
failed. But there's one still to come.
There's one still to come. Verse 11. And the beast that
was, and is not, you have to admit that this is hard to get
your head around. Even he is the eighth, and is
of the seven, and goeth into perdition. The old kingdom of
Nimrod is going to form again. It's trying to form again now,
as an eighth world empire. But actually, it's one of the
seven, in that it's really the beast. It's really the beast. So it's not a worldly authority.
The beast really is it, as an eighth kingdom. But he's one
of the seven, actually. How he manifests himself is this final... What will it be? The United Nations? I don't know. I've no idea. A
guy that I was reading in the last century, who wrote in the
1960s, he said that in his younger days, between the First and the
Second World War, and don't take any offense at this Marguerite,
but he'd been convinced that it was the German Empire that
was going to be that world empire. And when you think of what Hitler's
aspirations were, he talked about ruling for a thousand years over
a unified world. Didn't he? That's what Hitler
talked about. But clearly it wasn't. It wasn't
the German Empire. It's still to come. It is yet
to come. But, look at it, the ten horns,
verse 12, which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received
no kingdom as yet. They're the kingdoms of this
world that we're living in now and have been for the last several
hundred years. The kingdoms that have warred
with one another, on and off, down the history of Europe and
further afield. They receive power as kings one
hour with the beast. They come to fruition. And ten,
literally ten, I don't think so, ten is the number of worldly
completeness. It's all of them. He's talking
about all the worldly kingdoms. But look, verse 13, these have
one mind. How do they come together? They
don't come together by military might. It's not by conquest,
but by confederacy. They come together. They constitute
the Seventh World Empire. It's trying to form as we speak,
all the time, but it's not yet come to full fruition. They all
support the Beast, the Kingdom of Antichrist, the Kingdom of
Unified World Political Power, And Satan's intention is for
the woman, which is adulterous religion, to seduce these world
powers so that there'd be one final kingdom of Antichrist,
promising eternity without satisfaction of divine justice, without any
need for the blood of Christ. Is that not what we see? Is that
not the philosophy of this world? You know, Terry Wogan died last
week. The announcement came on Sunday.
you know I think most of us have got fond memories he was such
an affable likeable character and most of us have got very
nice memories of listening to him sort of brightening our mornings
with witty banter and all that sort of thing but do you know
something he didn't have any true faith he had a friend who
was a catholic priest who he said please pray for me the philosophy
of the world is this if anyone is in heaven now Terry Wogan
is in heaven now. But do you know something? Was
there ever mention of the blood of Christ cleansing from sin? I never heard a word of it, did
you? When people who go to heaven truly die, the basis of their
hope is nothing other My hope is built on nothing less than
Jesus' blood and righteousness. I will not trust the sweetest
frame. Oh, he did wonderful charity work. Oh, the millions he raised
for charity. I will not trust the sweetest
frame, but only lean on Jesus' name. Let me wrap this up. Verse
14. This kingdom of Antichrist makes
war with the Lamb, but look how quickly The end is pronounced. The Lamb shall overcome them.
They're not going to win. And who's with the Lamb? Who's
with the Lamb? He is Lord of Lords and King
of Kings. So they're not going to win.
And they that are with him are called. Whom he foreknew, these
he also predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son. And
whom he predestinated, these he also called. I believe that
means united in marital union. gave the name of his son married
them to his son, betrothed them to his son they're called and
they're chosen and they're faithful, why? because the true saints
of God persevere, why? because none can pluck them out
of my father's hand because my father is greater than all and
look what he does verses fifteen to seventeen you'll just have
to remember it, but basically God puts it in the hearts of
these kings to hate the woman. Don't you see signs of that?
Don't you see world powers? The world around us, especially
in this country, absolutely hates organised religion, doesn't it?
Wants nothing to do with it. Has no time for it. This is how
it's going to be brought down. The victory is for Christ, and
he's called, and he's chosen, and he's faithful people. The
destruction of the whore is happening, and is going to happen. Recognize
her, come out of her, and stay separate from her, my people.
Next time, we'll see much more detail about how the actual fall
of Babylon is brought about in chapter 18. Amen.