The Wandering Shepherd

I remember back in 1990, when Ken Davis put out his best selling book, stealing the title from a Sam Cook song: “Don’t know much about history!” Some of you can probably hum James Taylor’s version of the song in your head. As a student of history, I have always found it fascinating when an author delves into select events of the past and draws out great reflective lessons from the journey.

When I was still in high school, author Will Durant received his Presidential Medal of Freedom. For those who don’t like to read history, you may be unfamiliar with this incredible man and his work. William James Durant lived nearly a century (1885 –1981) and was a prolific American writer, historian, and philosopher. He and his wife Ariel, were best known for their 11 volume set called The Story of Civilization, published over forty years between 1935 and 1975. The couple was awarded both the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1968 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977. One of their most insightful works, in my opinion, is the little volume entitled simply Lessons from History. This work was nothing less than brilliant for this author’s time. Durant was gifted at pulling together massive amounts of detail of the past, and pulling the salient selection into thoughtful lessons. He was the kind of writer that fired the imagination of students of history the world over. The tough part of such a work is to take the vast material and reduce it to something that impacts us practically.

I mention such works today, because in a way the Apostle John offered the same quality to readers – but of prophecy – not of history! John opened the door to seven simple lessons of a period that has not yet come to be – the Millennium. The Bible was not silent on this time period before Revelation, and in point of fact, Revelation has very little compared to other parts of the Bible concerning this period. There is enough in the Word on the Millennium for any Pastor to teach an entire course on the period – but we simply cannot do it in this one lesson.

J. Dwight Pentecost, in His large work called Things to Come (p. 476) said this: “A larger body of prophetic Scripture is devoted to the subject of the Millennium, developing its character and conditions, than any other one subject. This millennial age, in which the purposes of God are fully realized on earth, demands considerable attention.”

Our study isn’t about the topic of prophecy – rather, it is the study of this one cyclical letter calle the Book of the Revelation. Because of that, I want to point to the Biblical backdrop only briefly, and set the stage for seven important lessons. Without the backdrop, I am not sure we would get as much meat from this text, but with a proper setting, we should understand John’s point in this book. It is incredibly important to understand that all of the lessons sit on one single premise, the key principle of this lesson.

Key Principle: God’s promises are clear and His fulfillment is certain. He is the God of literal clarity, not allegorical hocus-pocus. His Word offers us deep assurance and precise promise.

God has always been in the communication and relationship business. He WANTS us to know Him. The sheer size and detail of the Bible speak volumes on that point (pun intended). Don’t forget that when people start weaving incredible details from prophetic passages and making things bend to fit the modern newspaper. God wanted us to know Jesus through this book, and to have some basic primer on things that would come to pass. To offer it in such allegorical and cryptic language that none of the details keep any significance goes against the nature of a clear and relational God. He isn’t playing games with our lives or our destiny as a race. He speaks straight to the point.

Before we ever look at the details of the Millennium, we need to establish that the Bible offers a specific reason why this 1000 year Kingdom comes to the world. After all, why not just get it over with – boot Satan into the abyss and be done with it. Well, that is a good question. From the standpoint of the Church Age, that would be fine – but God is also working with Israel in a specific way.

Don’t forget, God made specific promises to the people of Israel in the form of COVENANTS:

He made the Abrahamic Covenant: That God would title a specific piece of land for Abraham and his sons, and that they would always own it – but only get to have domicile in it if they obeyed Him. The size and shape of that land was revealed at larger borders than Israel has ever to this day occupied, and lest we wander, the promise was given to “sons of your loins” and reaffirmed to Isaac and Jacob later in Genesis. God hasn’t yet given them all the land promised them – and the Millennium will check that off of God’s list.

He made the Davidic Covenant: That God would put on the throne of Judah one from the line of David that would judge righteously before the whole world – but the world would still harbor rebellion. Though Jesus spiritually reigns in the hearts of men, the rule over Israel has still not come, and the nations cannot truly see Him as Righteous Judge and Ruler. The Millennium begins with the Savior of Israel coming in the clouds, as we saw at the end of Revelation 19.

He made the New Covenant: Despite the many churches that treat that covenant as completely about the church age, any clear reading of Isaiah 59 and Jeremiah 31, where the term NEW COVENANT comes from in the Bible shows the point of it is about Israel’s final redemption:

Jeremiah 31:31 says it ever so clearly: “Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. 33 “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”

Paul later shared with the Corinthians that believers in the Church Age have a foretaste of the New Covenant, because we have the indwelling of God’s Spirit – but that doesn’t mean the terms of God’s New Covenant are complete in the church. In fact, when Jesus said in the Upper Room: “This cup is the New Covenant in my blood.” He was elegantly describing the only means possible to get the Spirit of God’s indwelling power – the taking inside of one’s self the Savior. The New Covenant then is fulfilled in the Millennium, after all “Israel is saved” as Paul said in Romans 11:26 because they “looked on Him they had pierced” (Zechariah 12:10) and they repented of their sin. We saw that in our last lesson. Israel will one day see Messiah and accept His salvation – and the Millennium will follow that time.

The Millennium isn’t essential for the believers of the Church Age, accept for the fact that God keeps His Word literally – just as He did when Messiah came the first time in Bethlehem of Judah, to a young woman that did not know a man. The Millennium is essential for God to wrap up the literal promises with Israel, made in eternal covenants that God said He would NEVER BREAK as long as the sun, moon and stars were in the heavens (see the end of Jeremiah 31).

The biggest problem with understanding the Kingdom of the Millennium as a literal and earthly kingdom, as it clearly appears to be in Revelation 20, is that the Bible uses the word KINGDOM in many different ways.

While it is true that God is not trying to make it overly complicated, it is also true that there are differing dimensions to the way some terms are used. Sometimes the Kingdom of God is used to denote God’s work in people. Sometimes it is His providential work in nature and the world. You see this often:

• Psalm 10:16 “The Lord is King forever and ever.”
• Jeremiah 10:10 “But the LORD is the true God; He is the living God and the everlasting King. At His wrath the earth quakes, and the nations cannot endure His indignation.”
• Prov. 21:1 “The King’s heart is in the hand of the Lord.”

Other times KINGDOM refers to His work in Heaven, among the angels. Sometimes Jesus used it to describe His saving work in the lives of lost people. And yet, sometimes, like here in Revelation, it sounds very physical a literal throne of a real King in Jerusalem during a specific period of time in the future.

If God is trying to be clear, why is the term complicated? Because God’s Kingdom is ALL of those things we have described – and more.

When it is used “spiritually” the term KINGDOM is used in a specific context of the ongoing spiritual battle between God and His Adversary that ends in a physical battle – as it is used here in Revelation. In this sense, the word KINGDOM is used to describe the REALM of God. This is what Satan objected to in the beginning, before the earth was formed as the great illustration of Who God is.

Take a minute and go back to that ancient scene, recorded in the poetry of two Hebrew prophets: Ezekiel 28:11-19 and Isaiah 14:12-17. A closer look at the Isaiah 14 account offers insight to the original objection to God’s rule:

Isaiah 14:12 “How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, You who have weakened the nations! 13 “But you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, And I will sit on the mount of assembly In the recesses of the north. 14 ‘I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ 15 “Nevertheless you will be thrust down to Sheol, To the recesses of the pit. 16 “Those who see you will gaze at you, They will ponder over you, saying, ‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble, Who shook kingdoms, 17 Who made the world like a wilderness And overthrew its cities, Who did not allow his prisoners to go home?’

Look at Satan’s challenge to God’s right as King! He made five statements:

• I will ascend to Heaven. Satan wanted God’s third Heaven, where God and the redeemed are to live (2 Cor. 12). Characteristically, Satan DOES live in that place for now, until Michael is given permission in the middle of the Tribulation to throw him out (Revelation 12:7ff).
• I will raise my throne above the stars of God. Satan wanted to rule over the angelic beings of God’s first kingdom – sometimes referred to in Scripture as stars. One third of the angelic world apparently rebelled in the initial fight, and God’s Word appears to teach that angels are still susceptible to rebellion. Paul cautioned believers to watch their behavior because angels were watching.
• I will sit on the mount of the assembly in the recesses of the north. Ancient Jerusalem’s Temple sat on the heights of the Ophel Ridge to the north of the city. Satan wanted the mountain of God’s temple – and during the “times of the Gentiles” God has let him have it – for a time.
• I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. This one can be tough to pick out without help. Of the more than 150 references to clouds in the Bible, two thirds of them, more than 100, refer to God’s glory and manifest presence. It looks like this was a poetic way of saying, “I want to steal some of God’s glory!”
• I will be like the Most High. This isn’t a statement that Satan desired to be LIKE GOD – for his character couldn’t be more opposite if that were his goal. Here he used a specific title of God – THE MOST HIGH (Elyon). This is a Biblical title for God as “possessor of Heaven and Earth” and “ruler of armies” in the Bible, taken originally from Genesis 14:18 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; now he was a priest of God Most High. 19 He blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram of God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; 20 And blessed be God Most High, Who has delivered your enemies into your hand.” He gave him a tenth of all.”

We need to grasp what God’s word teaches us about the Kingdom of God. We serve a Sovereign King. We are not His equal, and though He extends His powerful kingly grasp to pull us to Himself, we are not His peers. He is the High King of Heaven. The angels march in vast array at His call. The stars hear His voice and turn on their axes. The clouds above us move at His design. The birds follow His thoughts. The earth groans before Him awaiting His redemption – in a language He alone can fully grasp. Before anything was – He is eternal, the God Creator, the King Supreme. His immortal span and His immeasurable power stun all those who see Him in His holy abode. He is the King, not the servant—and His people must learn to think of Him as such. Failure to do so has already led the angelic rebels to the edge of the pit of the abyss.

In Revelation 19and 20, the battle between God and the Adversary that was for generations (as in our day) largely a masked spiritual fight, becomes a physical reality. You cannot get more physical than the terminology of Revelation 20:1-2:

20:1 Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. 2 And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; 3and he threw him into the abyss, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time.

Revelation 20:1-10 offers two important pictures sketched out in words. The first is at the beginning and end of these verses, where we can clearly observe a frame around the Millennium – describing Satan as bound and a temporary rest for the earth. The second picture, tucked into a few verses in the center, offer a snapshot of life in the Millennial Kingdom. We have but moments together, but look at the important lessons of this Kingdom from John’s record:

Lesson One: All of history is controlled from Heaven.

Revelation 20:1 Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. 2 And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; 3 and he threw him into the abyss, and shut it and sealed it over him…

What a great comfort that God is able to lift His hand to command the enemy in His time. The enemy has such power and commanding influence over our world right now, it is hard to imagine Isaiah 14:16-17, when the nations will see Satan stripped of his deceptive princely garb and marvel that they sacrificed to him and followed his commands. They will ask, “Is this the one who made us all tremble? Is this the one who shook Kingdoms of the earth? Is this the one who destroyed our planet and made it uninhabitable? Is this the one who took prisoners forever – never to release them?

1 Peter warned the believers of the first century about the trickery and fierceness of the enemy in our day: 1 Peter 5:6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, 7 casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. 8 Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. 10 After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you. 11 To Him be dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Do you see it? Peter said God works in those who are humbled before Him – recognizing His greatness and Sovereign right to rule over them. He is big enough to take on His shoulders all their cares. At the same time, they are not to be lax or lazy – but watchful. The enemy is on the prowl. He doesn’t want to harm you – he wants to destroy you. He wants to devour every good thing you have. What must be done? Resistance. Suffering sometimes. But the day will come, when the key will be brought down and the door will be slammed shut. The enemy is on a short leash – even if he seems so powerful and supreme today.

• He may control our schools – but one day truth will silence his lies.
• He may control our courts – but one day judgment will be meted out against him.
• He may control our brothels, our porn industry, and even our religious world – but one day his relationship with men will be snatched from his hands – and they will be amazed they let him lead at all.

Lesson Two: Nations are coaxed into deceit by the Enemy.

Revelation 20:3b…so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time….

If there is anything about the allegorical position of John Calvin and Martin Luther that makes me crazy it is this: When men like these who did not believe in an actual Millennium were asked about the binding of Satan, they replied that Satan “cannot hinder the Gospel as it goes forward, and in that way he is BOUND spiritually right now.” Harold Camping of Family Radio held that view. Many others do today. Here is my problem… If Satan is bound now – are you telling me that he isn’t seeking to devour believers? If he is limited by the power of the Gospel, can someone please tell me why Paul thought otherwise? Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

The bottom line is this: Don’t be surprised when all things related to God and His Word are violently swept aside in our culture. Don’t look for LOGIC in the way people are making decisions. Satan blinds men. He deceives them into ruining themselves and the world around them. Anyone who has been tempted and succumbed knows that is the truth. He whisper: “No one will know!” Immediately after you sin his voice changes: “Everyone will find out!” Liars lie – news at eleven.

Now here is the good news… His days of coaxing the nations will be cut short, and someday men who have proudly followed him will be ashamed of what he is, and what they did.

Lesson Three: God has a plan for us that is thrilling.

Revelation 20:4 Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them.

One of the neat aspects of God’s future plan for believers is that we will be given opportunity to use God’s righteous principles from His Word and judge many who are brought before us. Much about this judgment is not fully disclosed in Scripture, but there are a few details:

Paul told the Corinthian church not to take brothers to court in the world system, because of the high position of believers in the time to come in judgment: 1 Cor. 6:1 Does any one of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints? 2 Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? If the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts? 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life? 4 So if you have law courts dealing with matters of this life, do you appoint them as judges who are of no account in the church? 5 I say this to your shame. Is it so, that there is not among you one wise man who will be able to decide between his brethren, 6but brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers?

Someday, we will use the learning of God’s Word, and the careful study of God’s character, to act on God’s behalf and serve as judges. What an esteemed position for any of us who know ourselves so well – that God would entrust any mission to a sinner such as I is beyond comprehension. It is both humbling and exciting!

Lesson Four: God remembers those who paid for truth.

Revelation 20:4b …And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. 5 The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection. 6 Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years.

God is the Ever in the Present One… the “Ancient of Days”. All the pain of the sins committed against you were not forgotten or washed away by time. God remembers like you were just hurt today. God brings to the judgment all of the weight of the sin, losing nothing in the patience of time passages. Time doesn’t heal all wounds – God does. His memory is perfect and no abused person will walk the streets of gold complaining that God forgot to make right things that happened to them. He hurts when you hurt, but He remembers even more than we do.

Look at what God gives to those who gave their lives for Him – they become priests and princes. God doesn’t forget those who put their life on the line for the truth. He doesn’t pencil in a “Memorial Day” – it is always on His mind.

Lesson Five: The nations don’t need Satan to raise a huge number of rebellious children.

Revelation 20:7 When the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison, 8 and will come out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together for the war; the number of them is like the sand of the seashore.

When I was a kid, the comedian Flip Wilson used to say: “The devil made me do it!” Lots of people believe that every evil thing that happens to them is the enemy’s fault. The millennium will clearly show one important fact: what is broke is inside the heart of men. The devil need not be involved to raise a rebellion – because we are, deep within, rebellious. Our children don’t have to have direct contact with Satan to become hellions. The poison in the blood of fallen mankind is enough to kill truth within them. Even after a thousand years of a Righteous King modeling truth, after one thousand years of Satan’s deceptions being a mere memory, even after men are convinced that Satan was never worth following – the sick and rebellious heart of man will rise in rebellion once more. Children of the Millennium will turn back to war.

Lesson Six: The world system abhors God and His people.

Revelation 20:9 And they came up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from heaven and devoured them.

Over and over again, the answer of the world is the same. Kill the followers of God. Run them off. Silence them. Call them bigots when they won’t let us kill our inconvenient children or sell moral sewage as education. Call them ignorant when they won’t believe we are all nothing more than chance made evolving viruses. Call them intolerant when they won’t embrace any lie we feed them. Here is the truth – the world thinks those who follow God are the problem because they won’t be bought with trinkets of this world, and they won’t be taught by those who don’t know Who made them or why they are here.

Lesson Seven : Hell is real, eternal and terrible.

Revelation 20:10 And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

If you have followed this whole lesson, and you have never committed your life to Jesus Christ – don’t miss this last point. Anyone who tells you the Bible is not crystal clear on the issue of eternal punishment in hell hasn’t taken seriously Revelation 20:10. I cannot read it without shuddering. The devil will be tormented forever. The beast will be endless tortured. The false prophet will beg and find no mercy – forever. Why is that important? Because by the end of the passage – the lake of fire will get more occupants:

20:15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

If there was ever a book you wanted your name in – it is the one God will read on that day. The book is not inscribed with the names of good people. It is inscribed with the names of surrendered people – those who know they cannot earn Heaven, but God gave it as a free gift.

In the end, the story is this: God Keeps His Word – just as it was delivered. God’s promises are clear and His fulfillment is certain. He is the God of literal clarity, not allegorical hocus-pocus. His Word offers us deep assurance and precise promise.

Every Christmas, I have to watch one of the many versions of “A Christmas Carol” at least one time – or it doesn’t feel like Christmas to me. For the unenlightened, the made for TV movies all follow, more or less, the story line of Charles Dickens classic novella. The story was first published by Chapman & Hall in 1843, when early Victorian era Brits were experiencing a nostalgic interest in its forgotten Christmas traditions. This was the time when Christmas trees and greeting cards were just being introduced into the home experience to recall the birth of Christ in Bethlehem. The greed of some amid the rising industrial revolution was the backdrop for the visit of three ghosts – the ghost of Christmas past, the ghost of Christmas present, and the ghost of Christmas future. In the novella, each of these ghosts helped Ebenezer Scrooge find his kinder and gentler self from the calloused old miser he had become. It was a tale of redemption.

What does that have to do with Revelation 19? Good question! If Jesus’ coming as a servant and a sacrifice to Bethlehem long ago was “Christmas past” – His coming as the Victorious Prince and Mighty Ruler is “Christmas future”! He is, however, no ghost – if that word implies a spirit with no corporeal elements – He is very much a real and discernible body. He is the Risen Christ.

Key Principle: Jesus will come again. He will be real, visible, powerful and princely. He will establish a reign on the earth to fulfill all that God promised to Abraham and his descendants long ago. He is the “omega” of God’s promises to His ancient people. It is central to the message of Christianity.

Before you think to yourself, well duh! Of course His coming is a central part of our message, you should know that this is no longer a self evident statement – even among Christian groups. Many today have been drawn into one of the modern cultural statements of Christianity. They see Christ as a symbolic liberator – as in Liberation theology preached in many parts of Christendom. Still others, in an adaptation to our modern tolerance based culture, see the teaching concerning Jesus as an aside to the real purpose of Christianity, which is to lead people to peace, prosperity and human unity. For them, the Christian message is not so much about Christ, as it is about US – our needs, our desires, our fulfillment.

I want deliberately to challenge any view of Christianity that is not chiefly about the exaltation of Christ. If our message is not that we exist to bring our Maker honor and glory by submission to Him and praise for Him – it is NOT Biblical Christianity. If our message is NOT that we exist to glorify Him and place every other desire behind that – it is NOT the historic faith that the Apostles delivered. So we come today with the message that Christianity savors the glory and exaltation of Jesus Christ – the Son of the Living God. We are in good company today, for the angels of Heaven have long rejoiced over Him.

In our study together, the Tribulation was completed, and marked the end of the punishing time of the ages of humanity with the coming of the Great Prince. Even the names of the period of judgment bear the weight of that time. its descriptions in the Word are hard for those who have lived under such a period of grace such as ours:

1. It is called “tribulation”  by Jesus, who said there “has never been a time like this one!” (Matthew 24:21).
2. It was frequently called out in the Hebrew Scriptures by such references as “the day of vengeance of our God” (Isa. 61:2).
3. It was cited as a time focused on Israel and called “the time of Jacob’s trouble” in Jeremiah 30:7 – specifically in reference to its Divine purpose to bring Israel to her knees of worship.
4. It was considered God’s “strange work” in Isaiah 28:21, and a “time of trouble” in Daniel 12:1.
5. Writers of the Christian Scriptures used terminology like “day of wrath” in Romans 2:5 and Colossians 3:6, 1 Thessalonians 1:10.

It is next to impossible to mistake the nature of the period – it is one that is not like our day. We seek God after a lifetime of sinful behavior, and God pulls us from darkness into light. We cry out, and God hears us. The time of the Tribulation will be a time when God holds back His merciful hand until the threshing of the harvest is complete. From the standpoint of the grapes, the making of wine is a crushing and painful process – but that is the language God uses in His Word of the Tribulation Period.

In Revelation 19, the transition from that time is made complete with the Entry of the Victorious Prince. God is always gracious, and will not trouble earth forever. In fact, lest we fail to make the connection, much of God’s mercy was seen even in that terrible period. How?

1. God sent His Holy Spirit in profound ways during the last days to move men and women toward Him (Joel 2:28-32 Acts 2:41).
2. God commission two special and powerful sign bearing witnesses to point to His power and draw men to God (Revelation 11:3).
3. God will release 144,000 bond servant evangelists to spread the message of God’s redemption (Revelation 7 and 14) with all Heaven cheering them on! (Revelation 7:9).
4. God will put His hand over Israel to protect her in spite of every sign that she is about to be annihilated (Revelation 12:6ff).
5. God will make sure that Heaven is marshaled to make the Gospel clear (Revelation 14:6).

The Victorious Prince returns to earth with His Bride in tow. He comes to rescue the woman that bore Him. It is the climax of the book, and the climax of the fallen world.

Before marching to the Revelation narrative, we should set it in the Biblical context. Lest anyone think the New Testament or the Book of Revelation is presenting something God had not long before revealed in His Word, we should pause to recall the visions of Zechariah, son of Iddo, that told the same story long before. The exaltation of the Prince that followed the Great Tribulation was not a NEW THEME – but one that God revealed five hundred years before John was ever born.

Zechariah said it all before!

The Prophecies of Zechariah are found in an ancient Hebrew book that can be easily divided into two parts. Chapters 1-8 were visions and messages contemporary to Zechariah’s present situation in the sixth century BCE. Chapters 9-14 contain prophecies of a time after Zechariah. In that second half, the “future” prophetically presents stages of the Coming of God’s Redeemer. In Zechariah 9-11, the story of Israel’s re-gathering appears  – as the scattered Jewish people move back to their ancient homeland. In the last part of the book, Zechariah 12-14, the story of Israel’s redemption appears – the coming of the Victorious Prince is unfolded.

You see, the story was very old and followed a pattern that is essential to understand, even for one watching today’s news:

Scattered Jews would one day be re-gathered to their ancestral home, yet they would not yet be walking with God. Her restoration was not because of HER, but by God’s mercy to her fathers (Zechariah 9 and 10). This was after the return from Babylon – so another return was foreseen.

• From Zechariah 9:11 “As for you also, because of the blood of My covenant with you, I have set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. 12 Return to the stronghold, O prisoners who have the hope; This very day I am declaring that I will restore double to you.”

• From Zechariah 10, it sounds like this: Zechariah 10:5 “They will be as mighty men…6 “I will strengthen the house of Judah, And I will save the house of Joseph, And I will bring them back, Because I have had compassion on them; And they will be as though I had not rejected them, For I am the LORD their God and I will answer them.”

If these were mere statements of returning Jews from the exile, they were offered AFTER those Jews had already come. With Zerubbabel, nearly 50,000 returned under the decree of Cyrus years BEFORE this prophecy. No, this was a FUTURE re-gathering brought on by God Himself.

Beside the re-gathering, God took time to explain the reasons for the severity of the judgment against them. The chief reason was God’s disgust with their poor and stubborn hearted leaders that led them FROM God, not to God. The most profound act of disobedience was the betrayal of God’s redeeming emissary – traded away for mere shekels in Zechariah 11:

• Zechariah 11:11 So it was broken on that day, and thus the afflicted of the flock who were watching me realized that it was the word of the LORD. 12 I said to them, “If it is good in your sight, give me my wages; but if not, never mind!” So they weighed out thirty shekels of silver as my wages. 13 Then the LORD said to me, “Throw it to the potter, that magnificent price at which I was valued by them.” So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of the LORD.”

What a picture! God called them to give themselves to Him as His rightful duty, and they offered 30 pieces of silver, the price of a slave’s redemption in place of their hearts. This all hearkened to the coming of the Redeemer that was rejected by the nation’s leaders. Was He not traded for 30 pieces of silver, and that money used to buy a potter’s field? Was that money not tossed at the leaders by Judas himself in the Temple? Once again, when the Bible prophet spoke, it wasn’t all flower and allegory. In so many cases – what happened was just as it was long before described!

If you kept pursuing Zechariah’s prophecy, you would see that God was going to re-gather His people after a severe judgment, but it would lead – not to their destruction – but to their NATIONAL SALVATION. God turned to their redemption, but even this was preceded by devastation, just as it would be told in Revelation. Jews and their homeland became the problem for the whole world. After her return to the land, for a time – Jerusalem specifically would become a problem to the nations of the world. It would become the “heavy stone” for ALL THE WORLD. (Zech 12:1-4), causing all people of the world to turn against it.

• Zechariah 12:2 “Behold, I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that causes reeling to all the peoples around; and when the siege is against Jerusalem, it will also be against Judah. 3 “It will come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who lift it will be severely injured. And all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it.

At some point, when the nations first attempted to squash Jerusalem, God protected her for Himself, and Jews around the world pay attention to God’s goodness – the beginning of the end (Zech. 12:4-9):

• Zechariah 12:4 “In that day,” declares the LORD, “I will strike every horse with bewilderment and his rider with madness. But I will watch over the house of Judah, while I strike every horse of the peoples with blindness. 5 “Then the clans of Judah will say in their hearts, ‘A strong support for us are the inhabitants of Jerusalem through the LORD of hosts, their God.’…7 “The LORD also will save the tents of Judah first, so that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem will not be magnified above Judah. … 9 “And in that day I will set about to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem….

Following the story, then – we have a painful re-gathering, followed by a stubborn world-wide perception that Jews and Jerusalem once again need a “final solution”. In order to complete this, the nations gather at Armageddon and try to solve, once and for all. This time, the nation of Israel will be SAVED both physically and spiritually – drawing the whole populace of the survivors of the woes of recent days to the Lord. They will recognize the Prince they once rejected.

• Zechariah 12:10 “I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn. 11 “In that day there will be great mourning in Jerusalem, … in the plain of Megiddo. 12 “The land will mourn, every family by itself…

God will provide salvation, cleansing and restoration:

• 13:1 “In that day a fountain will be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for impurity. 2 “It will come about in that day,” declares the LORD of hosts, “that I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, and they will no longer be remembered; and I will also remove the prophets and the unclean spirit from the land…8 “It will come about in all the land,” Declares the LORD, “That two parts in it will be cut off and perish; But the third will be left in it. 9 “And I will bring the third part through the fire, Refine them as silver is refined, And test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, And I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are My people,’ And they will say, ‘The LORD is my God.’” …

In final analysis, God made the whole promise of the Coming Prince long before the Suffering Servant arrived. Jesus was promised to come both as a crucified servant, and then later as a Reigning Prince. He would come to pay the price of sin as a Lamb, and later to defend the estranged wife of His Father as a Lion:

• Zechariah 14:1 Behold, a day is coming for the LORD when the spoil taken from you will be divided among you. 2 For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be captured, the houses plundered, the women ravished and half of the city exiled, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city. 3 Then the LORD will go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fights on a day of battle. 4 In that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward the south. …9 And the LORD will be king over all the earth; in that day the LORD will be the only one, and His name the only one.

This was the story revealed long before John beheld Heaven revealed in the Book of Revelation. This is the great climax – the Prince comes to liberate those who have been under the bondage of a hateful world and an unparalleled time of judgment.

John said it in three parts:

The Coming of the Prince

Revelation 19:11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. 12 His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself. 13 He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. 14 And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. 15 From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. 16 And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”

The Call of the Vultures

Revelation 19:17 Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried out with a loud voice, saying to all the birds which fly in mid-heaven, “Come, assemble for the great supper of God, 18 so that you may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of commanders and the flesh of mighty men and the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them and the flesh of all men, both free men and slaves, and small and great.”

The Culmination of the War

Revelation 19:19 And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies assembled to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army. 20 And the beast was seized, and with him the false prophet who performed the signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image; these two were thrown alive into the lake of fire which burns with brimstone. 21 And the rest were killed with the sword which came from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse, and all the birds were filled with their flesh.

In the quick view, Jesus’ coming ended the war. The Living Word of God spoke the verbal Word of God and destroyed the enemies of God. What a powerful scene. Yet, the war is not the great moment – but rather the appearance of the GREAT WARRIOR PRINCE.

Take a moment today, surrounded by the physical things of this world, overcome by some of your earthly troubles, to gaze into the Heavens. Take a moment to LEAVE HERE and look behind the curtain of the Alpha and Omega of human history. Seize this moment to see the Savior in His glory. Worship Him, and you will grow hungry for MORE of Him. Look at the description up close when Heaven opened in verse 11. Organize the list of thirteen descriptions and you will see three clear truths about the Coming Prince:

First, His LOOK explains His character!

• Eyes: His eyes are a flame of fire (12)

The “Coming Prince” is One who has seen it all. His eyes are piercing, and His power refining. He will not be tricked by our manipulative words. He will know who belongs to Him, and who is playing God games. He can see through works of a religious man and know if what beats within him is the heart of a yielded and surrendered Christian who clings to the work of the Cross alone for salvation. His eyes flame – and they see the truth. Darkness cannot defeat light.

• Head: His head is covered with many diadems (12)

The “Coming Prince” is the designated ruler of the nations. Our world may not see it, nor desire it – but His rule will come. Every knee shall bow. No more talk of modern morality. No more compromising political posturing. All rulers will see themselves as subservient to the One true ruler – the One who spoke for His Father, and created light itself.

• Garment: His robe is dipped in blood (13)

The “Coming Prince” has felt throbbing, neglect, the angry spittle of men, the horrid sting of death and the stench of false religious pomposity. He paid with His blood before men. His robe is soaked with the memory of the result of sin and rebellion. That robe is not draped across a limp body, as the Pieta of Michelangelo recalls, but adorns a living body, full of breath and life and power.

Yes, His look tells His story. But that isn’t all – His NAMES proclaim His power!

• He is called Faithful and True (11)

The “Coming Prince” is known as both Faithful and True. He is both “trustworthy” and “genuine”. He asked for our lives, and He preserved them in eternal salvation. There is nothing fake about Him. No amount of examination of Him will reveal a character flaw or imperfection. He was called the Faithful Witness in Revelation 1:5, because His Word is completely reliable. No doubt of His Word is justified – for He meant every word and fulfills every promise.

• He has a private name written on Him (12)

The “Coming Prince” has a personal and private name. It is not that no one could see or recognize His name, but the idea is, that no one could fully understand its import. One  scholar noted: “It involved a depth of meaning, and a degree of sacredness, and a relation to the Father, which he alone could apprehend in its true import.” It is why He has been named “Wonderful” in Isaiah 9:6. The wonder part of wonderful is that there is depth beyond the surface and meaning beyond the obvious. We make a terrible mistake when we see Jesus as ONE OF US. His description here alone should caution us. John knew Him well, but fell at His feet as dead when He saw the WONDERFUL ONE in all His glory. How can we do less?

• His name is called The Word of God (13)

The “Coming Prince” is called the very Word of God, because He is the very expression of all that His Father says and thinks. He is the “expressed image of His person”. He speaks for His Father, as the Very God of the Ages. There is no word from His Father kept from Him. There is no secret that passes His understanding. There is perfect respect for the Father’s controls, but perfect knowledge of all that God has, and will, ever say.

• Etched on His robe and thigh is this name: “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS” (16)

The “Coming Prince” is the Supreme above all. There is no power that was not originated in Him, and flowing from Him. There is no sovereign that is His equal, and no political structure that can withstand His might. He is above all, reigning Supreme above the earth and the heavens that surround it.

His Works explain His purpose!

• He who sat on a white horse

The “Coming Prince” comes on a white horse. The prototype for a victor of the day of John was none other than Julius Caesar himself. Though he had many horses, scholars note that for propaganda purposes, he bred white ones with a “toe” above its hoof, which was considered lucky. He rode them for triumphs – or public parades of recognition, or used them to draw his chariot. White horses became, for many centuries, synonymous with the transport of conquering heroes. Truly the Coming Prince is every bit the hero of our lives. We were lost, imprisoned and blind – and He came in power to release us and restore our sight. He IS our noble Victorious Prince.

• He judges and wages war and in perfect righteousness

The “Coming Prince” is the Judge. Thayer’s lexicon comments that “the proper meaning of krínō is to pick out or choose by separating”. Jesus did not come to make all ONE. He came to divide those who surrender to Him from those who do not. He said that He would divide families and nations. No one will join what He separates, and no one will contest His absolute right to make judgment – for none are His equal. Complete righteousness is matched with unlimited power and unbridled goodness. His war is the right one, His cause is just, His victory is assured!

• The armies of heaven follow Him

The “Coming Prince” has, at long last, the undivided loyalty of His judged church. They have waffled a wavered, but then stood before His Bema Seat. They have seen what they were to become, and we forever changed by the seeing. They are now His loyal and faithful subjects, having shed their sinful past and donned robes of righteousness. They follow Him for He alone deserves their loyalty and allegiance!

• From His mouth comes the sharp sword that strikes down the nations

The “Coming Prince” speaks words of truth, and those words cut through mockers and rebels like a sharp blade against mere flesh. The end comes when all mouths are stopped. All brilliant arguments and fleshly thoughts are laid down before the One who embodies the absolute Truth of life and the ages.

• He treads the wine press of the Almighty’s fierce wrath

The “Coming Prince” brought salvation on His first coming, and will end the Great Tribulation of God’s wrath on His return. All mankind will know where they stand with the Truth, and those who position themselves in opposition will at once be felled.

• He rules them with a rod of iron

The “Coming Prince” is the Ruler of the Age to Come. He does not come simply to judge and destroy – but to separate out those who will build with Him. A Kingdom follows His entrance.

Jesus will come again. He will be real, visible, powerful and princely. He will establish a reign on the earth to fulfill all that God promised to Abraham and his descendants long ago. He is the “omega” of God’s promises to His ancient people. It is central to the message of Christianity.

Let us speak His Word clearly: Christians live to exalt Christ. He is our judge and our glory. We do not seek a life to honor ourselves.

We follow His very word: “Whoever gives their life to Me, gains their life. It is our highest honor – to live honorably and lovingly for Christ or die and gain. Our focus is not THIS LIFE as an end in itself. We know this life may not right the wrongs we witness. We know this is a mere shadow of the eternal life that awaits us! We trust our COMING PRINCE – It is the heart of all of our message.

Once a day, the two women I have known well in my life – my mom and my wife – are transformed. Let me explain: My mother wasn’t one to raise her voice often. She has always been, more or less, the quiet type. One exception to her normal state was at the point when supper was on the table. Mom believed, as my wife does today, that supper is a family time. In fact, both women worked hard to put food on the table that was hot, ready and well made. (I may be a lot of things, but underfed is not and never was one of them!) Like my mom, my wife is not a fighter, or a loud voice. She is, for the most part, very quiet, except when she is watching someone do something really dumb on America’s Funniest Videos, or watching the “Three Stooges”.

Here is the weird thing: when supper time roles around something happens to these women. Each transforms their normally calm nature to get us to the table. For my wife, she sometimes puts her fingers in her mouth and bellows a whistle that can scare the cat – in my neighbor’s house! She has a distinctive “call to supper” that can be piercing. In a way, Heaven also has such a call, and God’s messenger will do the very same thing one day soon! Revelation 19 opens up the story of two dinners – and two calls. One is a great banquet for believers, the other a supper for birds. One is in Heaven – with tables set for a bride all dressed for the big day. The other is on earth – where a bloody battle leaves the carcasses of rebellious humanity to be the feast for vultures. There couldn’t be two more different scenes!

The Bible says that the Great Tribulation ends when the call from Heaven pronounces the arrival of the Victorious Christ to save His Father’s estranged bride from her sure and certain destruction – and that call will be viewed from two very different vantage points. Zechariah 12-14 describes the view from Jewish believers that see the coming of the “One they had pierced” – and they breathe a sigh of relief that destruction has been averted. From the standpoint of the rebellious men of the world, the battle pits them against an insurmountable foe – their very own Creator! For them, it is “lights out”! Here is the odd thing: it isn’t only important how one views the scene THAT DAY.. it is important how we view it EVEN NOW.

Key Principle: How I view Christ’s return matters – not only in the future – but it matters TODAY. The view a believer takes on these prophetic matters will affect not only his contemporary politics, but his or her view of the Bible itself.

Since chapter 16, we have been using some very graphic terms for God’s final attack and destruction of false religion. It is uncomfortable for a Pastor, who wants to use his mouth to speak truth and not invite loose thinking or ungodly speech, to painstakingly take apart the language that has been otherwise reserved for the dark trades of sleazy back streets. I have done it, because it is what the text demanded. God spoke of false religion as a substitute to a real and intimate relationship with God – and He framed it is his Word in terms of PROSTITUTION. The great harlot of Babylon was the man-made substitute of religion for the marriage relationship of intimacy God wanted to have with each of us. The goal of God’s adversary is to draw us from falling into His arms, and place us in a fake relationship with a god we sculpt – one that is palatable to us. Chapter 16 showed the demise, and chapters 17 and 18 explained the reasons and method of destruction God will use. Chapter 19:1-5 opens with the same theme, before the text moves from that event a new picture.

Revelation 19:1 After these things I heard something like a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God; 2BECAUSE HIS JUDGMENTS ARE TRUE AND RIGHTEOUS; for He has judged the great harlot who was corrupting the earth with her immorality, and HE HAS AVENGED THE BLOOD OF HIS BOND-SERVANTS ON HER.” 3And a second time they said, “Hallelujah! HER SMOKE RISES UP FOREVER AND EVER.”

In chapter 17, we saw religion as wealthy, deceptive, blasphemous, and Satanically empowered. Whether the symbol of a crescent or star – all false religion achieves the same purpose in the enemy’s plan – it fills men with false hope and robs them of real intimacy with God. Modern man ends up celebrating belief, but not the object of belief.

It was reported that when Prince Charles was recently asked if he was comfortable as the possible next monarch and head of the Church of England, he replied that rather than be called the “Defender of the Faith”, he would simply like “Defender of Faith”. He didn’t like the idea of standing for one truth – that seemed like bigotry to him. He is a personification of the modern ideal: Believe in belief – it doesn’t really matter which one. Just believe in it strongly if it helps you.

By chapter 18, we traced God’s secrets about the harlot. We noted that God took a LONG TIME explaining her destruction. When we open Revelation 19:1-5, where the text shows that God finishes her destruction:

False “Relationship” Destroyed

The voices of Heaven’s choir spoke in unison – “God you are RIGHT!” Salvation belongs to You – or – Rescue is YOUR THING.  The judgment of the false religions of the world that bound and captivated millions and billions showed the power of God to rescue deceived creation and eliminate all other voices claiming to be “god”.

• The harlot’s teachings were FALSE and SLANTED. His justice is TRUE and RIGHTEOUS.
• She CORRUPTED the world with IMMORALITY. He showed FIDELITY to those who trusted Him.
• She TOOK LIFE from those on the earth who trusted their Creator and worked for His message. He GAVE LIFE to those who lost their bodies on account of their testimony for Him.
• She BLOCKED the smoke of sweet sacrifice to the nostrils of God and CUT DOWN those who prayed. He MADE HER A PERMANENT SACRIFICE that wafted up to His throne room.

The response of believers of the church age, and of the Four Living Creatures that guarded the throne was to agree: Revelation 19:4 And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sits on the throne saying, “Amen. Hallelujah!”

Without a moment’s hesitation, the call went out to all of Heaven, all who serve God to join in the great chorus of praise. What a relief!

• No child would ever again be drawn away into a false religion or cult and crush a mother’s heart!
• No compromise will ever be allowed to corrupt the truth of God’s message again.
• All the other so called ”holy books” will be abandoned and destroyed.
• All shrines that point to anything but the Most High will be incinerated.

The call goes out: Revelation 19:5 And a voice came from the throne, saying, “Give praise to our God, all you His bond-servants, you who fear Him, the small and the great.”

The very next event that Revelation unfolds is at the time of the END of the Tribulation Period. Two scenes unfold – the Heavenly marriage banquet, and the return to the earth of the Victorious King. Both of these will occupy us in coming studies. Before we move to them, I want to address the importance of our approach to the events of the Tribulation. I am not selling anything, and you are free to disagree with my analysis. At the same time, I want it to be clear why we have been approaching the text the way we have – and why that makes a difference in more than just our view of the end times.

I believe that those who have trusted Christ in this age will not pass through the Tribulation. I believe the description of 1 Thessalonians 4 is not the same description as that of the Return of the Victorious King we are going to see in Revelation 19, and I want to explain why.

First, it is worth noting that the Bible is not silent that Jesus will return, and it isn’t always clear when reading each place, that Jesus will return twice. In fact, in the Hebrew Scriptures it wasn’t clear that He would come as a servant and die long before He would return as Victorious King. What is clear to anyone that takes the Christian Scriptures serious is that Jesus is going to return. In fact, one scholar claimed the Bible offered 129 prophecies of the first coming, but 329 prophecies regarding the Coming of the Victorious King to reign. If that is true, we have nearly THREE TIMES the promise of His second coming as we did for His first coming!

The Scriptures are replete with the promise of Jesus’ return:

• “I will come again!” said Jesus in John 14:3.
• “This same Jesus that left will return!” said the angel in Acts 1:11.
• Paul promised He would “descend from Heaven” in 1 Thessalonians 4.
• Jude said: “Behold He comes!” in verse 14.
• The writer to the Hebrews affirmed “He will not tarry” in Hebrews 10:37.
• 1 Peter stated “when the Chief Shepherd appears” in 1 Peter 5:4.
• Revelation 1:7 said: “Behold He comes in the clouds!”

Why do we think this is TWO EVENTS, not one. To put it simply, the details of the events don’t appear even reasonably the same

In the Rapture, or “snatching away” recorded in 1 Thessalonians 4 it appears this way: 1 Thessalonians 4:15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.

• The event described in these verses seems to be Jesus COMING FOR HIS OWN, whereas the events of Revelation 19 are Jesus returning WITH HIS OWN, those who have been prepared and dressed for the wedding BEFORE the return to the earth.

• The event of 1 Thessalonians 4 appears to be FOR BELIEVERS, where clearly has first the bodies of the dead who are IN CHRIST and then living believers are snatched UP TO JESUS in the clouds to remain with Him. In the Revelation event there is not a word about believers going to the clouds, though there is a resurrection. The event of Revelation seems angled toward VERY CLEAR JUDGMENT of the earth.

• The event of 1 Thessalonians 4 appears to bring comfort, because believers who are “absent in body but present with the Lord” will gain their bodies BEFORE those of us who are alive at the time of His coming will be with Him. This is the source of the encouragement. The event seems to suggest that believers will hear the trump of God and rise – but the Revelation event has the whole world transfixed on His return.

Why does it matter?

First, how you view the narrative changes how you view the PURPOSE of the Tribulation and Millennium in the story of mankind.

God’s explanation of the Tribulation must be set inside the revealed purposes of the Tribulation period in the Bible. From that context, the period of time has two specific end goals:

1. Get Israel to bow her neck and see that the suitors of the world do not love her, the Father does.
2. Crush the rebellion of religious but deceived men, that started on the plain of Shinar, and will finish in the plain of Jezreel.

Second, how you view the narrative changes how you view an essential PURPOSE of the Church today!

With these two primary goals in mind, the message was entrusted to the church for safe keeping and thorough explanation so that much could be understood before our departure from the scene. In a way, you could say that the role of the church has many aspects of PREPARATION to it. The church of Jesus Christ primarily exists to prepare people. We are to prepare the lost for the darkness ahead, pleading with them to take the small door of Jesus and not the wide gates of religion, works or entrenched agnosticism. We are to prepare people who have trusted Christ, to ready themselves for the coming of the Holy One by preparing their garments of right deeds in response to His love. We are to prepare Israel for her coming final humbling and eventual restoration to her estranged Husband in Heaven.

God purposed that the church would have a positive impact on Israel, and would teach the wandering bride of the Father how to be a bride, while refraining from feeling elevated over the wandering nation (Romans 11). This addresses God’s purpose for the Tribulation in the life of His estranged wife called Israel– and the church’s job in preparation of her. Though we will not reach most of them for Jesus – that will be the ministry of two witnesses and 144,000 bond servants during that time yet to come, we can prepare her by modeling a walk with God and comfort her as God’s people that take His Word literally and seriously.

Third, and MOST IMPORTANT, how you view the narrative changes how you view Scripture itself.

It is no secret that in the church there are other interpretations of the narrative. Yet, on close inspection all of them has one singular trait – they cannot take the text literally.

The preterist view identifies all the prophetic materials of the book as having been completed by the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE. The view argues that the book is a spiritual tale of the early church and the fall of the Jewish Temple. If you follow that view, you must acknowledge that the three rounds of judgment – seals where one quarter of man is killed in Revelation 6; trumpet judgments where one third of men left are killed in Revelation 8 and 9; an finally bowl or saucer judgments – where all the sea dies are quite an extensive and detailed metaphor for the fall of Jerusalem. You must acknowledge that the fractions have virtually no meaning, and the logic of the progression of chapter 6-18 in the grips of the three rounds of judgment contain tremendous details that could just as easily be omitted with no essential damage to the meaning of the narrative.

The Amillennial view (Latin: a- “no” + millennialism) is named for its rejection of the literal reading of the text of Revelation 20 – that Jesus Christ will have a thousand-year long, physical reign on the earth. This view holds that the thousand years mentioned in Revelation 20 is a symbolic number, and that it has already begun. In this view the Millennium is identical with the current church age, and Christ’s reign during the millennium is spiritual in nature – not physical. In this view, at the end of the church age, Christ will return in final judgment and establish a permanent physical reign in the glory described as “Heaven” . In this view, Jesus is presently reigning from heaven, seated at the right hand of God the Father, and He will remain with the church until the end of the world, as he promised at the Ascension. The view interprets Peter’s recitation of the prophecies of Joel to demonstrate that the church is Christ’s Kingdom. The view annunciates that reality that Jesus used the words Kingdom of God in spiritual ways, as did the Apostles on occasion (Romans 14:17). One key to this view is that Amillennialism teaches that the binding of Satan described in Revelation has already occurred; he has been prevented from “deceiving the nations” by preventing the spread of the gospel. This view is optimistic –that Satan will be gradually pushed back by the Kingdom of God as history progresses though good and evil will remain mixed in strength even in the church, (as in the Matthew 13 “Parable of the Wheat and Tares”).

• Amillennialism gained ground after Christianity became a “religio licita” (legal religion). It was systematized by St. Augustine in the C4th CE, and became the dominant eschatology of the Medieval and Reformation periods. It was also the dominant view of the Protestant Reformers. Amillennialism is the accepted view of the Orthodox Churches. It is the official position of the Roman Catholic Church, which generally embraces an Augustinian eschatology and which has deemed that premillennialism “cannot safely be taught.”

• Lutheran Churches that follow the Augsburg Confession— “Art. XVII., condemns the Anabaptists (of Munster — historically most Anabaptist groups were amillenial) and others ’who now scatter Jewish opinions that, before the resurrection of the dead, the godly shall occupy the kingdom of the world… Reject the idea.

• Heinrich Bullinger wrote up the Second Helvetic Confession which reads “We also reject the Jewish dream of a millennium, or golden age on earth, before the last judgment.“[13]

• John Calvin wrote in Institutes that the view I am teaching you is a “fiction” that is “too childish either to need or to be worth a refutation.” He interpreted the thousand year period of Revelation 20 non-literally, applying it to the “various disturbances that awaited the church, while still toiling on earth.”

• Amillennialism is also common among Protestant denominations and is prevalent in most Methodist Churches, the Amish, Old Order Mennonites, Churches of Christ, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

If you are a part of any of those groups, you are welcome to study along with us and we love you as brothers and sister in Christ if you have asked Him to be your Savior. It may be, however, that you weren’t aware that we LOVE EACH OTHER, but aren’t on the same page on this study.

I believe what one of the Early Church Fathers, Justin Martyr (who died 165), wrote in his Dialogue with Trypho, chapter 80: “I and many others are of this opinion [premillennialism], and [believe] that such will take place, as you are assuredly are aware; but, on the other hand, I signified to you that many who belong to the pure and pious faith, and are true Christians, think otherwise.“

The issue is NOT SALVIFIC, but not unimportant.

We don’t think that one must believe in the literal Tribulation and literal Millennium to be a real Christian. Knowing Christ is a whole different matter. If this doesn’t matter in one’s salvation, then why do we study it?

• Because only 15% of the Bible is about FINDING GOD, the rest is about FOLLOWING GOD.
• Because our parsing of the book of Revelation reveals our approach to Scripture – whether literal or figurative.
• Because if Israel has no literal future, and we are her replacement – then God’s everlasting love is dependent upon our performance, not His character.

It is because of the view we have of Scripture – literal or allegorical – that most churches are turning away from support of any sense that the Jewish people should have a homeland. The evangelical church is quickly shifting away her support from Israel – and that changes the whole story of the Bible.

What is truly at stake, in my view, is the literal fulfillment of God’s promises. Daniel and Revelation in the literal view promise a full restoration of Israel to an intimate walk with God. Paul saw it as a future even to the church age he was living it.

He said in Romans 11: 11 “I say then, they did (Israel) not stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be! But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them jealous. 12 Now if their transgression is riches for the world and their failure is riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fulfillment be! … 15 For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? … … 25 For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery—so that you will not be wise in your own estimation—that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; 26 and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, “THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM ZION, HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB.”

In point of fact, the Millennium (whose purpose is to fulfill the land contract to Israel) makes no literal sense to a non-literal reader, and therefore he is forced to allegorize the six times the term “1000 years” are found in the first seven verses of Revelation 20. He has no need of a time for God to fulfill the land covenant promises to Abraham – for the church has taken her place. A literal seven years of Tribulation to get Israel to bow her neck quickly becomes allegories of morality – for Israel is stripped of any special relationship to the future.

I am deeply concerned about the demise of the literal rendering of the text of Scripture – an issue that is worth an open disagreement among loving brothers in Christ.

Here is the bottom line of the importance: Either “everlasting” means everlasting when it comes to God’s love and promise – or it doesn’t (Isaiah 59:21). Either “sons from your loins” means genetic Israel, or it artfully means “people with a spiritual designation of ‘sonship’ that has nothing to do with the gene pool”. Either “one thousand years” of Kingdom on the earth means a literal fulfillment of a land agreement or it is a spiritual marker of a spiritual battle of light and darkness. Either seven years of tribulation is a literal feature of time or some unspecified allegory of judgment.  What is at stake is nothing less than how we read the Bible – literally or allegorically.

If the words of the page after page are nothing more than a fanciful way of saying, indeterminate “bad stuff happens” – then I don’t understand the purpose of the whole letter to the churches. It is confusing and picture laden – but in the end means very little. Fractions like ¼ of the earth destroyed in the seals, and 1/3 in the trumpets aren’t for any particular purpose.

The Call to the Wedding Dressing Room

Though Heaven is not unaware of the pummeling of the Great Tribulation, we need to remember that those who have been taken there already by resurrection – the Raptured church – are also busy doing some things. God doesn’t turn His attention to her dressing for the wedding in the text until He has completely destroyed the prostitutes that beckoned to men in the past. When all other false suitors or men are gone, God turns His complete attention to the bride of the Son.

The church is judged, and the garment of her right and acceptable works is woven into a wedding gown. The description of her call to dress takes into account other passages about her judgment, such as 1 Corinthians 3 and 2 Corinthians 5. She is being judged at what we call Christ’s bema seat, and that judgment is also her opportunity to get the garments of her righteousness fully ready for the coming wedding. John records these words heard in Heaven:

Revelation 19:6 Then I heard something like the voice of a great multitude and like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns. 7 “Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.” 8 It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.

A close look at the imagery allows us to recall the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 3, concerning the believer’s judgment. Look at 1 Corinthians 3:14 If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. 15 If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

The context of the passage is to and for believers in Jesus Christ. The works in question are the efforts these believers made to please their Savior after they knew Him as Savior and were already assured of eternity with Him. Even in such a state, some works were done selfishly and in the flesh, while other were performed rightly. The judge in that moment is Jesus alone.

When you look carefully at what Paul says about the day of judgment for believers, you will be reminded that the real test of ministry is not its temporal popularity, but its spiritual endurance at the scrutiny of the Master. The point is simple: If Jesus doesn’t deem it correct and healthy – than it simply isn’t. Heaven isn’t a place where a vote will be cast by the members of a theological academy or angelic choir. We serve a committee of ONE – a Master Who will inspect all of the work that we have done. There is NO OTHER treasure higher than HIS SATISFACTION. At the same time, His satisfaction is often paired by the satisfaction of other godly men and women. People who have a healthy walk with God can “sniff out” teaching and leadership that is healthy – because we have the selfsame Spirit within.

Confusion of John: It is IRONIC THAT EVEN HE WAS CONFUSED BY THE SCENE

Funny, but even John found the end times revelation to be difficult to grasp, and he was the commissioned co-author. Look at his confusion:

Revelation 19:9 Then he said to me, “Write, ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’” And he said to me, “These are true words of God.” 10 Then I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, “Do not do that; I am a fellow servant of yours and your brethren who hold the testimony of Jesus; worship God. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”

The angel’s words are the key. Let’s finish on something that EVERY BELIEVER can get excited about! Jesus is the real center of the prophecy of what is to come. When the world sees the Savior, they will know the truth about everything God’s Word taught. We will be back here, but I can’t leave without taking a glimpse at the Victorious One!

Glimpse of Savior: WHAT IS CLEAR IS WHO JESUS IS

Revelation 19:11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. 12 His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself. 13 He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. 14 And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. 15 From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. 16 And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”

How I view the end times matters, but how I view Jesus matters much more than anything else.

My friend, Jesus is coming. He truly is! All theological debate will burn off in an instant. All that matters is that you know Him and that you follow Him. I believe it is best and safest to do so by taking the Bible literally – that these things we have been describing will be as real some day soon as the room you are in right now. How I view Christ’s return matters – not only in the future – but it matters TODAY. The view a believer takes on these prophetic matters will affect not only his contemporary politics, but his or her view of the Bible itself.

If you are not familiar with the name Zalman King, I am not surprised. Earlier in February of this year (2012), at age 69, he surrendered his life to the cancer that he battled for some time. He was an actor, director and a writer.  For a time in his life, he was something of a mogul when it came to pornographic dramas, and I am told that his writing reflects some fascination with the world of prostitution. He explored the subject in a series paid for by Playboy called “The Red Shoe Diaries”. I mention him, not because I was a fan – I wasn’t. Nor have I ever read, to the best of my knowledge, a single line written by the man. I mention him because of a short story I read about his life after his death.

It seems that for nearly twenty years, Mr. King’s fascination with prostitution led him to attempt a number of forays into story building based on that world – including trying to find a way to get people that were engaged in the illicit trade to open up to him about their dark and veiled domain. He concocted an idea that a columnist in the nearby city newspaper could ask people in the trade to write in their experiences under the cloak of secrecy. He took from that idea the basis of a series he wrote for a cable producer under the name of the secrecy column, “The Red Shoe Diaries”. I have called this lesson by that name today. However, if you were following from the last lesson, we are not speaking about sexual prostitution – but spiritual prostitution. We are using this crass terminology because God did. It was the way He revealed the fall of the false religious world that mimicked a relationship with Him that He longed to have restored.

In our scenario, God is the one writing in. He is the One telling secrets about the life – and death – of a harlot. He made clear the day and hour of her death, and even the reason behind His plot to take her down. In Revelation 17, we saw God cut down the harlot of false religion. In Revelation 18, He will open up the secrets that brought on such devastation.

Wait a minute! What’s so bad about religion? I mean, hasn’t religion helped in so much of mankind’s ethical development? Why would God hate religion so badly that He would call it names like WHORE, and destroy it with such fury that He would show real DELIGHT in its crushing? That doesn’t sound like the God I know. After all, that sounds angry, vindictive and downright MEAN, doesn’t it? Arguing that false religion has helped humanity in ethics is like arguing that weeds have helped our lawns be greener. God’s argument in His Word comes down to this: He is the only God. The rest of the characters vying for worship are imposters. Since He created all things for Himself, the rest was an elaborate rouse of rebellion against His purposes.

Key Principle: God will unmercifully CRUSH false religion because it has taken some of the best of humanity and deceived them with trickery, making them enemies of God and His messengers.

Before we get into Revelation 18, it is probably important to note that in the second half of the book of Revelation, God used many illusions from the Hebrew Scriptures that He expected you to recognize before you would get His real point. . Motifs of earlier passages were routinely borrowed and placed into the narrative, as God did a second time things He did earlier with others long before.

• For instance, in Revelation 10, John got sick to his stomach eating a scroll as he was re-commissioned to deliver sickening truths that were sweet to the taste, because they were Gods truth, but sickening when he attempted to “digest” them. This bears a striking resemblance to the commissioning of Ezekiel, where he was told to eat a scroll in Ezekiel 3.

• In Revelation 11, two witnesses of God in the Tribulation Period Jerusalem were called upon by God and supplied with the Spirit’s energizing and empowering- just as God said long before of a priest of the return from captivity named Joshua. The description as olive trees and lamp stands in Revelation 11:4 is very similar to the description of Joshua and Zerubbabel in Zechariah 4.

• In Revelation 12:1-2, Israel is described as clothed in sun, moon and stars – the same reference as in Genesis 37:9, the description of Jacob’s family from the dream of Joseph.

As we look into Revelation 18, we must keep in mind the motifs of the past in Scripture, they will help inform our understanding.

The Doom Announced (18:1-2a)

Our text opens with another announcement given by another Heavenly messenger: Revelation 18:1 After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illumined with his glory. 2 And he cried out with a mighty voice, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!”

The opening verses of the chapter reveal two things that set the whole scene:

• The Speaker is introduced: Another angel…having great authority: Perhaps this is a reference to one like Gabriel (whose very name means “Strength of God”) or Michael (Israel’s special guardian). All we know for sure is that the angel is Highly ranked in strength and authority.

• His Message is delivered: Finally, God is fed up with the competing voices of religious faith. They are drawn to a sudden close.

Why was He fed up? God is finally finished, because the enemy has deceived much of the world with false gods, while he has further deceived the west in the modern era with the notion that the various religions really aren’t all that different.

Saying that all religions are alike is like saying that any answer to a given mathematics problem is correct. The reason people aren’t able to see that in the modern western culture is that we have been educated and indoctrinated into a tolerance that suggests there is no absolute truth.

Can the explanations of the Baha’i, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Shinto, Sikhism, Taoism, Wicca, Neopaganism, Zoroastrianism, and Druidism all really be blended into one? What explanation would there be for the origin of man, the purpose of man, and the destiny of man. Where did they get it from. Even more important, if the Bible is correct and there really is only ONE GOD and He has made Himself known in the world in both natural and special revelation, culminating in His Holy Word – where did all the other ideas of “truth” come from? How can two opposing ideas like “There is no god but Allah” be paired off with pantheistic “god is in all and with all” philosophies. My point is this: Does it really make sense to believe they are all leading on one path to the Creator if they don’t all even agree that there is a Creator, and that we should be attempting to please Him? In the end God votes – and He said that His vote will be to crush falsehood and uphold truth.

The Destruction Explained (18:2b-3):

God carefully outlines the case against religions that have pulled men from a restored relationship with Him through Christ:

Revelation 18:2b“…She has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird. 3 For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed acts of immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality .”

Babylon is named as having been two things:

1)       Habitation of demons: the term habitation is a combined word in Greek from “katoikeó” (katá, “down, according to,” and oikéō, “dwell, reside”) – properly, settle down as a permanent resident, or “to be exactly at home” in a place. God argument is that the enemy and his evil forces have taken up residence in false religion. He created, they lied. He saved, they obscured. The doctrine of demons is nothing more or less than false religion.

2)       Prison for unclean spirits…birds: The term prison is used twice. It is the Greek term “phulaké” (foo-lak-ay’: as in a watching, guard room, or a prison). The term should probably NOT be considered a PRISON as in the place where THEY are incarcerated, but rather a place they stand guard on behalf of unclean spirits. The term for UNCLEAN is actually a term for the opposite of “clean or purged”. These are spirits with a DEADLY MIXTURE of truth and falsehood. The term “prison for unclean and hateful birds” is very similarly a GUARDIAN PLACE for MIXED BIRDS.

What is this all about? God’s description of religion and its demonic cohorts sound like the prophecies of Isaiah 13-14 of long before. In Isaiah 13, Isaiah was shown the fall of Babylon (in what appears to be to the Medes, Isaiah 13:17) but has deeper spiritual roots as we can easily see. Chapter 14 goes on to show God’s watch care for Israel, and then a poem interpreted to be the fall of Satan from Heaven.

Isaiah 13:1 The oracle concerning Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw. 2 Lift up a standard on the bare hill, Raise your voice to them, …4 … The LORD of hosts is mustering the army for battle. 5 They are coming from a far country, From the farthest horizons, The LORD and His instruments of indignation, To destroy the whole land. 6 Wail, for the day of the LORD is near! It will come as destruction from the Almighty. … 8 They will be terrified, …They will look at one another in astonishment, Their faces aflame. 9 Behold, the day of the LORD is coming, Cruel, with fury and burning anger, To make the land a desolation; … 10 For the stars of heaven and their constellations Will not flash forth their light; The sun will be dark when it rises And the moon will not shed its light. 11 Thus I will punish the world for its evil And the wicked for their iniquity; I will also put an end to the arrogance of the proud And abase the haughtiness of the ruthless. …”.

Don’t miss this truth! God has repeatedly said that false religion will be dismantled and each time He has used Babylon as the place He would judge:

Near the end of the book of Jeremiah in chapters 50-51, God says Babylon’s pervasiveness has reached the corridors of power and commerce around the world. For time and space sake, we can only offer a nibble sized sample:

Jeremiah 50:1 The word which the LORD spoke concerning Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans, through Jeremiah the prophet: 2 “Declare and proclaim among the nations. Proclaim it and lift up a standard. Do not conceal it but say, ‘Babylon has been captured, Bel has been put to shame, Marduk has been shattered; Her images have been put to shame, her idols have been shattered.’

After so many words, we may miss the point: God announced 700 years before Christ that Babylon was a deep problem, and that she would be decimated by His mighty hoards from Heaven. He promised it again 120 years later at the time of Jeremiah – as Israel was led into captivity. John was treated to reciting an OLD THEME. God has been aiming his sights at false world religions for a long time, and soon He will pull the trigger.

Enough of the “all roads leading to Heaven” nonsense. Enough of the sloppy liberal theology of Heaven without Hell, or the “easy believe-ism” of grace without obedience, or the labor-filled works without undeserved grace salvation – all of it will end up on the trash heap of Satanic and demonic ideology.

There is only one truth. God has sent His Son, and in Him is life. Apart from Him nothing was made that exists. Apart from Him nothing holds together, Apart from Him there is no eternal life.

That may sound harsh, but the truth often does to those who have learned to tolerate and stomach lies. Enough! God created. God spoke. God pronounces truth. His Word is reliable – and no other source of spiritual truth was authored by Him. We can try to sidestep that reality to win a larger following, but we will only have succeeded in watering down the truth –and truth MIXED is the cocktail of demons.

The Departure Invited (18:4-5)

In the middle of the angel’s announcement of Babylon’s long promised destruction, another voice chimes in to the declaration business. This voice calls to the people of God to leave the false faiths. Because we have taken the position that God’s focus in the Tribulation Period is upon the Jewish people, we want to compare this announcement to other words of Scripture.

Revelation 18:4 I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues; 5 for her sins have  piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.

Look closely at the words of Jesus concerning this terrible time of wrath in Matthew 24:3 As He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” 4 And Jesus answered and said to them, “See to it that no one misleads you. 5 “For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will mislead many. 6 “You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end. 7 “For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes. 8 “But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs. 9 “Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name. 10 “At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another. 11 “Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. 12 “Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold.

Jesus’ first concern was the deception of the Jewish people in the Tribulation Period. It seems this oracle in Heaven had the same concern, and called for the people of God to get out of the way before God sent His judgment on false religions of the world.

The Devastation Encouraged (18:6-8)

The voices abound in the text! This one calls for Babylon to get what she deserves!

Revelation 18:6 “Pay her back even as she has paid, and give back to her double according to her deeds; in the cup which she has mixed, mix twice as much for her. 7  To the degree that she glorified herself and lived sensuously , to the same degree give her torment and mourning ; for she says in her heart , ‘ I SIT as A QUEEN AND I AM NOT A WIDOW , and will never see mourning .’ 8 For this reason in one day her plagues will come, pestilence and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; for the Lord God who judges her is strong.

The language might seem confusing here. There is a widow that thinks she is a queen. Think for a moment about the spiritual use of the terminology. God intended to have a marriage relationship of intimacy with men and women by faith. Religion posed as a harlot and offered what SEEMED like a relationship – but wasn’t. She thought of herself, not those who pined for relationship and ended up in her arms. She was in it for HER RICHES and HER EXALTATION. She thought of herself as pretty sophisticated, and even, on occasion believed some of her own delusions. She thought she was protected, hidden, and secretive. She will be exposed. False faith will be unmasked. Man made religion will be de-frocked. Isaiah’s prophecy concerning Babylon in 47:8-11 fits here beautifully. Listen to the words of the prophet:

Isaiah 47:1 “Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon; Sit on the ground without a throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans! For you shall no longer be called tender and delicate. 2 “Take the millstones and grind meal. Remove your veil, strip off the skirt, Uncover the leg, cross the rivers. 3 “Your nakedness will be uncovered, Your shame also will be exposed; I will take vengeance and will not spare a man.” 4 Our Redeemer, the LORD of hosts is His name, The Holy One of Israel. 5 “Sit silently, and go into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans, For you will no longer be called The queen of kingdoms. 6 “I was angry with My people, I profaned My heritage And gave them into your hand. You did not show mercy to them, On the aged you made your yoke very heavy. 7 “Yet you said, ‘I will be a queen forever.’  These things you did not consider Nor remember the outcome of them. 8 “Now, then, hear this, you sensual one, Who dwells securely, Who says in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one besides me. I will not sit as a widow, Nor know loss of children.’ 9 “But these two things will come on you suddenly in one day: Loss of children and widowhood. They will come on you in full measure In spite of your many sorceries, In spite of the great power of your spells. 10 “You felt secure in your wickedness and said, ‘No one sees me,’ Your wisdom and your knowledge, they have deluded you; For you have said in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one besides me.’ 11 “But evil will come on you Which you will not know how to charm away; And disaster will fall on you For which you cannot atone; And destruction about which you do not know Will come on you suddenly…”

The Queen is about to made into a maid servant. She will be stripped of her power, and her secrets will all come out. The carefully held diaries of her indiscretions will become a source of public shaming. God will see to it.

The Demolition Regarded (18:9-10)

The world will watch what happens and be both broken and exposed in the process. Who knew that the diary of the prostitute would one day ;publicly be displayed. Politicians will grimace, and bankers will cry. It will all be exposed!

People will see the Political Impact (18:9-10)

Revelation 18:9 “And the kings of the earth , who committed acts of immorality and lived sensuously with her, will weep and lament over her when they see the smoke of her burning , 10   standing at a distance because of the fear of her torment , saying , ‘ Woe , woe , the great city , Babylon , the strong city ! For in one hour your judgment has come.’

People will see the Economic Impact (18:11-17)

Revelation 18:11 “And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, because no one buys their cargoes any more — 12 cargoes of gold and silver and precious stones and pearls and fine linen and purple and silk and scarlet , and every kind of citron wood and every article of ivory and every article made from very costly wood and bronze and iron and marble , 13 and cinnamon and spice and incense and perfume and frankincense and wine and olive oil and fine flour and wheat and cattle and sheep , and cargoes of horses and chariots and slaves and human lives . 14 The fruit you long for has gone from you, and all things that were luxurious and splendid have passed away from you and men will no longer find them. 15 The merchants of these things , who became rich from her, will stand at a distance because of the fear of her torment , weeping and mourning , 16 saying , ‘ Woe , woe , the great city , she who was clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet , and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls ; 17 for in one hour such great wealth has been laid waste !’ And every shipmaster and every passenger and sailor , and as many as make their living by the sea , stood at a distance , 18 and were crying out as they saw the smoke of her burning , saying , ‘ What city is like the great city ?’ 19 And they threw dust on their heads and were crying out, weeping and mourning , saying , ‘ Woe , woe , the great city , in which all who had ships at sea became rich by her wealth , for in one hour she has been laid waste !’

Just as Isaiah revealed in Isaiah 13:19-22, Babylon, the very jewel of kingdoms and the glory of Chaldean pride, will suffer the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. She will never be inhabited or lived in through all generations; no Arab will pitch his tent there, no shepherd will rest his flocks there. But desert creatures will lie there, jackals will fill her houses; there the owls will dwell, and there the wild goats will leap about. Hyenas will howl in her strongholds, jackals in her luxurious palaces. Her time is at hand, and her days will not be prolonged.

Can you imagine? Great temples and shrines, ransacked of all wealth and openly scorned by all. Animals running through vast cathedrals and beautiful mosques. Churches filled with dust and soot, emptied of beauty and majesty. Nothing left of spiritual, emotional or financial value. Nobody is interested in what they used to do there… God stripped it like a carcass in the road. It’s death and rottenness became evident. Its stench, so well masked for generations since the tower at Babel now fills the nostrils.

The Determination Exposed (18:20-24)

More voices from Heaven cry out at the sense of justice. Directions are given to those above and below:

Direction to Heaven – Rejoice! (20)

In Heaven, those who have suffered at the hands of persecutors, those who have fought against inquisitions of angry men who served the enemy’s ends – they are called to begin praise. These are missionaries, apostles, Christians who have suffered bitter cruelties dealt by those in religious garb and smug expression. Their day has ended. The rejoicing is NOT simply an expression of revenge – it is a pent up pain of the many that were lost to the sorceries of the false faiths that beckoned to those blinded to their sorcery.

Revelation 18:20 Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, because God has pronounced judgment for you against her.”

Every parent that has lost a child to some sect or cult knows the pain. Every child that has lost a father or mother on a field of service where they were butchered for their faith in Jesus will understand. All believers will be able to rejoice that the false doors, the false wooing of fallen and vicious men will be stopped.

Direction to Earth – Let It Be Done! (21-24)

The great stone will fall to the earth like the mountainous rock of Daniel 2, crushing down the mocking of Christ’s sacrifice played out in one false faith after another. Other roads will be closed. All other gates will be locked. Men will know there is only one truth – and that is found in the Creator and His Son’s sacrifice.

Revelation 18:21 Then a strong angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, “So will Babylon, the great city, be thrown down with violence, and will not be found any longer. 22 And the sound of harpists and musicians and flute-players and trumpeters will not be heard in you any longer; and no craftsman of any craft will be found in you any longer; and the sound of a mill will not be heard in you any longer; 23 and the light of a lamp will not shine in you any longer; and the voice of the bridegroom and bride will not be heard in you any longer;

The violence destroys her. Her music stops playing. The organ falls silent. The violin is no more. The flute is hushed. Mills stop, workers cease, shops close. The hope of the future is cut off. There is no more wedding songs sung in her cathedrals. It seems like God is saying it over and over. Why?

The Decision Repeated (18:23b-24)

The unparalleled patience of the Creator in the face of mankind’s religious replacement and rebellion is finally brought to its end. Everyone knows the whole mockery was a farce. They see the lie – and they see the liars. Do not miss the end of the chapter, because in it is the great four secrets from the prostitute’s diary:

“…for your merchants were the great men of the earth, because all the nations were deceived by your sorcery. 24 And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints and of all who have been slain on the earth.”

Did you see the four secrets?

• Spread by the greatest among men: Religion overcame the mightiest in her sorcery. Some good and gracious, many deeply moral and wonderfully happy men and women have been tricked by her.

• Nations followed in deception: Whole nations have been held captive by demonic lies. They have served painfully and sacrificially a god who does not exist. They have sacrificed peace with others and denied themselves both the pleasures of this life and the promises of the next – all before the altar of a liar. Wars were fought over lies. Good men and women were destroyed over lies. The future of whole peoples were struck down by sorceries of paganism.

• Sorcery was used: The term “pharmakeía” (from pharmakeuō, “administer drugs”) or “drug-related sorcery” is referred to “as the practice of magical-arts, etc.” (A. T. Robertson). People were DRUGGED into the fellowships of the damned. They were sometimes metaphorically, and sometimes literally “drunk” with religious faith. Like any addict, they surrendered their future as they made simple steps ahead. They had no idea how hooked they would get.

Don’t forget, twice man knew God in totality. Once in the Garden, and again on the Ark. People knew God, but someone in one generation strayed, and billions paid. How did it happen? I am almost certain false religion was the biggest culprit. People opened themselves to another explanation that was not the truth. When they did – the deception grew like an addiction.

• Persecution came from her deceptions: Just as she spat upon God’s redemptive plan and God’s redeemer – so she abused God’s children. That only raised His hand all the harder. God heard every cry of every martyr. He listened as a broken hearted parent when any of His beloved children were persecuted, tortured or harmed. Now He answered, once and for all. This immoral woman hurt His children, and she was never going to do it again!

God will unmercifully CRUSH false religion because it has taken some of the best of humanity and deceived them with trickery, making them enemies of God and His messengers.

The greatest problem with sexuality in the twenty-first century is that it is misdirected. We understand the impulses and benefits of sexual expression; but in our society, many of us just don’t seem to understand its real purpose. Intimate expression was NOT designed primarily for personal entertainment, but for a shared expression of love. A symptom of this is found in modern pornography, and many other perversions of the original design. The marriage bed was given as a beautiful picture of relationship and shared joy. Our world has taken the personal pleasure aspect and replaced the designed intent. As a result, many get the technique, but not the point. Why do I mention this? Because it is worth noting that for many of us, the very same thing could be said of our religious devotion. In fact, in Scripture, the notion of religious celebration is cloaked in sexual language. A real walk with God for Israel was called a “marriage” (in the Book of Hosea) to the Father in Heaven. For the church, the same terminology was used for a “wedding feast” to the Son (in Ephesians and Revelation). Likewise, the terminology of prostitution was used for false worship – because men substituted the purpose for the techniques.

Spiritually speaking, the “great harlot” of the Bible isn’t a literal woman, but a substituted system of religion in place of a relationship with the living God.

It is the attempt at “looking for love in all the wrong places” as the country singer reminds. It is the substitution of intimacy with our Creator, with the trappings of worship and tradition that focus us on the emotional benefits of relationship without the relationship itself. The more you think about it, the more terming “religion” as a “HARLOT” makes perfect sense in the Bible.

The world we live in may not favor the God of the Bible, but it truly IS a religious world. If we were frozen in time back in the year 2000 (just a few years ago) and our world was a single village of 100 people representing the whole earth, (based on the Center for World Missions):

• 33 of us would call ourselves some kind of “Christian” – though half of us wouldn’t consider the other half as truly so!

• 20 of us would call ourselves Muslims – though many Shia and Sunni would not both agree that this was completely true.

• 14 of us would call ourselves Hindus.

• 6 of us would call ourselves one of three kinds of Buddhists.

• 18 of us would be scattered over a series of smaller faiths and beliefs – including Animism, Judaism, Sikhs, etc.

• Only 12 of us would claim NOT to have a faith or a religion. This includes 3 of us that would claim “Atheism”, 2 that have a political philosophy that “makes religion more or less irrelevant”, and the last 7 percent include “statistical unknowns”.

What is perfectly clear is this: people are religious creatures. They LIKE to observe some kind of religion. They worship, celebrate and venerate – many of them – because it scratches an “itch” within. What God meant to be a hunger for relationship with Him, has become a prostituted relationship as people succumbed to the beckoning of one harlot after another…until the prophetic day God kills all the illicit lovers in one hour. Revelation 17 is the story of the day false religion is crushed.

Key Principle: The goal of the deceiver is to celebrate the acts of religion as an end in themselves, while distracting our eyes away from the One who is to be worshiped.

The Great Whore of “substituted faith” is soon to be defeated. The false system of religion that has infiltrated every corner of our world is running on short time. It is not one religion that God will bring to an end – but religion itself – not ONE belief system God wants to undo – it is EVERY false system. Revelation 17 focuses in on the story of that end.

Let me be clear: Religion without a relationship with God is the worship of devotion rather than the worship of God. It is the adulation of liturgy without the gaze into the face of the God who created us. It is the essence of truth-less faith, a sentimental ethic based on cobbled together human moral philosophies that keep revealed truths of God’s Word at a distance. Human religion is the exaltation of the feelings that come from a relationship – without the relationship itself – like the substitution of pornography over the marriage bed. God never called us to desire to worship for the act itself. He called us to worship HIM, because in Him is every significance to our very being.

As we dive into the story of the great harlot’s death, we should keep in mind that Revelation 16:12 spoke of the vial judgment about to be poured on the harlot – but this chapter and the next zooms in on the details. Babylon’s religious substitution and wayward political power will be finally ended in Revelation 19. We are in an expansion of the chapter we studied last time that is finished at Armageddon.

Despite its many words, there are only three parts to the chapter we are studying – a promise made by an angel to John, a vision shown to fulfill the promise, and an explanation of that vision. John is essentially shown what could be explained like a “YouTube movie” by an angel to help him understand the powerful destructions he witnessed in the bowl judgments of Revelation 16. After the movie, the angel had to coach John into the explanation of the movie. Let’s take a closer look:

The Promise (17:1-2)

Revelation 17:1 Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying, “Come here, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, 2 with whom the kings of the earth committed acts of immorality, and those who dwell on the earth were made drunk with the wine of her immorality.”

Back in chapter 12 we were introduced to Satan, who was in the form of a Dragon, when he was hurled to the earth from Heaven. By chapter 13, the Dragon called for help from both the earth and the demonic world – a team that consisted of a beast from the sea, and a second helper – the beast from the earth. The beast from the sea was identified as the Antichrist, primarily a political leader The beast from the land was identified as the so called “False Prophet” – as his major function was to call attention to the antichrist and his political system, legitimizing it in tradition and religious trappings and pronouncements. By Revelation 16, John witnessed the overthrow of the Antichrist and his supporting religious system – but he didn’t really grasp all of what he saw. One of the avenging angels of God, fresh from the work of the destruction of man’s political and religious self-invented system, turned to John to help him understand the scene more completely. Perhaps the angel beckoned with an empty saucer still his hands. In any case, John knew the angel by his appearance.

The angel agreed to show John the identity and work of the harlot – by journeying in a vision to the center of her brothel. In the Bible, a spiritually alive and growing people can be named with the image of a virgin or chaste female; whereas a corrupt, idolatrous an unfaithful people can be pictured as a harlot. In many cases, the harlot represents a CITY (as Revelation 17:18 says is the case). That is not unusual, but the harlotry can be identified as a people that have organized themselves around a city, so as to be deeply identified with it (Isaiah 1). Have you noticed how religious organizations tend to be synonymous with a specific city?

• Who could argue that “Jews” and the “Jewish world” is not meant when we refer to Jerusalem?
• Who would not follow the idea of “Islam” when we speak of “Mecca”?
• Is it really a stretch to refer to “Catholicism” as “Rome”?

They aren’t alone. Buddhism, Sikhs, Shintoism and many other religious groups can be represented by key cities – though the references may be less familiar to the modern westerner. The point I am positing is this: the woman is more than simply a city – she is a religious tradition or way of life graphically identified by a city important to her adherents. The purpose of the angel’s call to give attention to the vision was to expose her identity and her complete corruption, along with uncovering her network of contacts with political powers through which she enticed the world to herself. It is clear that she is influential in many places and among many peoples.

The Vision (17:3-6, 18)

Revelation 17:3 And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness; and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns. 4 The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and of the unclean things of her immorality, 5 and on her forehead a name was written, a mystery, “BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” 6 And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus. When I saw her, I wondered greatly. .. Revelation 17:18 “The woman whom you saw is the great city, which reigns over the kings of the earth.”

Off they went on the journey that I will refer to as a “movie”. Perhaps they broke all laws of time and space and actually entered into that place (that is certainly possible given the context) – but there is no need for me to see it only in that way. With the advance of over twenty centuries since John lived, I can sit in my living room at home and be transported on a screen to the deck of a ship in Pearl Harbor or the cockpit of a powerful F-15 thundering through the sky. John never saw TV. He never knew about HNN – “Heaven Network News”. He had no such way of understanding visions.

I suggested at the start of today’s lesson that the woman of the vision was false religion personified. How did I come to that idea? There are at least eight important descriptions of the woman in the passage we just read:

• She is called “the Great Harlot” – a false relationship that mimics a real one and leads to destruction of the real one. That seems to fit well.
• She “sits upon many waters” – but these are qualified in 17:15 as people groups. That means that she is something that impacts, effects and persuades to action a variety of people from a variety of places on earth, but she is unified – an identifiable force.
• She is “full of blasphemous names” – suggests that she is not called by ONE name, but rather by a variety of them. They all have one essential commonality – they distract from the truth of a relationship with the One true God, and are henceforth blasphemous.
• She has “seven heads and ten horns”: this seems strange, but the very same description was used of both the dragon and the antichrist – because the point is the same. The organized system of power is demonically empowered to deceive and distract from true worship. She is part of the devil’s deception system, as was the antichrist. She is under the organization, and it has specific rulers and characteristics.
• She is “clothed in purple” and “adorned with gold”: The expense of blue taken from the murex snail in antiquity left us with the term “royal blue” because of the extravagant expense. Who can deny the expense that has been poured into the great cathedrals and temples around the world?

From time to time I wonder about the lavish spending in the religious world. I want to tell you honestly that I love the great Cathedrals of Europe. I am captivated by the works of Michelangelo and the many commissions of Sixtus VI. I love the Renaissance and its reminder that beauty doesn’t have to begin when my body enters the coffin – my God loves beauty and decoration. At the same time, I have chosen to join and be ordained in a Brethren fellowship. I don’t know how to break the news to those who aren’t aware, but we meet in some of the most SPARTAN buildings in the whole religious world. Shocking artwork is if we put a colored carpet on a floor or a drape over a window. We are in the religious dictionary under “purely functional”!  Why do I not choose to ornately decorate a church building? Did not God have a very beautiful Temple built in Jerusalem? Are we forbidden to commission art in the church?

Let me be clear: ornate churches are neither right nor wrong. Art that helps people focus on God’s goodness and hope in Him serve an important purpose in much of the world. We have chosen a different path. We have chosen to put more of our resources into people ministry than in building beauty. We borrow less, build sturdy and work it hard. It is the philosophy of the growing family more than the rich and childless uncle. We will accept scars on walls before we will tolerate unused rooms, Funeral homes are easy to keep clean. Ministry is messy. We don’t need, nor do we seek, more complications that come with the higher and more artistic churches. We do, however, delight in visiting them!

I am concerned that church money be primarily used to reach and teach people – that resources be measured by whether or not they will aid in the purposes of preaching Christ and building disciple makers. All other uses of funds need to be subjected to that purpose.

• She has “her golden cup full of immoralities”: If the immorality truly is, as the Biblical prophets of old used it, a spiritual departure from relationship with God into idolatry and false religion, can we not see how full false religion has become of itself? There are whole libraries and universities dedicated to the intricate study of things that do not lead to truth as defined in the Scripture.
• She is called “Babylon the Great”: To recognize this point of the identification may take additional explanation. The Biblical record of Babylon begins with the “Tower of Babel” story that was physically identified as having been located on the “plain of Shinar” (Genesis 11:1-9). Based on the “Table of Nations” record in Genesis, it appears that some descendants of Noah – sons of Ham, came to that plain under the leadership of a man named Nimrod (son of Cush through Ham, great-grandson of Noah) to build a monument to themselves for the glory of man.

Some rabbinic commentaries suggest that Nimrod means ’to rebel’, others are more along the lines of ‘foolish’ – both seem fitting to the record of his chief accomplishments. As “a mighty one on the earth” and “a mighty hunter before God” he had an auspicious beginning, but did not appear to end well. His name became synonymous with a kingdom of enemies of God, as in Micah 5:6:

“And they shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof: thus shall he deliver us from the Assyrian, when he cometh into our land, and when he treadeth within our borders.”

It is worth noting that “Babel” means ’gate to or of God’ – and the story is one of human desire to build a way to God with their own hands – the very definition of RELIGION. Behind EVERY false religion is the denial of God’s PLAN, together with trust in man’s own strength and abilities. In Genesis 10, concerning Nimrod and the “beginning of his kingdom” (Heb: “reshit memelketo”) were the founding of the towns of “Babel, Uruk, Akkad and Calneh in the land of Shinar (Genesis 10:8-12). It appears that Babel later became known as Babylon. One author noted: “Two hundred sixty times in Scripture the Babylon is used to represent the system of false religions that spun off the first one in Genesis.” (sermon central illustrations).

• The woman is described as: “drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus”:  To make sure we are not left with only a vague view of well-meaning but misguided religious people, we are instructed that the harlot was caustic to the cause of Christ. There is one thing that the vast calls to a religion of tolerance will not tolerate – that is Christians spreading the Gospel of Jesus.

In 2011, Al Mohler, the Southern Baptist scholar wrote: “Christians — especially those enjoying the safety of the West — often think of martyrdom as a part of the distant Christian past. But a recent barrage of headlines dispels that notion in a hurry. Over the past several weeks, Christians in Iraq suffered a series of church bombings, and experts in the region predicted a virtual evacuation of that nation’s Christian population. …The murderous terrorism against Christians in Iraq amounts to a form of religious cleansing. Meanwhile, oppression of Christians in Egypt, the most populous Arab nation, intensified with a January 1 bombing of the Saints Church in Alexandria. Twenty-one worshipers were killed and another 100 were injured. … In Pakistan, rioters took to the streets to insist that the nation’s draconian blasphemy laws stay in place — effectively allowing only Muslim practice and preaching. As The New York Times reported, “A crippling strike by Islamist parties brought Pakistan to a standstill on Friday as thousands of people took to the streets, and forced businesses to close, to head off any change in the country’s blasphemy law, which rights groups say has been used to persecute minorities, especially Christians.” There is no way we can determine the exact theological beliefs of these worshipers in Egypt, Iraq, and Pakistan, but there can be no question that they are suffering and dying in the name of Jesus Christ. They deserve our earnest prayers and advocacy. They also remind us by their witness that Christ has enemies — and so do His followers. The blood of the martyrs does indeed cry out their witness for Christ…”

God wants a relationship with men based on His Word – not based on the power play of religious men and women that have learned to control the flocks of the hapless. Religion has been no friend to truth. It has provided a means for a few to take from the many – enriching some while enslaving a host in dungeons beneath them. It has led people on the “wide path that leads to destruction” – even fleecing their pockets on the way down. It has enticed the masses throughout history – and drugged them– leaving them with neither with the promise of eternity in the loving presence of the Savior in the world beyond, nor the deep and intimate joy of a walk with Him this side of Heaven. It is counterfeit currency of the spiritual realm, and it is both presently destructive and predictably damning.

The Explanation (17:7-18)

John saw the demise of the system of the enemy, but he couldn’t understand all of the players. He wasn’t comprehending exactly what he was seeing.

Revelation 17:7 And the angel said to me, “Why do you wonder? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns.

The angel could apparently tell by the look on his face. Fortunately for us, the angel made it even plainer in an overt attempt to explain. One commentator mentioned, interestingly enough, that “This is the last question in the book of Revelation.” From here, answers are provided:

The Beast (Revelation 17:8 and 11)

Revelation 17:8 “The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to come up out of the abyss and go to destruction. And those who dwell on the earth, whose name has not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, will wonder when they see the beast, that he was and is not and will come….11 “The beast which was and is not, is himself also an eighth and is one of the seven, and he goes to destruction.

The beast came from the pit, as did his empowering spirit – that is, the Devil that called him forth. The antichrist is of Satanic origin. The surprising detail is that He poked his head out into human history before Revelation 13. His spirit was on earth before – an issue I believe was made clear in Daniel 11, where before verse 36 Daniel wrote about Antiochus IV the ancient Seleucid Ruler, but after verse 36 the description appears to depict a later manifestation – the Antichrist. He “was” before – but he “is not” again until the end times and his release from below. He will be a WONDER to mankind – likely because of his miraculous healing we described in previous lessons.

His Seven Heads (Revelation 17:9-10)

Revelation 17:9 “Here is the mind which has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits, 10 and they are seven kings; five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; and when he comes, he must remain a little while.

Revelation 17:9 opens with a cautionary note – this description will take “wisdom”. Spiritual understanding will be required to grasp the complex nature of this identity. Simple connection can easily be made:

• Between the Devil’s description as having “seven heads and ten horns” as in Revelation 12:3,
• The Antichrist with his same description in Revelation 13:1,
• The woman’s beast of burden that carries her – described in Revelation 17:7.

In other words, it is simple to match each description and summarize that they are all ONE SYSTEM, founded by Satan and spread by the Antichrist. They bear along the woman of false religion. Simple enough, but that is not a complete view. There is more detail given.

The seven heads refer to both land masses (SEVEN MOUNTAINS) and to rulers and political systems (SEVEN KINGS) according to 17:9-10. This multi-headed beast is a layered symbol – not simply one thing but a nexus of more than one –  a long derived and carefully sculpted system. The beast possesses the seven heads, but exists apart from them. They are the “FACE” of the beast, but not – strictly speaking – the beast itself. He is not simply one of the horns or heads – he is seen in their face and power. In fact, his specific direct rule represents an eighth kingdom (Rev. 17:11).

I recognize a great number of men have made the point that ROME was built on seven hills. As a guide overseas, I can tell you that a number of cities are set on seven hills. Among them, Paris, Istanbul and even Jerusalem may be said to be upon seven hills. To conclude the Catholic Church or Rome is in the passage is, in my view, wholly inadequate. This would omit that the identity is BOTH something spread over seven hills and were systems of RULE. Incidentally, the “seven hills” could easily be a way of saying WORLD WIDE long before John could have known that there were seven land masses or continents on the face of the globe. If the “waters” in the end of chapter 17 are people of the whole earth, why can’t the lands be the continents of that same earth?

Additionally, a number of taken in hand to write that the seven are kingdoms counted off between Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, etc. That may be true, but we need to be careful about what is included. If God was counting kingdoms, let’s not forget that in the west we tend to neglect Dynastic China – a not quaint development of its own. If the number is to count kingdoms, let us be clear that the count must be based on those kingdoms that have some direct interaction with Israel – or some other explanation of that sort (as in Daniel’s telling of kingdoms in prophecy).

The Horns (Revelation 17:12-14, 16-17)

Revelation 17:12 “The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but they receive authority as kings with the beast for one hour. 13 “These have one purpose, and they give their power and authority to the beast. 14 “These will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, because He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful.” …16 “And the ten horns which you saw, and the beast, these will hate the harlot and will make her desolate and naked, and will eat her flesh and will burn her up with fire. 17 “For God has put it in their hearts to execute His purpose by having a common purpose, and by giving their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God will be fulfilled.

The story of the horns looks at first glance to be a bit complicated, but it really isn’t. If you read it carefully you will see:

• Each horn represents a king and kingdom. These ten kings and kingdoms form a confederacy (a subject we have seen before in the fact that the Antichrist gets people together on the issue of Jerusalem for a time).
• Ultimately, the power of the group is subservient to the purposes of the confederacy, which is directed by the Antichrist.
• One chief purpose will be to fight the Gospel, and anyone who has the message of the Redeemer.
• Jesus will defeat them – a fact we will see graphically in Revelation 19!
• The governments will USE the world religions – but in truth will HATE the world religions. In fact, at their first opportunity, they will rape the false religious world to take her power and wealth. Increasingly, all world religions will find themselves surrendered to objectives of the political confederation. Those who oppose it will be shattered.

The Waters (Revelation 17:15)

Revelation 17:15 And he said to me, “The waters which you saw where the harlot sits, are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues.

People the world over are drawn to religion and tradition. They are religious because God created them to be worshipers. If they will not worship the true God, they will worship someone or something else. We may look around and we think America is becoming less religious. Actually, in many ways she is becoming more religious – only less Christian.

The Main Idea

It is easy to get lost in all the detail. The fact of the matter is that the chief goal of the deceiver is to celebrate the acts of religion as an end in themselves, while distracting our eyes away from the One who is to be worshipped.

When Pope John Paul invited the world religious leaders together for a day of prayer at Assisi, a huge united under a huge plastic tent to mix Christian hymns and Buddhist chants before reading commitments to work for peace in 11 languages from Arabic to Hebrew to Farsi and Punjabi. According to the Associated Press, the gathering was one of the largest ever of “Christian groups, bringing together Catholics, Baptist, Lutherans, Quakers and Mennonites, among others, along with Orthodox Christians headed by the ecumenical patriarch, Bartholmew I.” But “Christians” were only one of 12 religions represented. While they and the Jews were praying to Jehovah, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhist, Sikhs, Shintoist, and African witchdoctors were all besieging their respective deities.

Lest we single out only one religious leader (and, in fact, a dead one), let us be clear that many groups exist to promote the religious spirit of unity and tolerance. The “Coexist Foundation” says, according to the Anglican Bishop of London: “This work is a vital test of our determination to find new ways of managing conflict in the new world order.” That group has as its council the Dean of Her Majesty’s Chapels Royal and Sheikh Ali Goma’a, The Muslim Grand Mufti of Egypt, as well as Rabbi Dr David Rosen, the former Chief Rabbi of Ireland.

Their symbol, seen on T-shirts all over is:

 – An Islamic crescent in the place of the “C”

– The peace symbol in the place of the “o”

– A male/female symbol in the place of the “e”

– The Jewish Star of David in the place of the “x”

– A Wiccan/pagan symbol in the place of the “i”

– An Asian Ying-Yang (peace symbol) in the place of the “s”

– A Christian cross in the place of the “t”

This is the essence of the message of today’s religion – BELIEVE for yourself. Don’t persuade – that isn’t tolerant. Don’t missionize – that isn’t kind. Just take what YOU want for yourself- and leave everyone alone. COEXIST. Don’t press your children to believe anything.

What a contrast to what the Bible teaches! The Bible makes the transmission of faith from parent to child a “natural part of everyday life” (Dt. 5-7). The Bible calls for believers to get out and share their faith, because men and women are LOST without a real relationship with God found ONLY in Jesus Christ.

Coexist teaches NO MISSION, NO PERSUASION – it is all about YOUR COMFORT. It has been with us so long, that many identify faith as so PERSONAL that it shouldn’t be considered in the CHARACTER JUDGMENT we evaluate a person’s fitness for public office. It is “personal” – as if it won’t have as much an impact on their decision making processes as their spouse. Think about that: our faith orientation is like our marriage. If it is a marriage to a different god than in the Word, it is an expression of dedication to spiritual prostitute. Now we are back where we started our lesson.

Do not be deceived! God doesn’t say simply that the AMOUNT of your dedication in worship is His goal – but the OBJECT of your worship. It is not simply that YOU ARE RELIGIOUS. People make the perilous assumption that we can put much trust in a rock, stone, or tradition made by men – and God will be equally pleased.  It is not true, and it is not even logical. Much belief that an aspirin will cure cancer will not make it true. If the object of one’s faith is false, then the faith is of no benefit.

We must remember that God is properly the object of our worship. His provision for our salvation is Jesus alone. If we have learned to judge ourselves by the standard of “how we treat our fellow man”, can we not also recognize that God will judge us by “how we treat God”? When I dismiss the sacrifice of God’s Son, when I chose either to ignore, replace, or lash out against the Ever Holy, Ever-Just, Ever-knowing God – my very Creator… do I not place myself in peril?

Psalm 2 offers a biting insight: 2:2 “The kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers take counsel together against the LORD and against His Anointed… 4 He who sits in the heavens laughs, The Lord scoffs at them. 5 Then He will speak to them in His anger, and terrify them in His fury, saying, 6 “But as for Me, I have installed My King upon Zion, My holy mountain.” 7 “I will surely tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to Me, ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You…10 Now therefore, O kings, show discernment; Take warning, O judges of the earth. 11 Worship the LORD with reverence, and rejoice with trembling. 12 Do homage to the Son, that He not become angry, and you perish in the way, For His wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!”

Hide in Him. You will find real security there – and you will find it nowhere else in the end. The other relationships aren’t a real marriage.