Revelation Last Days Living Judging the Godless Church! Revelation 17:1-18 Message #22 of 27 S752 Sermon given on August 13, 2017 Sunday Morning Service Pastor Rick Lancaster
Judging the Godless Church! Revelation 17:1-18 Opening Comments Turn to Revelation 17 We continue our series: Last Days Living Living in the light of Christ s soon coming! Chronologically, chapter 19 follows right after chapter 16 But first we are given a glimpse into something else that is going on We believe that before the seven-year Tribulation begins, that Jesus will come and take His church out of this world before judging it We might like to believe that the church would cease to exist once all true Christians are taken out In fact, not only will it not cease, it will flourish it will rise to great power Only one problem it will be a godless church And here in chapter 17, John is shown what God has planned for this godless church Let s pray and ask the Holy Spirit to help us to be open to His will Pray Teaching Judging the Godless Church! Not every person who calls themselves a Christian has repented of their sins and received Christ call themselves what they are not Not every building or organization called a church actually worships the God of the Bible There are religions all over this planet that claim to worship the divine In reality, they are worshipping something other than the Creator of the Universe And part of judging this world will be the judging of godless religion Revelation 17:1-2 harlot is a word we might or might not understand Other translations: ESV & NLT prostitute, KJV: whore 1
The great harlot is organized religion that claims to worship the One True God, but worships other gods or things Great harlot sits on many waters waters = peoples, multitudes, nations, tongues Rev. 17:15 sits on implies ruling over The godless church will rise to great power and authority But she won t do it on her own Revelation 17:3 Chapter 16 brings the events of the Tribulation right up to the Second Coming chapter 19 John is carried in the Spirit to a different point of time This is back to the first half of the Tribulation The scarlet beast is the same beast we saw in chapter 13 = the Antichrist and his kingdom The woman is sitting on a scarlet beast = ruling and directing After the chaos caused by the departure of all true Christians, the world will be looking for answers and hope Many will turn to the church that is left after the Rapture A strange relationship will be established between the godless church and the kingdom of the Antichrist, and it appears that at least in the first part of the Tribulation that she has some authority over the kingdom of the Antichrist This is not new in the world the Roman Catholic church has historically been very powerful Revelation 17:4 This godless church will be very beautiful and rich, but inside she is wicked and sinful Revelation 17:5 The godless church is not new to the world, in fact, it is ancient We see its origins as far back as Genesis 10 In the fourth generation after the flood, Nimrod, the grandson of Ham, Noah s cursed son, tried to establish the first world empire in a city called Babel later called Babylon Nimrod had a wife who had a son Tammuz, whom she says she conceived when a sunbeam touched her belly 2
There was a prophecy that said he would be the savior of the world At some point, the legend says that he was gored by a boar and died Semiramos mourned for her son for forty days, at which point he was raised back to life she was later referred to as the Queen of Heaven A whole system of mother/son worship developed out of the legend that spread to every kingdom after The Assyrians, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans had mother/son worship We should be alarmed by the Catholic church s emphasis of Mary Mystery Babylon - Mother of Harlots - All godless religion can trace its roots back to this ancient attempt to replace God The whole scene is astonishing to John Revelation 17:6-8 the beast was, and is not, and will ascend Referring to the Antichrist receiving a mortal headwound that is healed appearing to be resurrected The world will marvel at this miracle, but not the whole world whose names are not written in the Book of Life Since Jesus came, lived a perfect life, died for the sins of the world, and was raised to life on the third day, there is only one way to have your name written in the Book of Life John 14:6 Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. When we receive Christ as our Savior, the Bible teaches us that the Holy Spirit takes up residence inside of us Without the protection of the Holy Spirit, they will be deceived by the Antichrist and False Prophet That is part of the judgment deserved for not believing the truth 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12 The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. Revelation 17:9 seven mountains mountains can also be translated hills 3
Rome, since before the time John wrote this letter, was referred to as the city of seven hills coins and extra-biblical literature contain that description Based on this many have interpreted this to mean that the godless church will be headquartered in Rome In the end times, somehow faiths will be merged, apparently with the help of the Antichrist s influence Revelation 17:10-11 If you compare this with Daniel 2, we can see this is referring to world kingdoms At the time that John was writing there had been five great kingdoms: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medio-Persia, and Greece all five had fallen from world dominance Rome was the current world power the sixth king/kingdom Since the decline of the Roman Empire there hasn t been another In the future, there will be a seventh some say a revived Roman Empire The Antichrist will rise up out of this seventh empire as the eighth king for a short time = 42 months Revelation 17:12-13 These are the ten toes of Daniel 2 and ten horns of Daniel 7 We don t know very much about these ten kings Some believe this refers to the European Union I don t think that is big enough I tend to believe that the Antichrist convinces the world to divide the world into ten parts, and put a leader over each of them The world agrees and then makes him the leader of the ten This reminds me of the account of Joseph in Genesis He was called in to interpret Pharaoh s dream, which he does, and then proceeds to tell Pharaoh what he should do Pharaoh then puts Joseph in charge of making it happen Revelation 17:14 These are the kings in the last chapter that the frog-like demons lead to Armageddon to make war with the Lamb In which they will fail spectacularly Chapter 19 4
Revelation 17:15 The great harlot the godless church will rule over people around the world for the first half of the Tribulation Until the Antichrist achieves his objectives Revelation 17:16 The godless church is a threat to the power and authority of these ten kings and the Antichrist s desire to be worshipped as God This will take place at the midway point of the Tribulation Then a reminder of God s sovereignty, even in wicked fallen humanity Revelation 17:17 Each of these kings are wicked, godless men God uses them to accomplish His will He puts it into their minds to give their power to the Antichrist, which they probably wouldn t have done otherwise, and then to use their power to destroy the great harlot Revelation 17:18 At the time John wrote this, the Roman Empire rules the world Many countries still had kings who ruled over their countries, but had submitted themselves to the emperor in Rome The great harlot, the godless church, will use Rome as its base of operations The building blocks of the One-world godless church are already in place We will be gone before it actually happens So, what should we take from a message about this? First - Know what you believe If someone were to ask you to explain what you believe about some basic Christian belief, could you do it Most Christians can t Could you take someone through Strong Foundations? Second Know what your church believes Have you examined this church s beliefs to see if they line up with yours? Does our teaching line up with what we say we believe? 5
Third, and final thing for today Share what you believe with others A few years ago, a bunch of us went through a series called the Truth Project Del Tackett Do you really believe that what you believe is really real? If you answer yes to that, who have you told? If you really believe these things, you should probably tell someone Only the truth can protect us from a godless culture, and from the lies of the enemy of our soul Know what you believe know what your church believes and, share what you believe with others Let s pray and ask God to help us to walk in His truth! 6