Revelation chapter 14, uh that’s a passage we’re going to be looking at in particular and verse 8, which is the
second angel’s message. And if I may summarize the three angels messages like this, I would say this. In the first
angel’s message, God is revealed. He is our creator and our redeemer. And in the second angel’s message, Satan is exposed
as a liar and a deceiver and a killer and a cheat. And in the third angel’s message, we are called to make a decision either for God or for Satan.
So the first angel’s message is God revealed. The second angel’s message is Satan exposed. And the third angel’s message is make a choice. And the choice
is yours. But we all have to make a choice for God. And a lack of a choice for God is a de facto choice for Satan.
So as we um open the word of God this morning, I’d invite you to invite you to bow your heads with me and invite the presence of the Holy Spirit once again.
So shall we pray? Heavenly Father, uh we thank you for the blessings, the freedom we have here in the United States of
America to gather and worship you according to our conscience. Lord, we know that these days will not last for long. We know Lord that every principle of our constitution will be repudiated.
And so, Father, we’re sitting here as citizens maybe of a na of a United States, maybe as citizens of other nations, but Lord, be beyond all of
that, our citizenship is in heaven above. From we are expecting our savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so today,
Lord, we gather as citizens of the heavenly kingdom. Today, it is a kingdom of grace and tomorrow a kingdom of glory. And I pray Lord that as we gather
today that you will speak to our hearts and minds. You’ll bring us conviction.
Uh you will grow us in our walk with you. You’ll shed light around us for the times in which we live. That you’ll rebuke the lies, the temptations, and the deceptions of Satan in our lives.
And you’ll draw us closer to Jesus as our Lord and Savior, the only one who can fight the battles that we cannot see. So Lord, we give these moments into your hands. Speak through me and for me.
Forgive us for our sins. Rebuke any spirit not of your kingdom present here right now. And may your holy spirit be the only spirit within these four walls.
In the name of Jesus, we humbly ask.
Amen. Amen. So, let’s go straight to the text then. We looked at the first angel’s message this morning and uh this
is going to be our journey. We’re going to look at um what the second angel’s message actually says. We’re going to look at Babylon in the Old Testament.
Then we’re going to look at Babylon in the New Testament. And then we’re going to look at God’s appeal to end time Babylon. So that’s the journey we’re
going to go on in this particular um sermon together. And so the second angel’s message is actually the shortest of the of the three angels messages.
It’s very easy to remember. There it is on the screen. It says, “Then another angel, a second followed. Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great. She has made all
nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.” And so this verse found its initial fulfillment after the
summer of 1844 when the established denominations rejected the announcement of the coming of Christ by the Millerites and many of
those people who accepted the coming of Christ were driven out of their established mainline churches and they coalesed around what we now call the
advent message. Uh Sister White writes about those times. She says this, “The churches would not receive the in the
light of the first angel’s message. And as they rejected the light from heaven above, they fell from the favor of God.
But the beloved of God, who were oppressed, answered to the message,
Babylon is fallen,” and left the fallen churches. And so, there was an initial fulfillment of this second angel’s message at the start of the Advent movement. And as we saw this morning,
um, Revelation 12 is an overview of the fact that there is a struggle between Christ and Satan. There is war in heaven
between Christ and Satan, and there’s a war on earth between Christ and Satan.
And that war reaches into my home and into your home. There is a war going on between Christ and Satan. And Satan is
angry with those who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus. And then in Revelation 13, we saw this morning that
Satan attacks the world, particularly in the end of time with this counterfeit godhead with Satan counterfeiting God the Father, the papacy, the the sea
beast of Revelation 13 counterfeiting Jesus Christ and the land beast, the USA in prophecy, Revelation 13 being the counterfeit to the Holy Spirit. And so,
Satan attacks God’s people throughout the ages through this counterfeit godhead. And in response, God sends out
three messages through three angels. And those messages are not just to the faithful of God through the ages. They are directed to all the inhabitants of the world, to every nation, tribe,
language, and people. As we saw today,
uh the the uh the sea beast, it was given authority over every nation,
tribe, language, and people. So, Satan has his finger around the world. But the first angel’s message likewise goes to every nation, tribe, language, and
people. That is there is no nation left behind as far as God is concerned.
Wherever Satan has reached, wherever evil has reached there, the message of grace and the gospel is also going to reach as well.
And so we come to this second angel’s message now.
And uh just to understand what we’re reading here, let’s just drop back into the Old Testament because Babylon
appears first in the Old Testament. And we’re going to pick up the story just after the flood in Genesis 10:es 8-10.
And this is the first mention of Babylon or Babel in the Bible. And so in Genesis 10:es 8-10,
um the text says this, Kush became the father of Nimrod. He was the first on earth to become a mighty warrior. He was
a mighty hunter before the Lord. Now that preposition before can also be interpreted against the Lord. So the text can say he was a hunter against God
or he was a hunter before the Lord. The text goes on to say, “Therefore it is said like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord.
The beginning of his kingdom was Babel or Babylon, Eric and Akad. All of them in the land of Sha. And so in modernday
Iraq in the mean in the heart of the Mesopotamian deserts there uh the heart of the fertile cresant we have the first
king in the Bible and his name was Nimrod. And we may ask ourselves what is significant um for the the fact that
just after the flood we have the first human kingdom being mentioned. And this is the this is the significance. When
God created Adam and Eve, his intention was for them to be his representatives on planet Earth. God is sovereign. He is
in control. But Adam was to be his representative, his steward. And he was accountable before God for his stewardship of the earth’s resources.
But when when you have the first monarchy on earth, the word monarchy tells you what the problem is. Because the word monarchy is two words. Mono
means soul or only and ar means head or ruler. So a mono from where we get the
word monarch means that if you are the king of a country it means you are the sole ruler of that country. It also
means that you are no longer answering to God. That we make our own decisions.
that when you are a monarch or you have a republic these days um or a king in like in in the England United Kingdom
the very concept of a monarch is that we are no longer accountable to God that you are the sole ruler of the nation you
are in charge the buck stops with you and as a king you don’t answer to anybody else and over the centuries this
this theory developed and eventually turned to what became known as the divine right of kings that God had put that king in in office and therefore you
as a citizen of that country were never allowed to question that king because to question that king would mean to go against God himself.
And so there is a problem with the concept of monarchy within the Bible.
You have one at Jones one of our greatest religious liberty leaders uh he opposed viciferously the idea of having a president of the general conference.
He was fiercely opposed to that because he said once you have a president,
you’re going to have a like an authoritarian,
regal, monarchical leadership style in the church. He said it is better to have someone elected to be the chair of the
executive committee than for somebody to be a president of the worldwide church because to be the chair of a committee
doesn’t give you as much absolute authority and power as being the president of something. So at Jones was very opposed was one of our greatest
religious liberty leaders to the whole concept of monarchy and um if you got if you get his books the the empires of the Bible series he wrote a series of books
on the empires of the Bible one of them was on the Assyrian empire one of them was called um one of them was on the four kingdoms of Daniel 7 um another one
was on the papacy that was called ecclesiastical empire and what happened was the GC was upset with him about something it often happens that the
general conference is upset with religious liberty leaders. And they they sent this religious liberty leader. They said, “We need you to take a world tour
and get on a ship and travel around the world and cool off on your world trip.”
And he went on this trip all the way around the world in a boat for about 18 months. And on the way he wrote these books, so it clearly didn’t cool him off
at all. Um, but he wrote these books. I encourage you to read those. And in those books, he works out his philosophy of history, which is that we are
stewards. We are accountable to God for our decisions. Whether we are peeons or whether we are kings or not, we’re all accountable before God. And in the
church, we should not have monarchical kingly authority. And so, Nimrod,
the uh the first kingdom in Babylon there, the very concept of kingdom means you’re rejecting the sovereignty of God
in the affairs of men in favor of the sovereignty of men in the fa in the affairs of men.
Thus was humanism born just after the flood that we answer to ourselves and not to anybody else. And the word itself
babel or babilu, it means the gate of God.
It’s basically means that the gods are distant if they’re out there, but we are supreme and sovereign in our own affairs down here on planet earth. And instead
of dispersing the population after the flood all over the world to replenish the world and to repopulate it, Nimrod gathered the humanity into a few cities
in the Middle East. He built Babylon and he built the Tower of Babel. The goal was to make his kingdom and Babylon an
expression of admiration and wonder for the whole world, a monument to humanism,
a celebration of life without God, an affirmation that in the kingdoms of men,
God is no longer sovereign. And we can figure out our own problems for ourself.
It was an expression of distrust in God and his promises to Noah that the world would never again be destroyed by a flood.
And along with ba with Nimrod comes n uh paganism. See, if you’re immortal,
then the wages of sin are not death.
And if sin does not lead to death, you have no need of a messiah.
Uh just the other day, yesterday in fact, I was reading late last night, the Pacific Union Recorder had an article
about the um promoting theistic evolution.
The idea that God started evolution and he guided it over many centuries. And of course the problem with it is apart from it not being true and a part of it just
ignoring what the scripture says. The part the problem with this is if you believe that for millions of years there were cycles of life and death and life
and death and life and death and life and death before you get to Adam and Eve. What that means is that death existed before sin.
And if death existed before sin then the wages of sin is not death.
And therefore you don’t need a savior to save you from the p wages of sin. So it nullifies the nullifies the need for the
gospel. And so this secular humanism that has spread throughout the world from the time of Nimrod onward, it even affects us today within our own faith
community. But with paganism comes the idea that you don’t need that you’re not going to die. And with that comes spiritualism. The first lie ever spoken was by a theologian. It was by Satan.
who said to the woman, the serpent said to the woman, “You shall not surely die.” The first person in the Bible to discuss the meaning of the words of of God was Satan himself.
So that makes him the first theologian as uh one of famous historic church historians says, “Heaven preserve us from the wrath of the theologians.”
But the first theologian in in history was Satan himself. And he’s the serpent said to Eve, the woman in the garden of Eden, you shall not die. And so
essentially almost every major religion in our world today has bought into that same lie. The original lie of the
immortality of the soul. You find the doctrine of the immortality of the soul in Islam where you either go to paradise
for eternity or you go to hellfire for eternity. They just miss out purgatory on in the middle. If you uh Catholicism
promotes the same lie that you are immortal that when you die you go to heaven, you go to hell or you go to purgatory. And um then if you uh if you
believe in paganism, you also believe in the immortality of the soul. Hinduism and Buddhism also embrace that original
lie, the immortality of the soul with a doctrine of reincarnation. You don’t actually die, you come back in a new life form.
Have you ever thought about sharing the gospel with a Hindu or a Buddhist?
If if you believe that you’re going to go through millions of cycles of life and death and life and death and life and death and life and death, is that good news or is it bad news?
It’s terrible news.
I mean, who knows? In millions of cycles, you can have millions of mothers-in-law. I mean, somebody asked me to talk about mothers, so I just gave you one there. But the problem with the
cycles of life and death and life and death and life and death and life and death is the average life, you’re on the uphill physically for about the first 16
to 18 years. And from about the age of 18 onwards, you’re going downhill. Isn’t that right?
The human body is not a pretty thing.
I’m glad I’m not in medicine or nursing because the human body is basically a mess. And I’m glad we’re all in our nice clothes today because the human body is
a mess. And and if you go through if you go through life and death and life and death, that means you have millions of cycles of cancer and depression and
Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia and psychosis and diabetes and high blood pressure. The idea that you’re going to
have to endure this millions and millions and millions of times is not good news. But the good news of the gospel for those who believe in the
reincarnation of the soul is that you live and then you die and the next thing you know when Christ comes again is eternal life with no more cycles of death whatsoever.
And so the original lie told by Satan that you shall not surely die has made its way into almost every major religion
in our world today. And many many Christians today of all denominations believe in the original lie that you
shall not surely die. And as such, all of these faiths are satanic faiths. Let’s call a spade a spade.
If you believe in the lies of Satan, the original lie that you shall not surely die, this is a faith that emanates from the pits of hell. Because if you are not going to die, you don’t need a savior.
So you have these ideas being promoted by Satan all the way back to the garden of Eden and then through Nimrod and the rise the rise of paganism. And modern
day astrology today is essentially a form of paganism that embraces all forms of the occult. The author of astrology
is Satan who once was Lucifer, the shining or the illuminated one. The spirit guides for the astrologers are fallen angels otherwise known as demons.
The chief star gods of the pagans are the gods of astrology which are really the emanations of one god. So they believe the sun god who is the ruler of
the zodiac and he is believed to control every aspect of your life. And today,
the occult is all pervasive in American society. It’s everywhere we look. This isn’t just something that happened in Babylon 6,000 years ago.
You can’t go through almost one day in America without the occults touching me one way or the other.
People say, “What is your star sign?”
People say, “Have you read your horoscope?”
It’s in the stars, don’t you know? And Hollywood pumps out these movies filled with superheroes who are morally ambiguous characters, but one thing they all have in common is they never die.
They keep coming back in new incarnations.
And so our children are being indoctrinated in the idea that being evil does not lead to death. Satan is no longer hiding in our western society.
the massive growth of the occults of wicker practices, pagan practices, transgenderism, Satan is no longer hiding.
And back in the Old Testament days, Isaiah 14:4,
Isaiah equates the king of Babylon as being Lucifer himself. Isaiah 14:4,
Isaiah says this, “You will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon. How the oppressor has ceased, how his insolence has ceased.” And so in this
passage here, Isaiah equates the king of Babylon with Lucifer himself. Therefore,
Babylon’s rebellion against God is is the same as Satan’s rebellion against God in heaven. And uh uh Lucifer’s hate
Babylon’s persecution of the saints of God in the time of Daniel and Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego. Babylon’s persecution of the saints of God um mirrors Lucifer and his hatred for God and for the saints of God as well.
And the first time you get in the Bible the phrase Babylon the great is not in Revelation 14 but it’s in Daniel chapter
4 and verse 13. And this is the story where King Nebuchadnezzar um he had a dream. Do you remember the dream of a great tree and it grow grew tall and the
birds of the air nested in it and the animals of the field they they gathered under the shade and then a voice from heaven came and judgment was pronounced
and that tree was chopped down. Now, if you read your Bibles carefully, that’s not the first time that dream appeared to a pagan king.
It also appeared in Ezekiel to Pharaoh.
And it relates to Assyria. So, this was a well-known dream. Nebuchadnezzar was not the first to receive that dream. We
only think of it Nebuchadnezzar, but he wasn’t the first example of that particular dream in the Bible. And God warned Nebuchadnezzar through Daniel in Daniel chapter 4. And Daniel said,
“Atton for your wickedness by showing mercy to the oppressed.”
And Nebuchadnezzar thought about it for a year. And he thought about it.
And one day he’s walking on the top of his palace. And he looks at the incredible city of Babylon, which was the New York of its time.
And he looks over it and his heart is filled with pride. And he looks at everything that he’s built. You know that the bricks from Babylon have Nebuchadnezzar’s name stamped into them.
You can still see his name today in the bricks of Babylon. He wanted the world to know that he built the city of Babylon.
And he stands there on the in his palace and pride fills his heart. And on the screen you see the text it says the king
spoke saying is not this great Babylon or Hebrew be the Babylon the great is
not this the great Babylon that I have built for a royal dwelling by my mighty power and for the honor of my majesty.
And so the phrase Babylon the Great is first found on Nebuchadnezzar’s lips as an expression of his pride. It’s an expression of his refusal to recognize
the sovereignty of God in the affairs of the kingdoms of men. Nebuchadnezzar’s pride mirrors that of Lucifer whose pride led to rebellion in heaven. And
because the king was proud was proud, we had a warning, a prophetic warning in Isaiah 21 and verse 9, which says
there’s the king there as a picture overlooking Babylon. There’s the um the hanging b hanging gardens of Babylon.
Nebuchadnezzar’s wife was from was from northern Iran and and she was a princess from there and northern Iran is filled
with mountains and snow in the winter and she hated the deserts around Babylon because it was just flat sandy nothingness and so Nebuchadnezzar built
the hanging gardens of Babylon. who was over seven stories tall. And he and he put on those um that building he he put
palaces and temples and he put trees and forests and it was like this green mountain arising in the plains of the of the Arabian of the Saudi Arabian desert
there um by the river um Euphrates. And so he built the the hanging gardens of Babylon. Um maybe you might say it was
his love gift to his homesick bride. But Isaiah 21:9 he had his seven years of madness.
Isaiah 21 and verse9 is the first time you have the phrase fallen fallen is Babylon. And it’s not in the second angel’s message. It goes all the way
back to Isaiah. And Isaiah says this in Isaiah 21:9. He said fallen fallen is Babylon and all the images of her gods lie shattered on the ground.
So long before you get to the second angel’s message, we have this message in the Old Testament that fallen fallen is this great city called Babylon. And then
we also read this in Jeremiah 51:6. The God’s command to his people, his counsel to his people who are living in Babylon.
He says, “Flee.” You see it on the screen. It says Jeremiah 51:6-8. It says, “Flee from the midst of Babylon.
Save your lives, each of you. Do not perish for her guilt. For this is the time of the Lord’s vengeance. He is
repaying her for what is due.” Babylon was a golden cup in the Lord’s hand,
making all the earth drunken. The nations drank of her wine and so the nations went mad. Suddenly Babylon has fallen and is shattered.
Now does that sound like the book of Revelation to you? And this was given 700 BC, 650 BC.
So this was given long before these visions came to the Apostle John on the island of Patmos. What do we learn about Babylon in the Old Testament?
was that Babylon was a religious and a political power, a union of church and state. It opposed God personally.
Babylon promoted satanic doctrines,
pagan demon worship, and it persecuted the people of God. But God called his people out of Babylon before God brought sudden judgment upon Babylon.
And we haven’t even got to the New Testament yet.
So that alone tells you all we need to know about Babylon really that Babylon is a union of church and state. Babylon
is a persecuting power of the saints of God. Babylon encourages the nations of the earth to kill those who are faithful
to God. Babylon promotes paganism which is the worship of demons. Let’s cut to the chase here. It’s not worshiping idols. The worship of Baal, the worship
of Deeon, the worship of Ma Molech, the worship of the Asteraths and the Ishtars. These were wor this was the worship of living demons. The the
statues were just manifestations of those demons. Babylon is a persecuting power promoting satanic doctrines who
attacks God’s people and is drunk with the blood of God’s people. But God promises to bring judgment upon Babylon.
God says before I bring judgment on this godless power, he says come out of her, my people.
Now, we haven’t got to the New Testament yet. We’re going to switch there now.
But this is what the Old Testament reveals about ancient Babylon. So let’s come to New Testament Babylon, shall we?
And to set the scene for this, we find three particular beasts I want to speak about here for a moment in Revelation
12, Revelation 17 and Revelation 13. The first beast that we find is in
Revelation 12 and verse three. We touched on this particular beast this morning which says this. Then another
portant appeared in heaven. A great red dragon with seven heads and 10 horns and 10 diadems on his heads. So this beast
has got seven heads, 10 horns and 10 crowns. And Revelation 12:9 tells us the
identity of this beast. This beast is who? It is Satan. It is Satan, that great dragon, the accuser of the saints,
the persecutor of God’s people. This dragon who appears in Revelation 12 is Satan himself. And in Revelation 12,
this dragon persecuted the child uh persecuted the woman and persecuted the child. And the persecution was for a
time, times, and half a time. Those are the years of papal supremacy. So the first piece we find in Revelation 12 is
Satan acting through imperial Rome and then through papal Rome. That’s the first piece we have. The second beast I
want to draw attention to as we home in on Babylon here is found in Revelation 13 1-8. And there’s a image there of the
the the woman who’s pregnant with child and the seven-headed beast coming after her. But the second beast we find is
found in Revelation 13 1-8. And this particular beast um parallels the arrogant little horn power of Daniel 7.
And it persecutes the saints for 42 months, the same as the parallel 1260-year prophecy of the little horn
power of Daniel 7. And uh Revelation 13:2 describes this beast. It says, “The
beast that I saw was like a leopard. Its feet were like a bear’s and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth.” Now, do do
those animals ring any bells from anywhere in the Old Testament? A bear, a lion, and a leopard.
Yes. And in Daniel’s prophecy, what was the first beast he saw in Daniel 7 to come out of the sea? A lion. And what was the second beast?
It was a bear. And the third beast was a leopard. But you notice in this description, the order is reversed. We
start out with the the leopard, then you go back to the bear, then you go back to the lion. Okay? The order has been reversed
which tells you that we’re looking at the same beast but from a different time in in prophecy. A different time perspective is happening here. To give
you another example of these ill details matter matter. Turn in your Bibles to Daniel 5 where Daniel is speaking to um
King Belshazza. This is kind of a this is just another illustration of how this works in prophecy. In Daniel chapter 5
and verse 4, you read about Belshazz Belshazza celebrating in his palace in Babylon and the Persian armies on the
outside. And uh Belshazzer, his father um was Nabonidis and Nabonidis was
worshiping the moon god known literally as sin and he was in the Arabian desert and he wasn’t able to defend Babylon. So he left his son Belshazza to defend
Babylon. So Belshazzer and his father the Nabonidis were the number one and two rulers in Babylon. on that night and Nebuchadnezzar Belshazzer holds a feast
and they gather they get the the vessels of gold and silver from the temple of Jerusalem which Nebuchadnezzar had stolen uh about 70 years before and in
verse four of Daniel 5 it says they drank the wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood and stone. Do you see that?
Somebody say yes. All right. Then when Daniel comes in that night and he interprets the handwriting on the wall, many many teleupin,
what Daniel says to Neb Belshazzer is this in verse 23. He says, “You have exalted yourselves against the God of
heaven. The vessels of his temple have also been brought in before you, and you and your lords and your wives and your concubines have been drinking wine from them. You have praised the gods of what?
silver and gold of bronze, iron, wood and stone. So Nebucha and Belshazzer is praising the gods of gold, silver,
bronze and iron. And when Daniel brings speaks about God’s judgment, he reverses the order of the metals that now the
change is taking place right in front of you. So these little details matter.
Just the order in which Daniel gives him the metals tells us that the transition is taking place. And that very night indeed Belshazzer was was killed by the
invading Persian armies. So this second beast of Revelation chapter that we’re looking at in Revelation 13 1-8, it
shows a different p time perspective from the first piece of Revelation 12.
Revelation 13 is from the end of the time of persecution whereas Revelation 12 is from the beginning of that time of persecution.
And then you come to beast number three 17 1-11.
And um there you have the four beasts of Daniel 7. Babylon, P, Media, Persia, Greece, and Rome.
And um you see that the beast of Revelation 13.
It claims certain authority, authority from Satan. It’s a worldwide religious power. It claims equality with God. Is a persecuting power. Number of his name is
666. has authority for 42 months or 1260 years. And um not just Adventists, but going all the way back into the middle
ages with Catholic priests, people who are scholars of scripture recognize this as a description of the papacy as being a a power hostile to God.
But the fir the third beast we want to look at here is found in Revelation 17.
And the text is on the screen. And you can follow me in your own Bibles if you want. Revelation 17 1-11. And this is
what it says. It says, “Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great who
is seated on many waters with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and with the wine of whose fornication the inhabitants of the earth
have become drunk.” So he carried me away in the in the spirit into the wilderness. And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of
blasphemous names. And it had seven heads and 10 horns. The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls,
holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her fornication. And on her forehead was
written a name, a mystery, Babylon the Great, mother of horse and of earth’s abominations. and I saw that the woman
was drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the witnesses to Jesus. Now,
normally we refer to the Old Testament people as being the saints and we normally refer to New Testament
people who die for Christ as being martyrs. Is that not right?
The the word in the New Testament used for a a witness in a court of law is martus. We get the word martyr from that.
And in the first century, if you were a Christian, you were called before the Roman a Roman governor. There would be a statue of Caesar and you were ordered to
offer some incense to the statue of Caesar and say Kaisurio, which means Caesar is Lord. And the Christians would
refuse because they would say, “No, I don’t believe that Kaiser Curios Caesar is Lord. I believe curios which means
Jesus is Lord.” And when you gave your testimony like that, you were a witness.
Um it means that you you are giving testimony in a court of law with a possibility of being executed depending on your answer.
And so this persecuting power is a persecuting power that not just kills the saints of old, Hebrews 11, the heroes of faith from the Old Testament,
but this is a persecuting power that in New Testament times kills the saints of God. And it does it often through a judicial process.
If you want a great book to read in this new year, I recommend the book My Escape from the Aladdin
like an act of faith. And so in the Spanish Inquisition, they cloaked all the bloodshed um under very nice sounding words. So when they strangled you before they burnt you at the stake,
the euphemism was that we relaxed the body.
And so my escape from the outer defa is is a is the true it’s a legal testimony of a man who was born in northern Spain
and he he loved a young lady but she was accused of being a Protestant and she was and by by a miracle they escaped
from the they escaped from the um from the the being being burnt alive and they fled and pursued by the Spanish
Inquisition all the way up to Paris where he got a job as a tent lace maker for the the king of France and his wife
And the the king of France’s wife, the queen was Katherine Demdichi, which probably the one of the most bloodthirsty women to sit on a throne in human history. And she hated Protestants
with a passion. And she was the one who organized in the late 1570s or so or 1560s what we now call the St.
Bartholomeude’s massacre.
And on that morning, she she she once she said, “I want to make peace between Protestants and Catholics.” And she invited all the Protestant leaders from
around the country to come to Paris. and they were going to have a wedding between a Catholic prince and a Protestant princess from southwest
France. And this was going to be a political marriage that would bring peace between Protestants and Catholics.
But the thing was a fake. And she invited everybody to Paris. And when all the Protestant leaders were in Paris, we now call them the Hugenos. Uh one
morning at a at a signal about 4 in the morning, um the mob attacked those Protestants in their homes. And over 70,000 people were butchered that day.
And the lace maker for the queen was a Protestant and she knew
and for some known reason reason known only to her, she didn’t insist that her own lace maker be executed.
Maybe she liked the lace he used to make for her.
Well, that lace maker escaped with his bride to England and many years later when he died, he wrote out this story
and it was read as part of his last will and testament and you can buy that today. It’s called My Escape from the Outer Daf and it’s on Amazon for about $10.
But it gives you a good understanding when the text says she’s drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the witnesses to Jesus. It’s exactly right.
this persecuting power. Uh we carry on to read about this this particular beast here. So this harlot woman of Revelation 17,
what does she represent? System,
a false system of religion. See, all three of these beasts we’ve just mentioned here, they cover a similar history, but from a different
perspective. The beast one, the dragon in Revelation 12 shows the satanic persecution of the saints of God from
imperial Rome all the way through papal Rome all the way down to the faithful remnant who keep the commandments of God. So Revelation 12 is a
forward-looking prophecy. Revelation 13 1-8 adds more detail and this is talking about the papacy and what it did during
the time of the dark ages, the time of papal supremacy. And Revelation 17, this passage here adds even more debt
description. But this is the perspective of the persecuting power in what the Bible calls the time of the end. And we are now living in the time of the end.
The end of time is when Jesus comes again. But the time of the end is found in Daniel 11:40 at the end of the time of papal supremacy. And we are living today in the time of the end.
Yes, sir. Now you think about that God in his mercy allowed us to be born in the time of the end.
When darkness is at its when the when the darkness of sin is at its most intense
when the gloom of sin will gather in our world like never before.
When the announcement of the coming of the groom is made at the midnight hour, in the darkest hour of the night,
God is calling us to be his light in that time.
You know, there’s a in the Atlantic, was it the Atlanta, the Atlanta Olympics,
there was a singer here called Whitney Houston. She sang a song called Give Me One Moment in Time. Does any of you remember that song?
Just give me one moment in time.
Well, in this moment in time when God needs a people to shine for him in earth’s darkest hour,
in his mysterious providence, he didn’t put Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob here. He didn’t put Esther, Mary, or Mary,
Magdalene here. It’s we who are his representatives in earth’s darkest hour.
And if God has placed us in this moment in history, he sees that we can do far more than we can begin to imagine for ourselves.
There’s no limit to what God can do through a man or woman who is wholly consecrated to God. Amen.
In earth’s darkest hour, he didn’t choose brave Joseph or brave Daniel or brave Esther. He chose us here today.
We weren’t just born in this time.
Weren’t just born into this time. And by God’s providence, we were born for this time to be God’s champions in earth’s
darkest hour. So each of these beasts covers a different history, but from a very different perspective. And uh more
detail is given for the woman of beast 3. This woman is a symbol of the church,
but she is also a or a harlot. And the beast on which she rides represents successive earthly powers. Now, today
we’re not going to go into a breakdown of all these earthly powers that she’s riding on, but uh suffice it to say that
what we find here all the way to the end of time in particular is there is a global apostate and religious power that is in union with the nations of the
world as a broad summary of what this chapter is talking about here. And so let’s come
to the uh we we read in later in this chapter 17:E1 15 that she sits on many waters which means that she is a
universal church. The word universal the old fashioned word for universal is Catholic. There are two Catholic churches today.
The Roman Catholic Church and the 7th Adventist movement. Both are worldwide bodies.
You don’t find Southern Baptists in many parts of the world but there are two worldwide religious movements. the 7 the Adventists and the Roman Catholic Church. They are both Catholic in the
sense that they have a universal presence in almost every country on planet earth. But this is a fallen woman. She is a fallen church. She is a
Catholic church and she is in a formal union with the nations of the world.
Now, um, we could talk about our formal relationship with the UN this morning because it sounds remarkably similar to
what we’re talking about here, but we won’t. We’re just going to stay on track here. Let’s come to what the message
actually says. The message says, it’s on the screen. Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great. She made all the nations
drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. In the first angel’s message, they bear what is called the everlasting gospel,
which means the gospel doesn’t finish.
It is always good news and it will always run and it will always be operative. But when the second angel’s message draws our attention to Babylon,
this end time persecuting union of a fallen church and the nations of the world, what we the first thing we are
told is that Babylon is not permanent because Babylon is fallen. That the gospel may be permanent, but Babylon and
her persecution of the saints, there is a limit beyond which God will say no more. That fallen fallen is Babylon the great. The gospel is everlasting, but
Babylon is not permanent. That means her false doctrines will not be permanent and her persecutions will not be permanent. And the repetition of the word fallen, fallen, fallen is Babylon,
indicates that this matter is really fixed by God. There is nothing endtime Babylon can do to stop God’s judgment upon her.
And so this end time union of persecution between church and state,
between the papacy and the nations of our world today, it may look big. It may dominate the world today. But God has said this system is under God’s
judgment. It is fallen. And the gospel is everlasting. But what they do is limited in time and space.
I am grateful that God has placed a limit beyond which evil cannot go. Amen.
There is a limit beyond which evil cannot go. And so the text says she has made all the nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.
This parallels what we read earlier in Jeremiah 51:7. This fallen church seduces and deceives the entire world in
Revelation 13 to receive the mark of the beast which is false worship and false doctrine. Why? Because the promise is if
you engage in this false worship, you can maintain political stability and economic prosperity.
So what exactly are these false doctrines? The wine of the wrath of her fornication.
Well, 2 Thessalonians 2 1-12 when the text says there she made all the nations drink of the wine of the
wrath for fornication. According to 2 Thessalonians 2 1-12, which we won’t read today, there is to be a great apostasy before Christ comes again.
And that great apostasy um would would center around what that text calls the man of sin, which is the fallen church of Rome.
And time is short. And some people say,
some people preachers stand up and they say, “This was the Mediterranean apostasy.” No, time is short, brothers and sisters.
We need to just cut straight to the chase. We’re talking about the Roman Catholic Church, which is the Antichrist of prophecy. That is the chief source of satanic doctrines in our world today.
Amen. Amen.
And what are some of those false teachings? Well, these false teachings would enter the body of Christ from the time of the apostles onward. And I’m
just going to list out some of those false teachings here. But you’re going to have the false mass uh replacing Christ’s once and for all sacrifice. In
the mass, you have the idea that Christ is sacrificed day after day after day after day, and it is no longer a once and for all and allsufficient sacrifice
for human sin. Other false doctrines include this that you have an earthly impure fallen priesthood replacing a
high a a high a heavenly and a holy high priest Christ in the high priestly ministry. We have the idea that the dead
dead Mary would replace the living savior as the only intercessor between humanity and god. She is the intercessor
in in Catholic dogma. You have the idea that you can confess your sins before men rather than before God. You have the
idea that you can do penance rather than having a penitent heart. And this was a translation problem in the Vulgates in the Gospel of Matthew. But God wants us
to have sorrow for sin in our hearts. He wants us to be penitent. He doesn’t want us to do penance which is do a pilgrimage somewhere or so so many Hail
Marys or pay money into local church building fund. That’s not what God is looking for. He’s looking for hearts filled with sorrow because we’ve broken
our relationship with our heavenly father. That is what it means to be penitent. You have the doctrine of the sale of indulgences.
If you pay money into the church building fund, then you can sin as much as you want for the rest of your life.
There is a reason why moral degradation spread across Catholic nations.
Because in the Protestant worldview, we are to repent and bapt and be baptized and believe. We are to turn away from
sin. But in the Catholic view, you can pay your money and be a rapist and a murderer and a philanderer and a cheat for the rest of your life. And that’s okay with God because you paid money.
And where did that money go from the sale of indulgences? It went to the building of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome today. And every time you see the Pope
standing on that big building on the TV in Rome and that big St. Peter’s Plaza in front of it, you’re looking at the the profits from the sale of indulgences
in the Middle Ages in Europe. That’s where that money went. You pay your money, you build a building, and you can sin happily away for the rest of your
life. You have the adoption of the canonization of dead saints. This is a this is a an act of satanic genius
because wherever the Catholic Church has gone, she’s adopted local false gods and given them a sanctified Catholic name and turned them into Catholic saints.
And so you have this synretatism between local paganism and animism has been brought into the Catholic Church. You have the adding of the apocryphal books
to the Bible. You have the doctrine of the immaculate conception of Mary. This doctrine here, what it means is is that
Mary was conceived in a sinless manner by her parents. It’s not that Christ was conceived without sin. The doctrine of
the immaculate conception says that Mary had to be unfallen and therefore she had to be conceived in a sinless way by her
parents. So, we’re pushing back a generation to protect Mary. Um in the doctr in the marology you have the exaltation of Mary as the mother of God
as the theotocus as the eastern church would call her you have Mary’s bodily assumption to heaven the idea that Mary is now in heaven above on which the
scriptures are entirely silent you have origins teaching that scripture cannot be and should not be understood as written but you should always look for
an allegorical meaning of scripture rather than the plains reading of scripture itself and when you say that you can’t read you can’t interpret the
scripture as it is written, then most people just give up because who knows what the underlying allegory is supposed to be. You’re not supposed to believe
the evidence of your eyes. There is the claim by the bishops of Rome that the church is over the scripture and the church is not subject to the scripture.
You have the idea of pilgrimages as a suitable penance to atone for sin. You have the veneration of angels and the dead saints. You have the use of images
in worship. You have the the practice of the rosary. You have baptism by sprinkling with water rather than by full immersion. You have the doctrine of
transsubstantiation which means that when the priest says has that wafer and that wine, he commands it to turn into the literal
body of Christ and blood of Christ which was a major point of uh debate during the Protestant Reformation. You have the doctrine that we are not saved by the
grace of God alone but you are saved by grace plus works. That doctrine was formulated in the council of Trent in the counterreformation. You have the
doctrine of the transference of semnity from Sabbath to Sunday. You have monasticism. You have false aceticism.
You have the unbiblical divide between clergy and leoty. There is nothing in the scripture about this this divide we have in our churches today between the
clergy and the leoty. We believe in the priesthood of all believers and everybody has gifts and everybody is to use their gifts for the building up of
the body of Christ. You have the um the idolizing of celibacy over marriage. You have the adoration of relics, the
worship of rotting bones. And when you view rotting bones and you pay your money, then you can reduce your time in purgatory. Theoretically and allegedly,
you have the the false claim of apostolic succession from Peter, the lighting of candles, the practice of prayers for the dead, the adoration of
gold images, processions through the streets, the doctrine of the infallibility of the pope.
Well, the doctrine of the un infallible infallibility of the pope sounds great,
but it’s not as great as it sounds because, and this was a very late doctrine in the late 1800s, that doctrine was pushed out. But if the if the pope is infallible,
that means that everything they said in the 1200s and the 1300s and the 1400s was also perfectly right. And if the
pope is infallible, it means that whatever the pope says today must be consistent with everything that was said back over 1500 years. That places the
current pope in an awful bind if he wants to change doctrine.
Because if the popes of the 1600s issued encyclicals and bulls and so forth and said this is dogma, then the modern pope
cannot change that. And so the doctrine of infallibility means that every word you’ve said in the past is used against you.
Then you have uh other false teachings that this woman pushes around the world today. You have the doctrine of purgatory, the idea that you pay money
to reduce time for yourself in purgatory or you can spring your parents from hellfire by paying certain amounts of money. The doctrine of two swords which
is this the word of the Lord, word of God is the sword of the spirit. So if if the priest fails to bring you into the body of Christ through the preaching of
the word of God, which is the sword of the spirit, then the magistrate will compel you with the steel sword of the soldiers. So that’s known as the
doctrine of two swords and that comes down from the middle ages there. And then you have the legitimacy of compulsion and torture to force people
into the church. That was do that was that doctrine came from Augustine in the 400s onwards because there is a verb in
the New Testament and when the when in the parable of the wedding feast in Matthew’s gospel when the master says to his servants go out and invite them to
come to the feast that verb anakiso can also mean compel and so the idea is that you can compel
people into the church and even if you kill them in the process you’re doing them a favor because they also believe that extra ecclesia on
salusess which is a dogma of the church which means literally outside the church there is no salvation. So if I can compel you to enter the church and kill
you in the process physically um I can but I’m actually doing you a favor because I’m guaranteeing you access to eternal life
then you can compel anybody to enter and even if you kill them in the process you’re still doing them a favor.
Yes, says the Bible. These false doctrines have spread around the world and millions upon millions have paid for
their lives as a result of these false doctrines.
The great controversy responds page 595. We read there,
but God will have a people upon the earth to maintain the Bible and the Bible only as the standard of all doctrines on the basis of all reforms.
The opinions of learned men, the deductions of science, the creeds or decisions of ecclesiastical councils, as numerous and discordant, as are the
churches which they represent, the voice of the majority. Not one nor all of these should be regarded as evidence for
or against any points of religious faith. Before accepting any doctrine or precept, we should demand a plain thus sayaith the Lord in its support.
Amen. And amen. And elsewhere she goes on to say, I don’t have the quote with me, but I quoted it just a few weeks ago. Even in the church, we are not to accept a thus sayaith the church.
We are to only accept a thus sayaith the Lord.
Because the only thing that is absolutely true in my life and in your life is the word of God itself.
But if you’re going to demand a thus sayaith the Lord, that means you need to know the scriptures for yourself so you know whether what you’re being told is true or not.
We are to rightly divine what is written in the word of of God. We are to know it for ourselves. So if somebody gives us something um we immediately know that it’s fake or not.
You know, when when my wife cooks her a certain soup for me, I know it comes from her hands. I know that taste.
And if I go somewhere else, somebody gives me a soup. It may be nice, but I know it’s not my wife’s soup.
If we don’t know the original for ourselves, we’re going to be seduced by the lying doctrines of devils. Amen.
And that is why we come to church on Sabbath morning like this. But I would encourage you to know our our teachings of scripture for yourselves. We call
them the 28 fundamental beliefs. You should be able to know as a 7th Adventist uh what each of those 28 fundamental beliefs are. And you should
be able to know at least one Bible text that supports that belief.
And if you can’t do that, you’re not prepared for what’s coming down the pike. We are to be able to give an intelligent answer for the faith that we
hold dear. And that and if if you’re not, it’s easy to sit in the church and hear somebody preaching and say, “Amen.” But we are to know this for ourselves.
And you say, “Oh, pastor, I can’t do that. I meet people on planes who know all the batting averages for players going back years.”
People fill their minds with garbage, with dross, with fluff, with nonsense. And what are we filling our minds with?
Our minds are to be saturated with the word of God. Amen.
So, I want to encourage you today, if you’re not doing this already, go over the 28 fundamental beliefs and each one of them, doctrine of creation, God the
Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, etc., etc. All the way through those doctrines, have in your mind at least one verse that backs up that teaching.
It’s not hard to do. Second coming, 1 Corinthians 15.
Everybody knows that. I hope everybody knows that it’s not hard to do, but if you’re not intentional about it, it’s not going to happen.
And we’re to be prepared for what is coming upon our world. Jesus say, “Stay awake then and watch.” Therefore, we are to be prepared for what is coming upon our world. And this text here,
Revelation 17 verse 6 tells us that this woman is a persecuting woman. On the
left, you’ve got Revelation 17:6 and to the right of it, you’ve got Revelation 18:24. These two verses are speaking
about end time Babylon. Revelation 17:6 says, “And I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the witnesses to Jesus.”
So, end time Babylon is going to be a persecuting power, literally killing the saints of God.
Let’s understand that being a Christian isn’t a guarantee that you’re not you’re going to be protected from persecution.
That’s right.
Nebuchadnezzar became a follower of Jehovah. You know that in Daniel chapter 1, Nebuchadnezzar was
a polytheist. He worshiped many gods and he captured Jerusalem and he took those teenage boys captive. Daniel, Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego and in all likelihood turned them into Unix in the process.
And in Daniel chapter 2, he’s a poly polytheist. Daniel chapter 2, he has the dream. At the end of that dream, he says, “Now I know that the God of Israel
is above all the other gods.” Remember that.
That means he’s now a henotheist. A henotheist believes that there are many gods, but there is one God over everybody else.
And then in Daniel chapter 3, he puts the three Hebrew wordies into the fiery furnace and he’s exalting the God of
Israel above the other gods and the nations of the world. But by Daniel 4,
after his seven years of madness, that’s the personal testimony of conversion of of Nebuchadnezzar. He is now a worshshiper of Jehovah God.
And at each stage of his journey, the people who coaxed him along that journey were his prisoners, his slaves, his unic
boys, men he’d take stolen from their homes were now his slaves in a foreign land. God used their suffering to bring
the ruler of the known world into the kingdom of God. Amen.
And so sometimes it is the unjustice we face today that actually brings the rulers of our land to a faith in God.
Because it is when they see how we respond to pain and suffering and persecution that they realize that there is a higher power at work in our lives
than any psychologist can can describe or understand. And that power is the presence and person of the Holy Spirit.
And so you see on the right hand side of the screen it says, “And in you,” this is God speaking to end time Babylon,
“was found the blood of prophets and of saints and of all who have been slaughtered on the earth.”
That would include Jeffrey Epstein’s children because this is the phrase and all who’ve been slaughtered on the earth.
Every child still born, every child aborted, every child murdered,
every child abused and sacrificed by Epstein and his global accompllices.
God knows and he will hold them to account.
This passage here tells us that God knows his own. God sees the persecution of his children. He knows them by name.
Isaiah 43:1-4.
And God will bring about sudden destruction and everlasting judgment on end time Babylon before Jesus returns.
Somebody say amen to that.
These global systems of persecution and oppression will collapse one day when God brings those final plagues to bear.
So what is God’s appeal to those in end time Babylon? We’re drawing to the close of our sermon here. What is God’s appeal to those in end time Babylon? Well, in
the face of Satan’s end time deceptions to lead the whole world astray and his attempt to deceive the saints of God even here in Atlanta in 2026 so that we
might lose our salvation. God responds with these three final messages of mercy. And in Revelation 18, which is it continues the second angel’s message.
It’s a message about Babylon. Um the first angel’s message is the everlasting gospel. The second angel’s message is Satan is exposed and that has to do with
end time Babylon. And the third angel’s message is you got to make a choice.
We’ll look at that this afternoon. But this is what the third angel’s message says. It says, “After this, I saw another angel coming down from heaven,
having great authority, and the earth was made bright with his splendor. He called out with a mighty voice and fallen is Babylon the Great. It has
become a dwelling place of demons, a haunt of every foul spirit, a haunt of every foul bird, a haunt of every foul
and hateful beast. For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with
her, and the merchants of the earth have grown drier. Then I heard another voice from heaven,
saying, “Come out of her, my people, so that you do not take part in her sins,
and you do not share in her plagues, for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.” The
bottom line is this, judgment is coming for those who persecute the saints of God. Amen.
I say amen and amen. Judgment is coming by God on behalf of the innocents who have suffered and been slaughtered over the centuries. God is a God of justice.
The blood of righteous Abel cries from the ground as has the blood of all those through the centuries who’ve experienced oppression and murder and bloodshed and
persecution particularly for their faith. And I say and praise the Lord that God is going to make all things right once again. Someday in the future,
God is going to make all things right. And this passage here is very clear. Fall and fallen is Babylon the Great.
And again, I talk about Epstein. It’s in the news. Revelation 18 could have been written just for Epstein. The kings of
the earth and the magnates and the merchants of the earth are drinking the wine. They’re drinking something and
they’re persecuting the saints and they’re killing people. And it’s the haunt of every foul and unclean spirit.
It’s a perfect description of what’s been going on around the world with Epstein and his global conspirators. It’s a perfect description,
but it’s not the primary application.
It’s a perfect picture of what we’re seeing unveiled before our eyes today. End time Babylon, like ancient Babylon,
she is the dwelling place of demons. She is controlled by Satan.
She pushes false doctrines. And she’s so enraged at God that she feels compelled to persecute and kill the saints of God.
Yes, those in Babylon will drink the wine of the wrath for fornication.
That’s an unbiblical and a blasphemous and a persecuting union of church and state. But in the third angel’s message at the getu this afternoon, they will
also drink of the wine of the wrath of God’s judgments. So everybody has been warned.
And in this end time appeal, God apparently still has his people in end time Babylon. And he appeals them to leave and join his end time movement.
Those who keep the commandments of God and hold fast to the faith of Jesus.
There is a movement of people today whose eyes are fixed by faith on Jesus.
He is their sinbearing savior. He’s a sinner loving savior. He’s a place takingaking savior. He’s a guiltforgiving savior and he is a sooncoming savior.
So do not take part in the sins of Babylon. Avoid the occult in any way possible. Seek out churches where true
doctrine is preached and not popular or false doctrine. Do not participate or support the persecution of the saints of God. Come out of her as God to his
faithful people. If you will be my people, I will be your God. It’s the new covenant. He goes all the way back to
the Garden of Eden. Today, God has a people whose eyes are fixed upon Jesus.
I want to invite you today to fix your eyes upon Jesus as your savior. Say,
“Lord, I want you to write your law upon my heart. I want no part in the moral filth and corruption and degradation
that we’re seeing in our society in front of our eyes these very days. We want no part to do with that. We don’t want to be allied with the kings of the
world. We don’t want to be allied with the nations of the world. We don’t want to be in alliance with the banking systems of the world because everything has been touched and polluted by the
moral filth that is happening in our society.
We are to be as Titus 2 says to be a peculiar people, a chosen people,
a pure people.
And it starts with me and it starts with you and how we live our lives from this day forward. Amen.
God is looking for a peculiar people, a prophetic people,
a pure people, a people who will not participate in the sins of this world or have nothing to do with the fallen systems of this world either.
Our loyalty, our primary loyalty and our only loyalty is to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
I gave my life to Jesus when I was 13 and it was the best decision I ever made.
And every promise he made in scripture has come true. There have been tears along the way, I’ll admit. But God is a good God and he’s faithful.
And I can stand before you my mid-50s now and say God is faithful to those who put their trust in him.
So come out of her, my people is God’s message of mercy. It’s a message of warning. It’s a message of love because he’s not willing that any should perish.
You might say, I had a conclusion written somewhere. I lost it. This sermon was four pages. I lost the fourth page somewhere. Somewhere this morning,
I lost the fourth page. So essentially,
I’d say this. Kneel down today and confess your sins before God.
And stand up and look up to heaven and receive the righteousness of our Lord and Savior and step out and speak up and shine for Jesus in these coming weeks,
months, and years. If we’re not going to be his witnesses in earth’s dying hours, God will find somebody else. Amen. Amen.
Shine for Jesus. Win souls for Christ.
And when Jesus comes again, each one of us will receive a heavenly reward for his name’s sake. Amen.