Babylon, The Bride & The Battle For Allegiance

What?

You said you never would be. You promise? I keep you worried. I trust you. Power in the name. Healing in the name. Breakthrough. Deliverance in that name. Joy is in the name. Peace is in the name. Just call all the names. Your name is Jesus. Jesus. Your name is Jesus. Jesus. Come on, just sing his name. Jesus. Your name is Jesus.

Sa.

He stood on my score.

Good morning. Good morning, Good morning. Happy Wednesday to you all. Or y', all, as we say here in Texas. Happy Wednesday, guys. Good to see you. It's another day the Lord has made. We will rejoice. We will be glad. We will praise the Lord today. And no matter what season of life you are in, our God is a God who's always worth serving. He's always good. So I'm excited about today's Bible study. Yeah, I'm still working on those y'. Alls. I really am. Just doesn't sound right yet. I, I, I haven't lost the, the New Jersey twang, if you will. So. Sounds a little strange, but I'm working on it. Rog, how you doing? I'm doing good, I'm doing good. I'm excited to, I'm excited for today. This is gonna be a good, this is gonna be good. It's gonna be good today. Good. I already see you through the notes in the chat for today, and this is a Bible study that I, I think it's pretty cool that as we're going through the book of Revelation and all these future events that will happen, this prophetic book, and ultimately, I don't believe we'll be here for all that's going to transpire in this time during the tribulation. It. There's so many practical takeaways, I believe, and I'm going to do my best to pull some of those takeaways out and we could discuss them, we can talk about them. I always love hearing your input. You guys are our Bible scholars and you guys are, in your word, you hear from the Lord as well. So you always have awesome words to share, prophetic words, wisdom. So I'm excited for today. I am going to jump right into it and I'm going to try to do something. I know we don't use the word try. I'm going to attempt to do something today that's not often done on these Wednesday mornings. We're going to go through two chapters in Revelation today. God willing, we'll see as oftentimes it's like 7:50 and I'm two verses in. We're going to attempt to get through two chapters because chapter 17 and 18. And guys, where we're in the beginning of August, we started the book of Revelation the first week of January. If we conquer these two chapters today, it's only a few more weeks before we're done with the book of Revelation. And I don't think I'm doing this because I so desperately want to get into Revelation 19 and how glorious that is and how uplifting Revelation 19 is. But chapter 17 and 18. I see that. Yeah, you guys probably were shocked to hear we're going to go through two verse, two chapters today. But Zach's got a, Zach's got a Pinocchio emoji in, in the chat, so. Nice. Well, we'll see, but we'll see what time allows for. But I, I want to go through both chapters because the two chapters really do go hand in hand and they're completely about the topic of Babylon. All right? Now, Babylon is represented about 10% of the whole book of Revelation. We read about the fall of Babylon briefly. In chapter 14 it was declared Babylon would fall. In chapter 16, it was declared Babylon will fall. And here we're going to get the details of the fall of Babylon. Now when we talk about Babylon, it's like, okay, what the heck is Babylon? So to, to just get into to that Babylon is a city in it's modern day Iraq, okay. It's about 50 miles south of Baghdad and it's a city that lies in ruins today. In the mid-90s, Saddam Hussein tried to revive the city of Babylon. It was, I believe he called it like the Great Faith movement where he built a palace, spent half a billion dollars building a palace, a great mosque. And he tried to rebuild the city, which he was never completed and he never had an opportunity to live in that palace. But Babylon is a city, right? And it's a city that's mentioned 287 times in scripture. Only the city of Jerusalem is mentioned more than the city of Babylon. So especially if you, you know your Old Testament, you're familiar with the name. You're familiar with the Babylonian empire in which King Nebuchadnezzar reigned in the Book of Daniel. But Babylon or Babel is introduced in Genesis 10 as far back as Genesis 10. And we probably all remember the Old Testament story in Genesis 11 about the tower of Babel. And the Tower of Babel it represented, it was just direct defiance of the Lord, right? So there's a guy named Nimrod, he was a great grandson of Noah, and he organized a human rebellion against God and of course that tower of Babel. They wanted to build the tower, get to heaven themselves. They wanted to glorify self. So the, the actual city of Babylon, Babel was the ancient name of Babylon. So the city of Babylon is not just a city, it's a spirit. Think of Babylon representing the world. Think of Babylon representing sin. Think of Babylon representing carnality, lust, greed, materialism. All these things are wrapped up not just in the city of Babylon, but in the spirit of Babylon. Now as I mentioned, Babylon lies in ruins today. And we're going to Discuss in chapter 17 is the fall of religious Babylon. Chapter 18 is the fall of commercial Babylon. We know we've touched on this throughout the study in Revelation that once that seven year tribulation period starts, the, the final seven years before Jesus returns. And again, my viewpoint is that the church is raptured at the beginning of that seven year tribulation that marks the beginning of it. But we know that the seven year period of history is still to come. It's the, the time of Jacob's trouble as it's described in the Old Testament. It's the 70th week of Daniel as he was given the, the 70 week prophecy in the book of Daniel. But just know that Babylon and all that it represents is associated with organized idolatry, with blasphemy and ultimately persecution of God's people. Now it, it's her name isn't mentioned in scripture, but kind of her title. Extra biblical accounts and historians would say that in the Old Testament, in the, the book of Jeremiah where you read about the Queen of Heaven, that's actually a reference to Nimrod's wife. Now Nimrod, he established a lot of cities. Again, he was a great grandson of Noah. So it wasn't, there wasn't too much time that went past before God kind of hit the reset button and said, okay, I got one righteous man in his family I'm gonna save and I'm going to repopulate the earth. So just a few generations down the road, the Nimrod led this revolt. Revolt to blaspheme God essentially. But Nimrod was married to a woman named Semiramis, okay? And she's mentioned, as I said in the book of Jeremiah, she's mentioned as the Queen of Heaven and she had a son and his name was Tammuz. Now Tammuz is mentioned in scripture in the book of Ezekiel and the, the ancient story, which is folklore, but leave it to man if, if you want to blaspheme the real God, you kind of impersonate the real deal, right? We know the Antichrist is going to do this. He's going to impersonate. He's going to be more of like an instead of Christ rather than so opposed. He's going to be a knockoff. So what happened is Nimrod, his wife Semiramis, had a son, Tammuz, and he was considered a savior. It was. It was claimed that Tammuz was conceived supernaturally and that Tammuz, when he was older, he was killed by a wild boar and came back to life. So even Nimrod and his wife is kind of a foreshadowing as a knockoff. And this is, keep in mind this. This is back in. In Genesis 11, right? The time of Nimrod. So this is far before Christianity, but it's. They represent a knockoff. And ultimately what we see with the city of Babylon, the empire of Babylon and the spirit of Babylon, that's what it is. It's anti anything that is true Word of God. Anti anything that is true Jesus Christ. So I'll start reading chapter 17, and we'll dive into it. It could be a little wordy, it could be a little bit confusing, but I'm going to read through 17, and then we'll. We'll kind of pull some. Some pieces out of it and we'll take it from there. So chapter 17, starting in verse one, then one of the seven angels. Now remember, chapter 16 was the. All the bold judgments, right? And the, The. The bowl of judgments come at the end of tribulation. So, and it's already been established at this point that Babylon will fall, right? The. The world system will fall. So with the world system falling now, we're kind of taking a step back of the details of that world system falling. And it says, then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and talked to me, saying to me, come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication. And the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine over fornication. And right off the bat, two verses in, you're like, okay, who the heck is this great harlot sitting on many waters? And the kings of the earth committed fornication. It's like, what the heck does that mean? And the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of refornication. So you're depending on what translation you have, it may say, the great prostitute. If you have an old King James Bible it's going to say the great, right? And what it is is this prostitute. And oftentimes in scripture when we're talking about a great harlot, we're talking about spiritual prostitution and we're really talking about idolatry, right? If it's a great harlot, a great prostitute, what this great harlot represents and who knows what this vision of the harlot that, that John actually saw, what she looked like, but she's symbolic of not just the city of Babylon, but the, the system of Babylon, the world system of Babylon. And it says she sits on many waters. All we have to do is go to verse 15 and the angel explains what the many waters represent. And it says the waters which you saw where the harlot sits are peoples, multitudes, nations and tongues. So throughout the whole world, this harlot, this system, this, this religious Babylon. And we know one world system is coming, both economically, which Revelation 18, the rise of it, and then ultimately the fall. But religiously as well, there's going to be a one world religion. Now many people think that that one world religion being that the Antichrist is going to come from a revived Roman Empire, is going to involve the Roman Catholic Church. I don't know if I necessarily agree with that because it's going to be bigger than one denomination. Remember, Christians are gone, the real church is gone. And if you just look at the numbers of how many people are in each religion, yes, Christianity. According to the numbers of the, the 8 billion people on earth, there's about 2.5 billion Christians. So we'll be out of the equation. But if you guys didn't know, not too far behind with still over 2 billion members, is Islam, right? Very close is Islam to Christianity. And we're going to be out of the equation. So is this, is this system, this one religion that the, this earth will see, is it going to be Roman Catholicism, Is it going to be Islam? We don't know what it is. I think about that. Christians and Muslims, we represent half of the world. And I would venture to guess that the Muslims actually outnumber the Christians, because I know many Christians who aren't actually born again believers. And you don't become a child of God until you are born again. You're born into the royal family of faith. When you put your faith in Jesus Christ and you're born again, your heart's regenerated, you're filled with the Holy Spirit. So I would venture to say, and I do know some, some guys who are Muslim and they're not really dedicated to their faith. But all in all, I would say all religious, all faiths are more devout in their faith, above and beyond Christians, the way we're devout in our faith, and I'm not speaking specifically to you guys this Wednesday morning crew by any means, but all in all, I would say most religions, and sometimes it seems like the, the wackier they are and sometimes the more cultish they are, the, the followers of that faith, they're just more devout and more loyal. Nothing but a tactic of the enemy. So what I would venture to say is this one world religion isn't. It isn't under the banner of Roman Catholicism, isn't even under the banner of Islam. I will venture to say it's, it's something where. And we see this, this move more and more as time goes by, this thought or this idea or even a proclamation that all ropes lead to heaven, right? I've heard Christians and Muslims alike who are friends say, oh, it's all the same God in the end. No, it's not the same God in the end. Jesus is pretty clear in John 14:6 when he says, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me. So Jesus is clear on that. So all roads don't lead to the same God. Is there the one true living God? Yes. Do all these other faiths is Allah? Will Muslims realize that Allah is God our Father? No, they're not. And that, that's unfortunate. But this falsehood and that, this world of relativity that we live in today where it's just acceptable for us to accept each other's truths. Well, no, we can't have two different truths. If they oppose each other. One. One will be truth and the other is not going to be truth. Just because you accept it and declare it as truth doesn't make it truth. But we see the world just shifting in this place where we have to be more accepting. We just. Truth is relative. It's nonsensical, right? It's an oxymoron to, for two people to have opposing truths, but they're okay with just you. You believe your truth and I believe my truth. If you're the devil, what, what better place like if you're the devil, you'd be sitting back at night, kicking your feet up, having cocktails. If you get the world to believe that, yeah, everybody can have their own truths, right? He's succeeding. If that's what the world thinks and that's what the world by and large thinks today. So I believe it's going to be a religious system where I don't know exactly what they're going to worship, but they're all going to be okay worshiping the same thing. I don't think. Again, it's going to be under the banner of Roman Catholicism. Some people think different because in this chapter, it talks about this. The seven Kings and seven hills. And Rome is known as a city on seven hills. But I don't think that's the case. I don't think that's the case, but we'll move on. Raj. I'm doing my best. I told Raj, at some point, you're gonna have to interject because I don't want to go too deep on this. I don't want the 20 minute. We're at the 20 minute mark, man. Okay, I'm gonna read through this, and I. I want to give context to this, because if you just read it and there's no context, and if you're unfamiliar with some, well, what we've read thus far in Revelation, or even some Old Testament references, then you're like, what the heck does all this mean? But anyhow, Verse three. So he carried me in the spirit into the wilderness. And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. Now we learn in Revelation 13, the beast is the Antichrist. And he's even identified the same way here as he is in Revelation 13. One with seven heads and ten horns. The seven heads with the seven diadems, the crowns, that represents just completion and kingship. And we know that it's fraudulent. But the 10 horns, that's a reference back to Daniel.