Sermon Tone Analysis

| *The Destruction of the Final World Religion \\ (Revelation 17:1–18)* |

* *

/Revelation 17:1-18 (KJV) \\ \\ /

/1// And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: 2 With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.

3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

4 And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked//a// with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: 5 And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

/

/7// And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel?

I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.

8 The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is. 9 And here is the mind which hath wisdom.

The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.

10 And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.

11 And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.

12 And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.

13 These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.

/

/14// These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.

15 And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.

16 And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.

17 For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree,//†// and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.

18 And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.

/*/ /*/(17:1–18)/

 

Intro.

- There is a certain element of truth in Karl Marx’s oft-quoted statement that religion is “the opium of the people.”

People are incurably religious, because God created them to be worshipers.

§       They will inevitably worship someone or something, if not the true God, then false gods of their own making.

People are made with a God-shaped vacuum that they are constantly seeking to fill.

§       Since the Fall, man’s innate longing to know God has been twisted and perverted.

People still seek something to worship but no longer seek the true God.

§       In fact, “/there is none who seeks for God”/ (Rom.

3:11), because, as Jesus declared, “/No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him”/ (John 6:44).

§       Sadly, man’s need for a relationship with God has been corrupted by his love of sin.

Paul wrote in Romans 1:21 that “Romans 1:21 (KJV) 21 /Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

//*[i]*//.”/

§       Into mankind’s spiritual vacuum step Satan, “the father of lies” (John 8:44) and his demon hosts, disguised as angels of light (2 Cor.

11:14–15) and purveying “doctrines of demons” (1 Tim.

4:1).

Playing on people’s religious bent, they energize religious deception.

§       False religion’s powerful appeal comes from its promise to satisfy man’s longing for the spiritual realm without bringing him under God’s authority.

In their rebellion against the true God, and because of their love of sin, fallen men willingly turn to these damning satanic religions.

§       But wonderfully, graciously, mercifully, though man no longer seeks God, God still seeks man.

Indeed, it was to “/seek and to save that which was lost”/ (Luke 19:10) that Jesus came into the world.

§       Because false religion is so much a part of this fallen world, it is no surprise that it will play a major role in the end times.

During the Tribulation, all the world’s diverse false religions will be reunited into one great world religion.

That ultimate expression of false religion will be an essential element of Antichrist’s final world empire, in holding together his military, economic, and political structure.

§       Only religion can unite the world in the most compelling way.

Politics, economics, even military force are unable to overcome the world’s cultural diversity.

Only religion, with its appeal to the supernatural, can transcend the physical, geographical, historical, economic, and cultural barriers to world unity.

§       Chapter 17 reveals the spiritual nature of Antichrist’s kingdom; chapter 18 follows with its material aspects.

God will destroy both aspects of Antichrist’s kingdom.

·         Chapters 17 and 18 are inserted into the chronological flow of Revelation, which continues in chapter 19.

·         The pouring out of the seventh bowl (16:17) is actually followed immediately in time by the return of the Lord Jesus Christ to end the great world battle (19:11).

·         Chapters 17 and 18 digress to look not at God’s specific judgments, but at what is being judged.

·         Those two chapters go back to describe the world system led by Satan, Antichrist, and the false prophet, before recording its destruction.

·         John had already heard harbingers of Babylon’s destruction (14:8; 16:19); now the details of that destruction will be given in these remarkable visions.

§         During the Tribulation, people will desperately seek religion because of what will be happening in the world.

As the hammer blows of God’s judgment (the seal, trumpet, and bowl judgments) devastate the earth and terrorize its inhabitants, people will turn in desperation to Antichrist as their savior.

Aided by the false prophet and hordes of deceiving demons, Antichrist will establish a worldwide religion, *“BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”*

§         How can the future religious Babylon be the mother of all false religion?

To comprehend the Babylonian false religion of the future requires an understanding of Babylon’s role in the false religion of the past.

§         The story of Babylon begins with the Tower of Babel, recorded in Genesis 11:1–9: /And the whole earth was of one language////a////, and of one speech.

2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.

3 And they said////b//// one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly.

And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.

4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.

6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.

8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel////c////; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

/

§         Journeying east after the Flood, Noah’s descendants arrived at the site of Babylon (the “land of Shinar”).

In history’s first great humanistic effort, they decided to build a monument to themselves, to “make for [themselves] a name.”

But this act of rebellion against God also had religious implications.

Brick towers, like the one they built (known as ziggurats), were later used in false religions.

Ziggurats had on their tops the sign of the zodiac, which was used by pagan priests to chart the stars.

Through their observations of the stars, the priests supposedly gained spiritual insights and knowledge of the future.

§         Such blatant, defiant rebellion against God is incredible on the part of those to whom the Flood was a recent event.

In fact Nimrod, the apparent leader of the plot, was Noah’s great-grandson.

Genesis describes him as “a mighty hunter before the Lord” (10:9), and notes that “/the beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.

From that land he went forth into Assyria, and built Nineveh and Rehoboth-Ir and Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city”/ (Gen.

10:10–12).

This proud, arrogant leader (his name may derive from a Hebrew verb meaning “to rebel”) foreshadowed the final Antichrist.

§         God judgmentally scattered those proud rebels from Babel (Gen.

11:8), and they took their false religion around the world with them.

In spite of the scattering, Babylon remained an idolatrous center of false worship.

At one point in the city’s sordid history, it contained no less than 180 shrines dedicated to the goddess Ishtar (Charles L. Feinberg, “Jeremiah,” in /The Expositor’s Bible Commentary,/ Frank E. Gaebelein, ed., [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986], 6:643).

§         Even some of the Israelites were caught up in the idolatrous worship of Ishtar, one of whose titles was “Queen of Heaven.”

Jeremiah rebuked the Jewish remnant that had fled to Egypt for the idolatry that had led to their downfall.

Instead of repenting, however, they remained defiant: /Then all the men who were aware that their wives were burning sacrifices to other gods, along with all the women who were standing by, as a large assembly, including all the people who were living in Pathros in the land of Egypt, responded to Jeremiah, saying, “As for the message that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we are not going to listen to you!

But rather we will certainly carry out every word that has proceeded from our mouths, by burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, just as we ourselves, our forefathers, our kings and our princes did in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then we had plenty of food and were well off and saw no misfortune.

But since we stopped burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have met our end by the sword and by famine.”

“And,” said the women, “when we were burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and were pouring out drink offerings to her, was it without our husbands that we made for her sacrificial cakes in her image and poured out drink offerings to her?/” (Jer.

44:15–19)

§         God, through Jeremiah, pronounced judgment on those Jews for their stubborn, defiant adherence to the Ishtar cult: /Then Jeremiah said to all the people, to the men and women—even to all the people who were giving him such an answer—saying, “As for the smoking sacrifices that you burned in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your forefathers, your kings and your princes, and the people of the land, did not the Lord remember them and did not all this come into His mind?

So the Lord was no longer able to endure it, because of the evil of your deeds, because of the abominations which you have committed; thus your land has become a ruin, an object of horror and a curse, without an inhabitant, as it is this day.

Because you have burned sacrifices and have sinned against the Lord and not obeyed the voice of the Lord or walked in His law, His statutes or His testimonies, therefore this calamity has befallen you, as it has this day.”

Then Jeremiah said to all the people, including all the women, “Hear the word of the Lord, all Judah who are in the land of Egypt, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, as follows: ‘As for you and your wives, you have spoken with your mouths and fulfilled it with your hands, saying, “We will certainly perform our vows that we have vowed, to burn sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her.” Go ahead and confirm your vows, and certainly perform your vows!’ Nevertheless hear the word of the Lord, all Judah who are living in the land of Egypt, ‘Behold, I have sworn by My great name,’ says the Lord, ‘never shall My name be invoked again by the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt, saying, “As the Lord God lives.”

Behold, I am watching over them for harm and not for good, and all the men of Judah who are in the land of Egypt will meet their end by the sword and by famine until they are completely gone.’/

” (Jer.

44:20–27)

§         Ezekiel also refers to the worship of Ishtar and Tammuz: “/Then He brought me to the entrance of the gate of the Lord’s house which was toward the north; and behold, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz” (/Ezek.

8:14).

§         Throughout history, then, Babylon has been an important center of false religion.

In the end times, false religion will come back to where it started.

The devil who deceived the people at Babel, and from there launched false religion over the earth, will deceive the world once again.

§         The final world religion, depicted as a harlot, is the theme of this vision, which records the exposure of the harlot, the explanation of the harlot, and the extermination of the harlot.

*A.

**The Exposure of the Harlot*