Sermon Tone Analysis

Textual Idea - God illustrated for John in a shocking, vivid way the necessity of His judgment on Satan’s religious systems.

Sermon Idea - Christians also need to understand the reality of how God views Satan’s religious system and all who partake of it.

Interrogative - Why is our religious worship practice so critically important to our future destiny?

Transition w/ key word - Our text illustrates with 3 vivid pictures the importance of our religious worship and its impact on our future destiny.

1.

The exposure of the harlot - vs. 1-6, 15

2. The explanation of the harlot - vs. 7-14, 18

3.

The extermination of the harlot - vs. 16-17

Introduction – Several thousand years ago, I mean way back in time, long before the world was full of people, nations & countries were not even in existence, long before there were religious denominations, as a matter of fact, it was the time when there were 4 people who lived on planet earth.

It might surprise you to know, but between those 4 people, there were 2 churches, 2 religious systems and ways of doing things.

One church had 3 members, the other church had 1.

The second crime ever committed by man, more specifically the first murder was committed in the context of worship services going on between those two congregations!

Think about that for a minute.

The first murder was a direct by-product of a religious point of view, attitude and practice!

Of course I’m referring to the family of Adam and Eve and their two children at that time Cain & Abel from Genesis chapter 4. In Genesis 3, we have a description of the first crime - rebellion against God.

In chapter 4, we have the fruit of that rebellion with Cain deciding he wanted his own religion, a different religion than what his parents had learned from God Himself.

You see when Adam & Eve rebelled against God, God killed an animal to make atonement for sin.

God vividly demonstrated the high cost of sin and the need of blood sacrifice as the only acceptable covering for sin at that time.

It was a system God instituted and God accepted.

It was a system God taught Adam and Adam taught his sons.

We don’t know how long they all abided by God’s system of worship but we get the sense that when Cain was old enough to get a job and support himself, something changed in his worship activities, he started his own church!

(Slide) In Gen. 4:2 we’re told about their career choices: Cain was a tiller of the ground, Abel was a keeper of the sheep.

Gen. 4:3-5 tells us about their respective worship services: Cain brought an offering of produce, Abel brought the Lord a slain animal.

We’re told that God accepted Abel’s offering, but rejected Cain’s offering.

We’re told further that Cain was “very angry.”

God even warned Cain if he would simply do what God wanted, his offering and worship would be accepted as well.

Well, Cain’s anger and determination to worship God his own way caused him to murder his brother!

You might say Cain wanted to worship the “god of his understanding.”

(Slides) Later in Gen. 11, the people of earth rebelled against God’s direct command again, this time attempting to build a city & a tower that stretches into the heavens, they said to make a name for themselves & they not be scattered over the earth.

(Gen.

11:4).

God confused their language and the place was called Babel or Babylon.

Again people choosing to worship the idol of self.

From Genesis 4 & that time on, there have been two ways of worship - Satan’s way, and God’s way.

You can take all the world religions and put them in those two categories because at the end of the day you either worship Almighty God or you worship Satan and his evil counterfeits to the true worship of God.

Background - In our continuing study through Revelation, last week in chapter 16, we saw the devastating judgments of God with the 7 bowel judgments that mirrored the plagues God poured out on Egypt.

(Review slide) Loathsome & cancerous sores, remaining sea water & fresh water all turned to blood.

Scorching heat, darkness so thick and complete it is terribly painful, the Euphrates river dried up in preparation for war, a world wide earthquake that levels every mountain and destroys every island and hundred pound hailstones level everything else.

The last surviving Apostle of Jesus Christ, the aged Apostle John, had a front row seat on the launching deck of Heaven watching these terrible judgments poured out on the earth.

In 17:1, one of the angels fresh back from emptying his bowl of God’s wrath offers to explain to John, no doubt at the direct of the Lord Jesus Himself, why these judgments took place.

This explanation takes place in both chapters 17-18.

Another of these divine parenthesis given in Revelation to explain why & what is happening.

“Immediately following the 7th bowl of judgment (16:17) is the return of Christ in judgment 19:11 for the final battle between God & Satan that Jesus wins decisively.

Chapters 17 & 18 are inserted to explain what is being judged.

Chapter 17 reveals the spiritual nature of the Antichrist's (Satan's) kingdom, chapter 18 follows with its material aspects.

Jesus will destroy both.”

(MacArthur).

Chapter 17 answers the question: Interrogative - Why is our religious worship practice so critically important to our future destiny?

Transition w/ key word - Our text illustrates with 3 vivid pictures the importance of our religious worship and its impact on our future destiny.

Read Text Rev. 17:1-6.

1.

The exposure of the harlot - vs. 1-6, 15

Explanation - One of the Angels comes back from delivering his bowl judgement on the earth and offers to explain to John the rationale behind the fierce judgments he’s just witnessed.

As I said repeatedly last week, God isn’t obligated to give us an explanation into anything He does.

He doesn’t have to justify His divine actions as God to sinful humans by any stretch of the imagination.

But in His grace & mercy, He often reveals to us His purposes behind His plans and actions.

Here God explains to John in a vivid and shocking way His judgment over the world’s religious systems by picturing her has a harlot.

Since the fall of man into sin & rebellion against God, man’s longing to know God has been twisted and perverted.

People will always seek something to worship because we all have a God sized hole in our hearts.

God desires to be the object of that worship because He alone is the true God and Creator of the Universe.

Satan has always sought to counterfeit worship and substitute himself as god, an idol, with the appeal to satisfy our longings and desires without bringing us under the authority of God.

It’s basically what every one of my kids have said to me either by word or by deed: “You’re not the boss of me.”

(Slide) God vividly pictures the world’s religious system as a prostitute or a harlot.

It is a metaphor for false religion, spiritual defection, idolatry and religious apostasy.

A prostitute sells her body for pleasure and God pictures false religious systems as selling themselves also for pleasure.

Only God can satisfy our longings.

Every counterfeit of Satan leaves us empty & ashamed for buying into the lie.

We note the angel’s description of this harlot:

A. Her authority - vs. 1b, 15 - She sits on many waters.

In vs. 15 the angel explains the picture of the harlot sitting on many waters - the waters picture her authority over peoples, multitudes, nations and peoples.

She holds powerful sway over the vast majority of the world’s population.

According to the BBC in 2013, a report that is 9 years old, the Vatican says there are 1.2 billion Catholics in the world.

Islam claims to have 1.8 billion followers.

It get’s really murky how the world defines Christians because they lump everyone, Protestants, Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses & Mormons are classified by researchers as “Christian.”

One statistic I read was that there are 2.18 billion so-called Christians.

We can say for certain all the people lumped in the category of “Christian” are not really true Christians in that their faith and trust is in Jesus Christ alone.

This harlot described for John is a plethora of counterfeit religion concocted by Satan to deceive people from worshipping Jehovah God.

B. Her alliances - vs. 2-3 - Her association with the kings of the earth reveals the scope of her influence will be great and reach to the highest levels of governmental power & she will influence to commit spiritual fornication with her.

For example, Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi both claim to be “Good Catholics” yet both are on record and have demonstrated by their policies they are fully on board and committed to the Satanic agenda of murdering babies and the sexual debauchery of the LGBTQ movement.

Look at that phrase at the end of verse 2 “the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication.”

The word fornication, is from the Greek word “Poneros” where we get our term pornography from, literally means sexual immorality.

I’ve come to conclude watching so-called religious leaders and political leaders loosing their minds that Roe v. Wade was overturned was overturned is that they view abortion as a religious ritual of the sexual revolution!

How else can you explain it?

They are drunk with the wine of her fornication!

The state of California is about to pass a law allowing for the murder of babies up 28 days after birth!

Prior to the Roe decision in 1973, every state had laws banning abortion.

In overturning Roe, SCOTUS cited each of those laws as precedent!

In 1967, 6 years before Roe, a group called “The Clergy Consultation Service” was founded by a so-called Methodist Pastor in New York City, downtown Manhattan.

The “pastor’s” name (I use the term pastor there very loosely), was the Rev. Finley Schaef.

He began the group after a woman in his congregation sought his help in obtaining an abortion for her pregnant teenage daughter!

Between 1967 to 1973, the group grew to more than a 1000 clergy members across 38 states and they helped about a half a million women and girls get an abortion by paying their expenses to get to an abortion clinic!

Katey Zeh, a reverend and CEO of a group that grew out of the CCS called “The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice,” said “It’s so central to our faith to care for people, so it’s no surprise that clergy were part of the group helping people get abortion care.”

If that doesn’t picture spiritual harlotry that must be judged by God, I don’t know what does!

This harlot has broad authority in Satan’s religious realm and broad alliances.

This kind of activity in the name of worship is blasphemy.

Vs. 3 tells us the beast in his self proclaimed deity is full of blasphemous names.

C. Her apparel - vs. 4 - The angel describes the harlot riding on a scarlet red beast (the Antichrist that was introduced to us in chapter 13:1, 4, 14:9 & 16:10).

That the harlot is sitting on, riding the beast signifies he’s supporting her.

The initial unifying & controlling factor of the Antichrist’s Kingdom will be religion.

With the heavens and the earth reeling from God’s judgments, the worlds political, economic and military systems crumbling, people will turn in desperation to the supernatural.

In chapters 12-13 of our study in Revelation, we saw the “Unholy Trinity” - the Dragon - Satan, the Beast of the Sea - the Antichrist, and the beast of the earth - the false prophet who does signs and wonders to get people to worship the Antichrist.

It is the world system of religion overseen by Satan to worship the Antichrist with the help of the false prophet that God is picturing here.

Scarlet is the color associated with luxury, splendor & royalty & it also the color associated with sin according to Is. 1:18 - “though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow, though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”