Introduction:
The INTRODUCTION of the Prostitute. (Rev 17:1-6)
The EXPLANATION of the Prostitute. (Rev 17:7-14)
The DESTRUCTION of the Prostitute. (Rev 17:15-18)
Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome.
Antichrist’s world empire.
Why did God choose to destroy Babylon this way, with the beast and the kings, instead of a direct blast with a plague?
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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01:04-01:09
Alright, open up your Bibles with me please to Revelation 17.
01:11-01:12
Here's a universal truth.
01:14-01:20
No matter where you go, geographically, no matter where you go in history, here's a universal truth.
01:20-01:22
Everybody worships something.
01:24-01:25
Everybody worships something.
01:25-01:35
And if people don't want to worship God, the true God, the Creator God, They're going to fill that void with something else.
01:37-01:39
Have you ever heard people say something like this?
01:40-01:43
"I'm a spiritual person. I don't go to church.
01:44-01:47
But I'm a real spiritual person." You ever heard anybody say that?
01:48-01:50
You know what they're really saying?
01:50-01:55
And if that's you, look, I'm not trying to intentionally offend you, but...
01:55-01:56
Here's what you're saying.
01:58-02:04
I don't think of myself as spiritual, but I don't want any authority or accountability in my life.
02:07-02:08
And that is idolatry.
02:10-02:15
Coming to spiritual realities on my own terms.
02:17-02:25
During the tribulation, as we've seen, God's judgment is being poured on the earth, and there's going to be a lot of people turning to religion.
02:26-02:30
but turning to religion to try to deal with what's happening.
02:31-02:33
And Satan is going to give people religion.
02:33-02:39
Satan is going to give people idolatry to sort of satisfy their spiritual hunger.
02:41-02:49
There's coming a one-world religion that the unsaved are going to rally behind.
02:50-02:51
She has a name.
02:52-02:55
Her name is Mystery Babylon.
02:58-03:03
She's a city, and she's the subject of the next two chapters.
03:04-03:07
Now we're going through the chronology of Revelation.
03:07-03:30
Remember chapters 12 through 14 were sort of a break from the action, and then we got back to it with 15 and 16, but now we're taking another break from the chronology with chapters 17 and 18 because these two chapters aren't looking at God's judgment, these two chapters are looking at what God is judging.
03:31-03:32
And that's Babylon.
03:34-03:36
Let's talk about Babylon for a second.
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Babylon is the mother of false religions.
03:41-03:42
Where did it come from?
03:44-03:48
We're not going to turn there today, but it comes clear back from Genesis chapter 11.
03:50-03:59
You remember in those days, a man named Nimrod, yes, that was his name, became a great insult for children of the '80s.
04:00-04:01
Nice job, Nimrod.
04:01-04:08
But he had this idea with several others, "We were going to unite the world together, okay?
04:08-04:21
And we're going to build this city, and we're going to have a one-world government, and we're going to have this one-world religion," God said, "Spread out, fill the earth." And they were like, "No, we're not going to do that.
04:22-04:23
We're going to stay right here.
04:24-04:25
We're going to establish our own thing.
04:26-04:37
Thank you very much." God said, "I don't think you are." You remember the story? He confused their languages, and they couldn't understand each other, so they spread out all over the world.
04:37-04:38
But here's what happened.
04:38-04:43
When they spread out, they all took that idolatry with them.
04:44-04:52
That's why we can say Babylon is really the mother of all religions, of all false religions.
04:53-05:18
So when we get to Revelation 17, and this is important, we get to Revelation 17, we see the final false religion, which is tied into a world government, which is connected to a city, is called Babylon.
05:20-05:27
Just like in Genesis 11, we get to Revelation 17, and really what we see is God's story has come to be certain.
05:28-05:37
We started with a one world religion, one world government, city, And that's how it's going to end.
05:38-05:47
And this city, this Babylon, and this vision in Revelation 17 is depicted as a prostitute.
05:49-05:51
So let's get to the text here.
05:52-05:53
The introduction of the prostitute.
05:56-06:00
Now look, I believe, this is just my opinion, I believe this is the hardest chapter in Revelation.
06:02-06:04
But we're going to get through this, okay?
06:04-06:06
We're going to get through this together. You with me?
06:07-06:08
All right, let's do it.
06:10-06:11
Revelation 17, verse 1.
06:12-06:38
He says, "Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bulls came and said to me, 'Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters.'" Okay, so obviously this is coming from the previous vision John saw last week, we saw the bold judgments of God.
06:38-07:04
And John says, "Okay, then one of those angels came and spoke to me." He says, "I want to show you something. I want to show you a vision, show you the judgment of the great prostitute." Now in the Old Testament, spiritual adultery, which we call idolatry, Spiritual adultery was often symbolized by physical adultery.
07:06-07:10
This is so key - don't tune out already - this is so key to understanding this passage.
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In the Old Testament, oftentimes places were referred to as prostitutes because they were very idolatrous places.
07:22-07:24
Can you give me an example of that? I sure can.
07:25-07:27
You see that with Nineveh and Nahum 3.
07:28-07:33
Nineveh is called a prostitute because she was so idolatrous.
07:35-07:39
You see Isaiah 23, the city called Tyre.
07:39-07:44
Tyre was so idolatrous that God compared her to a prostitute.
07:45-07:54
Instead of being faithful to your husband, God, You are a harlot.
07:54-07:58
You are selling yourself out for anyone.
08:00-08:04
So this Babylon that we're going to look at in Revelation 17 is a city.
08:06-08:15
Now look, I know you can get ten preachers in a room talking about Revelation and you can get twelve different opinions about what is going on in this passage.
08:15-08:16
I get that.
08:16-08:17
But here's what I don't get.
08:17-08:24
When people try to say, "Well, here's what it really means The text actually tells you what it really means, right?
08:24-08:26
That's what I don't get.
08:26-08:36
Because if you looked at verse 18, it says, "And the woman that you saw is the great city." I'm like, I wonder what the woman represents.
08:36-08:38
Tell me, what does a woman represent?
08:39-08:40
The great city, right?
08:42-08:44
Like, well, maybe great city's like a symbol for something.
08:45-08:49
No, the woman is the symbol for something, and the something she is a symbol of is the?
08:50-08:51
The great city, right?
08:52-08:55
Which is called Babylon, as you'll see in a second.
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Verse 15 explains what the many waters are.
08:58-08:59
They're the peoples of the earth.
08:59-09:05
It's showing that this woman, her idolatry, has a global impact, all right?
09:06-09:20
Verse two, "With whom the kings of the earth "have committed sexual immorality, "and with the wine of whose sexual morality "the dwellers on earth have become drunk." That's more symbolism.
09:20-09:23
for the idolatry that this woman propagates.
09:24-09:34
And what John sees here, kings and regular Joes worldwide are allured into idolatry.
09:36-09:40
And I imagine in these days, idolatry is an easy sell with all of these plagues going on.
09:41-09:45
People looking for spiritual answers, they're going to be provided.
09:46-09:47
Now let's get to verse 3.
09:47-10:00
And he carried me away in the spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns.
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John sees this woman, symbolizing this idolatrous city, sitting on or supported by a beast.
10:11-10:15
You're like, "Well, what's the beast?" Well, we know what this beast is from chapter 13.
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That's the exact same description.
10:19-10:22
This is the Antichrist and his kingdom.
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So the point here is John sees the beast and the woman coexisting.
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Meaning that the beast is going to establish a one-world religion.
10:38-10:41
That's what's going to happen during the tribulation, one-world religion.
10:42-10:44
Look at verse 4.
10:47-11:08
It says, "The woman was arrayed 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 sexual immorality." So this spiritual prostitute appears very attractive.
11:10-11:15
She's adorning herself like actual prostitute.
11:15-11:19
She's presenting herself to the world and to John in this vision.
11:19-11:25
She's presenting herself as very wealthy, very wicked at the same time.
11:26-11:34
And it says she has a gold cup full of abominations, idolatries, and sexual immorality.
11:36-11:39
Okay, so she's a city.
11:40-11:42
I think we can totally understand the analogy here.
11:42-11:48
Can you think of a city that's sort of personified as a place of idolatry and sexual immorality?
11:49-11:50
Can you think of a city like that?
11:51-11:57
When I was studying this, no offense if you're from there or whatever, I thought of Las Vegas, right?
11:57-11:59
I mean, what's Vegas known as?
12:00-12:02
Sin City, and what's Vegas known for?
12:02-12:08
Gambling and prostitution, There's wonderful people in Vegas, I'm sure.
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But Vegas just has this reputation of being a city of immorality.
12:13-12:16
And that's kind of what's going on here in Revelation 17.
12:16-12:23
The Babylon is sort of like, I have in my notes, she's like Vegas on steroids, okay?
12:24-12:30
She's not just like Las Vegas, she's like Lots Vegas, if you know what I mean.
12:30-12:35
He's just like all of that, but so much more and so much worse.
12:36-12:37
And that's what's being depicted here.
12:39-12:41
That helps me make sense of it anyways.
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Look at verse 5.
12:43-12:53
"And on her forehead was written a name of Mystery Babylon." That's actually a title that goes together in the Greek, okay?
12:53-12:55
Her name is Mystery Babylon.
12:55-12:56
We're going to talk about what that means in a second.
12:57-13:06
"Mystery Babylon the Great, Mother of Prostitutes and of Earth's Abominations." Okay, "Mystery" is part of the title. What does that mean?
13:06-13:09
It means that she wasn't part of any previous Babylon.
13:09-13:14
"Mystery" means something that was not revealed before is now being revealed.
13:14-13:20
Like you've never seen her in this form before, but here she is.
13:22-13:26
It's a yet-to-come version of Babylon.
13:28-13:37
And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs, getting back to her wick.
13:38-13:46
Somehow this city is directly connected to not just idolatry, not just sexual immorality, but to killing God's people.
13:48-13:54
that she's depicted as enjoying it so much that she's drunk on it.
13:56-13:57
John says, look at the rest of verse six.
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When I saw her, I marveled greatly.
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And I'm like, yes, I get that part.
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I understand that part, right?
14:06-14:08
Like, he sees this image, could you imagine?
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Like, we're seeing it in written form.
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He was looking at all of this and he's describing it for us.
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He says, when I saw this image, you got this woman and this beast, And he goes, I'm marveled greatly.
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Whoa, what in the world is going on here?
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What is this?
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Well, let's look at the explanation.
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The explanation of the prostitute, you're taking notes.
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Now here, here is where you've got to laser focus, because there's a lot going on here, all right?
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You with me?
14:46-14:47
You with me?
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All right, let's do this.
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Verses seven and eight.
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Here's the explanation.
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We kind of look over John's shoulder and sees it.
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Verse seven, "But the angel said to me, "why do you marvel?
15:01-15:22
"I will tell you the mystery of the woman "and of the beast with seven heads and 10 horns "that carries her." He says, "The beast that you saw was and is not and is about to rise from the bottomless pit and go to destruction.
15:23-15:40
And the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beasts, because it was and is not and is to come." Okay, so John sees this picture, but he didn't quite make the connection.
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The angel has to, remember that horrible word that people were using a few months ago, maybe a year ago now, mansplaining.
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Remember that? How many people remember mansplaining?
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What? Terrible concept, ugly word.
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But what we have here is this angel is going to explain some things to John.
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John's like, "What in the world is going on here?" The angel says, "Okay, let's talk about the beast." Much greater detail than we saw in chapter 13.
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The angel wants John to see who the beast is and how the prostitute is connected to the beast.
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So the beast, as we know, as we've said, is the Antichrist.
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It's Satan's man.
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You're like, "Well, what's that phrase, 'was' and 'is not' and 'is about to come'?" We see that phrase twice in verse 8, and we see it once in verse 11.
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What does that phrase mean?
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I believe in allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture.
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And if you go back to chapters 12 and 13, we see that the Antichrist, during the Tribulation, is going to fake his death.
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And he's going to fake his resurrection.
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And it's the ultimate form of blasphemy, really.
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That's what Satan's doing, right?
17:02-17:03
Because what do we do when we come together for church?
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We say, let's worship the one who died and rose from the dead.
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Let's praise His name, right? Don't we do that?
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Jesus Christ died and rose. That's like our whole thing.
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That's our whole message.
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During a tribulation, Satan's going to imitate that with the Antichrist.
17:19-17:22
And that's going to be the message being broadcast to the world.
17:23-17:31
To say, "Worship this guy because he died and he rose from the dead." And we saw that the false prophet is going to use that to deceive the whole world.
17:32-17:37
It's Satan's way of trying to imitate Jesus Christ.
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the ultimate blasphemy.
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But he's going to use that to have the world worship the Antichrist.
17:43-17:46
Isn't that just disgusting?
17:47-18:00
Satan would say to God, "They're not going to worship your Christ, they'll worship mine." Well, at this point, the Antichrist empire coexists with Babylon.
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That's why verse 7 says that the beast carries her.
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we're going to see after the resurrection, the fake resurrection, the Satan-empowered Antichrist is going to become the only object of worship.
18:17-18:28
He's going to destroy the prostitute, we'll see that in a second in the text, and eventually he's only going to allow one religion on the earth, which is the worship of himself.
18:28-18:29
That's where this is going.
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How can we get the world from all following the same religion to all worshiping the same guy.
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That's what's happening in this passage.
18:44-18:50
The Antichrist, after his fake resurrection, after the death of the two witnesses, he's going to seem unstoppable.
18:51-18:56
We see twice in this passage, verse 8 here, we're going to see it again in verse 11, he's just being set up.
18:58-19:05
Verse 9, he says, "This calls for a mind with wisdom." Good call.
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This call is reminded with wisdom.
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The seven heads...
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Okay, so now he's explaining the beast a little bit in more detail.
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The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated.
19:22-19:26
So apparently these seven mountains have been a support for this woman.
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He says, verse 10, "They are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he does come, he must remain only a little while." He says, "Okay, mind of wisdom, pay close attention." And I really believe that only the believers who are alive during this time, people who come to Christ during the tribulation, I think they're really the only ones that are going to be able to fully comprehend what's going on.
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for the symbolism, jot some things down.
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The mountains represent seven kings.
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These are world empires embodied in their rulers who have notoriously opposed God.
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Again, the prostitute is seated on them.
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All of these throughout history have been wicked, idolatrous kingdoms through time.
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Like what kingdoms are they?
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We can guess, my best guess is this.
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He says five have fallen, right?
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These are world kingdoms that have opposed God, opposed God's people.
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He said five have fallen.
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I believe that these five are Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, the Medo-Persian Empire.
20:53-21:01
I believe those are the five that fall, meaning in John's day when John was getting this revelation, these empires had come and gone.
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Then the angel says that one existed, one is, meaning one of these was present to John.
21:10-21:11
And what would that empire have been?
21:11-21:12
That would have been Rome, right?
21:14-21:22
But he says that there's one that's yet to come, and that's the Antichrist's world empire.
21:24-21:29
When he says he'll remain a little while, He's talking about the seven year tribulation.
21:31-21:33
Look at verse 11 again.
21:35-21:52
He says, "As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eight, but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to destruction." Like, wait, wait, wait, wait.
21:54-22:08
Okay, so there's seven global empires, five came and went, one exists, that's Rome, that's six, one's yet to come, that's seven, and now there's one that's an ape that's part of the seven, like, what's he talking about?
22:10-22:14
Well, notice he keeps using the phrase that the beast was and is not.
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I believe what he's talking about is the beast being in power, the Antichrist being in power before his fake death, and then after his fake resurrection, comes into power again.
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So the Antichrist is like king number seven, and then he's king number eight.
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But eight really belongs to the seven because it's the same guy.
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And I believe that because once again in verse 11, he says, "And it goes to destruction." Same terminology used to talk about him back in verse eight.
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All right, verse 12.
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and the ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have not yet received royal power, but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour together with the beasts.
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These are of one mind, and they hand over their power and authority to the beasts.
23:12-23:27
They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, For he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful.
23:29-23:38
So we know the woman is Babylon, the city of idolatry and wickedness.
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The beast is the Antichrist, and we see the symbol of the heads, but what are the horns?
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Well, he says the ten horns are ten kings, not known to any earlier generation, they have not yet received a kingdom.
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They're part of the Antichrist's future kingdom.
23:55-23:59
They're going to reign for a short time, he says, for one hour.
23:59-24:08
I don't think it literally means 60 minutes, it's just a figure of speech that they're going to come on the scene, and their time is going to come and go quickly.
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They dedicate themselves to the Antichrist's rule.
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Like for what purpose?
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Well, their purpose is to fight against the lamp.
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You're going to see that here in just a second.
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But the goal that God has is to get everybody assembled for one final showdown at Armageddon.
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We talked about that last week.
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Remember the demons that look like frogs, deceiving them, getting them to come.
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So there's this ten-nation kingdom in the future that's going to back the Antichrist that God is going to use.
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And God is going to destroy.
24:54-25:02
The Lamb is going to overcome them, and those with the Lamb are called and chosen and faithful.
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That's what John saw in the vision.
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How do I get all that?
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I know it's a lot of stuff, but these messages are available on our website, and maybe you want to listen to it again.
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There's a lot of stuff happening.
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There's one more thing we have to cover.
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Not only do we meet this prostitute, and he sort of explains her by explaining the beast and everything that's going on with the beast.
25:31-25:35
This is the main point that he's driving to, finally, the destruction of the prostitute.
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the destruction of the prostitute.
25:39-25:40
Look at verses 15 and 16.
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It says, "And the angel said to me, 'The waters that you saw where the prostitute is seated are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages.'" Again, global impact stuff.
25:52-25:57
"And the ten horns that you saw..." Remember the ten kings that are yet to come?
25:58-26:05
"The ten horns that you saw, they and the beast, the Antichrist, will hate the prostitute." Wait, wait, wait, wait.
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That's the part where-- OK.
26:09-26:13
It's complicated, and we're kind of tracking the images.
26:14-26:15
But then you get to this point, like, wait a minute.
26:16-26:21
All this time, they have been sort of supporting the prostitute.
26:21-26:23
Why do they hate her all of a sudden?
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It says, not only do they hate her-- look at the next phrase.
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"They will make her desolate and naked, and devour her flesh, and burn her up with fire.
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So this alliance that the Antichrist has with this mystery Babylon, with this idolatrous world religion, it's only going to be temporary.
26:48-27:08
He's going to use mystery Babylon to get into power, going to be the ultimate union of church and state worldwide but eventually, he's going to, and he and the 10 kings are going to hate her and destroy her, and he's going to set himself up as the only object of worship, as we saw back in chapter two.
27:09-27:13
It's going to get to the point that the Antichrist says, we don't need religion.
27:15-27:15
I'm your religion now.
27:17-27:21
You don't need to go to church, you worship me.
27:24-27:37
Like, well, why in the world, if they were on the same team here, like a couple of verses ago, "Why all of a sudden do they hate her and destroy her and burn her down?" Well, here's the answer.
27:39-27:47
Where there's power to be had, wicked people will kill, even each other.
27:50-27:52
And this is where the Antichrist sees his opportunity.
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He doesn't need the idolatry anymore.
27:56-27:58
He's got the death and resurrection gimmick.
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He's like, "They're gonna worship me.
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So we don't need her.
28:05-28:34
We're going to get rid of her." Verse 17 says, I love this, "For God has put it in their hearts to carry out his purpose by being of one mind and handing over their royal power to the beast until the words of God are fulfilled." And the woman that you saw is the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth.
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I love this verse because it reminds us that God is still in control, right?
28:40-28:59
We're sort of reading through, getting this image and seeing what's happening with these world powers, and then it's, "Oh, by the way, by the way, God's still in control of all of this." These ten kings think that their best course of action is going to be, Let's get rid of religion and let's throw in with this guy, with the Antichrist.
29:03-29:06
God is the one that put that in their hearts, because he wanted his word fulfilled.
29:10-29:18
It reminds us of the reality that men fulfill God's will, even while they oppose God's will.
29:19-29:22
And that is God's will.
29:25-29:28
"Really?" Like, remember the cross of Jesus Christ?
29:29-29:33
They thought, the people thought that they were killing Jesus.
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We don't want Him, get rid of Him, we'd rather have Barabbas.
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And they thought they were doing their thing by killing Jesus.
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The Bible said God was using that for all Jesus to become the sacrifice, the Lamb of God to take away the sins.
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So those men thought they were opposing God's will, but they were actually fulfilling God's will.
29:59-30:00
See, that's what's happening here.
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The Antichrist and his ten kings, his ten kingdoms, saying, "We don't need Babylon anymore.
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We're going to wipe her out." And God's like, "Yeah, this is all playing exactly how I planned." That's called sovereignty.
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So God uses Satan and the Antichrist and the world's forces to destroy Babylon so that they all unite together.
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Why?
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So God can destroy them in one final strike.
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That is Revelation 17.
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And when we look at passages like this, we get to thinking, do some reading, maybe you're like me, you look at this and think, What city is this?
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I mean, Mystery Babylon, you have to come back.
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What city is Mystery Babylon?
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Is she...
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A lot of people say she's Ancient Babylon rebuilt.
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Ancient Babylon is rebuilt, and one of the reasons given for that is Ancient Babylon, somebody did the geographical math on this, I did not, but somebody had said that Ancient Babylon is actually the geographic center of the Earth's landmass. I don't know. Here's what I do know though. Do you remember Saddam Hussein? How many people remember Saddam Hussein? Okay, most of us in here. Younger people, he was like a big deal like a while ago, but Saddam Hussein had this dream that he was going to rebuild Babylon. Do you know that? And it started somewhere around 1983, he's like, "We're going to rebuild Babylon." He actually put $5 million into rebuilding Babylon.
31:57-31:58
Like, what happened?
31:59-32:02
Well, the same thing happened to Babylon that happened to Saddam Hussein.
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I mean, if you heard any news about the rebuilding of Babylon lately, I haven't.
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The whole project just vanished when he was taken.
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It just doesn't seem like it's poised to be the global idolatrous significant empire some people think it's going to be.
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What city could it be?
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Well, I'm going to give you some food for thought this week.
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Before you throw tomatoes, People still do that at churches, but before you throw tomatoes, I want you to hear me out.
32:52-33:00
Before you turn to your neighbor and say, "Looks like Pastor Jeff needs fitted for another tinfoil hat." This is food for thought.
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I want you to look this stuff up.
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This isn't my opinion because trust me, I spent a lot of time this week studying this from as many different sources as I can.
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I'm like, "Is this really true?
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I don't know if this is true." from as many different sources as I can, not just religious Christian sources, but from... I was looking for very secular sources to see what did they say about this.
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And this is food for thought. You can do with this what you will, but at the very least, you're going to find this interesting.
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Do you know what is the largest handmade idol in the world?
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Do you know what it is?
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When I say handmade, I mean like some people worship the mountain or worship the rock.
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I'm not talking about that.
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I'm talking about a statue representing a God, the largest one ever made.
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Do you know what it is?
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I guarantee you know what it is because it is the symbol of America, the Statue of Liberty.
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Like, "I know it! Pastor Jeff has been sniffing glue in his office or something." Listen to this. Now you can look this up.
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The Statue of Liberty was designed by a French man who was a Mason.
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You ever wonder what he designed the statue after?
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That wasn't his grandma.
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Like, "Hold still, Grandma, we're going to make a statue that looks like you, and it's going to be awesome." That wasn't his sister.
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He designed the statue, this Mason, this French Mason, designed the Statue of Liberty after something very specific.
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The Babylonian goddess named Ishtar.
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Look it up. Not now.
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Ishtar, write this down now. I-S-H-T-A-R, look that up.
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Now she's had different names throughout history, Ishtar has.
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Because you know how gods sort of get passed down from generation to generation, from civilization to civilization, and they all sort of put their name on it?
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Here's a really interesting name that she got from one culture.
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It actually translates to the English word "liberty." That was what the one culture called her.
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And you're like, "Well, liberty is great!
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Land of the free, home of the brave!
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"America the beautiful!" That's not how it's meant.
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You see, the goddess representing liberty, Ishtar, it's sexual.
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Meaning, you can do whatever you want.
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And that's why in some of these ancient religions, they've had cult prostitutes.
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It's disgusting and I wish I didn't have to talk about this, but it was through indulgence of that you got close to the gods and goddesses, and that's why you had the prostitutes at the churches, and that's where liberty comes in.
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It was freedom, you do whatever you want.
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You do whatever you want.
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So in New York City, we have this giant statue patterned after Ishtar and we call her Liberty, And we're like, nothing suspicious there.
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Ishtar, the idol by the way, she was called the mother of harlots.
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That was her name as an idol.
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She was called the mother of harlots.
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And I got to tell you, with that in mind, you get sort of a chill when you go to Revelation 17 and the angel says, hey, come and see the harlot that's sitting on the waters.
36:58-37:05
You know, originally, the design of the Statue of Liberty, the original design, she was holding a cup.
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Did you know that?
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Like, now she's holding a torch.
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She wasn't originally holding a torch.
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She was originally holding a cup.
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Here's what happened.
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The New York Harbor Patrol said, instead of a cup, can we have her holding a torch so that it sort of illuminates the area and ships coming in, and it's sort of like this beacon of light thing.
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And I'm like, yeah, we can do that.
37:31-37:41
And I read somewhere that the actual cup that was designed ended up being sold to the Russians, and they sort of-- they put it on eBay or resold it or something to pay off some national debt.
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But the Russians had the original cup.
37:43-37:46
But originally, the Statue of Liberty was designed to hold a cup.
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And then we turn to Revelation chapter 17, verse 4, and it says the prostitute is holding a what?
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You can say it.
37:56-37:57
She was holding a what?
37:58-37:59
She was holding a cup!
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The original Babylon in Genesis 11, it became a great place by people coming together from everywhere.
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Kind of like America, right?
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Greatest country in the world from people coming together from everywhere.
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Every false religion.
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Every false religion has two things, two common denominators.
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It's sexual immorality and child sacrifice.
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Do I have to give you a sales pitch for the sexual immorality of our country?
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Do you know that the United States is responsible for 65% of the pornography production in the world?
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For the world being produced here.
38:56-39:01
You're like, "Oh, I hear what you're saying, Pastor Jeff, but child sacrifice, we don't do that.
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We don't do child sacrifice." And I would say, "Under which rock have you been living?
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What was the hot button last week?
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What was everybody talking about?
39:13-39:14
Was everybody talking about?
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Oh yeah, I remember.
39:16-39:20
It was all of these mothers protesting for the right to murder their own babies.
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That's what they were protesting.
39:22-39:29
And I look at that and the legislation for late-term abortion in New York City, and do you know what I see?
39:31-39:39
You can paint it up or try to describe it as whatever you want, but it's just child sacrifice to the prostitute.
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That's all it is.
39:45-39:50
Another interesting thing is verse 18 says that this city, this Babylon, has dominion over kings.
39:52-39:59
You see that? "She has dominion over the kings of the earth." Now that's interesting. Where's the United Nations located?
40:02-40:05
You can look this stuff up. No. Hear me.
40:07-40:11
I'm not saying emphatically that New York City is Mystery Babylon.
40:12-40:13
I am not saying that.
40:14-40:16
I'm saying this.
40:17-40:27
If you're like Pastor Jeff, looking at all the clues in the Bible, and looking at all the clues currently in the world today, where do you connect the most dots? I'm like, hmm?
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We don't know.
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Yet to be revealed.
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I just want to close with one question.
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I know this was long today. This was a very hard passage, but I do want to close one question that's sort of It sort of bothered me, and I thought maybe in sharing this it might bother some of you.
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The question is this, why did God choose to destroy Babylon in the way that he did in Revelation 17?
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Meaning, why did God choose to destroy Babylon with the beast and the ten kings instead of a direct blast with a flag?
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That was my question.
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All through Revelation, what have we seen?
41:20-41:21
Plagues, right?
41:21-41:33
Seals and trumpets and bulls and seals and trumpets, and we've seen all these plagues, and then all of a sudden you get to Babylon, like Vegas on steroids, and God's like, we're gonna do something different here.
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We're gonna use the antichrist and the 10 kings to destroy her.
41:37-41:41
Why didn't God just drop a giant rock on this city?
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Like, he could have.
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I mean, you're like, well, it says right here why he did it, it was in order to fulfill his word.
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And again, I get that.
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But why is this his word?
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Why did he want it this way?
41:58-41:59
Here's the answer I came up with.
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I wrote down in my notes, perhaps it's God's way of showing that sin and idolatry and everything that people worship that isn't named Jesus Christ, it all ends up self-destructing and bringing even more misery upon itself.
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That prostitute, she reminds us something else about sin.
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We dare not say in church that we're going to.
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Sin is attractive.
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Attractive.
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That's why this prostitute was depicted as attractive and alluring and promising and fulfilling and that's why the world buys in and church, that's why you and I buy in.
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Sin.
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Because she's attractive.
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She's never depicted as she really is.
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empty, ugly, unsatisfying, condemning.
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So as we close today, I want you to pray.
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Not just today, today yes, but throughout this week.
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I want you to have one prayer, if you would do this for me.
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I want you to have one prayer that no matter what else you pray, I want you to include this one prayer in your prayers this week.
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Will you do this?
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I want you to pray that God will give you eyes to see your sin.
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That we stop looking at sin like it's this attractive, vivacious woman, and seeing her for what she is, an ugly prostitute that brings nothing but misery.
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You can't see it for what it is.
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I want you to pray this week that God would give you eyes to see your sin for what it really is.
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That unforgiveness in your life, maybe you've excused it and justified it.
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Pray that God lets you see it for what it is.
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Do you know what it is?
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It's hatred.
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It's murder according to Jesus.
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It's the opposite of Christ-like behavior.
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Pray that God will let you see your sin for what it is.
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Pornography, as we've discussed, it has seduced you into bondage.
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It destroys your walk with God, and it destroys your relationship with your spouse.
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If you're not married, it destroys your relationship with a future spouse.
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Pray that God would open your eyes I see it.
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Idolatry.
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Anything you've allowed to be more important in your life than Jesus Christ, even if it's something that looks like a good thing, but this thing has become more important in my life than worshiping Christ and walking with Christ and working for Christ.
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Pray that God will let you see that thing for what it is.
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as an idol.
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And after you pray for God to open your eyes to see things as they are, pray for this nation to open its eyes.
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Because God will make sure that everything that pathetically competes against Him will ultimately be destroyed.
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In chapter 17, we see that God is going to destroy Babylon.
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In chapter 18, what we're going to see is how her destruction devastates the entire world.
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Father in heaven, we simply want to close our time in the Word here, asking that you would give us eyes to see.
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Father, we are masters of being blind to our own sin.
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We excuse it, we justify it, and there's a reason it's okay for us, or it's somebody else's fault, or whatever.
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But sin is sin. It's idolatry.
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And I pray, God, that You would give us eyes to see it for what it is.
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Let us start there.
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Father, after you do that work in our hearts, I pray that we would be people who pray for our nation, a nation of sexual immorality, a nation that fights about whether it should be legal to murder a baby.
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Sort of like Isaiah, "I am a man of unclean lips, I dwell among a people of unclean lips.
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God, open our eyes.
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Open our eyes in ourselves, in our families, in our church, in our community, and Father of this nation.
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Please, God, let us see sin for what it really is.
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We pray in Jesus' name.
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Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read Revelation 17
GROUP
What was your big “take-away” from the passage / sermon?
Explain: the prostitute, the waters, the beast, the heads, and the horns. What do they symbolize? What is their connection?
Rev 17:16-17 - Why does God put it in the 10 kings’ hearts to unite with the beast? Why does God choose to destroy Babylon THIS way, instead of with a plague?
BREAKOUT
Pray for one another to have eyes to see sin as God does. First for yourself, then for your nation.