Revelation: Part 53

When anyone anywhere, responds to this knowledge by having a desire to know this God, God will move heaven and earth to get the message to them.

You know, as I was studying this, Revelation 18, and looking back over chapter 17, remember, these are chapters that are filling in details of the destruction that is predicted in chapter 16. And this is -this is filling in details about the greatest enemy of God, that God is going to judge. And that’s the woman, mystery Babylon. And so all of a sudden it hit me that basically there are two themes in the book of Revelation that really are the cause of all of the trouble.

And one is called a woman, and the other one is called the great city. So, first, I want us to read about the woman. There are two women that are very important to the whole theme of the book of Revelation. Now, the first one you’ll see as we read, I’m just gonna read these Scriptures together.

I just pulled them out of the occurrence of this word as I went through the book. A great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of 12 stars. Now, when we studied chapter 12, and I showed that the woman is a symbol of the nation of Israel. And his tail swept a third of the stars of heaven, and threw them to the earth and the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth, he might devour her child.

Now, you see, it becomes obvious that the woman is Israel because she is about to give birth to the Messiah, Jesus. And the dragon, Satan, stands before her and wants to devour the child at birth. Then in verse 6, the next one, the woman fled into the wilderness where she had a place prepared by God so that there she would be nourished for 1,260 days, and that’s the last half of the Tribulation. The woman is going to be protected by God.

And when the dragon saw that he was thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child. But the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman so that she could fly into the wilderness to her place where she was nourished for a time and times and half a time. That’s Hebrew for three and a half, three and a half years. From the presence of the serpent.

And we know from verse 9 that the dragon, the serpent and so forth, is a symbol of Satan. And the serpent poured out water like a river out of his mouth after the woman so that he might cause her to be swept away with the flood. But the earth helped the woman and the earth opened its mouth and drank up the river, which the dragon poured out of his mouth. So the dragon was enraged with the woman and went off to make war with the rest of her children who keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus.

Well, this first woman is God’s woman. And it’s a symbol of Israel. And it’s using figurative speech here like the book of Revelation most places, but it’s easy to figure out. I mean, the woman is given two wings of a great eagle.

Well, I believe it’s gonna be an airlift that God somehow arranges, and she’s gonna be taken into a place that is prepared for her. To the best we can figure out, it’s somewhere in the mountains of petra, over in what’s now Jordan. And it says that the dragon tries to send a great army after her to destroy her, and the army is like a flood, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows this flood. Well, earthquake.

We know that from other Scriptures, that there’s going to be great earthquakes there. God will use that to help defend the believing Israelites. And then it says after that happened, the dragon, Satan, was enraged with the woman and went off to make war with the rest of her children. Well, if the woman is a figure of Israel, then who are the rest of her children?

Gentile believers. Gentile believers, the 144,000 Israelites we’ll win to Christ. So he turns his wrath from the Israelites to those who have believed in Jesus. Now, the next Scripture is about Satan’s woman.

Rome’s religious system. And he carried me away in the spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns. I think it’s very important that this woman is riding the beast. And it shows that she’s in control.

But what does the beast represent? Well, let’s read on. And the woman was clothed in purple and scarlet and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and of unclean things of her immorality. And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus.

And when I saw her, I wondered greatly. And the angel said to me, why do you wonder? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has seven heads and ten horns. Here’s the mind which has wisdom.

The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. And there are also seven kingdoms. Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; and when he comes, it must remain a little while. The woman whom you saw is the great city which reigns over the kings of the earth.

There’s where the woman begins to tell us about the great cities. There are two great cities that are mentioned in the book of Revelation. Now, context has to tell us which is which. But there are two cities that are called the great city.

And one of them here is identified. Now, I want you to note very carefully, the woman rides the beast. It says the beast carries her. And remember when we were in chapter 17, the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits.

Well, the woman sits on the seven hills of Rome. And they are also seven kingdoms. Now, it’s important to note that this woman who is called mystery Babylon, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth, the great harlot she’s called, Babylon the great, the great harlot. Now, this woman rides on all of these past empires because it spells out that these are empires that have existed.

The great Gentile world empires that have had an effect on Israel. And so it says there’s seven of them. Five have fallen. Remember I went through that.

Assyria. Egypt. Babylon. Media Persia.

Greece. The Roman Empire, phase one, and the Roman Empire, phase two. Those are the seven. The five that have fallen when John wrote the book of Revelation, ended with Greece.

Assyria, Egypt, Babylon, media Persia, Greek macedonian. So five had fallen at the time he wrote this. And he said one is. That was the Roman Empire, phase one.

One is yet to come. The Roman Empire’s revival. Call it phase two. And it shows that the Roman Empire is going to emerge out of the abyss as far as God is concerned, but it will be a miraculous resuscitation of this empire.

And this woman rides on all of them. Because, you see, this woman is a -is a progressively developing religious system that ruled, really, in the background over all of these Gentile powers. And the last stage of it, the woman becomes known as mystery Babylon. And so then it nails down firmly who the woman is.

The woman whom you saw is the great city, which literally is ruling over the kings of the earth. It’s present tense in the original Greek. So it meant that when John wrote the book of Revelation about 90 A.D., there was only one city ruling over the kings of the earth. Rome.

So it’s nailed down by two identifications. Number one, it’s the city that sits on the seven hills. And, secondly, it’s the one that is ruling over the kings of the earth when he wrote this. So one woman is Israel, God’s woman.

And Satan’s woman is Rome and the system that was developed there. All right, now, let’s go to the tale of two cities. It starts in Revelation 11. It shows there are two great cities.

Now watch this. And their dead bodies, this is talking about the two prophets that are killed in the middle of the Tribulation, in Jerusalem. Their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which mystically is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. All right.

Which city is that? Jerusalem. It can only be one. So this city is Jerusalem.

Now it says, and in that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city, Jerusalem, fell. 7,000 people were killed in the earthquake, the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven. And then we go to the next mention. The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations of Gentiles fell, and Babylon the great was remembered before God to give her the cup of the wine of his fierce wrath.

Revelation 16:19. All right. Both cities are mentioned in this verse, aren’t they? The great city was split in three parts.

That’s Jerusalem. And the cities of the nations fell. Remember when we were in Revelation 16, I brought up the fact this means all the cities of the Gentile world are going to be destroyed. All of them.

And it says, and Babylon the great was remembered before God. Okay, which city is that? Rome. So you’ve got the two great cities right there in one verse.

You got the city of Jerusalem and the city of Rome. Now, the woman whom you saw, in chapter 17, verse 18, the woman whom you saw is the great city, which reigns over the kings of the earth. And then we go to chapter 18, standing at a distance because of the fear of her torment, saying, woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city. For in one hour your judgment has come.

And then again saying, woe, woe, the great city. She who was clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls. And were crying out -and they were crying out as they saw the smoke of her burning saying, what city is like the great city? And they threw dust on their heads and were crying out, weeping and mourning saying, woe, woe, the great city, in which all who had ships at sea became rich by her wealth, for in one hour she has been laid waste.

Then a strong angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea saying, so will Babylon, the great city, be thrown down with violence and will not be found any longer. So that shows the destiny of Satan’s city. The great city will be destroyed. And then it mentions the city that is God’s city in chapter 21, verse 11.

It says, and he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. So you see the destiny of the two great cities of the book of Revelation. One is going to be utterly destroyed. This is one that has been the source -the source of great deception and great turning away of people from God.

It’s going -and chapter 17 spells out the religious system aspect of this city. Chapter 18 spells out the destruction of the economic base that it has. That it begins to control mankind through economics. And, of course, that’s why the -I believe it’s important to understand what Revelation 13 taught us, and that is the way that the Antichrist is going to control all mankind is by establishing a number, and if you swear allegiance to him you get this prefix added to your personal number which allows you to buy, sell, and hold a job.

It’s a complete control through economics. And the economic system is part of this great city, too. The economic system will be ruled from this great city. And, you know, it’s something that I see little glimmers of how this is being developed.

I mean, you know, I see things that were thought impossible back in the ’60s. And that is, that there would be a United States of Europe. Well, now there is one. That there is a development of economics and so forth taking place that no one thought possible.

And now, you know, I kept seeing this -I mentioned this before, but I kept seeing as I drove around Rome on the autostrada, this sign that no matter where you are in Rome on the autostrada, going around it and so forth, it will always have a note uar, and how many kilometers, the direction to it. And uar means the -the united Rome capital. And it is a capital that mussolini actually began to build during his reign there before and during World War II. And I went out to the uar and found out that here was a city by itself outside of the city of Rome.

And that here is a city that mussolini designed to rule, literally, over the world. And it’s laid out in certain ways. It’s got its own transportation system and so forth, and it has continued to develop in the latest technologies and so forth of communication. And that is a city that could easily take over as the economic center of the world.

It’s interesting that it isn’t too far from the vatican. You see it on the left-hand side, as you’re driving toward the Rome airport. It’s right off the autostrada. Now, I see some of these things developing, but, you know, I noted that the book of Revelation says that the power of -of this revived form of Rome will not really come until ten leaders emerge that it says will come at about the same time the Antichrist comes.

And it’s the Antichrist plus these ten leaders over ten nations out of the ruins of the Roman culture and people that will become the power base that quickly transforms that Roman -the ruins of that Roman culture into a world power again. And that’s why people, it says, are going to be amazed. It was. It is not now.

Yet it shall be. And the same thing is said about its leader. It says that the Antichrist was, and then he is not, and yet he shall rise again. Very interesting.

I believe we’re very, very near those days. And as I said last week, the religious system known as mystery Babylon is going to be taken from Rome and brought to the ancient plains of shinar where the tower of babel was. And a great temple is going to be built for this religious system there. And that’s what I was talking about with Zechariah 5 last week.

I believe that we are about to see -there’s already been moves, but we’re going to see some moves to rebuild at least the religious temple part of ancient Babylon. I think it’s interesting that God shows that there are two trends that go through this whole development of the final destruction of the current world system. That is the woman, Israel, and the woman that is mystery Babylon the great. And the tale of two cities.

God’s city is Jerusalem. It has gone astray, but it’s still the only city on this earth that God put his name. And the other city is the symbol of mystery Babylon. Rome.

And all of these merchants are going to wail and howl because they had made great wealth through this economic system that will be joined to it. Turn to chapter 19. And after these things, I heard, as it were, a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven saying, hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God.

Now, when it says after these things, it means that the chronological development of the book is continuing. After the destruction of all Gentile cities, the destruction of the source of religious deception, the destruction of the armies that try -I mean, good grief, we talk about Armageddon, where there’s going to be millions die. Blood standing to the horse’s bridle for 200 miles in the valley of -the Jordan valley. So we’re talking about after the most horrific war in the history of the world when it’s going to be stopped, it says, and it says, hallelujah, salvation and glory and power belong to our God because his judgments are true and righteous; for he has judged the great harlot who was corrupting the earth.

And he has avenged the blood of his bond servants on her. And a second time they said, hallelujah, for the smoke rises up forever and ever. And the 24 elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sits on the throne saying, amen, hallelujah! And a voice came from the throne saying, give praise to our God, all you his bond servants, you who fear him, the small and the great.

And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude as the sound of many waters, and as the sound of mighty peals of thunder saying, hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the almighty, reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give glory to the Lamb for the marriage of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready. All right.

Now it’s at this point I want to really punch home something. Who’s the Lamb? Who’s his bride? Right.

What’s she done? Made herself ready. Okay? Now, that takes a little time.

So the bride couldn’t have just arrived in heaven could she?

If you have the guts to be a real revolutionary, come forward right now and accept Jesus Christ as your real revolutionary and he’ll make a revolutionary that will change lives. As I prepared for this week’s program, I was again struck by the speed with which events are moving into the scenario the prophets predicted for the end times. I believe we’re there. People on the street are talking about what all of these things mean.

Folks that wouldn’t darken the door of a Church, or pick up a Bible, are now very curious. This may be our greatest opportunity, maybe even our last opportunity, to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ before we’re silenced by political correctness. The message that God has given me is more important now than it’s ever been for the Church and for the nation.