Revelation chapter 14 beginning on page 1928, verse 6. Then I saw another angel flying in midair and he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth, to every nation, tribe, language, and people. He said in a loud voice, Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and the springs of water. A second angel followed, and said, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, which made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries. A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice, If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he too will drink of the wine of God's fury. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb." The Word of the Lord. May we pray. Heavenly Father, please help me. I'm an old man with an aging brain. Please help me not to get confused, forget what I've written out, Please help me to deliver a message to the people here and who watch on the internet that all who hear may be drawn to the Lord Jesus Christ. Help me, Lord, to lift up the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified, that we may know him and love him. For Jesus' sake, amen. Now, I mentioned last week that I suspended my series on the book of Revelation because I wanted to restudy the book, and that's why I spent 13 months preaching on other things, including Bible characters, which was a series that I had left from my previous church, and so I did that concluding with the Prophet Elisha part 10. I want to share with you one area in particular where I've changed my mind. And even though I'm an old dog, I'm an old man, I'm not an old dog. And so therefore I can learn some new tricks. And I want to talk to you today about who is Babylon in the book of Revelation. Who is Babylon in the book of Revelation? It isn't the historic city of Babylon. That's very plain. But Babylon is a symbol of great wickedness, and we see that if we turn over, for example, to chapter 17, we see there, whoops, don't want to drop them, chapter 17, where we find these words which are right striking. And he says here, you see it in page 1931, in big bold letters, This title was written on her forehead. Mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of prostitutes and of the abominations on the earth. Mystery, Babylon. So what is the mystery of Babylon? The mystery of Babylon is, if you go back in the foundation of the city, after the Genesis flood, you discover that the mythologies that have corrupted the nations of the earth all have their roots in that historic city. And that's where, of course, God confused the nations, where they built a tower. They built a ziggurat in order to reach heaven. Think about what that is. You remember Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? They reached up to take the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God had forbidden them that. And what I want us to see is that at the Tower of Babel, mankind has determined to unite with its knowledge and its technology and to reach up a defiant fist to god that's what that cigarette that's what that tower of babel means and god did something to the terrible he sent confusion on human languages and so people are they're building whatever they're speaking i don't know the language they spoke but suddenly someone says marshall a harsh boss and another guy says kukawanga dingo and they don't understand each other their brains were we rewired by almighty god in a moment of time and so what that led to was a destruction of the united technologies of all the peoples of the earth to be as god to reach up to heaven if this stuff defiance and the god separated the nations of the earth there seventy great nations and he assigned them under various angelic powers. So you had a spirit of this and a spirit of that over those principalities and powers. And that's very interesting if you look at Genesis 11 in that regard. But Babylon is the foundation, and there are myths that come out of Babylon. And so that's one reason why the book of Revelation cites it. It also cites Babylon because if you look at the prophet Jeremiah, he cites Babylon over and over again as the great enemy of God's people. So who is Babylon as we look at the New Testament? And we discover there that it is a city that in It is a city, in chapter 18 and verse 21, turning over to the right, it is a city that, terrified in verse 10, terrified at her torment, they will stand afar off and cry, whoa, whoa, oh great city, oh Babylon, city of power, and so God destroys this Babylon, but who is this Babylon? Where I've changed my mind goes back to chapter 13, and it has to do with the identity of the beast, because the beast is connected to Babylon. Turn with me, if you will, back to chapter 13, and let's look there for a moment. And that's page 1927. 13 verse 1. And the dragon stood on the shore of the sea. Now the dragon there is very plainly Satan. That's who he is. And he corresponds in his mimicry to God the Father. Satan is the dragon. And then we see in the second sentence of verse 1, and I saw a beast coming out of the sea. He had ten horns and seven heads and ten crowns on his horns and on each head a blasphemous name. So here is a beast coming up out of the sea and then the beast is described in verse 2 in imagery taken from the seventh chapter of the book of Daniel. The beast I saw resembled a leopard but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority." So let's think about that for a moment. I want you to think about the city of Rome because that's what I think is clearly in view. When Roman soldiers came to the parts of their empire that were located on the eastern shore of the mediterranean sea they generally came by ship so what you have is for example uh... cesarea by the sea was headquarters that's where paul was kept as a prisoner for a period of time that's where the soldiers would come when they were coming to palestine and uh... they would land there by sea but what is really intriguing here is this, if we read on. One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole earth was astonished and followed the beast. Men worshipped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshipped the beast and asked, who is like the beast? Who can make war against him? The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and exercises authority for 42 months. And you know this theme, 42 months is three and a half years, time, times, and a half a time, 1,260 days. It corresponds to the last half of the last week of Daniel's prophecy of the 70 weeks. And so we read further in verse seven, he was given power to make war against the saints and to conquer them, and he was given authority over every tribe, people, language, and nation. All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast, all whose names have not been written in the book of life, belonging to the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world. Now, going down further, to the very end of that page and flipping over in verse 16 of on page 1928 He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666." Now here's where I've really changed my mind. I now believe that the beast is Nero, Nero of the first century. Caligula was nuts, as you may recall. Little Boots, he was the Emperor Gaius. But Nero is the one who begins to persecute Christians in an unprecedented way. And why is he called a beast? Do you know that the Emperor Nero, who was incredibly cruel, who did set fire to the city of Rome because he fashioned himself to be God, and he used to go into the temple of Jupiter, who was the chief god of the Roman pantheon, corresponding to the Greek pantheon, Zeus, he used to go into Jupiter's temple because he himself believed he was equal to Jupiter, equal to Zeus. He was God. And he forced people to worship him. And so inflamed did he become in his hatred, particularly of Christians, because they would not submit to him and acknowledge him to be God, that he did unbelievable things. Let me cite a couple. Nero would take Christians and put them in the skins of animals and cover them with things such as pitch and he would crucify them and he would sometimes ride his chariot as these Christians were set on fire on poles providing light. He also dressed himself in animal skins himself because he saw himself as a beast, as a violent ferocious carnivorous animal and he would attack human beings who were chained so they couldn't get free and he would eat part of their body parts while they were alive. Did you know that? Nero was an unbelievably wicked and evil man and what happened is he wielded such power in Rome that everyone was afraid of him. because he took any person's wife he wanted to take and he completely destroyed anyone who opposed him so that the roman senate became very sycophantic and they did everything he wanted them to do and he fancied himself a great musician and so he would play and people would fawn over him and flattering and uh... isn't that something because we find that in today's world that when someone obtains real power That person is surrounded by fawning, flattering, sycophantic people. And so here is Nero. Imagine that. And he actually put himself in animal skins and chewed and ate body parts of living human beings. He truly was the beast. And I used to be dismissive of the two things that you can find a cipher here with 666. If you take the number 666 and you convert it you can get two different things. One is Latinus, which means Roman kingdom or Latin kingdom, and the other one is this, and I was always dismissive of it. In Hebrew, you get the letters Neron Kaisar, which is Nero Caesar. And so the book of Revelation has codes in it, it has ciphers in it, because it's written to comfort people who were alive and suffering under this monster. And so I believe that Babylon refers to the Roman Empire and the beast refers to Nero. Nero later commits suicide when he realized that he had run out of favors and people had finally had a belly full and they were going to kill him. So he commits suicide to keep from being tortured. But it was amazing. He fancied himself a great musician and so he would do performances. And just imagine having to sit there as Nero went on and on and on with his i don't know whether his voice was nasal or not or whether he had such vibrato that uh... he couldn't hold a note clearly i have no idea but evidently he he fancied himself the greatest musician in the world and if you didn't acknowledge that you were in danger of being put to death and he also instigated the thing with christians being taken into the arena and fighting wild beasts So Nero, reveled in blood, he was a violent and wicked and evil man, even though we can say, as I've said in the past, that the number of the beast is the number of man. That is, man is created on the sixth day, and so 666 is kind of like man as the measure of all things. But as we go back here in chapter 14, We read in verse 8, page 1929, a second angel followed and said, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great, which made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries. So Rome seduced the world, and John The Apostle who wrote the book of Revelation is keenly aware of the suffering in particular in the Roman provinces, because in the seven churches of Asia, that's Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey, in those seven churches, emperor worship was off the charts. and people outdid themselves in honoring the Roman Emperor. They built temples for the Roman Emperor, and they worshipped the Roman Emperor. And if you were a person who refused to do it, whether you were a Jew or a Christian, you faced terrible terrible persecution and suffering. And so you could make a token gesture by going and making a sacrifice to the emperor, burning a piece of paper in his honor, and you'd be given a stamp on there. Now I want to reflect on that with you for a moment, and that is this. The book of Revelation recapitulates its visions over and over again. I've divided the book out into seven basic visions with introductions and the visions themselves. And this is the core vision, chapter 14. But what I want to submit to you is that just as we looked at Isaiah 714, which was a prophecy about Isaiah's marriage to a virgin woman preacher and that she would give birth to a to a child and would call his name a manual and as you check that out scripturally uh... that size a a son by his second wife who was a virgin uh... woman preacher and uh... that's in last week's sermon uh... the thing i want us to see here is that that prophecy of the virgin birth is not ultimately fulfilled until the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, as we're told in the Gospel of Matthew, who quotes from Isaiah 714 in reference to the Lord Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and you will call his name Emmanuel. God with us. And Emmanuel had another name in Isaiah 7 and in Isaiah 8, Maharshal HaShabas, which if you practice, you can say it as well. So Isaiah 7, 14, it's a prophecy with an immediate fulfillment in the lifetime of Isaiah with reference to two kings, the king of Syria and the king of Israel to the north, saying, you don't need to be afraid. God's going to take care of this. Before the child has weaned, before the child knows how to discern bitter and sweet, the land will be freed of these two tyrants who are a threat to you. And we know that is exactly what happened, that before Isaiah's son, Maharshala Hashbaz, also named Immanuel, that within that baby's lifetime, those two kings are removed. Ultimately, it points way beyond itself to roughly the year four or five before Christ, because Christ was born four or five years before the Roman Catholic calendar was created. Christ is born 405 BC and that's the ultimate fulfillment of Isaiah 714. So what we have here in Revelation chapter 14 about the man of sin, the beast, of the Roman Empire, Fast forward, it doesn't exhaust itself in the first century. When Babylon falls, ultimately it's the death of Nero, and the civil war that ensued in the empire is almost destroyed, and then the man who was the commanding general, who was commissioned by the Emperor Nero to destroy the city of Jerusalem, a general by the name of Vespasian, whose son's name was Titus, not our biblical Titus, Suddenly he learns that Rome is imploding, that civil war has ensued, and so he leaves the siege of Jerusalem in the hands of his son Titus, and he travels with his army over the land to get back to Rome, where he seizes power and becomes the Roman emperor after the civil war is put down. Again, fallen, fallen as Babylon is a reference to the destruction of Rome and of Nero, but that ultimately does not completely fulfill it. Turn with me, if you would, back to 2 Thessalonians, turning back to the left, 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. So, Nero is the beast of the book of Revelation, very clearly. But if we go back to 2 Thessalonians on page 1843, we read these words, beginning at verse 1 of chapter 2. Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report, or letter supposed to have come from us, saying that the day of the Lord has already come. So you know, in our day, there are all kinds of false teachers. All you have to do is turn on your television, because people who can buy tv time like that nationwide are going to keep an audience up and how do you keep an audience up you keep people in suspense it's like when i was a kid you'd go to the picture show on saturday and you'd watch these cereals and you'd be continued next week what you want to come back to save your save your nickels and dimes and you can go back and watch what happens next week and so Those that keep an audience on TV often do it by sensationalism or by offering people things that they think they can't get anywhere else. But in that day, in St. Paul's day, page 1843, there were false teachers who were making reports and said, look, the Lord has already returned. The Lord has already returned. And Paul writes and says, I don't want you to get upset. I don't want you to believe this. He says in verse 3, don't let anyone deceive you in any way for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. I want to think about that with you. I think there's an initial reference there to two Roman emperors, the emperor Gaius Caligula, who commanded that his image would be put in the Temple of God in Jerusalem, and at the last minute that order was countermanded because the Praetorian Guard assassinated Caligula, I think also has a reference to Nero. But Christ has not yet returned. And anyone who tells you that Christ has already returned is a false teacher. Look at what he says. Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God. Don't you remember that when I was with you, I used to tell you these things, and now you know what is holding him back so that he may be revealed in his proper time. Verse 7, for the secret power of lawlessness is already at work, but the one who holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. I want to reflect on that for a moment. This has an initial reference to the first century of the Christian era, but that doesn't fulfill it completely. Look at what he says in verse 9. The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan, displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs, and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved, verse 11. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed and have delighted in wickedness. I want to reflect with you on this for a moment. In our day, how would we apply that? As I've said, biblical prophecies recapitulate over and over and over again. I think there's every danger in our time of worshipping political leaders. In particular, I'll just say, I think there's every danger, and we pray for President Trump, but there's a great danger that he'd be worshipped because you'll find people who attribute to him god-like attributes and While I may appreciate many of the things he's bringing about, I would love to have some of that money that has been given away through an arm of the CIA called USAID. That's an arm of the CIA. Wouldn't you like to have a $5,000 check? Really, I just wish we'd pay down this debt that's going to destroy us. But the point I'm making is there's a danger in our day that we worship someone and think this person's the answer to all our problems i think that he is an answer to many of our problems but i want to say to attribute to him that kind of of uh... uh... blasphemy is a evil and dangerous thing and people get caught up in that so that the person that they admire can do no wrong and i'm always struck with this Because I think that Donald Trump is in great danger of going to hell. Why would I say that? Because he said repeatedly, I've never asked anyone's forgiveness. I'm going to tell you on the day of judgment, if he hasn't asked God's forgiveness for his sins, he's going to go to hell. and we should not worship him as if he's the solution to all our problems. And I see among some of his followers that kind of worship. You know, I think about the beast had a mark that he was wounded in the head and was healed. I remember I was in the motel here in Texarkana on a Saturday, taking a nap, which we often will do after we've driven up, before we went out to eat. And when I woke up, Sandy said to me, President Trump has been shot. I said, what? And we turned on the television, and when I saw that clip, I said, he just won the election. Win the beast? No, he's not the beast. That's his car that was the pace car for, NASCAR. when he was wounded and the bloods there and he's in shock and he raises his fist and says fight fight fight i said to sandy that just one donald trump the election uh... i really do believe that did and so but the danger is to attribute divine attributes to mere human beings he's a mortal human being he's no different than joe biden in that regard except uh... mister biden obviously had uh... the beginnings of dementia and donald trump runs i don't know how he does what he does i could call it uh... mania he he rarely sleeps he has enormous energy the man's actually older than i am which makes him really old uh... not much older than i am but the energy the man possesses to do this and do that and what a negotiator Wow. So I look at all that and I think there's every danger that people would think of him just like people thought about Nero. I think that could Donald Trump be the Antichrist? I don't believe so. I'm more inclined to think it's the computer. I'm more inclined to think it's artificial intelligence. I don't know. But the one thing I do know is this. Never have a hero but Jesus. That's what I believe. I only have one hero, the Lord Jesus Christ. And why is Jesus my hero? Because he died for my sins, because he suffered in my place. He who was the spotless lamb of God, he who is the eternal son of the eternal God, without ceasing to be God in any way whatsoever, came to this earth and was conceived in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary while she is a virgin by the miraculous working of the Holy Spirit. He lived a sinless life. And then he went to the cross willingly. He suffered in your place and in my place. With his stripes we're healed. We're set free by what he's done. He's the only hero. If you examine history, you'll discover that everyone including every one of American's heroes, including George Washington, including Robert E. Lee, including Abraham Lincoln. Everyone has fatal flaws. I have fatal flaws. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. So as we live in an era of crisis very similar to the first Christian century, when the crisis was the terrible persecution coming out of the city of Rome and personified radically and significantly in the person of the Roman emperor Nero, Neron Casar, Latinus, the Roman kingdom, personified that way as we are in a time of crisis in the world and to be sure we really are we need to be ready and what does that mean it means stay prayed up Stay in the book because we're in a time of great deception and pray for people because neither you nor I can ever reason another human being into faith in Christ. Faith in Christ is a gift of the Holy Spirit And he gives that faith in response to people interceding. I have loved ones whom I love dearly, whom I'm concerned about. Will they make it to heaven? And so I pray for them. Now is the time to pray. As we think about Babylon has fallen, the city of Rome fell briefly, but the Roman system still continues today because when the empire the Roman Empire in the West ceased, what happened? The Bishop of Rome took over the role of the Roman Emperor and took to himself the title of the Roman Emperor. Roman Emperor's titles were Pontifex Maximus. And so today, as everyone's waiting for our first Jesuit Pope finally to die, he's in bad shape. We refer to him as the Pontiff. That means he's the Roman Emperor. The Roman Empire in the West became the Roman Catholic Church. So again, not attacking the Roman Catholic Church as such. I'm just saying, no history. And if you want to know first century history, there's no better source than Flavius Josephus, the Jewish general who surrendered to the Roman armies because he knew it was hopeless to fight against them. May we pray. Lord, grant that we, who are living in a time of world crisis, When China is a great threat, when Russia is a threat, when the nations of Europe are a threat, when, Lord, within our own country there are various factions and there's so much hatred and violence and anger, Lord, we pray for the safety of our political leaders in the executive branch, in the legislative branch, and in the judicial branch. We pray for wisdom. Lord, you can take a man who is not a Christian, who has never bowed his knees and asked you to forgive him. You can take that man and do good things through him. Please guide our president. Please keep him from absurd things. And please protect him. And Lord, we pray that also for the leaders in the Senate and the House and our judiciary. Lord, have mercy on our country, and particularly we pray for the church, because the church is your instrument to spread the gospel. May this church in particular be faithful to spread the gospel, and how, Lord, today I miss seeing Stacy and the children she's brought. Lord, have mercy on us, bless us, and pity us in Jesus' name. Amen. Our next hymn is number 138, Holy Ground. We are standing on holy ground, and I know that there are angels all around. Let us praise Jesus. We are standing in His presence on holy ground. We are standing on holy ground. And I know that there are angels all around. Let us praise Jesus now. We are standing in his presence on holy ground. Let's receive God's blessing. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.