It's wonderful to examine the difficult things in life with the presupposition that Christ is indeed risen, is on his throne. Now the slice of bread we're going to cut off to eat today is just two verses, verses two and three, but I'm going to read the first six. Page 17 of your bulletins if you're looking. One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me saying, come, I will show you the judgment of the great whore who sits on the many waters with whom the kings of the earth fornicated and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication. So he took me away in spirit to a wilderness and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and 10 horns. And the woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication. And on her forehead, a name was written, Mystery Babylon the Great, the mother of the prostitutes and the abominations of the earth. And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, even with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And upon seeing her, I was tremendously impressed. Father God, we thank you for your word. And I pray that as we dig into it, that we would not only grow in our understanding of how you look at the things that are around us, but how we should look at them as well and how we should relate to them. And we pray that as we continue to worship you as the God who was sufficient for all of these things, that our faith would grow. And we pray this in Jesus name, amen. Well we have some visitors with us. We have some people who weren't here last week because you were sick, but I'm not planning to review anything that we covered last week. I'll just briefly say that we spent the entire, well almost the entire time of the sermon looking at and trying to rule out the various theories, and there is a ton of theories of who this harlot, this whore is. And using the internal clues that the Apostle John has given to us within the text, we were systematically ruling out every theory except for one, that the whore was the city of Jerusalem. I'm 100% convinced, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that this woman symbolized the city of Jerusalem. And since I ended the sermon last week just doing a quick romp through verse one, we're picking up at verse two. Verse two starts in the middle of a sentence, but that's okay. It says, with whom the kings of the earth fornicated. How do kings fornicate with a city? And how can a city be a prostitute or be a whore? Well, the answer is that the Old Testament uses that term to refer to any criminal compromise for the purpose of gain, whether it is sexual or non-sexual. And interestingly, modern dictionaries have this dual meaning for the term as well. For example, Webster's On a Bridge Dictionary gives two definitions to the term prostitute. The first one is the one that you would expect, the literal sexual definition. And the second definition is metaphorical. It defines it as selling out your moral integrity or your artistic integrity or something else like that. for the purpose of some kind of other gain. And they define it as a kind of prostitution. So scripture actually has a slightly tighter definition of this word because for the scripture, it is always a criminal compromise that is being made for the purpose of gain. Metaphorical meaning describes either apostasy from God, which was a capital crime in the Old Testament, or at least could be, and other violations of criminal law for personal gain. But always there was this purchase or selling something that should not be purchased or sold. That's what gives it the meaning of prostitution. And again, the question comes, how does a city engage in hoarding or in prostitution? And the answer is, when its representatives buy or sell things that they should not buy or sell, and they do so for personal gain, when they misuse the trust of their political office in criminal ways for personal gain. Well, when you define it that way, you see political prostitution everywhere. P.J. O'Rourke's book, A Parliament of Whores, shows how politicians have a tendency to set aside principle for political gain. And he says, technically, in terms of English definition, technically that is a form of prostitution or whoredom. And this happens all the time. We just don't tend to recognize it. What I'm going to do is I'm going to illustrate it with the Obamacare bill, because I think that was one where most people recognize this is weird, this buying and selling of votes in order to get this bill passed. The Dakota Beacon, which is a newspaper out of Bismarck, North Dakota, looked at that thing and said, this is crass, blatant political prostitution. And I won't read you the whole article. I'll just give you some of the people that they accused of being prostitutes on this. They said, Senator Mary Landrieu, Louisiana Democrat, sold her vote for $300 million, otherwise known as the second Louisiana purchase. Vermont Democrat, Senator Bernie Sanders, sold his vote for $10 billion in new funding for community health centers. And it goes on and on and shows just flagrant purchasing of votes, just outright purchasing. And if his initial offers weren't high enough, he would just keep raising the offer, raising the offer. He figured most people will eventually have a price at which they will switch. Another website talked about our own Senator Nelson's political prostitution. It said, Harry Reid finally managed to find his 60 votes. He did it by finally buying out Democrat Ben Nelson in one of the most blatant examples of political prostitution ever seen in Washington. Turns out that Louisiana's Mary Landrieu priced her Services kind of cheaply at that. She must be green with envy at a higher-priced hooker like Ben Nelson. Here's what Ben Nelson sold himself for. Essentially, American taxpayers will pay Nebraska's Medicare bills forever. He also got special federally-funded exemptions, physician-owned hospitals in Nebraska, and Nebraska only. Nelson essentially sold his vote and caved on federal funding for abortions in order to get the money. Now that may seem outrageous for me to even begin a sermon with illustrations like that, but honestly, as you start reading through chapters 17 and 18, you will see exactly things like that being defined as prostitution by the Apostle John. Is the beast alive and well today? Well, in a totally different form than in the first century, but he is because there is this demonic presence that drove the first century beast that continues to drive politics today. is the whore alive and well? And yes, many times it's the, just like it was back then, it's the local communities often acting as the whore. We just tend to be blind to our own sins. And I think what we tend to do when we read passages like this is we think, that's terrible, I'm glad I don't live in times like that. And we realize, no, we are living in exactly times like that. For example, is it political prostitution for the federal government to gain influence over sheriff's departments all across this land by giving massive funding, by giving free vehicles for terrorist kinds of deals, or giving them access to the federal criminal database or other federal goodies. I think the Bible would say, yes, that is political prostitution, and Webster's Dictionary would define it as that as well. In sheriff's offices across our nation, there has begun to be a gradual shifting of loyalties away from the county and toward the federal government. And the question is, why would they do that? They are addicted. They are addicted to what the federal bed has to offer. Well, hopefully those examples will help you see that the verses we're going to be looking at over the next few weeks, I'll skip for the next two weeks, but they describe what is a constant danger in our country. These are not irrelevant verses for a bygone age. These are very directly pointed. to what is happening in America. And I want you to notice in verse 2 that it is the kings of the land, tais, gais, who are committing this fornication. Now it is true that in verse 3 the Apostle is going to say that the There was fornication, there was prostitution going on with the emperor as well, but it starts off with the king's plural of the land, Teis Geis. So in some way, the kings in the land of Israel were committing fornication with Jerusalem. Which of the three definitions of prostitution that the Bible gives were they guilty of? I would say all three. The first kind was literal prostitution. The second kind was apostasy from God's law. And then the third kind is what we've described as political prostitution. There were a lot of sexual favors being handed around. In fact, some scholars believe that the only reason that the Queen of Israel, Queen Berenice, had a long-standing sexual relationship with the General Titus, who later became the emperor, was specifically for the kind of influence that she could wield over him. And there's lots of evidence she used her wiles on other political figures as well to try to gain some influence. But even though literal fornication definitely went on within Israel, and for sure went on in the capital of Rome, chapters 17 through 18 seem to indicate that John primarily has the metaphorical use of that term in mind. It could be The literal symbolized the spiritual and the political, but at least the spiritual and political is in mind. For example, chapter 18 verse 9 says, the kings of the land who committed fornication and lived luxuriously with her And you read the commentaries on there and they say, you know, what was going on there was not necessarily sexual. It's talking about gaining wealth through their compromises, their relationships with that city. And there was a massive amount of wealth that was being transferred from the coffers of the Sadducees into the personal hands of all of the political kings of Israel. And of course, Rome gave the Sadducees sufficient power that they would gain more wealth, and so political prostitution was happening constantly. But spiritual prostitution was happening as well. Israel had abandoned God and His law, and Christ, you know, in His discussions with the Pharisees and the scribes and the Sadducees demonstrates that quite well, how they had violated God's law, thrown them out for their man-made traditions, But all you have to do is read some of the secular histories like Josephus, and you realize Josephus was absolutely horrified with the compromises that happened in temple worship itself because of the Sadducee and Roman connection. Did you know that the Bible would use the term whore or prostitute for a pastor like me if I softened or quit preaching on certain things in order to retain people of influence or in order to not chase away wealthy people. Now we don't have any wealthy people, but I think you know what I mean. This happens many times in congregations across this land. It's a kind of spiritual prostitution. So Leviticus 20 verse 6 says, Now that usage of the term prostitute has nothing whatsoever to do with sex. Nothing. These people were simply going to mediums because they thought that they desperately needed some information, but they were compromising their biblical principles in order to do so. Okay, and anytime pastors deliberately compromise their principles to retain influence, or position, or money, they've become spiritual prostitutes. Anyway, I believe Duncan McKenzie is correct when he said this, The fornication between the harlot and the kings of the land is talking about the illicit relationship that had evolved between the temple leaders, those would be the Sadducees, and the Roman appointed rulers of the land of Israel. Now you may not have been aware that things had gotten that bad in the temple. So what I want to do is I want to read you just a very, very short, concise section out of a large history book that gives you a tiny peek into the massive problem that was happening. I'm reading from Hirsch Goldworm's History of the Jewish People. He says, the Roman rulers followed Herod's example of bestowing the sacred office of high priest upon the highest bidder. As the Sadducees had no lack of money, they offered huge personal bribes to the procurators, and a candidate of their choice became high priest. The Roman officials soon realized that the office of the high priest was an infallible source of income. At frequent intervals, they would dismiss the current Kohen Gadol, high priest, and auction off the position to the highest bidder. From the beginning of the era of the Roman procurators until the destruction of the temple, a period of nearly 60 years, this exalted office had 30 occupants. For this reason, the high priest's chamber on the temple mount was called the lischkas, palhedron, which means the chamber of the king's officials. The prestige of the office thus suffered during this period is the kohen gadol, came to be regarded as a petty politician who was appointed by the secular government and who cared only about his own glory and enrichment. Even after being dismissed from their office, the former high priests would continue to exploit their connections for selfish ends. In the course of time, with their number growing, They became a domineering aristocracy, and together with their relatives and friends, they abused the people and brought about the destruction of the temple. So who were some of those kings? In the 100 years before the destruction of Jerusalem, there was Herod the Great, Archelaus, Quirinius, Valerius Gratus, Vitellius, Agrippa I, Herod of Colchis, and Agrippa II. Now, of course, a lot of the same things happened with the governors and the prefix, and thus the high priesthood, along with the entire temple service, became totally corrupted. There was a reason why Jesus, at the beginning of his ministry, at the end of his ministry, got those whips together. He cleansed the temple. The king had turned a blind eye to the Sadducees use of police force violence and even assassinations in exchange for money and other favors. And likewise, the Sadducees enforced the Roman rule with an iron hand. By the way, you read the histories and you wonder, why was it that the Saqqara assassins went after the Sadducees as well as the Romans? Because they saw them as being constantly in bed with the Romans. Okay, so they were just as upset with them. Around the time of Christ's ministry, Caiaphas, the high priest, managed to force out of the free market all of the other marketplaces that sold sacrifices, that made exchanges of money, and developed a monopoly within the temple. And they jacked up the prices then. They were making money hand over fist from this. And this is one of the reasons why Jesus indicated that the family that was running the temple had made the temple into a den of thieves and robbers. Worship became absolutely repulsive to the people. And I believe it was repulsive to God. The reason I say it was repulsive is because when a similar thing happened in Isaiah, listen to what God said about that worship. He said, he who kills a bull is as if he slays a man. He who sacrifices a lamb is if he breaks a dog's neck. He who offers a grain offering is if he offers swine's blood. He who burns incense is as if he blesses an idol. So it is no exaggeration whatsoever to say that Jerusalem's leadership fornicated with the kings of the land. But I want you to notice in verse 2 that the citizens themselves are involved in this covenant lawsuit. Verse 2 ends by saying, and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication. So somehow the citizens themselves are involved in this fornication, or at least they've benefited from the fornication sufficiently that they've become used to it. They've lost their discernment. And God condemns the citizens for not caring. The image of drunkenness is to lose your discernment, to lose your sense of caring. Now even though Beal's massive commentary gets the timing wrong, he gets the meaning absolutely correct. So what he did is he examined In chapter 17 and 18, how John uses these terms of prostitution, wine, fornication, drunkenness, and he says that the fornication for the citizens was actually going along with the compromises of the leaders in exchange for economic security. Let me read from that commentary. He said, the opportunity for such security is a temptation too great to resist. But Babylon's promise of earthly prosperity for its willing subjects is an intoxication that the majority want to imbibe. Once imbibed, the intoxicating influence removes all desire to resist Babylon's destructive influence, blinds one to Babylon's own ultimate insecurity and to God as the source of real security, and numbs one against any fear of a coming judgment. For the metaphor of drunkenness, of spiritual blindness, see Isaiah 29 verse 9. The economic interpretation is clear from chapter 18 verse 3 and verses 9 through 19 where the same phrases for immorality and intoxication that are used in chapter 17 verse 2 are equated with terms for economic prosperity. The nation's loyalty to Babylon was brought on by her ability to provide economic prosperity for them. Now put it into modern terms and modern times, Though citizens may express hatred for the corrupt system that seems to exist from local governments through national governments, they receive so many benefits from this corrupt system, such as free education, there is no such thing as free education, but that's what they call it, free education, that they have a hard time not going back to the whore for more and more and more. The political prostitution today is like an addiction. Now the people may complain about it, They may complain about what's happening, they may blame the system, but they still use the system and are thus guilty in God's eyes of political prostitution. So the Pharisees may have hated the Sadducees, they may have hated the blatant compromises the Sadducees made with Rome, but when push came to shove over their own Financial security, they were willing to cooperate. When it came to opposing Christianity, which by the way was a real threat to their corrupt system, it was exposing their corrupt system, with passages just like this, they were willing to cooperate to oppose Christianity. And by the way, back then they didn't just have two political parties who hated each other's guts, they had three. Okay, so there were the Sadducees who ran the temple and they were the international bankers, filthy rich. And the reason I say filthy rich is they got their riches by unjust means. You can't be filthy rich if you get it honestly, right? So it was the Sadduceean party. Then there were the Pharisees. who had a lot of political clout because of who they knew and their relationship to the masses. And then there were the Herodians who also had a lot of pull and control. And though they had a public reputation of hating each other, they were constantly making backroom deals just like the leadership of the Republicans and Democrats today make their backroom deals. So for example, when the Saqqari were constantly killing not just Romans, but also Sadducees, and they began to look like they were a threat, all three parties got together, they compromised, they made draconian not gun control, but weapon control laws that they imposed upon Israel. When important issues came up, party leaders were promised bribes just like Harry Reid gave party leaders bribes if they would support his policies. And so having a three-party system actually worked to their advantage because it gave the illusion to the common citizen that these people are at least opposing the corruption in Jerusalem. They're trying to drain the swamp. It gave that illusion while all the time being a part of the corruption. You can really see there's nothing new under the sun. And for the common citizens it was often a combination of blind loyalty to their party, fear of social stigma that made them just go along. Now if a citizen was excommunicated from a synagogue it could mean that he would be boycotted, he could have economic losses, and so there was an economic incentive there as well to just go ahead and drink the Kool-Aid just like everybody else was doing. And when you live with compromises long enough, they don't seem like compromises. In fact, it's Jesus who seems like the unreasonable rule breaker. It's Jesus who seems like he's the unreasonable troublemaker. He was not, not at all. Jesus was upholding biblical law. He was just opposing the corruption that was in government. But just as it was hard to convince the average Jew back then that what his party was doing was wrong, it is very difficult to convince Christians today that what is going on in our political system is political prostitution, or even that pastors are engaged in spiritual prostitution. Most evangelicals, just to give you an example, you would be hard-pressed to convince them that property taxes are inherently evil and are a form of gross theft. Now for sure, you will be having a hard time convincing them that it is evil for them to be using tax money to fund their child's education, okay, to make it really personal. You're gonna have a hard time convincing them of that. By the way, if you don't consider that to be gross evil, these forms of taxation, I would highly encourage you to read a book that was written in the 1700s by Frederick Bastiat, it's called The Law. And by the time you have finished reading that book, I think you will be thoroughly convinced that education is theft on a grand, tax dollar funded education is theft on a grand scale and makes the government a criminal government. And you will recognize that the citizens in America are indeed drunk with the wine of political prostitution. They have drunk so deeply of status propaganda, they don't even realize they are engaged in whoredom. But if you start taking away their benefits, all of a sudden, they're going to cry out. They do not want to lose them. their public libraries. They like their free health clinics. In fact, I want to do a little social experiment on you to see how much of the metaphorical whine that you have imbibed. I'm going to read you a list of socialistic programs that the Bible would say is a gross overreach of government's jurisdictional limits and as being evil. And as I read these, I want to see if you would be reluctant to give these up. Let's say that the state reformed and they took these things away. Would you say, oh, that's too bad. Would you feel badly that they were taken away? Okay. If so, you've probably imbibed some of the same metaphorical wine that the first century Jews had imbibed. Now, each of these things I'm going to read to you, except for one, are blatantly unconstitutional, but more importantly, they are unbiblical. Here's my partial list. city parks, state parks, national parks, food stamps, public health care, K-12, government education, state universities, education grants and loans that involve tax money, loan forgiveness programs, stipends and assistance for low-income people, such as renter's assistance and negative income tax. You know what negative income tax is, right? You fill out your tax forms and you get back money you never paid into the system. It's like you're making money every year. Back when we had a bunch of kids, we qualified for that. Our accountant just shook his head. He could not believe I would not take this money. I said, it's not my money to take. It's robbing from other people. It's a form of theft. He didn't understand that. But anyway, continuing on with my list. National forests. Seems to be a favorite with some Christians. City buses. Medicare. Medicaid. Social Security. WIC. welfare, secretly turning your company in for health or building code violations, farming subsidies. Did you know that there are billions, multiplied billions of dollars that are given every year to farmers for doing nothing? They're just subsidies that are out there. There is a movement right now that is giving a push back to that, even amongst farmers. Stephen Fincher, a Tennessee Republican, received $3.2 million in subsidies over a 20-year period. And so it seems a bit hypocritical for him to be speaking out against it now, but I'm glad he is. Clint Didier ran for Senate. He's calling the feds predators, and then it came to light that he had received $273,000 in farm subsidy payments. And again, I'm glad they're pushing back, but let me continue with my partial list. Hoping inflation will continue so that your debts are partially paid off by inflation. I mean, if you've got a secret wish, that inflation would continue because it really helps with your paying your debts, you've drunk some of the Kool-Aid, the metaphorical wine that the first century people did. Okay, here's one that's constitutional, but it's not biblical. The post office, Homeland Security, government-funded firefighters, prisons and corrections, public hospitals, Center for Disease Control, Feeling content with the FDA and over 100 other federal agencies. I know Christians who think the FDA is absolutely necessary. How else are we gonna keep from being poisoned in our food? We've gotta have somebody that's overlooking and monitoring these things. It's not biblical. It is not biblical at all. Government mosquito abatement. I know people in several states are very excited when their state finally got on the bandwagon of mosquito abatement. road salting and snow plowing. You might think, well who else is going to plow the streets, you know, if it's not the government? Well pragmatics is never a good argument against biblical civics, I'll just tell you that. Don't ever use that argument with me, it's just a pure pragmatic argument. If you want a website that will show very creative ways in which these things have been handled in the past, can be handled in the future, go to mises.org, M-I-S-E-S dot org, and you will see a boatload of research on those types of things. But I'm just reading these. Game wardens. Fishing and hunting licenses and regulations. Conservation easements. Government land buyouts in regularly flooded areas. You know, they're coming to your rescue, right? Wildlife refuges. Government-run homeless shelters. Business licenses. Medical licenses. Drug approval and regulation. Rural electrification. Consumer protection laws. Animal control. Fish stocking. Buying confiscated property from police departments at a huge discount. Oh yeah, there's a lot of people who can hardly wait for the next sale that the sheriff's going to be putting on. Buying houses for the cost of back taxes. And we have barely just begun. That list could be made much, much longer. Now, how did you do on that list? Were most of those items things that you would gladly give up? Now, you might quibble over the legitimacy of my including some of those, one or two of those on the list, but if you knew that they were unbiblical, would you still secretly be glad if the government insisted that they continue to be in place? Now, I'm not saying that we can even completely extricate ourselves from socialistic slavery. I don't think you can. I don't think you can extricate yourself completely from Social Security or Medicare. I don't think those are biblical, but I'm not saying people cannot use those things. That's not the point. What I am saying is that these kinds of things are so pervasive in our society that we don't even recognize what is socialism and what is not. There is a sense in which society's discernment has been skewed by constant exposure. They are drunk with the wine socialism. They don't care. They don't want to care. Changing such things would be too inconvenient. Well you add to that list many other evils that we have become accustomed to in our society. Evils like RICO laws, penalties for use of illegal drugs, asset forfeiture laws, etc. And you begin realizing, wow, I think I'm beginning to get a feel for how first century Jews would have reacted when they were being called political prostitutes by chapters 17 and 18. This is kind of an introduction to chapters 17 and 18 and what is going on. When we cover for our political candidates sins, We are involved in some sense in their sins. When we say there ought to be a law against that, we're feeding the harlot. We are feeding the beast. If that, that, that you ought to have a law against that is not a biblical crime. You are feeding the monster. So it's not just the leaders, it is the citizens who are going to be judged in this chapter. Verse two says, and the inhabitants of the land were made drunk with the wine of her fornication. And after reading chapter 17 and 18 numerous times, I am 100% convinced that most churches in America are flagrantly involved, guilty, as charged by this chapter, guilty of political prostitution. Now granted, verse 2 implies the situation was forced on the citizens. It says they were made drunk with the wine of refortication. but they no doubt liked it. That's the key point I'm making. Do we hate this political prostitution, and within our sphere of influence, are we doing everything in our power to resist it? Or do we secretly delight in the benefits of being in bed with the government? Are we happy that the government is forcing us into bed with the prostitute? That's the question. Let's move on. Verse three says, so he took me away in spirit to a wilderness. Now the true bride had to flee into the wilderness for a short time, but that was not her proper abode. She was going to inherit the land. But this harlot is said to be in the wilderness of her own volition. The wilderness in the Old Testament was a symbol of the absence of God's blessings. It was habitation of demons. It's the removal of God's blessings. But this harlot prefers it. She is sharing the abode of the dragon and deserves the judgment of the dragon. Now I will grant you that if you were a citizen of Jerusalem back then, you would have a hard time agreeing with God that it was ripe for judgment and needed to be judged because your house, your comfort, your security, your economics would become at stake. And I would say the same is true today. We don't want to see America being treated as the wilderness by God, abandoned by God, associated with the dragon and the beast. To think of economic crushing judgments coming upon us is hard to swallow. Did Jerusalem even recognize that they were cursed? I doubt it. When you read the literature about the first century, the leaders of Jerusalem actually thought they were doing God a favor when they persecuted Christians. They thought that they had God's blessing when they were making these compromises with Rome. Self-deception can be quite pervasive in a society, and I think there's no better metaphor for that self-deception than the metaphor of drunkenness. Verse 3 continues, And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns. Now she didn't have the heads and horns the beast did that she sat on. Now the blasphemous names The seven heads and the 10 horns make it crystal clear that this is exactly the same beast that chapter 13 described. Now, in chapter 13, he said what the beast looked like was a leopard with bear's claws and lion's mouth. Here it adds a feature that it's got the color of scarlet. Now whether or not that's the color of the demon shining through the skin of the empire, so to speak, I don't know, but the scarlet color of the beast matches the scarlet color of some of the woman's clothing. In any case, most commentators believe that this is, this harlot is sitting on exactly the same beast as the beast described in chapter 13. Well, automatically, automatically that means that Jerusalem sat on Rome in some sense. I mentioned last week that this sitting indicates both that Rome supported Jerusalem with its full military and political strength and that Jerusalem in some way guided Rome. When you sit on a beast, the beast is supporting you. But you're also probably guiding that beast. Now, on another Sunday, I'll examine the seven-year covenant that Rome and Israel entered into under Nero to exterminate Christianity. But for today, I just want to point out that this went back way before the time of Christ, at least 70 years, close to 100 years before the time of Christ. In exchange for Rome keeping the Sadducees in power, the Sadducees kept Israel in submission to Rome. That was part of the deal. I mentioned before that the Sadducee and Mafia family started with Alexander Janais, who lived from 103 B.C. to 76 B.C., so long before the time of Christ, the Sadducees had entrenched their power in every way possible, and they not only had power over the common people, they had power over the Roman officials. They used their money, which they had massive amounts of, to control rulers like Herod, Festus, Florus, and others, and when they couldn't control them, they just got rid of them, by going to their higher-ups and bribing them, saying, we need a different governor, we need a different person in here. And they had an enormous network of influence within the capital of Rome. Harry Todra says this, although widely disliked by upper-class Romans, the Jews at Rome formed a politically powerful unit. The community was large and influential and its leadership had always maintained good relations with and direct access to the successive Caesars. And after giving some examples, he says, it is clear that the Jews wielded considerable influence at court. They were sitting on the beast of Rome. Now this influence included approval or disapproval of massive loans to fund the wars that Rome was constantly engaged in and to fund other building projects that they had, and of course for the privilege of getting the money there were favors that were exchanged. There was a sense in which the international bankers of the first century controlled those politicians just like international bankers today control so much. James Stuart Russell says, the influence exercised by the Jewish race in all parts of the Roman Empire previous to the destruction of Jerusalem was immense. Just to give you one little hint of how extensive their power was, I've got a Roman coin. that was minted by Rome. It's an official coin that shows two Jewish kings, Herod Tchalkis and Herod Agrippa, crowning the previous emperor, Claudius. Now that's absolutely astounding when you think about it, that two Jewish kings would have that kind of influence over previous emperors. So the influence was already there, but what begins to happen in 8062 is more than that, much more. And when I preached on Revelation 6 verses 9 through 11, I gave six things that came together to make Israel and Rome enter into a seven-year treaty or a seven-year covenant that would give Israel the right to execute anybody without ever consulting a Roman official. Before that, they would have to definitely get approval. And it was for crimes of blasphemy, apostasy, and other biblical capital crimes. Second, this treaty gave them the right to exterminate Christians. They didn't have that prior to AD 62. But they not only guided politics in the capital city of Rome, they also guided the politics of the Roman officials in Israel. In one of my previous sermons, I documented the enormous power that the Mafioso family of Ananus wielded. He was feared by everyone. He had a network of spies that was huge. His financial empire was huge. His ability to assassinate his opponents was well known. And when the local procurator, Gratis, finally got frustrated with the criminal corruption, they're used to corruption, but it had gotten so bad under Ananus that he just fired Ananus. He deposed him in AD 15. Now technically he had that power, but he must have almost immediately been slapped down by his higher-ups because overnight he put Ananus's son Eleazar into office. Now why did he oppose, why did he put into office the son of the person who's such a criminal, mafioso person? Because there are many other Sadduceean families, any of them would have qualified, he could have done that. But it was because of the money, because the influence that Ananus had, he was able to pull strings. And with his son in the high priesthood, he was effectively in the high priesthood. It didn't seem to matter how many times a mafioso family member would get deposed because of corruption or murder, money still talked, and another family member would be put into that position. So they were truly a mafia family. And behind the scenes, constantly lay the hand of the godfather, Mafioso Ananas. Are you frustrated that people in power in DC never seem to get put into prison? Scandalous crime after crime gets uncovered and yet nothing is done about it. Don't be surprised, nothing is new under the sun. One author said, though Ananus the Elder and five sons, Eleazar, Jonathan, Theophilus, Mattathias, Ananus, one son-in-law, Joseph Caiaphas, and one grandson, Mattathias, son of Theophilus, The power of Ananus and the house of Ananus extended clear to 66 CE and the start of the revolt with Rome. It was this family, the house of Ananus, that put Peter and John in prison, captured Peter and many apostles, imprisoned and flogged them. They put Stephen the deacon to death by stoning and cited King Agrippa I to behead James the brother of John and capture to kill the Apostle Peter then they stoned beat and killed James the just The brother of Jesus who was the leader for 32 years over the Hebrew Nazarene Ecclesia in Jerusalem So the bottom line is there is abundant evidence that the leadership of Jerusalem sat on the beast I mentioned last week the Sadducees tended to influence through money and occasional assassinations, Pharisees' influence through friendships, trading favors within their sphere of influence, and the Herodians did the same. Where they were all united, even though they did hate each other's guts, where they were united is their hatred for Christ and their hatred for Christians. Now that's as far as we're going to go today, but I would just encourage you not to treat these chapters as academic history of a bygone age. It's going to be dealing with how we not get sucked in with our own modern beast, our own modern political whores who tend to dominate all of life and for sure to not be a church that gives support to the government's bestial characteristics. We should encourage lower governments to engage in interposition against the tyranny of a higher government, not to profit from national tyranny. You see, instead of sleeping with Rome, Jerusalem should have been protecting its citizens from the corruption of Rome, and they could have done so. But as we've just seen, corruption tends to grow and influence even the most idealistic of leaders. But I want to end with one more thought, and that is that God is not giving us this chapter to make us despair that draining the swamp is hopeless. OK, nothing is hopeless for the gospel. Now, I think it is hopeless for politics alone to drain the swamp without the gospel. I think it is a hopeless cause. Yet even in the midst of rank corruption, it is encouraging to know that Jesus sits above it all, and he guides and protects his faithful remnant through it all. And so what I would encourage us to be is a faithful remnant, even when all around us are worshiping the beast and are committing spiritual prostitution, that we put our trust in God alone. Amen. Father, we thank you for your word, the warnings that it gives, the cautions, and I pray that we would heed those. And there are some things that we simply cannot extricate ourselves from because we are a part of the slave plantation, but I pray, Father, that where we can, we will, and that we will heartily pray against and speak against the evils that are in our culture and not ourselves be embracing them. I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.