Objects of Mercy, Who Should Have Known Wrath, each one of these last songs indicates that the judgment that we are studying in Revelation chapter 17 is really a judgment we deserve. So we don't read about these in order to think of ourselves better than others, but we do come into agreement with God's judgments. 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. So the angel said to me, why are you impressed? I will tell you the mystery of the woman. and of the beast having the seven heads and the 10 horns that carries her. Amen. Father, we thank you for your word, and I pray that as we study it, we would do so with humility, with reverence, with fear, with a confidence that you are the Lord of history, with a confidence that you bring judgments, not just at the end of history, but throughout history, with a confidence that our labors in the Lord are not in vain. Help us, Father, to be faithful, untiring in our work of the Lord, And we pray for your blessing to continue to rest upon this your people as we continue to worship in Jesus name. Amen. Two weeks ago, we identified the whore as being Jerusalem. And we looked at many, many different theories that are out there on the identity of this whore, but what we did is we looked at the internal clues that the Apostle John gave to us, and systematically those clues were ruling out every theory until we were left with only one, which was Jerusalem. And there are over 20 positive parallels between the great city Babylon and the great city Jerusalem as well as those negatives that we looked at. And it really shouldn't surprise us to see Jerusalem being given one more pagan name. In chapter 11 verse 8, Jerusalem was clearly, everybody agrees with this, Jerusalem was clearly identified as Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. In Galatians chapter 4, Jerusalem is identified with Saudi Arabia. in 1 Peter 5, verse 13, and in Revelation 17-19, she's given yet another pagan name, and that is Babylon. And God's point was, she is no better than any pagan nation when she rejected her savior, Jesus. Now last week, we looked at why Jerusalem's leadership was seen as being like a whore. There was literal fornication, There was spiritual fornication and there was political prostitution. Both the Roman and the Jewish politicians of that day used the system to become enormously wealthy. And you know, you see this all down through history. You see it today. You see politicians who go into Washington DC with not very much money to their name. And two decades later, they exit politics with hundreds of millions of dollars in their bank accounts. And you can bet your bottom dollar that they did not get that money from their meager salaries. It's one of the perks of political prostitution. But we saw that was already going on in John's day. And when people witness such brazen use of politics for self-enrichment, it gets them very discouraged they just want to throw up their hands and give up not do anything about it they think that you know the swamp is always going to be the swamp it'll never get drained but chapters 17 through 19 assure us that if It is not cleaned up with the gospel, which is one of God's means of cleaning up politics. It will be cleaned up with judgment. God guarantees he does not allow these things to continue indefinitely. His providence is at work. Now today we're gonna be seeing that in verses four through seven, John lays out the specific charges that were being brought against Jerusalem in the courtroom of heaven. We're going to analyze Jerusalem's leadership under three headings. The beautiful appearance of the whore. Second, the specific sins for which the whore is being judged. And then the remedy for those who were being seduced by her, or at least who were unduly impressed by her. But the first thing that we see is that this whore was not ugly. In fact, Her critics even give grudging admiration for her, and the Bible does agree that there is a kind of impressiveness with certain kinds of political governments. For example, in Daniel chapter 2, God gave an image of a man that represented the coming four world empires, and he speaks of that image of man as being, quote, a dazzling statue, awesome in appearance. So to the outward eye, you didn't immediately see the corruption. You see instead something dazzling and awe-inspiring. Now it's true that As you go from the gold on the head, which represented Babylon, to the silver, Medo-Persia, and to the bronze of Greece, and down to the legs of iron and clay, which represented Rome, it becomes less dazzling, less impressive. But there still is an allurement that civics holds upon a population. There are things that seem admirable. Well, here he uses a different image. It's an image of a prostitute who attracts men. And interestingly, verse four shows that she had priestly attire, priestly decorations, and priestly service. She looked good on the outside. There was a veneer of glory that covered the assumed venereal disease and filthiness within. It's a very powerful image of how Jerusalem's politics was able to maintain a facade of respectability while being utterly, utterly corrupt. While Beal, in his commentary, points out that the combination of words in the Greek of verse 4 is word-to-word identical with the Septuagint translation's description of the high priest's garments in the Old Testament. It's not by accident, it is a verbatim quotation, which would make the first century reader immediately connect the whore with the Sadducees who ruled Israel and ruled the temple. There is no mistaking the insulting connection that God was making. So he was calling the political leadership of Jerusalem the whore of Babylon. Of course, on our first sermon in chapter 17, we looked at a lot of other parallels that John does in these three chapters. But the beauty that covers the ugly corruption is striking, not just in the image, but it is striking in what was symbolized by that image. The buildings, the temple, ceremonies, clothing, everything about the Sadducees was designed to impress. For example, when you read the first century descriptions of the high priest's clothing, you realize people did a double take when they saw those high priests walking around. They weren't actually supposed to wear those clothes outside, but they loved doing so. In Bible times, they were supposed to just keep that in the holy place, but there was a preoccupation with impressiveness. Same was true of the Pharisees and the Herodians, but the Sadducees had so much money. They were billionaires, so to speak. that they spent huge amounts of money on appearances. The Jewish writer Philo said this about the high priest robe. Quote, it is a marvelous work to behold or to be contemplated for it is an appearance thoroughly calculated to excite astonishment such as no embroidered work conceived by man ever was for variety and costly magnificent. Now even in the Old Testament, that was the case if they had been allowed to wear those in public. Exodus 28 too says that the clothing of the high priest was specifically designed, quote, for glory and for beauty. So even originally there was a magnificence about their clothing, but by the first century AD, their clothing was even more striking. Some people would say it was stunning. Several commentators point out that these particular fabrics show the height of luxury and splendor. So just as a whore dresses to allure and to cover over unattractive parts, The clothing of the Sadducee was a symbol of how they used pretended spirituality to cover over their evils. But Beale points out that these were also the same colors of the massive curtain that was hung in the temple. And by the way, he's an idealist, he's not a partial preterist, but he keeps showing these connections to the first century. He has some very insightful things that he points out. So he says there's striking parallels of verse 4, not just to the clothing of the high priest, but also to the temple curtain. Now he's not sure what to do with it, But he does acknowledge it's a striking parallel. According to the Reformation Study Bible, the high priest's clothes, quote, were made of the same expensive materials as the tabernacle. But there was a difference. The Sadducees wanted something more beautiful and alluring than the Old Testament allowed for, so they turned to Babylon to get the most majestic curtain that they could find. Now this is ironic because God was going to be calling them Babylon the Great, and Josephus points out it was a Babylonian curtain, it was not a Jewish curtain. I have often wondered if this curtain came into play after God tore that curtain from top to bottom at the time of the crucifixion. They maybe figured this is the time to introduce something new. But Josephus indicates sometime in the first century they replaced the old curtain with an un-terrible curtain. The Babylonian curtain was so massive it took 300 priests to change it. It was just incredibly heavy. The curtain had occult images of the Zodiac sewn into it, not the simple kind of curtain that Exodus mandated. And it was a blatant, blasphemous adoption of Babylonian worship. And why not? They were part of a secret society, much like the modern Freemasons are. that it adopted these symbols of Babylonian occultism. You see a lot of parallels, by the way, between Freemasonry and what went on in first century Israel. And you've got to remember that the Sadducees were kind of liberals. People say, yeah, but they believed the first five books of Moses. They rejected all of the other Old Testament scriptures. But the only reason they accepted the five books of Moses is that gave the only legitimacy for the temple service they were involved in, which they needed for all of their money to be flowing into their coffers. Remember, we saw how they were siphoning off massive amounts of money. But they didn't believe in angels or miracles or traditional theology. They were liberals. They were syncretists who mixed Babylonian worship together with Jewish worship. Now, right now, we're just dealing with the beauty of this occult curtain. It was so beautiful and massive that even Josephus, who disapproved of the Sadducean compromises, even though he was a Sadducee, he switched parties later on in his life, he was so disgusted with what the Sadducees were doing, he became a Pharisee, but the Pharisees were kind of compromised in this area as well, but even he could not help but admire that curtain. It was hand-breadth thick, 40 cubits high, 20 cubits wide, and the symbolism according to Josephus was the occult symbolism of the universe. And so it was beautiful, yes, but it was promoting the demonic occultism of Talmudism. Second, there were priestly decorations. Verse 4 says, adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls. J. Massingbird Ford says that, quote, the harlot is bedecked with gold and precious stones. Sounds like a perversion of the high priest's breastplate. Now, that breastplate was given by God, there was something about it, nobody knows exactly whether it glowed or how it worked, but it was designed to be a form of guidance that people would get from the Lord. But these high priests actually, as John will later on point out, went to the demonic for their guidance, not to the Lord, because the Lord had abandoned them, right? But the other illusion that both the Sadducees and the Pharisees promoted was that wealth proved God's approval and support of their position. They taught that poverty is a sign that God's abandoned you, he's not for you, and that if you're wealthy like we are, God is for you. And both the Sadducees and the Pharisees were enormously wealthy, but especially the Sadducees. So for the average Jew, it would have been difficult for them to be critical of these supposed men of God. But John lays waste to that illusion by using the image of a harlot who looks pretty, who looks attractive on the outside, but is full of contamination on the inside, ready to infect at a moment's notice. And then finally, verse four says, having in her hand a golden cup. Now the cup that is mentioned there is specifically the Eucharistic cup that was used, for example, at the Last Supper, the Passover meals, other ceremonies in the temple. And even though the Sadducees were appointed by Rome, they were priests of the temple. It would be sort of like... if the secular government appointed your pastors for you, your elders for you. It was kind of a weird setup, but it had been going on for quite some time. And by the way, there were a lot of Jews that did not accept this. They boycotted the whole temple system. The Essenes would be some of those Jews who completely said, that is so corrupt, we're not even gonna be a part. of that temple worship, but these priests gave the illusion of serving God, bringing people to God. But listen to what Christ said to these religious leaders. For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. You also outwardly appear to be righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness." So the cup gives the illusion of being clean and right with God, but the contents of that cup are horrible. So verse 4 presents the allurement of the leadership of the temple. There was something grand about their pomp and ceremony that was seductively alluring and calming. In fact, you ought to read some of the descriptions of the worship services at the temple that were given. they were so grand, people would involuntarily get choked up and start weeping during their services. There was a strong emotional tug that was connected with it. So there was a seductive allure that was powerful, there was an admiration for their leadership, and the citizens turned a blind eye to their corruption. because of the benefits that they got. And we looked at those benefits last week. But now he brings several charges against the leadership of Israel. And as I go through these, I want you to ask yourselves if our city or our nation is any better. That nation got judged because of these things. Are we any better than they are? The most obvious first charge is that they had this outward beauty, but it was hypocrisy. They made a show of being a nation under God, but in reality they had been overthrowing God's laws. They looked like priests of God's system, but they were really harlots of Satan's system. And Christ made a similar charge in Matthew chapter 23. And we can even apply these things to modern churches. There are churches that are so professional in their presentations that people walk away from the service feeling wowed and comforted and emotionally moved. But when you look at those services Sunday after Sunday, you realize this is just a professional job. They're not preaching the whole counsel of God. The lawless hypocrisy runs deep in the American church and it runs deep in American politics. And by the way, in the first century, they didn't separate church and politics. These priests of the temple were appointed by Rome and they were in bed with Rome. We've seen that before. on worship often translated into loyalty to the worship leaders which translated into loyalty for their politics and we looked at that in depth as well. Now the second charge actually may seem a little bit hard to believe Since the Greek word for abominations is used of idolatry, a lot of people say, what? I mean, these people, they would be the very opposite of idolatry. They never involved themselves in idolatry. How could you accuse the Sadducees of idolatry? On that word, delugma, Beale says, the additional reference to abominations, delugmaton, in chapter 17, verse four, establishes beyond doubt the connection with idolatry. since this is one of the common words for idol or idolatrous sacrifice in the Septuagint. So at least 47 of 120 total uses. Furthermore, the Septuagint equates abomination with figurative uses of porneia and its cognate verb, all of which indicate aspects of idolatry. So he's accusing at least the Sadducees, if not all of the leadership, political leadership of Jerusalem, of being engaged in idolatry. Now that would have been a puzzling accusation to first century readers until AD 70, if they happen to still be alive, and they watch Titus pulling all of the furniture, the curtains, and all of that stuff out of the temple, and there, before their eyes, they would have seen the idolatry firsthand. In fact, I've put some pictures of some of the furniture that was pulled out, and this was carved into stone in AD 81 by eyewitnesses of Titus taking all of this temple furniture out of there. And what had happened is that the Sadducees, as part of their secret society and their services, they had carved Babylonian images and images of Greek and Roman gods right into the temple furniture. You can see it right on there. There's some Babylonian gods, some Greek gods, some Roman gods right on there. And, uh, uh, The average citizen would probably not have been aware of that because, again, it was a secret society. They were not able to look inside the temple. But there were people like Josephus who saw this kind of stuff, recognized the occultism. He talks about the Zodiac, for example, that was on the temple curtain. The Essenes, if you read some of their criticisms of the temple, they accuse it of occultism. They accuse it of idolatry. And there's more and more scholars who are beginning to realize that this was driven right into the temple worship, and it was actually part of Phariseeism as well. A different party, political party, who competed, but they had a lot of the same Babylonian symbology. I was looking at a number of journals. In fact, there was a biblical archeology review journal, and they had recently uncovered six the floors of six Jewish synagogues that had zodiacs on the floors, Roman and Greek gods built right into that, right along with biblical symbology. And they're scratching their heads and puzzling how on earth could Jews mix the two things like this. But there's been a number of people like Erwin Goodenough has documented this occult symbolism in many of the buildings of the elite throughout the empire. It was kind of like a secret society that maintained control, like the Freemasons have done in the past, through their secret society. So it's becoming less surprising that overt idolatry was happening rather than simply sexual abominations. In the past they said, well this is the kind of sexual abominations that the Talmud talks about, and it does. You can see lengthy passages in the Talmud that discuss things like what kinds of Purient activities with your children constitute incest, which do not. Which kinds of sexual relationships with your neighbor's wife constitute adultery, which do not. I mean, it's really sickening to see some of the rationalizations that they went through. But I think Beal's exegesis, and there's a number of commentaries that agree with him, is very convincing to me. This is talking about literal idolatry here. The next word in verse four is translated as filthiness or uncleanness and Beal connects that word with the demonic that is behind the idolatry. He says, it should be remembered that both Old Testament and New Testament, including John, think of demons behind idols. Consequently, it is significant that in chapter 16 verses 13 through 14, unclean, akathartos, was used of deceptive demonic spirits from the devil, the beast, and the false prophet. In chapter 18, verse 2, the same word is used of various kinds of unclean spirits, which further defines a preceding reference to demons. There, Babylon the Great is virtually equated with a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit. synonym for unclean, akathartes, are also directly linked with deception in chapter 21 verse 27, 1 Thessalonians 2 verse 3. But again you don't have to decide which interpretation is true, whether this is the unclean demon or or whether it's the unclean behavior that demons tend to drive people to, I think it's a very apropos description of the leadership of Jerusalem in AD 66. If I were to read from the Talmud, which I cannot do from the pulpit here, some of the The filthy kinds of things that they have rationalized is okay. It would make you sick. But certainly Josephus says that from 8066, it was like a switch was turned on, the whole of the land of Israel, but especially Jerusalem, was demonized. It's like they went crazy and killing each other. They killed more of each other than the Romans killed of them and the kind of brutality and torture Homosexuality and all kinds of cross-dressing and things like that that went on. He said it was like a switch got turned on. He calls them demonized. And I believe that they were. Jesus predicted that that would happen. So it's not surprising to see those demonized leaders engaging in the most outrageous kinds of sexual impurity. Occultism and sexual impurity go hand in hand. And I don't think things are any different today. Over the last several decades, many people in high positions of power have been exposed as being involved in the most gross kinds of occult worship, as well as the worst kinds of sexual perversity. And this has been going back, I mean, all the way in Nebraska, when I first came to Nebraska, Franklin Credit Union. I don't know if any of you guys remember that scandal. But this has been going on for a long time. Our current president is the first one to have cleaned out the White House at his wife's insistence. She says, I'm not sleeping one night in that place. She felt freaked out by all of the occult symbols that were in there. So they called in a bunch of pastors to pray over it, to clean out the White House. And they took all kinds of occult images, symbols, writings that were in there. The previous administrations were up to their eyeballs, apparently, in occult worship. Ralph Drolinger, the president of Capitol Ministries, wrote an article last week titled Sexual Sin and the Aphrodisiac of Power, and he points out that the people that he's ministering to in Washington, D.C. become far more vulnerable to sexual perversion than those who are not in power. And there's a concentration of demonic temptation upon those in positions of power. So even though this passage is describing first century events, the same kinds of things are highlighted in the politics really of many modern nations. Satan keeps repeating the strategies that have worked in the past, basically what it amounts to. Now the next charge against the whore is the word fornication. which harks back to verses one through three, the harlotry that the leadership engaged in. And we saw that all three forms of prostitution were occurring in Jerusalem. Now this is likely, according to commentaries, it's likely referring to the metaphorical prostitution, spiritual prostitution, political prostitution. But it would be sort of like telling modern day politicians that their promises look beautiful and their rhetoric looks honorable, but it is simply a cover for an ocean of filth and lawless behavior that goes on behind closed doors. So that's basically what this vision was saying about Jerusalem. The next charge is that she wears a name on her forehead. And many commentaries have pointed out that this is an allusion to the high priest's turban, which had a gold plate on it. Let me read from Exodus 28, 36 through 38. You shall also make a plate of pure gold and engrave on it, like the engraving of a signet, holiness to the Lord. And you shall put it on a blue cord, that it may be on the turban. It shall be on the front of the turban, so it shall be on Aaron's forehead, that Aaron may bear the iniquity of the holy things which the children of Israel hallow in all their holy gifts. And it shall always be on his forehead, that they may be accepted before the Lord. Well, now Revelation 17 reverses that, and instead of Israel being accepted because of what is on the high priest's forehead, it is rejected. Instead of holiness to the Lord, it is the opposite. In any case, back to Exodus 28, that plaque with holiness to the Lord engraved on it was a symbol that apart from Jesus Christ, who is our great high priest, the great high priest, nothing the people did would be accepted. Well, the Jewish leadership had already rejected Jesus as the great high priest, and yet they continued to wear that golden sign on their foreheads. And so instead of Christ bearing the iniquity of the people, these leaders bore their iniquity. They're basically filling up the iniquity of the nation and of their own iniquity. So many commentators believe that Exodus 28 brings this passage to light and shows how nothing but iniquity can be seen when Jesus is rejected as high priest. Instead, the nameplate now reads, Mystery Babylon the Great, the mother of the prostitutes and the abominations of the earth. Of course, these priests proudly wore it. They were brazen in their rebellion, just like a harlot. is brazen in her sin. She does not know how to blush. She has an obstinate forehead. The next charge was following demonic revelation rather than biblical revelation. Now the word mystery is always a reference. That's the first word that appears on that sign, right? It's always a reference to revelation. It's some secret that would not otherwise be known apart from Revelation. And so the mysteries of the kingdom are the things that Scripture reveals to us. But the Bible also speaks of the mystery of lawlessness, 2 Thessalonians 2, 7. Doctrines of demons, 1 Timothy 4, 1. Knowledge of the deep things of Satan, Revelation 2, 24, et cetera. This was what their oral traditions amounted to. They were doctrines of demons. They were revelations of demons. Talmudism claims to be a revelation of religion, but their traditions were demonic traditions that overthrew the scriptures according to Jesus in Mark chapter seven. Their traditions were filled with the doctrines of demons, and as such, they came under God's condemnation. Now, do we still have doctrines of demons today? I would say, oh, absolutely, yes. Muhammad, when he was writing the Koran, well they claim he couldn't write, but he himself testified in the early years that he thought these revelations were coming from demons and it scared him to death. Now later he attributes the revelations to God, but there is abundant evidence that there were actual demonic revelations that were given to Muhammad. When you look at some of the other religions, for example When you look at mariolatry and clergy celibacy and some of the other perversions and Roman Catholicism, it is a doctrine of demons. Okay, it is not coming from the scripture at all. Mormonism is the same. It is demonic through and through. And many other cults and religions start with the revelations of demons to some supposed prophet. Both the Sadducees and the Pharisees, their oral traditions, they both had oral traditions that they followed, were demonic to the core. And here's the point. The moment a church or a nation rejects sola scriptura, that means scripture alone, the moment it rejects that, it's going to be very easy for it to be subject to the demonic. A lot of these demonic traditions have a common theme. They pick up the occultism of ancient Babylon. I don't think demons are very creative. They keep using the same ancient worn-out symbols that were used in ancient Babylon. They reintroduce those symbols into Islam. Roman Catholicism, Mormonism, Freemasonry, New Ageism, and other cults. You see the same symbols keep cropping up in all of these religions. So it's one of the reasons a lot of people say, you know, they criticize our reformers who said that the Roman Catholic Church was Babylon the whore, right? And the papacy was that, or the beast, but anyway, they attributed it to that. Even though they get their history wrong, their applications are spot on because you see a lot of those Babylonian symbols and practices coming right into the Roman Catholic Church. Anyway, that's what happened to Judaism. Jerusalem's spiritual name here is Babylon the Great. There is a reason why the Jewish Talmud is called the Babylonian Talmud. There was a reason why the curtain was a Babylonian curtain. There's a reason why a lot of the practices of Talmudism are practices that came right out of the Babylonian religion. One modern paper distributed by Kiddush, a Jewish educational organization, said this. Academies in Babylonia, headed by rabbis called geonim, were instrumental in establishing the Babylonian Talmud as the authoritative text of the Jewish religion. They also established Babylonian customs as the norm throughout the Jewish world. Now the Kabbalah was a compilation of some of these mystical and occult practices that were written down, and even modern Jewish prayer books. I was reading this past week in one of the modern Jewish prayer books, they explain how Kabbalism is at the heart of Jewish worship practices today. Judaism is not a biblical religion. It is a syncretistic religion. It mixes the worship of Babylon together with scripture. For example, this modern Jewish prayer book says, without the Kabbalistic prayers, would the service even have its own name? I doubt it. Later it says, the Hebrew miyuchad, or united, reflects the Kabbalistic notion that God is composed of male and female parts which must be united to form one complete God. And it lists a whole bunch of other Kabbalistic practices that are part and parcel of modern Judaistic religion. It came from the religious occultism of Babylon. And the book thinks, hey, that's OK. That's OK that it came from Babylon. Jerusalem had drifted far from its biblical roots. Remember that in verse 1, the angel was going to show the judgment The Greek word is crimma, the court evidence against Jerusalem. He's building a case for why it must be judged. And I believe God does that with every nation that comes under judgment. Without repentance, there was always a day of reckoning in history. The next charge was their proselytism, trying to involve others in the same prostitution. Like begets like. Humanistic politics will never produce the kingdom of God, no matter how conservative the politics is, it will not produce the kingdom of God. Like predicts like, or as Ezekiel worded it, like mother, like daughter. Verse five says, the mother of the prostitutes. Now last week we saw that political prostitution was the primary thing that was in mind in these chapters, even though all three forms of prostitution were taking place. And the reason Jerusalem's leadership produced more and more metaphorical prostitutes is because they were so aggressive in their proselytism. Jesus said, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. I'll just give you an example of the influence that they had through their proselytism. Nero's wife was a Jewess and she did everything in her power to advance Judaism within the empire, was very successful, got Nero's court absolutely jam-packed full with Jewish advisors. And the Talmud says that Nero himself became a proselyte to Judaism. They were always seeking to influence, but there were other ways that they spread their prostitution. Last week, we looked in depth at the political prostitution that went on. Sadducees developed banking centers all over the known world, and money was used to control and to continue to benefit from the politics, and I showed you how that worked before. They were masters of political prostitution. and they mentored new prostitutes in every generation. It's just the way politics works. And when you come in like an outsider, like Nicodemus, for example, remember Nicodemus in the Gospel of John, and he criticizes the corruption that's going on in politics, criticizes them for judging Jesus without looking at the evidence of the law. He says, does our law do that? Oh wow, they come unglued against him. You become public enemy number one when you start attacking the system, when you start trying to drain the swamp. Verse five goes on and shows that she was not only the mother of political prostitutes, she was also the mother of the abominations of the land. Now earlier we saw that That same word was used of idolatry. So we would expect her to promote idolatry. And she did in many different ways. Ken Gentry devotes an entire chapter to show how the biggest idol in Israel was the temple. But there were many other idols that the Sadducees had as well. They worshiped money, power, position, influence, but above everything else, the temple, because that was their stream of constant new income coming into their coffers that they siphoned off. Josephus says that the population was absolutely convinced God would not allow the temple to be destroyed. It gave them a false sense of security. But as I've already mentioned, There was literal idolatry that was pushed by the two secret societies of the Sadducees and the Pharisees. Now they competed with each other just like modern secret societies do, but they shared the same Babylonian occultism. Now the next charge was murder of God's saints. And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, even with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. Now Jesus had predicted that exactly the judgment that's going to be coming in these chapters would come upon Jerusalem in that generation that he was living, within 40 years. And it did. In Matthew 23 he said, therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up then the measure of your father's guilt. serpents, brood of vipers. How can you escape the condemnation of hell? Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify. Some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the land, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Assuredly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her, how often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, But you were not willing. See, your house is left to you desolate. For I say to you, you shall see me no more till you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Now just as a side note, Jesus' prophecy that their house would be left desolate until At some future time, they say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. That's a prophecy that Jerusalem is going to be saved in the future. Okay, that's just as a side note. But it was Jerusalem that was over and over again blamed for the martyrdoms of the saints. And the Gospel of John and the book of Revelation both lay the blame for persecution, even Rome's persecution, at the feet of the Jews. We've seen in previous chapters it was the Jews who instigated the Roman persecution and the Jewish population comprised a massive portion of Rome's entire population. Kenneth Gentry points out this, let me quote. This Jewish opposition is all the more significant when we realize that the Jewish Christian element was a small remnant of a vast Jewish community of the first century, Romans 11 verse 5. In fact, in the first century, Jews represent between 9 and 15% of the Roman Empire's population. In this regard, Paul Barnett notes that, quote, approximately 15% overall, and the peculiar character of Jewish religious nationalism. And all of that empire-wide persecution was orchestrated and led by Jerusalem. So the Apostle Paul, for example, he's given papers that authorize him to go outside of Israel, outside of those boundaries into other countries and arrest Christians, bring them back to Jerusalem where they will be tried and where they will be killed, okay? There was this agreement, the seven-year agreement between Rome and Israel that allowed for that. So our country is drenched in the blood of abortions and of unlawful wars. Their country was drenched in the blood of Christians. Now the last thing that is once again hinted at in verse six is that Jerusalem was being judged because of her seductive deception of citizens. Verse six says, and upon seeing her, I was tremendously impressed. And in verse seven, he receives a rebuke for being tremendously impressed with her. Now if even the apostle John was tremendously impressed, you can understand why the average citizen would have been. Who doesn't love their homeland? Who doesn't glow with pride when your own nation does something great? Who doesn't read the history of our nation and see patches of history that makes our hearts glow with warm patriotism for it? It's very easy to overlook the faults when we have invested so much in our country's success. But when patriotism blinds us to our country's evils, then we're part of the problem. When patriotism keeps us from resisting its evils, we are no longer true patriots. And verse seven gives us two things that help us to not get sucked in by the seductive grandeur of political speeches that make us want to make an idol out of American politics and greatness. First is to pay attention to God's warnings that any of us can inappropriately idolize our city or our country. Verse 7, so the angel said to me, why are you impressed? Now that's not a question of curiosity. Commentators point out the same language is used elsewhere in the book to indicate a rebuke. OK, so John is clearly being rebuked here. Now there's disagreement, they're divided on what he is being rebuked over, but they agree he's being rebuked. Now some take the word, the Greek word impressed, to mean that he was surprised to see how bad things really were. And others take it that he himself was being allured by her, wanting to honor her, to be loyal to her, or at least to admire her. But either way, all it takes to break that spell is for the angel to explain the evil of the woman by explaining the evil of the beast that she is riding on. on either interpretation John should have realized that Jerusalem was as bad as God said that she was. Now by analogy it's very easy for us to see very clear-sightedly the evil of the Soviet Empire or see the evil of Hitler's Germany or to see the way that Robert Mugabe raped his country you know with his inflationary policies and his other robbing of farmers and things like that, but we have a tendency to not be as clear-sighted with the evils that are in our own nation. It's very easy to become blinded to that. We don't get as upset with our own socialism or our own fascism. We don't get as upset with our own Federal Reserve System, which steals money just as surely as as Mugabe did, Christians still want to sing God Bless America as if we deserved it. So I'm not dogmatic on whether John was surprised or whether he was impressed and admiring. Beale summarizes the second possible interpretation this way. As observed in the comments on chapter 17 verse 3, some commentators understand Thaumazo to refer to John's admiration of the woman. Such a nuance of the verb, as adore, admire, could be borne out from chapter 17, verse eight, chapter 13, verse three, and he gives a bunch of other scriptures. If so, the angel's question would be an implicit rebuke not to admire her, as perhaps also suggested by chapter 19, verse 10, and 22, verse eight, where an angel rebukes the seer, do not do that, and redirects his actions of worship from a wrong object of reverence to God. Also supporting this idea is Babylon's appearance in the guise of a religiously faithful figure. She is attired almost identically to the bride city of Christ in chapter 21. That the bride's linen is defined as the righteous deeds of the saints in chapter 19 verse 8 may have momentarily led John to think that Babylon was not all that bad, but had some attractive spiritual features. Enhancing such an impression may have been the fact that the Old Testament describes the high priest as also adorned with gold, purple, scarlet linen, and precious stones like the whore Babylon. and Christ's bride city. Consequently, Paul may have been temporarily captivated by what appeared in part to be a spiritually attractive figure and was blinded to the full, true, ungodly nature of the harlot. So that's one interpretation. Now he summarizes the second, the surprise or puzzlement. Part of the depiction of the Babylonian woman is from the Old Testament portrayal of Jezebel. Part of the prophet's perplexity may have been due to the combination of one figure of sinful and apparently righteous features. John's initial attraction certainly dissipated in the light of the angel's further revelation of the wickedness of Babylon and her final destiny of judgment. So whether, I'm not gonna be dogmatic, whether he's being rebuked for admiration or for a surprise, and wow, I had no idea that Jerusalem was that bad, that kind of surprise. It's very instructive that he was being rebuked. There's something about Jerusalem that made John not want judgment. There was something he admired about her. It was, after all, the nation that he was born into, that he loved, that he fought for, that he had served his whole life. After all, his ministry was to the Jews. It's much harder to preach a message of judgment against the nation that you love and admire. And the same is true today. Though we pastors intellectually know that our nation is not beyond critique, it's hard to bring God's Word against structures that you have lived in your whole life. But whether we refuse to critique America's iniquities because we think America is not that bad, or whether we do so because of blind patriotic love, this angel's words stand as a rebuke to never set the state up as an idol. It is never beyond critique. In fact, if we love our nation, yes, we will weep over our nation, like Jeremiah the prophet wept over Israel back then, but we will still bring God's word to bear against it. But the second thing that can keep us from being seduced by our nation's political prostitution is to analyze the whore and the beast from God's perspective. Verse 7 ends by saying, I will tell you the mystery of the woman and the beast having the seven heads and the ten horns that carries her. And he goes on to do that. And interestingly, as you read on, almost the only thing he's discussing is the beast. And people say, well, what's with that? He said he was going to tell us about the woman. All he tells us about is the beast. Well, he does in effect tell us about the woman by telling us about the beast. He shows that she really is bad because she's riding the beast. She's directing the beast. And even when the beast turns on her and destroys her, he's basically saying, do not put your confidence in the whore. Do not put your trust or confidence or hope in her. She is like the beast and will be judged by the beast. And the application is that when we realize that America and most nations of the world look more like the beast and like the harlot than they do like the small godly biblical government that the Bible established, then we're going to be more willing to bring a prophetic voice against it. We must look at politics through the lens of the Bible. not through the lens of loyalty to a political party. We must see modern politics as being hateful and abominable idolatry in God's eyes so that we do not become part of the problem ourselves. We must learn to look past the beautiful, the tear-jerking rhetoric and trappings of modern politics and begin to realize this is a disease-ridden person. This is a disease-ridden nature of this politics. the demonic, the VD so to speak, so that we can help the problem rather than further the problem. So the church must once again become salt and light in our society so we can push back the darkness and as salt slow down the rottenness. I'm convinced that if the whole church would once again embrace a biblical worldview of culture, I think America could be turned upside down. But if we continue to have great admiration for the harlot, we continue to be seduced by modern political pragmatism, we will continue to slide into oblivion. This chapter is a call for the church to stop playing games with the harlot and to stand as a prophetic voice against her wiles. May it be so. Amen. Father, these are difficult words. These are difficult words to meditate upon, to even realize that your judgments are indeed coming against all ungodliness of men. But I pray, Father, that we would be in agreement with your word. and say that you are just and that we would value your mercies to us since we deserve exactly the same judgment ourselves. Our hearts are not faithful. And so I pray that you would look upon this, your people, through the righteousness of Christ that is imputed to them, that you would be pleased to continue to increase our understanding and application of your scripture and that you would give us success as we preach a message of repentance to our culture, that you would give hearing ears, and that you would turn our nation around and make it a biblical nation once again. We love you. We bless you. It is our privilege to serve you. In Jesus' name, amen.