Chapter 17: 7-18

“But the angel said to me, ‘Why did you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns. ⁸The beast that you saw was, and is not, and will ascend out of the bottomless pit and go to perdition. And those who dwell on the earth will marvel, whose names are not written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world, when they see the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

⁹“Here is the mind which has wisdom: The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. ¹⁰ There are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. And when he comes, he must continue a short time. ¹¹The beast that was, and is not, is himself also the eighth, and is of the seven, and is going to perdition. ¹²The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority for one hour as kings with the beast. ¹³These are of one mind, and they will give their power and authority to the beast. ¹⁴These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful.’

¹⁵“Then he said to me, ‘The waters which you saw, where the harlot sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues. ¹⁶And the ten horns which you saw on the beast, these will hate the harlot, make her desolate and naked, eat her flesh and burn her with fire. ¹⁷For God has put it into their hearts to fulfill His purpose, to be of one mind, and to give their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled. ¹⁸And the woman whom you saw is that great city which reigns over the kings of the earth.’”

Once again, thanks for the emails and the responses to the articles. I have some dear friends who are Catholic, and in that group are some that are very devout. It gives me no pleasure to speak about their religion in such negative terms. There are millions of persons around the world who have lived committed lives to the Catholic church. They have given their time, their finances and indeed their entire families to the Catholic church. Some of them are dismayed by what they see happening to their beloved religion, and many simply did not know the extent of the corruption that was encased in the religious pomp and fair of the church.

Over the past decade, the depth of the sexual scandal with regard to children has risen to the surface; and we can see that, from the Pope down, they have known about the sexual abuse of children and have actively done all they can to cover up the crimes and to subvert justice as well. The Vatican has protected pedophiles by allowing them to live in Vatican City under the diplomatic protection of the church and free from the fear of prosecution.

For those of us that take the doctrinal purity of the Bible seriously, the Catholic church is the ultimate wolf in sheep’s clothing. She pretends to represent the Kingdom of Heaven but is fully surrendered to the darkness. It does not take one long to find these doctrinal errors, and they may seem like small things, but they are not; and when stacked one on top of the other, their effect is to damn one’s soul to Hell.

The idea that you can baptize a baby and, upon so doing, they are welcomed into the Catholic church and to ‘free’ them from the original sin that they were born with is absurd. Why then would our Lord have to come and suffer so gruesome a death if the simple act of baptism could wash away our sins? This is heresy. This doctrine has fooled millions and, for real, maybe billions of people over the centuries that they are saved and going to Heaven.

The Bible says that unless a man be born-again (John 3:3), he cannot see the kingdom of God. Later, in John 3:16-17, we are told that God sent His Son to die for us and that ‘whosoever’ believes in Him would not perish but have everlasting life. The thief on the cross in Luke 23:39-43 was never baptized; he simply placed his faith in Jesus, the innocent dying for the guilty; that day the thief entered Paradise.

Then we have the doctrine of “transubstantiation.” This is the belief that the bread and wine become the literal blood and flesh of Jesus. The Lord’s Supper or Communion is designed to be a symbolic commemoration of the Lord’s death until He returns for us. The idea that God would promote cannibalism and that He, contrary to the Bible, would have us drink blood is simply blasphemous.

In Genesis 9:4, we see this command: “Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.” This seems pretty clear that God does not permit the drinking of blood. But yet, so many simply go along. Sadly, many do not even understand what they are doing. They have been accustomed to this ritual and they are numb to it, not once thinking that this is what pagans do; they drink blood. But God`s people don’t do this as a part of worshipping our King.

Then there is the doctrine of praying to Mary. She cannot help you. She is a woman, a mere human who was the vessel through whom our Savior was born. She was a sinner just like you and I. And, she did not remain a virgin after Jesus’ birth. In Matthew 1:24-25…

“Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife: And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name Jesus.” This clearly states that Joseph did not ‘know her’ to have sexual intercourse until after she had given birth to Jesus. In Matthew 13:55-56 we see these words:

“Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things?”

Mary and Joseph had at least 6 children after Jesus: 4 brothers, and then we are told there were sisters as well. She did not remain a virgin eternally. As well, we are not allowed to have any other gods other that the God of Heaven, Jehovah. This is the very first commandment, and yet here we have a “church” telling people to pray to Mary. Please read Psalm 115; it describes the futility of idols.

In the Catholic church, Mary is called the ‘mother of God’ and the ‘Queen of Heaven.’ She is neither. In one of the writings, we see this: De Liguori in “The Glories of Mary,” page 566, quote: “At the command of Mary all obey, even God.” This is pure blasphemy to suggest that God is subject to Mary. She was just an obedient teenage girl whom God chose as the vessel for His son. She too had to believe on the Son, like you and I, to be saved. On May 13, 1981, Pope John Paul 2 was shot, and it was reported that he could be heard crying, “Mary save me.” No cry out to Jesus or God. Thus, we can see here that Mary is his god, not the God of Heaven.

Then I want to draw your attention to the office of the pope. The word pope comes from the Latin, Papa, meaning Father. Then he is also called in Latin: Pontifex Maximus, the ‘greatest priest.’ As the pope, he is also the political head of Vatican City, a wholly independent nation that was formed in agreement with the country of Italy in 1929. So, we have a man called The Father, who is appointed as the Greatest Priest and is the King of Vatican City. Wow, how in God’s face can one man be!

We are told in Matthew 23:9 not to call any man Father, referring to the Heavenly Father. The religious leaders liked to substitute themselves in the place of God and have men petition them instead of God. If men thought you could be a Heavenly Father, then you could change the Bible, both adding and taking from it.

Then, the Pope is called the ‘greatest priest,’ but that role was in the person of Jesus. In fact, the Bible says that Jesus is our Great High Priest in Hebrews 4:14. In Hebrews 5:6-10 Jesus is appointed as our High Priest forever; and in Hebrews 6:13-19 we again find that Jesus is our High Priest forever. In both of these passages, Jesus is referred to as High Priest after the order of Melchizedek. We first meet Melchizedek in Genesis 14:18-20:

“Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was the priest of God Most High. And he blessed him and said: ‘Blessed be Abram of God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; And blessed be God Most High, Who has delivered your enemies into your hand.’ And he gave him a tithe of all.”

Notice that Melchizedek is both the High Priest and King of Salem, later to be called Jerusalem. Jesus is the High Priest after the order of Melchizedek, because He is from the tribe of Judah and has the right as the oldest living male in the tribe to the King of Israel through the line of David. So, he is not a High Priest like Aaron, as Jesus is not from the tribe of Levi. Jesus is the High Priest after the order of Melchizedek since he is the King of Jerusalem and the High Priest of God.

Do you think it is coincidence that the pope is the king of the Vatican and also wants to be called the ‘greatest priest’? This is idolatry at the highest level; the pope would have you think he is Jesus.

King of the Vatican and the High Priest of God – therein the pope is trying to negate the place of Jesus as the King of Israel and the High Priest of God. By the way, all the way through Hebrews, Jesus is the High Priest forever; no other man can take His place.

What, you may ask, has this to do with the Revelation and in particular the ‘Woman’?

The kingdoms of the earth are temporary kingdoms that have existed in time. Daniel talks about them, and we are reminded of them here Revelation 17:10 – the seven kings, saying five have been, one is and one is to come. We know in Daniel that the final empire is a mixture of iron and clay (Daniel 2:33), so the Roman Empire represented by the iron was still around to be mixed with clay and then destroyed by a stone not made with hands, verse 34. That stone being Jesus, of course.

What we have cocooned in the Vatican are the dregs of the Roman Empire waiting to flourish again, but only for a short time. They are very well-funded; in 2013 The Economist estimated that the Catholic Church in the USA alone had an operating budget of about $170 billion. For comparison, in the fiscal year of 2012, Apple had revenues of $157 billion. This money does not take into account the amount of real estate the Catholic church owns worldwide. They are simply one of the largest multinational corporations in the world masquerading as a church.

Satan knows that people need religion, something or someone to worship, and they are more likely to follow if they think Jesus is involved. So, we have an obviously pagan religion that has mixed in the name of Jesus, added prayers to the saints, Mary and all the Bible trappings, but is wholly evil. This is the same religion that promotes Islam as brothers and claims to worship the same god as Islam. This is NOT the God of the Bible. Allah is not God, so too, neither is the god of Catholicism. The only other being that commands worship is Satan.

Sadly, many billions of people have been blinded by the pomp and flare of the Catholic Church, having confidence that if they followed this church they would go to Heaven. I cannot imagine their dismay on the other side when they found out that Mary did not save them, and they had been lied to from birth. Heartbreaking. Sadly, too many modern churches are led by pastors who do not study the truth. Thus, they cannot see counterfeit doctrine when it is presented.

I was blessed to grow up in a truth-teaching church and now to associate with men, fellow brothers and pastors who take the study of the truth seriously. It is hard to call out the evil in the Catholic church; it may hurt some of my friends, but I would not be a true friend if I did not try to speak the truth to them.

We will explore more about the Woman and the Beast next week. But it was important for us to set the ground work so that we are properly equipped to understand where the scripture is taking us.

It is essential for us to see that the Woman in here, right in front of us, waiting for the Rapture just like us – she has a plan and needs the right circumstance to be in place. The sounding of the Trump will offer that opportunity and shuffle in the Ten-Toed kingdom of the statue seen in Daniel 2.

Are you ready to meet Jesus? He is coming soon.

Missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca

We had some technical difficulties last week with our FB Live broadcast of our morning sermon. But, if you do not have a home church, or you are ill or you are not able to attend a church, we Live stream our morning sermons at about 11am on FB at Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church.

 

Chapter 16:17 – Chapter 17:6

“Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, ‘It is done!’ ¹⁸ And there were noises and thunderings and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such a mighty and great earthquake as had not occurred since men were on the earth. ¹⁹ Now the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. And great Babylon was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath. ²⁰ Then every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. ²¹ And great hail from heaven fell upon men, each hailstone about the weight of a talent. Men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, since that plague was exceedingly great.

“Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and talked with me, saying to me, ‘Come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, ² with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication.’ ³ So he carried me away in the Spirit into the wilderness. And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

“⁴ The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication. ⁵ And on her forehead a name was written: MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. ⁶ I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I marveled with great amazement.”

Thanks for the emails that I have received over the week. Some of the emails made me think and do some searching; others encouraged me, and some not so much. Either way, the emails are appreciated.

We are going to venture into some interesting information this week. Not long ago, maybe a week or two, the pope and Sheikh Ahmed Al-Tayeb signed an interfaith covenant in Abu Dhabi. Here we have the apostate version of Christianity agreeing and forming an alliance with the Islamic religion. If I recall correctly, the pope stated that they were brothers.

In Daniel, we see a statue some 2,500 years ago that outlined the present and coming ruling powers beginning with Babylon. The final empire was an unnatural alliance, one of clay and iron mixed together, a seemingly forged alliance that seemed to be forced rather than a natural one. Iron and clay do not mix. We just saw that alliance being formed right in front of our eyes. Between these two global religions, they will control between 2.5–2.7 billion people. By the time the Rapture takes its toll on the population, they may control about half the worlds’ population or more.

In Daniel 12:4, we see these harrowing words: “But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.”

Daniel is told that the words of his book were not for him or his time but for the time when knowledge would be increased and when men would “run to and fro.” We are here today. Our knowledge increases in the last 119 years have taken us from an average land speed of 30 miles per hour at the turn of the 1900s to where we can venture into space. At the turn of the century in 1900, the average person was born, lived and died within 30 miles of where they were born. Today we literally run to and fro on the earth. Air travel is just that; we can now take flight from Toronto to Brisbane Australia in under a day – a feat that used to take months just from England when travelling by ship back in the 1900s.

The Last Judgment of the Tribulation, verses 17-21

The words “it is done” can be translated “it is done and will remain done.” There is no fixing this from man’s perspective or under man’s power. God is going to do God-stuff; and man will stand in awe or run in fear or cringe in dismay, but they will not be able to fix it. What God is doing cannot be undone. There is absoluteness in these words. We can think of a similar statement by Jesus as He was hanging on the cross, “It is finished.” The work of salvation was finished. There was nothing more to do at all on the part of either man or God. All man had to do was to put his faith in God’s salvation to be saved. The work had been completed. The next event to follow this 7^th Bowl will be the physical return of the Lord Jesus with the armies of Heaven.

In Numbers 16:20-35, we find an account of men who defied the leadership of Moses. God opened up the earth and swallowed them whole along with their tents and their families. As far as I can tell, this was the first time that an earthquake-like event ever occurred in the Bible. The earthquake that is recorded for us here in Revelation 16 is like no other event ever in history. It divides this great city (the city of the anti-Christ, modern-day Babylon) into three parts. Nations also fall with it, and we are told that the islands flee away and are not found.

This is extremely dear to me as I am from an island nation; Barbados is just a little dot in the Caribbean Sea. But England is also an island, as is Australia; it is an island continent. Imagine how much destruction this will cause. This is a global earthquake, or at least the effects of this earthquake are global. Not only will the islands disappear, but the mountains will be no longer found. God is going to level everything. What a catastrophe this will be; and, oh, what a display of God’s Sovereign power!

God remembers this city, the great Babylon, and His wrath is poured out on her. He then sends hail to fall upon the men of the earth. In Job 38:22, we are told that God has storehouses of hail. We have had some hail here in Canada in my time, some as big as a small marble maybe, but the hail in Revelation 16 is ‘great hail’; we are told that the hail is about one (1) talent. According to www.unitconversion.org, a talent is just over 75 lbs. Can you imagine the damage of 75 lb. blocks of ice falling on the earth and man? The destruction will make the movie 2012 look like a ride at an amusement park.

The men of the earth will blaspheme even more. No repentance here. No remorse. No guilt, just rage at God. They know for sure who is doing this. By the way, there will be no atheists in the Tribulation, at least not towards the middle and then the end; they will defy God with full knowledge of His power and who He is. Defying God can harden your heart so much that you become calloused, even when seeing Him face-to-face, so to speak. You are so hard to the wonders of the Lord that, even with His power and even His person clearly displayed, you are defiant and rebellious.

This is a horrible situation to be in. We see a lot of people in this place today. We see women and men touting their ‘feelings’ over what is right and what is true. They hate the truth and anyone who speaks it; it has become offensive. When the absolute Truth shows His face, Jesus the righteous, they will be just as defiant, and their pride will cost them dearly.

The Judgment of the False church – Chapter 17:1-6

Chapters 17–18 will focus on the destruction of Babylon. This focus will culminate in chapter 19 with the return of Jesus to fight for Israel against the invading hordes of the Anti-Christ and his armies. In Chapter 17, we find some clues to help us to form an idea of who the Great Harlot is.

Prostitution is a symbol of spiritual infidelity. This is a deliberate act. One does not commit fornication accidentally. We find an amazing story in the book of Ruth. In it we find two women leaving the country of Moab with Naomi in Ruth 1:6-18. One daughter-in-law, Orpah, and the other, Ruth, are leaving to go back to the land of Israel. As they exit the city, Naomi tells the ladies to return to their country as she cannot provide them with a husband. Orpah, we are told, returned to her people and her gods (vs. 15), but Ruth clings to the God of Israel, the God of Naomi, and she returns to Bethlehem with her. There she is married into the lineage of our Saviour Jesus.

Here is a great example that the Harlot church made a choice; they could have turned to the God of Israel but they did not. They, in the person of Orpah, returned to the gods of Moab.

This harlot church has global effects; she sits on many waters, she has political power, she is courted by the kings of the earth, and she affects the whole population of the earth or at least a very large portion of it. Later, she is described as a “woman sitting on a scarlet beast.” The idea of scarlet is that of luxury, splendor and a woman of means. Scarlet is the color of royalty and nobility and great wealth. She, as a prostitute (a whore), adorns herself in splendor to attract her suitors. In contrast is the Lord Jesus. In Isaiah 53:2, we find these words describing the physical appearance of Jesus:

“He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no stately form or majesty to attract us, no beauty that we should desire Him.”

He did not display His majesty, and He was not beautiful so as to attract us to Him. He came as a servant according to Philippians 2:5 and set the example for us. The New Testament church is not supposed to be a whore dressed up to meet the world, but a chaste bride waiting for her husband. She is beautiful to those that are looking for true, and ugly to those that simply want the external trappings of a harlot. Harlots do not look to form everlasting relationships; they use their suitors for profit. And when the opportunity for profit expires, so too do the affections that were once so freely given.

This woman (false church) was covered in the names of blasphemy, constantly adding pagan rituals to further and further take away the power of the Gospel. The Latin phrase ‘extra Ecclesiam nulla salus’ means that outside the church, referring to the Catholic Church, there is no salvation. The current pope said this very thing on June 3rd, 2013.

The very name “Catholic” refers to the universal church. There is no such thing as the universal church. The word that is translated from the Greek refers to the local assembly from within a city. There is a church in each city or multiple churches if the city is quite large. All the saved people are in the family of God, but not in a universal global church. The very wording of the Epistles are they that show that a church or churches existed in a location like Ephesus, Galatia or Rome.

Doctrines like purgatory where the dead wait in transit for their loved ones to pay indulgences to get them out of purgatory into Heaven; transubstantiation that teaches that the bread and wine become the literal body and blood of Jesus, promoting cannibalism that is strictly forbidden as is the drinking of blood (Deuteronomy 12:16); even the idea of confession to a priest – these are all abominable practices that put a man in the place of God. We are called to confess our sins to God in 1 John 1:8-9.

Right now, the Catholic Church is engulfed by a pedophile scandal on a global scale. Hundreds or even thousands of trusting families have been devastated by the sexual abuse that the priests have proffered on an unsuspecting and innocent people. This abuse has been compounded by the cover-up that is still going on all around the world. The filthiness has been going on for decades in some cases, and on multiple continents, as the church has moved pedophile priests from one diocese to the next rather than discipline them or have them arrested.

This ‘church’ is also drunk with the blood of the saints. Beginning in the 13^th century, the Catholic Church engaged in inquisitions designed to deal with heresy. Anyone who did not believe like them were targets. Conservative Baptist groups (some called Paulicians) were slaughtered by them in 1160 AD under the order of Henry II. Cardinal Hosius, President of the Council of Trent, said in 1524 that “had the Baptists not been cut off with the knife for 1,200 years, they would outnumber all the Reformers.”

Over the centuries, the Catholic Church has slaughtered those that kept to the strict interpretation of the Bible and condemned all who added to it – as the Catholic Church does all the time. Today, the Catholic Church may appear more civil, but it is not; and when the time comes, it again will step up and be the global superpower that it is. The Vatican is well-funded, it is everywhere, and it already has envoys intertwined in the governments of the world. Catholicism has its foot securely planted in the EU, and it has just added the nation of Islam to its brotherhood. The foundation of the New World Order is forming right before our eyes— in plain sight.

It is this unholy alliance, this bloodthirsty harlot, that God will pour His 75-lb. hailstones on. It is this headquarters in Vatican City that God will destroy with an earthquake and send horror such as has never happened on the earth before. This man, the pope, who wants you to believe that he is God’s messenger on earth, will find out that He is not Jesus. He is just flesh, dust and dirt that has unleashed the wrath of God on himself (whoever may be serving in that position at the time), his network and his cohorts.

We will explore more about this woman next week. For now, we should be eyes wide open. The Bible is playing out in front of us in Technicolor. We can see the end forming right in front of our eyes, covered and cheered by every liberal news outlet. They do not realize that they are cheering the very ending and provoking the wrath of Almighty God.

We still have these words of hope available to us as we wait on Jesus:

Isaiah 55:6-7 “Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”

Missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca

We have begun Live Streaming our Sunday sermons on FB; go to our page at Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church. Check us out; we are currently teaching through 1 John.