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We come now to a study of the fifth section of the book of the Revelation. Let us begin by reading some excerpts from that section. And we begin in chapter fifteen and verse five. Revelation chapter fifteen and verse 5. And after these things I saw, and the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened. They came out from the temple, the seven angels that had the seven plagues, arrayed with linen pure and bright, girt about their breasts with golden girdles.
And one of the four living creatures gave unto the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God, who liveth forever and ever. And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power. None was able to enter into the temple till the seven plagues of the seven angels should be fulfilled. And then some verses from chapter seventeen beginning in verse one: And there came one of the seven angels that had the seven bowls and spake with me, saying, Come hither, and I will show ye the judgment of the great harlot that sitteth upon many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and they that dwell in the earth were made drunken with the wine of her fornication.
And he carried me away in the spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting upon a scarlet covered be- colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet and decked with gold and precious stone and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations, even the unclean things of her fornication. Upon her forehead a name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of the harlots and of the abominations of the earth.
I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I wondered with a great wonder. And then, for the moment, from chapter nineteen beginning in verse six. m Nineteen six: and I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunders, saying, Hallelujah, for the Lord our God, the Almighty reigneth.
Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad, and let us give the glory unto him. For the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And it was given unto her that she should array herself in fine linen, bright and pure. For the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. And he saith unto me, Write, blessed are they which are bidden to the marriage supper of the Lamb. He saith unto me, These are the true words of God.
May God give us good understanding of them this evening. So now we come to section five of this wonderful book of the Revelation. And section five is somewhat notorious. It contains the famous chapter seventeen. and in that chapter is a multitude of things over which we can all disagree, and many do. Great noble minds, servants of God, men and women, having pondered the, this chapter for many centuries, of course, have come up with various interpretation of some of the details.
So that I confess to you tonight, I have a couple of secret fears assailing my timid rest. And, uh, the first of them is these, you'll see. That should you, as is greatly possible, perceive a few moments into this meeting that I hold a different position and interpretation from you over these particular details, and therefore, by definition, the wrong understanding of them, you will get so distressed about my error that you will use up all your energy trying to think what to do about it and miss all the rest that I've got to say. So try to contain your frustration if you see that I've gone astray.
The second fear is like unto the first. Convinced, of course, as we should be, that these things talk to us first and foremost about future events and future personages and happenings. We may use so much of our energy trying to be sure we have understood exactly what and which and when and why is going to happen in the future, but we haven't got any energy left. So remember that these future messages carry imprecations for us even now, so that if we were to read them without perceiving their imprecations for our present behavior, we should miss a great deal of the benefit that they were meant to convey.
I find it helpful to remember what the dear Apostle John said to his, uh, his fellow believers in his day. You have heard, said he, that Antichrist cometh, and that is very true and a good thing to be aware of. But, says he, already many antichrists have gone out into the world. These many are not the particular one that shall arise in the future, nor are they the most famous ones. But being antichrists themselves, they partake of the nature that shall find full expression in the Antichrist when he comes.
And John is pointing out that the principles that shall animate that future dictator and apostate against all that is called God, those same principles are already at work, says John, in our own society and times, so that we need to be aware of them. And seeing where they will end up, be careful not to compromise with them now. And Paul says similarly, doesn't he, writing to his converts, his second letter to the Thessalonians in chapter two. They had got it into their heads that the day of the Lord, the great day of the wrath of God, had already set in.
No, says Paul, that isn't true. It couldn't possibly be true. That great day of God's wrath will not come until first there come the great apostasy and the man of sin be revealed. You'll see who sits in the temple of God, claiming divine honors. So that is all future. But then, of course, it has implications for us now, doesn't it? So, uh, let us come to our passage tonight, determined by God's grace to understand as best we can the details of the future events and personages, but even more determined to learn the big basic principles that underlie these things, so that we are people who understand the times and know what the people of God ought to do.
To help us in that, I suggest we spend five minutes or so trying tonight, as we have done before, to put our section of the book in the larger context of all the rest of the book. And that's why I've given you a second sheet of paper, if you could turn to it now and look at it once more. Some of you will already have had this paper, but being very generous and thinking you might have forgotten to bring it with you, I supplied another copy, you'll see. And according to this particular analysis, there are ses- six sections to this particular book. And of recent, uh, s- uh, sessions, we have been looking at sections two, three, four, and five.
And we observed that they have this in common at the beginning, that as they start, something or other is opened in heaven. In two, it was a door opened in heaven. In three, it was that the seventh seal was opened, and there followed silence in heaven for half an hour. In four, it was the temple of God in heaven opened. And now, as we come to five, it is the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven is opened. That would seem to mean not merely the holy place, but now there is opened the holiest of all, and the very glory of God forthwith fills the temple so that, uh, no one can stand in it or enter into it.
And then we look to see in each of those sections that when heaven is opened, there appears to John some particular piece of heavenly tabernacle furniture. In two it was the throne of God and the twenty four subsidiary thrones. In three it was first the big altar and then the golden altar of incense. In four, it was the ark, symbolic throne of God, but here called, in addition, the ark of God's covenant. And now we come to five.
It is not any particular piece of furniture in the heavenly tabernacle we see, but the smoke that comes from the presence and the glory of God, so overpowering that none can enter in until the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled. Conjures up in our memories the re- record of the tabernacle, that when it was built and assembled, then the glory of God descended in it, and it was like a fire in and above the tabernacle. So it was at the inauguration of Solomon's temple, when all was in order and the building in all its beauty was there.
Then the great purpose for which the building was built became manifest, and the glory of God descended and filled the place so that the priests were not able to stand. This, therefore, is an awesome part of the book of the Revelation. We take the shoes from off our feet as we begin our study. For now we are to be introduced not to some holy vessel used in the service of God, nor even to the throne, so to speak, upon which God sits, but to his divine majesty himself in all his overwhelming glory, such that if it were appear like that without any veil between tonight to us, we should be overwhelmed with awesome wonder.
Because this is the glory of God. You say, what do you mean by the glory of God? Well, not some tinsel crown that he wears to try and make himself look beautiful. This is the very nature of God, the very character of God, and all that God stands for. God is the sum total of all beauty. In himself he is. He is the sum total of all truth. He is the truth behind the universe. He is the sum total of all holiness.
He is it. And not just appurtenances for him. And in this passage we see God now rising personally to express these, his characters, and his reaction to a guilty, vile, ugly, perverted, defiled, and abominable world. And as you may expect, there will be solemn things to watch as the character of Almighty God thus expresses itself in its divine holiness and disgust at Earth's perversions.
Let's look a little bit more closely at this set out here of the six sections. Uh, we noticed that in section four, which we studied in an earlier session, it was, uh, the ark of God's covenant showed us, because in that ark was the law, the basis of God's covenant, and the first requirement and prohibition of that law was, thou shalt have no other gods but me. That forms the preface to what we are then shown, the future time on earth when Satan will bring to fruition his long-standing lie planted in the human heart.
Has God said, you shall surely die? You shall not die. God knows in the day you eat thereof, you shall be as gods. You will be as God. That lie shall come one day to its full harvest. By Satan's initiative, there shall come on earth the head of a virtually worldwide empire. Who shall not merely copy what ancient emperors did in the ancient world as they deified themselves and required their subjects to worship them, but shall parade it as none other ever did and sit in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God, exalting himself above all that is called God.
And the infatuated crowd shall shout, led by his minister of propaganda, who is like unto the beast? The equivalent of the divine, who is like Jehovah? And they shall add, who is able, who has the power to war against him? Celebrate their ruler as having divine power. It is, of course, what you may call the perversion of the male. The two beasts are male, aren't they?
I mean male in the sense of not female. It is the perversion of power and man's lust for power. When we come to our section tonight, section five, it is not two bees that will fill the middle parts of the section. It is two women. And as you look at them, there's no denying that they're well dressed, aren't they? Better than any you would ever see in Hello Magazine, you'll see, let alone the Alistair Tattler.
They are well dressed. At the first one, the colors are rather crude and lurid. Though, to be frank, the second one in chapter eighteen, she has at her command and in her wardrobe the most delightful, expensive, uh, setups that ever you could get either in London or in Paris or anywhere else, do you see? And along with it, all the lovely luxury items that you could get in Harrods or Debenhams or France or wherever. Oh, what a riot of wealth and color and beauty and artistry.
You might even want to ask who made her gowns. Beautiful then. And yet it will not take us long to see that beautiful though they may be in some sense or other, they represent the perversion of beauty. The beasts were the perversion of power, the perversion of the male, if you like. So women are the perversion of beauty, the perversion of the female. And of course, when we consider that, the false beauty, the misuse of beauty on the part of these two women, then we see the point of the final response made in this section five.
We have got into the habit of noticing the responses at the end of two, the comment by one of the elders, and then in section three the comment by twenty four elders, and in four, this song by the victors over the beast, highly appropriate, for we've just read about the beast and his antics and his claims and his persecution, so that when it comes to the climax, it is lovely to hear the song of people standing by the sea of glass, singing the song of Moses and of the Lamb, since they have gotten the victory over the beast. But when we come to the response at the end of section five, it is no less appropriate, is it?
For against the background of these beautiful women, some of it a bit lurid, we read of that lovely virgin, the Lamb's wife, and she's made herself ready for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and she has made herself ready, and it is given to her to be clothed. Oh, look at her clothes. Rather distinctive style from the two Babylons and from a different warehouse, of course. Clothes pure and spotless represent the righteous acts of the saints.
While the world has been going its way in its perversions, her nimble fingers have been sewing her wedding trousseau and stitching it with loving stitches and embroidering it where need be. Long life, sometimes under persecution and difficulty, but in unswerving devotion to her husband to be, he's been made in her bridal trousseau. And now the marriage of the lamb has come. It's time, and thank the Lord, the bride is ready. You know, at some weddings, I've learned enough about those to see that at many weddings, the bride isn't ready.
We're all kept waiting, you'll see, whatever else other things we've got to do, we kept waiting until the bride appears, you'll see. But not this time. The marriage of the Lamb has come, and the bride has made herself ready. You know, we haven't got all the time there is, have we, to get ready for the Lord's coming. We Christians, I mean. God forbid that when he comes, we should fear we've wasted a lot of time, and we wish we had a few more minutes to stitch a few more stitches in our true self. For the fine linen is the righteousnesses, the righteous acts of the saints, the character they have woven, so that on that day they shall not only rise as the redeemed of the Lord, their garments washed clean in the blood of the Lamb, and their garments shall be adorned with a life lived for the Lord Jesus, and the garment adorned with the righteous acts that they have been able to do.
That then is the story, and in that sense, the whole section coheres. Now let's go back and look at the main sheet. On the main sheet, I have listed what seemed to me the four major parts of this section five. There are the seven vials of the wrath of God. That's part one. Part two, what I have called the judgment of Babylon number one, the Babylon that sits on many waters and on the seven mountains. And then three, from chapter eighteen, the judgment of Babylon number two. And we shall have to decide whether we think that's the same thing just repeated, or whether these are two different things.
Then finally, those responses, the hallelujahs that arise for God's judgments in general and his judgments in destroying the great, uh, Babylon. I'll mention now and put you out of your misery. I'll mention to you my own view, for what it's worth. May not be worth a lot. Eh, uh, first of all, do you see, on the, uh, beast. The woman is seen riding the beast, is she not? Seventeen, chapter seventeen and verse ten, When the angel comes to explain certain things about the beast, he says, he talks about the seven heads are seven mu- hills on, mountains on which the woman sitteth.
They are seven kings. The five have fallen, the one is, the other is not yet to come, and when he cometh, he must continue a little while. You will see. And the beast that was, says verse eleven, and is not, is himself also an eighth, and is of the seven, and he goeth into perdition. I understand them myself as following that, uh, ch- verse ten is talking about this final empire. There are seven kings, that is, there have been seven kingdoms, each headed by its head, a king or emperor.
And, uh, five are fallen, the one is, and the other is not yet come. I take them to be not successive emperors of the city of Rome. I take them to be the imperial, the big empires, world empires mentioned throughout Holy Scripture. Within Holy Scripture, not going outside its bound, you come first to the great empire Egypt, and secondly to the great empire Assyria, then the empire of Babylon, that's three, followed by Medo-Persia, that's four, and five, the empire of Greece, Alexander's and his successors.
You'll see those five in John's day were passed. There was one great empire in existence, and that was imperial Rome. And then he says there comes another, uh, uh, and when that comes, he must continue a little while. And I take that last one to be the empire of the beast described here in these chapters, which shall continue not a long while like Rome did over a thousand years, but shall continue a very short while, as prophesied both in the book of Daniel and in the book of the Revelation.
And then for verse eleven, the beast that was and is not is himself also an eighth and is one of the seven and goeth into perdition. I take that to be a remark referring to what we were earlier told in chapter thirteen, where in verse three John saw one of his heads as though it had been smitten unto death, and his death stroke was healed, and the whole world wondered after the beast, you'll see. Uh, Satan seems to contrive an extraordinary and apparent miracle. That the head of that empire being perhaps assassinated or appearing to killed with the sword, Satan brings him up eventually again, after a short time, from the abyss.
As is stated, of course, in chapter seventeen, the beast, verse eight, the beast thou sawest was and is not and is about to come up out of the abyss, that is referring to the great leader of the coming future empire. Satan manages to stage what looks like a resurrection, imitating, bogusly, of course, the real resurrection of the Lord Jesus. But since that will not be any great part of, uh, uh, my theme this evening, and if I were to discuss the many views, we shall be here till next Friday, despite the seeing the disappointment on your faces at such an interpretation, uh, uh, you'll get over it.
Yes. And uh, now we settle down to hear the real business, aren't we? So good, what is this chapter, this section about? First of all, we are explicitly told that in these plagues is finished the wrath of God. That is told us in chapter fifteen verse one. There have been two previous series of judgments, those under the seals, those under, uh, the, uh, trumpets, and now these under the bowls, and they finish and complete the wrath of God. And this time it is God's objection to the implications of his own character and heart that have been carried by the sins hereafter to be described.
You see, in the section four, we read of Satan who gave the beast his throne. And the moment we hear the words, and the dragon gave him his throne, we sense the insult and the rebellious competition attempted with the throne of God. Section two gave us a vision of the throne of God. Section four comes along and says, look at this imitation, will you? This fantastic opposition to the very rule and government of God. Satan gave the beast his throne. And you no wonder the judgments that will fall there upon that kingdom and that beast.
And now we come to section five. It isn't so much an attack upon the throne. It's an attack upon God himself personally, on his heart, on his values, on his love. Imagine a king, can you, in the ancient world, and he has a throne, and presently his ar- the armies of his enemies come against him, and they try to topple him off his throne and put their own throne in his place. That would be cause enough for indignation on the part of the true king, wouldn't you?
But suppose in that very situation, the king's own wife were to play false to him, and abandoning him and his affections, take her beauty and her charms and bestow them on his very enemies. It would be a far more serious thing, wouldn't it, to the king personally, than enemies attacking his throne. To have someone that's supposed to be his, enmeshed in the very affections of the king.
Now to take her beauty and compromise her loyalty and play the adulteress and go off, not with just any other man, but with the king's direst enemy. How do you suppose the king would feel? This is the final insult. Very tip top of profanity. God doesn't he- he- hesitate to use ugly words to describe it. Fornication, adultery, filthiness, prostitution. Yielding her services to the beast, so as to have influence with him and be carried and supported by him, and paraded before the nations in her imagined beauty and glory.
No wonder at this stage that the holiest of all is filled with smoke, an expression of the feelings of God, of the character of God. And when the angels come out who had the vials full of these plagues, they notice how they're clothed. Did you notice that? This section has a lot to say about clothing. How would you expect angels to be clothed that come out with these judgments, dire judgments, to inflict pain and dishonor and eventual destruction upon men and women.
How would you expect them to be clothed? You say, I expect them to come out there dressed in funereal black, solemn looking, almost hideous hags, dripping blood and oozing blood. No, that's a pagan conception. The angels that come out to execute the wrath of God at this stage all look at their clothing. It is fantastically beautiful. It's white, of course, but not a dull old white that you put on the walls of your sitting room. It's, it's brilliant white, marvelously attractive. Oh, the purity of it. Yes, they're sheer beautiful.
I tell you, my brothers and sisters, the wrath of God is something exceedingly. Check yourself if ever you find yourself apologizing for the wrath of God, as though it was something, well, you know, God does get wrath sometimes. Well, that's like him, but it doesn't last, and he's altogether nice and good, really, on the whole. So it's just sometimes he... No, he doesn't. He doesn't lose his temper. The wrath of God is like God himself. It is a beauty. For it is the expression of the character of God. It isn't a question of losing his temper, temper. His character, he stands for all that is true.
Therefore, his whole being vibrates against what is false and unreal and insincere. He is the sum total of all holiness. When he meets unholiness, all of his character moved against it. In him are located all true values. When God meets perversions, then it's a part of the beauty of his character that his beauty reacts against perversion of beauty and demands its destruction.
Oh man, not to confuse small things with big things, you'll say, but man, if someone put something ugly on the mantle shelf in your lounge, your sense of beauty wouldn't tolerate it, would you? I wouldn't do it at house room, tiggy it out and give it to the bin man. You're not going to put up with ugliness, are you? Why not? Because you, I nearly said you're an old hag, forgive me. I, I do say, yes, you won't put up with ugliness because you have a marvelously beautiful sense. That's God. Though Jerusalem will be such a marvelous expression of beauty and truth and holiness, because it is created by a God like that.
Now at last, after his patience has been tried to its end, he must deal with perversion. And the judgments that now follow are precisely that. They initiated as one of the living creatures takes a bowl full of the wrath of God and hands it to the angel to pour out. Good old living creature. You see, he is what he is, you know, he's a living thing, a living creature. This is life! And agreeing with God, that God should deal with everything that leads to death.
And as another angel pours out his bowl, and the rivers and the seas are turned to blood until they become absolutely pro- putrid. The response is, thou art worthy, because they shed the blood of your saints. Question of the value of life, isn't it? And if men get to a stage when the life of their fellow human counts nothing, there's something radically gone wrong with their system of values. And when men, for power, lust, or religious position, can take believers in God, holy believers, and torture them and slit their throats and burn them at the stake.
What kind of a perversion of value is that? This is a suitable punishment to say, well, they shed blood, let them drink it. Let us be so full of blood, so to speak, by turning the waters to blood. But it confounds all the basic values of life. At that point, the altar speaks. Its protest, good old altar. For there in symbol, the sacrifice was offered and the bloodshed that atoned for sin.
Human values in themselves, the value of an ordinary human life, though we be fallen, is marvelous, isn't it, in the eyes of God. For men to take just human life is bad enough. At the altar expresses even higher value. It reminds us of the value of redemption. The price God has paid for every individual soul that trusts the Savior. These are God's value. And all for false religion That has taken people redeemed with the blood of Christ. And in the name of God put them to the stake, tortured, butchered, persecuted, destroyed.
Who says, God, if you will confound values like that. And the very character of God insists that such perversions shall meet their appropriate punishment. We have no time to go through all the judgments. What then of this first woman, or at least the Babylon as described in chapter seventeen, Found sitting upon a beast. You say, who and what is she? I'm going to suggest she is a certain system of religion.
Religion that has turned from the true God and turned to idolatry of various kinds. Called here Babylon. Well, Babylon is a, a, a, a name hoary with age, goes back to Genesis, doesn't it? But when God commanded men after the flood now to disperse all over the world, according to their tribes and families. And Nimrod and company determined to defy God. They weren't to be scattered. We're going to make themselves a name. And they built their city, and they built their tower.
They would be master of their surroundings, make themselves a name. Independent and defiant of God. You say they all became atheists. No, no. It's a very difficult thing to be an atheist. I mean, he said try it, but don't, of course. Don't try it. It's a mighty difficult thing to be. Because when you give up believing in God, you know, you can't believe in nothing. Because even the most advanced atheist has a common sense to see he didn't invent himself, and that there are bigger powers than he. And so he makes gods of the powers of nature and luck, and my goodness knows what else.
And so in the ancient world was built up a phenomenal system of religion, and by common consent in the Middle East, Babylon was the most famous city as a center of pagan idolatrous religion. In the Old Testament, Babylon City, that was in Babylon, of course, the city itself is frequently compared and contrasted with Jerusalem City for that very reason. Those two cities stand in the ancient world for two diametrically opposed views. Here is Jerusalem standing for faith in the one true God, with his covenant with God, thou shalt have no other God but me.
That is true religion, and a belief in God that is accompanied by holy, strictly holy moral commandments, expressing God's values for a wholesome society. And over here is Babylon. Beautiful in its artistry, magnificent in its architecture, would outshine Jerusalem any day of the week. Standing for the opposite interpretation of the universe, the idolatrous interpretation of the universe. Religion, yes. The worship of the moon god, the sun god, and ten thousand other gods. True religion.
Idolatrous religion, belief in the one God, belief in a multitude of gods, pagan interpretation of the universe. The sad thing is, in the Old Testament days, Israel, having been chosen by God to represent him in the earth and having known the true God, many times, alas, in the course of history, compromised his unique glory and played with idolatry and set up their charms and their little idols in their gardens and in their drawing rooms, and in spite of the warning of the prophets, uh, went over at last, head over heels, into pagan idolatry.
God, through the prophets, many and many a time called that what he now calls Babylon here. Spiritual, religious adultery, fornication, prostitution. For people who supposedly were the people of God, to compromise with pagan religion. God counted it unfaithfulness, spiritual fornication, and idolatry. And so now, here is this woman. How else would you describe her?
How else would you get a handle on what she stands for? Why, look once more at the climax to which this section comes. As the hallelujahs are sounding, and you say, what about the marriage of the Lamb has come and his, his wife have made herself ready. She is the real thing. Has to think from idolatrous, unfaithful. Babylon. You say, uh, Mr. Preacher, excuse us, but that's too vague. You say, we want you to tell us now, what is Babylon?
Isn't it, after all, what the reformers said it was? Um. Roman Catholicism. Based on Rome. Well, there's no denying, even if anybody wanted to, that historically Rome as a system of religion has been full of idolatry and superstition from one into the other. Very perfectly true. But as I would understand this figure, this stands not merely for Rome. This is, as John was told, the mother of harlots, not one particular one. Stands for worldwide religion that shall be in the coming day.
We'll see things have moved, haven't they? It's well that we know about them. I remember being in Roscommon just after Vatican Council Two and calling in on a certain mon- monastery, was well received by the monks there. They were highly polished people, a missionary order, or Shintos or Buddhists. So long as they're sincere in their religion, we can now count it as baptism by desire. We don't have to convert them, says he. And the Jesuits have withdrawn all their missionaries from India to retrain them in this new approach to the other religions.
That was startling news to me. And I remember very vividly when Bishop, uh, Leslie Newbigin came to Queens, perhaps now fifteen or twenty years ago, I forget. He was a bishop of the Church of South India, had spent many years in conversation with intellectual Hindus, and broad-minded though he was, gave it in his books the fact that even Hindus and all those others need to be saved, and they can only be saved by Christ. He came to Queens to give a lecture, and the theme of his lecture was the attitude now, the modern attitude of the Roman Catholic Church to other world religions.
And his analogy was, they liken it to a series of concentric circles. The Pope, of course, being the center point, uh, by definition. And the first circle would be the Roman Catholic Church, the second circle the Protestant churches, the third circle would be Judaism, and the fourth circle would be, uh, uh, Islam. Uh, the fifth would be Hinduism, and the sixth, um, Buddhism, and the seventh animism, and if there be any other things of this sort. No attempt to convert anybody, so long as they all agree to be concentric circles, one, one, around one center.
The Archbishop of the Anglican Church in Britain, the one before this one. I remember listening to him as he came back from a tour of India and was giving us all his, uh, impressions, you see, and how he would react. He said, you know, I was immensely impressed by the spirituality of Hinduism, and what we ought now to do is to stop talking about our differences and join together, they and us, in seeking the truth, you see. And he hadn't got the truth, according to him. I remember myself, oh, twenty years ago more, receiving an invitation to attend the World Congress of Faith.
Pictures of world leaders of various religions on the stage, and the young people at a previous conference getting silk and threads and winding them round the leaders of all these different religions to show that all religions are one. And I was invited to go along and lecture. How they got my name, I never have understood from that time till now. I said I already had a previous engagement, and that was utterly true. I said, but suppose on another occasion I were prepared to come, um, I said, of course I don't ram my religion down people's throats, but would I be free, because I should want to be free, to say to the conference what the apostle said?
There is no other name under heaven given amongst men whereby we must be saved. Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. I didn't get a reply, nor have I had an invitation since. Well, my brothers and sisters, we must think about a big world. We must be prepared for world religion. Where it has become illegal by the parliament to get up and say that Jesus is the only savior because it would upset Muslims in the United Kingdom.
And we must have harmony amongst the different groups in society. But a world religion. That is where the present cu- uh, currents of opinion are leading to. Be assured of this, that when it comes, it will prove a persecuting thing. In her will be found the blood of martyrs. What is her judgment from God? I cannot suppress, altogether suppress a smile when I read it.
I sometimes think God has a certain sense of humor. How will God judge this woman for her utter errant disloyalty, compromise, and filthiness. How will he judge her? Oh, says an angel, John, would you like to see that? Well, come and I'll show you the judgment o- o- o- of this great whore. And her judgment was, to start with, she got on the beast. Well, she must have been a little bit infatuated in the head, for the description that's given of the beast is, you'll see, that he comes up out of the abyss, verse eight of chapter seventeen, and goes into destruction. Fancy getting on a beast?
If I were walking down the street and looking for a bus, and a bus came up that had on the front two perdition, I should not be inclined to get on, would you? This infatuated woman gets on the beast whose destination board says plainly destruction. But more than that, she used her supposed beauty, her influence, her hip- hypnotic charm over the nations and peoples, feeding them with wonderful rituals, marvelous music, and all the paraphernalia o- o- o- of um idolatrous religion.
And has tremendous influence. And for a while, the great Gentile imperial government was pleased to support her because it aided them in their attempt to get hold of the hearts and minds of people and imbue people with the religious sense that makes them feel they're one of the great community, five hundred million can't be wrong kind of thing, and that helps the state. For those who name the name of Christ to join up with Gentile political powers. What a disaster history has proved that to be, hasn't it?
And the early churches took Caesar as their lord and promoted him to head of the church. What a disaster that was. In this sign, says he, I conquered, I conquer, holding up a cross. And the cross now, instead of being a symbol of how men can be reconciled to God and saved. Constantine, the cross became a signal on his shields, how he would destroy the enemies with the sword and subdue them by force and subject them to the so-called Christian religion. What a ghastly thing that was. Remains altogether inappropriate for a Christian church to be allied to any political government, or to have a political monarch as its head.
That is unfaithfulness, isn't it? That's, that's some compromise with the world. But in the end, the judgments of God are seen in this, that eventually this, uh, imperial power has no time for the woman. And the ten kings join together and tear her to pieces and eat her flesh. One can understand atheist systems despising idolatrous religion and idolatrous so-called Christianity.
This imperial beast, when he comes to the point he will want to get rid of all religion, for he's going to sit himself in the temple of God and claim to be God and have the world's devotion to himself. What lesson do we draw from? Against that horrible corruption and unfaithfulness, we read in this climax, the marriage of the lamb is come, and the bride has made herself ready. Lovely, isn't it? Here she been stitching.
I think I stand by her side, if I'm p- permitted, with the angel, and I said, yes, my dear, marvelous. Let me look at that embroidery. Oh, isn't that marvelous? Oh, what kind of a stitch you call that? Isn't that delightful? Mm. I think the king will, when he sees you like this, so shall the king greatly desire your beauty. And we remember the word of the apostle, don't we? I've espoused you as a chaste virgin to Christ. I fear lest by any means that old serpent, that deceived and corrupted Eve, will corrupt your thoughts from the simplicity that is towards Christ.
You say, what does that mean? Well, when a girl is, uh, not yet engaged or betrothed in the ancient world, she was free to keep her mind open, wasn't she? Shall it be Tom? Seems a lot to be said for Tom. I mean, as a prospective husband. Or, on the other hand, perhaps not. Perhaps, um, perhaps James. He at least has got a BMW. Yeah. Now, Philip now, well, he hasn't got much money, but he's a charming fellow. Hm. Uh, now, which one shall she have? Free to keep an open mind, isn't he? Why not? But once she has given her plight in the ancient world, among Jews particularly, it was as good as getting married.
And when she's betrothed, then to keep an open mind is not a sign of intelligence, it is a sign of moral perversity. And I've espoused you to Christ, watch your thoughts, for Christ will expect intellectual loyalty. All you young folks in school, in university, at work, you are believers. We have to think, don't we? We don't shut our minds. But we must ever remember in our thinking that first and foremost we remain loyal to Christ.
We must not accept theories that call in question the veracity and truthfulness of Christ. For we are to be intellectually loyal to him. And spiritually we are to be loyal to him and not compromise the gospel. With forms of religion, even though they be in Christendom, deny the veracity of scripture and hold only very lightly, if at all, to the deity of the Lord Jesus. I said I believed that the other woman in chapter eighteen was, so to speak, another woman, or at least a different side to the same thing.
I can briefly tell you my story. I think that whereas in the Revelation seventeen, the Babylon represents, she's a figure of idolatrous religion. I think that the woman in Revelation eighteen stands as a figure and symbol for godless commerce. Personally, I'm inclined to take it literally, the description that is given of her and her wealth. It is de- done in terms that in the Old Testament are applied to the king of Tyre, king of that trading nation.
The great nation that sailed the seas and brought wealth and business and commerce to the nations all around and brought them the beautiful things of life and persuaded Africans they really need ge- Greek geometrical vases and all that kind of thing, and red figure vases, when they were content with old clay cot, clay, you know, clay pots. The Italians came along and advertised their wares, do you see, early Marks and Spencers, if not Harrods, and, uh, do you see, and, uh, persuaded everybody they needed these luxuries, you'll see, and all the finery and the clothes and the whatnot, and the cinnamon and the sandalwood and the whole... marvelous. You say, what's wrong with that then?
Isn't that nice? Oh, I love it. I love the colors. I love art. I love all the marvelous things, how beautiful our homes look compared with what they looked when I was a boy in my toddler stage. What's wrong with it then? Well, in itself sense self nothing, you see. But it has a tremendous danger, doesn't it? There'll be more people in hell because of lovely things than because of nasty things. When Satan first tempted our forefather to to fall. It was not by something crude and ugly.
He said, look at that tree, isn't it lovely to look at? Aesthetically beautiful. And, uh, good for food, physically satisfying. And desirable to make you wise, intellectually stimulating. Go on, woman, said Satan, that's life, my. She said, but what about the word of God? Oh, God's word, the people don't believe that nowadays. That's old fashioned stuff. You've got to move with the times. Look at these beautiful things, take them. Instead of those beautiful things bringing her heart nearer to God, it resulted in the disaster that the human heart was taken from God.
It's a danger still, my brothers, my sisters. It's easier to have lived under communism in an impoverished state and have nothing but scripture and scarce enough to feed. That isn't such a big danger of having a surplus of things that, if we're not careful, takes our heart from the Lord and devours so much of our time that we have little time for his word or his work. We need to listen to our dear brother John. My little children, he says, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world, for the lust of the eye and the lust of the flesh, inordinate now, in themselves beautiful, but now got out of hand and become like a cancerous growth.
And the pride of life, keeping up with the Jones, beating the next door neighbors, with all the luxuries we have. It's little by little taking our hearts and energies and time, time from the Lord. Well, if that should ever happen to us, then we should need to listen to John, shouldn't we? Love not the world like that, in spite of its attractiveness. For if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. We're to love him. And if our hearts are right with him, then he'll give us all things richly to enjoy.
But oh, should we make life's first love, things, wealth, beauty, and do it at the cost of developing fellowship with God. What a disaster it could eventually be. We're waiting for the Lord to come, aren't we? We're longing to see him. We'll thank him for every good and perfect gift he gives, more than we need, and he gives it abundantly, and they are good and they're perfect gifts. May God keep our hearts from being taken from him and showing him disloyalty, that our love may burn ever the more brightly, and that we may follow the Lamb with all the energy and time that we can give.
So shall the King greatly desire our beauty. When he comes, we shall rise to meet him, not only with joy, but with a character, a garment, cleansed by the blood of Christ, yes, but into which, by his grace, by our patient work, we have put in the embroidery of the righteous acts of the saints for his eternal pleasure.
