Speaker: Gary Peters

Passage: Revelation 17

REVELATION 17

Incredible chapter. When I read it, you’re going to go, Oh, that’s awesome, Pastor Gary got that today. The whole Book of Revelation is one that I always used to believe he that reads this passage shall be blessed, you know? I didn’t know if I was going to understand it– I still don’t know if I understand it– there’s still a lot of things I completely don’t understand, and I’ve known the Lord for several decades. 

The thing is, God is trying to speak to us some practical things and truths. I just know this: the end is going to be okay. There’s going to be a married supper of the Lamb. He’s going to come back and rule and reign in our life and over this planet, and He’s going to restore all things. That’s the ultimate purpose of God. 

REVELATION 17

Chapter 17, verse 1, “Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke to me, saying–” This is one of the angels that, in chapters 15 and 16, poured out these different bowls of wrath. So now he’s coming to John after that picture, that vision, and he says, “Come here.” 

How many ever had your dad say, Come here? Yeah, this is dad saying, Come here. “I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who sits on the many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed acts of sexual immorality.” Gonna have a lot of stuff about bad sex in this chapter, okay? 

“Those who live on the earth became drunk with the wine of her sexual immorality. And he carried me away in the Spirit to a wilderness; and I saw a woman–” Remember who else was carried? Earlier, he saw the woman give birth to the child, the Christ-child, that was in chapter 11 I believe. Now, we’re seeing this beast. 

“And he carried me away…I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names, and having seven heads and ten horns.” What an ugly woman. Think about it. “The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold, and diamonds and precious stones and pearls, and holding in her hand a gold cup full of abominations of the unclean things of her sexual immorality, and on her forehead…”

The Mark of the Beast is going to be on those that don’t know the Lord’s forehead. On those that know the Lord, in Jeremiah, it says, “Go throughout the city and mark those on their forehead that know me.” In the Old Testament, the mark that he gave Jeremiah was the mark of the cross. 

So here, this woman, this prostitute, “BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES AND THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw a woman drunk with the blood of the saints–” be encouraged, that’s a joke– “With the blood of the witnesses of Jesus. And when I saw her, I greatly wondered. And the angel said to me, ‘Why do you wonder? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and the beast that carries her, who has seven heads and ten horns. 

“‘The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to come out of the abyss and go into destruction. And those who live on the earth, and whose names are not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, will wonder when they see the beast, that he was, is not, and is to come. Here is the mind which has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits–’” this is a picture of Rome– “‘And the seven kings; five have fallen, one is, the other is not yet to come; and when he comes, he must remain a little while. And the beast which was, is not, is himself also an eighth and one of the seven, and he goes to destruction. The ten horns which you saw are the ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but they will receive authority as kings with the beast for one hour–” or a short period of time. “‘These have one purpose, they give their authority and power to the beast.

“‘These will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them because He is the Lord of lords and the King of kings; and those who are with Him are called and chosen and faithful.’” That’s us: called, chosen, and faithful. What an incredible thing. We’re called by God, we’re chosen by God, and we faithfully walk in what He’s asked. 

“And he said to me, ‘The waters which you saw where the prostitute sits are the peoples and multitudes, and nations and languages. And the ten horns which you saw, and the beast, these will hate the prostitute and will make her desolate and naked, and they will eat her flesh and burn her up with fire. For God has put it in their hearts to execute His purpose by having a common purpose, and by giving their kingdoms to the beast, until the words of God will be fulfilled. The woman whom you saw is the great city, which reigns over the kings of the earth.’”

GOD ADJUSTS JOHN’S FOCUS

What the what? What is God saying here? Right? Observations from this chapter: the angel is saying– which is the Lord– is saying to John, Come here, and I will show you. In verse 7, He says, Why do you wonder about these things? Come here; I want to show you what the mystery is, this wonder, this marvel, this idea of identity and focus. 

It is the What the what? It is, What does God want us to refocus on? In Isaiah, when Jesus’ names are given, He’s called the Wonderful Counselor. Gideon’s mom and dad, when he has the angel of the Lord appear to him, he says, “What is your name that I may sacrifice to you?” The angel says, “Why do you ask my name? Because it is too wonderful.” It’s beyond comprehension. 

And so John is struggling with this, and God wants to refocus him. I want to reveal something to you, He says, I want to give you understanding and clarity. Remember a key verse that we spent several weeks on, chapters 4 and 5, after the discourse to the seven churches, He’s trying to get us to focus. 

He says in Revelation 4:1, “Then I looked, and I saw a door open in heaven…” God is asking, here’s an open door. “And the same voice I heard spoke before to me like a trumpet blast.” The voice says, Come up here. Get out of this stuff. Come up here, and I will show you what must happen after this. 

It’s such an important concept in our Christian experience. God wants us to know and experience His voice. I don’t understand, and yet I do, but I don’t understand when Christians say, I can’t hear God. God wants you to hear Him. You know how you primarily hear Him? You devour this book. You read it every day for years on end, and it becomes part of you. 

But God wants to speak to you. God wants to give you insight. Anything He speaks today will not violate what’s in here. There’s not extra-Biblical revelation. There may be something that you need confirmation to, or something you need spoken to, but it’ll confirm what God’s already said. You can hear His voice. He wants to commune with you. 

Our Pastor– Pastor Greg– one of his core scriptures is Psalms 25:14: “The secret of the Lord is for those who fear Him, and He will make known to them His covenant.” If you fear God, you will hear God. It’s that simple. When I don’t hear God, it’s because– normally, if I go to the Lord with something and there’s something wrong in my heart, He’s so faithful, Hey, Gary, what about this? Confession is, Yeah, Lord, what about that? I am sorry for that. Repentance is, I changed my direction.

DON’T FOCUS ON EVIL, FOCUS ON GOD’S VICTORY

There’s been a lot of darkness, a lot of judgment. In this chapter alone, martyrdom, drunk from the blood of the saints. But in the next couple of chapters, the unholy trinity of the dragon, the beast, and the prostitute, are going to be defeated. 

He’s trying to get John’s focus. Don’t focus on that. Don’t marvel about that. Get your eyes up here. I will look to the mountains from where my help comes from. My help comes from the Lord. We get messed up in this, God wants to get us up here, we need to understand that. 

“Then I saw a woman drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the witnesses of Jesus.” The reality throughout Revelation and much of church history and much of what’s going on on our planet today is martyrdom, persecution– true persecution. 

I just read yesterday, in Syria, since the overthrow of Assad, there’s major persecution by Islam to the Christians. We are so blessed in our country– maybe it’s blessing because sometimes it leads to a life of ease– where people are persecuted for their faith, die for their faith, daily. It’s a reality today. 

If you want to read a real encouraging book before you go to bed, read Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, it’ll challenge you, but it’ll be like, Holy cow, what has God done? What is happening? 

John is involved in that. This darkness has been, but the ultimate victory of the Lamb is coming. There’s going to be a restoration of all things. God wanted to give John again the perspective in chapters 4 and 5, to come up here and see the worship of Heaven, get a proper understanding. 

And by the way, it’s not like it’s something that’s going to happen. The worship in Heaven has been happening from all of eternity. The angels cry, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy. You say, Why do they do that? Because the word means unlike anyone else. You’re unlike anyone else. You’re unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. You’re unlike anything I’ve ever met before. You’re unlike anyone I know. You’re God all by Yourself. You don’t need my help. That’s the holiness of God. 

And so for all eternity, past, present, and future, there’s this worship going on, we saw it in 4 and 5. But in 17, 18, and 19, we get a proper perspective of, Come here. I want to show you the ultimate end of Satan and all the evil, all the pain, all the sorrow that it causes. He will be defeated, and God’s creation will be made right and new. 

There’s a new world coming, church. There’s a new Jerusalem coming, and there’s a coming reckoning of evil. Can you imagine how the church of Philadelphia and Sardis felt hearing these words? Finally. They are two of the churches that He complimented out of the seven; five were rebuked for something. Philadelphia and Sardis were under tremendous persecution, and He was telling them to hold on. Some of you are going to die for your faith. Be encouraged. 

I have people all the time go, Pastor, I don’t like to hear you say stuff like that. I don’t like to go there. Guess what? You’re not asked to go there yet. If you’re being asked to go there, you will have grace to go there. So many times we put the cart before the horse, we try to go there before we’ve been asked to go there, and where it’s like, I can’t go there, and that’s right, you can’t go there because you’re not asked to go there yet. Got me? That was confusing.

That’s why people can go through something and have incredible grace on their life to go through it, and others stand back and go, How did your family handle that? How did your family go through that? They went through it with grace and dignity because they relied upon the Holy Spirit. That’s the testimony of Jesus in our life. 

THE ALLURE OF THE PROSTITUTE

The second thing we see is there’s this alluring trap of unbridled sexuality, economic prosperity, and boastful idolatry. There’s no question that John’s listeners, when they read this letter, would have instantly said, this is imperial Rome. Matter of fact, it gives the seven hills that Rome was built on. It’s talking about Rome, but it’s talking about the world system. 

This chapter is going to deal with the sexual idolatry coming down, next chapter is going to deal with the economic aspect of it. Throughout the Old Testament, Israel’s idolatry was likened by God to adultery. When they chased after other gods, He literally talked about them whoring after other gods, going after other gods. He says, and you can jot it down and read it, Hosea 4 and 9, Ezekiel 16, Ezekiel 23, Jeremiah 3 all use this analogy. 

If you’ve read Proverbs recently– and I would encourage you to read a proverb a day– if you’ve read Proverbs recently, chapters 4-7 deal with the immoral woman and her effects on the naive man. Be careful, David is telling Solomon, who’s writing this down, he’s saying, Be careful, don’t follow her ways. It looks enticing, but you’re going to get to the end of your life and go, I wasted my years. I gave my wealth to somebody else. I gave my health to something else. And that’s what he’s trying to say. 

In Proverbs 8 and 9, it deals with the woman called wisdom, who’s godly, and the foolish woman who chases after sexual idolatry, is called the fool, and it uses that contrast. So, we see this language not only in Revelation 17, we see it throughout the Old Testament. 

“There was this woman clothed in purple and scarlet, adorned with gold, and precious stones– or diamonds– and pearls, and holding in her hand a cup full of the abominations of the unclean things and her sexual immorality, and on her forehead was written a name, a mystery: BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES AND THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” 

This prostitute, this spirit of the age in idolatry, which is antichrist– and by the way, I personally believe there’s going to be an anti-Christ, but there’s been many antichrists, John says, that have gone out amongst us. There’s an antichrist spirit. Anything that’s anti-God is anti-Christ. If you want to know what hell is, it’s the opposite of what God is. Everything that God is, hell isn’t 

The spirit of the age contains three things: the first is the sexual component. The Earth became drunk with the wine of her sexuality. Every false religion, every cult– whether it’s small or large– has a component that lacks sexual purity– every one. And refuses to hold to the sanctity of marriage between one man, one woman, until death do us part. Every false religion has some aspect of this in it. 

There’s attitudes of multiple partners are okay, of loose morals, of when you die, you’ll have seventy virgins, of power manipulating control, underage sexuality. You see it, it’s everywhere. Whether it be the Children of God or some LSD– LDS, yeah, they’re kind of the same. And I’m not picking on Mormons; I’m picking on Mormon doctrine. You’re going to have sex for eternity and populate a planet. There’s just some weird stuff in all of these. 

It amazes me that men, in particular, will lose their souls, forsake their families, burn their kingdoms to the ground, and their reputation, over fifteen minutes of sexual pleasure. It’s happened throughout world history. Women manipulating men with sex, men having power and control over women with sex, and it’s just this twisted thing. 

Why is it such a big deal? Why does God make it such a big deal? Two reasons: number one, it perverts the true love of God of no consequences for behavior. God says there’s always consequences with behavior. 

The second reason He puts restrictions on sexual activity is that it’s the one act that humankind does that will create something that will last forever. When a man and a woman come together in a sexual relationship and produce a child, that child, from that point on, will live in eternity somewhere. We have the power to create. And I know God opens and closes the womb, but it takes the act before then. 

THE RICHES AND POWER OF THE PROSTITUTE

The second thing we see is the economic component, the decadence and pride of gaining things on the backs of especially the poor and the slaves. Again, this isn’t a new concept, this is throughout world history, a power comes, controls a population, makes that population submit and do its will, and it’s always on the backs of the poor. It’s always on the backs of the slaves. And every society has had slaves. Study world history, every society, people control people and make them their servants. 

The time-consuming nature of harvest, mining, refining, and manufacturing of these things that John literally states. Number one: purple. It took tens of thousands of murex rock snails to make just a few reams of purple cloth. If you’ve ever seen a conch shell– the smaller ones that have the spines coming up, they’re really beautiful– they would crush those, take the snail out, and then crush the snail and it would excrete a purple dye, to the point that the Roman Empire outlawed purple for anybody that wasn’t an aristocratic or part of the imperial cult. 

Scarlet. Scarlet was made from something that looked like a giant– and by giant I mean like this big, maybe an inch long at the most, half inch– of a roly-poly bug. That’s what they kind of look like. They’re housed in something that looked like a barnacle, and it would attach itself primarily to succulents, but especially prickly pear cacti. Think how many cacti it took to get a few of these beetles to be crushed to make scarlet. 

John is trying to show us here, the Holy Spirit is trying to show us here, the decadence of the world. I remember the first time I went to Southern California, and went through Newport and just drove around. I was blown away. And it’s not that people can’t have things. It’s the arrogance that people have things and make others think that you are less than because I have something you can’t. That’s the idea here. 

Then it says gold. We all are aware of gold; even today, it’s worth something. And then precious gems and diamonds. Romans were obsessed with diamonds. Now, we grow them in a lab, and nobody’s going to know, dude, if you buy one for her, okay? Just thought I’d let you know that. 

Then there’s pearls. They were obsessed with pearls. You know how a pearl is made? An irritant, a grain of sand, goes in the shell of an oyster, and they start coating that, and the longer that thing is coated, the bigger it gets, which means it was a greater irritant. And they harvested them. Now, we grow them in labs, too. 

And the thing is, all of these things took time, destroyed lives, destroyed the environment, destroyed a lot of things so that they could look important and have jewels and they could wear their garments. 

Power without purity corrupts. And we come to the power component. The Caesars used the imperial army to conquer, humiliate, and control. They would remove the natural resources, and they would remove primarily the people. And they would bring the king as a parade in some type of cage or strapped to a chariot, and they would crucify or torture or throw that king into the arena to dominate and make people insecure. The Romans were experts in psychological intimidation and fear resulting in control and unquestioned obedience. 

Power without purity corrupts, and absolute power absolutely corrupts. We’ve got to understand that. That’s why our government has checks and balances. That’s why marriages have checks and balances. That’s why good organizations have checks and balances. I want to tell you something: it doesn’t take long for my human heart to start becoming real arrogant because I have power over someone. 

DARKNESS WILL TURN ON ITSELF

The third thing we see– and I’ve got to hurry– darkness will eventually turn on itself. I felt like the Lord spoke this to me: Evil will always cannibalize its own. “‘Together, they– the scarlet beast, and the kings– will go to war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will defeat them because he is the Lord of lords and King of kings, and His called and chosen and faithful ones will be with him…the scarlet beast and its ten horns will all hate the prostitute. And they will strip her naked and eat her flesh and burn her remains.'” 

This is one part of the unholy trinity– the dragon, the beast, and the prostitute. But notice verse 17: “‘For God has put a plan into their minds, and they will carry out His purposes.’” Even sickness, even sin, even wickedness, even ungodliness can be used by God for His ultimate purposes. 

Don’t flatter yourself by thinking, My sin is so great God can’t heal me or use me. He loves taking a messed up individual that has nothing to offer and say, I’m going to make a saint out of that individual. 

And we become saints before we die, by the way, because saint means holy one. He loves taking messed up marriages, repairing them, and turning to the world to say, Look, this had to be God. It had to be God. 

What we see here, it amazes me: Satan will do God’s bidding. Satan does God’s bidding. He’s not threatened by darkness. It’s not light over here and darkness over here, and they’re having this big battle. Satan is a created being. God always has been. 

I’ve said it before. It’s like Satan crawling up on Pastor Greg’s mic as an ant and saying, I challenge you, God. I’m not mocking him; I’m just saying we’ve got to put it into perspective. Satan will do God’s bidding. It’s happened throughout church history, kingdoms, governments, individuals, marriages, churches, alliances are easily broken when power and control becomes the goal. 

My dad fought in World War Two. I’ve done a lot of study and research and read a lot. Matter of fact, if you go to my Amazon or Netflix, most of my recommendations are documentaries on war. Hitler boasted he was going to have a one-thousand-year Reich, a thousand years. Lasted twelve. And it was brutal, but it lasted twelve. We need to put it in perspective. 

WE CAN TRUST GOD’S ULTIMATE TRIUMPH

In closing, come here, listen to what I’m going to show you. Chapter 17 reminds me of three things: refocus, change your viewpoint and your perspective, there’s victory; we can trust God’s ultimate triumph. 

When I read Revelation now, what I see is God’s triumph. I don’t see darkness. I don’t see blood– it’s the reality– I don’t see kingdoms. I don’t see some prostitute riding a beast with ten horns and seven crowns and fifteen eyeballs and, you know, seven mouths and thirteen ears and all the stuff we get caught up in, We gotta know what that is. God says, Know this: I triumph. Stop focusing on the temporal and focus on the eternal. 

Chapter 17 is a refocusing of the truth of Psalms 110:1, which is quoted in Acts 2 and Hebrews 1: “Rest. The Lord says to my Lord: ‘Sit at My right hand until–’” we live in the until. We live right now in the in-between. I call them ‘tweener times. The ‘tweener times between the finished work of the Cross and the defeat of all evil. 

There’s one enemy that’s definitely not been defeated: it’s called death. Because we were to live eternal with God, and we will one day again. But right now, God says, Come and sit, the position of rest. It’s the already/not yet aspect of the Kingdom of God. Already, He’s done stuff; already, He’s defeated the enemy. It’s not yet complete until I make everything your footstool, Jesus. 

Are you resting in the fact that Jesus has already secured the ultimate triumph over evil? Are you fretting over the threats and intimidations of how evil operates in our society? Are you freaking out because of all the things that are going bad in the world? Get your eyes back on Jesus. Refocus, refocus, refocus. 

It’s kind of like God taking us for the eye exam. It’s like, Is two better or one? Is three better or four? You know what I’m talking about? You ever had an eye exam? I wear glasses. Is six better or seven? God’s saying, Is this better? Look through my perspective; it’s always right. It’s always the best. 

The second thing is reality. We live in a sensual, greedy, power-grabbing world. Don’t fall into the trap and join into the sins of this world system of Babylon the Great. I want to ask you something: are you submitting your sexuality to Jesus? Is it pure? Is it Biblical? Are you honoring God with your finances by living generously and handling your money with integrity? 

April 15th is coming. Do you pay your taxes? Romans 13 says, “Pay your taxes.” I’ve had people say, I don’t like what my taxes are going for. Pay your taxes. Paul tells the Romans to pay their taxes, and Nero is in power. Give unto Caesar what’s Caesar’s, give unto God what’s God’s, you’ll be okay because those same taxes are also paying some stuff you like, like being able to sit in this building without people barging in the doors and killing us all. 

Are you willing to live a submitted life to leadership and those God has placed over you, even that ungodly boss? If your boss is not a Christian and acts like he’s not a Christian, why are you freaked out that he’s not a Christian? Pagans rule and act like pagans, and we need to get over ourselves.

The third thing is sovereignty. This unholy trinity will submit, will submit, will submit to God’s plan and ultimate purpose. And I think it’s so interesting He uses the very thing they’re trying to do to defeat them. A couple years ago, I stood on this stage, and I made a quote, and I haven’t forgotten it because it came from the Holy Spirit, I believe: everybody loves the sovereignty of God until God is sovereign. Everybody loves to talk about God ruling stuff until He starts ruling stuff. 

Are you living like evil is sovereign rather than trusting God’s omnipotence? Are you rejoicing in the reality that God can use all things to bring about His purpose, even your mistakes and your failures? I love Ezra; three times in that book, it says, “And the sovereign hand of God was upon me.” 

The sovereign hand of God, Vintage, is upon you today. He’s called you to live now. You live in a time where angels long to look for. We have the privilege of standing for God in a season that doesn’t seem so awesome. But guess what? God’s sovereign, God’s in control. 

Bow your heads with me, please. Put your hand on your heart. First of all, God, we say, Forgive us for not trusting You. And then we say, God, give us grace to live like You are, sovereign Lord of the universe and sovereign Lord of our lives. 

Thank You for Your faithfulness to us. Thank You, God, that no matter what happens, Jesus wins. Jesus wins. The ultimate intention and purpose of God will be fulfilled. And there will be a Bride for Christ. There will be people of His possession, redeemed from every nation, every tribe, every kingdom, every language. Thank you, Father God. We trust You today in Jesus’ name, Amen.