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In this lesson, Aaron Cozort explores the deep symbolism and prophecy in the book of Revelation, emphasizing that it is about the current kingdom of God and its victory, not a future event. He clarifies common misconceptions about the timing of God's kingdom and the significance of the visions John received.
Creators and Guests
Host
Aaron Cozort
What is Admonition Podcast?
The Admonition podcast brings you Bible lessons and sermons from the Collierville Church of Christ with host Aaron Cozort. Each episode focuses on interpreting Scripture in its original context, exploring the background of key passages, events, and teachings. Gain deeper insight into God’s Word as we study together, applying timeless truths to everyday life.
Good to see everyone here this morning.
I jinxed myself on the way here.
I made a comment to my mother in law that it's a good thing she came for an extended visit
this particular year because this very well may be the smoothest ride you ever get on an
interstate in Memphis right now.
And I said that and not uh not five minutes later we get to the three eighty five exit to
get off two forty and come down three eighty five as completely blocked off.
And
They they didn't bother to tell any of you know Google or Apple or anybody else that
they're shutting down the uh the the entrance onto three eighty five.
Nothing.
Nothing.
No indication at all that hey by the way, three eighty five's closed.
So it takes a little longer to get here on Poplar.
I'll just tell I'll just tell you that.
All right.
So it we're we're we're just glad to be here and uh glad all of you are here and we can be
grateful for safety and smooth roads that we can't eventually drive on.
So all right, let's begin with a word of prayer and then we'll get into our study.
Gracious Father in heaven, we come before you grateful for the day that you've blessed us
with, for the beauty of it, for all that you do for us.
And all that you have granted to us for the beauty of the world and the earth, the
provisions that you grant to us, the sunshine, the rain, all of the things that are upheld
by the word of your power.
Lord, we pray that you will be with us as we go through this day.
May the things that we say and the things that we do be right and in accordance with your
will, and in and may we help uh others and encourage one another to
Know what your word has in it that we might know how you would have us to live and how you
would have us to serve you.
All this we pray and ask in Jesus' name.
Amen.
So a little bit of level setting because we're we're nearing the end of chapter 17.
So by way of review, going back through what we've discussed in the book of Revelation.
Chapter one, the book opens in John.
Is there on the Isle of Patmos?
It is the Lord's Day.
He is in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, as the text says.
And interesting point, one worth continuing to bring up.
John states at the opening of the book, because so many people will in the religious world
will come to this book and they say, This is about when Christ returns to establish his
kingdom.
That's what they're gonna tell you it's about.
That's what uh all the Jehovah's Witness doctrine tells you the book of Revelation is
about.
Th these are the signs and this is what's gonna happen at the coming of the kingdom.
John writes in Revelation chapter 1, verse 9, that he is our brother in the kingdom.
Present tense.
He says, I am your brother in tribulation.
I'm going to go through this with you, and you and I are in the kingdom.
Jesus would say in Mark chapter 9, verse 1, as he spoke to his apostles.
He said, Some of you standing here shall not taste death till you see the kingdom of God
present or come with power.
And there's one of those apostles who was not alive when that happened.
Which one?
Judas.
The other eleven were present on the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem when the kingdom of God
came with power.
Whose power was it that it came with?
The power of the Holy Spirit.
It came as a direct fulfillment of what Joel prophesied in Joel chapter two, and Peter
said this is that which Joel prophesied.
So the kingdom came.
The kingdom is already here.
It came with power.
And John was in the kingdom when he wrote the book of Revelation, which tells us the book
of Revelation is not about the coming of the kingdom.
It is about the fulfilling of the prophecies concerning the kingdom that Daniel saw and
interpreted, and the fulfillment of what God promised to do in the kingdom in that he
would establish a kingdom that would never be destroyed.
And John is writing to the church, which makes up the kingdom of God on earth, and he is
writing to those Christians to tell them, I know it looks like the kingdom's gonna fall.
I know it looks like the beast is gonna win.
I know it looks like the devil's got a hold on you, and you are going to be crushed by the
Roman Emperor and his.
minions and I know it looks like everything that God said from A D six hundred all the way
forward is going to fail.
But I'm writing this book to let you know you win.
And it won't look like it midway through.
But I'm going to tell you how it turns out.
So John is in the Spirit on the Lord's Day on the Isle of Patmos as he begins to write the
vision and the things which he saw.
And he turns to hear a voice that spoke behind him, and he fell on the ground because of
the presence of the one whose presence was there speaking to him, and it looked like
Christ, but in a glorified state.
And Christ was standing there holding in his right hand the seven stars, which represent
the seven churches, and was surrounded by the seven golden lampstands, which represent the
messengers of the seven churches.
And John is told to write to the seven churches of Asia Minor because they're going to go
through this because they're Roman cities.
And he writes to them to tell them, I know your works.
I know what you've done.
I know what you're good at, and I know what you're bad at.
I know that some of you I'm putting no more burden on because you're already going through
it.
And some of you, you repent, or I'm going to come make war with you.
Chapter 4 opens, and John sees an open door in heaven and is basically called to go
through the door.
He goes through the door and he enters into the throne room of God and he sees the one
who's sitting on the throne.
And he doesn't describe the one who's sitting on the throne.
He describes the glory of the one who's sitting on the throne, and the glory that
surrounds the throne, and the sea of glass that surrounds the throne, and the four beasts
that surround the throne, and the twenty-four elders that surround the throne.
And their singular message is this: the one who's on the throne.
Reigns and is worthy.
Interestingly, if you had a throne and you had a person on the throne, and the person on
the throne was reigning, what might you call the person who's on the throne?
A king.
What is a king if he's reigning?
What does he have?
Power and a kingdom.
When John walks through the door to the throne room of God, he sees a king who is reigning
over his kingdom.
And then you find that not only is there a king reigning over his kingdom, but there's
twenty four elders that are sitting on
What does John call the things they're sitting on?
Front.
they come off those thrones and they take the crowns that they wear and they cast them
before the one who they sit before because they're praising the one who's sitting on the
throne, who is a king, who has a kingdom.
And they worship him.
And then as chapter six or chapter five opens, rather, the one who's sitting on the throne
has a scroll in his right hand.
And John is desiring to see what is in the scroll, to know what is written on the scroll,
because it's written on the inside and then on the out, and it's sealed with seven seals.
And they go through heaven and earth to find someone who's worthy to open the scroll and
to read the message from the king who.
Who's sitting on the throne?
And no one can be found.
John begins to weep, but one of the angels comes to tell John, don't weep, for we found
the one who's worthy to open the scroll.
And it's the Lamb who was slain and who is alive.
It's the lion of the tribe of Judah.
It's the Christ.
And so the one who is the lion, who is the lamb.
who is the Christ goes and takes the scroll from the one who's sitting on the throne.
And he opens the scroll.
And before he opens the scroll, as he is worthy to take the scroll, he is declared worthy
to be the one who is king.
And the Hebrew writer helps us with this, by the way.
Because the Hebrew writer tells us that all things were put under his feet.
That is Christ.
But the Hebrew writer makes it incredibly clear.
He says when we say all things were put under his feet, Christ, that of course excludes
the one who put all things under his feet, which is who?
God the Father.
Uh it's this interesting thing about universal affirmatives.
All things well, technically the Hebrew writer says, well, it's some things.
Because there's one thing that is excluded from everything, and it's God the Father is not
put under the feet of Christ.
Yes, sir.
Mm-hmm.
they controlled what would have been considered the known world at that time, in the sense
that yeah uh they didn't control China, they didn't control other parts of the region.
So, from a regional perspective, for a person in the Roman Empire, they they were the
world power.
But uh there were regions of the planet that that those people
had never traveled to and and would not have been cons they would have considered those to
be the the barbarian regions.
Yeah.
So so from from that perspective, the perspective of a first century person in that Middle
East region, they can they controlled the whole known world.
Good question.
um So when you when you look at chapter six
Chapter six, or sorry, chapter five, get my numbers right.
Chapter five says there's one who's sitting on the throne.
And there's one who's before the throne, who's the lamb, who has all the same power and
all the same might and all the same worthiness as the one who sits on the throne.
He doesn't supplant the one who sits on the throne.
He shares his glory.
Okay?
And you remember in John chapter 17, Jesus prayed to the Father that when he was about to
go to the cross, that God would restore to him the glory that he had with the Father
before the world was.
So Jesus says, I'm going back to my rightful position, sharing the glory of deity at the
throne.
Okay.
So if you have a lamb who's worthy to reign, who shares the glory of God the Father who's
sitting on the throne, then you might consider that the one who's reigning, who is the
Lamb, has is a king who has a kingdom, and he is reigning over his kingdom.
And John's point is, we're supposed to know all of this already, because Daniel prophesied
that it was going to happen in the days of these kings, that the God of heaven was going
to set up a kingdom which would never be destroyed.
And for all the Jehovah's Witnesses and for all those in the religious world who are of a
dispensational premillennialist mindset that say they're still waiting for the kingdom.
You disagree with Daniel.
Because Daniel said it was going to happen in the days of the Roman Empire.
That these things would happen and the God of heaven would set up a kingdom.
So either you're right or Daniel's right, but you can't both be right.
So chapter six opens, and the one who is worthy to sit on the throne, the one who is the
lamb who was slain, the lion of the tribe of Judah, Jesus Christ, begins to open the
scroll and begins to loose the seals, and he sees first the white horse, then the red
horse, then the black horse, then the pale horse.
And it begins, and it looks like the church is winning.
It looks like the kingdom of God is going forth and conquering all the other nations
because that's what J Nebuchadnezzar saw in the vision.
He saw this mountain rise up, made without hands, and the mountain turned into a great
kingdom, and it wiped away all the other kingdoms.
The white horse goes forth and he's conquering, and it looks like nobody's gonna stop him
except then the red horse comes and and war begins, and the black horse comes and economic
pressures begin, and the pale horse comes, and who's sitting on the pale horse?
If you know the Johnny Cash song, you know.
Death is sitting on the pale horse and hell follows with him.
And it looks like the kingdom is going to be decimated by the powers of Satan.
And then the fifth seal is open, and under the altar are the souls of the saints who have
been dying for the testimony of Jesus Christ and for his word, and they are crying out to
the Lord, how long are you going to let this happen?
How long, O Lord, faithful and true?
We're not doubting your ability and we're not doubting your faithfulness and we're not
doubting your authority and we're not doubting your power.
We're just wondering how long until we see it.
Because we're dead, and a whole lot of those who we know and love who are faithful to you
are going to die too.
And they're given robes and they're told to rest for a little while.
And the sixth seal is open, and God's answer is forecasted.
Yeah, I'm going to deal with these people.
And when I'm close to being done, they're going to go and call for the mountains to fall
on them to protect them from the wrath of the Lamb.
But before we do that, chapter 8 or chapter 7 opens, and God says, Hold on, before we
start this judgment thing, we need to mark those that belong to God because I'm not
judging them.
And so the angels go and they they mark all those who belong to the Lamb and who have the
testimony of his name.
And chapter 3 tells us, as John writes to the churches, that the churches are those who
wear the name of God.
So those who are in the kingdom and those who belong to God and are those who have his
name written on their forehead, and it's the Christians in the churches that are being
persecuted by Rome.
And so you have seven angels.
After all those who belong to God are marked, you have seven angels, and they are given
seven trumpets, and they begin to pronounce partial judgment that goes out to the
persecutors of God's kingdom.
God's church.
And they begin to blow those trumpets, and with each trumpet comes uh a picture like an
Exodus plague.
But it's all partial judgment.
A fourth of this dies, and a fourth of this is destroyed, and a fourth of this, and a
fourth of that.
And as these trumpets progress.
More judgments, more warnings come from God to those persecuting powers saying you can
repent, you've still got time.
Then the seventh trumpet blows, and inside the seventh trumpet, you have a warning as
those last three trumpets blow that there's there's more coming.
Repent now.
And then there's a pause.
And John sees a mighty angel with one foot on the land and one foot on the sea.
God reigns over land and sea, right?
And his messenger can come put his feet down on land and sea because that's part of God's
kingdom.
And he's got another message in his hand.
And John is told to go take the little book and to read the message.
And he says, it's going to be sweet in your mouth and it's going to be bitter in your
belly.
Because the message is going to be the Christians win, but they win through the
tribulation.
They win through the hardship that's coming.
They're victorious, but they're going to go through it.
And so John sees two witnesses.
He sees the olive trees standing there.
And these witnesses declare the word of God, and they have the lampstands, and their light
never goes out.
And he sees the two witnesses in human form, and they look like Moses and Elijah in the
works that they perform.
This is the Old Testament prophet's testimony that you're going to speak the word of God,
you're going to be faithful to the word of God, and the world is not going to hear you.
Rather, they're going to kill you.
But as John watches the vision and he sees these things occur, he sees the testimony for
the Word of God proclaimed by the two witnesses.
And as long as they're speaking the Word of God, the world can't touch them.
That the moment the message is finished, the world kills them and leaves their bet their
bodies dead lying in the street.
For three and a half days, they don't even bury them.
They just throw a party and rejoice that the people who were speaking the word of God are
dead.
But three and a half days later, half of a seven, there's a lot of sevens, there's a lot
of three and a halves in the book.
For a partial amount of time, it looks like the world wins.
But God says, Hold on, wait a minute.
He resurrects his witnesses back to life, brings them up into heaven, and judgment
commences.
Another picture saying, No, world, you don't win.
But my people are going to be faithful to me.
You're going to kill them.
You're going to persecute them.
And then I'm going to judge you.
And then chapter 12 opens.
And John sees a woman.
And she looks like the church.
She looks like the people of God.
She looks like Israel of old that brought forth the Messiah.
And she brings forth a child and the devil, the dragon.
This red serpent is there and he's waiting to consume the child.
He's waiting to kill the Messiah.
He thinks, you know what, if I can just kill this baby, I win.
And just as he thinks he's about to consume the child, God brings the child up in heaven.
So you see Satan and his minions follow him up into heaven and go make war with the
angels.
Now, are we being told about a literal physical event where the where Satan left the earth
with his minions and they went up into heaven and they made war, and Michael the archangel
sends them back down?
No.
The point is the devil loses to Christ on earth.
He loses to Christ in heaven.
And he even loses to the descendants of God's people on earth.
The devil loses everywhere he goes.
But the dragon brings forth the sea beast and land beast.
And remember where the mighty angel put his feet?
He put his feet in the kingdom of God.
He put his feet where God has authority and God has power.
God rules over the kingdoms of men.
Isn't that what God told Nebuchadnezzar?
Da way back in Daniel chapter four, when Nebuchadnezzar got to go eat grass like a cow,
and got to have his hair grow out like birds' wings, birds' feathers, a and got to spend
all that time not ruling over his kingdom that he thought he built.
And then God not only brought his right mind back to him, but put him back on the throne
that God had reserved for Nebuchadnezzar while all of this was transpiring?
Now you pause for a moment and think.
Do you not think that there was someone in the Babylonian kingdom that was ambitious, that
was power hungry, that would have in a moment usurped Nebuchadnezzar's position on the
throne and taken the throne?
I'm not aware of many courts or kingdoms where there's not somebody of that personality
and of that demeanor ready to take the throne at any moments of weakness.
And God makes it so clear that he rules in the kingdoms of men and gives it to whomever he
wills, that not a single one of those people was able to take the throne from
Nebuchadnezzar while Nebuchadnezzar was out grazing like a cow.
Mean how more vulnerable can you get?
What happens to cows?
huh.
Ground beef.
They get slaughtered.
And God makes it clear in Nebuchadnezzar.
I can put you in such a vulnerable position that you could be slaughtered tomorrow if you
were the cow that you're acting like.
And I can take you out there and I can make you graze like a cow, and then I can put you
right back on that throne, and I can make sure nobody touches your throne while you're
gone.
From which Nebuchadnezzar writes, The kingdom of God, or God rules in the kingdoms of men.
So when the angel comes down and sets his feet on the right on the land and on the sea,
and hands John a little book and says, Hey, this is how it's going to work out, he's
declaring God rules.
And his messengers can put their feet wherever they want to.
But then out of the land and out of the sea, the dragon brings forth his minions, his
kingdom, his
Roman armies and his false prophets and his false teachers and those who say if you want
to sell in the marketplace of Rome here in Ephesus, you're going to have to declare that
Caesar is God.
Watch the thing from World Video Bible School.
They recently posted John Moore in his uh Bible Lands passages was discussing Ephesus.
And there at the gate of
To the marketplace, there was an image made to Domitian.
An image made to the Caesar, who's going to be the one persecuting the church and
declaring him to reign as the son of God.
And so as you walked into that marketplace at the end of the first century and the
beginning of the second century, that same marketplace most likely that Paul would have
sat at with Aquila and Priscilla and made tents and sold them, that same marketplace you
would have walked under a gateway to an image, to a Caesar, declared to be the Son of God.
And so the beast rises up and the beast is Rome, inhib in exhibiting the power of Satan to
destroy the kingdom, and the beast has his minions and it's the land beast and the sea
beast, and they're going forth and they're declaring, Listen, if you don't worship Caesar,
if you don't worship Rome, you're going to die.
Then chapter 14 opens up, and where do you see the saints?
Well, you see them dead and and slaughtered and lying all over.
No, you don't.
You see them standing on Mount Zion with the lamb, rejoicing and singing because they're
victorious.
They're not dead.
They didn't lose.
They weren't vanquished.
They weren't destroyed.
They win.
In chapter 14, you see the 144,000, an exemplification of God's people.
You see a declaration in chapter 14: Babylon is fallen, that great city.
Hey, you know, look back in history.
Where's Babylon?
It's gone.
Guess what?
God said it would be.
Look at the new Babylon, Rome.
Where is it gonna be?
The same place the old one was, fallen.
Gone.
And there's one who's given a sharp sickle.
And he's sitting on a cloud and he's told, go reap the earth.
Go harvest the field that I've made ready.
And so the bowls begin to be poured out.
The judgments begin to commence.
God says, You didn't repent, you didn't follow my warning.
Now here comes final judgment.
And so in chapter 15 and 16, seven angels are handed seven bowls, and they proceed to pour
out the judgments of God.
And again,
These Egyptian plagues, like we saw in Exodus, are again rehearsed, and now it's a full
judgment, not a partial judgment.
So, chapter 17, after these bowls are all poured out, John says, Hold on, uh we need to go
look deeper at who this beast is, who this dragon is, and the woman who rides on him that
looks like a harlot, because she is, because she seduced all the kingdoms of the earth.
to make war against God and to rebel against God and to worship Caesar instead.
And so John begins to describe the harlot as he sees in the vision.
And he she looks like she's the one who's in charge.
She looks like she has the power of all the kings of the earth.
She looks like she's riding on Satan and she's conquering.
But she's drinking.
She's drinking from the blood of the saints who she's persecuting.
And God says, I'm going to show you how she falls.
But he identifies in chapter seventeen the one
Or the time where all this is going to occur, and the beginning of this judgment.
And as we discussed last week, it happens during the time of the seven heads that are
seven mountains, verse nine, which the woman sits.
There are seven kings, five have fallen, one is, and the other is not yet come, and when
he comes, he must continue for a short time.
The beast that was and is not is himself also the eighth.
and is of the seven and is going into perdition.
And so we looked last week at the kings of Rome, beginning with Augustus, and how they
match exactly what John is saying, and John is using the picture from Daniel seven, and
Daniel and John are right there in agreement.
The book is received during the days where the persecution has not yet begun, in the days
of the sixth king, which is Vespasian.
It is towards the end of his time on the throne, because there's another king coming who's
going to be the seventh, and he's going to be there for a little while, and Titus will
come to the throne, the son of Vespasian, and he will reign for two years, two months, and
two days.
And then Domitian will come to the throne and he will be the eighth.
And he will come to the throne and he will make it governmental policy across the Roman
Empire to persecute Christians.
And persecution will commence that will continue for two hundred years.
But God says, don't worry about it.
In the person of Domitian, I'm going to judge Rome and I'm going to declare her done.
Just the way I did in Nebuchadnezzar's day.
And while it looks like you're going to die, and it looks like you're going to suffer, and
you are Christians, I'm going to tell you how it's going to end.
I'm going to tell you how it's going to turn out.
So we notice verse 11.
The beast that was and is not is himself also the eight, and is of the seven and is going
into perdition.
The ten kings which you saw, sorry, the 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.
That there's there's subjugated kings, the kings in the regions around Rome that they
would gain authority over.
And they would draw tribute from, and they would draw authority from, and they would
expand the power of Rome from the willingness of those kings to cooperate, would also
become the kings that would rebel against Rome and would ultimately lead to part of the
downfall of Rome.
Yes, sir.
Domitian.
The three that are taken out are Otho, Galba and Vitilius, and they come and go in two
years during a period of civil war in in Rome.
Correct, because uh Rome is in in the days that Nero falls, so Nero dies, and because Nero
had so corrupted the Senate and everything about the government in Rome, which is why he
was killing Christians, is it was an excuse to of not have people look at what he was
doing to the government, the the government is just in complete disarray.
So th s one faction will put Otho up as emperor.
And another faction will begin a civil war and overthrow Otho and kill him.
And so Galba's put up as emperor by another faction and then they'll kill him.
And another em the third emperor comes up and they kill him, right?
So uh in two years of just complete disarray in Rome are is the the three that Daniel
describes as being the ones who are uprooted.
Okay?
Yes, you even when you read Tertullian and and others, there were historians of the first
century in ancient times, they all wrote that Nero basic or sorry, Domitian was like
having a second Nero.
He he carried on and and by the way, you can see this idea in the Old Testament in the
kings of the northern kingdom of Israel, where God will say, This king did evil.
Like Jeroboam.
Right?
They'll go back and the good kings, this one was faithful like David.
There's set been seven kings between this one and David, but this one was faithful like
David.
And so what John is saying here is with the eighth, with Domitian, you're going to look
back and you're going to see him in the past.
And you're going to see him in Nero.
You're going to see him in number five.
Okay?
You're going to see him, he's in the seven that have already come and gone.
So you're seeing this little Nero.
Not that they were by related by blood or relationship, family relationship, but that
their rule and their authority and their declaring themselves to be God is what is seen in
that.
Okay?
So, verse all good questions, and feel free to ask any questions as we go along.
He says, verse 13, these are of one mind.
And they will give their power and authority to the beast.
Notice these ten subjugated kings, they're feeding the beast their authority and their
power.
They're handing their power and authority over the beast, saying, Hey, do whatever you
want to.
Okay?
He says, These 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.
God says, I'm gonna tell you what's gonna happen.
As Rome's power coalesces around the throne and around Caesar, he's going to start
employing his authorities around his empire to start persecuting Christians.
And they're going to start killing them.
And they're going to start persecuting them.
And when they do, I'm going to tell you how it's going turn out.
They're going to lose.
Because the Lamb.
Is going to make war with them.
And you won't be able to open the books of history and go, look, in this province, the
Christians overthrew the government and took that king out.
No, that's not how the Christians win.
How do the Christians win?
Well, you go look back in the text, and what does he say about those who are with the
Lamb?
They are called, chosen, and faithful.
The Christians don't win by overthrowing the government.
Special note to those in America today.
The Christians don't win by overthrowing the government.
They win by preaching the gospel.
They win by changing the hearts and minds of men.
It was in Paul's day that they would accuse Paul of being one who had turned the world
upside down with the message of Jesus Christ.
And yet amazingly, Paul never raised an army.
Paul never went to war against Rome.
Paul is likely going to die at the very hand of Nero.
And yet Paul is said to have turned the world upside down with the message of the cross.
Revelation 17 says we win.
And we didn't win by starting a rebellion or starting a war or taking up arms in the
physical sense.
We win by being called, chosen, and faithful.
And chapter 17, verse 15, then he said to me, The waters which you saw, where the harlot
sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues.
Now what do we do when we get in the text and the text tells us what something is?
We know that's what it is.
So what are the waters that the woman sits on?
There it is, peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues.
This is a government.
Big surprise, isn't it?
Because that's the thing that sits over peoples and multitudes, nations and tongues.
A government.
And so he says, here's the woman.
And the waters that you saw underneath her.
Are the upon which the harlot sits are peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues.
And the ten horns which you saw on the beast, these will hate the harlot.
Now, just a moment ago, we read that the kings that were the horns are giving their power
and authority to the harlot, right?
So John tells you they're not doing it because they like her, they're doing it while they
hate her.
He says these 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.
For those who have read the history of Rome, did Rome fall from the inside or the outside?
The inside.
God says, I'm gonna win.
And I'm going to defeat the harlot.
And I'm going to defeat her minions.
And I'm going to do it by turning them against themselves.
Because where she thinks her power comes from are a group of people that hate her.
And he goes on to write For God has put it in 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.
And the woman whom you saw is.
That great city which reigns over the kings of the earth.
When you open the book of Revelation.
And John tells you what something is, that's what it is.
And in chapter 17, John says that the woman, the harlot, that rides on the dragon, that
has seven heads and ten horns and an eighth head that comes up, and the horns are ten
kings that give their power and authority to the harlot, and the horns are the ones who
are going to rebel and burn her and destroy her from the inside out.
That woman, in the present tense, is the city that rules over the kingdoms of the earth.
Now, when John was sitting on the Isle of Patmos in the first century in exile for the
testimony of Jesus Christ and his kingdom, and was writing that he was in the kingdom of
Jesus Christ as he was writing this, and that Christ was on the throne, and that God the
Father was on the throne, and that yet there was a kingdom and a harlot that was ruling
over the kings of the earth.
What
city at that moment in time was ruling over the kingdoms of the earth.
It's really not hard, folks.
If you let the text speak for itself.
The book was written when that persecuting king hadn't yet come up.
It was written in the lull between one persecutor and another.
And it was written about a city, about a kingdom that thought it was going to defeat the
one who sat on the real throne in heaven.
And the one who sits on the real throne in heaven says, Oh no, you're not.
And I'm going to tell you how you're going to fall.
And I'm going to tell you how I'm going to destroy you.
And then I'm going to say, everything I wrote in Old Testament prophecy has been
fulfilled.
You see, chapter 17 is the clear declaration that this book is the reassurance that what
God wrote and showed Daniel in a vision in Daniel chapter 7, in Daniel chapter 12, in
Daniel chapter 2, he was going to fulfill every single aspect.
And he wasn't going to miss a single point.
And God says, I'll tell you when the woman's gonna fall.
When everything that I said I'd do is done.
And when she falls, everything I said I'd do will be done.
Okay?
Thank you for your attention.