Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #14 of Revelation, chapter 17, and we are going to be reading Revelation 17: 16-18:

And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled. And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.

We have been going, verse by verse, through Revelation, chapter 17, and we have seen how God has pictured Satan as the beast with ten horns and He used that image to describe Satan’s rule throughout history.  In these last several verses the ten horns that rule “one hour” are especially representing that final little season of the Great Tribulation. 

We discussed last time how the “ten horns” hate the “whore,” who is Babylon, the kingdom of Satan.  Satan hates those he rules over and he hates them primarily through his lying tongue.  He puts forth lies in the world and in the churches and these lies are very destructive.  That is the nature of a lie.  Right from the very beginning, what did believing Satan’s lie accomplish for Adam and Eve?  It brought death for them and for all mankind.  There is no good thing that comes with a lie.  This is why God’s people are privileged and blessed to know the truth and we can only know the truth if it is God’s will according to His grace that we are given “ears” to hear and “eyes” to see and a new mind to understand the truth of the Word of God.  So the Lord’s people have a special love for the truth.  We see this stated in 2Thessalonians, chapter 2, in the context of the Lord sending “strong delusion” upon the unsaved people in order that they would believe a lie.  It says in 2:10-14:

And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God gives the elect a love of the truth and they believe the truth.  It is all part of the gift of God.  We hear the truth, unlike others in the world.  It is the “voice of Christ,” as He is the “the way, the truth, and the life.”  We “hear” when God says there is not to be divorce for any reason; we nod our heads and we understand it as truth and we agree and obey.  When God says a woman is not to teach and usurp authority over the man, we do not get involved in modern theatrics because the woman’s role has expanded in society.  We do not dispute with God, but we agree with what God wants on this point and on all points of doctrine. 

For these reasons, when God opened up at the time of the end, He was confident His people would listen.  They were hard and difficult truths, like the end of the church age and this was a very grievous teaching that was coming forth from the Word of God after almost 2,000 years of the churches and congregations being used of God.  His people had gone to church and they had taken their families to church to worship Him in the churches of the world.  But, suddenly, the information from the Bible was to get out of the churches and never go back.  What about the families that did not agree with this?  What about our friends?  For many of us, this was also an important part of our social structure; this was where we met other people and we spent our Sundays in the churches.  All of a sudden, it was all over with and God was saying, “Now get out of the churches and worship me alone, if you have to, through my Word, the Bible.”  Some of us struggled with that and it was especially hard if your wife did not “see” it or your husband did not “see” it and they insisted that we should still go to church and, yet, God’s people have a love of the truth; they cannot deny the truth.  They cannot continue on in a situation where they are only trying to please a family member, the pastor, or the elders.  The true believers felt very uncomfortable and very troubled in mind because they might have been pleasing other people, but they were not pleasing God, so, eventually, they departed out; they had to get out of the churches and not look back because they had a love for the truth.

What does Christ tell us about love?  He tells us, “If you love me, keep my commandments.”  God’s commandments are the truth and a love for the truth is obedience to the commandments of God.  It is a demonstration of love for Christ and for the truth.  Those that do not love God are not much troubled.  There are so many churches that teach so many variations on the same doctrine, whether it is the doctrine of baptism or many other doctrines.  You can go to ten churches and hear ten different things taught and it never occurs to them to dig into the Bible to make sure that their particular church is teaching the truth because they do not have that intense desire to do the will of God or the love of the truth.  Let me read it, again, in 2Thessalonians 2:10-11:

And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie…

It does not bother them that they hold onto doctrines like the “free will” doctrine, where you just “accept Christ” and you become saved.  It does not disturb them that the Bible says that is a “work” and that no man is justified by the works of the Law.  The Bible also says we are “dead in sin” and, of course, a spiritually dead corpse cannot rise up and accept Christ.   These are doctrines that the child of God cannot rest in; they see the disharmony because they see other Scriptures that are unanswered in the doctrines the churches put forth. 

This is why during the church age (or during the time when they thought the church age was still active) the true believers would go to the pastor and they would say, “Pastor, you taught this, but what about these other Scriptures?”  It was not that the child of God was trying to be a thorn in the side or trying to proudly usurp the authority of the pastor.  It was only out of the love for the truth that they wanted to harmonize these things. They thought, “Maybe the pastor has an answer for these other verses.”  But the way it was perceived by the church authorities was that this individual was rising up against the authority of the church and the pastor and elders; he was causing trouble because he had questions that made it appear that they were teaching falsely.  They could never answer his questions and they did not try too hard to do so, but, eventually, they would say to the individual, “Maybe you would be happier if you found another church.”  They do not have a love for the truth and it is the love of the truth that God has given His people that God knows full well will lead His people in the right path, especially at the time of the end when every brother would utterly supplant and the entire church world would go apostate.  Of the million gospels out there, 999,999 of them were false and led people astray. 

Yet, God knew there was no deep concern or difficulty for His people because when He would open the Scriptures to reveal the end of the church age or the fact that Christ died from the foundation of the world or that “Hell” was not a place but a condition or the doctrine of annihilation or the appointed Day of Judgment being May 21, 2011, or any other truths from His Word, His people would believe them.  Some of these things were tremendously different than the previous understanding of doctrines held by the people of God, especially a doctrine like “Hell.”  We had held onto that doctrine for so long and we thought that was one of the pillars of faithfulness – you must believe in “Hell” and you must teach about “Hell” and you must let people know that there was a place called “Hell” where unsaved people would suffer for evermore.  Then God “pulled the rug out from under us” and surprised us with these revelations and, yet, He knew that not one of His people would fall away because of this.  He is in control and He opened their ears through the harmony of the Scriptures, as they compared Scripture with Scripture.  It is all laid out and the reaction of someone who loves the truth is to say, “Oh, I was wrong.”  They do not hold onto wrong doctrine out of pride or out of embarrassment. 

The child of God wants and receives correction and then they walk in that correction, in the truth of the Word of God.  They want that path and they always want to go the right way.  They all want the truth.  They do not want to just pay “lip service” to the truth.  They do not want people to present lies as truth.  They want the real and complete truth of God’s Word and that is why they search the Bible.  When they find it, it does not matter who disagrees with it or if others think they are crazy or heretics or evil. 

Of course, this was the case when God opened up information from His Word concerning Judgment Day and the fact that it did actually occur as a spiritual judgment on May 21, 2011.  God shut the door to heaven and ended His salvation program and God’s people shared that information and there was a very strong negative reaction in response against it: “You must be hateful people.  You are teaching the worst thing imaginable – you are teaching something that is injurious to others and will harm them.  How can you teach this kind of thing?”  The amount of rhetoric against it and the strong condemnation was meant to frighten the people of God and to drive them back from that doctrine.  Yet, all God’s people could do is look to the Bible and they saw it did fit when God spoke of the light of the Gospel going out and the door to heaven being shut.  All sorts of Scripture fit together and harmonized, along with the Biblical calendar of history.  God’s people cannot go back and bow the knee to man and submit to the forcefulness of the opposition because they are reviling and speaking reproachfully.  They can only continue on in the truth.  It is because of the spirit God has put within His people that they maintain a love of the truth.

Here in Revelation 17, it says that Satan has no such love.  The people within his kingdom also lack the love of the truth.  Therefore, when they are afflicted with the lying tongue, which is an act of hate on Satan’s part, they are not able to discern it or see the difference.  They cannot be too upset.  They are not troubled by the lie.  They embrace the lie. That is why it says, “God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.”  They love the lie and they hate the truth.  This is the nature of unsaved people, even though it will lead to their own destruction and, yet, they love the lie. 

It is really incredible when we look at our world and we look at the things that people believe and the things they would rather believe.  For instance, regarding holidays, we know that God’s Word speaks of the birth of the Saviour and it was that glorious time that God entered the human race and became a man.  What a cause for celebration when people want to observe that event.  Yet, the world takes that tremendous and incredible truth and turns it into “Santa Claus,” who is not even a real man.  It is all based on lies.  Santa will come and place presents under your tree and make his way down your chimney.  What a pathetic and pitiful lie.  Yet, it is uplifted and put in the place of this tremendous and glorious truth of Almighty God entering into the human race, but most people prefer the lie.

Another example is the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and the day we observe as His rising from the dead in 33 AD, which was a demonstration of His rising from the dead from the foundation of the world.  It was the most wonderful, true, historical event that is worthy to be called a great and tremendously important thing for man because it showed forth the justification of God for those for whom Christ died.  Since He rose from the dead, His people would rise from the dead.  Since death could not hold Him, it was an indicator that death cannot hold us.  It was really a testimony that we would live for evermore.  Is there anything more wonderful than that?  Is there anything more beautiful and glorious that anyone could even imagine?  But, what does the world put in place of this wonderful truth?  They focus on an Easter bunny that hides eggs and they spend the time talking about a rabbit and coloring eggs.  Why?  Why do they make that kind of pathetic and pitiful substitution?  It is only because they have no love for the truth.  They have no regard and no love for Christ and no love for the things of God, the Word of God or for the truth.  They love the lie and it can even be the worst kind of lies like the Easter bunny or a Santa Claus.  It could be lies that no one believes, but they still put it forth and tell their children as if it were true.  This is the world we live in, a world that lifts up fiction.  Fiction is supreme – fictional stories in books, fictional stories on TV and fictional stories at the movies.  There is a saturation of lies in the world and, yet, there is truth and God has written and recorded that truth in His Word, the Bible.  That is why the world hates the Bible and why they hate God, because He is Truth.  They hate the people of God because the people of God have a love for the truth and they will not let it go.  They keep bringing up sin and death and salvation and all these things that the world wants to forget because the world does not want to be reminded of that which is true.  They prefer the lie.

Here, again, it says in Revelation 17:17:

For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.

We know that God is the one that loosed Satan to accomplish His purposes.  In the Book of Jeremiah, chapter 25, verses 8 and 9, the Lord calls Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, His servant.  Nebuchadnezzar was a type of Satan and God used Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon to destroy Judah.  God wanted Satan to have a greater role in the world as the iniquity of mankind would greatly increase during that “one hour” and that “little season” of the Great Tribulation.  This was all according to the will of God and it was done so that the “ten horns” of Satan could fulfill the will of God to be of one mind in doing so and to “give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.”  The word “fulfilled” is the same word that is translated as “finished.”  It is the Greek word “teleo” that is translated as “finished” in Revelation 11, when the testimony of the two witnesses was “finished.”  It is the same word that is translated as “filled up” in Revelation, chapter 15, when God speaks of filling up the wrath of God with the seven vials of the seven last plagues. 

Here, in Revelation 17:17, it is pointing to God’s will being completely fulfilled regarding the Great Tribulation and regarding Judgment Day.

Then it goes on to say in Revelation 17:18:

And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.

Again, the woman is the “harlot” and she is that great city Babylon.  In the King James Version it says, “which reigneth over the kings of the earth,” but the Greek word translated as “reigneth” is not the typical word.  Literally, this should read: “having a kingdom over the kings of the earth.”  The word “reigneth” is not in the original text.  So the great city Babylon has a kingdom over the kings of the earth and that emphasizes that Babylon is the kingdom that is over the kingdoms of the earth, the unsaved inhabitants of this world.  Babylon is Satan’s kingdom and he ruled over the world.  God is setting up the next chapter, as we will see, Lord willing.  As we go into chapter 18, God will use the entire chapter to describe the fall of Babylon, the fall of the kingdom that was over the kings of the earth.  It is the fall of Satan’s kingdom and the fall of this world in the Day of Judgment.