Let's bow in prayer.
Father, once again, as we take your word into our hands, we open our hearts to what
you would say to us.
And we ask that you will speak to us by your Holy Spirit, and that we will be
willing to hear what your word has to say and what the Spirit has to say to the
churches through your word.
We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Well, I think our topic this afternoon is A Woman Rides the Beast.
I'm getting ready to write a book with that title, and my publisher doesn't like
it.
They think it sounds a little bit too provocative, although it is biblical.
So it might not be a good title.
I don't know.
But let's turn to Revelation 17, where we find this woman.
And see what we can learn.
Revelation 17, verse 1.
There came one of the seven angels, which had the seven vials, and talked with
me, saying unto me, Come hither, I will show thee the judgment of the great
whore that sitteth upon many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have
committed fornication.
You're going to see a woman here, and just to be blunt about it,
there are five identifying characteristics of this woman.
You cannot escape who this woman is.
You just can't escape it, if you're going to be honest about it.
And this is the first identifying characteristic.
She has committed fornication with the kings of this earth.
Now that's interesting.
Not adultery.
God accused His people of adultery because of worshiping idols.
Christ said, I have espoused you unto...
Paul said to the Corinthians, I have espoused you unto Christ as a chaste
virgin.
We're talking about spiritual adultery, spiritual fornication.
She's not the real bride.
She's not really married to Him.
So it's not adultery, it's fornication.
But she pretends to be the bride of Christ.
Otherwise, this language is meaningless.
Fornication with the kings of the earth.
What's wrong with being in bed with the kings of the earth?
Nothing wrong with that.
If you're one of the kings, particularly in the day in which we live, they're
talking about the whole world being united, a one world religion, all the
governments of the world getting together.
What could be wrong with that?
Well, but this woman claims to be the bride of Christ.
Claims to belong to Him.
And you remember what Jesus said to His disciples in John 15.
If you were of the world, the world would love its own.
But because you are not of this world, but I've chosen you out of the world,
therefore the world hates you.
The servant isn't greater than his Lord.
If they crucified Me, they killed Me.
What do you think they're going to do to you if you are true to Me?
There's a difference between the church and the world.
Here's something, a woman that claims to represent, it's representative of the
church, the true church of Christ, but it's in bed with the kings of this
earth.
Okay?
Number one, identifying characteristic.
He carried me away in the Spirit, verse 3.
Well, it says the kings, the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the
wine of her fornication.
In other words, this partnership between this great religious organization or
whatever it is, this church that's supposed to belong to Christ, which is in
bed with the world, has deceived the world.
The inhabitants of the world are drunk with the wine of her fornication.
They think this is a great unity.
They think it's wonderful.
So he carried me away in the Spirit into the wilderness, and I saw a woman sit upon
a scarlet-colored beast, full of names and blasphemy, having seven heads and ten
horns.
Now, if you just hold your finger there and go back to chapter 13, you see this
beast.
And I stood upon the sand of the sea and saw a beast rise up out of the sea,
having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns,
and upon his heads the name of blasphemy, and so forth.
Well, you know who this beast is.
Verse 3, one of his heads is wounded to death, and so forth.
All the world wondered.
They worshipped the dragon, Satan, who gives power to the beast.
They worshipped the beast.
And on through chapter 13, you know that this beast is Antichrist.
This beast represents two things, Antichrist and the kingdom of Antichrist,
the revived Roman Empire, that will be present on this earth in the last days.
Make no mistake about it.
How do I know that?
Well, I can give you a lot of scriptures.
We don't have time for them.
Let's just take one verse.
I give you one verse, which if John the Baptist had known it, if the rabbis had
known it, if the disciples had known it, they wouldn't have been confused when
Christ came the first time.
Remember what their confusion was?
Same confusion you have today.
They were confused about the kingdom, right?
It's incredible.
At the last supper, Jesus says, One of you will betray me.
There's a momentary flurry of concern.
Lord, is it I?
And Jesus says to Judas, Yeah, it's you.
Thou hast said.
That passes them over.
They don't seem to get it.
And after a little momentary flurry of concern, they are back to arguing about
what?
Who will be the greatest in the kingdom?
Don't tell me that people's problem is low self-esteem.
That is not the problem that mankind has.
You know, they just gave a test.
They were testing high school seniors in mathematics around the world.
And they were also testing them in self-esteem, which people, even
Christians, say is the big problem now.
Poor self-image, low self-esteem.
And the American students rated number one in self-esteem.
They asked them, How do you think you rate compared with others around the world?
And the American says, We are number one.
They were last, or close to last, in mathematics.
See, we teach them self-esteem, but we don't teach them anything else.
They don't know reading, writing, and arithmetic anymore.
But we teach them how to feel good about themselves.
The Koreans were at the bottom on self-esteem.
They said, Well, we are probably not very good.
They were number one in math.
The problem is not bad self-esteem.
That is not the problem in this world or in the church.
This woman is sitting on this beast who rules over the kings of the earth.
This beast who is the Antichrist and who is this revived Roman Empire.
She is sitting on it.
We will come back to that in a moment.
The disciples are arguing who is going to be the greatest in the kingdom.
They thought this kingdom was going to be established right now.
It is the eve of his crucifixion.
He is about to be betrayed.
Judas is slipping out into the night to betray him.
And they are thinking the kingdom is going to be established.
And they are going to rule on thrones with him in Jerusalem.
They were messed up about the kingdom, as to when it would come, what it
involved, who would establish it, how it would be established, and so forth.
You have people today who are just as mixed up on the kingdom.
We don't have time to go into that.
But if you don't get the kingdom straight, you are in real trouble.
I was telling you there was one verse.
If they had known that one verse.
Daniel 2.44.
We won't take time to turn to it.
But you know the image.
Nebuchadnezzar had a dream, remember?
And he couldn't remember it.
And he wanted his sorcerers, astrologers, soothsayers.
These were the advisors to kings and emperors in those days.
He said, tell me the dream and the interpretation.
And they said, oh well, no king has ever asked that of his advisors before.
Now you tell us the dream and then we will give you the interpretation.
And he says, I am on to your game.
If you can't tell me the dream, how do I know you can tell me the
interpretation?
And if you are so smart, you can give me the interpretation.
You surely ought to be able to tell me the dream too.
They backed away from that one.
And you know the story.
Daniel, when he heard that the king was going to kill all the wise men,
and Daniel was one of them.
He said, there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets.
And I will pray to him and he will reveal the secret.
And he did.
And so he told Nebuchadnezzar what this dream was.
He saw this image, remember?
Head of gold, torso of silver, loins of bronze, and legs of iron,
and feet of iron mingled with clay.
And Daniel said, these represent, well God told him, these represent four
world kingdoms, four world empires.
Accurate!
He said, thou, Nebuchadnezzar, art the head of gold.
You are this first king of the Babylonian kingdom.
Then, next would come the Medo-Persian kingdom.
Then the Grecian kingdom.
Then the Roman empire.
Interesting.
You know that the Roman empire was divided in two, two legs.
Byzantium in the east, and under Rome in the west.
It still is divided religiously.
The Roman Catholic Church and the Greek and Russian Orthodox Church.
And it's Pope John Paul's great dream to bring them together.
Then there were ten toes.
And God said, and Daniel explained it to the king, those represent ten kings who
will yet arise.
So how do I know the Roman empire must be revived?
They never had ten kings, right?
It has to come back under ten heads.
I believe it will be a worldwide empire under ten divisions.
But this is what Daniel 2.44 said.
In the days of those kings shall the God of heaven establish a kingdom that will
never be destroyed.
It's clear.
It doesn't require any interpretation.
The kingdom with Jesus ruling, the Messiah ruling on the throne of his
father David, will only be established in the days of those kings, right?
The Roman empire has to be revived.
It played a big role the first time Jesus came, remember?
Luke chapter 2, I think, begins something like this.
It came to pass that there went forth a decree from Augustus Caesar that all the
world should be taxed.
And you know because of that decree from a Roman emperor, Mary and Joseph ended up in
Bethlehem.
Because they had to go back to the town of his birth, of his family, in time for
Jesus to be born in Bethlehem of Judea to fulfill Micah 5.2, right?
And you know that he was crucified.
That was the Roman means of execution.
The Roman empire played a key role in his birth and in his death.
And we had it quoted last night, Daniel 9.28 or thereabouts, 27-28.
It says, the people of the prince who will come will destroy the sanctuary and the
city.
That was the Roman armies under Titus in AD 70.
Those are the people of the Antichrist.
The Antichrist, the prince who will come, he will rule over those people.
They will be his people.
So that Roman empire must be revived.
It must be revived for him to rule over it under ten heads, alright?
And that can't happen, I mean, that must happen before the second coming.
Because 2 Thessalonians 2 tells us that one of the purposes of Christ's return is
to destroy.
It talks about him whose coming is after the working of the Satan with all power
and signs and lying wonders and so forth.
And it says, whom the Lord shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.
So Christ comes back to destroy Antichrist, and he will not come in the
second coming until Antichrist is here.
But the rapture is something that takes place beforehand, alright?
And so if the disciples had known that one verse, there weren't ten kings ruling over
the empire.
Then it was not the time to establish the kingdom, right?
It was the time for him to be crucified and to establish his kingdom in our
hearts.
And for this entity called the church to come to birth.
Well, that's Babylon, the first, the head of gold.
It was built, Babylon was built around the ruins of Babel, the ziggurat, the tower of
Babel.
So this is taking us back to the beginning.
Well, I'm getting ahead of the Scripture.
He carried me away in the wilderness, I saw a woman sitting upon this beast,
seven heads, ten horns.
Those ten horns were the ten kings under which this empire will be divided and by
which it will be ruled.
And upon her, she has a cup full of abominations, the filthiness of her
fornication.
Upon her forehead was a name written, mystery, Babylon, the great, the mother of
harlots, an abomination of the earth.
This is taking us back to Babel, back to Babylon.
I think I mentioned last night, seeing an ad in Scientific American by
Lockheed Corporation.
And they depicted the tower of Babel.
And they said, we are working against the Babel effect.
The Babel effect scattered people and it confounded their languages.
And with our computers and so forth, we are bringing everyone back together.
Isn't that amazing?
God's judgment was that, well, to prevent a worse judgment, to confound
their languages and scatter them.
What do we say?
I say we editorially.
What does the world say is the answer today?
Unity.
Get everybody back together.
Undo the Babel effect.
We'll all speak one language.
The Olympics that we just saw not too long ago.
I don't know, about 4 billion people saw it simultaneously in their own languages.
Simultaneous translation.
The communication satellites.
Incredible, the world speaks one language now.
We understand one another.
We're not confused.
Now we can all get together and we can build this paradise.
We were coming back from Rome.
Was it last year?
I can't remember the year before.
I think it was last year.
And they were handing out the international version of the Wall Street
Journal.
And there was an insert there from IBM.
And IBM had the Tower of Babel.
With high rise, modern high rise buildings coming out of it.
I don't know if you've seen the official poster for the Council of Europe.
The 12 Nation Council of Europe.
It's the Tower of Babel.
And it's got 12 stars over the top.
Only they're not stars, they're upside down from what they are on the American
flag.
It's the pentagram.
With the two up and the one down.
That's the horns and the beard of the goat of Mendes.
Baphomet, the symbol of Satan.
Somebody knows what they're doing.
And the Bible says Babylon is going to be revived.
As I said last night, not that Disneyland in the desert that Saddam Hussein is
building.
It would probably be bulldozed because his name is on every brick.
And when he's out finally, which he will be, they'll probably bulldoze it.
I don't know what they'll do to get rid of his memory.
But I would think they would.
That's not what it's talking about.
It's talking about a religious, a spiritual entity.
This religion, what was the religion of Babel?
We will build a tower that will reach to heaven.
It was a rebellion against God.
It was a works religion.
It was a humanistic religion.
We can do it.
It was right in line with the lie of the serpent.
You can be like God.
And that was where occultism and astrology and so forth really began up on the top.
The worship of the heavenly bodies.
So, you can trace this woman, what she represents.
You can trace it back to Babylon.
Now, why was Saddam Hussein, why was he so interested in rebuilding Babylon?
You know, he had minted a coin.
And it had two profiles.
On one of them, the profile of Nebuchadnezzar.
And on the other one, Saddam Hussein.
I mean, sitting right next to one another there.
Looking at one another.
Why?
He thinks he's the new Nebuchadnezzar.
What did Nebuchadnezzar do?
He destroyed Israel.
And he led them away into captivity.
And that's his great dream.
And who were the enemies?
Who took over from Babylon?
The Persians, the mean old Persians.
That's Iran.
So, this is his other big enemy.
I mean, it's incredible.
This book is coming true.
But that's not what it's talking about here.
Nebuchadnezzar is talking about this spiritual mystery.
That you can trace back this false religion.
That's the foundation of occultism.
And it comes down through the ages.
It is a works religion.
It is a self-righteousness.
It is man's way of getting to heaven.
Getting to God.
Okay.
Upon her forehead was the name written.
Mystery, Babylon, the great, the mother of harlots, abomination of the earth.
I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints.
That's another identifying characteristic.
She's drunken with the blood of the saints.
And of the martyrs of Jesus.
When I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.
Now, we'll just hold it there.
We'll come back to that verse.
But let's get two more characteristics.
Verse 18.
Verse 19.
The woman which thou sawest is that great city which reigneth over the kings of the
earth.
Verse 9.
Here is the mind that hath wisdom.
The seven heads are seven mountains, or seven hills, on which the woman
sitteth.
Okay, now you've got all the characteristics.
You've got five characteristics.
This woman is a city.
People say, oh, I think the United States is Babylon.
You know, we're so bad.
Well, we're bad.
God's judgment will come upon the United States.
But we're not Babylon.
Babylon is a city.
Okay?
A local city.
Number two, it is built on seven hills.
Now, there are a number of cities like that.
I think Rio de Janeiro claims to be built on seven hills.
There may be some other ones.
But the United States certainly is not a city.
It's a country.
Washington isn't built on seven hills.
Neither is New York.
New York, where the United Nations is.
Some people say, well, maybe it's the United Nations.
I see New York and the United Nations.
No, wait a minute.
It's a city built on seven hills.
It has committed fornication with the kings of this earth.
So it's a religious organization that claims to be espoused to Christ.
And it has been unfaithful to Him and has been in bed with the kings of this earth.
All right?
It is... how many do we have?
A city on seven hills.
It's committed fornication with the kings of the earth.
It rules over the kings of the earth.
Now, what city rules over the kings of the earth?
Well, we'll come back to that.
Not Washington.
Not Moscow or Paris.
There's another one.
It rules over the kings of the earth.
And it is drunk with the blood of the saints and the martyrs of Jesus.
Where has that blood flowed?
We're talking about Rome.
I mean, you can't escape it.
I mean, I'm not an anti-Catholic trying to read something into this.
Now, I'm not saying that the Catholic Church is all that is held in view here.
It is the false religious system of this world that has come together in a great
ecumenical movement in the last days.
But its headquarters is at Rome.
Who is the greatest ecumenist in history?
John Paul II.
You can't escape it.
And in the book he held up, Global Peace and the Rise of Antichrist, which I had a
couple hundred of them order to come here, and instead they sent me 240 of somebody
else's book, a book I never even heard of.
So, sorry about that.
But I quote John Paul II.
For example, when he was in India, he went to India.
He said, we haven't come here to teach you Hindus anything.
We've come here to learn from your rich spiritual heritage.
John Paul II, when he spoke to Hindu audiences at the University of Calcutta,
University of New Delhi, he said, what India has to offer to this world is a
spiritual vision of man.
And the world does well to give heed to this.
Can you imagine?
Commending Hinduism, the spiritual vision of man that Hinduism has given to this
world, is anything but biblical.
He gathered together in 1986 in Assisi, you remember, Italy, to pray for peace.
He had 160 of the leaders of the world's 12 major religions.
John Paul II said, we're gathered together to pray for peace.
He said, we are all praying to the same God.
And he said, our prayers are creating a spiritual energy that is bringing about a
new climate for peace.
That's about as new age as you can possibly get.
Committed fornication with the kings of the earth and ecumenical movement,
a false religious movement bringing everybody together.
You know that one of his good buddies is the Dalai Lama.
And they have been together a number of times.
And they're working together for peace.
I don't know if you get the Catholic World.
It's a very slick magazine.
I'm not saying that it's official.
It doesn't come from the Vatican.
But it certainly represents what an awful lot of Catholics believe.
The Vatican hasn't stopped it from being published.
They had an entire issue on Buddhism.
One of their articles was titled, Buddha Revered as a Christian Saint.
You've got an ecumenism going on like nothing you could imagine.
They had an entire issue in the Catholic World on the new age.
Not one word of anything wrong with the new age.
But what a challenge it was to Christianity and how we could learn from
it and so forth.
There is a false religious system that is being put together.
And the leader, the one who condones it and the one who has the power to bring it
all together, has his headquarters at this city on Seven Hills.
Does it rule over the kings of the earth?
I always bring a lot of stuff here and somehow I never get around to showing it
to you.
See if I can find a little bit.
I had the magazine but unfortunately this is just a Xerox copy out of Columbia.
The Knights of Columbus magazine.
It's a picture of Mrs. Margaret Melody.
Melody, I don't know how to pronounce it.
And Dr. Thomas Melody, that's our ambassador to the Vatican.
This is a city that rules over the kings of the earth.
What city in this world has ambassadors from every major country who come there,
hat in hand, to present their credentials and to offer themselves and to work in
cooperation with a city?
Washington doesn't represent itself.
It represents the United States.
Ambassadors come there to Paris and so forth and so on.
This is a city which in its own right has ambassadors coming and it calls the shots.
I don't know if you saw the...
Well, I won't try to find it because...
Oh, here we go.
This is out of the Denver Post.
I suppose you know Mikhail Gorbachev.
He's a millionaire now.
He was just in Israel.
Maybe you saw it in the Jerusalem Post.
And he made a few speeches down there and he called Jesus the first socialist.
And he said, the only way we'll have peace in the Middle East will be on the
principles of Jesus.
Sounds great, doesn't it?
Coming from an atheist.
I quote him in Global Peace and the Rise of Antichrist when I read Perestroika back
there.
I couldn't believe it.
I almost fell out of my chair when I got to this point where Gorbachev...
This is 87.
He said...
You see, it's going to be more than Western Europe, folks.
The whole world is going to be united.
And Gorbachev and the Pope were also using the same language.
They were talking about a united Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals.
And Gorbachev said, we are going to be part of this.
Russia, Eastern Europe is going to be united with Western Europe.
And he said, you want to know why?
Because we're Christians.
Can you believe that?
This is the head of world atheism.
The head of world communism.
And he says, we're Christians.
Now, you know...
I mean, he says he's an atheist.
You know what he means, of course, by Christians.
He means born-again, Bible-believing, evangelical Christianity like you and I
know.
What does he mean?
Well, you know, when he wanted to use religion for his own purposes of unity,
worldwide unity, in fact, he's got his sights set on something more than being
premier.
I mean, I'm not saying he's the Antichrist.
He's an awfully good candidate.
But don't count Gorbachev out just because he's out of the Soviet Union.
He's got bigger goals in mind.
He could probably be voted in ahead of anybody here in the United States,
you know.
Certainly in Western Europe.
But Gorbachev, in this article, he says, Now it can be said that
everything which took place in Eastern Europe in recent years would have been
impossible without the Pope's efforts and the enormous role, including the political
role, which he played in the world arena.
He's telling you the most important, influential leader on this earth is Pope
John Paul II.
So, when he wanted to use religion for his purposes, Christianity calls himself a
Christian, you know where he went.
Why, he got in a plane and he flew to Nashville, Tennessee to meet with the head
of the Southern Baptist Convention, right?
No, he went to Rome to meet with the Pope.
And he had a five or ten minute conversation alone, because they're both
slobs, they're speaking Russian to one another, without an interpreter present,
so we don't know what was said.
But we do know that when he came out from that private audience with the Pope,
he introduced the Pope to his wife, Raisa, who also is an atheist.
He introduced the Pope to her as, This is the highest spiritual authority on
this earth.
Okay?
Now, here is our ambassador standing with the Pope.
The Pope is dressed in white, she and he are dressed in black.
You don't dress in white.
You know, you've maybe seen pictures of Jacqueline Onassis Kennedy.
Kennedy Onassis or whatever came first, I lose track of these things.
And in the presence of the Pope, she's wearing black, everybody wears
black.
The Pope wears white.
You know, the head of the Jesuits is called the Black Pope, because he must
wear black as well.
And here is our ambassador to this city that rules over the kings of the earth.
He says, For us in the world today, the key word is opportunity.
And it is certainly marvelous that at this time when significant change is possible,
Pope John Paul II is at the high point of respect as a world leader advocating a
moral and ethical point of view.
And that our government is cooperating as one government to another government,
the government of the Holy See.
It is a great honor for me to be there representing our government to the Holy
See at this significant time in history.
It's a city.
It's recognized in its own right as being right up there with all the other
governments of this world.
And in fact, it exercises authority over all of the kings of this earth.
Committed fornication with the kings of this earth?
Been in bed with the kings of this earth?
I don't have to give you the history of the Popes.
You go to Rome, and you go into the Vatican Museum, and the Sistine Chapel
there is fantastic.
Here's a 50-pound solid gold landscape.
It's molded and so forth.
And the guide says, this was given to Pope so-and-so by King so-and-so.
Here's a priceless tapestry.
They could pay off the U.S.
national debt if they sold off some of these art treasures.
I'm not kidding you.
Easily they could.
And he says, this was given to Pope so-and-so by King so-and-so.
And you go through there, and they have been making deals.
They have been in bed.
You know that... look, talk about apostolic succession.
There is no such thing.
But even if it were, you would think that a Pope would lay hands on his successor
and so forth and so on.
The Popes were voted in by mobs.
The citizens of Rome had the right to determine who would be the next bishop of
Rome.
You know they've been deposed by emperors.
You know they bought their way in and so forth.
You know that 800 A.D., Christmas, 800 A.D., it was Leo the third...
I have to get out my list of Popes to make sure I got it straight.
Leo the something or other.
He was blind.
His eyes had been gouged out by a mob that was so enraged with his corruption.
And he made his way, groped his way, in St. Peter's Cathedral to Charlemagne,
who was kneeling there for Mass on Christmas Day, 1800, and he crowned
Charlemagne emperor of the world.
This is the city that has ruled over the kings of the earth.
And emperors trembled for fear of excommunication, because in those days the
only religion, the only Christianity was Roman Catholicism, and if you were
excommunicated from that church, you were beyond hope.
And they trembled, and so power over the kings of the earth.
Drunk with the blood of the saints, the martyrs of Jesus?
No city like Rome, even before Roman Catholicism, under the emperors.
And they took this heritage.
I mentioned last night, the emperors of Rome were worshipped as God.
They had the title Pontifex Maximus.
Because they were the head of the pagan priesthood.
And the pagan priesthood, by the way, was known as the Pontifical College.
You have a Pontifical College in Rome today, and you know who is the head of it.
When Constantine supposedly became a Christian, he became the de facto head of
the Christian church.
And as such, he took the title Vicar of Christ.
He passed both of those titles, Pontifex Maximus and Vicar of Christ,
to the popes.
And you know that that's what they're known as today.
The pope is the Roman Pontif, Pontifex Maximus.
And during the Middle Ages, the pope circulated a document known as the
Donation of Constantine.
And I give you some of the data of this in Whatever Happened to Heaven.
And that document has been proven to be a forgery.
But the point is that in that document, the pope said they...
It was supposedly written by Constantine, who said that he had given, donated to the
popes, the tiara, the robe, the scepter, the palace of the Lateran.
You know, everything that they have today, they say it was given to them by the
emperor.
There has been a partnership, you can't escape it, between what was supposed to be
the true Christian church and the world.
And they martyred, they martyred the believers in Jesus Christ and down through
history.
That has been done so that about all the history you have today is of the Roman
Catholic Church.
You've got to get a few books like I would recommend the Pilgrim Church by Broadbent.
There are a few others out there that will tell you of these groups of independent
believers who knew Christ, who were following the New Testament, and who were
hated by this church and persecuted, their records destroyed, lies told about
them, they're talked now of as heretics and so forth, and down through history
they killed them.
And you know what the Reformation, about in Europe alone, about one million
burned at the stake for simply saying we think the Bible should be our authority.
Not some hierarchy in Rome.
They were burned at the stake for saying we believe in salvation by grace through
faith.
We believe that anybody who trusts in Christ is a child of God.
No, outside of the Catholic Church there is no salvation.
And you had, I think around 1302, it's a papal bull, and I shouldn't know
the name of it very well, but a pope decreed that unless you were in the
Catholic Church and unless you were submissive to the pope, you're not saved,
you're outside of salvation.
And that was enforced down through history.
In 1870, Vatican I reconfirmed this.
The absolute authority of the pope and your submission.
This, I mean, you can't escape it.
I could go on and on, and I shouldn't go on and on about this, because I think you
understand what we're talking about here.
What the Bible is talking about.
Now, as I said, it's not just the Roman Catholic Church.
But it is an ecumenical movement.
It is a false religious system that has been joined together.
We kind of jumped from verse 6.
Notice,
Why would he wonder with great admiration?
I don't know if you've ever been to Israel.
But if you do go to Israel, I would suggest you do something.
I think a year or two ago, we did it for the first time.
We went from Israel to Rome.
You stand there and you look at the Dome of the Rock, you know.
You see the pictures taken from the Mount of Olives.
And this thing, it's so huge, it dominates the skyline, right?
And it just, it's so fantastic.
You go inside the wealth and so forth.
Listen, go from there to Rome.
See, I've been to Rome before.
I'd forgotten the perspective.
Go from there to Rome and you will see you could put a half a dozen temple mounts in
St. Peter's Square.
This thing is huge.
And when you walk inside St. Peter's Basilica, you walk inside this cathedral.
You could, I'm not exaggerating, you could put a half a dozen Dome of the
Rocks inside.
Inside, the wealth, the power.
I think John is staggered.
All John knew was what he wrote it.
I quoted it from John 15.
If you were of the world, the world would love its own.
Because you're not of the world, I've chosen you.
You're out of the world, the world hates you.
That's all Jesus promised us as his disciples, right?
He didn't promise you you'd float to heaven on a pink miracle cloud,
you know.
He didn't promise you immunity from suffering and persecution.
He never promised you that.
All he promised you was you would be hated and persecuted and killed like he was,
okay?
And Jesus said, fear not, little flock.
I think in Whatever Happened to Heaven, I quote the words of Annika Jans,
the night before her martyrdom.
The heritage she left for her two young children.
There's a young mother in Holland who was burned at the stake because she believed
the Bible.
And she said something like this, wherever you find a small flock of hated
and despised people, follow them.
Be with them because that's where Jesus is.
That's what he offered us.
And that's all John knew was this hated, despised little group of followers of
Jesus who all they could look forward to was being persecuted and crucified like he
was.
And suddenly he's given this vision that this little flock, this little church has
suddenly metamorphosed into a huge worldwide organization that controls the
kings of the earth, that has wealth beyond comprehension.
He is staggered by this.
It's staggering.
Go over there and take a look.
Go to Rome if the Lord leads you to spend your vacation funds in that direction.
But I said it's not just the Catholic Church.
There's a whole ecumenical movement out there.
And let me just give you a little taste of it.
The deception is so incredible.
I am almost afraid to read some of these things.
Here's the New Age and the second coming of Christ from body, mind, and spirit.
Ooh, this is powerful stuff.
Jesus didn't call us to worship him or even to be Christians.
He called us to follow his example and become like him.
Remember we said Antichrist claims to be Christ.
His followers are Christians.
But it's an Antichrist Christianity.
Listen to this.
This is Antichrist doctrine.
And it is so persuasive and so powerful.
I just want to read you just a few sentences here.
He called us to follow his example, become like him.
He called us to a radically new experience, to be Christed.
That's not a matter of mere scholarly study of the Bible.
It's a matter of removing from our heart all self-centeredness, all pride,
anger, lust, jealousy, envy, and hatred, so that only the love of God resides in
our being.
Wow, that sounds really appealing.
Messiah means enlightened or perfected or the ideal of humanity.
That's what the Son of Man is, the offspring of humanity, the perfected
or ideal form of the race presently inhabited the earth.
Jesus understood that's what he was, you know, by the Christ.
You've got to get all childish dependence, get rid of all childish dependence on a
magical Savior who will do it for you.
It's transcendental knowledge or gnosis that confirms spiritual truth beyond mere
belief.
So as we accept Christ in our hearts and minds and lives, not just a simple
emotional conversion that the electronic evangelist called for, but a radical
transformation of consciousness, metanoia, as we become Christ-like,
we experience personally the coming of Christ.
Now, here, at this time and this place, wherever that enlightening experience
occurs for us, when we truly awaken in Christ, the world ends.
But it doesn't end in the sense of the fundamentalist preachers, meaning a global
destruction.
It ends the world for us in the transcendence of space and time and into
the divine domain, which is always our true condition and our true self.
We realize who we really are.
We are all the Christ.
There is no second coming of Christ.
That's a false concept and an unwarranted doctrine.
There is only, as the Bible puts it, the coming of Christ through you and
through me as we ascend in consciousness to the truth of life and the source of
being, as we awaken at the heart to God and become sons and daughters of God.
Are you getting the picture, how closely the lie is intermingled with the truth,
becoming like Christ, becoming sons and daughters of God, and so forth?
That's precisely what Jesus called us to do.
And as that occurs on a global scale, the need for a world savior, such as the
electronic evangelists depict, will be seen for what it is, fantasy based
on immature awareness.
The final appearance of Christ will not be a man in the air before whom all must
kneel.
The final appearance of Christ will be an evolutionary event marking the
disappearance of egocentric man and the ascension of God-centered man.
A new race, a new species will inhabit the earth, people who collectively have the
stature and consciousness that Jesus had.
And in that process, the kingdom of God will truly be established on earth under
the rule of Christ in the hearts and minds and souls of all people.
That is powerful stuff.
That is very persuasive.
It sounds so appealing.
We can all be the Christ, and this world can be transformed.
And the second coming is the manifestation of Christ through us.
You got that teaching among some charismatic groups today.
The dominionists are teaching very much the same thing.
There's no rapture.
There's no second coming.
The coming of Christ is as we become Christ-like and as we develop these powers
to heal and to do miracles, and ultimately we will overcome even death.
This is what Earl Polk teaches, for example.
He takes a verse.
We've quoted this verse many times.
The dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are alive and remain shall be
caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air.
Right?
That's what it says.
He begins a paragraph with those words.
We who are alive and remain.
And what does he go on to say?
Are left here to manifest immortality in our bodies and to take over this world.
And until we realize that we are gods and we take over this world, Jesus Christ
cannot return.
Of course, He won't return to take us home to heaven, but to rule over the kingdom
we've established.
He is on TBN.
He's on Christian radio.
His books are in Christian bookstores.
And when I try to say the man is teaching heresy, it's anti-Christ doctrine,
then I'm accused of causing division.
Where are the men and women of God who will stand up and say, halt, it's false?
Kenneth Copeland stands before a huge audience, and prophecy, Christ speaks
through him.
And what does this Jesus, this Christ say?
He says, don't, you know, I'm not quoting him exactly, but you'll find it,
I think, in Believer's Voice of Victory, February 1987, page 9.
If you want to look, if you want to look it up.
And he says, this Christ says, don't be upset when people accuse you of
claiming to be God.
They accuse me of that.
Wouldn't they accuse you?
Well, I give you a good reason.
Jesus is God, and I'm not.
And then this Christ goes on to say, but I never claim to be God.
I only claim to be a man through whom God works.
We have a blatant denial of the deity of Jesus Christ through a man who claims to
be a prophet, and supposedly Christ is speaking through him.
And nobody in the audience of a thousand stands up and says, heresy!
It's published in his magazine.
The editor doesn't catch it.
The people out there don't write in.
There ought to be clouds of letters saying this is false teaching.
So we are heading toward this great oneness of religion.
Under the Vatican, there's a unity with Rome.
Somebody was asking me about the Full Gospel Businessmen's Fellowship.
They've done some good.
They've done a lot of harm.
I don't know if we have any FGB MFIs here.
But you know, in 1991, their international convention in Orlando, they had a Catholic
priest, John Bertolucci, as one of their keynote speakers.
And he indicted the audience.
He said, anybody of you out there who have said, who have identified the Catholic
Church with this whore of Babylon, you better repent.
And he got a standing ovation for this.
There is a partnership now.
The evangelicals are joining with the Roman Catholic Church to evangelize the
world.
Whatever happened to the Reformation?
Suddenly it doesn't matter anymore.
Paul Crouch on Trinity Broadcasting Network says, we believe the same thing
they believe.
Benny Hinn says it also.
And they condemn to hell what they call the heresy hunters, people like me.
I don't know if you heard it on TBN, where Paul Crouch was out of control for
about 10 minutes.
And he said, you heresy hunters.
Well, Kenneth Copeland has said, we will come together in the unity of the
faith when we give up our silly doctrinal demands.
He said, doctrine divides.
Wait a minute.
We are united on what we believe.
And Paul Crouch said, you heresy hunters.
Pardon me, I'm quoting him verbatim.
He said, you can go to hell.
And he said, if God doesn't kill you first, I will.
And Benny Hinn says, he's been looking for a verse in the Bible that would justify
him killing people like me.
I mean, that is so irresponsible to make statements because we got kooks out there
who all they need is a little justification.
And Benny Hinn says, I'm looking for a Holy Spirit machine gun and I'll mow you
down, you know.
Paul Crouch says, you heresy hunters, don't you come near me.
I don't want to see your ugly face.
This is incredible.
We have a false Christianity now that is being promoted, it's being accepted,
it's being embraced.
I mean, I've got so much stuff here that I was going to share with you, but we don't
have time to do it.
Here's a pastor who's writing.
He went to a World Council of Churches conference here in New York.
It was held at Auburn under the auspices of Auburn Theological Seminary in New
York.
He says, I'm just quoting him, I knew we were in trouble when our first
worship celebration found us outdoors at a garden pool offering prayers and water
libations to the seven spirits of the seven directions of the universe.
Oh, Spirit of the North, blow upon us and so forth.
He says, there was the outright denial of the doctrine of the Trinity, Father,
Son, and Spirit.
That's not the name of God, but an archaic symbol for God, so loaded with classical
Western sexism and images of oppression.
It must be abandoned in favor of something more palatable.
There was the denial of the divinity and the unique saving authority of Jesus
Christ.
Jesus, we were told, is just one of many deeply meaningful Christ figures among the
religions and spiritualities of the world.
While some of us may prefer to relate to Jesus as our personal Christ figure,
we dare not make Him exclusive.
We must be inclusive of all potential Christ figures, you know, whether it's
Buddha or Krishna or whoever it may be.
I can go on and document this so thoroughly.
What is happening in the church today, an embrace of Antichrist doctrine.
The world and the church are being prepared for Antichrist.
It's one of the reasons for the rapture.
We're leaving, and it's going to...
You see, if we were here, we would identify and we would expose the
Antichrist, and we would oppose him, and we would be killed.
So, you believe in a post-trip rapture, it's a classic non-event, because there
ain't nobody left to rapture, right?
You either take the mark of the beast, and if you do, you suffer the wrath of the
Lamb, you're not a Christian at all.
If you don't, and you don't bow down and worship his image, not only can't you buy
and sell, you are killed.
It's a revival of the religion of Rome, when they made images to the emperor and
they killed whoever would not worship.
So, if... I mean, there isn't anybody left to be raptured at the end of the Great
Tribulation, because the saints, those who come to Christ during that time,
the believers on Jesus, they've been killed.
They've paid for it with their blood.
We're raptured out of here, and what is left?
An apostate bride of the Antichrist, that is only too happy to be part of this
great ecumenical movement that's going to bring about a peace in the Middle East,
going to bring about universal peace for mankind, it's going to rescue us from
ecological disaster, it will have its headquarters in Rome, it will be in bed
with the Antichrist, just as this city always has been in bed with the kings of
the earth.
It doesn't mean that we're anti-Catholics.
I had a letter from a Catholic charismatic bookstore, and they said, we got your
book, Whatever Happened to Heaven, we thought it would be about heaven,
and we found it was filled with your anti-Catholic prejudices.
And we have customers who are charismatic Catholics, and they're upset by this book,
and it was written to my publisher, and we want to send it back.
I wrote to that bookstore, never received an answer, and I said, if you can show me
one thing in that book that is a result of my anti-Catholic biases that is not 100%
true to God's Word and to history, I promise you I will publicly repent,
and I will see that it is changed in the next edition.
But, if there are things in that book that are true, and you have customers who ought
to know, and you keep it from them, you will be held accountable by God one
day for their souls.
See, we're not talking about somebody's prejudices.
My opinion, your opinion, we're talking about what does the Word of God say,
and the eternal destiny of souls is at stake, and we better stand for what is
true and what is right according to God's Word.
Father, help us to do just that.
We pray in the power of your Holy Spirit, for we cannot do it in our own strength.
We ask this in Jesus' name.
Amen.