https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=pWjPsgImilY
Let us pray in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Hail Mary full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. St. John the Evangelist In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Alright, so tonight we’re gonna get ambitious and we’re gonna try and cover three whole chapters And if you’ve got your Bible open in front of you, you’ll notice that chapter 15 isn’t that long. So we should be able to do this Picking up where we left off. We were came up right up to the edge of the seven bowls of God’s wrath And that’s all gonna get done kind of in one chapter and then Through chapters 17 to 20 we’re just gonna kind of zoom in on that very end time, right? The chapters 17 and 20 these seven bowls they they are the the very climax of history the very end of the world talking about that time very specifically and so It just kind of slows down and zooms in on that and takes a close look at it And then when we get to I think 20 21 and 22 That gets to show what eternity is like and so Yeah, so let’s get into it Revelation 15 Then I saw in heaven another sign great and awe-inspiring Seven angels with the seven last plagues for through them God’s fury is accomplished Then I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire On the sea of glass were standing those who had won the victory over the beast at its end The victory over the beast at its image and the number that signified its name They were holding God’s harps and they sang the song of Moses the servant of God and the song of the lamb Great and wonderful are your works lord god almighty Just and true are your ways. Oh king of the nations who will not fear you lord or glorify your name For you alone are holy all the nations will come and worship before you for your righteous acts have been revealed All right, so uh, this is the third time that john mentions seeing a great sign in heaven The first time was the woman closed with the sun. The second was the dragon and this third one is these uh, Seven angels with the seven last plagues Now these seven last plagues as I mentioned before this is kind of the very end of history that it’s depicting that What has commonly been called the great? Tribulation at the end of history and obviously the christians get this idea from the book of revelation that Everything that happens to the church all throughout history just kind of gets magnified and accelerated right there at the end of history and then um Finally god jesus returns and the perfect judgment is executed Now if we were to study The previous cycles of seven that we’ve gone through the seven seals and the seven trumpets They were not described using the words judgment wrath or fury, right? And they’re uh, they’re less severe, you know, you remember with the seven seals It was a quarter of everything a quarter of everything was affected And then when we got to the seven trumpets, it was a third of everything was affected and when we get to these last seven seals It’s everything right like the whole of of creation is is affected at this time. And so there’s this idea that um Everything that happens before this final tribulation this very end of history All of those are our chastisements designed to to redirect our attention to god And uh, if you if you’ve read, um, there’s a particularly good book the problem of pain by c.s. Lewis he really um Kind of dives into that idea of of how you know, this isn’t um This is that these chastisements really do Redirect people towards god that it really can be a moment where that conversion can take place And this is sort of this Apocalyptic depiction of the same idea showing the whole scope of history rather than just an individual life Well, one thing that we’re going to see a lot as we go through this last cycle of seven is people refusing to repent and and that’s what sort of Triggers this final judgment this final fury Now you remember uh, we’ve heard about this sea of glass before right That was all the way back in chapter four when he had the vision of heavenly worship And so we just remember that biblical cosmology where you know, the earth is that place where everything’s changing? The place where god is ruling and above that in the heavens is where the rulers are right where god is where his throne is Where the heavenly liturgy is going on and then there’s that what looks like a sea of glass Separating the heavens from the earth, right? Well, you may notice that now that sea of glass is mingled with fire um So that kind of fire coming down from heaven that judgment coming down from heaven So this is just another way that john is signaling that we’re getting right up to that very end time here and then um We’ve got those who won the victory over the beast and its image in the number that signifies his name And they’re singing the song of moses, right? And so Imagine most of you have been to at least one easter vigil So we never omit the reading from exodus where the people cross through the red sea and then After every reading during the easter vigil, we’ve got a psalm that we sing, right? And after that one, we don’t sing something from the book of the psalms. We sing that song from the the Book of exodus, right? Let us sing to the lord. He has covered himself with glory Really sticks with me. So it’s that very song that they’re singing. They’re singing the song of moses Is Glorifying the lord for his great victory and so that um song comes from exodus 15 I don’t think we need to look at that All right After this I had another vision The temple that is the heavenly tent of testimony opened and the seven angels with the seven plagues came out of the temple They were dressed in clean white linen with a gold sash around their chests One of the four living creatures gave the seven angels seven bowls filled with the fury of god who lives forever and ever Then the temple became so filled with the smoke from god’s glory And might that no one could enter it until the seven plagues of the seven angels had been accomplished All right. So we’re talking about this heavenly tent of testimony, right? so Before there was the temple where did the people of israel gather to offer offer worship? The tent that the tent that moses built right and he he built, you know, it’s called the tabernacle He built that while they were in the desert and they carried it around with them for those 40 years They were wandering around in the desert and they carried it into the promised land and set it up in the promised land and for You know decades maybe over a century that was kind of the the hub of worship and it was replaced by was replaced by the temple that king solomon built but You know, it’s still kind of based on that same pattern And so moses would go to the tabernacle to consult god so Now we’ve got this heavenly version of that same tabernacle Now the last time I mean we’ve gone over this enough times wearing white signifies kind of a liturgical presence And the last time that we saw a gold sash That was the inaugural vision of christ in chapter one, right? And so all of these angels come out dressed the same way as the son of man is dressed You know, they’re they’ve these are like kind of very high ranking angels the ones who are tasked with carrying out this this final judgment All right, so let’s you know, we’re we’re gonna talk a lot about the fury wrath judgment anger justice and You know We get that clouded up with the way that we experience fury wrath anger Anger is a kind of a fundamental problem When we talk about it with god, we don’t want to cloud it with the way that we experience it, right? And so kind of the fundamental experience of anger always comes from witnessing some sort of an injustice Right and that’s what kind of triggers anger within the human person is we see something that’s not right either directed at us or directed at You know rage comes out now a lot of times that rage is like going to make you want to hit something And hitting people is not going to do you any good, right? But there’s a there’s a better way to resolve that you know You all have to teach your children that because when they’re two two-year-olds are the most violent people in the world The only way they can get away with it is the fact that they’re small and they can’t do that much damage yet With god, it’s not like that, right? And what is common to our experience of anger and god’s anger is this response to injustice right That’s what’s common between the two and his eyes don’t cloud over and like Judgment starts faltering because and you know his head pounding with rage. It doesn’t work with him like that but it’s it’s an apt way of talking about it because That’s the way that we respond to injustice and when the soul is properly tuned Anger can actually give you a great amount of energy to go correct an injustice When the soul is out of tune and you got to still got to be careful with it So when we’re looking at all this wrath being pureed out, it’s all about Correcting injustice is all about restoring kind of the harmony of the universe Now when this Final seven bowls are handed over the temple becomes so filled with smoke that Nobody can do anything anymore And this is a reference to two parts of the old testament in exodus In the book of exodus when they’re being guided through the desert. Do you remember? What’s guiding them? A pillar of fire at night and a cloud during the day Right and sometimes the cloud would go and rest on the meeting tent and moses couldn’t go in there When the mo when the cloud was resting on the meeting tent? The second time this happened was when Solomon had completed the temple in jerusalem and had completed the dedication Offerings the smoke of the lord fills the temple and the glory of the lord is in the smoke right where you can’t see it and They couldn’t do anything they couldn’t go and move around there God is so incredibly powerful Is so incredibly intelligent Is so incredibly clear that we can’t see it That it’s it’s too much for That it’s it’s too much for The finite mind to be able To handle right you’ll never get your mind around god and and be able to to box them in you know Which is part of why? Idolatry is so bad Because an idol you can get your mind around right therefore. It’s not god It’s it’s something lesser and you’re giving what’s proper to the infinite the ineffable the all holy Giving that to something that’s a little more on your level That’s why reverence is such an important virtue to cultivate This idea that you’re never going to get your mind around god that you’re never going to be able to pull him down to your level And deal with him on your level, you know, he’s always this far above you and so Smoke actually Is a decent image of that right you can’t see through it, you know your your vision is impaired not that God is unintelligible that that god is not truthful, but it’s like the light of the sun You can’t look at it directly. It’s too much for Human mind to be able to handle without without assistance Now what thomas equinas my favorite theologian says is going to happen in the next life Is that god is going to basically supercharge our intellects so that we can begin to understand him Uh calls that idea the light of glory and so, you know Even when we’re in heaven even after the resurrection And we’re perfectly integrated with god We still have to be lifted up in order to even begin to have this purely intellectual vision of who god is And it’s still not going to be enough to comprehend him But we’ll be able to see him as he is I’ve no idea what that’s going to be like, but i’m looking forward to it All right, revelation 16 I heard a loud voice speaking from the temple to the seven angels Go and pour out the seven bowls of god’s fury upon the church The first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth Festering and ugly swords broke out on those who had the mark of the beast or worshiped its image the second angel Poured out his bowl on the sea the sea turned to blood like that from a corpse every living creature in the sea died The third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of waters. These also turned to blood All right. So now we’re at this final stage in history and it’s all it’s all just getting let out right now Um So a lot of times when we encounter this idea of god as a judge that kind of makes our Our our very modern hearts kind of like oh, I don’t like that idea I don’t like that idea at all And i’ve i’ve had to deal with this too, you know, we can look at a lot of these punishments, right that are not simply turned towards You know getting people to turn around but at a certain point it’s just This is what you end up deserving right and You know like you’re trying to wrap your head around it and you you you could begin to doubt God in your heart. I like that is something that we deal with In this day and age which people in The ancient and medieval periods dealt with less It just wasn’t as big a problem We have this kind of uniquely modern tendency to try and judge god according to our own terms Even though he’s the one who sets the parameters for right and wrong and he’s the one who has revealed to us What right and wrong are so? you know, he’s He’s supreme on that and so um when I get caught up in these questions, you know Like how can this be just how can this be merciful? What’s really going on here? Am I worried about god’s judgments not being merciful? And I’m am I worried about me being more merciful than the lord. Am I worried about me being more just than the lord? you know However, it plays out Either god is good And we can trust him Or god is bad and there’s no hope in anything Right if god was bad like we’d be toast. What would you do about that? There’d be nothing and I’m just going to live as if god is good as if all of his judgments are going to be just and true That in the final judgment when all is made manifest i’m going to see Exactly how just and how merciful he is And i’m going to rejoice in it And no matter how it all falls out. It’s going to be right And that’s what I focus on and when you focus on it like that Then it’s okay. You know what? I don’t have to try and wrap my mind around this I don’t have to be the one who’s the judge in the living the dead. The position has been filled Thank you for your application Okay, so let’s dive into these kind of horrible punishments So this first one only seems to affect uh the The ones who are not being saved by christ so Those who have the mark of the beast or worship his image You’ll notice also that these first four are going to correct Affect the whole created order according to the ancient mind. It’ll be earth Sea springs and rivers and air And the heavens So so it’s like It’s it’s a whole the whole of the world the whole of the cosmos is being affected Yeah, and the first is the the bolts and the unjust um, all of these are are Callbacks to the seven plagues the ten plagues in egypt Uh, the the the boils that break out and then the water turning into blood Once again coming back on that now it looks like the second and the third bowls would also End up affecting christians and Yeah, what are my notes doing here Okay, just an overview of the whole bowls the first five bowls are calamities that are going to affect the whole earth The sixth is the final mustering of the forces of evil against good and the seventh bowl is god’s final judgment on babalon And then you remember when we had that plague of locusts how that affected? only those who were Uh had the mark of the beast. This is kind of bringing that theme back again that there are certain things that as christians that we don’t have to Suffer with there’s actually always going to be more suffering outside than there is inside even though We are marked by the cruciform christ Then I heard the angel in charge of the waters say You are just a holy one who are and who were in passing this sentence For they have shed the blood of the holy ones and the prophets and you have given them blood to drink It is what they deserve then I heard the altar cry out. Yes lord god almighty your judgments are true and just So we’ve got this angel who’s in charge of the waters right Now there’s an idea right there, you know like The way we look at water. We just think of it in terms of Physical forces right like the water is in the ocean because that’s Lower to the ground it all pulls up because of the forces of gravity you know, we don’t we don’t tend to think of angels being in charge of physical places of physical properties, but They probably are like how many angels are there you guys know? I don’t know. What do they do all day? I don’t know like There’s we only have access to this tiny sliver of reality that’s available You know to our senses, right? And then what we’ve been told in the bible and and there’s just this whole Spiritual world out there that we can only get tiny little glimpses of you know, but it’s all around us and it affects us And it moves us which is why? you know Being a part of the church is so important. So I don’t know is there like An angel of strong nuclear force and weak nuclear force and electromagnetic Forces and gravity. I have no idea We’ll figure that out at the end You can also look at The song of the angel in charge of the waters just says the holy ones who uh, Talking about god as who are and who were right? Normally when we’ve heard this Phrase it’s been who is and who was and who is to come right? Well, they’re now cutting out the future tense, right? It’s like there’s no more of this is to come stuff. Like we’re at that very end part. It’s now it’s all There’s no more of this in the future stuff All right Very interesting. We’ve got this poetic justice For the inhabitants of the earth who shed the blood of the holy ones and the prophets Now the jews were absolutely forbidden to eat blood, right? They could not eat any blood Of any animals that they killed it had to be drained out of them completely before they could eat any of that and and the book of Leviticus It’s like the exodus of the leviticus I can’t remember that particular law as it says that this is the lifeblood of the animal and it’s sacred kind of to god Now when we uh get a little bit farther here when we’re talking about the harlot It’s going to say that it’s drunk on the blood of the prophets And uh in this in this Third uh bowl of god’s wrath. It’s like oh you want blood like you’re gonna have it now. Um Um Yeah, so this this poetic justice probably not meant to be taken literally um But you know for the blood that’s been shed you’ll you’ll have this punishment for them And then uh, we get this very interesting place. The altar starts talking to us, right? The altar itself cries out Uh now do you remember? Anything else about the altar? We go all the way back to I think it’s chapter five Who’s underneath the altar? Right the martyrs Were all underneath the altar, right? So you’ve got the lamb on top of the altar and the altar and the martyrs underneath the altar and They were saying how long oh lord how long until you execute your judgments and now the altar is like Hey guys Here it is. God’s justice is now being made manifest So Talking altars The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun It was given the power to burn people with fire People were burned by the scorching heat and blasphemed the name of god who had power over these plagues But they did not repent and give him glory The fifth angel poured out his bowl On the throne of the beast its kingdom was plunged into darkness and people bit their tongues in pain And blasphemed the god of heaven because of their pain and sores, but they did not repent of their works you know, we actually a very famous depiction of this Fourth bowl of wrath was given to us in the 1980s and we’ll go ahead and take a look at it on the screen here At super mario brothers 3 and as you can see when he gets burned by the sun he starts blaspheming I don’t know if anybody else here ever played super mario brothers 3 or if it was just me All right, so at this point Um, we don’t see much repentance, right Now as we’ve seen in kind of the earlier cycles Some people do repent but we’re not focusing on that right right now, right? This last cycle is about the punishment of the wicked And so they’re continuing to blaspheme the name of god They are not Repenting and if you remember the book of exodus the more that god is Afflicting the egyptian Is afflicting the egyptians with these plagues the more Pharaoh’s heart gets hardened, right and he continues to just Double down dig down and and get back into this Now we’re going to talk about this a little bit later. Um You guys have maybe heard of this idea of of rapture, right? And the left behind series of late great planet earth this idea that Christians are going to be caught up before this tribulation That’s never Been a catholic position and we’ll see some of the verses that are are cited When we get a little bit later on but you know in our heads when we’re looking at this we have to think of The christians who are alive at the time of the final tribulation are living through it, right? and This idea of the christians being caught up before this tribulation has never been the catholic position Really didn’t become A position among any christians until the 19th century And that’s part of life on earth is we have to We have to live with The effects of other people’s sins we have to live with the effects of our own sins, too You know, maybe somewhat more immediately Um and that you know can cause sufferings to us and there might not be um Any way out of that? Oh, let’s spell the word ninth there Well darkness was the uh, the ninth plague in egypt And you notice the uh angel is particularly pouring this bowl out on the throne of the beast Um, so that’s where the darkness is targeted and um I think um Have you ever been In a room that’s dark You know when you’re trying to like get from one end of the room into the other And your mind just starts conjuring up all these horrible things that are in the darkness You know, it’s like your bedroom, right? Like the worst thing in there’s maybe a little spider, you know Or or something in the way of your foot that you’re going to stub your toe on but um You know, there’s this uh This darkness that we can be cast into can be very frightening And it’s uh, it’s kind of an app metaphor for the people who are living in the kingdom of the beast in this last day Those who have given themselves over to evil When they’re cast into the darkness like how profound that darkness is going to be how very lost Could we be If we are not giving appropriate worship to the god of heaven if we are instead blaspheming his name Right, and so the people bite their tongues into pain And are blaspheming the god of heaven because of their pain and the sores but continuing to refuse to repent So they’re just cast into this darkness that they’re unable to see the truth at all And completely lost in this darkness in this confusion And it’s those who are allied with the throne of the beast The sixth angel emptied his bowl on the great river euphrates Its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings of the east I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon of the mouth of the beast and the mouth of the false prophet These were demonic spirits who performed signs They went out to the kings of the whole world to assemble them for the battle on the great day of god the almighty Behold i’m coming like a thief blessed is the one who watches and keeps his clothes ready So that he may not go naked and people see him exposed Then they gathered then they assembled the kings in the place That is named armageddon in herew All right So what’s going on here? So the river euphrates Was an important boundary in the ancient world and at the time of the israelites both the assyria the the babelonians came over the Euphrates river and conquered the citizens of juda And then in the roman times it was the eastern kind of boundary of the roman empire The other major threat to roman power was the parthians on the other edge of that and so You know understanding this all symbolically Those who are on the edge the darkness that’s on the outside of Of the established order threatening to come in and turn everything upside down We’ve got another Image of the anti-trinity which we were introduced to kind of in chapter 13 the dragon The beast and now it’s just calling it the false prophet. That was the second beast that came out of the earth um and uh, and these these frogs come out of their mouth these evil spirits like frogs and uh, You know, it’s sort of uh coming out of the mouth, right so it’s uh false prophecies these demonic spirits who performed signs, uh, just like the magicians of the pharaoh were performing signs to continue to convince him that These egyptian gods are powerful enough to beat off the god of of the hebraeus So these frogs are once again deceptive they go out and they perform these deceptive signs to the kings of the earth And are able to deceive them into mounting their forces against the forces of the lamb Um And then you remember with our previous two cycles we had these extended interludes of christ’s Presence in heaven and and all those different things in the middle of things now We’ve just got this very short one, you know if you Are awake and alert for this If you keep your clothes ready, right? Obviously, um The the garments of upright moral behavior of true worship of the lamb, um, then you will um You will not uh go naked and and be exposed And then finally we get to this very very very interesting thing Armageddon in hebrew. Um now we’d actually know Exactly what john is referring to here Armageddon means the mount of megiddo in hebrew, right and it’s a very interesting Archaeological place I went there when I was in the holand and we went there with a with an archaeologist And he was really interested in this town because by their count it had been destroyed and rebuilt 24 times Right and so a lot of times when they were gonna like Rebuild the town they would just fill in kind of the foundations with rubble And like pack everything down and put new foundations up and put new buildings up And so apparently that whole process over, you know hundreds of years was completed 24 times right and this place was being continually Being continually Invaded being continually it was a site of many many frequent battles, right? And the reason is is because uh, this was kind of the highest place in northern israel galilee And you would have kind of a strategic command of the whole jezreel valley, right? And so anytime that the assyrians or the babalones would come down from the north they would have to take this location, right and so, you know people They can get into all sorts of silliness about trying to imagine, you know, 21st century geopolitical events happening in the jezreel valley At the mount of miguito, which is like not a big town, right and like not a very impressive place It’s just a bunch of ruins now but um It’s It’s a symbolic name, right just like rome and babalon have been symbolic names and jerusalem’s been symbolic and just It’s just symbolic, right? Don’t be silly. Um so what we’re looking at here is um You know with this um With this very end point at the end of history there’s like this Final dramatic clash between the forces of good and evil, right? We saw that every time we’ve kind of gone through the historical cycle and come up right at the end and You know the two witnesses are killed right the whole world Follows after the beast and there’s this great dramatic conflict right at the end of everything So Okay So that’s what it’s going to look like as far as I can tell Um, I thought I was having a profound thought but it went away The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air A loud voice came out of the temple from the throne saying it is done There were lightning flashes rumblings and peals of thunder and a great earthquake It was such a violent earthquake that that there has never been one like it since the human race began on earth The great city was split into three parts and the gentile cities fell But god remembered the great babalon giving it The cup filled with the wine of his fury and wrath Every island fled and the mountains disappeared Large hailstones like huge weights came down from the sky on people And they blasphemed god for the plague of hail because this plague is so severe All right. So when we get to chapters 17 through 20, it’s just going to be showing us images of this very end of this last plague against the beast against the Babylon against all of that, right? And so when we get to Chapter 17, we’re going to get kind of this first slow motion Snapshot of what’s going on And hopefully it’ll be more revealing than it is confusing Now this one’s being poured into the air, right? It’s like affecting everything, you know, it’s not even making it to the ground. It’s like the whole world is just being torn apart by this We’ve seen lightning thunder and earthquakes four times before right and this one is very explicit This is the biggest one and it shakes everything to pieces, you know, everything Just completely falls apart from this manifestation of god’s power The new american bible gives us the gentile cities fall And that’s a very odd way to put it the cities of the nations Might be a better way to translate it It’s not like jerusalem’s going to be standing and tel aviv’s going to be standing and like all the other cities are going to fall apart But with the church being the new israel It’s all of these cities which are allied with babalon and Those are the ones that are falling and then The islands and the mountains flee, you know, it’s like that’s a dramatic image right there of just seeing You know the whole mountain being picked up and getting out of the way of god’s fury. Everything is just being wiped away This idea of the cup of the fury of Of god’s fury is comes up in the psalms and the old testament more than once and then hail was one of the One of the plagues on egypt One of the seven angels who were holding the seven bowls came and said to me Come here. I will show you the judgment on the great harlot who lives near the many waters The kings of the earth have had intercourse with her and the inhabitants of the earth became drunk on the wine of her harlotry Then he carried me away in spirit to a deserted place where I saw a woman seated on a scarlet beast that was covered with Blasphemous names with seven heads and ten horns The woman was wearing purple and scarlet and was adorned with gold precious stones and pearls She held in her hand a gold cup that was filled with the abominable and sordid deeds of her harlotry On her forehead was written a name, which is a mystery Babylon the great the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth I saw that the woman was drunk on the blood of the holy ones and on the blood of the witnesses to jesus right, so John is establishing for us what I kind of already said that these kind of last images are Unpacking what happened with that seventh bowl, right? So one of the angels who was holding the seven bowls is the one who’s showing this to john who’s explaining it to him Um, so we’re kind of slowing down. We’re taking a look at kind of the characters of the very end And so we’ve got this this harlot right this seductive woman, um Lives near the many waters and so this can kind of have Two Two Symbolisms, we’ve got a very close symbolism with babalon um, or uh It’s a it’s a recalling of jeremiah chapter 51 It’s a oracle against babalon and actually if you were to like read through the whole chapter. It’s like, oh hey This isn’t new in the bible these condemnations of babalon like jeremiah was on top of this Babylon you who dwell by mighty waters rich in treasure your end has come The term at which you shall be cut off. So john is recalling us to Uh the words of the prophet jeremiah, um Babylon was known for having a very Sophisticated irrigation system right? It was one of the first major civilizations to develop and the reason they were developing the situation the civilization Was so that they could dig these canals And have more profitable harvests more profitable farmland We’ll we’ll talk about the symbolism of cities. Uh, and uh, probably the next The next Class, uh So anyway, uh, the many waters can refer to babalon Some people have also said that it refers to the roman empire and that fits right? After about the third century bc the roman empire controlled the entire Mediterranean sea like they cleaned out all the pirates. They cleaned out all of their political rivals Rivals and so that was part of what enabled the cosmopolitan flourishing of the roman empire was this Ocean that they controlled in the frequency travel there Kings of the earth Yeah, um, so the kings of the earth those uh would symbolize those uh kings those Principalities those powers that do not recognize God now when we’re looking at this harlot I think we’re really Meant to recall the image of the woman from chapter 12, right? the image of the church And this is kind of the anti-church, right? So just as The dragon the beast and the false prophet formed kind of an anti-trinity That this harlot the whore of babalon Forms kind of an anti-church, right? A demonic parody and so, you know, it’s a woman right just like the woman who was clothed with the sun We’ve got that feminine principle of the space where things are happening there It’s dependent on the beast right? It’s riding on the beast’s back In the same way that the whole church is absolutely dependent on The lamb on the blood of jesus on the life that comes to us from jesus And so this anti-church is dependent on the beast which we remember symbolizes all Political authority that is opposed to christ that does not submit to the yoke of christ Um The woman was wearing purple and scarlet and adored adorned with gold precious stones and pearls, right? And so the this anti-church is adorned with earthly wealth. If you remember the woman was clothed with the sun with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of 12 stars and so Um Unlike the church which is adorned with these heavenly virtues with these heavenly beauty this anti-church the whore is Adorned with earthly power earthly beauty whatever earth has to offer In like a blasphemous reversal she’s got this gold cup Filled with abominable and sordid deeds of her harlotry, right? Which and uh, you know early we’ve got have become drunk on the wine of her harlotry, right this, uh, this wine that inebriates you that makes you crazy that Opens you up to all sorts of impiety all sorts of evil That being kind of a blasphemous, uh Inversion of the holy eucharist Right, which the gold chalice which holds the sacred blood of jesus which poured out for our sins And gives us, uh, there’s this book the sober intoxication of the holy spirit, right? And when the holy spirit comes upon you when the spirit of jesus comes upon you You know it fills you up and it like changes your vision But in a peaceful way in a way that draws you towards goodness and draws you towards virtue unlike intoxication under like that, um bacchanalian bacchanalian spirit, um Which makes you crazy and chasing after all sorts of idols Got an evil name on her forehead, right? Babylon the great mother of harlots unlike the seal which the angel gave To the members of the church, right? The seal of the lamb Uh those who whose names were written in the book of life And she was drunk on the blood of the holy ones and on the blood of the witnesses to jesus, you know, um so having slaughtered them and Mocked them made fun of them Unlike the church which is filled with the blood of jesus which was offered up willingly which offered up freely And so, you know, we’ve got this idea of This horror allied with the beast promotes it and is dependent on it um This anti-church and so you can think of how Dispersed the church is right and how we’ve got little country churches We’ve got believers scattered around all over the place all of us united together by that faith Which makes us christians um And how we’re called to be this leaven in society which quietly, you know raises everything up quietly changes everything um and how It’s actually happened quite a lot like Ancient romans are almost foreign to us in the way they behaved, right? Uh, they had no concept of human dignity um their uh Concept of sexual morality was you can do whatever you can get away with um Like things are utterly different now The the idea that we would have a movement against powerful men in the culture for taking liberties against people that they could you know, your Epstein your Harvey Weinstein, you know all of that um Completely utterly foreign to the romans and so really the church has succeeded in a way in changing the hearts and minds of people um The harlot is kind of the anti-principle of that right of trying to be the opposite disfuse dispersed over Places dependent on this political authority the anti-church. Um, it’s not good All right a little more water here When I saw her I was greatly amazed The angel said to me why are you amazed? I will explain to you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her The beast with the seven heads and the ten horns The beast that you saw existed once but now exists no longer It will come up from the abyss and is headed for destruction The inhabitants of the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life From the foundation of the world shall be amazed when they see the beast because it existed once but exists no longer And yet it will come again So here we are trying to explain the mystery. Um This is obviously the beast from revelation 13 political authority that is opposed to christ And we’ve got this mysterious idea of its Parody of the death and resurrection of christ, right? and people have puzzled about that is it emperor nero who There was like a legend that he was going to be returning after his death and he was going to reclaim The throne for the line of julius caesar um I’ve got a thought and I’m not 100 sure about this. Uh, uh Our interpretation but but we’ll just i’ll present it here and if i’m wrong, hopefully god will forgive me Why wasn’t jesus stoned to death Why was it so important that he’d be killed by the order of ponchus pilot, right? Right, so it’s part of the prophecy right and part of the way that god was moving in history, right So immediately after the crucifixion of jesus people go around saying Jesus christ is lord, right? Jesus christ is lord The that very title that was claimed by the imperial power that was claimed by caesar and The kind of the point was hey caesar You were able to crucify jesus and he didn’t stay dead You were able to crucify him and he didn’t stay dead That he is more powerful than you and he will conquer you Right, and then look what happened in history Caesar was actually conquered by christianity It didn’t happen immediately but all of a sudden we get to 312 ad we get the Christianity across the empire you go a century ahead of that Christianity is the official religion of the roman empire, right? And the political authority is no longer opposed to the church Constantine is building basilicas all across rome Constantine founds the city of constantinople explicitly as a christian city It was the first explicitly christian city that was ever built with a christian Church in the middle of it And there was this period of history where quite in quite a bit of the world The political powers were not opposed to christ And that lasted for a while and then it seems to be falling apart, right? Now the reason why i’m not a hundred percent On board with this interpretation is that it never really went all that well right this entanglement of political power and christian theology It always seemed like The political power was trying to appropriate the church for political ends, you know, so You know, is that is that what we’re talking about here? Maybe at least it wasn’t opposed right when you had even You know princes and kings who were trying to manipulate the church for their own gain Well, that’s a lot better than going around martyring christians just because they’re christians, right? So I don’t know That’s an idea If i’m wrong, you know, hopefully i’m not super wrong Whatever it is this beast blasphemously parodies christ and dying and rising again and It’s going to be back and that’s the main thing keep your eyes open be alert Keep your garments on hand Here’s a clue for one who has wisdom The seven heads represent seven hills upon which the woman sits. They also represent seven kings Five have already fallen one still lives and the last has not yet come While he comes he must remain only a short while The beast that existed once but exists no longer is an eighth king But really belongs to the seven and is headed for destruction The ten horns that you saw represent ten kings who have not yet been crowned They will receive royal authority along with the beast for one hour They are of one mind and will give their power and authority to the beast They will fight with the lamb but the lamb will conquer them for he is lord of lords and king of kings And those with him are called chosen and faithful and so This is supposed to be enlightening Oh, i’m just going to need a little more wisdom here So when we look at the city on seven hills It would be really hard for an ancient person not to identify that with rome Right like that was the legend. It’s right there in virgil, which is like the most important piece of poetry epic poetry for the roman mind So we’re talking about rome here But the seven hills are also seven kings Five who has fallen one who stives and last one not yet to come And when he comes he should also remain a short while And then we’ve also got this eighth king, but he really belongs to the seventh Um Now people have tried to go through and identify These seven kings and the scholars are all disagreeing with each other, right? Like they really can’t nail down exactly who john would have been referring to in the contemporary culture um The main point we got to take away from this is that we’re still in the middle of the story Right. We haven’t gotten to the end of it Are these kings? Ah, you know, does it start with julius caesar and end with domitian? Does it start with julius caesar and end with nero like the counting of the different emperors doesn’t quite add up Uh, are these seven kings actually seven different kingdoms seven different dynasties People have floated that idea We’re still in the process we’re still in the history we got to keep our eyes open for that political authority which Defies the rule of christ Now these 10 kings who have not yet been crowned Says they’re only going to be here for one hour, right? And so that’s very different than the three and a half years that we’ve been getting on right showing that kind of this final confrontation Isn’t going to be that long and um You know jesus himself says if the time wasn’t shortened even the elect if possible would have been deceived, right? So that’s like a nice merciful idea that it’s not going to be The longest period of human history that everything seems to accelerate at the end and one thing I can’t help but think is Just how fast things are accelerating, right? like I hardly own any dvds Right. Do you remember when dvds were the new hot thing? Right and it’s like oh, you know, so it’s like we had vinyl records for like What 30 years and then we had like cds for a bit And then we had mp3 players for a bit and now we just got to go streaming things constantly, right? and and there’s some to that like technology just accelerates things and You know, we’ll get into this probably a little more next week, but technology is never an unmixed blessing, you know, and Anybody who remembers the cold war would remember that you know Get under your desk because if the russians nuke us that that desk is really going to be a Really going to be key to your survival Yeah, that’s nuclear power for you we can get a lot of electricity from nuclear power we can flatten cities It’s never an unmixed blessing and I think Just kind of inevitably part of this development of history has to include this technology that we’re developing Which is just accelerating everything because as I said last week Every system of production is necessarily a system of control Who’s going to be at the control Who’s going to be at the levers of power? Do you really think it’s going to be the holy ones? Do you really think it’s going to be those who have received the mark of the lamb? Hmm Then he said to me The waters that you saw where the harlot lives represent large numbers of peoples nations and tongues The ten horns that you saw and the beast will hate the harlot They will leave her desolate and naked they will eat her flesh and consume her with fire For god has put into their minds to carry out his purpose and to make them Come to an agreement to give their kingdom to the beast until the works of god are accomplished The woman whom you saw represents the great city that has sovereignty over the kings of the earth So That’s a little unexpected right? all of a sudden the beast Turns on the harlot Strips her naked and kills her Yeah eats her Um, so this is I mean another part of the pattern of the anti-church, right? Right. That’s like the exact opposite way that christ treats his bride the church, you know he Cleanses us from our sins clothes us And protects us from danger Meanwhile the beast Hates the harlot. Um Yeah, so it’s just again this opposite this demonic parody and how else could that demonic parody end? um Now one of the images that we’ve gotten from this harlot is this uh This image of wealth and luxury and it’s it’s it’s also kind of a lazy Non-productive image right that she’s just resting on the back of the harlot on the back of the beast It’s kind of a decadent image And it’s reliant on this hard power of the beast this um, this bestial power And it ends up disgusting the beast and the and the ten um, The ten kings the ten horns, um, as they turn on her, right? So I think that a corrupt decadent society, right which has been reliant on Hard political power to keep it up I think this is an image of how easily that can flip into a dictatorship into a tyranny of hard political power And if you’ve allowed yourself to be seduced by the harlot and if you’ve allowed yourself to be caught in by it it’s going to necessarily weaken you and You’ll be Reliant on the luxury reliant on the wealth. You won’t have had an opportunity to harden yourself up and you’ll be ripe for Domination ripe for being conquered being destroyed Right And then also with this image of the beast consuming the harlot Evil is inherently self-destructive, right? It is parasitic on goodness It does not have a proper existence of its own the way the things that god has created have our own proper existence And they tend towards destruction, right? We’ve heard that like three times about the beast. It’s going towards destruction. How could it not? You know god is the one that produces god is the one that sustains us and being Anything that’s turning away from god is necessarily going to have to corrupt and decay And that’s the end of chapter 17 So cheery stuff