Good morning, once again, and we are now in chapter 17 of Revelation. I'm going to start reading at verse 7, verse 7 of chapter 17, which begins the angels interpretation or explanation of the vision that John has just seen. You remember that vision that starts in the 17th chapter, verse 1, is vision of the great harlot Babylon, who is seated upon many waters and seated upon a beast. They are in the wilderness, and this woman has a name full of blasphemy, and the woman has, on her forehead, a name of mystery, battle on the great mother of harlots and of earth's abominations. This woman is drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. Let's start with verse 7 then, and read to the end of the chapter. But the angel said to me, why marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast with seven heads and ten horns that carries her. The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is to ascend from the bottomless pit and go to perdition. And the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life, from the foundation of the world, will marvel to behold the beast because it was, and is not, and is to come. This calls for a mind with wisdom, the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated. There are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen. One is, the other has not yet come, and when he comes he must remain only a little while. As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eighth, but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to perdition. And the ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have not yet received royal power, but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour together with the beast. These are of one mind and will give over their power and authority to the beast. They will make war on the lamb, and the lamb will conquer them. For he is Lord of lords and king of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful. And he said to me, the waters that you saw where the harlot is seated are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues. And the ten horns that you saw, they in the beast will hate the harlot. They will make her desolate and naked and devour her flesh and burn her up with fire. For God has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose by being of one mind and giving over their royal power to the beast until the words of God shall be fulfilled. And the woman that you saw is the great city which has dominion over the kings of the earth. Oh, let's pray. Lord, fearsome and awesome are these words and images that they contain. Lord, we confess to you once again our dependents upon you that we need you not simply to understand this passage, but in every aspect of our lives. Lord, we ask you to forgive us for our wantonness, for our tendency to stray from you, from what we know is true and right and good. We ask you to put it in our hearts to be more attentive to you and to your word, O Lord, may we not be cantalized and seduced by battle on in our day. Grant us, O Lord, to be more vigilant in our watch and more faithful. Father, we all come this morning with various needs and desires. Some of us, perhaps even with somewhat desperate needs, we pray, O Lord, that you would be truly our God today to supply all of our needs in Christ Jesus and whom all your promises are ye and I am in. We ask you now to be among us again by your spirit. Bless the reading and the hearing and the contemplating of your word, if we pray it in Christ's name. Amen. Well, you pray and they come, it's wonderful. Okay, great, well chapter 17, Babylon, there are a number of elements of the plot, if you want to call it that, or the vision, that cry out for attention and discussion and thought, we have, in particular, the image of Babylon herself, this great harlot that is seeded upon the beast, we have only heard about Babylon in passing before, it's been told to us that Babylon is fallen, we're not given a time context for that back in chapter 16, but we're introduced to Babylon. Here is where Babylon comes front and center before our eyes and she is immediately connected with another personage, if you want to call on that, that we have been introduced to before and that is the beast, right? She is sitting on the beast. This beast seems to go back to chapter 13 and even chapter 11, that's where the beast is introduced to us before, just refresh our memories in chapter 11, the beast is said to arise from the bottomless pit, the abyss, and to make war on the saints, in particular the two witnesses and the beast is given power to conquer the two witnesses. Then in chapter 13, we're given a lot more about the beast, remember there is the beast that comes from the sea, and then there is the beast that comes from the earth, who's also called the false prophet, and the second beast from the earth supports the first beast and causes the world to worship that first beast. Here we are in chapter 17 and we are introduced to Babylon, who is sitting upon the beast. We have a number of things, questions in our minds, just what do these correspond to? We put up on the board last time as we are finishing the major suggestions for interpreting Babylon. I think we'll do Babylon first because even though the indication who Babylon is only comes at the end of the chapter, she is sort of the focus and the theme of this chapter. We want to talk about both Babylon and the beast, again, as you heard a very interesting description of the beast as well, this seven heads and five of fallen one is and one is yet to come and so forth. Very interesting. A lot of debate about that too, but I think first we'll talk about the beast, or excuse me, first about Babylon. We mentioned just as we closed the various theories. You could say, well, first there is the theory that Babylon is actually Babylon. That is literally the Old Testament city. As I said last time, this has been a rarity among interpreters over the years. I suppose for one reason, Babylon has been in ruins since way before the time of Christ. But during the Gulf War, back in 1991, there was a professor out of a certain seminary, not RTS, who wrote a book claiming that Babylon in Revelation is literal Babylon because Sodom Hussain was going to rebuild it and make it the capital of his empire. I'm not sure if this professor still believes this or not, but he's pretty much been alone but what it has caused some people to do is it's given him the option of a fully literal interpretation, whereas most even dispensationalists and other futurists have always taken this symbolically. I think there's good reason to take it symbolically. But anyway, there is at least an interpretation out there that it's Babylon. There is the interpretation that it is Jerusalem. Any indications from a text that might make you think that Babylon could be Jerusalem? What approach to interpretation would tend toward this direction? Preterists, right. Now, actually, Preterists fall in various camps on this particular issue. Some would take a view that it's Rome and other aspects of Rome. But there are some, and particularly within our reformed circles, those who are Preterists, a lot of them tend to associate with Jerusalem. Jerusalem of the first century.
Right. Right. The harlot imagery could certainly describe Israel and her unfaithfulness, many Old Testament texts, associate, and we have to deal with this in any event. The association of adultery and harlotry with spiritual harlotry and unfaithfulness, idolatry, worshiping other gods in place of the true God being unfaithful to God. There's the harlot aspect that might make you think of Old Testament Jerusalem that's been unfaithful. There's one other aspect, John. The great city. The rules over the kings of the earth. This has been used for and against Jerusalem as an interpretation. But sometimes it has been linked with chapter 11 where Jerusalem seems to be in view, and the word great, say, the words great city are used to associate with Jerusalem. Verse 8 of chapter 11, their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which is allegorically called Sodom in Egypt, where their Lord was crucified. If you take that to mean Jerusalem, you have the word great city to associate with Jerusalem. Of course, we pointed out that many interpreters don't take even that to denote Jerusalem, literal Jerusalem, but it is the world city where not only Christ is crucified, but the saints are persecuted. There's one other point in the text that draws a lot of people to this interpretation. Verse 176 says, she is drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus, combined that with 1824. Inherit was found the blood of prophets and of saints and of all who have been slain on earth. Now, that may not immediately throw up the image of Jerusalem to your mind, but there is a verse in a Luke where Jesus before the crucifixion says, well, it's quite a bit before the crucifixion, I guess. He says that the blood of all the prophets shed from the foundation of the world may be required of this generation. He's talking about particularly this generation of Jewish leaders. This generation from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perish between the altar and sanctuary. So it sounds like Jerusalem is being held responsible for the blood of all the prophets shed from the foundation of the world, and that's going to be God is going to judge Jerusalem. That seems to tie in with this theme in Revelation of Babylon being responsible for the blood of the prophets. Now, so there are some fairly legitimate things from the text that could point in the direction of Jerusalem. However, I think there are some other things that point definitely away from that. We've mentioned what I think is the strongest point and that is this being responsible for the blood of saints, prophets. But we always have to have in mind in interpreting Revelation that some of the elements of the vision may have to do with more with the image itself and with the reality that the image pictures. What I mean by that is it could just be part of building up the image of Babylon. Like we talked in chapter 11 about the locus and the description of the locus. All these details about the locus don't necessarily mean that you're going to find a one-to-one correspondence with something on Earth when it happens. What could be going on here? Well, in the Old Testament in Jeremiah 51 there is a description of Babylon itself, Old Testament Babylon, where God says that Babylon, this is in chapter 51, verse 49, Babylon must fall for the slain of Israel as for Babylon have fallen the slain of all the earth. You see that's the same kind of rationale there because Babylon has slain the slain of the earth. Babylon herself must be slain. That's what's going on in Revelation because she has slain, you know, she's responsible for the blood of the prophets and so forth. She herself must be slain. And in corresponding to Jeremiah in a revelation text as opposed to the Luke texts which talks about Jerusalem, the Jeremiah in Revelation texts speak about not just the saints but of all the slain of the earth. It's obviously an exaggeration but the point is that in Jeremiah in Revelation Babylon is made to be responsible for sort of universalistic bloodshed, not just the blood of the saints and the prophets. In other words, then the Babylon in Revelation seems to be picking up directly on the imagery of Babylon from the Old Testament. So Babylon in the New Testament in Revelation, whoever it is, must be a persecutor but it's not necessarily related to Jerusalem. In any sense, now we're going round about and to a number of passages but in fact some interpreters have said because this talks about universal bloodshed and responsibility, there is no city on earth, past, present, or future. That is responsible for all the blood of the slain of all the earth. The slain of all the earth is what Jeremiah says. So somebody like Leon Morris says, this is another indication that we must take the great city symbolically. There is no one city on earth of which this can be said. Babylon is clearly a symbol for all earthly cities says Morris. Some actually do connect them but I'm not sure that that's a fully legitimate connection. Anybody else know about that? Yeah. I think you can draw a thematic connection with them, yes. Whether the city of Babylon is the city of Babylon literally, that's another matter. But yeah, you can certainly look at Babylon and see a common theme of humanistic pride and opposition to God wanting to take the place of God. That's definitely consistent with the image of Babylon. See, I think somebody over here, Rob. Yeah, the difference between Jerusalem and Babylon, you're saying. Jerusalem continues as the heavenly Jerusalem. Right. Another point against this I think, well not necessarily against it but this point, the great harlot. Israel is sometimes called a harlot but she's also called an adulterous. You see the difference? An adulterous has been married and that that more properly describes Israel as God's bride, God's wife who has been unfaithful. Harlot is not necessarily like when they're on one. Harlot is not necessarily a married woman. So because this says harlot some interpreters say this does not point to Jerusalem because Jerusalem would be an adulterous. There's something to that. I don't know if it's a conclusive argument. I think harlot is used for Israel in the Old Testament as well. So this just means that it could be referring to other nations as well as Jerusalem. Another argument I think against Jerusalem is simply the last verse in the text, verse 18. And the woman that you saw is the great city which has dominion over the kings of the earth, the great city which has dominion over the kings of the earth. And that's a hard sell for Jerusalem in the first century, certainly anytime thereafter. Somebody will argue that well in God's eyes it is the city that rules over the kings of the earth. But I think that's stretching a bit. It seems like this being the interpretation on the part of the angel would seem to be this is the what John and his readers should understand to be the case. And I would think that would point to Rome in fact. And that is the next suggestion, interpretation, the Babylon is Rome in some aspect pointing in this direction as we've seen is this verse 18, the great city which has dominion over the kings of the earth. Another indication in the text is that it is said that Babylon sits upon seven mountains or hills right verse nine, the seven heads of the seven mountains on which the woman is seated. And it was well known even then Rome the city of built on seven hills. Some have actually tried to argue that Jerusalem too was built on seven hills, but I don't think that that has actually been confirmed by many people you can find four in Jerusalem. I'm not sure you can find seven, but even so even if you could it that would have been very cryptic. Rome was known as being built on seven hills. Also remember first Peter 513 where Peter says that he is writing by the hand of Sylvanas from Babylon, remember that says I write to you from Babylon. She who is at Babylon who is likewise chosen sends you greetings as and so does my son Mark. As if that's where he's writing from and the people with me send you greetings. That's always been seen as a cryptic name for Rome could argue with that. I don't think he's in literal Babylon. You could argue he's in Jerusalem, but that's always been taken to mean a cryptic name for Rome. We know that Rome was called Babylon in the first and second century from other nonbiblical texts. Now if we identify with Rome there's still the question of what aspect of Rome we're talking about. Now this has been a matter of debate two over the years. Liberals generally will say that it was Rome of John's day and John fully expected that Rome wouldn't last very long and within a few years it would be gone. Everything is contextualized to the first century and probably didn't come true. That's one approach. The reformers some of you might know would identify Rome with the Roman church, right, the Roman Catholic church. Not simply Rome of the first century, not any political or even civil sense particularly but Rome as the seat of the Roman Catholic church. And a bit about drunk on the blood of the martyrs and the saints had a lot of personal meaning to them because there was a lot of bloodshed. In the time of the reformers and in the next centuries. Right, you could see a sense in which this city would have dominion over the kings of the earth. You could look back at this and see some reasons why this would have made a lot of sense. And there are still people that take this view. In fact a lot of dispensationalists would identify this either with the Roman Catholic church or maybe they won't be so bold as to say that. But with some kind of ecclesiastical structure, a false church, false church that loves pomp and circumstance, that loves ceremony, that loves riches and so forth. So you will still see that interpretation quite prominently. Now I think that the indications of Rome in the text are very strong with seven hills and a dominion aspect. But there is another view that I think is even better. And that one would recognize that in John's day Babylon was Rome, Roman culture. But that doesn't exhaust the meaning of Babylon. That there will be a future and climactic expression of Babylon. And even before the final climax there will be other expressions. Some have called this lack of a better term, any city. Not sure that really expresses what should be expressed there. But the point it makes is that it's not any one particular city but could be any city that is drunk on the blood of the saints that is seductive and full of harlotries and abominations. And there is a particular point to the Babylon imagery. Babylon in the Old Testament could be characterized in a number of ways, I think. Babylon, of course, came and destroyed Jerusalem, burned down the temple, carried Israel off captive, was very brutal, extremely brutal and wicked. Many of those notions, wickedness, captivity, destroying the temple, materialistic, all those things could describe Babylon in the book of Revelation. Yet there does seem to be one angle on Babylon that seems to be prominent. And that aspect is, well, it's called a harlot. It is seductive. It is, what's the opposite of the bride of Christ? And we see that opposition even structurally in Revelation, where this vision chapter 17 starts with John being carried off to view a harlot, a woman in the wilderness. The next vision that starts in chapter 21 has John carried away to a high mountain instead of a wilderness. Revelation 21 verse 9, he spoke to me saying, come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the lamb. And in the spirit, he carried me away to a great high mountain and showed me the Holy City Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. It's a radiance like the most rare jewel. We're also introduced to this bride of Christ earlier in chapter 21. Verse 2, I saw the Holy City new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Okay, so there is a contrast between Babylon and New Jerusalem. And I think the point of that contrast is not so much that Babylon could be a false church, but the Babylon is the opposite of the purity and faithfulness of New Jerusalem, the bride of Christ. She's the opposite in her harlotry and impurity, her sensual reveling in material goods. Chapter 18 will actually catalog a number of those material goods that Babylon is famous for. Along with being sensualistic, hedonistic, materialistic, Babylon is said to be seated upon the beast and said to be drunk with the blood of the saints and martyrs. We've seen before that the beast seems to be more the political military oppressing power. And Babylon rides atop that power almost as to say that she is supported by that. She somehow gains her influence, she somehow gains her riches from the persecuting power of the beast. And I think that you could often see this working out in history that a materialistic culture Well, care is a lot more about feeding its own pleasures than about taking care of the oppressed. In fact, if we look at, oh, in the last centuries, anyway, the major persecutors of the Christian church, I don't know, who would you say the major persecutors of the Christian church would be? Oh, the last few centuries. Islam. I think you're right. Islam would have to be up there, along with communism. In some countries, yeah, the Hindus. In India, right. Islam and communism, not systems particularly known for their materialism and indulgence, but known more for their oppression. And in some cases, of course, is not to blanket all believers in Islam, many of whom, of course, are very peaceful people. But Islamic nations have certainly tended to be that way. If you were looking around, though, at more materialistic, centralistic, pleasure-oriented systems, I think you'd be hard-pressed to come up with a better one than our own, you know, the one we live in right now. The West, in general, and maybe late 20th century American culture comes about as close as anything we've seen on a grand scale. Maybe there have been other smaller scale reproductions. Okay, good. That got some hands going on. I think Larry was first. Larry's pointing out that in Europe, the Christian foundation is even further in the past for them. And there is what he calls benign neglect of things spiritual, which is not actually so benign. In many cases, it creates us a vacuum that can be, it seems like easily replaced by something that will, well, you know, it doesn't take much imagination to theorize. It's just without putting any kind of, you know, putting any names in here, anything. A theorize that to support a lifestyle of pleasure and entertainment and materialistic wealth would society, how far would societies go? How far would governments go? How far would cultures go? In terms of persecuting subgroups. Well, we know, in many cases, they would go quite far. And we can say something. That's interesting. Ed points out Adam Smith's original conception of capitalism has enlightened self-interest as the ultimate motivation. And when that enlightenment, however, it's defined, perhaps loses its light, there's, okay. Yeah, self-interest. Yeah, Bob. If you look at the bottom-on-dead in the world system, well, not the world, the species she is, and she's run rampant through regions, it's a very fast, it's such a important share that there is a different type of market going on. Some things that Jordan looking at Europe, essentially in a state where the motivation is still off, they're looking at something such as plants. And they have these early stages of energy. And, you know, this is the shovel society. We're not finding their roots in anything spiritual, and how they react to put together. As you've seen, it's done when I was living in Germany in the 70s. So, even then, there was a double taxation for a tie in certain parties that were on board during the year. Our fall seems to be something more radical and quick from our spiritual bearings, things that they've been doing. You notice some different things right in the very beginning.
Yeah, that's a good point, very interesting. How the Reformation affects in different places have been eroded more quickly or more slowly. And, yeah, your other point about how to Christianity more choking here from our opulence rather than being openly persecuted with the sword. Yeah.
Spiritualists are not necessarily poor in spirit. Right. Yeah, that's a good point. With the sort of empty spiritual spirituality of materialistic culture, one side effect is breeding different kinds of spiritualities. And we've got a rise of paganism in our culture today. Right. Talking about money and everything that answers all of us, what we're stewards, everything belongs to God and we have to be a steward. Today, today, we look and see how much we've made and that's what we've spent. And so, to me, those two seem pretty strongly disconnected. And then Christ never says, well, I want to be Christ-like. Christ-like, Christ says, if a fox has entered dense and heard dense, the son of a man has no place to lay his head, kind of the idea that he has given up everything to do God will. And yet, we all have our dense in our nest and we all spend a lot on it and try to fix them up and all those kind of things. I mean, in this one of the areas where almost everybody in the church, I mean, I know most pastors are just fundamentally afraid to say. That's what his most pastors make too much money. I'm just kidding. Jazz kidding. Go ahead.
Well, exactly. I mean, I think that's the sort of question we ought to be asking ourselves. I don't know what those guidelines are, really. Except, well, I just remember recently reading in the CS Lewis-Miracusianity who's briefly addressing the question of, you know, how much should we give to the poor or to others? He says he doesn't know, but that he's pretty sure that whatever it is, it should be more than we're comfortable with, more than we're comfortable with, so that it hurts. Right. But I think that precisely, that's the sort of thing we ought to be asking, or another aspect of this Babylon culture came to my notice in yesterday's paper. I don't know how many of you caught this, but here is purports to be new statistics on divorce rates. Can we read that? Here's what it says, born again Christians are more likely to go through a marital split than our non-Christians. Let me read that again. Born again Christians are more likely to go through a marital split than our non-Christians, according to a study by the Barna Research Group. The Barna data show that 11% of the adult population is currently divorced, but that 25% of all adults have experienced at least one divorce during their lifetime. OK, 25%. Among born again Christians, 27% are currently or have previously been divorced compared to 24% among adults who are not born again. So 24% for the non-born again, 27% for the born again. The report said that the Christian group whose adherents have the highest likelihood of getting divorced are baptists. We're off the hook. Of the major Christian groups, Catholics and Lutherans have the lowest percentage of divorced individuals, 21%. People who attend mainline Protestant churches overall experience divorce at the national average of 25% is nice to be average, isn't it? Well, you know, there's just one ugly statistic and it may or may not be completely precise, and there are sometimes, you know, there are biblical grounds for divorce. But when those biblical grounds are met, it means somebody in the partnership has done some pretty awful things. So it's not reflecting well on Christians, on the church, and there's an aspect where it looks like we're at least as bad or worse, according to this report, than the culture around us. Well, that's a good point. That's a point that's not reflected in these sorts of statistics. No, I mean, that's a good thing before we condemnation on ourselves. This would, you know, born again, Christians could have been divorced before they became Christians that would still reflect. That could be the crisis in a person's life, right, that leads them to come to Christ. Yeah, John? Yeah. You think about it today, you look in the news and talk a lot in my life, but then they talk about my less humanism about celebrating human efforts and how great we are. When we forget that we belong to God, we forget the sovereignty. I was talking to somebody the other day about marriage, because you're talking about people that are being divorced and said, well, it's their marriage. And I started to walk away on it for a minute. I said, but who did they belong to? Who made them and we forget that it's God who made us and made us for its glory and we start to buy into the world's ideals and live for a better, get what you can't out of life. And we forget that God made us and never responded to its voice. Yeah, and our culture, the props are just not there anymore, you know, the props that the societal props that used to support either Christianity or a general religion or moral lifestyle and everything seems to tear us away from God. I mean, it just takes a vigilant attitude of combat to be aware of this all the time. This guilt is an expression that you can't go through life on coast. Yes, Gary. It really says, and this is based on a fundamentalism, that if you are unhappy with this product, well, we've got another product over here that will make you happy. That doesn't satisfy us, we will find whatever it is that we want that to satisfy you. And so when you take that idea that it's a prevalent society and you put that in the context of the family environment, it means what? Yeah, great point. I think the rise of modern advertising and marketing techniques is pitched toward the promise of immediate gratification. And even if not immediate, that you deserve to be gratified above all else. And if it's not going right, then switch, switch products. Right. Yeah, that's good, and that's good to be aware of John. Kind of in defense of marketing, I think we need to... Why is your wife shaking her head, John? The problem is the desires of our heart. We're carried away in a tie-spire, known to the desires, and you can argue that the chicken or the egg, as far as marketing goes, that kind of marketing wouldn't work. There wasn't the simple desire that attached itself. Yeah, well, that's a good point. We shouldn't just blame the external circumstance, whatever it is. Devious, though it is, because there's... It wouldn't have an effect if our hearts weren't already leaning that direction. It wouldn't work. Politicians lying openly and blatantly wouldn't work if we didn't love lies. If we didn't love to hear what they had to say, they couldn't get away with it. True. But we do love lies. I mean, anybody that spoke to the last year, it can't think that we don't. We love the liars, and we love the lies. Lies and the liars. Yeah, that's a good point. Oh, was there a... If the economy's good, that's a good point. In booting places like RTS, you have to ask yourself, does the church today say, join me, and it's going to be rough, and it's going to be self-sacrificing, but it'll be a better person, or does the church say, join us, and you can be a happier, more fulfilled person. And more successful. Right? Yes. Well, I've heard it goes on. You heard what some of it said. You pointed out the 15 words that have been said to you in Christian life, which you knew earlier. We now use the word commitment, rather than a story. We use the word servant, rather than a slave. That's interesting. Yeah. Well, behind that, that difference between commitment and surrender. I still maintain the control over my will. I commit, rather than surrender. Yeah. It's interesting. Because what? That might take a bit. Yeah. Well, I think the point of all this is to get us to question. You know, we should be uncomfortable, I think, with the society that we live in, and beyond the lookout for whatever is marketing, whatever, that hits us in the soft spots, and know what our soft spots are, and be awake, not conforming to this world. So I think that this way of approaching the problem of Babylon makes that very real to us, that we may not be living in the time of the ultimate climax of Babylon. We don't know, but there's enough of Babylon around us for us to be white awake, and ready to heed the call, ready to take up arms, ready to do what it takes to combat this world system. In chapter 18, we'll hear a cry, come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues. For her sins are heaped as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. So there is a call for us to come out of Babylon. Now, you know, what would that mean? What would that mean? That's a difficult one to answer, and that may be different for each one of us. For some people it might mean throwing away their TV, rather people might be doing this or doing that, or maybe that's just a band-aid sort of a fix, too. But, you know, we're called not to be part of Babylon. Does that mean we can't participate in our culture? No, I don't think so. I don't think it's that at all, at least not at this point in history. There are other things, I think, back to Clay's class, Sunday School Class, where there's plenty of biblical, precedence and mandate, I think, for being involved in our culture and trying to do good, do good to all men, we're told. And that would include trying to make a difference, I think, in our culture. But, we always have to keep in mind, and I think I mentioned this before with, as a quote, attributed to Karl Barz, saying that the Church of Germany in Hitler's time read, paid too much attention to Romans 13 and not enough to Revelation 13. What he meant by that is there's a legitimate role for government and the earthly power. That's Romans 13, but you have to watch out because there's also Revelation 13 and here Revelation 17, which is particularly Babylon, I think, the culture. Let's go on and at least begin discussing the beast, then the beast. We could go through several interpretations also of the beast if you wanted to do that. Well, in fact, I think it's sort of unavoidable. We at least show a couple of approaches because you do hear this a lot. The description of the beast, particularly the head, the seven heads, is a pretty irresistible picture to comment on. What are the seven heads of the beast, and we have the ten horns as well, which we're told later are ten kings. The seven heads are often linked with seven Roman emperors, and one problem is people aren't agreed as to how you count the seven emperors. You can count the seven emperors in such a way as to get to Nero as the one who was then reigning. You start with Julius Caesar, Julius Augustus, Tiberius, Gaius, Claudius, and Nero is the sixth. The text says, five have fallen, one is and one is yet to come, when he comes you will only remain in short time. The one who is could be Nero, and this is the time when revelations are being written, the time of Nero in the mid-60s of the first century. That, especially for a preterist approach would make a lot of sense. They said there are other ways of counting the emperors such that you would not have Nero as the sixth. You could have Domitian, you could have Vespation, you could do it different ways. But there are other approaches, one in particular that says it's not Roman emperors that are in view here. But kingdoms, anti-Christian, anti-god world kingdoms. And if you look at Israel's history, the people of God, it wouldn't be too hard to come up with Egypt, probably the first, a Syria, who conquered the northern kingdom, Babylon, who conquered the southern kingdom, who conquered Babylon? Well, that was the Meadow Persians, and then the Greeks, the Solucid Empire, and then who would be the sixth? The Romans, five have fallen, one is and one is yet to come. That would fit having Rome as the sixth, Roman Empire as the sixth head, then there's one to come, who will be there only shortly, and then an eighth. Others say that even this way of counting is wrong, take the whole thing in a non-literal way. Seven is a symbolic number, eight is even symbolic. So, we're talking about world powers, yes, but not necessarily identified with these particular powers. Now, I think one thing that has to be kept in mind is this other very interesting aspect of the beast, and that is the fact that it is said to the beast who was,
is not and is to come. Right now, you see that that's the sort of parody on God and on Christ who earlier in the book said, God is He who was and is and is to come. But the beast says to be the one who was, is not and is to come. The fact that the beast is not, I think is very intriguing, and points to the fact that whoever this is, the sixth is not the ultimate, and in fact it is not even the seventh, it's the eighth who is the one really to watch out for, because it's the eighth that's the full expression of the beast that goes to tradition and is destroyed. Okay, we'll have to take that up again next week and try to see what we can do to resolve that one. Any final comments on this or anything we talked about? Larry. Well, I couldn't think of a better warning note to end on how to talk about Babylon. What was that you said Larry, things that we do in moderation could be done in excess, our children could do in excess, and the example that we set really needs to be watched. Okay, well, let's close. Our Father, we do thank You for Your glorious Word, and we pray that it would arm us against the wiles of the devil, that You would make us wise to His deceits and grant us by Your Spirit the strength to withstand in His evil day. In Jesus' name, Amen.