SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Well, if you got students in kindergarten through third grade, they can go ahead and head out to their class now.
SPEAKER_00: Just follow the others.
SPEAKER_00: Running out the door.
SPEAKER_00: That's their excitement for student ministry, not their not excitement for being in here, I think.
SPEAKER_00: The rest of us, let's open up our Bibles, if you have them, if you would, to Revelation chapter 17.
SPEAKER_00: We are making our way through this final book of the Bible, and we really are beginning to get to the final parts of this book.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a Bible with you, no worries.
SPEAKER_00: There should be a Bible under a chair around you.
SPEAKER_00: Feel free to grab that, use that, even take it home if you need a Bible.
SPEAKER_00: But you can also open up your bulletins, the passages in there.
SPEAKER_00: There are even some pages to take notes.
SPEAKER_00: We hope that might be helpful.
SPEAKER_00: But I wonder if you've ever had this experience at the beach.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've been surfing, or maybe more likely boogie boarding, or maybe you've just been out playing in the ocean, maybe even with your kids and you're crashing into waves, taking waves in and going running back out in the waves, playing in the water for 20 or 30 minutes, and then you finally look back to the shore and you realize that you've moved like a few hundred yards from where you used to be.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe more likely, maybe you're a parent in here and you've had a time where you've done the infamous and largely unhelpful sort of gesturing to your kids, yelling at them they can't hear you, to get them to come back this way.
SPEAKER_00: And then finally they come in mostly to grab a snack, and then you explain to them, hey guys, we have boys.
SPEAKER_00: This is very real.
SPEAKER_00: Um you need to stay like in front of us.
SPEAKER_00: You need to stay near to us.
SPEAKER_00: And they're dumbfounded.
SPEAKER_00: They're like adamant, like we are, like we're not doing anything, we're just playing out there.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know how we got so far down the way.
SPEAKER_00: But we know exactly how that happened.
SPEAKER_00: They drifted with the current.
SPEAKER_00: The problem is they don't feel it.
SPEAKER_00: It's so subtle.
SPEAKER_00: It's hidden, it's it's almost imperceptible to them.
SPEAKER_00: They're just plain like normal.
SPEAKER_00: Well, friends, that's how worldliness is.
SPEAKER_00: And when we talk about worldliness, I've always been helped out by the definition by theologian David Wells.
SPEAKER_00: He says this worldliness makes sin look normal, and righteousness seems strange.
SPEAKER_00: Worldliness is this sort of systems in our world that make sin look normal and righteousness seem strange.
SPEAKER_00: Worldliness usually isn't like the waves.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't pound you, it doesn't force you in its wave.
SPEAKER_00: That's persecution, that's oppression.
SPEAKER_00: No, worldliness is subtle.
SPEAKER_00: It's like the current.
SPEAKER_00: It slowly and steadily moves you.
SPEAKER_00: It wants you to drift in its direction.
SPEAKER_00: And Revelation warns us against both.
SPEAKER_00: To not give up in the midst of suffering, and maybe even more so, to not give in to seduction.
SPEAKER_00: That's the point of our passage this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's such an important message, one that we deeply need to hear.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna see how we do indeed live in a fallen world that has an undercurrent.
SPEAKER_00: There is a great evil, and that evil one is seeking to slowly and subtly move us further and further from God and further and further into sin.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this worldliness is very effective.
SPEAKER_00: And the vision that we receive this morning, the vision that we see in Revelation 17, it's maybe as difficult as any in Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: For one, it's hard to understand.
SPEAKER_00: But I think that what makes it really difficult is it's just hard to see.
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to read, it's hard to encounter.
SPEAKER_00: The language is so bold, striking, graphic even.
SPEAKER_00: It pulls zero punches.
SPEAKER_00: But I think that's intentional.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I know it's intentional.
SPEAKER_00: See, like the kids who are drifting in the ocean, our passage this morning screams, it gestures wildly trying to get our attention.
SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't do so with hyperbole.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's what we might be intended to think.
SPEAKER_00: We it it nothing is overstated here.
SPEAKER_00: It's a vision, it is pictures, yes, but it's showing us what's true.
SPEAKER_00: It's actually exposing Satan's seductions for what they really are.
SPEAKER_00: Friend, here's the question I have for you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Have you felt the pull of the world?
SPEAKER_00: If you're honest with yourself this morning, have you maybe noticed a drift in your own life?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe God seems a little bit more distant.
SPEAKER_00: The things of God further from your mind and heart, maybe growing cold in some way to God.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing major, nothing huge, but something's changed.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe something is changing.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe that's not you.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're like, well, I don't think I'm drifting at all.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just living life.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I'm being pulled in any direction.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe it's you're like, I don't even think of the world that way.
SPEAKER_00: I I thought of the world as wholly neutral.
SPEAKER_00: Not being pulled in any direction.
SPEAKER_00: Well, for all of us, this passage is a needed wake-up call.
SPEAKER_00: It's a voice calling from the beach, pointing out the currents and their danger and teaching us how it is that we stand strong.
SPEAKER_00: Here's our main idea this morning.
SPEAKER_00: To stay faithful, we must see through Satan's seductions to our Savior's strength.
SPEAKER_00: We need to see Satan's seductions for what they really are, and we need to see through those seductions to what is truly true, our Savior's strength.
SPEAKER_00: Now, let me just give you a brief bit of context.
SPEAKER_00: If you just look at the very first verse of Revelation 17, it says this one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you missed last Sunday, we talked about these seven bowls.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, these seven bowls were uh symbols of sort of the the last, the completion of God's judgment and wrath against evil and sin in this world.
SPEAKER_00: And so what this means at the very beginning of this passage is that we ought to connect these two chapters.
SPEAKER_00: That really in the chapters to come, what we're doing is we're zooming in on the last two judgments that are described in Revelation 16.
SPEAKER_00: We're we're seeing these judgments of evil and sin in a greater degree.
SPEAKER_00: But let's look at the passage, Revelations chapter 17.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna begin in verse one.
SPEAKER_00: Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me.
SPEAKER_00: Come, I will show you the judgment of the notorious prostitute who is seated on many waters.
SPEAKER_00: The kings of the earth committed sexual immorality with her, and those who live on the earth became drunk on the wine of her sexual immorality.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, in the Old Testament, this is a picture of faithlessness, of idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: Then he carried me away in the spirit to a wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns.
SPEAKER_00: The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, adorned with gold, jewels, and pearls.
SPEAKER_00: She had a golden cup in her hand, filled with everything detestable and with the impurities of her prostitution.
SPEAKER_00: On her forehead was written a name, a mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of prostitutes and of the detestable things of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Then I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the witnesses to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: When I saw her, I was greatly astonished.
SPEAKER_00: Then the angel said to me, Why are you astonished?
SPEAKER_00: I will explain to you the mystery of the woman and of the beast with the seven heads and the ten horns that carries her.
SPEAKER_00: The beast that you saw was and is not, and is about to come up from the abyss and go to destruction.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to see that in a few weeks.
SPEAKER_00: Those who live on the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will be astonished when they see the beast that was and is not and is to come.
SPEAKER_00: This calls for a mind that has wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: The seven heads or seven mountains on which the woman is seated, they are also seven kings.
SPEAKER_00: Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he comes, he must remain only a little while.
SPEAKER_00: The beast that was and is not is itself an eighth king, but it belongs to the seven and is going to destruction.
SPEAKER_00: The ten horns you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but they will receive authority as kings with the beast for one hour.
SPEAKER_00: These have one purpose, and they give their power and authority to the beast.
SPEAKER_00: These will make war against the lamb, but the lamb will conquer them because he is Lord of Lords and King of Kings.
SPEAKER_00: Those with him are called, chosen and faithful.
SPEAKER_00: He also said to me, The waters you saw, where the prostitute was seated, are peoples, multitudes, nations, and languages, the ten horns you saw and the beast will hate the prostitute.
SPEAKER_00: They will make her desolate and naked, devour her flesh, and burn her up with fire.
SPEAKER_00: For God has put it into their hearts to carry out his plan by having one purpose and to give their kingdom to the beast until the words of God are fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: And the woman you saw is the great city that has royal power over the kings of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, you can see a little bit of what I was saying.
SPEAKER_00: It's hard language, striking, graphic language, difficult to understand, but let's dig in.
SPEAKER_00: The first point that I want us to see is the seductions of Satan are pervasive.
SPEAKER_00: The seductions of Satan are pervasive.
SPEAKER_00: Now we got to do a little bit of work to get there.
SPEAKER_00: First, we've got to figure out if we're gonna understand Revelation, what are these different pictures?
SPEAKER_00: And the text gives us some help.
SPEAKER_00: Notice the first picture is in verse one, the notorious prostitute.
SPEAKER_00: We're actually told at the very end of this passage exactly who this picture symbolizes.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 18.
SPEAKER_00: And the woman you saw is the great city that has royal power over the kings of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: The woman is this great city.
SPEAKER_00: She is, look at verse five, Babylon the great.
SPEAKER_00: Now, not literally.
SPEAKER_00: When Revelation is written, Babylon is certainly not great.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I don't even think you could call it a city.
SPEAKER_00: It is mostly devastated at that time.
SPEAKER_00: But Babylon in Scripture is a type.
SPEAKER_00: It's a symbol, it's a picture.
SPEAKER_00: And that type goes all the way to the book of Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you remember the Tower of Babel?
SPEAKER_00: If you've read your Bible, Genesis 11, here's a key statement from that passage.
SPEAKER_00: And they said, Come, let's build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the skies.
SPEAKER_00: Let's build it to the heavens.
SPEAKER_00: Let's make a name for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Babel and its tower displayed the very heart of fallen humanity.
SPEAKER_00: Pride, self-centeredness, idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: It was a picture of humanity striving to be like God and really, in some ways, to be God.
SPEAKER_00: But you know, Babel is going to become Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: And Babylon will take center stage in the prophets when it actually comes and destroys Jerusalem and sends God's people into exile.
SPEAKER_00: And one of its most famous kings is Nebuchadnezzar, and here is his pride on display.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel chapter 4 says this.
SPEAKER_00: This sort of uh God-like language.
SPEAKER_00: This is the very essence of Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: See, in Scripture, Babylon it pictures this rebellious humanities striving against God and striving to take God's place.
SPEAKER_00: And it symbolizes every and all city, empire, system that pridefully stands in opposition to God.
SPEAKER_00: Now, to the first hearers of Revelation, that this would have been very clearly Rome.
SPEAKER_00: And Rome certainly was a type of Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I even think it's alluded to in this passage.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 9, if you look at it, it says that the woman is seated on seven mountains.
SPEAKER_00: Rome is known as the city that was seated on seven hills.
SPEAKER_00: Rome was certainly a type of Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: But Rome was not, the woman is not merely Rome.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, she is, she represents all worldly kings, kingdoms, and cultures that oppose God.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what I want you to see though, what is carrying this woman?
SPEAKER_00: What is at the heart of this vision?
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you've been with us, you know who this beast is.
SPEAKER_00: This is the beast from Revelation 13.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's described in identical language here.
SPEAKER_00: Now, uh, if you remember, this beast was uh sort of characterized or associated with the great dragon, that that ancient serpent with Satan.
SPEAKER_00: Now, maybe here's where some of these pictures get a little bit confusing for you.
SPEAKER_00: You've got a dragon and a beast, in fact, you have another beast, and you have a woman, and you might be thinking in your mind, who is who and which is which, and how do these fit together?
SPEAKER_00: Let me say something I think might be helpful.
SPEAKER_00: Satan, that great dragon, wants to be a counterfeit God.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to be God, to put himself as God.
SPEAKER_00: And the beast is his counterfeit Christ, an anti-Christ of sorts, who draws the worship of uh the people to Satan.
SPEAKER_00: And then the woman in this chapter, I think you might understand her as a counterfeit church.
SPEAKER_00: This people who follow, this institution that follows the beast that's trying to draw the world to worship the beast and ultimately Satan.
SPEAKER_00: That's how Revelation understands this worldliness, the the sinfulness of our fallen world.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, I think this is important and helpful because it reminds us something that I think we often neglect that Satan is real and he is at work.
SPEAKER_00: And not simply or even mostly in the ways we tend to think of.
SPEAKER_00: I know in our own minds we think, well, I know when Satan is at work, and you maybe have this sort of uh picture in your mind, but what we see here is that his influence pervades all the systems of the world: nations, leaders, governments, entertainment, academia, commerce, religion.
SPEAKER_00: We could go on and on.
SPEAKER_00: You I don't know if many of you have read this, I would encourage you to do so, but C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis has a science fiction trilogy.
SPEAKER_00: And in this trilogy, he actually calls Earth the silent planet.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason why in this trilogy, Earth is the silent planet is because it has gone dark.
SPEAKER_00: It has been overshadowed, it's under the shadow of what is called in this series the bent one or the corrupted one.
SPEAKER_00: I actually think that's a helpful picture of what Revelation 17 is saying.
SPEAKER_00: Is that uh much of our world is under the sway of Satan's influence.
SPEAKER_00: And we see this in this vision through this woman.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse one.
SPEAKER_00: What does it say?
SPEAKER_00: It says it speaks of her sitting on many waters.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what are those waters?
SPEAKER_00: What's the imagery there?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the text answers it.
SPEAKER_00: Look then to verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: It says, the waters you saw, and skip to the end, are peoples, multitudes, nations, and languages.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what what is that a way of sit talking about?
SPEAKER_00: The whole world, the whole earth.
SPEAKER_00: The point is that she seduces the whole world to the ways of the beast.
SPEAKER_00: Go back up to verse two.
SPEAKER_00: Notice that the kings of the earth are hers.
SPEAKER_00: The earth dwellers, that's a way of speaking of those who are not in Christ, they are hers.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, what we need to understand is that our world is not neutral, it's not passive, it's not idle, it is fallen.
SPEAKER_00: There is real darkness.
SPEAKER_00: There is an undercurrent in our world that seducely seeks to draw us away from the goodness and graciousness of our God.
SPEAKER_00: But let me mention two wrong ways that I think we might respond to this.
SPEAKER_00: I'm hoping that in the end you'll see a right way, but I think it's important to talk about two wrong ways.
SPEAKER_00: First, I think many of us could live, and this would be wrong, thinking everything is out to get us.
SPEAKER_00: We could throw our TVs in the chat trash, we could decry all secular music, we could detach from all non-Christians, we could move out to the country, boil, kind of build a fortress around our home and our family, and and and just keep everything out awaiting for Christ to return.
SPEAKER_00: I'll be honest, sometimes I understand that reaction, but it's unbiblical.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I really do think it's sort of the uh it's almost like putting a tinfoil hat on your head.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's foolish.
SPEAKER_00: I remember one person saying it this way if you put a bubble around your family to keep everything else out, to keep the world out, to keep this sinful world out, there's one massive problem with that.
SPEAKER_00: And it's this.
SPEAKER_00: Everything inside the bubble is sinful.
SPEAKER_00: See, this doesn't work.
SPEAKER_00: See, this sort of holiness by separation, the the reason why uh it has largely fallen out of favor in the church is not because it couldn't keep sin out, but because it ignored the more dangerous sin within.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, we need to recognize that isolation is not the answer.
SPEAKER_00: But secondly, another wrong response would be to ignore the sinful currents of our world, thinking they aren't real or they won't reach us or they don't really matter.
SPEAKER_00: We're we're strong enough.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, we can't live as if life is just normal.
SPEAKER_00: It's not.
SPEAKER_00: It never is, and it hasn't been since Adam's sin.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I've always appreciated this sort of um kind of assertion and and and movement in John Piper's uh ministry where he has often said this you can't live with a peacetime mentality when you are in wartime.
SPEAKER_00: See, the reason largely why Pearl Harbor in World War II was a successful attack is because we thought we were invincible.
SPEAKER_00: It's because we thought the war would never come to us.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's how sometimes many of us as Christians live.
SPEAKER_00: But we want to picture Satan as this sort of like cartoon character and ignore the fact that we do have a real and devious foe.
SPEAKER_00: Church, we can't afford to belittle the beastly undercurrents that pervade our world.
SPEAKER_00: See, to stay faithful, we must see through Satan's seductions to our Savior's strengths.
SPEAKER_00: And that means we need to see how pervasive they are, but second, we need to see that the seductions of Satan aren't just pervasive, they're powerful.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Revelation 17 pictures the beast and the woman in a grotesque way.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we might even wonder why would anyone give in to such an evil?
SPEAKER_00: But that's the point.
SPEAKER_00: That's why uh we are seeing this vision.
SPEAKER_00: It's exposing us, it's showing us what's true, but that is not how it often appears.
SPEAKER_00: Satan is a master of false charms.
SPEAKER_00: He he is uh is so wily in his work.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Tangled.
SPEAKER_00: It's probably not one of the most popular ones.
SPEAKER_00: It's an adaptation of Rapunzel that many of us might be familiar with, but there's a a pretend mom that sort of uh takes in Rapunzel and through uh she's super evil, but through most of the movie, she appears light, full of life, bright.
SPEAKER_00: Even.
SPEAKER_00: It's because she is using and corrupting Rapunzel's light for her own purposes.
SPEAKER_00: But when we see her for who she really is, there's no doubt about her darkness or evil.
SPEAKER_00: That's how Satan, the beast, and the woman work.
SPEAKER_00: See, Rome, for example, looked magnificent on the outside.
SPEAKER_00: We still talk about its architecture and art, its power and prestige, its wealth and wisdom, its military and its might.
SPEAKER_00: All of those things were unmatched in its day.
SPEAKER_00: It was an empire to behold.
SPEAKER_00: And yet it was full of darkness.
SPEAKER_00: It was prideful.
SPEAKER_00: It was pagan.
SPEAKER_00: It was enslaving.
SPEAKER_00: To adapt Jesus' words, it promised the whole world, but took your soul.
SPEAKER_00: See, the sinful seductions of Satan, they're not just pervasive, they are powerful.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the reasons that they're powerful is because they are so pervasive.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, think about what our text says that the kings of the earth, the people, the multitudes, the nations, the languages even have given in.
SPEAKER_00: It's like the current in the ocean.
SPEAKER_00: All the water seems as if it's moving.
SPEAKER_00: Everything is moving in this direction.
SPEAKER_00: And that makes these seductions particularly strong.
SPEAKER_00: It's easy for us, I think, to use a phrase maybe a little bit differently as it was intended, to think, well, when in Rome live as the Romans do.
SPEAKER_00: It's easy to get caught up in the ways of the world.
SPEAKER_00: We watch what the world watches, we listen to what the world listens to, we enjoy what the world enjoys, we talk like the world talks, we think like the world thinks, and then we wonder, why is it that we've become so much like the world?
SPEAKER_00: Why do the things, why does God and the things of God seem so distant and cold to us?
SPEAKER_00: See, we have to understand that what this means is that part of the Christian life will feel often like you are rowing upstream against the current.
SPEAKER_00: But you know what makes it powerful?
SPEAKER_00: It's not just its pervasiveness, it's also its offer.
SPEAKER_00: Consider the description of what the woman, I think, in one sense offers in verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what it says The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, adorned with gold and jewels and pearls.
SPEAKER_00: She had a golden cup in her hand.
SPEAKER_00: Hold there for a second.
SPEAKER_00: Each of these descriptions, they point to magnificent wealth, majesty, power.
SPEAKER_00: This woman has the absolute best that the world has to offer.
SPEAKER_00: She has, especially in this day, the very utmost, the most valuable things that you could ever get or trade for that were in the commerce of the day.
SPEAKER_00: This is luxury.
SPEAKER_00: And she drinks from a golden cup, the very pinnacle of opulence.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not it.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the only part of the seduction.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what the cup is filled with.
SPEAKER_00: Now look at the rest of verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: It's filled with everything detestable and with the impurities of her prostitution.
SPEAKER_00: This is Old Testament language, detestable and impurities.
SPEAKER_00: Those are pictures of idolatry and immorality.
SPEAKER_00: So let's put these two things together.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the seduction.
SPEAKER_00: It's this join in her idolatry and immorality, and you will join in her wealth, in her prestige, in her luxury.
SPEAKER_00: That's the seduction.
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's a powerful one.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the reasons I think we it's so powerful is that it seems to have even shook John.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 6, the end of verse 6.
SPEAKER_00: It says, When I saw her, this woman, I was greatly astonished.
SPEAKER_00: We might think he was astonished at her wickedness.
SPEAKER_00: That's not actually how that phrase, that word, is used.
SPEAKER_00: It's always, almost always used in a positive sense.
SPEAKER_00: It's, I marvel at a great marvel.
SPEAKER_00: That's what that phrase literally means.
SPEAKER_00: It's an idiom of praise.
SPEAKER_00: It's actually the exact same thing that was said of the beast in Revelation 13.
SPEAKER_00: The whole earth was amazed.
SPEAKER_00: That's the same word, astonished, amazed, and followed the beast.
SPEAKER_00: This is why the angel almost nearly rebukes John.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: Why are you astonished?
SPEAKER_00: Why are you amazed?
SPEAKER_00: Why are you caught up?
SPEAKER_00: It's almost like the angel is saying, Step out of it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna show you what is really true.
SPEAKER_00: But that was the sort of glory that the woman had in her appearance.
SPEAKER_00: Now, how did it, why did it catch John?
SPEAKER_00: What what what is this seduction?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think it is the same seduction that Satan has used throughout human history.
SPEAKER_00: And I think if we want to see the pinnacle of this seduction, we should see it when he tried to tempt the pinnacle of humanity, Christ himself.
SPEAKER_00: Look at Luke chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what happened.
SPEAKER_00: So Satan took him up, Jesus, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
SPEAKER_00: And the devil said to him, I will give you their splendor and all this authority, because it has been given over to me, and I can give it to anyone I want.
SPEAKER_00: If you then will worship me, all will be yours.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see Satan's seduction?
SPEAKER_00: Here's what Satan is saying: the world, the whole world is mine.
SPEAKER_00: I have what you want, I have what you most need, and I will give it all to you.
SPEAKER_00: And it is an offer of everything without suffering, without the cross, without obedience.
SPEAKER_00: See, here's why I think prostitution is actually a right picture of Satan's seduction, because it is the offer of something that we want completely on our own terms.
SPEAKER_00: What we want, how we want it, when we want it.
SPEAKER_00: No waiting, no trusting, no sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: We're in complete control.
SPEAKER_00: We get to play God.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same thing that Satan offered Eve in the garden.
SPEAKER_00: If you remember, Satan said, you can have what you want.
SPEAKER_00: This apple that looks so appealing, this fruit, you can have it, and you can have it now.
SPEAKER_00: You can take matters into your own hands.
SPEAKER_00: You don't need God, you don't need to trust or wait on God.
SPEAKER_00: You can just take and enjoy.
SPEAKER_00: See, it's really not that complex of a temptation.
SPEAKER_00: The woman is simply saying two things.
SPEAKER_00: I have what you want.
SPEAKER_00: Think about how the world does this.
SPEAKER_00: You want control?
SPEAKER_00: You want comfort?
SPEAKER_00: You want pleasure?
SPEAKER_00: You want praise?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I have that.
SPEAKER_00: And what's the second statement?
SPEAKER_00: You just have to give yourself to me.
SPEAKER_00: Just give yourself to me.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Rome did.
SPEAKER_00: Rome said, we have everything.
SPEAKER_00: All is ours.
SPEAKER_00: This whole world is ours.
SPEAKER_00: If you want it, you can have it.
SPEAKER_00: Just give yourself to us.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't this the lie that we believe every time we sin?
SPEAKER_00: That sin can give us what we most want.
SPEAKER_00: This is why I think it's right to talk about sin at its heart being unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: Because every time we sin, every time we give in to temptation, we are thinking, wanting, uh, understanding, thinking that sin can give us what God can't or God won't.
SPEAKER_00: So if I could summarize this, let me summarize it this way.
SPEAKER_00: The seduction is this you can have what you want.
SPEAKER_00: And you can have it now.
SPEAKER_00: And you can have it easy.
SPEAKER_00: Now, is that not every single marketing campaign and every single advertisement in some sense?
SPEAKER_00: It's a powerful draw on our soul.
SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
SPEAKER_00: There's another ploy, I think, especially directed at Christians.
SPEAKER_00: It's that you can have all of this, and you can still have Christ.
SPEAKER_00: See, that's what the danger of Revelation 2 and 3 was.
SPEAKER_00: So many of the churches in Revelation 2 and 3 believe that they could have Rome and Christ, that they could walk in the ways of Rome, that they could enjoy all the benefits and luxuries of Rome and not become Roman.
SPEAKER_00: Can almost imagine their justification.
SPEAKER_00: We can take part in these things on the outside.
SPEAKER_00: We can participate, we can enjoy.
SPEAKER_00: It won't infect us.
SPEAKER_00: It won't get our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: We can enjoy idolatrous feasts.
SPEAKER_00: We can uh do acts of immorality.
SPEAKER_00: We can even speak and maybe even just show on the outside worshipful allegiance to Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: But in our hearts we can keep Christ.
SPEAKER_00: See, I think this is why, again, prostitution is a really powerful picture.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's a picture of the idea that we can give a part of ourselves to another, but keep the most important part of us, our hearts, with our spouse.
SPEAKER_00: That's the seduction of Satan to us.
SPEAKER_00: You can have your sin and your savior.
SPEAKER_00: You can have Rome and heaven.
SPEAKER_00: You can worship this world and God.
SPEAKER_00: But you know what Satan knows full well that we must know as well?
SPEAKER_00: That any sort of partial worship, any sort of partial allegiance to Christ is no allegiance at all.
SPEAKER_00: This is why the New Testament uses pretty, pretty striking language.
SPEAKER_00: Consider what James, Jesus' brother, said in uh James 4, 4.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you know that friendship with the world, and he's not just talking about living in this world or being friends with your neighbor, he's not talking about it, he's talking about giving into this world, having relationships, the world being your heart, is hostility toward God.
SPEAKER_00: So whoever wants to be the friend of the world becomes the enemy of God.
SPEAKER_00: And he's thinking of the world in its sinful, fallen uh systems and ways.
SPEAKER_00: See, to stay faithful, we must see through Satan's seduction to our Savior's strength.
SPEAKER_00: So we've looked at how the seductions of Satan are pervasive and powerful, but let's finally look at how they are poisonous.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, this is so helpful.
SPEAKER_00: I think this is probably the most clear and evident thing from the passage, but it needs to be said.
SPEAKER_00: We need to know and be reminded, and I think we do, but we need to hear it again and again, that Satan is no friend to Christ and his people.
SPEAKER_00: There are mentions throughout this text of scarlet.
SPEAKER_00: Scarlet is symbolic, it's a red color, and the purpose of that color is seen in verse 6.
SPEAKER_00: It's a hard verse to read.
SPEAKER_00: Then I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the witnesses to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Satan and the woman, this fallen world, hates Christ and despises his people.
SPEAKER_00: So we need to remember, like the white witch in the Chronicles of Narnia, she may offer, make these offers with a big smile on her face.
SPEAKER_00: But it is only a sinister one.
SPEAKER_00: Satan seeks nothing less than our destruction.
SPEAKER_00: He is poisonous, and so are his seductions.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why this passage helps us to see just the poison that is in these seductions of Satan.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: Where does John get this vision of the woman?
SPEAKER_00: Where is this woman in all her glory?
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: Then he carried me away in the spirit to a wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: That word can also mean desert.
SPEAKER_00: Now you might just read through that and think, well, that's, does it seem very important?
SPEAKER_00: They moved sections.
SPEAKER_00: That is very important.
SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, the wilderness or the desert is a, it had a certain connotation.
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, the prophet Isaiah received the judgment that was going to come on Babylon in the desert.
SPEAKER_00: And in Isaiah 21, he actually says that the desert is a place full of terrors.
SPEAKER_00: That's where the woman and her glory resides in this vision.
SPEAKER_00: In a desolate, empty, terrifying, harsh land.
SPEAKER_00: That's supposed to tell us something.
SPEAKER_00: And I think the picture is really helpful that this supposed glory of the woman is but a mirage in the desert.
SPEAKER_00: She promises plentiful water to the thirsty, but gives only more sand.
SPEAKER_00: Any and all who give themselves to these temptations to the woman, the way of the sinful world, will find in the end ultimately only desert and desolation.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I think Joel Beakey, he's a pastor, his question is super helpful.
SPEAKER_00: Has God, by the Spirit, shown you the wilderness where this woman lives?
SPEAKER_00: Do you know when you see this world and it and it seems to have these gleaming things, the riches and the wealth and the affluence and the comfort and the power and the secure, all that the world has to offer.
SPEAKER_00: Have you seen what it actually comes from?
SPEAKER_00: Have you actually seen where it dwells?
SPEAKER_00: It's in the wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: That's my prayer for us in part this morning, that God would open our eyes to see the wilderness and the desert of Satan's worldly seductions.
SPEAKER_00: That all that Satan promises will satisfy our thirst and hunger, that we would know that it will actually only bring about more thirst and more hunger.
SPEAKER_00: So many of us have experienced this.
SPEAKER_00: Much of our life, often we we think, oh, maybe this will satisfy.
SPEAKER_00: And it's never enough.
SPEAKER_00: You can't get enough money, you can't get enough praise, you can't get enough comfort, you can't get become secure enough.
SPEAKER_00: That's the point here.
SPEAKER_00: That's the picture.
SPEAKER_00: What this world offers, apart from Christ, is actually only a corrupted good.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I I'm gonna mention Tangled twice, and I know it is not a very popular movie, and most of you are like, I don't even never seen it, but super helpful in this regard.
SPEAKER_00: Because when Rapunzel's hair is cut off, it loses its life.
SPEAKER_00: It loses uh its its brightness.
SPEAKER_00: See, that's what uh that's how the gifts of God are when cut off from God.
SPEAKER_00: They lose their richness.
SPEAKER_00: They might appear to be good and and full, but there is no life in them apart from God.
SPEAKER_00: See, that is what the woman offers.
SPEAKER_00: Only corrupted goods.
SPEAKER_00: Now think about it again, the image that we have here that's prostitution only offers the corrupted goods of marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Never the real thing.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, it only destroys the real thing.
SPEAKER_00: That's how all sin is.
SPEAKER_00: Sin may promise love and joy and satisfaction, but it has no intention on making good on any of those promises.
SPEAKER_00: It is merely an act, a fraud.
SPEAKER_00: And Satan's seductions are not a harmless act, they are destructive.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna see this in detail in the weeks to come.
SPEAKER_00: But I want us to see it even in our passage.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 16.
SPEAKER_00: What is the end of the woman, the end of Babylon, the end of the city of man?
SPEAKER_00: It says, the ten horns you saw and the beast will hate the prostitute.
SPEAKER_00: They will make her desolate and naked, devour her flesh, burn her up with fire.
SPEAKER_00: Now, remember some of the passage here, these ten horns are mentioned in verse 12.
SPEAKER_00: And verse 12 describes them as future kings.
SPEAKER_00: Now, it's one of the more difficult parts of the passage.
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to know exactly what is being referred to as these future kings, and who are these future kings, and when are they coming?
SPEAKER_00: But there's a very clear point in the midst of it.
SPEAKER_00: These future kings, they will reign for and with the beast.
SPEAKER_00: And their uh reigning, when they reign with the beast, what will they do?
SPEAKER_00: They will absolutely consume and conquer the woman.
SPEAKER_00: That's the picture here.
SPEAKER_00: Now, think about this as a larger picture, because I think this is really important.
SPEAKER_00: We we talked before that in some ways Satan puts himself up as a counterfeit God.
SPEAKER_00: And the beast is a counterfeit Christ, and the woman is a counterfeit church.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see the picture here?
SPEAKER_00: That ultimately the beast uses and then consumes his own church, his own institutions and followers and peoples.
SPEAKER_00: It is a potent picture of the nature of sin and all, or the nature of Satan and all sin.
SPEAKER_00: Sin, Satan, always, only is self-defeating, self-destroying.
SPEAKER_00: It turns on itself always.
SPEAKER_00: It ruins from the inside out.
SPEAKER_00: Not only are Satan's uh deceptions and seductions empty, they're deadly.
SPEAKER_00: See, here's a reminder we need.
SPEAKER_00: Satan is only ever a master, never a father.
SPEAKER_00: He only seeks to abuse for his own ends.
SPEAKER_00: He's like a parasite that wants to suck all the life out of us until there is no more.
SPEAKER_00: That's the poison of his seductions.
SPEAKER_00: To stay faithful, we need to see through Satan's seductions to our Savior's strength.
SPEAKER_00: But in conclusion, we might think, well, man, these seductions, they're so pervasive.
SPEAKER_00: They're so powerful.
SPEAKER_00: They're so poisonous.
SPEAKER_00: Is there any hope that we can stand?
SPEAKER_00: Can we stand amidst such a strong current?
SPEAKER_00: And the answer of scripture is a resounding absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Now we're gonna see this and more definitively in the weeks to come, but there's hints even here in our passage.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: What does the angel say in verse 8?
SPEAKER_00: Those who live on the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will be astonished when they see the beast that was and is not and is to come.
SPEAKER_00: But flip that statement for me.
SPEAKER_00: Who will not be astonished?
SPEAKER_00: Who will not be seduced by the woman?
SPEAKER_00: Those whose names are written in the book of life.
SPEAKER_00: Those who are with the Lamb.
SPEAKER_00: Those, look at the at the end of verse 14, those who are called, chosen, faithful.
SPEAKER_00: Church, that's us.
SPEAKER_00: All who are in Christ have been called and chosen and are being made faithful in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 14, though, the very beginning of it.
SPEAKER_00: These, these enemies will make war on the lamb.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, this is so good.
SPEAKER_00: But the lamb will conquer them.
SPEAKER_00: Why will the lamb Jesus conquer?
SPEAKER_00: Because he is Lord of Lords and King of Kings.
SPEAKER_00: We need to know that our Savior's strength is far stronger.
SPEAKER_00: That the one who is in us is far greater than the one who is outside.
SPEAKER_00: See, you think about this.
SPEAKER_00: If the beast is a counterfeit Christ and the woman is a counterfeit church, then that must mean there is a true Christ and a true church.
SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what scripture tells us.
SPEAKER_00: That actually Jesus is the true Christ, the true Savior, the true King.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what's amazing about Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't use us, he saves us.
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, he saves us by being consumed.
SPEAKER_00: He actually takes the judgment and wrath for our sin.
SPEAKER_00: He takes on our sin at the cross and he dies in our place, paying the penalty for our sin, so that we might have life, so that our sin might be entirely forgiven, so that we will not be consumed even by death.
SPEAKER_00: See, when Christ came, he conquered sin, Satan, and death.
SPEAKER_00: And when he returns, we will see that destruction of sin, Satan, and death in full and in final and forever.
SPEAKER_00: You know, when Satan took Jesus up to the very height of heights and he offered him all that the world had to offer, Jesus knew something.
SPEAKER_00: And he knew it to his very core is that he had far more than all the kingdoms of this world.
SPEAKER_00: See, Jesus knew that he had God the Father.
SPEAKER_00: He knew that Satan would not make good on any of his offers.
SPEAKER_00: But you know what really helped him fight that temptation is that he did not need anything that Satan could offer.
SPEAKER_00: Because, see, Jesus endured significant suffering in this life.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews tells us, for the joy that was set before him.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus knew what he had and what he would receive was far greater than anything this world has to offer.
SPEAKER_00: Church, there is a real sense in which Satan, when he takes us to the heights of the heights, when he seeks to seduce us, when this world shows us every single thing that it has to offer without any sort of suffering, seemingly, we can actually say the exact and know the exact same thing that Jesus knew.
SPEAKER_00: That we have Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And that Christ is ours forevermore, and that one day we will know Christ and his kingdom in full.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, we have far more than anything this world has to offer.
SPEAKER_00: And so we can look at the seductions of Satan even in the midst of suffering, and we can say, Christ is mine.
SPEAKER_00: I have all that I need.
SPEAKER_00: That's how we see through Satan's uh seductions, and we see our Savior's strength.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.