Revelation 17 Explained: The Rise of the Antichrist's World Religion

Hello and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. Okay, and ready to go again, and we'll go right back to where we left off in Revelation, chapter 17. Like I told you, we'll go as far as we can, and we'll stop, and then we'll pick it up. Now, I know for those of you watching on television, this means a whole week in between, but you'll have to bear with us. But anyway, we trust we can hold it all together, and that you'll be learning, and hopefully we're making Revelation a little easier to understand. But anyway, if you'll come back with me now to chapter 17, and we'll pick up where we left off there in verse 3, and we're talking about this great religious system that's going to come on the world. We're already seeing all the seeds of it. Which particular religious system will end up heading it up? I don't know. There's a lot of speculation. There are a lot of worldwide, huge religious organizations on the scene tonight who have tremendous wealth, they have tremendous political power, and they have, for the most part, been persecutors of true believers. I made mention of that in a program some time ago, in fact, I guess a couple years ago. I guess I was reading it in one of the little books that we've transcribed. But you see, it's always been that way. Even way back in the Old Testament, the pagan, idolatrous world was always making life miserable for the true people of God. Even on this side of the cross, I've always mentioned that most, if not all, of the world's conflicts, and you look around the planet tonight and it still bears it out, most of the conflicts have been precipitated by religionists trying to force somebody either out of their area or under their thumb. Now you just think about it. Now you take the whole situation in Yugoslavia. What is it? It's religious. It's all it is. And of course, politics becomes part of it, but it's basically religious. And so as this great religious system comes on the scene, it will of course be satanic. Just because it's a religion doesn't mean it's godly. It'll be a satanically inspired organization under the guise of religion, which will be headed up again by this one world religious leader, which we've identified as the false prophet, who I said a few weeks ago could very easily be an apostate Jew. After all, I was reading here a while back where one famous Jew was a Muslim. So it's not unusual for Jews to embrace something other than Judaism. But whatever. We know this great religious system is coming on the scene. It's going to be worldwide, and it's going to have tremendous power over the everyday individual. We're going to see now in just a little bit that it is supported by the government of the Antichrist. Now that's nothing new. Even today, you go into certain nations in Europe, and the government actually subsidizes and supports some of the large denominations. I remember here, oh, about a year ago, I had a young lady from Switzerland who was in one of my classes. She was an exchange student over here. And I was talking to her at break time, and she was telling me that her daddy was a minister of a rather large church over there in Switzerland. I don't remember what denomination, but it was a Protestant. And I said, well, you know, I've always heard that very few people in Europe go to church anymore. Does he have any better luck? Oh, she says, no, nobody comes. She said, nobody comes to church. And he says, all he has paid for is to be there for weddings and funerals. But she said, nobody comes to church. And I said, now wait a minute. I said, then who pays his salary? Well, she said, the government. See, so there you are. The government supports that particular denomination, and out of that comes the salaries. Well, you see, this was the very nature of the thing when our forefathers left Europe and took sale for America is that they wanted to come out from under that big hand of the government who was literally subsidizing their particular church. And that's why our forefathers were so adamant in the separation, as they called it, of church and state. Now, that didn't mean that they didn't want God in government. See, that's where we have completely twisted it all around. Our forefathers certainly did not intend to take God out of government, but they did not want government to run their church. And that, of course, is as it should be. But here, now let me show you the language. Verse 4, the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, decked with gold, precious stones, and pearls, a golden cup in her hand. What does all that speak of? Wealth. Tremendous wealth. And again, look at some of the large religions of the world. Their subjects are poor as church mice, but where's all the wealth? In the hands of the hierarchy, see? And so this will be the same thing. Now, like I say, all the religions of the world are going to come under this one. In other words, the Shindos of Japan and the Hindus and the Mohammedans and the Catholics, the Protestants, you name it. They're all going to come under this one great umbrella. And it's going to be satanic, it's going to be demonic, because, you see, in her hand is this golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her immoralities. Now, again, like I said, not so much the physical sexual immorality, but the spiritual. This amalgamating, see? This amalgamating of idolatrous worship, of so-called biblical worship or whatever, and it's just a tremendous amalgamation of all these various idolatrous religions. Then verse 5. And I'm going to come to the point that she is carried by the government in verse 7. But verse 5, upon her forehead was a name written, mystery, from which we get the word secret, of Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots, and the abominations of the earth. Now those of you who were with me way back when we were studying in Genesis, and when that early post-flood group of people gathered there in the valley of Shinar on the Euphrates River, and they built the Tower of Babel, what began at that point in human history? Well, all pagan idolatrous religion. In fact, any cult today, if they are a true cult, even though they may use a certain amount of Scripture, yet you can take parts of their doctrine that'll put their roots right back in the Tower of Babel. Every one of them. And all of the religions of the world have their roots going right back to the Tower of Babel. That's where it all began. And that's what Paul meant. You remember in the verse we read several weeks ago now, according to our programming, in 2 Thessalonians when he said, For the mystery of iniquity doth already work, O it's been working ever since they scattered from the Tower of Babel, and it has been a constant adversary of the true worship of Jehovah God. First for the Jew, what was Israel's nemesis all through her early history? Going into idolatry, see? Baal worship, Moloch, what were those? Those were all idolatrous gods, see? All right, now you come on this side of the cross, and you have Paul going out into the Gentile world. What was he confronted with? Well, let me show you an example. Come back to the book of Acts, just for one example. Acts chapter 19. Acts chapter 19. This is just one good example in Paul's journeys up into Asia Minor. As he is taking now the gospel of the grace of God to the Gentile world, and as he and Barnabas had come into Ephesus, multitudes of those pagans were being converted. Now as they were being converted to Paul's gospel, what were they doing with their idols? Well, they were pitching them, throwing them away. Now that, in turn, you see, caused the ire then of the men who made their idols, and that's the silversmiths, see? All right, now look what happens when Christianity began to make inroads into the idolatrous worship of these pagan religions, and it's no different today. It's not one whit different. Verse 23. And the same time, that is of Acts 19, and the same time there arose no small stir about that way. What way? Paul's way, the gospel of grace. For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines for Diana, see, a female goddess, brought no small gain to the craftsmen, the silversmiths, and whom he called together with a workman of like occupation, he said, Sirs, you know that by this craft of making silver shrines of Diana, we have our what? Our wealth. And after all, what is the engine? Now we had a great junk bond broker of a few years ago who made the saying rather popular that there's nothing wrong with greed. So I've already answered my question. What is the engine of economy? Greed. Greed. It's that constantly wanting more, and more, and more, and that's what fuels it. Now of course, I'm certainly not in favor of sitting back and saying, well, I'm not going to do anything. You know that. But on the other hand, there has to be a tempering, see. And so greed is what prompts these silversmiths now to rise up against Paul's ministry and against Christianity, because it's by this, making these silver shrines to Diana, that we have our wealth. Verse 26, moreover, you see and hear that not alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, that is, Asia Minor, that'd be Turkey, this Paul hath persuaded and turned away, what? Much people, saying that there be no gods that are made with hands. And so not only this, our craft is in danger, to be said it not, but also that the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised, and her magnificence should be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world, what? Worshipeth. Now that's what idolatry does, see. Idolatry just feeds on the baser instincts of humanity. All right, come back now to Revelation chapter 17. And so here we have this great religious system, verse 6, or verse 5 again, going all the way back to old ancient Babylon, the Tower of Babel. And it's been the adversary of the truth of God ever since, but it's going to crescendo during this last seven years, when it's just going to all of a sudden come to a peak. So this mystery Babylon the great, the mother of harlots. Now, even though idolatry is basically dealing in the realm of the spiritual, albeit it be the dark side of the spiritual, yet idolatry still is dealing with man's innate desire to worship something, isn't it? But when you get into a study of pagan worship, especially back at the time of Paul and the New Testament, you want to remember that part and parcel of their worship was gross immorality. Because you see, almost every pagan temple, like this one mentioned in Acts, the temple to the goddess Diana, were nothing more than glorified houses of prostitution in the name of their religion. And those pagan priests would conscript young ladies from out across the countryside to come in, and they were forced into prostitution, but in the name of religion. And see, this is what God is finally coming back to. Now, verse 6, "...and I saw the woman," now remember we're talking about the religious system, just like the beast refers to the political system, this woman here is referring to the religious system again, "...and I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints." Who has been the persecutor of true believers? Religion of one sort or another. And so they've been filled with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And John says, "...when I saw her, I wondered with a great admiration," I suppose he had to wonder at all of their wealth and their pomp and their circumstance, see, and their power. Verse 7, "...and the angel said unto me, Wherefore did you marvel? I will tell thee the mystery," or the secret, "...of the woman, and of the beast that carries her." Now what does that tell you? If you've got a beast of burden carrying something, it's supporting it, isn't it? Alright, so what you really have here now then is that this revived Roman Empire, this great political worldwide system now, headed up by the man Antichrist, is going to subsidize, is going to support this world church. See that? And the church is riding upon it. The government of the Antichrist is supporting it. Verse 7 continuing, "...the beast that carries her, who has the seven heads and the ten horns," and again that's a reference to the Antichrist, to Satan, as well as to the Empire. Verse 8, "...the beast that thou sawest was," and again I'm still going to hold that this is the Roman Empire, "...it was, it faded off the scene, it disappeared, is not, shall ascend out of the bottomless pit and go into perdition, and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder who those whose names were not written in the book of life." So we have the unbelieving element of the world who are going to be part and parcel of this great religious system, "...and they shall wonder whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they shall behold the beast that was and is not and yet is." In other words, when this whole ancient Roman political, economical system, as well as I think the pagan religion system, is all going to culminate. Verse 9, "...and here is the mind which has wisdom, the seven heads are seven mountains," or kingdoms, or nations, "...on which the woman sitteth," in other words, she has rule. Now verse 10, here again I'm going to come back to the nations of Western Europe who will be the core of all this, "...and there are seven kings," now remember we started with ten, "...there are seven kings, five are fallen, one is," in other words, is still evident, "...and the other is not yet come," in other words, there's one that's still to come on the scene, "...and when he cometh, he must continue a short space," in other words, not for a very long period of time. And then verse 11, "...now we come to the rise of the Antichrist, and the beast that was and is not, even he is the eighth, and he is out of the seven," and again he's going to go into perdition, in other words, the Lord is going to destroy it at His coming. Now I think what you have here is you're going to start out with ten nations, three of them are going to lose their identity rather shortly, but their prime ministers or their presidents or their kings are going to stay in the picture. But the sovereignty of their nation will be lost, and so the ten will be down to seven. And then out of the seven will come the Antichrist who will then take over complete control, and the others just fade off the scene, and he then is the eighth. All right, and then verse 12, "...and the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings," now see how plain that is? There's no gimmick here. The ten horns were ten kings or presidents or prime ministers, whatever their title may be, "...and they have received no kingdom as yet," in other words, they don't have the power and the political clout that the Antichrist will have, "...but they receive power as kings for one hour, for a short period of time, with the beast," or with the Antichrist and his empire. Now here's what they'll do. They'll all agree, have one mind, and they'll give their power and their strength to whom? The Antichrist, the beast, and there he's got it. That's what he's been working for. He's been maneuvering. See, remember when we've taught this several weeks ago, that he'd come in with peace and prosperity and flatteries? See, he's not going to come in and take it over with civil war. He's going to manipulate. He's going to be a smoothie, and all of a sudden he's going to have the preeminence. Now then, leaping, of course, to the end of the seven years in verse 14, "...these," all these nations, "...under the headship of the Antichrist and the false prophet, they shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them," that is, at Christ's second coming, "...for He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and they that are with Him are called," that is, you and I will be coming with Him now, remember, "...chosen and faithful. And He saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth," in other words, where this great religious system is operating, "...are people and multitudes and nations and tongues." In other words, it's just that. It's a worldwide religious system. Verse 16, "...and the ten horns, which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall," now all of a sudden you've got a change in language. Now watch it. You come back again to verse 7. Where is this religious system riding? On the back of the beast. In other words, it's being subsidized by it. Now look what happens in verse 16, "...for the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate this whore," or this religious system, "...and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire." Now that's just, again, symbolic language. What is the Antichrist going to do with this religion? He's going to destroy it. Why? Oh, now come back again to Thessalonians. Let's compare Scripture with Scripture. Now I think we can also go all the way back to Daniel, but find 2 Thessalonians first, chapter 2. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. All with me? 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, and come down to verse 4. The pronoun who, of course, referring to the man of sin, the Antichrist, "...who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped, so that he as," what? God. See that? He's going to set himself up as God. He's not going to let any world religion have anything to do with him anymore. He is going to take absolute control himself, so that he as God sits in the temple of God. Now, of course, we know that Israel is going to rebuild her temple, don't we? It's going to be in Jerusalem. I haven't got time, I guess, in this program, but again, if we could go back to Daniel chapter 9, maybe we'll have time. We can go back to Daniel chapter 9. What is this fellow going to do at the midpoint of the Tribulation? He's going to move into the temple in Jerusalem, and he's going to defy it. All right, you're already going ahead of me. Go back to Daniel. Go back to Daniel chapter 9 again, the verse that we look at over and over, because it is so foundational to the prophetic study, especially of Revelation and the seven years. Daniel chapter 9. Daniel chapter 9, and drop down again to verse 27, where this prince that shall come, in verse 26, shall confirm or make the covenant with many, with the Jews, for seven years, one week, and in the middle of the week, at the end of three and a half years, he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease. Now, always like to stop when at least a thought comes to my mind. In order for temple worship to cease, what does it have to be doing? It has to be going. See? You can't stop something that's not going. So it stands to reason that if this man Antichrist is going to go into the temple in the midpoint of the Tribulation, it has to be there, and it has to be operating. And so that tells us that Israel will get her temple rebuilt. We know she's ready for it. She's got everything all set for the priests and all the utensils. They're all ready. In fact, if you get time and your guide is willing, you can see these things when you go to Israel. They're all on display. And so we know the temple will be operating. And then at the midpoint, he's going to go in and suddenly turn on the Jew, and he's going to say, I am going to set himself up as God, and he's going to force the Jew to worship him rather than the God of the Old Testament, which, of course, they think they were. Now that question came up the other night. If Israel is going to get the temple back here during the Tribulation or right after the seven-year treaty is signed, is it going to be a religion in which God is working? No. It'll be much the same kind of religion as Judaism was during Christ's earthly ministry. Now they had the temple. They had the priests. They had the sacrifices. Was God in it? No. The Shekinah glory was gone. The Ark of the Covenant had been long gone. But they were still practicing a religion. And so it will be again in those first three and a half years. It'll be much the same thing as it was, I think, at the time of Christ. They'll be going through all the rituals, and they'll have all the religion aspects, but God won't be in it, because, you see, they are still denying the Christ that has died for them. Well, anyway, now if you can come back in the final few seconds that are left to Revelation 17 again. So the Antichrist will destroy this great world religious system so that he himself can have full and complete control. Verse 17, "...for God hath put it in their hearts to fulfill His will, and to agree and give their kingdom unto the beast," to the Antichrist, "...until the words of God shall be fulfilled." In other words, when the seven years will finally come to its end. Then verse 18, "...and the woman which thou sawest is that great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth." Now there's a lot of speculation as to what city that is. Personally, I think that by this time it will be Jerusalem. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, a Bible study in your area, or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, OK, 74552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, OK, 74552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick is viewer supported, and your gift is appreciated. Thank you, and be sure to tune in next time for Through the Bible with Les Feldick.