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"Apostle John" Tagged Sermons

Who Is MYSTERY BABYLON?

So, let’s make sure we have the proper spiritual foundation regarding this text.
Where is John the Apostle when God reveals those things to him?
REVELATION 4:1-2 After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open IN HEAVEN. And the first voice which I heard was like a trumpet speaking with me, saying: “COME UP HERE, AND I WILL SHOW YOU THINGS WHICH MUST TAKE PLACE AFTER THIS.” Immediately I WAS IN THE SPIRIT; and behold, a throne SET IN HEAVEN, and One sat on the throne.
What John is describing from here on is all done IN THE SPIRIT, HIS WHEREABOUT WAS IN HEAVEN. He describes spiritual things.
Let’s go down the list of the characters we find in the 17th chapter and interpret them according to this truth.
1. Who is THE BEAST? Again, many commentators believe that this is the old Roman Empire and that the revived Roman Empire is the European Union. But the Bible says that the WHOLE WORLD IS FOLLOWING THE BEAST. Today, the European Union has about 700 million people. The world has about 7.5 billion people. What John describes impacts all the inhabitants of the earth.
2. Who are THE MOUNTAINS? Mountain symbolizes POWER. The seven heads, which represent seven mountains, or seven power structures. The work of God will be completed with the last bowl judgment. The Beast eventually will complete the evil power structure, because God has ordained it that way. Remember, it was on a hill, a mountain called Golgotha, where Jesus cried on from the cross: IT IS FINISHED. Sin has been dealt with once and for all. Satan has been judged. However, God allows him to build his final power structure, because the people want it that way.
3. Who are THESE KINGS? There are seven kings. Are they political, are they countries that rule in the end times? Are they political power structures like the UN? Or are they secret societies that worship Lucifer? Who are they? Before I explain the details about these 7 kings, let’s connect the dots. Inserted between verse 10 and 12 is found this statement: And the beast that was, and is not, is himself also the eighth, and is of the seven, and is going to perdition.
This beast is empowered by the beast of verse 8, which is Satan himself.
But on this earth, Satan, the spiritual beast, will enter a human being, which is described in verse 11 as the physically manifested beast, which the Bible declares to be the Antichrist. This human being has a short lived appearance on the world stage: 7 years to be exact.
4. Who are the TEN HORNS? These 10 horns represent 10 kings. Daniel 7:24
The 10 horns are 10 kings who shall arise from this kingdom, and another shall rise after them; he shall be different from the first ones, and shall subdue three kings. Again it begs the question: Are these kings of flesh and blood on earth;
very unlikely!! when we interpret them within its biblical context. Making war against the Lamb speaks of a spiritual battle, a battle that is fought in the invisible world. There are no geographical boundaries here.
5. What does THE WATER REPRESENT? Revelation 17:15 And he said to me: “The waters which you saw, where the harlot sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations and tongues.” It matters not what religion your follow, what philosophy you have adapted to, and how much you have studied the religions of the world; all have one goal, and that is self-redemption. Salvation without Jesus Christ. Just as during Nimrods time, man still wants to reach heaven on their own terms, even if they have to crawl themselves up one day at a time.
6. Who is ‘MYSTERY BABYLON’? Listen, there is no other city on planet Earth more important, more significant, and more decisive than Jerusalem, where the “Mystery Babylon” the religious and political power structure condemned Jesus to be crucified. The powers of darkness were right there shouting for joy.
And it is exactly in this city of Jerusalem where Satan and his cohorts made their fatal mistake; for the first time in all of human history, Satan caused the death of an innocent man, a man of flesh and blood – Jesus, the Son of God and the Son of man. With this sacrifice, the gates of faith were opened to follow the example of faith, Abraham. The power structures of Satan, the god of this world, the one who rules the world right now under God’s permission, has only a short time to go. One day in the not too distant future, he will meet the truth, the real truth.

Refuge In God’s SOVEREIGNTY

We have already learned that all of us are subject to spiritual warfare; that Satan and his demons have built strongholds in our mind, that is, make us believe certain doctrines that are contrary to the Word of God. And we all have learned from the Apostle Paul’s admonition that such strongholds, such doctrines that contradict the Word of God, must be pulled down, demolished, pulverized.
When we read these verses, we can easily come to the conclusion that the battle is entirely in our hands and in our power. However, as we will find out today, these weapons of warfare are MIGHTY IN GOD. And the battle of our mind, bringing our very thoughts into captivity, cannot be done apart of OBEYING THE WORD OF GOD.
Who is really in Control? You, Satan or God Almighty?
THE ANSWER MUST ALWAYS COME FROM THE BIBLE, which happen to be our standard for living.
God’s sovereignty does not mean that you have no responsibility in spiritual warfare. Although the ultimate outcome is not in question, what happens in your life will be affected by how you respond. Listen, Satan is not deciding what is going on in your life. It is God Almighty who has His own purposes for allowing the enemy access to your life, and God’s purposes are always only for your good.
Because Jesus found refuge in God’s sovereignty, the attitude was one of absolute obedience, the obedience unto death, having confidence in His Heavenly Father as Jesus Himself focused on the joy set before Him (Hebrews 12:2).
Satan did warfare against Jacob and his sons. Satan’s intent was to destroy them all, so God could not fulfill His promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. After Joseph was sold into slavery, and the brothers struggled to survive in Canaan during a great famine, God finally revealed His ultimate purposes to those involved. Satan wanted to derail God’s purpose by using evil means, but God meant it for good. He will always turn into good what Satan means for evil. All our spiritual battles are in our mind. The way we think. Strongholds, Paul calls them. Do we think according to the Word of God or according to the things we feel or hear?
No exception.

The Lamb Of God

Why did John call for a water baptism?
The ritual of water baptism was applied to Gentiles, unclean people, who wanted to convert to Judaism. Ritual baptism was never administered to Jews, only to non-Jews who converted to Judaism. Why? Because Gentiles were considered unclean and needed to go through a purification rite, to take a bath – in order to be welcomed and received into the covenant community of Israel.
However, John the Baptist primarily directed his calls for repentance to Jews. With that, he told Israel “the Messiah is about to arrive but you are not ready for Him. It is you, the people of Israel,that are unclean. That’s the reason why John called the Jews to submit to a ritual of cleansing that up to this point had been administered only to Gentiles. The typical procedure when a Gentile was going through the proselyte baptism, he was never baptized by a Levite or by a priest, who normally performed all the other purification rites in Israel. The convert was to baptize himself. No wonder the religious leaders asked themselves: Who does this man think he is, to call us, the children of Abraham, to undergo a cleansing rite?
The Lamb of God is also prefigured in the Passover, when God prepared to bring His final plague on the Egyptians, the death of every firstborn male of the Egyptians, including the crown prince of the Pharaoh (Exodus 12:3-31). Just as the blood of the lamb caused the people of Israel to be spared from God’s wrath, the Lamb of God redeemed His people from the penalty that was due for their sin.

God’s Glory — Part 1

Looking at this scene, John as a born Jew and a personal follower of Jesus Christ understands what the Glory of God is. He has heard plenty about the Shechinah Glory appearing during the age of the Biblical Patriarchs and he certainly understood what importance God’s glory has played during the history of the Jewish people. If we want to define God’s Glory, we could say that the Shechinah Glory is the VISIBLE MANIFESTION OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD ALMIGHTY.
Because the Hebrew word Shechinah, which comes from the Root SHACHAN, literally means DWELLING.
The GREEK translation of the HEBREW word SHECHINAH is SKEINEI, which means TABERNACLE.
In the Old Testament most of these visible manifestations took the form of LIGHT, FIRE, OR CLOUD, or sometimes a combination of all of them.
After the glory of moses’ face faded, god manifested his glory through the tabernacle. Notice, that the tabernacle itself had no external beauty. It was covered with weather beaten animal skins. It was God who used the unattractiveness of the tabernacle to reveal and manifest His glory to Israel. The Israelites eventually started to believe that the tabernacle and the ark of the covenant where the source of their blessings. They forgot about the Shechinah Glory, that God dwellt among them.

The Most Important Question

WHY DOES GOD ALMIGHTY, THE ONE WHO WANTS THAT NO HUMAN BEING PERISHES BUT THAT ALL COME TO REPENTANCE, pour His wrath upon this earth.
While this question is not the most important one we can ask, it is none the less a crucial one. Isn’t God loving, caring, forgiving, merciful and gracious? Yes, He certainly is; but he also is pure, holy, righteous, and just.
This most important question: WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM? Will put every human being on the spot. Now and especially during the tribulation period when the world ruler together with the world religious leader will demand that we proclaim that they are the savior of the world, those who say that they are FOLLOWERS OF CHRIST must deny to worship anyone else and PROCLAIM WITHOUT HESITATION LIKE THE APOSTLE PETER DID:
YOU ARE THE CHRIST, THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD.

Release The Four Angels

Remember, when this trumpet judgment occurs, the time for mercy will have passed; that’s the reason John sees the altar of mercy that has now turned into the altar of judgment. In other words, the complete rejection of God’s offer of salvation will now bring forth the final judgment of sin.People always say, the God of the Bible will never judge anyone. He is loving and merciful, forgiving forever. They forget, that the time of love and mercy will run its course, not because God wants it that way, but because MAN WANTS IT THAT WAY.
This is a picture of those who watched Jesus walking this earth, doing good, performing miracles, feeding thousands by multiplying bread and fish, healing the sick, raising the dead, YET AT THE END THEY ALL CRIED WITH ONE VOICE, CRUCIFY HIM. They have chosen to harden their hearts when they heard the Good news, when the Prophets of Old warned them they laughed, because they have chosen to worship DEMONS. But until that day, we are to proclaim the truth that the same God who will judge this world one day, is the same God that still extends mercy and grace to all humanity so that we might snatch them out of the fire.

Who Is Worthy To Open The Book?

Adam did not loose ownership of the Earth, for it was never his to loose. He did however lose access to the Garden, and he lost THE DOMINION ENTRUSTED TO HIM. Adam’s sin of disobedience not only severed man’s fellowship with God, it was a surrendering of Earth dominion as well. The first problem severed fellowship with God but it can be restored by personally accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
Luke 4:6-7 says: Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, all authority (dominion) I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.
Who handed that dominion over to the devil? Adam. Jesus did not dispute this saying. My question is this: Since Satan still has dominion over this earth today, when people claim to have such dominion today, WHO GAVE THEM THIS DOMINION? The one who has it, which is Satan.
Jesus is the kinsman redeemer in that He came as a man (God became flesh) lived as man (John 1:14) and dies as a man (Romans 5:15. He was fully man and fully God. The only one worthy to open the title deed.

A Glimpse of Heaven

In his second vision, John saw the THRONE OF GOD and was invited to watch the activities that are going on in this environment. Needless to say, John is in awe. This 4th chapter is the beginning of the glory that has been promised to the saints. This chapter moves past the Church Age. Everything revealed in this chapter and beyond is FUTURE PROPHECY. It is a picture of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, REDEEMDING TO EARTH. And as we know, Redemption is always a JUDICIAL BUSINESS incorporating CLEANSING, JUDGMENT AND THE RENEWING AND PERFECTING OF THAT WHICH SIN HAS CORRUPTED.

Overwhelmed by God’s Glory

Daniel is also an incredible example of true worship. In other words, prophecy and worship must go together. The book of Revelation is also a book of worship. Jesus being revealed to the world as the only one worthy to receive worship and praise.
We might study Daniel and his visions and revelations for the purpose of knowing future events, but such would miss the whole point. The ultimate theme of the book of Daniel is GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY AND GOD’S GLORY. God had touched Daniel, he was a man of purpose, prayer, power and worship. This man put his trust and confidence in God alone.
Daniel saw God, not a prophetic chart. Daniel was not pursuing the knowledge of future events. He was pursuing God and he saw God’s glory.