The Harlot Church is Destroyed

RV216-01

From the time that the archangel Lucifer rebelled against God, he has been trying to create a world in which he is worshiped as the Supreme Being. The angelic warfare has been raging over the centuries with this as its objective – to establish Satan as the one whom mankind would worship.

The Antichrist

The Army of Jesus Christ

Waters

Water is used as a symbol also in the Old Testament for ungodly nations. For example, in Daniel 7:3, we read, "And four great beasts were coming up from the sea, different from one another." These four great beasts were representing the four great world empires from Nebuchadnezzar's time to our day. It's described as coming up from the sea. What is meant by that (the sea of water) is the sea of the nations.

Isaiah 57:20: "But the wicked are like the tossing sea, for it cannot be quiet, and its waters toss up refuse and mud." Here, the wicked people of the world are again referred to as waters, in terms of a raging sea.

So, the angel says to John, "The waters (meaning the people of the nations of the world) which you saw, where the heart sits." This harlot woman sits upon the nations of the world. The word for "sits" is "kathemai," and it means a position of dominance and control. This in the Greek language is in the present tense, which indicates that this is the constant position of this harlot religion during the first half of the tribulation. It's important that you remember that we're talking about the first half (or the first three-and-a-half years of the tribulation), because things change in the second half. But in the first half, this woman dominates the nations of the world.

Feminism

Yesterday, you may have seen part of "Firing Line," the two-hour discussion that was very informative. It was a discussion on: how dangerous are the Christians? How dangerous are the Christian Right to American freedom. There was a feisty female on-board of the feminist group. Pat Robertson sat there, of the 700 Club, as one of the people who were taking part in the debate, along with Buckley and other conservatives. Then they had some cold-blooded liberals as well on the other side. It was interesting that when this feisty female got up, she came charging out of the chute in the finest tradition of Texas bulls. She attacked the male headship concept, and she attacked Robertson directly, saying, "Your religious point of view talks about the males being the head in marriage; being the head in the family; and, males being in leadership in society. She carried on about this great injustice to women for this concept of male domination and leadership.

I was amazed that Robertson did not come back and say, "Just a minute, that is not my point of view. I am simply quoting God who has made this clear in His inerrant book, the Bible. And if you choose to ignore this principle of male leadership, established after the tragedy of the Garden of Eden, in order to bring some order and control of authority into the human race – to keep marriages and families and society from being jungles, then you must take up your attack and your objection with God." Instead, he let her pass it off as if it was his point of view of his religious system and his religious attitude. She should have been silenced by being pressed on the fact that she's speaking with God. And he probably should have said, "And now that I have informed you about what God thinks, the judgment of God against you in opposing this, and in the things that you are promoting, you will be held responsible for your negative volition toward God."

Part of her objection to male authority is the males who are keeping women from murdering their unborn children. And men like Robertson are standing in the way of their right of abortion. She should have been told that, "Now that I have informed you, the Bible says that your judgment will be compounded before God when you answer to Him for what you are teaching and what you are supporting." Any liberal who tries to justify an act like abortion in our society must also realize that he becomes part of the guilty. His refusal to sound the alarm of what God says on this subject makes him part of it.

Earl Warren was that gravelly-voiced Chief Justice under whom the abortion issue was turned loose, and the Holocaust upon our unborn children was turned loose. What must be his fate at this moment in eternity, as he faces God? For every baby murdered in the mother's womb, there comes greater judgment upon him.

It's a serious thing to know what God thinks, and then to thumb your nose at Him.

Here, this woman, a female analogy, sitting upon male authority of the kings of the earth in complete control of them. That's what "kathemai" means. She sits on them and she rides the beast of the political system.

Peoples, Multitudes, Nations, and Tongues

So, here God the Holy Spirit uses these four categories of peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues to convey the totality of the human race, which is under the domination of the idolatry-worshiping religion of Babylon. The harlot idol religion dominates mankind worldwide, and it holds, during the early part of the tribulation, absolute power over the lives of people much like the Roman Catholic Church has controlled the lives of people in countries where it dominates the political system. Mankind and its political leaders, in subjection to the harlot religion, are in that condition because they would not believe the truth of God.

Please remember that we are talking about a great religious movement here in the tribulation. The antichrist is not nonreligious. The kings are not nonreligious. It is a battle over: what is true religion? I remind you again that there are believers who are evangelists, and are proclaiming the truth of God in the tribulation. They cannot be silenced, nor can they be put to death by the antichrist. God encapsulates them in a freedom to speak, so people are getting, in one way or another, the truth, but they are negative to the Word of God which is being proclaimed to them. So, again, these kings (these leaders) are being dominated by this religious system (this evil system) which is going to bring such destruction upon them, and that is exactly what they deserve.

However, they do this because they believe it's the truth. People do not do things that are injurious to themselves because they think it will hurt them. They do these things because they think it will help them.

So, I direct your mind again to remind you of 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12, where Paul says, "And with all deception of wickedness for those who perish (speaking of this tribulation era, and the day of the Lord), because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved." People refuse to believe the gospel. And for this reason, God will send upon them a deluding influence so they might believe what is false. God then pushes them in the direction where they are comfortable to believe what is totally false. These kings who will not believe the truth of the gospel, and the truth about the true Christ, will now be thrust by God to believe what is false, and to accept what the antichrist is saying. Why? "In order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but who took pleasure in wickedness." So, the religion of Babel, in fact, which was designed by Satan to deceive mankind, has been leading humanity away from the truth of God.

The political leaders go along with this domination of the harlot because they fear the people. The people of the world are devoted to this idolatrous system of religion. Though the kings hate being under her authority, yet they realize that they need her to achieve some of their own goals. So, she writes what has been described for us as the scarlet-colored beast of political Babylon – that beast which we will be looking at in greater detail when we come to Revelation 18. This woman rides the political system supremely. She is in charge. And when she puts her spurs into the beast, the beast goes; and, when she pulls on the reins, it turns in the direction she wants it to go.

Tribulation humanity is captivated by the harlot's religion of idolatry, and especially by the attractive feature that it includes of worshiping your idol God through sexual activity. Above all, is the heady promise that people are given that they themselves are potential gods.

The Revived Roman Empire

These people have a deep hatred, we're told, for this harlot woman – the woman which refers to the organized religion of idolatry which has come from Babel, and which has been transmitted over the centuries, and which here dominates the governments of the tribulation world.

This comes about because the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, at one point, is removed from the earth in the rapture event. Then all the false religions of the world, which will be left behind, are organized by Satan into a one-world religious system, and it will be supported by government tax money. This will be, of course, the triumph of what today is called the ecumenical movement. The word "ecumenical" means that everybody is getting together in a single union. The ecumenical union of uniting all religious groups has as its basis an external organizational unity, no matter what you may believe, doctrinally. The harlot church of the tribulation is united on one basic principle. They all hate Jesus Christ. They all reject the concept that He is a God-man. They all reject the idea that He is the Savior of mankind, and the only Savior; and, that only through Him can one come into eternal life in heaven.

All over the world. Satan's harlot religion of Babylon is going to be honored. It will be honored, once the church is removed, in church organizations that are left behind; it will be honored in temples; it will be honored in mosques; and, it will be honored in shrines. It is very hard for us to imagine that, suddenly, all the competing religions of the world are brought together under one authority. But the fly in the ointment now is the Lamb of God. Once Christ is removed as an issue, with the removal of the church, then all these groups will be brought together – some of them by choice; and, some of them forcefully. The doctrine of potential deity will be taught then all over the world. Children in schools will be taught that they are gods. The churches will teach their people that they are potential gods, and the preachers will point to the antichrist, and say, "He's the example. He was just a person like you, and now he has evolved into a god."

That's a doctrine from Satan, but it is fascinating that the fingerprints of Satan are all over religious systems today that are part of the Babylonian system to teach the same thing. It's self-evident in Hinduism that people are told that they are potential gods (Satan's same idea). But it's a little harder to spot in a thing like Mormonism. Yet, that is at the heart of Mormonism – that people are someday going to themselves become gods and be given authority. And there's a phrase that goes something like this in Mormonism: "As man now is, God once was. As God now is, man may become." And every man woman child learns that in school.

I had a group of Mormon parents visit me when we used to allow Mormons to enroll their children in our school, which we don't anymore. But when a group of these mothers visited me about some concern that they had for their children, they told me that they were concerned that their children would be saying, in the presence of our students, some of the things that they were taught by their religious system. Among those things, they said, was the fact that we do believe that we are going to someday ourselves be gods, and we will be given a planet out there all of our own. And we will populate that planet, and we will do the same thing all over again that has been done here on earth. They were afraid that the kids in the academy would take offense at that, and would pick on the Mormon kids.

Well, they certainly would take offense at it. We wouldn't let them abuse other children. But even though I knew this, it took me a back to listen to these women. They were not ignorant women, and they were really nice people. They were extremely supportive and helpful to the school. And here they all were looking forward to becoming gods. And they were afraid the kids were going to talk about their sacred underwear. And they said, "Yes, we have certain undergarments." I hate to talk with women about their undergarments, but they were explaining to me that they wore these special undergarments on which were Masonic signs over certain places (over one's heart, and certain vital parts). These were to protect them from injury. Men in the military service who are Mormons used to put these symbols at the appropriate place on the GI underwear that you were issued, and that you were supposed to wear, so that they could have protection in battle. When they got killed, they would take the underwear off of them. I suppose that this was because it obviously didn't work.

In any case, this kind of madness comes from Satan. When people turn their backs upon truth, whether it is you or I as Christians, then God says, "Fine. If you want to thumb your nose at truth, and if you want to thumb your nose at the source of your truth (the institution or the preacher), then I'll open your mind to what is untruth. And I'll just let you absorb like a sponge every fool idea that comes down, and you'll think that you are coming into a greater relationship with God."

What do the charismatics think? Their favorite expression is that: "God has something more for you." One of our ladies has been dealing with a charismatic neighbor, and she gave her some of our tapes on dealing with some aspect of the charismatic movement. The lady gave back the tapes, and said that preachers like me are the ones who are keeping people from enjoying all of the things that God has for them in blessing: "There's something more." That woman is deluded by Satan, and she is looking for something more. God says, "Fine. As long as you will not come to your decision about spiritual things, and the things that deal with the Holy Spirit, from Scripture, but you make them up based upon what you want to believe, then I will open your mind to absorb the lies of Satan.

This system dominating the political world during the first three-and-a-half years will also be a sacerdotal system; that is, it will have a hierarchy of priests, and these priests will be financed by tax money. There will no longer be any problem about separation of state and church. They will be unified, and tax money will support the religious system. These priests will be teaching the people the tribulation the doctrines of demons. The harlot religion herself will enjoy a luxurious lifestyle, and this will be enjoyed at public expense. This is again, just as in the medieval church, the Roman Catholic Church, the hierarchy of the priesthood lived luxuriously. And the closer you were to the Pope and to Rome, the more luxuriously you lived, and you lived that way on the basis of the money which was given by sincere devotees that were listening to your falsehoods.

The heart of religion of Babylon will reach the zenith of its power over the religious and the political world at mid-tribulation. After three-and-a-half years, she will be at the epitome of power, just as, under Gregory the Great, the Roman Catholic Church reached the epitome of its power in the medieval times, so that no king on earth could make a move without the approval and the confirmation of the Pope himself. At the zenith of her power, the harlot church will have control over all the political leaders. There will be some tolerance, however, of religious activity as long as it does not honor Jesus Christ as Savior. Thus the Jews, we're told, are going to be permitted to resume their sacrificial system during the first three-and-a-half years in a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem. This is taught us in Daniel 9:27.

The Jews are going to rebuild their temple. Maybe they will start it before the rapture, but perhaps not until after the rapture has taken place and the tribulation has begun. But I can tell you now that the Jews are in full preparation. They're reconstructing from Scripture all of the instruments that were used in the sacrificial system. They're getting together all that they can from their ancient records of the procedures for sacrificing animals. The system is being set up. And, of course, now that they have discovered that the Dome of the Rock, the Muslim mosque, does not sit upon the site of Solomon's temple, but that the temple of Solomon was some 150 feet to the north – an open space, which in Scripture is described as the courtyard of the gentiles. For this reason, earlier in the book of the Revelation, we read that John was told, "Don't measure that part, because that's not included in God's area of province and care, the Jews could start building that temple tomorrow. Nobody could stop them, and they would not enrage the Arab world as much as if they tried to tear down the Dome of the Rock.

So, there's going to be some tolerance of religion, but the unity and the tolerance will be based upon rejecting Jesus Christ. The believers, of course, will not do that, because they understand what is going on, and this will bring even greater persecution upon them.

In exchange for the harlot's support, the political rulers subject themselves to her authority. The Nimrod religion of Babylon has always, to some degree, been integrated with political powers. In the first part of the tribulation, the antichrist only rules his own confederacy. There are other power blocs in the world that he does not rule. Therefore, he is not as strong as he will be in the latter part of the tribulation. So, in the early part, he needs this religious system to help him to control mankind. So, church and state have to work together to achieve their goals. During the first half, the organization of the harlot rides supreme over the antichrist and his confederacy.

The false prophet himself, during this period of time, is making the name of the antichrist a household word by using miracles as the result of the power of Satan, which has been given to him; and thereby, securing the allegiance and respect of mankind for the antichrist. Mankind will idolize the antichrist. They'll worship him as God, and they will fully know that he has great power from Satan, and people will not recoil from this. Now people have a tendency to recoil from the idea of Satan worship, but here they will be quite happy to have someone in great power that they will not recoil from. Part of this will be because the environment will have been so devastated by the judgments of God that they'll be glad for someone to take charge and tell them what to do.

So, at mid-tribulation, the antichrist makes a dramatic move. As the result of an inadvisable attack from the North by Russia, she is reconstituted in strength, and with her allies, moves down upon Israel, and in Ezekiel 38 and 39, we have described for us how God Himself will destroy the armies of Russia and our allies.

The result will be the dominance of the antichrist of all nations of the world. He will quickly move in and consolidate his position. At that point, he will no longer need the support of the harlot religion. So, we come to the fact that, suddenly, the harlot system meets her doom and comes to an end at the hands of the antichrist, while she herself thinks that she is invincible in her position of power. This is, of course, comparable to the Laodicean church in Revelation 3:17, which says, "Because you say, 'I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,' and you do not know that you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked."

A taper called me today (a minister), and he wanted to ask about the Laodicean church. Someone had said to him that that condition applies to the tribulation, and he didn't think so. And I told him that he was quite right. Then when you get to the end of Revelation 3, the church is out of the picture, and you shift gears from the church age immediately into the tribulation era in chapter 4. The reason he was told that is because the other minister couldn't believe that the church of Jesus Christ could become so degenerate as is described in the Laodicean letter. That's exactly the case. I reminded this man that the city of Laodicea in Asia Minor existed when John wrote this letter, and that the church conditions described there already existed at that time.

It is true that these letters also have a historical progression of the history of the local church (the visible church), and the time is going to come when the Laodicean era (which is upon us indeed now) will be the final degenerative expression of the apostasy of the church.

They Make her Desolate

Suddenly the harlot church, which was in great power over all these nations, and over all these kings, finds herself without any authority over them. They strip her of her power overnight. This is in the perfect tense. It's done at the midpoint of the seven years of tribulation. So, the perfect tense tells us that this continues right on to the end. Once they do this to this religious system, it never comes back into authority and power again. This is passive voice. This is done to her. She doesn't have any control over it. She is destroyed by the antichrist and the confederacy.

When the antichrist, at mid-tribulation, becomes the undisputed leader of all the world, he doesn't need the support of this harlot church, but he does want the power that she had. So, they express their hatred by simply destroying the religious organization. Don't forget that the harlot church is an organization. That's how it operates. That's how it'll functions. That's how it imposes its will and its teachings on mankind during the first three-and-a-half years. So, the alliance between church and state comes to an end.

Furthermore, we're told that they do something more to her. They not only strip of her power, but they make her "gumnos," which means "naked." The harlot religion, as you know, has great financial resources. It has great wealth. It is a religious system like Mormonism. Mormonism is, in effect, an enormous corporation. It has not millions, but billions (with a "B") of dollars. Or, as Carl Sagan says, "Billions and billions and billions of dollars." It is hard to imagine a church which is trying to raise enough money to pay the next utility bills up against a church that has billions of dollars. That great Mormon temple that was built in Dallas, that we visited before they dedicated it, was built debt-free. They just called on the phone and got the architect, and said, "Here's the plan. We have a certain pattern for our temples. We want you to build this one in Dallas." They proceeded to do just that. When they finished, it was all paid for. They're building temples all over the world, and they're all paid for. They have that much wealth.

Now, the antichrist takes all that over. This is part of what becomes part of the harlot church system. Mormonism becomes part of that in the first three-and-a-half years, along with her wealth. This wealth is stripped. All that gold, and all those precious gems and her pearls that, we read about earlier, are taken away from her. All her purple and scarlet priestly garments are ripped off of her, and she stands denuded completely of her wealth.

They Eat the Harlot Church

After they're through, there's a pile of bones; a little skin; a snack of hair; and, a few toenails (whatever), and nobody cares for that. Consequently, they then take that and they burn it ("katakaio"). "Katakaio" is another poetic description of imposing destruction upon this harlot woman. Whatever is left over of the harlot church is burned up with fire so that there's nothing left but a pile of ash ashes. The idol religion of Babel thus has its back broken and its influence terminated.

Ahab and Jezebel

Please notice 2 Kings 9:30-37. Jehu has been raised up by God as the judge to execute judgment upon Jezebel and Ahab. Ahab himself has been killed in battle by the fact that an arrow was shot just in the air, by an archer without aiming, and Ahab happened to bend over, and a segment of his armor plates opened up, and that arrow went right in between. It his him in a vital spot, and he bleeds to death in his chariot. They take him to a pool; they wash the chariot; and, the dogs lick up the blood. That, in part, was the judgment upon him for what they did to Naboth the Jezreelite, in taking away his vineyard, which Jezebel set up. Jezebel ran the government. Jezebel was the power. She was the king, in effect, and controlled this weak man.

So, when you came to Jezebel, the place where this horrendous thing was done to Naboth, Jezebel heard of it. Now, Jezebel knows that her husband is dead. Jehu has come down as the avenging angel of God. So, Jezebel decides she needs to cuddle up to Jehu to proposition him to see if she can now get her clutches in him as she once had them in Ahab, because Jehu is going to be the next political power. The religion of Babylon always wants to dominate the religious system.

So, Jezebel heard of it: "She painted her eyes and she adorned her head." She made herself look beautiful, and she looked out the window. She kept flapping her eyes, weaving in and out gently in the wind. Jehu enters the gate: "And she said, 'Is it well, Zimri, your master's murderer?' Then he lifted up his face to the window and said, 'Who is on my side? Who?' And two or three of the royal officials looked down at him and nodded assent, 'I'm with you, Jehu. You are God's man in this matter now.' He said, 'Throw her down.'"

She's up on the balcony. It's got some height. She's overlooking the street. Jehu is sitting there in his chariot, you may remember that Jehu was noted for his fast driving chariot. So, he's revving up the horses, and they're neighing, and stomping, and trying to get going again. So, they throw her down. And some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall and on the horses. And Jehu tramples her underfoot. He drives over her with the chariot. Whatever life was left in her (she was writhing in pain from the fall from the balcony), he snuffed out, and blood splattered everywhere. And Jehu, being one of those mighty men of arms, then went in to eat lunch.

Verse 34 says, "When he came in, he ate and drank. And he said (as he got to thinking about this), 'See now to this cursed woman, and bury her, for she is a king's daughter.'" Jehu, who had some sense of propriety, says, "It's not right. What I did was the will of God, but it's not right for me to leave a royal corpse out in the street, mangled in that way, as evil and vile as she was, and as terrible things that she has done to this nation."

So, they went out to bury her. The servants went out to find her, and they found no more of her than the skull, the feet, and the palms of her hand. For some reason, the dogs would not eat that. They would not eat the skull which devised that heartless, wicked scheme to take the vineyard from Naboth the Jezreelite by falsely accusing him of blasphemy. They would not the feet that ran so happily to announce to Ahab that she had secured the vineyard for him. Ahab had been lying in bed, pouting, with his face to the wall, and wouldn't talk to anybody. And nobody could console them. And they wouldn't eat the palms of the hand which wrote the false letter accusing Naboth of blasphemy that he was not guilty of.

So, they returned, and they told him and he said, "This is the Word of the Lord, which he spoke by his servant, Elijah the Tishbite, saying, 'In the property of Jezreel, the dogs shall eat the flesh of Jezebel, and the corpse of Jezebel shall be as dung on the face of the field in the property of Jezreel, so that they cannot say, 'This is Jezebel.''"

What a Judgment! The dogs are going to eat her, and then go out in the field and excrete her. And they won't even be able to find her. So, much for the royalty of Jezebel. She was a beauty when you looked at her, but like the harlot of Babylon, she was full of abominations.

The antichrist and the confederate kings then destroy the harlot religious structure. They do this in five stages, as you will notice in Revelation 17:16. First of all, they have an intense hatred for this harlot, and they yearn for vengeance against her. These men do not like to be dominated by this woman. Secondly, the kings make the harlot desolate by robbing her of her wealth, and thus of her power. Thirdly, they disgrace her by exposing her abominations to the public. They make known what she is like. Then, fourth, the harlot is devoured by the kings so that she ceases to exist. As the dogs ate up Jezebel, and she ceased to exist as a physical structure, so they do this to the organizational structure of the harlot church. Then, finally, they burn her with fire, so that there is no trace left of the system.

Everything that Babylon stood for religiously has now been terminated at mid-tribulation. Mankind has to have a religion. Man has to have something to worship. I think it was Saint Augustine who said that there's a vacuum in man that cannot be filled by anyone except God. There is indeed a vacuum, and it'll either be filled by the truth of the gospel and the living God; or, it will be filled by the falsehood of the idol gods. But the vacuum of man's religious desires has to be filled.

So, now we're at mid-tribulation. The antichrist is now the ruler of the world government, which now is the fruition of what is taking place today in world and economic unity. The religious systems of the world are pushing for unity as well. That will have been achieved, but the system is destroyed. Now, the antichrist comes in with a plan of his own to meet that yearning for a contact with deity that lies naturally buried in the heart of man. We shall pick it up and look at that next time.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1993

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