(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Amen, so you're there in Revelation chapter 17, that's where we're going to be for the entirety of this sermon, so even if you leave Revelation chapter 17, make sure you keep a place there. We're going to go back. So tonight, we're concluding our Daniel 70th week sermon series, we've been going through the end times seven year period for several weeks now, and we're going to end it here with Revelation chapter 17, I'm going to tie Revelation chapter 18 in, but let's just do a quick overview of everything. By the time we're at the end of this sermon series now, we've finished up these seven trumpets and seven vials last week, you should be able to tell me all the milestones now that come from the beginning to the end of this seven year period, at the beginning of the seven year period, so no one will be able to tell you today that the end times or Jesus is coming back tomorrow, right? Because we know that at the beginning of the seven year period, it is going to be marked by this world leader that comes up and makes this covenant with many, as the book of Daniel talks about, this great global leader that makes this important treaty or this important covenant with other nations, not all nations, but many nations, then of course, he continues and we go into the four horsemen of the apocalypse in Revelation chapter number six, where this global leader is now taking total control of the global government and this is where, you know, Christians are persecuted in the tribulation, this becomes the great tribulation when this global leader, you know, through world war, where billions of people are killed, you know, I don't think we're going to miss that, these major events that have to happen, billions of people are killed in this ascent to power, bringing this global government together under this leader of one man, alright? And look, you can kind of see, even today, you can kind of see how this would cause a major problem. If somebody stood up and said, I'm in charge of everything right now, there's several very powerful nations that would not have anything to do with that, I mean, most notably Russia and China, there's a lot of nationalist countries out there, including, you know, I guess you could say it's the west that's pushing for global government at this point, but the point is, not everybody, many people are moving towards nationalism, even France now is moving towards nationalism, people are like, enough of this stuff, and they're moving back towards nationalism, so you can see how it's going to take a great conflict to get this global government, this one person in charge to have this revelation 13, you know, global order, alright? So that is what happens at the beginning, the first half of the week, the great tribulation, the great, I'm trying to figure out how to preach and learn how to take a drink at the same time, it's impossible, I just got, you know, you got to stop talking to take a drink, right? So hang on for just one second, anyway, I'm losing my voice again, I don't know why that keeps happening to me, but the great tribulation happens when this global leader does take global control, and then he declares himself to be God in the temple, which doesn't exist yet, he declares himself to be God, he declares people to take a mark in their right hand and in their forehead, he declares them to take that mark, and of course, it's the saved people that won't take the mark or won't worship the image, so that again marks us, and now he's really after us, and that's that great tribulation period of, you know, the very end of that first three and a half year period where the Bible says in Matthew 24 that like, unless these days be shortened, you know, no one would be able to survive, right? But then of course, those days are shortened when Jesus comes back, and that's the rapture, and we are taken to heaven with Jesus in that first resurrection, right? The dead in Christ rise first, and then we all go to heaven, and then right after that happens, the wrath of God begins, and God starts pouring out his wrath through the seven trumpets and the seven vile judgments on the earth, and I talked a little bit about the point of God's wrath last week, I want to touch on that a little bit at the end of the sermon today because it applies to Revelation 17 and Revelation 18 as well, but the last half is just God pouring out his wrath, all right? So God pours out his wrath in the last half of the week, the last three and a half year period, and it's interesting to note that this antichrist leader, this one global leader is there the whole time, all right? So it's important to know, you know, who we're dealing with in what parts. There's saved people in the first half, and then the rapture happens. We're taken away, and then it's just unsaved people, but then there's people getting saved during the wrath of God, all right? The leader of the government, though, this antichrist, this beast, as he's called, we're going to talk about tonight, he is there the whole time. He's even there during the wrath of God, and he's fighting against God. He's fighting against God, him and his government are, you know, fighting the Lord, and they're just going against everything that Jesus wants to do, even though there are going to be some people that get saved during the wrath, all right? That being said, then we have these two chapters. So we have the wrath of God, then we have the antichrist gathering up all the enemies of God at the end of Revelation chapter 16, and they're going to head to this battle, this battle of Armageddon, which is detailed out in Revelation chapter 19, but in between Revelation chapter 16, you have Revelation chapter 17, Revelation chapter 18, where we kind of see these two extra stories, or two extra details in the end times, and it's in this same time at the end of the wrath of God, all right? So look down at Revelation chapter 17, and look at verse number 1, we're talking about here in Revelation chapter 17, the judgment of what the Bible calls the great whore of Revelation chapter 17, all right? Look down at verse number 1, the Bible says, and there came out one of the seven angels, which had the seven vials, and talked with me saying, so this is happening at the same time, so this isn't like, you know, we're going back in time or anything, this is during the wrath, this is after the seventh vial has just been poured out, now this angel comes to him, and he says, look at this, he wants to show him something else, come hither, I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters, meaning, whatever this great whore is, it's all around the world, that's what that means, that it sits upon many waters, and the Bible literally details that out here at the end of this chapter, verse number 2, with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication, translation there is, whatever this great whore is, she has had influence upon world leaders all across the world, alright, look at verse number 3, so he carried me away in the spirit, into the wilderness, and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns, and the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand, full of abominations and filthiness in her fornication, and upon her forehead, her name was written, mystery Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth, so whatever this woman is all about, whatever she is teaching the kings of the earth, it's not good, it's blasphemous, it is against the Lord Jesus Christ, and I saw the woman, now we see an extra detail here, I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus, and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration, now look, most people agree that what this is talking about is the Roman Catholic Church, alright, what this is talking about is the Roman Catholic Church, I'm going to show you how this chapter in Revelation chapter 18 is talking about something a little bit greater than just the Roman Catholic Church, but it is very clear that this woman, that this great whore, is the Roman Catholic Church, the Roman Catholic Church has influenced kings throughout its history, it has been in charge of nations, popery began, and there was many nations where the Pope was literally more powerful than the actual king himself, and look, the Roman Catholic Church, and I don't really understand how this is just ignored by Catholics today, but it has a long and bloody history, and I am talking about persecutions, look, the persecutions of the Christians, basically, if you want to just look at from the time of Christ, you want to look at just documented secular history of persecutions of Christians, we can look at just from the time of Christ, in the book of Acts, the persecution was done by the Jews, there was really no persecution by the Romans in the book of Acts, showing that the book of Acts was pretty much finished before, you know, 60 AD or so, I mean, that kind of gives you a timeline on when, you know, the book of Acts was written, and really the New Testament was finished, because it was really the Jews that were chasing Paul around in Barnabas, and John Mark, they're chasing them all over the place, throughout Asia and Macedonia, and, you know, following them everywhere, and trying to get the Romans to arrest them, and all these types of things, but that went up to about 60, 62 AD or so, when Nero came in charge of the, he became Caesar, and then the Romans took over the persecution of the Christians, and there's, you know, this long history of what they're called, you know, there's a secular history called the 10 Roman persecutions, that basically is these horrible persecutions of the Romans, where they took over from about 60 AD, 62 AD, all the way up to 313 AD, when, you know, Constantine created the Roman Catholic Church. Alright, so you've got the persecution of the Jews, then you've got the persecution of the Romans, and look, it gets progressively worse, if you read about the history of these persecutions, you read about the Jews, yes, they were bad, they were persecuting the Christians, they killed Christians, and then you looked at the Romans, that was really, really bad, the 10 persecutions of the Romans, but when you look at the history of the Roman Catholic Church, basically from 300 AD, 313 AD, the formation of the Catholic Church, all the way up into the 17th century, it was persecution of Christians by the Roman Catholic Church. Estimates of how many Christians were killed by the Roman Catholic Church are upwards of 50 million, 50 million, and, I mean, I'll just quote a couple statements from a paper in 2006, written by a man named David Plaisted, he's a professor at a university, but he wrote this in his paper about this, he said, for example, it's been estimated by careful and reputed historians of the Catholic Inquisition that 50 million people were slaughtered for the crime of heresy by Roman persecutors between AD 606 and the middle of the 19th century. This is the number cited by John Dowling who published the classic history of Romanism in 1847, he just goes on and on, and he says, from AD 1160 to 1560 the Waldesians, which dwelt in the Italian Alps, were visited with 36 different, fierce persecutions that spared neither age nor sex. They were almost completely destroyed as a people and most of their literary record was erased from the face of the earth from the year 1540, 1570, proved by national authentic testimony that nearly 1 million Protestants were publicly put to death in various countries in Europe besides all those who were privately destroyed and of whom no human record exists. So it's interesting, this 50 million number, I just wanted to read that part for you, this 50 million number is, you know, the public stuff that they know about that's been documented and it just literally says there like, you know, there's so many people that were murdered privately and where there's no records of it exist, you know, I mean it really gets to the point when you look at situations like this when tens of millions of people are being killed, when you look at numbers from like Soviet communism from the 20th century, when you look at numbers from like Mao's China, I mean when you're dealing with, you know, plus or minus 10 million, you know, it kind of shows you nobody has any idea and the number is likely larger than what we're talking about here. But the point is this, I'm not going to read you a bunch of, you know, testimonials from the martyrs mirror here, but the point is it was bad. The Roman Catholic Church has the blood of millions, tens of millions of saints on their hands and I don't understand how, you know, Catholics today just get away with that, just, you know, how they, what they do with that in their conscience, that they're following an organization that has this type of history. I mean that's just, you know, a mystery to me personally, alright, since I know many people who are Catholic who are not what I would call bad people. I don't know how they reconcile this history, alright, because it's there and it's there in many different places. Go to verse number seven. The Bible says this, it says, And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman, of the beast that carrieth her, and which have the seven heads and ten horns. And now we're going to get some more detail about what this beast is, what these seven horns are, or seven heads, and what these ten horns are. Look at verse number eight, it says, The beast that thou sawest was and is not. Now this is a reference to Revelation chapter 13 in verse number three where it talks about the Antichrist being wounded to death but his wound was healed, alright. So the, the beast was, was, he was wounded, he was killed, and then he came back to life, you know, by the power of Satan basically. This is talking about the Antichrist. So the beast is the Antichrist, and he shall ascend out of the bottomless pit and go into perdition, and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was and is not and yet is. And here is the mind which hath wisdom. So this is kind of referring to this event that's going to happen with the Antichrist where he's going to be killed and then he's going to be, you know, resurrected by Satan basically, alright, is what's going to happen. But this is talking about all that to say, verse number eight is explaining to us that the beast that the woman sits on is the Antichrist, is the same world leader that we've been studying through the entire 70th week, alright. Look at verse number nine. And here's the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains. Now this is kind of a direct reference and this is one of the main reasons that we can kind of say that it is likely the Roman Catholic Church since Rome has been known throughout history as the City of Seven Hills. Rome is literally built on seven mountains. Even the tradition, the oldest story of Rome, I mean how many have heard of the story of Romulus and Remus? Alright, these two boys that were, this is the history of Rome. This is like the mythical history of Rome. I actually liked this story so much. I had two great Pyrenees sheepdogs and they were brothers and I named them Romulus and Remus, these two dogs. And it was interesting because I thought that these two dogs were, eventually Romulus was going to kill Remus, you know, as in the mythical story. But the point is, the idea was, you know, from 753 BC, these two boys were raised, you know, this isn't real, this is just a myth, but they were raised by wolves and then they came to this city which is now Rome and it was this city that literally talks about in the story the seven hills of this area and there were seven different peoples on each hill and they kind of made the city of Rome from this place of seven hills, alright? Anyway, that's not really biblical or that important but the point is, Rome is the city of seven hills. That is not disputed. Look at verse number 10. Look at verse number 10. And there are seven kings and five are fallen and one is and the other is not yet come and when he cometh he must continue a short space. Look at verse number 11 though. And the beast that was and is not, even he is the eighth and is of the seven and goeth into perdition. Again, talking about the antichrist, referring to Revelation 13 where he was wounded to death. Verse number 12, now we get an explanation of the ten horns. So now we know that the seven are the hills of the Roman city, of Rome, sorry, and the ten horns are ten kings which have received no kingdom yet but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. So now we see this picture, alright? We see this picture of what the seven heads and the ten horns are, is the seven heads are hills, referring to the city of Rome, looking at Roman Catholic Church here, and the ten horns are ten kings that are underneath the beast, underneath the antichrist. So this kind of gives us an idea of what the antichrist's end times kingdom is going to be structured, how it's going to look, alright? So it's going to be the antichrist and then there's going to be ten main kings underneath the antichrist. Alright, turn to Daniel chapter number 2. I'm going to read for you a couple more verses in Revelation chapter number 17 and then we're going to go over to Daniel chapter 2. So it's giving us a structure, ten kings underneath the antichrist and these have one mind, these kings, and they shall give their power and strength unto the beast. These shall make war with the lamb and the lamb shall overcome them, for he is the Lord of lords and King of kings, and they that are with him are called and chosen and faithful. Alright, and he said the waters which thou sawest, where the horse sitteth are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues. So we see that the great whore has influence over kings of the earth and it's over all the nations, over all the world, which we see completely with the Roman Catholic Church especially, but I'm going to show you how this applies to other things as well, as well as Revelation chapter 18. The ten horns which thou sawest on the beast, these shall hate the whore. We're going to get to that in just a second, but look at Daniel chapter 2. So, what do we see? We see the seven hills, we see the city of Rome, we see the persecution of the saints, we see the antichrist, and we see the ten kings underneath the antichrist. But what's interesting is at that time, you have to remember, when is this being written? This can be written during the time, basically the time of Jesus. Jesus has just been crucified a few years early. At that time, we were in the time of the Roman Empire, alright? The end times, it's telling us what the empire of the end times is going to look like. But look at Daniel chapter 2 because there's another place in the Bible where this is detailed, you know, empires that are going to come after that particular time. What time is Daniel written? Daniel was taken away in the Babylonian captivity in 486 BC or so, you know, basically 500 years before the coming of Christ. So, Revelation is being written, you know, Daniel's written 500 years before Revelation, alright? But in Daniel's time, Daniel was given a prophecy that would talk about the empires of the world that were to come after Daniel. Look at Daniel chapter 2 and verse number 36. This is Daniel interpreting Nebuchadnezzar's dream, alright, about the great statue that he saw. And I'm just going to read you the interpretation of it for sake of time here. But look at verse 36. He says, and remember, this was when Nebuchadnezzar said, you have to tell me the dream and the interpretation. And everyone's like, what? No one can do that. Because all the mystics and the magicians, they would just tell me your dream and I'll tell you what it means, okay? And Nebuchadnezzar's like, no, tell me the dream and the interpretation. So this is Daniel actually through the power of God telling Nebuchadnezzar what his dream is and what it means, alright, truly miraculous. He says, this is the dream and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king. Thou, O king, art a king of kings, for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power and strength and glory. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold. So he saw this statue and the head was gold and Daniel is saying that golden head is you, is the Babylonian empire. Look at verse 39. And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee and another third kingdom of brass which shall bear rule over all the world. This is referring to what most people agree is the Grecian empire of Alexander the Great which is basically like 336 BC or so, alright? Now look at verse 40. It says the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron for as much as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueeth all things and as iron that breaketh all these shall it break in pieces and bruise. Most people agree that it's talking about the Roman empire now that we are literally in when the book of Revelation is being written and that's, you know, most people kind of date the Roman empire from about 27 BC, you know, the Caesars, you know, the Roman, the imperial empire, 27 BC to about AD 470 or something like that, alright? Now, verse 41. Now it's talking about a future empire, alright? So we're in the Roman empire in Jesus' time but verse 41 talks about this future empire. It says whereas thou saw the feet and the toes part of potter's clay and part of iron the kingdom shall be divided and there shall be in it of the strength of the iron for as much as thou saw'st the iron mixed with miry clay and as the toes of the feet were part iron and part clay so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly broken. And whereas thou saw'st iron mixed with miry clay they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men but they shall not cleave to one another even as iron is not mixed with clay. So here we see, now there's this kingdom at the very bottom of this statue that's part iron and part clay meaning it's like, it's kind of strong and it's kind of weak. And you're going to kind of see how this kingdom, look, it's talking about the kingdom of these 10 kings in Daniel's, the end of Daniel's 70th week. Talking about the 10 kings that are underneath the beast, alright? And the days, look at verse 44, it says then the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom. So as we can see here, how do we know that this is the final kingdom of the world right here is because it is literally telling you the end. It is literally telling you the end point. It says after this kingdom is God going to set up his kingdom? Talking about what? Talking about the millennial reign of Jesus Christ. And this is kind of the answer here because we see four empires listed with this statue here. We see the Babylonian empire, the Egyptian empire, and the Roman empire, and then we see the end times empire. Well, there was a lot of other empires that happened throughout the history that we can look back on. Why weren't they listed in this statue, in Nebuchadnezzar's dream? I think there's a couple of reasons for that. First of all, you think about the Persian empire that came right after the Babylonian empire. You think about the Mongolian empire, you think about the Byzantine empire, you can think about all these, the Ottoman empire just recently in the 20th century, 19th century. The British empire that most people think ended in the mid-20th century or so after World War II. The point is that I believe that these aren't listed because I believe that, first of all, as people spread across the earth, yes, these were great empires, but they didn't actually encapsulate the entire world at that point. They weren't necessarily considered probably world powers at that point where they were just like completely in control of the world that you could probably say more about the Roman empire, the Babylonian empire, and even Alexander the Great's empire. Really it doesn't matter though, is kind of my main point, because what it's doing is it's giving you empires that are to come, so it's giving Daniel a prophecy of things that we can see clearly come true, and then it's giving us the last one. It's giving us the very last one that happens right before the millennial reign of Christ, right before, as the Bible says, the God of heaven sets up his kingdom. It doesn't really matter, it's just giving us this idea that it ends whenever we see these 10 kings that are set up. It all culminates to this antichrist global led kingdom with these 10 kings. That's the point of Daniel's statue right here in Daniel chapter 2, and that's kind of the point that Revelation chapter 17 is also showing us. There's 10 kings underneath the antichrist. Now I want to give you kind of a rabbit trail, something to think about here, and I could be wrong about this, and I could be right about this, I don't know. Here's something to think about though. As we study Daniel's 70th week, we see one thing that is consistent throughout the entire week, and that is that there is this one global leader. What I want to point out is that there have been many antichrist leaders. You could argue that most leaders of most nations have been not for Christ. They've been against Christ. There's been many wicked leaders in this world throughout the history of the world, but this is unique because there's one human leader in charge of everything. This is the first time that this has really ever happened because even the Babylonian empire, the Persian empire, all these other empires, they were in charge of everybody in the world. This is the first time that one human leader has been in charge of everything. Something to think about is this. A lot of people think that we see this one man, 10 kings underneath him, 10 nations underneath him, but what you have to realize is this is not now. This is not the way that it is now. It is possible today, and this is something that I think about, it is possible today that the wickedness that we see happening today is only run by Satan using other people's self-interest alone. You know what I'm saying? Let me explain what I'm saying here. A lot of people think, well, it's the ... I'm going to give you an example of what I'm talking about if you're not following me so far. A lot of people think, oh, it's the deep state running everything, that there's some secret cabal of people that are in a dark room and they're running the president or whatever it is, that there is this secret government going on now. A lot of people think this is the Illuminati conspiracy and all this kind of stuff, right? I'm not saying that I know that that's not true, because who knows? Here's what I'm saying. Here's what's very possible. The older I get and the more things that I see, I start to think that this is actually how it is. There is no one man in charge right now. There is no one man in charge of the world right now. It is just the god of this world that's in charge right now. It is just the god of this world, and it is very possible that he is getting the things to happen that he wants to happen using only the self-interest of the parties involved. I'm going to give you an example of this. I'm going to give you an example of how this could have been possible. I'm going to give you an example of the war in Iraq in 2003. The war in Iraq in 2003. Most people, like most people, I don't care what side of the aisle you're on politically, most people will look back at that and be like, yep, that was a mistake. That was wrong, because it turned out all the claims that were made to justify going to war in 2003 are just provably false. Like everybody knows this. Republicans know it, Democrats know it, everybody knows it. It's like not even a question. Most Republicans that were conservative people that were like, hey, let's go get them or whatever, most of those people now are like, yeah, that was a mistake. There was no weapons of mass destruction, it was all fake, whatever. Most people admit that. So you say, how could that have happened? How could that have happened? Was there one person in charge that was just running this? Well, look, there is not one person in charge right now until the Antichrist comes. So how could that possibly have happened? Well, you say, who knew that the weapons of mass destruction were fake? Who knew that? Here's a thought experiment for you. What if no one knew? What if no one knew that it was fake? And I'm going to give you some examples, like just take the intelligence agencies and the CIA, for example, who are looking for these weapons of mass destruction and all this kind of stuff. Look, when all you have is a hammer, you're going to find some nails in an organization. And in organizations, you know who works at the CIA? You know who works at the NSA and all these intelligence agencies? People. People that want to please their bosses, people that want to be appreciated, people that want people to think that they're doing a good job. And look, if even individuals in organizations, they sense what the bosses want the answer to be. And there is a lot of pressure in organizations like that, especially when you get to certain levels, there is a lot of pressure to find the right answer. I have seen this. And so people just following their own self-interest, maybe if there was a question of, well, it could be this or it could be that, they just defaulted to this answer because they knew that that's what everybody wanted to see. I'm just trying to give you a thought experiment on how this could have happened with no one being in charge except Satan. You say, well, the President of the United States. The President of the United States, well, I bet you George W. Bush was the President of the United States. Well, what had just happened two years earlier? Two years earlier, 9-11 had just happened. 9-11 had just happened. And the President of the United States, you know what his self-interest is at that point? He's looking for somebody to punch in the face. He literally said it. He stood up on the rubble. He stood up on the rubble of 9-11. I don't know if you all aren't old enough to probably know this, but he stood up on the rubble with a megaphone. He said, I can't remember his exact words, but he's like, we're going to get them. And like everybody in the country, if you were alive during that time, everybody in the country was like, get them. Find out who they are and get them. Let's get them all. I mean, it's like flatten everybody. Let's go and get them in the countries that are closest to them. We'll get them all. That was the attitude of the country at that time. So he's a politician. The answer that his self-interest is to find somebody to get. So that's the answer that he wants. He's looking for an enemy. He's looking for an enemy and he's looking for an enemy. And Iraq was a good one, especially if you were a Bush, because the Bush family had a long history with the Hussein family and Saddam Hussein had literally tried to kill George W. Bush's dad. And he's like, all right, you know, let's make an enemy out of this guy. So when he gets this answer, he's like, let's get him. His own self-interest with Satan pulling the strings and nobody else pulling the strings could have been enough to make this whole thing happen in the military. What are they doing? They're a hammer. They're looking to hit something, the military. Corporations, think about this. The corporations, the corporations have this, have billions of dollars, tens of billions of dollars in contracts laid in front of them because Saddam Hussein was doing business with Russia and France and he was moving away from using the United States dollar. And now all of a sudden, all these American corporations had all of this profit put in front of them and these contracts put in front of them. Look, they're just motivated by their own self-interest. It's easy. This is the problem with corporations, by the way. Corporations don't have a conscience. Corporations are not like a privately owned business. Corporations are just, they just have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders and they're just like, hey, it's better that it's an American company and this is patriotic and we'll go and do this and they're just motivated by their own self-interest. The problem with corporations is this, there's no single conscience in a corporation. You say, are you not a capitalist? No, I'm a capitalist. But corporations kind of throw capitalism into a tailspin, quite frankly, in my opinion. Because, look, when everybody's responsible, nobody's responsible. That's what it comes down to. Look, a private company run by a moral person would be able to look at something, hey, we'll give you all this extra money. All we have to do is go and invade this country and kill all these people. And a moral company run or owned by a sole person that owned that company that was responsible for that company would be like, you know what, I don't want the profit, it's not worth it. I have morals. There used to be signs in businesses, I don't think they still have these, where it said like no shirt, no shoes, no service. Right, they're like, if you're gonna come in here and you're gonna be all messed up and not wear clothes and all this stuff, like, you don't want your money. That was basically an owner of a business saying that my profit is not that important. My profit is not that important to have somebody that comes in here and is all disheveled, and has no manners, and is going to be, you know, it's not worth it. So like if you go to a private, you know, a private owner of a company and say, hey, if we go out and murder all these people, you can sell a lot more ice cream. That private owner is going to be like, no, because I'm a moral person, but look, corporations bypass all of that. Right, so look, the point is this, there could quite possibly be no human in charge of all this. There could be, you know, I'm not saying that there's not a deep state or whatever, but I'm saying there's no one person in charge. It is just Satan manipulating leaders, manipulating organizations, manipulating religious leaders, manipulating all of these corporations and organizations in their own self-interest to accomplish his singular goals. There is no one leader right now, and this is how he does it, in my opinion. Right now it's Satan alone, manipulating people's individual self-interest, right? So look, the difference in the end times is that there will be a human leader doing this. There will be someone that we can look at as the human leader saying it's him that's being influenced by Satan that is doing all these things. So these 10 kings will eventually turn on the whore and destroy her, and she will be judged. She's getting judged at the end of Revelation chapter number 17. That's the point of Revelation chapter number 17. Now last week, last week I explained to you that the point of God's wrath, what is the point of God's wrath? He's just pouring out all these terrible plagues, all these terrible, you know, bugs that come out and sting people, all these boils, all these horrible situations on the unsaved. What is the point of that? The point, look, they're going to suffer in hell. They're going to hell anyway. Why would you do this since hell is going to be way worse than any kind of plague or wrath or any punishment that God could give them on earth. The reason is to drive people to Christ. The reason for the wrath was to get anybody that could possibly get saved, saved. The reason for the wrath, I said last week, was God's mercy. God showed his mercy through his wrath. That could be the only logical explanation for why God would spend three and a half years pouring out his wrath on people that he was just going to send to hell anyway. No, he's looking to give people one last chance to turn to him. All right? Now in Revelation chapter 17 and Revelation chapter 18, we see something very different. We see God coming and before the end times is over and before Jesus comes back to rule and reign, we see the destruction of what we're clearly looking at is a reference to the Roman Catholic Church on earth. And look, the great whores, it's called in Revelation chapter 17 and then in Revelation chapter 18, we see a judgment put on this city, Babylon. And what people will do, and look, I'm not against this. I believe that it's referring to the Roman Catholic Church. What people will do is they will focus more on, well, who is the great whore and who is Babylon? Is the United States of America Babylon? Well, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I mean, I think it's pretty clear in Revelation chapter 17 that we're talking about the Roman Catholic Church from the clues that we've seen. But as I showed you in the sermon that I preached on Babylon, Revelation chapter 18, all nations that turn their back on the Lord have the spirit of Babylon. They all follow the same pattern of arrogance and just affluence and turning their back on the Lord Jesus Christ as Babylon in Revelation chapter 18 is. But the point is this, and I think this is the larger point of Revelation chapter 17 and Revelation chapter 18, while the wrath of God was to ensure that anybody that could possibly be persuaded to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, that was the purpose for the individuals, the point is the millennial reign is coming. The millennial reign is coming and these nations and these organizations and these companies and these corporations and these false religions are not going to be allowed to survive to see it. That is what Revelation chapter 17 and Revelation chapter 18 is truly showing us. It's showing us that yes, all these people are having these plagues and boils and all these stings and all these things and they're going to be sent to hell. Some of them hopefully get saved, others are going to be sent to hell. But these organizations, all these false religions, so yes, is this referring to the Roman Catholic Church? But look, Hinduism is not going to survive either. That will be judged on this earth. Buddhism is not going to survive either. Islam is not going to survive either. Judaism is not going to survive either. There is none of these antichrist religions, which is any religion outside the religion of the Bible, are going to be allowed to escape judgment. That's what Revelation 17 is showing us because look, all false religions have followed this same pattern just to a smaller level. All these, I mean, there's Muslims today killing Christians all over the earth. There's Christians being killed now today in Africa by different religions. There's Christians being killed in India. There's Christians being killed by all sorts of false religions. And those false religions are not going to be allowed to survive. These false religions are going to be judged on this earth. They will be destroyed. That is what the Bible is telling us here. All the Babylon's are going to be destroyed on this earth. All the antichrist nations are going to be destroyed on this earth. All the governments that are against Jesus Christ are going to fall before the millennial reign of Christ. That's what Revelation chapter 18 is telling us. That's what it's showing us. Look, all the organizations, all the organizations that are against the Lord Jesus Christ are going to fall before Jesus comes back to rule and reign. They're going to fall. Planned Parenthood is done. They're going to be judged on this earth and all the people that work there are going to go to hell. But the organization is not going to survive. That is what Revelation 17 and Revelation chapter 18 are talking about. These organizations are going to be torn down. All these woke corporations that are just, you know, they just become woke. How could every single corporation become woke? Because they're just following their own self-interest. That's how. They don't mean to do it. They're just afraid of some minority suing them so they all just become this converged Satan following thing. All of that is not going to survive. That's what Revelation 17 and Revelation 18 is telling us. Nations are judged on this earth, folks. Nations are judged on this earth. Organizations are going to be judged on this earth. Organizations are going to be judged on this earth. And you know what? False religions and the structures that hold them in place are going to be judged on this earth. The individuals are going to be judged in hell. But the organizations are going to be torn down. That's why I think Revelation chapter 17 and Revelation chapter 18 is so great because we've been looking at the individuals in the wrath, but God says, no, no, no. These structures and these organizations that have been corrupting the world, they're coming down. So I think it's great to figure out what the main application of who you think each one is, but I don't think that's the bigger story here. The bigger story is the organization that's going to come ... Jesus is coming back with a rod of iron and by the time he gets there, look, he's sweeping the house. He's sweeping the house clean. So when he comes back to rule and reign with us, by the way, it's ready for him. And that's what this is all about. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.