Revelation 17 (Con't)

Revelation 17 and the Judgment of Babylon

One of you men, open this up with a word of prayer. Micah? Yep.

Dear Lord, thanks so much for this opportunity to come and study your word from an actual text. Many of the people who have a prosperous Christian history either didn't have access to a Bible or even access to an education to read it.

But we've learned to take it for granted, and I pray that you would accept our thanks for being able to do it today. In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. Let's read Revelation 17, and I don't know if we'll go into 18, maybe, probably, I don't know. Same thing as last time? Yeah. I'm not going to say anything definitively. It just flows so good together.

I did want to look at a couple of other chapters, but all right. Revelation 17, beginning in verse 1, and then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying, Come here, and I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed acts of immorality, and those who dwell on the earth were made drunk with the wine of her immorality.

And he carried me away into the spirit, into the wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns, and the woman was clothed in purple scarlet, adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, and having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and of the unclean things of her immorality.

And on her forehead was a name was written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots, the abominations of the earth. And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus.

And when I saw her, I wondered greatly, and the angel said to me, Why do you wonder? And I will tell you the mystery of the woman and the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns.

And the beast that you saw was and is not and is about to come up out of the abyss and to go to destruction. And those who dwell on the earth whose name was not written in the book of the life and the foundation of the world will wander when they see the beast.

And he is and is not and will come, and here is the mind which has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. There are seven kings, five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he comes he must remain for a little while.

And the beast which was and is not is himself also an ape and is of the seven, and he goes to destruction. And the ten horns which you saw are the ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but they have received authority as kings with the beast for one hour.

These have one purpose. They give their power and authority to the beast. These will wage war against the lamb, and the lamb will overcome them, because he is the Lord of lords and the king of kings. And those who are with him are the called, the chosen, and faithful.

And he said to me, the waters which you saw where the harlot sits are peoples, multitudes, nations, tongues. And the ten horns which you saw and the beast, these will hate the harlot, and will make her desolate, naked, and will eat her flesh, and will burn her with fire.

For God has put it within our hearts to execute his purposes by having a common purpose, by giving their kingdom to the beast until the words of God will be fulfilled. And the woman whom you saw is the great city which reigns over the kings of the earth.

And after these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven and having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with the glory. And he cried out with a mighty voice, saying, Fallen, fallen, is Babylon the great.

She has become a dwelling place of demons, and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird. For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed acts of immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality.

And I heard another voice from heaven saying, Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive her plagues, for her sins have piled up as high as the heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities, paid her back even as she has paid, and give back to her double according to her needs.

And in the cup which she has mixed, mix twice as much for her, to the degree to which she glorified herself and lived sensuously, to the same degree give her torment and mourning. For she says in her heart, I sit as a queen, and I am not a widow, and will never see mourning for this reason.

And one day her plagues will come, pestilence, mourning, famine, and she will be burned up with fire, for the Lord God who judges her is strong. And the kings of the earth who committed acts of immorality and lived sensuously with her will weep, they will lament over her.

And when they see the smoke of her burning, staining at a distance, and because of the fear of her torment, saying, Woe, woe, to the great city, Babylon, the strong city, for in one hour your judgment has come.

And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, because no one buys their cargos anymore, cargos of gold and silver, precious stones, pearls fine, linen, purple, silk, scarlet, every kind of citron wood, every article of ivory, every article made with very costly wood, bronze, iron, marble, cinnamon and spice, incense, perfume, and frankincense, and wine, and olive oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and cattle, and sheep, and cargos of horses, and chariots, and slaves, and human lives, and the fruit you long for is gone from you, and all these that are luxurious and splendid have passed away from you.

And men will no longer find them. The merchants of these things who became rich from her will stand at a distance, because of the fear of her torment, weeping and mourning, and saying, Woe, woe, the great city, she who was clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, for in one hour such a great wealth has been laid waste.

And every ship master, and every passenger, and sailor, and as many as make their living by the sea stood at a distance, and were crying out as the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like the great city?

They threw dust on their heads and were crying out, weeping and mourning, and saying, Woe, woe, the great city, in which all who had ships at the sea became rich by her wealth, for in one hour she has been laid waste.

Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, because God has pronounced judgment for you against her. Then a strong angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, So will Babylon the great be thrown down with violence and will not be found any longer, and the sounds of the harpist and musicians and flute players and trumpeters will not be heard with you any longer, and no crafters, I'm sorry, no craftsmen or any craft will be found in you any longer, and the sound of the mill will no longer be heard any longer, and the light of the lamp will no longer shine in you any longer, and the voice of the bridegroom and the bride will not be heard any longer, for your merchants were the great men of the earth, and because all the nations were deceived by your sorcery, and in her was found the blood of the prophets and the saints and all who have been slain on the earth.".

The Historicist, Futurist, and Idealist Views of Babylon

Ha! There we go. I guess I could do better if I could do like a dramatization of the reading. So, quick review, historic view, who's Babylon? Jerusalem. The historicist view? Rome. Rome. Actually, we'll put Roman Catholic Church, and then the beast would have been the papacy, part of it.

It's kind of weird how they see that. Then, let's do the Futurist. Futurist, who is it? Who is Babylon? The Roman Catholic Church. It can be, that's right. It can be Roman Catholic Church, but it could be the World Council of Churches.

Apostate Churches? Yep. Or the Revived Roman? Correct. So, the Apostate Churches, or the Revived Roman. I thought about it on the way home. I don't think I told y 'all who the Idealist perspective was.

Did anybody? You got the full transcript, don't you? I didn't. I didn't. This is, because I'm like, you know what, I don't think I wrote on the board what it was. I may have said it, but I didn't write it.

So, here, I'm going to write it now. All world religious political governments over church history. Remember, do actual historical events matter with the Idealist perspective? No. I mean, as I said, it doesn't matter if the book was written in 90, or 91, or 71.

To them, it doesn't matter, because it's principles that will unflow over church history until the culmination of all things. That's very appealing, because then you really don't have to actually deal with historical events.

I will say this, those that hold the, and we'll get to this in a minute, those that hold the Idealist perspective, okay, primarily hold a late date writing. Late date writing. So, it would be anything 90 to 99 AD of the writing.

Because, if you make it about Jerusalem, then the carrying out of the destruction of all of the world powers over the course of history has to make it a late date. You understand? There's certain, that's why I would say even my position, partial preterist, is suspect because of an early date.

But because I can't prove that it was written before, I mean after 90, neither can anybody disprove that it was written before 70, both of them are legitimate. And I think both positions, if you remember early on, when I did the dating, it all hinges on Irenaeus, and how he understood John, the Revelator, was it John was still around when the Revelation was written, or the vision.

See, there's a word, and I won't get into that right now because it is confusing in the Greek, but it all hinges on Irenaeus' words, and I think Irenaeus was a godly man, but I think Irenaeus had a hard time counting.

He's the one that believed Jesus was 50 years old when he died. So, when it comes to data, I don't trust Irenaeus, okay? That's just me, okay? I think he's going to be in heaven when we get there. And I will say, hey dude, you missed it.

No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. So, but then, and I'm going to put this over here because I didn't get to where I wanted last week. Preterist. You have partial, full, and this leads to heresy, because it means that if it's all fulfilled and there's no eternal state, then this is it.

That means Jesus has returned, and this is it. And ultimately, if you look at Jehovah's Witness, that's kind of where they end up. Okay. Now, early-date preterism is from 65 to 70, and it has to be because early-date preterism, and I said this last week, is the destruction of Jerusalem.

But I want to be fair, okay? I never want to misrepresent somebody. Hey, look, I never want somebody to misrepresent what I say, so I don't want to misrepresent other people. There is a part of preterism that is called late-date.

I said this early on, and I didn't want to confuse anybody then, but I'll confuse you now. You have what's called late-date preterism, and late-date preterism holds the 90 to 99 day, but it doesn't deal with destruction of Jerusalem.

It believes that the book we're reading is destruction of Rome. Destruction of Rome. I don't hold that position, obviously, and I think there's huge problems with that. But just a plain reading, as we were reading through 17 and 18, and as we begin to do an exposition part of it, we'll deal with more of the details, but we'll just kind of do an overview before it's got me sweating.

So, and this is going to come up again, any one of their empires did God make a covenant with. And that means God was never, let's use the terminology that we have already used multiple times, marriage.

God's relationship with the nation of Israel was like a marriage, was it not? We spent two weeks on him, on God calling his unfaithful bride a what? Or a whore. Yeah, or a whore. I like the offensive word, because that makes, because it does sound rough, because that's what he called her.

So, this, any one of these world empires cannot be the unfaithful bride. That's why I don't believe the late day preterism works. Was God ever in covenant relationship with Rome? No. Did God ever make a relationship with Rome?

Did he ever tell Rome, hey, I want you to be the ones that have the oracles of God? What does it say in Romans chapter 2? Hey, he says, this is Paul speaking, in the paraphrased version. He says, hey, look, what, the Jews don't really have any advantage to the rest of the world?

And then he goes on and he begins to unfold it. Yeah, the oracles of God. That's it. And he goes, well, all right, never mind, let me back that up. They had the oracles of God. Look, the only nation in all the world that God says, I will be your God, you will be my people, you do what I tell you to do and follow me, I will make you blessed more than anybody in all the earth.

But if you disobey, I will send pestilence and sword and beast and your fields will not be able, will be like plowing up iron and bronze and all of that. He never did that with any of these. Matter of fact, he used successive ones to wipe out the next.

Till, obviously, in this one, Messiah's kingdom comes and ultimately takes over the Roman Empire in the sense of it goes out to the uttermost parts of the Roman Empire and it can't be stopped. They try to squash it.

Let me just think about the disciples. What did they try to do? What did the Jewish rulers try to do immediately with James and John and Peter? They tried to stop it. At the end of the way, they thought, OK, well, Herod killed who?

James. And they said, all right, well, why don't you kill Peter? They put Peter in prison thinking that was going to help. They were going to execute him the next day. And what you all remember, they had a little prayer meeting and an angel comes and lets him out.

Peter knocks on the door. He's like, hey, can I get in? And they're like, oh, that's Peter's spirit at the door. It's like, y 'all were just praying for him. Go open the door. The girl was so excited she didn't even open it.

She just ran back. Yeah, she's like, y 'all, it's his spirit, like he was already dead. Anyway, they tried to squash it and it couldn't. It took like wildfire and went across the Roman Empire. But I do want to be fair.

There are preterisms that think that the book is talking about the fall of Rome. But, once again, oh, I already erased it. If you do believe it's about the fall of Rome, primarily this position will be a combination between late-day preterism and idealism.

It will be a combination. And remember, I know progressive, the word progressive and eclectic normally have a bad connotation. But this is a good time to be eclectic. It is. This is one time when it's okay.

Because if the book is primarily, from my position, talking about the destruction of Jerusalem, and I think I have laid out a pretty good, not because I'm being, I think that I'm a good teacher, because I don't.

I'm just telling you what the text says. That's all I do, is stand up here and just tell you what the text says. And harmonize it with what Jesus already said, that this is concerning primarily the destruction of Jerusalem.

And as we look at the destruction of Jerusalem, there are parts in the book that point and set a trajectory towards the end of the age. And I think I have showed you all so far through the book where I think that takes place.

But idealism, because it is, we're going to find the principle and then that sets the application of the book. I said this early on. I remember telling Mike Ward when I first came here, because one of the first things you get asked, if they know you've been a pastor somewhere else, is, hey, what do you think about the end times?

So I told him, I was like, dude, I'm eclectic, I'm a preterist. And I think the best way to understand the book is partial preterist, is the interpretation, and an idealist as an application. Because if you think about, idealism is principle.

As a biblical, anybody who teaches the Bible, what do you do when you're teaching the word of God? You expound the text, you explain the text. Then if it's in a historical context, you take that, you find the principle, and then that principle you then apply to our life.

What does idealism do? It applies principles over the course of church history. So that's why I believe that's the best way to apply the book. The best way to understand it is partial preterism, meaning destruction of Jerusalem.

Now, as we were reading, you would see, and I'm going to lay out another reason why I don't believe this. How many times did we see in one hour, either they gave their power over to the beast for one hour, or in an hour, or it fell in a day, or its destruction came quickly in those two chapters?

I mean, at least four, okay? At least four. If you know anything about Rome, Rome didn't fall, we all know this, did Rome fall in a day? I mean, that's kind of like a cliche, right? Did Rome have some invaders over?

Yes, they did. They fought with the Parthians, which were the other side of the Euphrates. That's why everything that came from the east was kind of crazy, on the other side of the Euphrates. But, Rome didn't fall in a day.

In 390, remember, this is way after the book of Revelation was written, okay? You had the Gauls. Where is it? U .A. There it is, yeah, U .A. The Gauls came. Then you had in four, they sacked Rome. 410, you had the Visigoths, sacked Rome.

They didn't overthrow it, okay? So you had from here to here, and you go here, and 455, you had the Vandals, sacked Rome. And then, when it actually moved, and the Western Empire, quote, fell, it's 476.

And the Germanic people came in, Rome was done. As far as the Eastern Empire, you had Western and Eastern. Western Empire fell. Where did they go? Remember? Constantinople. And Constantinople continued on.

This is how long, 1453, until it fell to the Muslims and became Istanbul. It's a pretty place if you've ever been there, man. That's a cool place. Istanbul is pretty cool. Even though it's a pagan place, it's pretty.

It's in Turkey. So did Rome fall in a day? No. It did over a course of time, and it got overrun by all these other invaders over time, until Western fell, they moved to the east, set up Constantinople.

It continued to go on until it finally, quote, fell to the Muslims, the city fell. But in many ways, Rome and its idea carries on today. I do want you, and y 'all know I'm not a flipper, but I want you to read this for your own eyes.

Turn over to Daniel chapter 7, because I do want you to see this. And I promise at some point in the next week or so, we will walk through the actual text of 17 and 18. So look at verse, we'll begin in verse 9, 7, 9.

Because this is where the Ancient of Days, he comes. This is Messiah's kingdom. You can't see Messiah's kingdom and not read it. Verse 9, it says, and I kept looking. Remember, this is a vision that Daniel is seeing.

Chapter 7, verse 9, I kept looking until thrones were set up, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His vesture was like white snow. His hair was like, the head on his head was like pure wool. His throne was ablaze with flames.

Its wheels were burning fire. The river of fire was flowing, and coming out of before it was thousands upon thousands were attending him, and myriads upon myriads were standing before him. And the court was set, and the books were opened.

And I kept looking, because the sound of the boastful words which the horn was speaking. And I kept looking until the beast was slain, and his body was destroyed, and given to the burning fire. Listen to this, as for the rest of the beast, their dominion was taken away, but an extension of life was granted to them for an appointed period of time.

Remember, each one of these, in the book of Daniel, was a beast. Remember? Everybody remember that? Whoever was with me in Daniel, each one of these was a beast. And if you want to hear it again, I'm going to run through it really quick.

Not today, but on Wednesday night, because that's where I'm at. Each one of these was a beast, and each one was, remember last week, each one was destroyed by the next person. Hey, you know, did Babylon fall in a day?

Yes! Yes, that's why this is hugely important. Babylon fell in one day. One day. They didn't know it was coming. They knew it was coming when many, many, tekeh baruva farsa, was written on the wall, by the handwriting on the wall.

And Belshazzar came in, he said, hey Daniel, I need you to tell me, my parent, my grandma says, you really know a lot of stuff. So, I'll tell you what, if you tell me what this thing just wrote, I'm going to give you all the things of the kingdom under me.

And Daniel's like, no need, buddy, because your kingdom's not worth a drop. Because they're coming in, and you're going to die tonight. And that's exactly what happened. Cyrus the Great dug a moat, rerouted the Euphrates, I went through part of this already, that's why it talks about them coming from the Euphrates, rerouted, came up under the city walls, because he rerouted the Euphrates, came up under, walked in, killed Belshazzar, and it was over.

It was almost little to no bloodshed. But, what happened to the Babylonian Empire? Forever gone. It was just like taking the Babylonian Empire and putting it on a rock, and we'll get to this maybe today, if not, next week, taking it on a rock, putting it, wrapping it up on a rock, and then throwing it in the river.

And if you remember, at the end of, when we were reading the end of Jeremiah chapter 51, he says, hey, I want you to take a little stroll, I want you to wrap it up, and I want you to tie it to a rock.

This is what's going to happen to Babylon. He says, I want you to throw it in the Euphrates, and it'll sink, never to rise again. It didn't mean that every Babylonian was wiped dead. What it meant was the Babylonian Empire would cease to exist as an empire forever.

But, as the Persian Empire come in, they overtook Babylon. They engrafted some of their ideas and beliefs into that. And that goes, oh, man, I ain't got time to get into all that. It goes back to the statue.

What was the, when you saw the statue of Nebuchadnezzar, he was the gold. He says, you're the purest, you're the best, you're the most important. Because everything else would fall after him, and each successive empire would then engraft something of its previous empire into it.

What did it just say? Right here in Daniel. The beast's power will be taken away, but this. As for the rest of the beast, their dominion is taken away, but an extension of its life was given. So, every one of these will continue on, just like Rome.

Rome fell. Can you look out into the world and still see parts of the Roman Empire today? Yeah, look at our own government structure. Senate, representatives, the whole deal. Okay, all that. That's part of the Roman Empire that continues on today, but Rome is gone.

I mean, I don't think you can trace a Roman person anywhere. I mean, that's our lineage. I don't think you can find any of that. So, back to Revelation. So, as Babylon fell in a day, what we were reading was Babylon, what it's speaking of here, falls in a day.

If you know anything about Jerusalem, Jerusalem fell in one day. One day. They breached the walls, they came in, they slayed everybody in the city they could get their hands on, captured some of them.

Titus did. He captured some of them, used them for slave labor, to then carry them out to Masada and the other places where some of the zealots had moved so that he could use them to make the siege ramps.

That is pretty ruthless. We're going to take your people, and we're going to use them as slaves to build up ramps and siege walls and catapults and engines to kill your people. And that's exactly what they did.

So, fell in a day. The temple flattened in one day. Seven wonder of the world flattened in one day. Burnt, caught on fire. They began to tumble the stones out. There was so much gold in it. As the gold heated up, it ran down out of the grout and on the plates, went through the grates, and those guys, the Roman soldiers, were getting the melted gold out of the grates.

Remember all the grates for the drain and part from the brazen altar was to get all the blood to run out of the city and the water, and as that did, they didn't want the gold running out of the city, so what did they do?

They were like, hey, we're going to get it. And what we do know historically, it was so much gold that came from the city of Jerusalem. When it fell, that inflation rate of gold in that region was off the chart because it was so plentiful.

It was so plentiful. Now, one, how did Jerusalem get so much? Go ahead. Hey, don't do that. Stick it up. Like I say, I might think you're fixing to throw something at me.

I'm using an anecdote I read somewhere that during the sack of Jerusalem, that when the front gate came down, they came rolling around, the Romans did, when they came rolling around the corner into the main section where the defenders were waiting for them, the centurion who was leading the charge, wearing the typical Roman footwear, the caligae, it had like cleats on the bottom of their feet.

Well, they don't usually fight, but they usually fought in open field, the Romans did, the legions did. But this was, of course, a stone ground. So he runs a corner at a right angle, a full run, wipes out.

The centurion right there in front of everybody wipes out, slams into the wall, and the Jews killed him.

That sounds about right. Yeah. I mean, their goal was to kill every Roman they could get their hands on, and they were good at it. And had they quit, I mean, honestly, historically, if you look what happened,.

If they would have just quit killing themselves, they would have won.

They would have won. I mean, they were some bad dudes. Them guys could fight, man, and they were ruthless. They would take their engines, they would take their stuff. I mean, them guys could scrap if they would just quit killing each other.

That three-way Civil War, if they would have worried, quit killing one another and ganged up and, hey, let's kick them out, they probably could have got their independence, but that's not how God intended it to be.

But anyway, so flooded because of what Rome had given them. Now, how did the inflation rate get so high, and where did Jerusalem get the money to put all this, replenish the Herod's Temple? They got it from Rome.

As we go through this, you read in 17, the woman rides the beast. The woman rides the beast. Trinity ain't here, is she? Well, Zeke, you ride a horse, don't you? That horse only lets you ride it as long as he wants to, doesn't he?

And if he decides he wants you off, boop, you're gone, ain't you? All right. The woman's riding the beast till the beast is done. And when the beast is done, we already read what happens. It strips her naked, chews her up, and it burns her.

So she's only riding the beast as long as the beast lets her. So Jerusalem was getting tons of money from Rome, tons of money. And how did that all? We can go all the way back to Herod the Great and his help with Mark Anthony, when he needed some cavalry back in the 44s, before 40ish B .C.

He needed some cavalry, and Mark Anthony said, hey, will you help me out? He said yes, and he did. And he says, because you've helped me, I'll see to it that you will be basically a prefect or king over this area.

And that's how Herod became Herod the Great, put in power. And because he was an Edomite, and can an Edomite be on the temple complex? No, because he's outside the covenant. And he said, well, I will give you the stuff that you want to replenish or to make up the Zerubbabel's basically temple.

And what did he do? He expanded the temple complex to 35 acres. So when you look at the aerial view today, you see the old imprint of where the temple mount is, what we would call today. All that was done by Herod.

Herod brought in these massive stones and raised, not R-A-Z-E-D, that happened in 70 A .D., but raised, R-A-I-S-E-D, raised it up by moving the mount up so it sat more on a pedestal. And then he put all of Solomon's Portico.

What are the other places he put on there? Because Solomon's Portico goes all the way around. He added some other smaller buildings. And then they put a fortress Antonio did on the corner so that they could oversee so shenanigans didn't happen during feast time.

But all that came from Rome, all of it, the gold, the massive stones. Hey, man, and if y 'all could ever get an opportunity to go there and you go up under the catacombs, you're talking about stones that are 90 feet long and 9 feet thick.

One stone hewed out and brought in. Absolutely amazing to see. You're like, how did they get that thing in here? One stone. And you know they're Herodian because he had a certain insignia that he would put on them so you knew it was his.

He was an architectural genius. I mean, y 'all look at Masada or Herodian. If y 'all want to get it online, look at that. Absolute masterpiece of an engineer. But he got all that money from Rome, so once again, how was Jerusalem riding the beast?

Because they were getting all the funds, everything that they wanted as long as they stayed in cahoots with Herod. Look, this is an application, and then I've got to wrap it up. And I promise you next week we'll start walking through the tent.

Yeah, I'm not going to get into that because I won't be able to finish. Rome rides the beast. I mean, Jerusalem rides the beast. She rides the beast by, one, the Herodians. There was three sects, religious sects.

The Herodians, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees. All those, let's just, as an application. All of those, did they not give their authority over to the beast? They sure did. Because who did they all agree should die?

Christ. Hey, look, they hated one another. The Sadducees and the Pharisees hated one another. Okay? What did Paul even do? Anybody remember when Paul was fixing to get the tar beat out of him? Again. That's it.

Yeah. And he had the Pharisees and the Sadducees there, and he was like, Well, you know what? Let me do something that makes them mad at each other. And he started talking about the Resurrection because the Sadducees didn't believe there's any afterlife.

They believed this was it. That's why they're Sadducees. I'll always remember that. Yeah, they believed that this is it. And then the Pharisees believed in the Resurrection. Those are basically you have the liberals and conservatives.

This is just the easy way. And then you have the Herodians, which were the progressives or the left-wingers who just wanted to do whatever. They wanted to be part of Rome, be part of the Jews. They wanted to be part of whoever.

Well, they all agreed, and they hated one another. They all said, You know what? We can agree on one purpose. And if you read in the text, they all agreed in one purpose. This is just an application that I've got.

They agreed on one purpose. Hey, look, we're not ever going to kill each other. But, hey, we can agree to kill one person, and we can agree to kill him, and we can agree to kill him together, and then everything will be happy.

And if you remember what happened once Jesus was crucified, actually, it was right before that. It says, you remember, Herod and Pontius Pilate did not get along. And the night in which Jesus went through all of his trials, it says, on that day, Herod and Pontius Pilate became friends.

It's like these guys wanted to kill one another, but because they agreed to kill Christ, they became friends. Look, to a certain degree, Herod had some execution power. Obviously, he killed John the Baptist, but now he would be able to do it with impunity because now what was Pontius Pilate going to do?

He was going to turn a blind eye. So who did he start persecuting? The Christians. Who did he kill right after that? James. He did it. And what did they want him to kill? Peter. And he wanted to kill these other people.

You know what I mean? All of these things that they begin to do, and that's how the Semitic people tried to bring Rome into persecuting God's people. Okay, they'll turn a blind eye. We'll be friends. Let them do what they want.

And they even got, during the time of persecution, if you look in Acts, one of the... I think it was Jason. He was getting a tar beat out of him, and the Roman prefect, the Jews are beating the tar out of this guy, and the Roman prefect says he just turns the other way.

It ain't got nothing to do with me. Let them beat the tar out of him. That's their problem. That's their religious faction. Let them work it out. Because see, Rome had not yet made a distinction between Christianity and Judaism.

The first person to do that, and I've said it probably 15 times I know, was who? Nero. Nero was the first one to go, oh, wow, the Jews and Judaism is different than Christianity. Christianity says, hey, we're going to follow Christ.

The Jews will recapitulate to follow Rome. And what did Nero do? Hmm. They look like a good person. We can blame this fire on. I can get the people in the local area to then join forces with me to at least persecute these people for what they've done.

And that's what they did. That's how in an application giving their power over to the beast for an hour. That would be an application. You could see that all over church history. People do it all the time.