Revelation Continued

She didn't crank you if you let go of her. She'll even lean you if she wants to let go.

She'll twist her body and go like that as you're trying to walk with her. Are you ready

Mr. Bryce? She's going to practice her table slide.

How you doing? Well good morning.

Table slide. Good to have you back.

Mr. Smith, would you open us up for the Lord's Prayer? Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you that in your goodness to us you have again given us this first day of the week to come together, to open your word, to study.

Just pray Lord that you would be with our brother Mike as he's prepared. Just pray that you would use him to open your word up to us.

Give us hearts that desire to receive it. Just pray that you forgive us of our sins.

In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Revelation chapter 14.

Well good morning. A whole other herd came in. Pray again.

Pray again. Maybe more will come. Beginning in verse 1.

Then I looked and behold the Lamb was standing on Mount Zion with Him 144 ,000 having

His name and the name of His Father written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven like the sound of many waters and like the sound of a loud thunder and the voice which

I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps and they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders and no one could learn the song except for the 144 ,000 who had been purchased from the earth.

These are the ones who have not been defiled with women for they have kept themselves chased. These are the ones who follow the

Lamb wherever He goes. These have been purchased from among men as the first fruits to God to the

Lamb and no lie was found in their mouth and they are blameless. I saw another angel flying in mid -heaven having an eternal gospel to preach to those who live on the earth and to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people and he said with a loud voice,

Fear God, give Him glory because the hour of His judgment has come. Worship Him who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and the springs and the waters.

And another angel, a second one, followed saying, Fallen, fallen is

Babylon the great. She who has made all the nations drink of the wine of the passions of her immorality.

Then another angel, a third one, followed them saying with a loud voice, If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives the mark on his forehead or on his hand he will drink of the wine of the wrath of God which is mixed in full strength in the cup of his anger and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and the presence of the

Lamb and the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever and they have no rest day or night.

Those who worship the beast and his image and whoever receives the mark of his name. Here is the perseverance of the saints who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.

And I heard a voice from heaven saying, Right blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.

Yes, says the Spirit. So they may rest from their labors and their deeds follow with them.

And then I looked and behold a white cloud and sitting on the white cloud was one like the son of man having a golden crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand and another angel came out from the temple crying out with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud,

Put in your sickle and reap for the hour to reap has come because the harvest of the earth is ripe.

Then he who sat on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth and the earth was reaped. And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven and he also had a sharp sickle.

Then another angel the one who has power over fire came out of the altar and he called with a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle saying,

Put in your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth because her grapes are ripe.

So the angel swung his sickle to the earth and gathered the clusters from the vine of the earth and threw them into the great wine press of the wrath of God and the wine press was trodden down outside the city.

The blood came out from the wine press up to the horses bridles for a distance of 1 ,600 stadia or 200 miles.

Okay, last week Miss Kathy has got me some bright pens.

Last week we started getting into these three angelic messengers.

The three angelic messengers started back in chapter 14 verse 6.

One was flying through the air We've got a lot of people in here this morning. Pray again.

Pray again. Pray again. He was going the angel was flying through mid -air and he was preaching the gospel the good news which was fear of God and we kind of went into well that's really not how we would understand the gospel.

We understand it as the death, burial, and resurrection but included in the death, burial, and resurrection is fear of God and do what he tells you to do.

But we got to this.

We got to where it says in verse 8 then another angel, a second one followed saying fallen, fallen is

Babylon the great. She who has made all the nations drink of the wine of the passions of her immorality.

One, before we can even talk about who's fallen, who is Babylon? Where did

Babylon begin? Is Babylon still exist today? Did it exist at the time in which at the time in which

John the Revelator was writing and whether you believe in an early date or whether you believe in a late date, you still have to identify who

Babylon is. Okay? Where do we first anybody remember where do we first hear anything about Babylon?

Anybody remember in scripture? It goes all the way back to Genesis 11.

Anybody remember what happened to Genesis 11? Okay. Maybe we'll go to Genesis 10.

Anybody remember what happened to Genesis 10? Alright. Maybe we'll have Genesis 1. Genesis 11 was if you remember correctly there was a group of people that were moving eastward after they came out of the after Noah's sons began to replenish the earth and then that was in chapter 9 of Genesis.

Chapter 10 you had the table of nations. And as those table of nations began to grow there was a certain man by the name of Nimrod.

Anybody remember what Nimrod did? Alrighty. Nimrod settled in a place called

Shinar. Anybody remember where Shinar has been mentioned before in scripture? Alright. So, Shinar is where does that ring a bell?

Could y 'all see that back there? Tower of Babel. Anybody remember what happened at the

Tower of Babel? That's right. That's why it's called

Babel. The Hebrew word for confusion is

Babel. But interestingly enough, and we'll get to this in a little bit, the Akkadian name

Babylon, which is where the city of Shinar ultimately we would call Babylon, this actually means gateway to the gods.

So as we understand what Babylon, not only was it a real city, but what it represented this is,

I get a little ahead of myself, but it was always associated with idolatry.

Always associated with idolatry. We often, we hear in the time of the

Reformation, we hear the word sacralism. Anybody know what sacralism is? It is state sanctioned worship.

And every generation ultimately, every generation from Adam on had some form of sacralism, which is governmental state sanctioned worship.

It's how it's always been. Obviously now that we have a separation of church and state in the

United States, we don't have sacralism. Remember, sacralism is state sanctioned worship.

What was the first place we see actual state sanctioned, and if you didn't do it, you were going to die, was in Babylon.

In the plain of Shinar with Nebuchadnezzar. Remember what Nebuchadnezzar did?

He built this 90 foot pole. Actually, I understand it because the word image was probably an image of himself, but just for argument's sake, it could have been a 90 foot gold pole.

And what did he tell the three Hebrew boys? Actually, he told all of them, check it out, when you start hearing the flutes, the lyres, and all this stuff, start playing, what are you going to do?

You're going to hit the ground. And if you don't, I've got this beautiful fiery furnace for you to roast in if not.

And they played the music, everybody hit the ground, but who? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

And they said, we ain't going to do it. And Nebuchadnezzar said, no, no, no, I don't think you understand what

I'm saying. So what I'm going to do is we're going to do this again. Those dudes over there are going to start playing the instruments again, and then you're going to hit the floor.

And they said, no, no, no, Nebuchadnezzar, I don't think you are feeling what we're saying. We're telling you that we don't care about your fiery furnace, we're still not going to bow down to your image.

And if God delivers us, great. If he doesn't, we're not going to bow because it's idolatry. So, Babylon is always associated with idolatry.

Why did God confuse, and actually I understand it, it says that God came down in chapter 11 of Genesis, he came down and saw what was going on,

I believe that's the pre -incarnate Christ coming down, walking amongst that city, okay, and he confused it.

Why did he confuse their languages? Yeah, and I was confident that they could achieve to the heavens on their own merit.

What were they doing? They were building a tower, whether you think it's the ziggurat today or whatever, they were building a tower to get us, good morning, they were building a tower to try to get themselves to God, and he said, no, no, no,

I made a way for you to do that, there's a way to worship me, and Nimrod's wrong, my way's right, but if you're not going to follow this, what

I'm going to say then, I'm going to make none of y 'all be able to communicate, and what happened? It made everybody disperse, and the tower of Babel was not completed as the way they wanted it, which was to get them to the highest reaches of heaven.

So, now, Babylon continued on to exist as a city, okay,

I want you to understand that. Babylon continued to exist as a city on through the

Assyrian Empire, the Neo -Assyrian Empire, and when we, we're fixing to look at it, but the actual statement here, fallen, fallen, is

Babylon the Great, is a quotation from Isaiah 21.

Anybody remember when Isaiah was written? 700 years before Christ, so obviously this is an oracle against Babylon, but here's what we have to determine, was it was it an oracle to Babylon, well

I'll put here Neo -Babylon, or Ancient Babylon, and this is important, because when you read the whole oracle in Isaiah 21, it talks about going in there, wiping the city out, talking about laying waste to the city, smashing everything in it, smashing all of its idols, smashing all of its temples, it actually, heard the word raised,

R -A -Z -E -D, that actually doesn't mean raised this way, it actually means to flatten to the ground, so if you read like Josephus and Tacitus and other

Herodotus ancient historians, you'll hear them say they raised it to the ground, that's what they're talking about, actually making it like dust, just pulverize it.

I want you to just think for a moment, when Babylon, the

Neo -Babylonian empire was done away with, when Cyrus came in, everybody follow me?

Cyrus came in and he killed Belshazzar with the handwriting on the wall, everybody remember that story?

Did it destroy the city of Babylon? The answer is no, it did not, it didn't destroy the city, matter of fact, what made

Cyrus so benevolent, pagan, but benevolent, is as he went in and conquered all of these lands, what he would do is take where the local idolatry or worship, he would then reinstall that idol so that these people would be peaceful, so if you understand anything, what happened in history with Belshazzar and the handwriting on the wall and his father

Nabonidus, if you want to go, I did this extensively when I taught through Daniel, but Nabonidus was

Belshazzar's dad, he had defected of worshipping of Marduk, which made him actually an apostate to the

Babylonian empire, okay? So he self -exiles himself and Belshazzar comes in place, that's how

Belshazzar gets to become the leader of the Babylonian empire when it falls to Cyrus, well what he comes in and does, he kills

Belshazzar and he reinstalls Marduk as the worshipping god of that area, what did it do?

It made all the Babylonians come around him and be like oh this dude's good, but he didn't destroy the city, so if Isaiah is talking about an actual destruction of the city of Babylon, we have to understand when did that take place and does

Babylon continue to carry on and I will say there was two, I'll explain why there's a six there in a second, 689, not 1689, okay?

689, this is when Babylon the city was razed to the ground by the

Assyrian empire, the

Assyrian empire came in in 689 they were the world power at the time under the preaching of Isaiah, okay?

How many of y 'all, when you read through Isaiah you have Tiglath -Pileser, you've got Shalmaneser, you've got

Sargon, and then you have Sennacherib, those were the kings at the time in which this empire was going in the time of Isaiah Isaiah makes a, in Isaiah 21 says that Assyria is going to destroy

Babylon raze it to the ground, flatten it, that took place here,

Babylon was destroyed and then later rebuilt, okay? So under the

Assyrian empire, Babylon was under their, I would say, jurisdiction there was a revolt, when they revolted

Sennacherib said, I'm not going to have it, and he said, I'm going to go in there, I'm going to kill everybody, I'm going to wipe it out, there's going to be nothing left we'll smash it to the ground, so his son,

Sennacherib's son, comes along and Ezradon and rebuilds the city in 681 just to let you know, hey, all this is in the

Bible, just want to let you know this is all historically accurate and given in scripture, when

Sennacherib was killed, he was killed by his other two sons if you remember what happened,

I think it's in Isaiah fact check me, I think it's in Isaiah 37, you have what takes place where Sennacherib surrounds, he had gone through Judah remember in 722, he had already hauled off the northern kingdom, he's making his way down to the southern kingdom, he gets to Lachish he takes over Lachish, he begins to surround

Jerusalem, Hezekiah gets scared, Hezekiah then reaches out to Isaiah, he says dude, if you repent,

God will save the city, he saves the city, and that night God sent out the angel of death, remember what happened that night 185 ,000

Assyrians, they got up the next morning and it says there was corpses everywhere, ok,

Sennacherib leaves, that was in 701, he leaves with his tail tucked between his legs and heads back to Nineveh he gets back to Nineveh, on his way back to Nineveh he decides he's going to do his fury on Babylon, he destroys

Babylon, and then he goes back on to Nineveh, and if you keep reading in chapter 37 of Isaiah, I think it's 37, it says that he gets to his temple, he's worshipping

Zerok, I think it is, and it says his two sons kill him, well his two sons that didn't like him are the ones that killed him, but then

Estradon comes to power at 681 and rebuilds the city of Babylon, makes it a place of political authority, makes it a place of certainly another place of idolatry, temples all over again, and rebuilds the city in such a way that it can be industrious, ok so we need to understand, fall and fallen in here, is dealing with the complete destruction of the city well what happens in 539, this is when

Cyrus comes in, 539, and the reason why I have a 6 here is depending on where you place the date of the

Babylonian exile will determine, if you put it at 605, you end up somewhere around 539, if you put it at 603, that puts you somewhere around 536, you understand, they did not have

GPS trackers, dates, and times like we have today, so we have to give, how you make those dates is you have to put an anchor date so you find an anchor date, and you move your scale of when things took place based on a major anchor date so,

Babylon is overthrown as an empire, that is hugely important, as an empire, here and we knew that was going to happen, how did we know that was going to happen?

because what happened, good, you were saying something? yeah, because you remember what Nebuchadnezzar's dream was in chapter 2 of Daniel, he says, look,

I had this wild dream and I want somebody to come tell me what happened in this dream, and they said, okay, king, tell us the dream and we'll tell you what it is, he says, no, no, no

Nebuchadnezzar was, he was pretty shrewd, he said no, no, no, you don't get it, he says,

I know how you operate I tell you my dream, and you just make up something so, what

I want you to do is, not that I want you to tell me what my dream was then I want you to interpret it for me, and they said well,

Nebuchadnezzar, that's just unheard of, he goes, I know because you always say things, for my benefit,

I want to know what this is, so, nobody can do it, if I remember what happens, he says I want you to go out,

I want you to kill every wise man in all of the kingdom, and that's how they get to Daniel they knock on Daniel's door, he says, hey buddy, you and your buddies got to go, we're going to kill you, he says, hold up, dude, what's going on he's like, hey, well, he had this dream, and nobody can tell him what it is, so we're going to interpret it he goes, give me till the morning, give me till the morning and we'll handle it, and that's what happened and that dream was the

Colossus, and the dream was head of gold, chest of silver, girdle of bronze legs made of iron and clay that was the world empires, as they would arise from the

Neo -Babylonian empire on Neo -Babylonian empire actually came into power with Nebuchadnezzar's dad, which had been

Nabapalooza not Lollapalooza, but Nabapalooza and as he was sending

Nebuchadnezzar across the Mesopotamia peninsula, he was capturing every city, well then his dad dies around 606 to 605, he then has to go back to Babylon to be coronated as king of Babylon, that was around 604 so, he becomes what is the head, the gold, if you remember when he interpreted it, he's like,

Nebuchadnezzar you're the head, you're world empire, and don't laugh at my because I'm not a, ok, this was going to be the

Babylonian empire, and then here was going to be the

Medo -Persian, Greeks, what was the last one he says hey, every success, this is it, he showed him all the world empires up until the time of remember what happens over here, there's a little rock cover that, hits him in the feet like a wrecking ball, destroys the world powers and engulfs the earth, remember what that was, that was the kingdom of Messiah don't take my word for it, oh man, y 'all could read the whole book of Daniel in probably 30 minutes, read it, that's what takes place, so when

Babylon falls as a city, it is crushed, it's idolatry is wiped out never to be seen as it was in 689 ever again, ok, it's important, as it was in 689 but when it comes as a world empire it comes up as a place of idolatry, and from that point on, it will always be a place of idolatry, you know the city is not ever really destroyed, it gets ransacked it gets sacked, it gets looted, but never flattened like it did here, because if you remember, when

Cyrus comes in, he sets up part of his government in Babylon, remember after Darius III gets wasted by Alexander the

Great, what did Alexander the Great do? He actually made two capitals Alexandria and Egypt, and where was the other one?

Babylon, Babylon, and why? Because Babylon was the epicenter of idolatry, the epicenter of idolatry so, when it says fallen fallen is

Babylon the Great here, we have to understand that it is a condemnation, remember this is a prophetic oracle of Babylon, so Babylon no longer ceases to exist as a city like it did in 689, and it no longer is a world empire as it was in 538 before Cyrus came in, then what is this saying?

What is Babylon of Revelation 14? And I'm going to tell you my conclusion that Babylon chapter 14 of Revelation is talking about Jerusalem, and I'm going to show you my conclusion but I've got to take a little bit of thunder from future lectures or lessons by you going over to chapter 17 and 18, if you want to turn over there we have already seen

Jerusalem called two different names for that city, anybody remember those were back in chapter,

I think it's chapter 11, it was called Sodom and Egypt, what was Sodom? All types of perversion, yep, and also an emblem of God's divine wrath destroying that city never to be seen again as it existed, never to be seen again what about Egypt?

It was God's oppressors of his people, you've got to remember they were in bondage for how long?

400 years until God said hey I'm going to redeem you, so Egypt as the oppressor,

Sodom as lasciviousness and immorality, and he says that's what he's already called

Jerusalem in the book and you go well, here's a wiggle room, no there's no wiggle room because it says this city is the city where our

Lord was crucified, there's no ambiguity about that, it is very clear the city he's speaking of is

Jerusalem, so as we get to here and we get to Babylon has fallen, you go okay well this is the first time we've been introduced to Babylon so maybe the best part of biblical interpretation is just keep reading, just keep reading and you read on and you get to chapter 17 and it talks about the doom of Babylon, so here it is we have the little verse that tells us about the destruction of the coming

Babylon, but then when you get to chapter 17 and 18, it is a longer exposition of what's going to happen to Babylon when it falls and just to let you know how important the fall of whoever this how we understand this

Babylon is this the long, the only two chapters that take up, I mean the only subject that takes up two chapters in all of Revelation is the destruction of Babylon so it's important, you say something?

I guess that's why it makes the date in the book important, if this is a late date what are you looking at?

Well, and actually I'm going to say there's two there's two if I get to it today, well you already opened up that can of worms so let me do that real quick, because it is important and I wish

Bert was in here go grab him, because Bert knew all these people early date

Jerusalem, early date before 70

A .D. and why is it before 70 A .D.? that's when the destruction happened if you're a late date, many see this as wrong but we ain't got time to go through the whore of Babylon rides on the beast so if the whore rides on the beast and the beast is who, we've already identified that, who's the beast?

it's the governmental structure and at this particular time who would it have been? it would have been Rome, just to be honest how can the whore ride itself?

it's impossible, so that means the whore of Babylon is a different individual, because it's personified, than the beast and it actually says then the beast chews her up and burns her, what happened to Jerusalem?

The Romans ground them into powder and burned the city now, the late date then has to come to the conclusion that if it's

Rome, then who is the whore? if you don't like whore, let me use harlot then you've got to start playing all kinds of funny games with who it is is it the papacy?

is it this? is it that? is it this? is it that? and there's really no consensus on who it is from a late date perspective, because if you take a late date perspective too, then this can be revived empire, and all that's hey, just to let you know, this here, that's conjecture you're just inserting something in there so it'll make your system work and this here is dispensational eschatology, a revived

Roman empire has to be dispensational eschatology that is primarily what evangelical

American Christianity has grown up with it's in the air that we breathe, it's in the books that we read the

Tim LaHaye books, all that nonsense that's theological fiction, just to let you know, it says it on there, this is a novel, it all comes from a revived

Roman empire, but the early date it would have made sense too to the first century church and that is hugely important as we read and we're going through the book, to remember how did the original audience understand what they were reading, look, when these seven letters, the seven churches went out they would have not been going, oh well, you know what this has nothing to do with us, this is 2 ,000 years down the road that makes the book absolutely irrelevant to the first century readers then why write the book, and if it's irrelevant to them, then what was the purpose of them even having it if it was just to have knowledge that they would have nothing to know about, it doesn't fit but they were actually dealing with something in their specific time dealing with persecution that was coming, persecution that was already there, and it was going to be done by the beast at that particular time it was the

Roman empire, and had originally began to be persecuted by who the harlot of Babylon, who was

Jerusalem, and as you read through, I would just ask, because we only got about 10 minutes left, I want you to go home sometime this week, and I want you just to read 17 and 18 read 17 and 18, it talks all about this harlot that has made immorality, sexual immorality with the nations around her, all through Ezekiel and Jeremiah, as we've been reading through it, what was the constant theme of the nation of Israel, or Judah and Jerusalem of her having idolatry, was that not the case?

Really, idolatry, matter of fact, how many times did God in the Old Testament we could even use Hosea, dealing with the nation as a whole, specifically the northern kingdom, when he said, you know what,

I want you to go, he told Hosea, I want you to go marry a woman of harlotry What?

Is there any man in here that would ever want to go marry a harlot? Okay, correct answer.

No, but God tells Hosea, I want you to go marry a girl named

Gomer, hey look, that's a dead giveaway, don't marry a girl named Gomer, okay? But he says,

I want you to go marry her, she's a harlot, now whether you understand that as she was already a harlot, or he was marrying someone that would be a harlot, regardless, she has illegitimate kids, okay, that aren't his.

And he says, this is a picture of the nation and what it has done, it has gone off into idolatry, which from God's perspective idolatry is the same as what?

Adultery. What do you do to adulteresses? And I don't want to leave the men out, men should have been stoned too, just want to be fair okay?

You shouldn't have to qualify this day and time, but that's what should have happened. Yeah, you should have been stoned to death.

And as we get on through the book, before God marries his true bride, what does he do to the harlot?

Kills it, because God ain't going to have two brides, he's got one, and it's not apostate

Jerusalem, it's not the place of idolatry. From the time that Jesus death, burial, resurrection, exaltation, and enthrallment, and giving of the spirit, all those are important.

Every one of those things, you take one of those out, Jesus is messy and at work, it's not done. Okay? All of those things, after that takes place, and the giving of the spirit, every act of worship inside the temple, every act of sacrifice, every wringing of the turtle dove's neck to redeem the firstborn at the temple, everything,

I'll even go so far as to say circumcision, okay? Becomes idolatry.

Why? Because the true temple, everything that the first covenant pointed to, had come in type and shadow, therefore all of the nation of Israel, who rejected

Jesus, who rejected his work, become just like Babylon. Just like Babylon.

They were no different. Hey, whether you're bowing down to Marduk, or you're worshiping modern day

Judaism. Technically, is there a difference? No, both of them are idolatry and damnable, and if you do not repent, you will perish in everlasting torment.

Hey, what we're going to see here coming up in verse 10, where they drink the full wrath, they drink the full cup of God's wrath for all of eternity, where they are suffered in everlasting torment forever and ever and ever.

So, I understand Jerusalem as the whore of Babylon.

I understand the beast, everybody knows this, as Rome. And then we're going to see that God uses even in chapter 17 and 18 that he uses the beast, the

Roman Empire at this specific time, he uses it to wipe out

Judaism altogether. Was God patient with the nation of Israel after he came, after Jesus came?

Very, very. God could reserve the right after they crucified

Jesus outside the Damascus gate, God reserved the right to speak the word and level

Jerusalem. Because what did they do? They actually joined forces with the beast.

If you remember when Pilate stood out there, he done beat the brakes off Jesus. Look. Beat the tar out of him.

He stands him up there and he says, look at your king. And what did they say?

We have no king but Caesar. So here it is.

All the Old Testament prophets had pointed to this king that would come, the messianic figure, the stone that would come and shatter all of this and make an everlasting kingdom that would never end.

And they said, you know what, we don't want him, we'll take Caesar. And in doing so they said, they said crucify them.

You remember what they also said? Let the condemnation be on our generation and our children's children.

And that's exactly what happened. You asked for it, now you're going to get it. Now, as we continue on through, we'll get into the details.

How did they, how did Jerusalem or the nation of Israel make all of the nations around them commit her idolatry or her fornication with her?

Well one, they were making trade agreements with all of the nations around her.

You understand, they didn't have a whole bunch of, they didn't have a whole bunch of natural resources.

If you know anything about modern day Israel today, you know they ain't got a bunch of nothing. They got a bunch of arid land, a bunch of rocks, a bunch of sand.

You understand that even in this time as well and if it happened today, if the people quit doing commerce with modern day

Israel and even ancient Israel, those nations would fail. That's what happens because when it says that they were getting rich off of the nation of Israel in ancient times.

It says that in chapter 17, I think part of 18 as well. It says that they they're sad when

Babylon falls. Why? Dude, their pocketbook just got dried up.

And why did God do that? Because they rejected the Messiah and joined forces with the beast.

We've got just a couple of minutes clarifications, comments, outbursts of anger, disagreements.

No? Okay. So who's Babylon? Does Babylon exist today?

Yes or no? Yes or no? As a city like this?

No. As a world power? No. But the mindset of Babylonian continues on.

Daniel and I'll shut up and we can go. Daniel chapter 10 I think it's

Daniel chapter 10. No. 7. Daniel chapter 7 around verse 10. It talks about that when these beasts come they're wiped out by this.

But they're given an extension of life for a time. It's just a weird thing. Those of you who were there in the Daniel study

I made a big deal about that because it is a big deal. Because if they're wiped out by this, then how does these beasts, remember it was the lion, the bear, the goat, and the hybrid.

Okay? Each one of them carries on in its idolatry.

When Babylon was taken over by the Medo -Persians, did they wipe out their idolatry? Nope. What did they do?

They embraced it. When the Medo -Persians were wiped out by the

Greeks, what did the Greeks do? They carried on the idolatry of the Medo -Persians.

And just another historical thing. What made Alexander the

Great's generals very, very angry is here it is. He made his conquest for 12 years.

And once he made his conquest for 12 years to Hellenize the known world, once he conquered everything he began to take

Persian wives because they were hot. He thought they were beautiful.

And as he began to do that, he began to dress like a Persian. And he began to indulge and engage in Persian idolatry.

So what did the Greeks do? They embraced the idolatry of its predecessor. What did

Rome do when it came in and actually gets rid of the Seleucid Empire and the

Ptolemies? What did they do? They embraced the same idolatry as the

Greeks. You ever looked at Greek mythology and Roman mythology? They're about the same. Sometimes a little different name,

Ares and Mars. Same thing, maybe just a different name. So that's why we can say that Babylon in its idolatrous form carries on today.

Same thing with all the others that's in its wake of destruction. We good?