The Apostate Church in Prophecy

Transcript

GRM 287
11/26/1989
The Apostate Church in Prophecy
Selected Verses
Gil Rugh

As I mentioned this morning I want to pursue a little bit of what we have been talking about with biblical prophecy and we were talking about the apostate church and Revelation 17 and I didn’t finish some of the things I wanted to say about that. So I thought we would continue it again this evening. A Book I might recommend that many of you are familiar with, I have recommended it in the past ‘The Two Babylons’ by Alexander Hislop, contains much of the material that I referred to this morning. It is an old work but it probably is still the most thorough on this area. So if you are interested you can see something of the size of the Book, it is a 325-page Book and it covers this material much more in detail obviously than I am. It is published by # brothers. And we have at least one or two copies, I believe, in our Sound Words Bookstores. You can check there.

We are talking Revelation 17 about the apostate church. The church says it will exist after the rapture and I was talking about how Babylon has infected Christendom and what you have in Revelation 17:5 is, this apostate church identified as a harlot because of the spiritual unfaithfulness to God and it is called Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth and we noted that what you have is out of ancient Babylon comes the pagan system devised and built by Satan which is his alternative to biblical Christianity. Now there have been adjustments in that system over time, but basically the system has come down to us intact. And that is true of much of the world. The heart of the system is the veneration of the woman and her supernatural child.

We noted that they are parallels to biblical Christianity because Satan is building a counterfeit. He builds that counterfeit in such a way that as much as possible it can be absorbed and integrated to biblical Christianity as well. Probably next week I want to talk to you about the new age movement, because there is another example that parallels this and dovetails with this whole issue and see there again how Satan works to blend together his system with God’s system. Because when you blend error with truth you have destroyed the truth. You no longer have a mixture of truth and error, you have error. Just like when you take poison and put it in a glass of milk, you not only have a glass of milk and poison, you have a glass of poison, because the poison has corrupted the good milk.

So it is with Satan’s system when it is mixed in even with biblical things it becomes a corrupting influence and you no longer have truth and error, you have error, and the truth is even corrupted by the error. I was talking about the emphasis on Mary, the queen of Heaven. We went back and looked in Ezekiel and saw that there centuries before Christ, Jeremiah, and Jeremiah centuries before Christ, the prophet comes and condemns Israel for making cakes for the queen of heaven. And the worship of the queen of heaven had infiltrated Israel and part of the ministry and message of Jeremiah with one of condemnation because Israel had adopted corrupting influence of the worship of the queen of heaven. And we noted there, perhaps, Jeremiah 44 - keep wanting to go to Ezekiel for some reason.

Jeremiah 44, important to know, people are concerned about what works. One of the things destroying the Church today is pragmatism, they find even believers looking to see what works and that becomes the standard for what they want to adopt rather than looking to the word of God and building upon that. And this is the foundation for why the people of Israel were worshipping the queen of heaven. Verse 17, rather we will certainly carry out every word that has proceeded from our mouths by burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven, pouring out libations, just as our forefathers did and so on. The end of verse 17, for then we had plenty of food, we were well off and saw no misfortune.

It is a matter of pragmatism. As we look around, we think we were better off when we incorporated the worship of the queen of heaven into our worship system than when we abandoned that; just a pragmatic approach, things worked better. And that’s why some Christians look at. They look around and see what is going on and some Churches they say well that’s – we ought to do what works, but it’s never a fair test or standard. The question is, is it biblical, not does it work because here – this testimony, these Jews were, we were better off, we had less misfortune when we worshipped the queen of heaven than we do now. So Jeremiah, you can’t change our mind.

Now talking about the Roman Catholics absorbing the worship of the queen of heaven, you can see Jeremiah writes centuries before Christ. Mary wasn’t the queen of heaven in their worship system. Semiramis coming out of the Babylonian system with her divine son Tammuz is the object of worship, the names change as you get into different cultures but the same system, the worship of the queen of heaven. Tammuz was the Sun God. So we’ve noted that even as a baby as well as an adult often in the inscriptions pictured with what we viewed as the halo around his head but it is really the sun, because he was the Sun God and his mother is the queen of heaven. The Roman Catholic Church has absorbed this into their own worship system. I brought some Books that I wanted to read to you from; while we were at it I thought I would do that much to your joy, I am sure. But let me read to you an article. I made allusion to this in one of the services this morning.

The title of this article is ‘Pope John Paul II urges one world religion’ and the article is a couple of years old but still very pertinent, talking about the involvement of the World Council of Churches and the Roman Catholic Church in the whole movement to an aligning of Europe into one power and really in trying to move the world to that. The World Council of Churches has redefined the word “ecumenical.” Hitherto it has has been properly understood and used only in context of Church unity. Now the secular meaning of the original Greek has been restored; instead of all Christians it now means all the inhabitants of the world. The universalizing of its meaning has one purpose to enable the World Council of Churches to escape the constraints of specifically Christian identity.

The World Council of Churches no longer even pretends to be Christian. Dr. Edward Norman, dean of Peter House College at Cambridge University has said indeed the word “ecumenical” itself has changed its meaning, it’s now used by the World Council of Churches to mean not just fellowship within different Christian bodies but within the entire human race. That seems to be significant when you think of the new age movement and its emphasis on all are one and that unity that characterizes all of us. And then it goes on to talk about - some will say it is ludicrous to connect Pope John Paul II to the new age movement, however, it is not uncanny that so many of his speeches contain constant new age themes, new world religion, new world government, total disarmament, redistribution of the world’s resources and promotion of the United States.

Pope John Paul II fully expects to become the vicar of the Universal Church as the Council of Trent in 1554 ruled - all temporal power is the Pope’s. The dominion, jurisdiction, and the government of the whole earth is his by divine right, all rulers of the earth are his subjects and must submit to him. And it has some tie to what we read in Revelations 17 where you find the apostate Church riding the earthly empire during the first three and a half years.

In January of 1979, the Pope announced, “I wish to mention that the Catholic Church and the Eastern Churches of the Byzantine tradition are about to open a theological dialogue aimed at eliminating those difficulties which still impede Eucharistic celebration and full unity. We have been holding dialogues with our brothers” – the warmth there – “with our brothers in the West, Anglican, Lutherans, Methodist and Reformed on themes which in the past contributed great differences. Consoling convergences have been made.” The word ‘convergences’ is a word that is significant with the new age movement well. “The voyage is not yet finished however, and we must speed up our pace to reach our goal.”

There are other quotes there and I’ll leave those out. Want to pick up two, “The Polish Pope is totally devoted to Mary, the mother of Jesus.” I made reference to his coat of arms today and the place that Mary plays in it, “in explaining why he has the coat of arms he does that includes Mary, this recalls the presence of Mary beneath the cross and her exceptional participation in the redemption.” One or more article before I read you about Mary in some books. During his 1987 visit to West Germany the Pope called for “a new united Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals. He has also made a pitch for a new international order as the only means of assuring world peace forever”.

So, that kind of emphasis that dovetails with what is going on in the political world coming from the spiritual leader of the Catholic Church, who may well be the leader of the coming apostate Church in the tribulation as well. I picked up some Books off my shelf that I had picked up at the book store published by the Catholic Church. One of them then titled “The Woman Clothed with the Son.” Talk about the sun, and here they are, the woman clothed with the son? Where does that go back? It goes back to Semiramis; she is the one who bore the divine child who is the Sun God. This is the eighth great appearances of our lady and Guadalupe, Lourdes, Fatima, and so on, makes very interesting reading. It does. I want to read you about Mary though. This is from ten series of meditations on the mystery of the rosary by Rev. John Ferraro, St. Paul editions. It has the nihil obstat and the imprimatur and lest you don’t know what that is, let me read it you. The “nihil obstat” and “imprimatur” are official declarations that a book or pamphlet is free of doctrinal or moral error. That is the statement of this Roman Catholic work that has the nihil obstat and the imprimatur as well. The nihil obstat and imprimatur are official declarations that a book or pamphlet is free of doctrinal or moral error.

And this Book has another statement and you make sense of it. When you put these two stamps on it that means it is free of doctrinal or moral error. They go on to say, “No implication is contained therein that those who have granted the nihil obstat and imprimatur agree with the contents, opinions or statements expressed.”

(Laughter)

Now the nihil obstat and imprimatur guarantee there is no doctrinal error or moral error. But the people who grant those do not necessarily agree with what is in here. I guess that means that sometimes they don’t agree with doctrinal truth or they like moral error. I don’t know, I couldn’t figure that. But anyway this is said to be free from doctrinal error, the imprimatur comes from Richard Cardinal Cushing who was the Archbishop of Boston at the time. Let me read you some of the things that they say about Mary and there are so many that I didn’t know where to pick it up so this will just be random from the book.

She is Co-Redemptrix of the human race. The Church and the saints greet her thus, you, Oh Mary together with Jesus Christ redeemed us. So Mary is not just the mother of Jesus. She is the Co-Redemptrix which means she is the Co-Redeemer along with Christ. God has ordained - the title of this section is consideration Mary, Mediatrix of Grace. God has ordained that no grace would be granted to us except through Mary. It is a doctrine preached by all the saints that no grace can come to us from heaven without passing through Mary’s hands. Listen to this, no one will be saved nor obtain mercy except through you, Oh heavenly lady.

Remember this well, no one will enter heaven without passing through Mary as one would pass through a door. O Mary, our salvation is in your hands. Page after page of this. During his passion Mary suffered in her heart all the pains that Jesus suffered in his body. For this reason God exalted her so greatly. You see our redemption was accomplished not only by the suffering of Christ but by the suffering of Mary which is why she can be Co-Redemptrix. Consideration, Mary, Co-Redemptrix; Mary is our Co-Redemptrix because she gave us Jesus’ pledge of our salvation. Furthermore, she is Co-Redemptrix of the human race because with Christ she ransomed mankind from the power of Satan.

You see what has happened to Mary here. She has been elevated on a level with Christ. With Christ she ransomed mankind from the power of Satan. Jesus redeemed us with the blood of his body, Mary with the agonies of her heart. We were condemned through the fault of one woman; we were saved through the merits of another woman. Just as evil is the root of death for everyone, so Mary was the source of life for everyone. Mary is our Co-Redemptrix because she suffered in her heart whatever was lacking in the passion of Christ. We are obligated to Jesus for his passion, so we are indebted to Mary for her participation in his passion. She gave birth to Jesus with joy. She gave birth to us, brothers of Jesus in anguish and sorrow.

I say this because you have to understand in our day we have had a melting of Catholics and Protestants and even Evangelicals become very, very uncomfortable when you begin talking about the Roman Catholic Church. We must understand that Roman Catholic Church is not one bit less pagan than it was in the days of Martin Luther and the reformers when you had the Reformation. What has happened is the Evangelical Church has become less discerning. But the doctrines are the same and here it is in their own writing. Here is a section on the queen of heaven. Rejoice, halleluiah. Consideration, Mary queen of apostles. She is queen of apostles because she formed them and directed them in their preaching. Now I don’t understand, Mary even formed the apostles and directed them in their preaching. Mary is queen of apostles because by herself she routed all the heresies. Mary is queen of apostles because she is mother of grace and channel of mercy.

She is queen of apostles because in her every hope is life and virtue. She is queen of apostles because she is conqueror of the infernal dragon. If we spread devotion to Mary we will gain heaven. “Who explains me shall have a life everlasting,” referring to Mary. Mary’s power; the queen stood on your right hand in gilded clothing surrounded with variety. God shared His power with her. My mother, ask, for I must not turn away your face; supposedly Christ speaking to Mary “without your command no one shall move hand or foot in the whole land”. All graces passed from God to Jesus, from Jesus to Mary and from Mary to us. The grace of God, cure for our ills comes to us through Mary like water through an aqueduct.

Mary is the complement of the Holy Spirit. Before God she asks not, she commands. No true devotee of Mary will be damned because she is the terrible conqueror of the devil. Because she believed in Christ’s mission of salvation, she became the Co-Redemptrix of the whole human race. Constant emphasis - she is the Co-Redemptrix. We sometimes think of well, in some places like South America they have corrupted Roman Catholic teaching. No, in some of those places they are more clear and open on Roman Catholic teaching than we may hear it today. This is a Book I bought in a book store here in town. When I went and asked the man what are Roman Catholics buying, what do the Roman Catholic fathers use in their teaching and so on? He says, well, here are some of the Books, that are our best sellers, and I took them and I simply purchased them. Just a couple of more in case; I have not made the point. You know me, I like to get on a point and drive it to the ground.

Mary is holier than the saints, loftier than the heavens, more glorious than the cherubim, more venerable than any other creature. I mean if what they are saying about Mary is true you can’t help but worship her. I mean, your salvation depends upon it. Those who don’t worship Mary are damned as I just read. No one can acquire an intimate union with Jesus and a perfect fidelity to the Holy Spirit without being greatly united to Mary. It is necessary for us to have a mediator besides Jesus mediator and we will never find one more qualified than Mary. It is not enough that there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. It is necessary for us to have a mediator besides Jesus mediator.

It was never written of anyone that he become a saint without having a special devotion to Mary. When God deeply loves the soul and finds it stained with sin he covers it with a beautiful mantle that makes it precious to him. This mantle is Mary. Mary is the ark of salvation built by God on the deluge of our faults so that whoever desires may enter and be saved, whoever is enamored of Mary attaches his soul to a steadfast anchor that will draw him to the port of happiness. It is important to be devoted to Mary as it is to enter heaven because no one can enter paradise who is not devoted to Mary. In reward for her humility God gave to Mary the power of filling with blessed souls the thrones left empty by the rebellious angels. Mary is secretary of the king of heaven. Well, that is a relief, I thought she was boss. It is she who writes in the Book of life the names of the predestined and signs them with the emblem of God.

So she is the secretary with full authority because she has even the emblem to seal the names. She herself is the Book of Life from which God will read the names of the elect on the Day of Judgment. Be devoted to you O Mary is a weapon of salvation which God gave to those whom he positively wants to save and on through on Mary. So some idea, then we talk about Babylon, the Babylonian system. It is alive, it is advocated; as I mentioned this morning the Pope that exists declared 1987 as the year of Mary. So the Babylonian system has been absorbed. Now after the rapture of the Church, this amalgamation will be brought to completion. How much of it will be accomplished before the rapture of the church we have no way of knowing. But we see the Pope asserting himself, now in the political arena in a direct way with what is going on in Europe, the speeches and so on that I referred to. And then you see the doctrines of the Church; they’ll all be mixed together, blended together and form this corrupted Church that will rule for 3½ years.

Some other areas besides Mary that - just to comment on. The chief priests of the Babylonian system wore miters. Those are the hats you see the Pope wearing - he is in the picture here, the conical shaped hat, it is really shaped like the head of a fish. That’s what it is to be, it’s the fishermen’s hat. It’s the high hat, not the little beanie kind of hat, but the high one that comes out of the worship of the Babylonian system as well. Dagon, who is the fish god, the lord of life, and so the pagan priest wore the miter shaped like the fish in honor of the lord of life. It has got nothing to do with Peter the fisherman; all they have done is taken it and given it a different title, but the paganism of it continues.

The chief priest of the Babylonian system when it was established in Rome, came down through into Italy and the pagan priest there he took the title Pontifex Maximus, means the sovereign pontiff. That was imprinted on this miter that he wears. Julius Caesar who like all young Romans of good heritage, he was initiated into the Roman pagan religions, mystery religions which came from Babylon. When he became the head of the state of Rome he was elected Pontifex Maximus, the sovereign pontiff and all the Roman rulers down to Constantine bore that that title and then Constantine took upon himself head of the church as well as head of the Roman Empire. And he was high priest then of the Roman Empire and of the Church. Afterwards the Bishops of Rome took this upon themselves and the Pope wears that miter today and the title is Pontifex Maximus. It’s # changed it right back, what are you saying? He is the sovereign pontiff . Where did that come from? Peter? No, they were wearing that before there was a Peter, that’s just part of the system that has been amalgamated and accepted by the Church. Teaching of the Babylonian system was the new birth was confirmed by baptism. It was baptismal regeneration and some idea where that came from as well.

They promised - here is a quote, “regeneration, the pardon of all perjuries through baptism.” Okay, that’s enough of that. I had to say something about Easter and Christmas since some of you asked me about that. Just briefly the name Easter comes from Astarte, one of the titles for the queen of heaven, it is found on the monuments as Ishtar and we have carried that down and have Easter. The early Church did observe the death and resurrection of Christ and it was in late March around the time of the Passover when we know that Christ was crucified and raised from the death. It wasn’t preceded by Lent and it was not called Easter; that happened after the Church amalgamated some of the pagan ideas. I mentioned Lent and there are a number of things that you could say about Lent but I won’t go into there right now since it is not Easter time. Most of you are not thinking about Lent but Lent has been observed in a whole series of pagan cultures long before Christianity.

Maybe a little bit about Christmas; the Easter egg incidentally was sacred, the egg of Ishtar. I wonder where did the Easter egg idea ever come from. Now again if you read the “Two Babylons” you will see reprints of carvings of the egg that have come from various pagan sources long before New Testament times. This amalgamation of these Babylonian ideas was accomplished by Abbot Dionysius the Little in A.D. 525. He brought about the change of the calendar in regard to Easter and some of those kinds of bringing in of Lent and so on. It was in 519 that the council at Aurelia decreed that Lent should be kept before Easter. Some of those kinds of things. This is fun. The hot cross buns of Good Friday and the dyed eggs of Easter Sunday figured in the Babylonian rites just as they do now. So if you read “Two Babylons” you can find out about hot cross buns, I still like them but know where they came from, anyway.

Christmas the same issue, perhaps more clearly because there is no identification of the birth of Christ, how do we come to December 25th? Well, the end of December was a festival among the heathen in honor of the birth of Tammuz in the Babylonian system, centuries before the birth of Christ. In order to make it palatable to the heathen, this festival was adopted into Christianity. So, as you’re trying to incorporate the pagans into the Roman Empire, you are willing to adapt and adopt their practices. The Roman Church has been famous for this. We mentioned - one of the articles I was reading to you they mentioned the voodoo practices in certain parts of the world that had been incorporated into the Roman Church, because as long as you will pick up some of basics of their system, they are willing to accept your system as well. That’s why it can flourish in so many places.

So we picked up December 25th. Some of the practices we have that go along with it, from the Christmas tree, 25th December was called by our Anglo-Saxon ancestors Yule Day and the night that preceded it Mother Night long before they came in contact with Christianity. The Sabeans of Arabia celebrate December 24th as the birth of the Lord, the moon. So it has been a pagan holiday. Now how do I feel about the practices? We have the decorations and so on and I have to say, I love the decorations and I enjoy them - my pagan leanings, I enjoy the Christmas tree, yes, we have one. Yes we will edit the tape.

(Laughter)

I confessed to you, I don’t have to confess to the world. Well, the principle on some of these things - well some of them I think it is good for us to know where they came from. But I’m comfortable celebrating December 25th as the birth of Christ. This is good as any other day. But I also don’t want to be naïve and trying to explain to people that that is probably when he was born? And I give the point that probably it did come in as a pagan holiday. The point is that the Son of God was born at Bethlehem and so to celebrate that in December is fine with me. That doesn’t bother me as long as we are celebrating the birth of Christ. The associations go with the decorations and so on, I personally enjoy them, part of the factor for me is have they lost any connection with the pagan associations. For the ones I mentioned the Roman Church, Mary, the worship of woman and so on. They are still involved in the religious system, I don’t have a problem with that. I mentioned the sign of the cross, I have no problem with - you know, some men wear a cross on their lapel, some women wear it around their neck. I do think we have crossed the line with a lot of our jewelry today that it has become an ornament that we need to be careful about but I don’t feel that because that sign or symbol was used in the pagan system that we can’t use it today because most believers they didn’t know anything about it and the Babylonian background until someone told them. So for them it is associated with Christ.

First Corinthians Chapter 8, Chapter 10 where Paul talks about things that have had a pagan association – meat offered the idols and so on. When it gets into a religious realm he says you don’t want to do that in Chapter 10 of First Corinthians. You don’t want to get involved in any kind of pagan worship. And here your page is gone, that’s great, let’s do it. First Corinthians 10, maybe you ought to look at First Corinthians 8, it’s a little divergent but it does pertain to what we are talking about. First Corinthians 8 verse 4 therefore, concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols we know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world that there is no God but one and so on. Verse 7, however not all men have this knowledge. So some, their conscience bothers them. But verse 8, food will not commend us to God; we’re neither the worse if we do not eat nor the better if we do eat. But be careful how you use your liberty. Then over in Chapter 10 verse 14 the exhortation is flee from idolatry. Verse 19, what do I mean that then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything or that an idol is anything, no, it is established there in Chapter 8. But the things which the gentiles sacrificed they sacrificed to demons, not to God. I do not want you to become sharers of demons.

So you can’t cross the line and become involved in any way in the pagan worship system, because that’s demonic worship. Demonic activity. Well that doesn’t mean that everything associated with them is something we can’t have anything to do it. So Paul said in Chapter 8, you know, an idol is nothing, the meat’s nothing. So it is no big deal unless it develops a religious association. Where people have that then you ought to pull away from it so there is no confusion.

So for me to speak personally now, the greenery and so on associated with the Christmas season has lost for most people that association with these pagan rites and so I feel comfortable to enjoy it just as an expression of a holiday season and to capitalize on it and to create that kind of festive atmosphere. When we do our concerts people come to hear the gospel. They walk by, they don’t say oh, there is a tree to Tammuz. People don’t have any idea of Tammuz, that’s a Christmas tree, just goes with the celebration of the season. So it is a non-issue and I am comfortable to leave it there and to enjoy it. So I think a lot of the things like this have had pagan associations in the past but have been lost. But where they have been continued, continued their pagan association, then we as believers I don’t think can be a part of that.

Okay that is a little bit of that apostate church. Go back to Revelation 17, I do want to make some comments on its end and why. Revelation 17 he goes on, verse 6, describes that this woman, this church has been guilty of the death of multitudes of the saints. And I was reading some history this afternoon and just multiplied, thousands have died at the hands of the apostate church. And that will multiply during the first 3-½ years of the tribulation because what we will have is persecution of true believers even going on during that time. But verse 13, these have one purpose - they give their power and authority to the Beast, that’s these ten horns that comprise this revived Roman Empire.

Verse 14, these will wage war against the Lamb; the Lamb will overcome them because he is Lord of Lord and King of Kings. Those who are with him are called the chosen and faithful. And he said to me the waters which you saw where the harlot sits are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues. That’s why the Antichrist needs the apostate church during the first 3-½ years when he is solidifying his power. But verse 16, the ten horns which you saw in the Beast these will hate the harlot, will make her desolate and naked, will eat her flesh, burn her with fire. For God has put it in their hearts to execute his purpose by having a common purpose by giving their kingdom to the Beast, until the words of God should be fulfilled. The woman which you saw is the great city which reigns over the kings of the earth.

And many identify this with Rome, some do Babylon, some say Babylon represents Rome here. It can be either way. Interesting that Iraq is talking about rebuilding the ancient city of Babylon; that would be the shocker. But it may be Rome as well. But point here is in the middle of tribulation it’s agreed they wanted to destroy the church. God puts it in their heart; this is his way to judge the apostate church. But now the Antichrist does not even want that. So he destroys the apostate church because it is a completing power. He in effect is sharing power with this apostate church, with the Pope if you will during the first 3 ½ years, but it’s not in his heart to share power with anyone. As soon as he is in the position then it destroys the church. And the revived Roman Empire the participants in that empire are in agreement.

Now this probably goes back to Revelation 13 where you have the false prophet as well as the Antichrist. And the false prophet, verse 13, Revelation 13, performs the great signs so that he makes fire come down out of heaven to the earth in the presence of men. He deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs which it was given him to perform in the presence of the Beast telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the Beast who had the wound of the sword and has come to life. And that was given to him to give breath to the image of the Beast that the image of the Beast might even speak and cause that as many as do not worship the image of the Beast to be killed. You see what has happened here. All of a sudden now there is a claim that we have God on earth. There can be no other worship or worship system tolerated. And so that’s probably associated with the destruction of the apostate church. And who can disagree with that?

They hear you in the presence of two men now; one directing worship to the other, who has the power to call down fire from heaven. Anybody going to disagree with that? Who has the power to have an image carved out of marble or some such substance of the Antichrist and then speak to that image and that image comes to life? Who but God can give life? Well, you have to know here the Greek word for life is the word spirit. And it may be a demonic spirit, animates this image so it is not an active creation but it is of total deception, there is no way for anybody observing it to tell - another example why you can’t become pragmatic. Because here for all evident - for all intents and purposes the evidence would declare with you are in the presence of a life-giving God. But it’s all the work of Satan to delude the unbeliever and so whoever will not worship the image of the Beast is to be killed. Now there will be no tolerance for any kind of worship system at all.

This is where the world is required to get the mark of the Beast on their hand or their forehead. In verses 16 and 17, we can’t buy or sell without that mark. And the mark is 666 and what that means I have no idea. But people will know on that day and it identifies them as a worshipper of the Antichrist. Anyone who gets this mark has forfeited any option or opportunity for salvation. Back in Second Thessalonians, Chapter 2, verse 3 let no one deceive you for it will not come the day of Lord unless the apostasy comes first, the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object to worship. Note this, so that he takes his seat in the Temple of God displaying himself as being God. That is what happens in the middle of the tribulation. Remember Mathew Chapter 24 Jesus says to the Jews, when you see the abomination of desolation spoken out through Daniel the prophet, Mathew 24:15, standing in the holy place. What does Second Thessalonians 2 tell us? He takes his seat in the Temple of God. We talked about the reconstruction of the temple; displaying himself as God, that’s tremendous sacrilege, the temple has been defiled. Perhaps his image will be established here because you see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place. The Antichrist takes his seat there, has his image set up in the temple and now the persecution breaks out of everyone who will not worship him particularly focusing on the Jews and those who have come to believe in Christ.

Does anyone else having any reason not to worship him ultimately? I mean he kills anyone who thinks might be an opponent. The apostate church goes. Now the only ones left who won’t bow down and worship him and receive his mark will be those destined to perdition. Multitudes in Israel will be saved during these last 3-½ years and that prepares the way for the second coming of the Messiah.

So you see religion plays a key part in all that is going, in the preparation for the rise of Antichrist, in the solidifying of the revived Roman Empire and then in the rule of the man of sin sitting in the temple of God. With this I think the new age movement and what is going on there is very significant as it takes hold in the world today and it’s preparing people for the acceptance of a man who would declare himself God. At the time when we thought that was ridiculous, absurd, that could anybody ever be so stupid. But now you have people paying good money to go and hear people say, all is one, all is God, all are God – basic statements of the new age movement.

Now if we are all God then all the difference there is is some gods have risen to a higher consciousness than others, have overcome some of their inhibiting training and are able to lead the rest of us with powers and might that we don’t have. So you see the gurus, the Eastern gurus and their power but all they are saying is we are all gods? Well, why do people follow them, buy them Rolls Royces? Because they are gods who have developed their powers to a greater degree than other gods. And there the display in Revelation 13 becomes significant. For us as believers nothing changes. We keep coming back to the word of God like the kids sang the B-I-B-L-E, that’s the Book for me, but you know it is a battle today. And someone visiting from another state today, they used to attend Indian Hills and say what are we doing, what are we to do, our church is being swept up in this other material.

Evangelical, Bible-believing church swept up in this other material. What do we do? You see believers # that the word of God is the standard and guide. Once you abandon that what do you have? You have pragmatism. It works. Look what it has done in this life, look what it has done in that life, yes, and watch the Antichrist and the false prophet call down fire from heaven. It doesn’t change the fact it comes from the pit of hell because the standard is never does it work, the standard has always been is it true. According to the law and the prophets if they don’t speak according to this standard it’s because they have no dawn, no light. In Isaiah Chapter 8 you and I have to plant ourselves firmly on the Word, it must control us in all of our thinking. That’s the only thing you can keep the church on track. Because things are going to get worse, we are talking about moving towards this apostate system that sweeps through the Church and it affects us. And we have already looked in the pastoral epistles that we are to teach and preach the Word, why? The day will come when they will not put up with sound teaching but having itching ears they will heap to themselves teachers. We need to be careful, it is an ongoing battle; it will get more difficult, we are going to get more and more closed in. We are going to look more and more narrow; we will become more and more unacceptable. Why? Because it comes to only those who stand for the pure truth of the word of God. Those are the only ones that are going to out of step with the world. Everyone else will have made adjustments to fit in and fit the system in one way or the other. So consideration of the apostasy of the apostate church is something that you and I need to be very alert to and I want to spend one more week talking about that.

Let’s have a word of prayer together. Father, we are a people blessed. Thank you for the truth of your word and unchanging standard. We want to have our lives personally built upon the rock of your truth. Lord, we want this Church to be founded upon the truth, to be a pillar in support of the truth, to be place where the truth is proclaimed, where every aspect of this ministry is a ministry of the truth of the living God. These are exciting days for us to be servants of the living God. Lord, the deterioration in the world, the movement toward the climax of this portion of earth’s history, the completion of the church’s ministry on earth, Lord, how honored we are to represent you in key times. We want to be faithful. Lord, use us to accomplish your purposes with the time that we have. Give us boldness and courage beyond ourselves; make us men and woman and young people that are willing to have the spirit of God, use us as lights in the midst of darkness, as salt in a depraved world as everywhere we go we spread the good news of the message of the Gospel, of a Savior who died to pay the penalty for sin, who is alive today and salvation is for all who believe in him. We pray in his name. Amen.