Gooding, David: 6 - Establishing the Kingdom

Good evening to you, and if you could find page two of the sheaf of notes that you have been given, we may use it as a map to see exactly where we have come to in our study of this book of the Revelation. On Monday night, we reminded ourselves that in this book we hear of the judgments of God that must fall one day upon our guilty world. We notice, therefore, how fitting and appropriate is the subject to which the first major movement of this book is devoted. In that first major movement, we were given the vision of our Lord Jesus walking amongst his churches, and there appraising their good deeds and criticizing their faults, and calling on them to repent of their faults and to lay hold upon the resources that there are in the living Christ, that they may prove themselves genuine believers, genuine members of his body, or to use the technical term in the book of the Revelation, that they may prove themselves to be overcomers. Appropriate, I say, for the first movement to deal with this topic, because, as Peter reminds us in one Peter four, the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God. And if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of those who obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ? In this book, therefore, that delineates the judgments of God as they shall fall upon the guilty and unrepentant world, it is altogether appropriate that the first movement should deal with the time that has already come for judgment to begin at the house of God. Then in movement two, we noticed on Monday evening that God takes us behind the scenes and up into his heaven to see things through the eyes of the apostle, and there he begins to show us why the judgments must eventually fall on our guilty world. Heaven is opened in movement two, and John is shown first of all the Creator's throne, and reminded that because he is Creator, he has the right to demand that all creation serve his will and purpose, for it was for his will and for his purpose that all things were originally made. It being obvious that the world of men and women at this time does not uniformly serve the purpose of his creator, but that we have all gone astray and gone each one to our own way. It is obvious that sooner or later the judgments of God must come in order that the world be brought back to serve the will of him who made it. Then last night we moved on to movement three, were taken again behind the scenes into heaven and shown a number of other reasons why the judgments of God must fall on this world. Not now so much the claims of the throne of the Creator, but the prayers of the people of God, who all down the centuries have suffered injustice and persecution, and at the end of this age shall suffer an unprecedentedly large persecution at the hands of the enemies of God. All down the centuries, the saints of God of every generation and tribe have called upon God to witness their sufferings and to rise up and do something about the evil that pervades the world of men. And in movement three, we found last night that one day the time will come when God shall no longer remain silent. There shall no longer be silence in heaven, but God will rise up and take to himself his great power and establish his rule here on earth. His kingdom will come. Then the time shall come for the dead to be judged, for his saints and prophets and those that fear his name to be rewarded. The time shall come to destroy those who destroy the earth. At that point, we have reached the middle of the book of the Revelation. Tonight we are to move on to its second half. And you may care to notice now what movements four and five present before us. The end of movement three, we have heard the prophetic promise that the time will come when God shall take to himself his great power and reign. He will deal with men. He will put down injustice, and evil shall be firmly. In movements four and five, we are therefore given to see two major perversions that God will have to deal with in order to establish his kingdom here on earth. The first perversion is given us in movement four, where we see the rise of two beasts. And here we shall notice that the beasts stand not only for an empire, but for the two heads of state that shall head up that empire. Two men that shall head up the biggest perversion this world has ever seen. When we come to movement five, we shall see another perversion. For there in chapter seventeen, we shall see God's judgment on the great harlot Babylon, and in chapter eighteen, God's judgment on the great city of Babylon. But whereas the beasts are representing men, the two cities are represented to us as women, so that what we have in these two movements is, first of all, the perversion of the male, and in movement five, the perversion of the female. Put it another way, in movement four, God shall come and deal with the perversion of power, and in movement five, the Lord Jesus will come and deal with the perversion of beauty. But more of that anon. I simply point out that just as movements two and three go together, the throne of God and the incense altar, the throne and the prayers addressed to that throne. So in our studies, we shall find that movements four and five go together that tell us of the perversions of the human race on its male side and on its female side, perversions of power and beauty that God will have to put down before he establishes his kingdom here on earth. And tonight we are to study Movement four. So then, as so as to put it in the context of the general message of scripture, let us do some reading in our Bibles. I ask leave to read extensively. My aim, to put Movement four into its wider biblical context. So let's begin in the book of Genesis and chapter one. Book of Genesis, chapter one. Tonight we come to a very familiar and very frequently quoted passage of the book of the Revelation. It is a passage that anybody who knows anything at all about the Revelation knows, if not by heart, yet fairly well indeed. Its central message is clear, solemnly so. It tells us that at the end of this age, just before the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power and great glory, there will arise in the Western world, perhaps also spreading its influence through the whole world, but certainly there will arise in the Western world some form of international government. Pictured in the book of the Revelation by a wild animal, with horns representing individual kingdoms. The sovereign power of those kingdoms eventually agreeing to cede their sovereignty to the central government. There shall come, I repeat, a form of international government, finally headed up in the person of a supreme genius. Other parts of Holy Scripture tells us that when that government is formed and that genius sits upon the supreme power, there will be, in one sense, a time of peace and safety. When they cry peace and safety, then sudden destruction will fall upon them. The reason for that will be this, that while that government will appear to solve many of the pressing problems that make life difficult now, problems in economics and problems in politics, that government will be, in fact, not only anti-Christ, but anti-God. That is to say, it's basic philosophy will not only by definition deny that Jesus is the Son of God. Of course, it will deny that. But its basic political philosophy will also deny that there is a God at all for Jesus to be the son of. Its political and scientific philosophies will be based upon the fact that there is no God behind this creat- creation, and therefore it will propound through its propaganda and in the end demand universal acceptance of its political philosophy and its religious philosophy. That man is God. The text, as it is given us in the book of the Revelation, naturally uses metaphors and visionary terms. It would appear that this beast shall stage some form of pseudo resurrection. For we read in chapter thirteen of one of the heads of the beast that was wounded, that received a death stroke, and in spite of it was healed and revived. And apparently it shall make such a tremendous impression upon men that they shall cry out, who is like to the beast? And as they do so, you will now have observed from our Old Testament reading that what they are doing is not just saying that the head of government is a very clever fellow. They are expressing the philosophy of the then imperialist power that will take to itself language that used to be used in Old Testament days of the unique God. It is a way that God and his people have of talking in Old Testament days when they wish to stress the utter uniqueness of the sovereign and transcendent Lord. Who is like unto Jehovah is the challenge of Old Testament as God, through his word and his prophets, exposes the folly of an idolatrous interpretation of the universe, and announces and insists that there is but one true God. He is utterly unique and incomparable. At the end of this age, I repeat, there will come into power a government and a head of government that shall not only be anti-Christ and against the Christian gospel, shall go further, not only deny the very existence of God, but arrogantly claim for itself God's God's own own. status and worship. Who is like the beast, they shall say, deliberately using a claim made of Jehovah. This is very interesting. For you, with your knowledge of ancient history, will know that all down historical times into our present, there is a big argument amongst men how we shall look upon the world in which we live. And by and large, the world has been divided into two camps. You can call them one, the camp that believes in God the Creator, in a unique, personal, transcendent Lord who made all things. The other camp has been marked by what we technically called idolatry. Only you should remember. Uh, because perhaps you have gone round a museum from time to time, and going round it, you've been horrified to see whole collections of idols from Hu- Majujo land, and you have wondered in your heart how on earth anybody could ever have fallen down and worshipped that hideous looking object, that fetish, or that idol of stone or wood painted and carved in hideous proportions. So that nowadays, when we think of idolatry, we are inclined to think of primitive savages in the jungle. Well, of course, primitive savages in the jungle have been idolatrous, but we must try and get a clearer notion of what idolatry is. Idolatry in the ancient world was simply this: it was the deification of the forces of nature, and it was the deification of man's own psychological powers. Do you see God told his people that there was but one God. He was the creator, and all the powers in the universe were but his creatures, and they were there to serve man. And man himself was made to have dominion over the powers of the universe. Man was made to be God's viceroy, made in the image of God, and he wasn't to go kowtowing and bowing down to the forces of nature. He was to stand upright on his two feet, conscious of his dignity, made in the image of God, made as the viceroy of God, made to rule under God, to rule and have dominion over God's creation. Uh, the Bible tells us that, alas, after the fall, man very quickly and consistently thereafter gradually abandoned the idea of a creator, and abandoning the idea of a creator came to worship the creature rather than the creator. You see, because for various reasons, man didn't wish to retain the knowledge of God in their minds. Then, as they went about life, they had the common sense enough to see that the vast powers of the universe are bigger than man. There is the storm, the wind, the sun, the moon, the stars, the planets. Man cannot control them. Therefore, man made gods of them. And bowed down to them. And because he couldn't control them scientifically, then he tried to control them by the mumbo jumbo of his sacrifices. Not only so, but man found rising in his own breast powerful urges. And very often he found he couldn't control them either. There was the aggressive urge. There was a sexual urge. And presently man, losing sight of the creator and losing sight of his own dignity as a creature of God, started to make gods of his own psychological urges and deified the goddess of love. Deified the gods of war and of aggression, deified the gods of chance or of fate, and very soon in the ancient world came into a horrible bondage to the idolatry that they had created. That kind of thing goes on to our very present day. We must very carefully disabuse our mind of the idea that nowadays men who are not believers in God are so scientific that they wouldn't be idolatrous. I tell you straight that every man and woman who does not believe in the supreme God is a downright idolater. How is that, you say? Well, because if there's no God out there, who made us? Then we've got to ask ourselves, well, what are the ultimate powers in this universe that control us? You don't control the universe by any chance, do you? So what are the ultimate powers that control you? No longer think in terms of idols. We think in terms of atoms and molecules and quarks and viruses, don't we? And the great mag- electromagnetical forces and the force of gravity and the weak force of the atom and the strong force, nuclear force. The great impersonal ultimate forces. And if you think at all, you'll have to make up your mind which side of this divide you stand. How are you going to interpret life? You'll see there's many a man, I dare say, in this locality. He's given up on the idea of a God out there because he doesn't want his life to be controlled. Wants to be free to do his own will. He resents the idea that there is a supreme creator who stands behind the moral code, and he wants to strike a blow for freedom to be free. So he chooses to believe that there isn't a God, imagining he's going to be free. Tonight we're going to see what the end of people like that shall in fact be. Instead of turning out to be freedom, it shall be the most horrible slavery that this world has ever envisaged. How shall that come about? Well, just to continue with our first observations on our passage. At the end of this age, says this passage, there shall arise an international government headed by a genius. He shall be Antichrist, he shall be anti-God. But you mustn't think that that will mean that there won't be any religion. There will be a religion, headed up by a ministry of propaganda. I guess that will call itself a ministry of truth or something, or information. And it will put across the idea that the time to come, the time has come to deify the head of state. You say you sh- can't mean what you say, surely, can you? Would anybody ever consent to regard the head of state as God? I mean, take Margaret Thatcher or even Her Gracious Majesty, but then who would, uh, regard them as God? Oh, but wait a minute. Some fifteen or twenty years ago, the great and famous, uh, scientist Sir Julian Huxley gave us the benefit of his mature thought. Of course, Sir Julian was a plain atheist, and he didn't believe in a God out there. He therefore said that according to his understanding, the whole universe around us and man on it had evolved. There had been no plan, no purpose, no design, but by a whole array of unforeseen and unplanned accidents, acting by chance and mindlessly, this whole vast universe had come to be, and evolution, marvelous to relate, had created mankind all by an accident. It wasn't very complimentary to your brain, my dear sir, nor to yours, madam. It said that your brain too was the end result, like a pot of jam, of a lot of them accidents, you'll see. But then Sir Julian observed, by some incredible stroke of fortune, evolution has has has created intelligence. And we humans have intelligence. Intelligence enough to to see how to control evolution. And you know, we can now, we can now start planning, and we can harness old evolution and make the dear lady do what we want. And we can do a little bit of scientific engineering of the cell and everything else. And you know, if we keep our heads and use our intelligence and harness evolution, we can bring our planet to the great world age of peace and plenty and glory that all of us long for. And then Sir Julian added another thing, said he, you know, of course, the difficulty is that now we've uncovered atomic power, one of these days some fool will go and press the wrong button and blow the whole planet to pieces before we've had time to develop our world of peace and glory. What shall we do to stop such fools? Here's Saint Julian's answer. He said, what we need is a new religion. He said, you see, the ordinary man in the street, he's not very much moved by test tubes who would bow down and worship them? They don't mean anything to him, atomic formulae and so on. We want something that could control people's selfishness, that could get at their heart, that could attract their loyalty. And in their loyalty to this something, they would be willing to sacrifice their own personal and private interests for the good of the state. And instead of pressing the button of an atomic bomb and starting a guerrilla warfare and smashing the planet, would agree for the good of the whole, and with the vision of what the future could be, and, uh, in the loyalty of their heart to the human race, would work together so that we could build this fantastic new world. Said Sir Julian, of course, when I speak of a new religion, I don't mean the old religion. For how could he? Because according to Saint Julian, there's no God out there. So all the religion based on a creator out there, that's hopeless. So what will you put in its place? Saint Julian didn't tell us. What do you suppose man will eventually put in its place? Well, mankind won't go back to worshiping centipedes, will it? It'll start to worship the highest thing it knows, and that will be man. Man, the biggest power it knows because it's got intelligence to control evolution. Man in the state, and man personified in the head of state. It will be done, as men then will think, most intelligently, and for the good reason to banish war and to build a utopia, man's faith in man. I was talking to a Jewish scientist this last summer. He's an astronomer, an observational astronomer. He told me he believed in God. But then he said, you know, my faith is, my basic principle of life is the just shall live by faith. I said, that's very good. Yes, he said. The just shall live by faith in himself. He said, and as for you Christians with your belief in a Messiah, I don't like that idea at all. I don't need a Messiah. Messiah is your own potential. Believe in yourself. Your own Christ, your own Messiah, is your own potential. Those that have eyes to see can begin to see where our world is moving in the West. For it isn't just the West that has taught these atheistic philosophies, but of course in the East there are countries after countries whose governments are built on the atheistic principle. We move towards the end of the age. We should listen, therefore, to what, uh, our blessed Lord says about these things. What the apostles unanimously say, the Apostle Paul in particular, and now the Apostle John in the Revelation. The passage tells us that this great head of state, who will demand in the end divine honors and divine worship, will demand the ultimate loyalty of every human heart to himself and to his government, as the supreme power in the universe. He will be equipped with a propaganda machine called the second beast in the book of the Revelation. A ministry of truth, I dare say it will be called. And the Bible warns us that he will have powers to produce stupendous miracles. Even by the science of the time, they will appear to be stupendous miracles. They shall be so stupendous because they shall be by the power of his satanic majesty himself. They shall be so stupendous nonetheless that, says our Lord, if it were possible, they would deceive the very elect. Or you could cry for our world, couldn't you? In its imagined wisdom and intelligence, but fighting against the idea of a personal God and not willing to bow the knee, and imagining that by dishing the idea of God, they are striking a blow for freedom. You could cry for them, couldn't you? For the day will come when they shall be impressed by a vast show of tremendous, apparently miraculous power, authenticating this international ruler, and the whole thing shall be one ghastly deception. Apostle Paul tells us the same. He says that the time just before the appearing of Christ in power and great glory, the man of sin will sit in the temple of God, showing himself to be God, exalting himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped. He shall demand supreme allegiance of everybody in his kingdom under pain of death. Then Holy Scripture adds this, and for this cause God shall send multitudes of men and women a strong delusion that they believe that lie. They are some of the sternest words in Holy Scripture, are they not? Why will God do that? Well, ladies and gentlemen, solemn as it sounds, it is simply the law of nature, what a man sows, that he reaps. God shall send them strong delusion that they believe the lie. Why? Because they would not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. Therein is the tragedy. They could have been saved. God, their maker, in spite of their sins, gave his son to die for them and to redeem them from slavery and set them free, offering them to reign with Christ, his son, as God's viceroy for all eternity, and they wouldn't have it. And they said the whole thing was a lie and a fable and a legend. They wouldn't have God and his savior. Well, what will they have then? They have the only other choice. If they will not have God's truth, then of course, automatically they are choosing the lie. One day God will fix them in their unhappy choice. This John adds his own warning in our chapter that the ministry of propaganda in those days will convince multitudes and deceive them. Now shall they fall at last under God's just judgment. Judgment. As we think of these things, and we are about to pause in our study, we will not let them come home to our heart. We may not know how near that time is or how far distant, but the same Satan that shall be behind things and deceive multi-millions of people then is still working even now. I wonder if I speak to somebody tonight who knows the gospel and so far has rejected it. Would you allow me to appeal to you? Oh, do not, do not close your eyes against the light. You will be saved. Then, why not tonight? Or to go on knowing the gospel with your eyes open and rejecting God's truth is to run that self same risk that one day God will give you what you yourself have chosen. You will find it impossible to order. You shall believe the lie. Oh, do not let the word depart or close your eyes against the light. Dear neighbor, harden not your heart. You will be saved. Why not tonight? Could you, but what you would hear echoes from your Sunday school days and would tell you, ah, I've heard this before. I've heard of the woman and her seed, and I've heard of the serpent. I heard of that in the Garden of Eden. Yes, of course you did. Because we're now going back to one of the fundamental parts of God's holy revelation to men. Man. What is man? What is man? If you want to come to a just view of what man is, you mustn't just confine yourself to looking at him here on this earth. You must first lift your eyes to a higher realm, to the realm of the very heavenlies of God, and see what is going on in those realms. There is God, the supreme creator, and there is that vast personage, finite but vast, that the Bible calls the old serpent, the deceiver, prime mover in sin and rebellion against Almighty God. And man, as you now see, has been caught up in a bigger thing, a satanically moved and motivated rebellion against the Lord God Almighty. How long man had been created and put into the Garden of Eden before he was assailed by the enemy of God, none can tell us. But that he was so assailed, we read explicitly told us in the book of Genesis, that old serpent, the devil. You see, man was made to be a viceroy to rule earth for God, and Satan des- determined to smash man. For his own particular reasons and his own disobedience to the Creator. Ah, but it went further, didn't it? When, uh, Satan had induced man to disobey God, and man and woman fell, then God in his mercy came to them in the garden. And instead of destroying Adam and Eve outright, and with them the whole of the human race, God in his great mercy pronounced his disciplines upon them, but preached them his glorious gospel, at which at this moment we ought to shout for joy. I've often wondered, when man, puny little man, sinned against his Lord, why didn't God smudge out the whole planet, and man included? God had plenty of planets and galaxies. Mystery and wonder of his grace is that he didn't squash out man, but said to the woman, first of all, do you see, now said he, in spite of the disciplines, I shall put enmity between your seed and the serpent's seed. Your seed shall bruise his head, and he shall bruise thy heel. First great promise of the gospel of redemption to fallen mankind, that God was going to bring a savior into this world. That savior would be the very seed of the woman. Oh, what a marvelous story. God's answer, God's strategic answer to the great rebellion of the archfiend himself. Now, man has been temporarily taken across into the power of darkness, but God in his mercy will not abandon him or her either. But through that very woman, will bring in the seed of the woman that shall eventually bruise the serpent's head, and thank God, one day confine him for everlasting in the lake of fire. You say, well, if we know who the serpent is, who then, uh, who then is her child, and who is the woman? It's easy to say who the child is, isn't it? Because we are told in the words of chapter twelve that this child, verse five, is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. The child was caught up unto God and to his throne. There are two of whom these words are stated in Holy Scripture. The first is our Lord. Psalm twenty two. The Lord, uh, told me to declare the decree. Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. He shall rule the nations with a rod of iron. Blessed seed of the woman shall crush the serpent's head and shall rule all the nations. And again, we find that phrase in the letter to the church of Thyatara, they who overcome, to them likewise shall be given power to rule the nations with a rod of iron. For the true believers in the Lord Jesus shall ultimately share his victory and reign with him. If we know who the child is, then you say, who is the woman? Why, some people have said it's the Virgin Mary, don't they? But this woman was eventually nourished in the desert. I don't think the Virgin Mary was ever nourished in the desert, was she? Ah. Nor was she persecuted of Satan for twelve hundred and sixty days at the end of time. So some people have said it's the church, but then that sounds to me to have got things upside down, for how could the church give birth to Christ? If any way round, it would be Christ giving birth to the church, wouldn't it? Who is the woman then? Why, now you must become aware of a bigger dimension. We're not now looking at Earth just at the moment, we're looking at things as they appear in heaven, and we're thinking of the great glorious purposes of God in the human race and the strategies of God in the human race. And the first woman to be opposed by the serpent was our great grandmother Eve in the garden, wasn't it? To whom the promise was given of the coming seed. And who was that seed? Why, for centuries it was the believing amongst mankind through the godly line of Seth, and eventually God chose Abraham and his seed, and on and on went the redemptive purpose of God, eventually to bring in the seed, which is our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, all down the centuries, Satan has attacked that line of God's purposed intention to bring in through mankind, through Israel, through finally the Virgin Mary, if you will have it, the glorious savior of the world. And I bid you sit back just for a moment. Now use not so much, uh, your reason as your imagination. See the great battle of the ages. See the central occupations of the spiritual warfare as it encircles in the heavenly places. See it. And it's about mankind. Where God has committed himself to this human race, and Satan, his arch enemy and fiend, has perverted the human race, and mankind have fallen. All now look at that woman as she stands, and see this divine wonder. She is with child. Can't you see it? Ask, who is the child? The woman great with child. Who is the child? But it will be Abel in the first place. It will be Abraham presently, and Moses and David. Ah, but finally it will be Jesus Christ, our Lord, born of a woman according to the flesh, veiled in flesh, the Godhead see. Praise him, my brother, praise him, my sister, for this magnificent move in the tactics of God, that when he made man to be a ruler and man fell to the enemy, God himself came in to the very human race in the form of Jesus Christ, his son. It's a magnificent story. And so from then till now, the, uh, battle proceeds. Mankind cannot remain neutral. It will find itself caught up in this battle. It will have to choose between God and the devil, between the Christ and the Antichrist, between the Spirit of God and the beast, the false prophet. There's no neutral ground. But secondly, man cannot become, remain neutral. It is not our fault, is it, that we belong to a fallen race. We must blame that on Adam and Eve. But you'll never be lost because of what Adam and Eve did. By one man's disobedience, yes, sin entered into the world, and death by sin, you'll never be lost because of that. The great story is that God has come into the enemy's camp. He's come into this world, born of a woman, to be our savior, to give us the chance of hearing the gospel and being transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear son. And we must make the choice not to make the choice. You say, I prefer to be neutral. You cannot be. You're not neutral to start with. For the Bible informs us that since man fell, man has been in the kingdom of darkness. That's where you are if you are not a believer. The world walks according to the prince of the power of the air. The god of this world has blinded the minds of them that believe not. You are not neutral. You are already in his kingdom, who is God's fatal foe. The choice is whether you remain in his kingdom or whether you cross the line and come into the kingdom of God's dear son. That is the choice. But as you will now see, not only are we looking at a battle that shall come to its tremendous height at the end of the age? We're looking at a war that has gone on ever since the Garden of Eden, and we tonight are interested. We may not be participants in the final battle, that matters very little. The war is still the same war. The same questions are being asked of our ultimate allegiance. Is it for God and his Christ, or is it to remain in the power of darkness? Now, let me suppose that you have taken your decision and you have said, yes, I don't want to be a captive forever, and you have received the Son of God, and you have redemption in his blood, and you've been translated out of the power of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son. Now let me tell you some encouraging news. For while of our, we are to see the tremendous apparent victory of Satan and his hosts in this middle part of our section, would you now notice that apart from the introduction and the comment at the end, there are three triads of paragraphs. Here, one, two, three, then the second triad, one, two, three, and a third triad, uh, of paragraphs. The whole thing is introduced by this vision of heaven, and there the Ark of the Covenant. Why tonight the Ark of the Covenant and not the throne? Why the Ark of the Covenant and not the incense altar? Well, easily told. For in that ark was the law of God, and his very first commandment was this, thou shalt have no other God but me. Calling upon us human beings for that ultimate loyalty to be given to none other but God and God incarnate. And secondly, it's the Ark of the Covenant because to all those that trust him, God has made a covenant, and with us in our day, it's a new covenant, a great new covenant of redemption. How shall it proceed? Well, before we come to the great terrible time at the end of the age, when the man of sin shall reign, let's go behind the scenes, by God's grace, and consider certain things in the heavenlies. Because what is happening here is simply this. Before the devil mounts his masterpiece, which in its day for a while will seem utterly supreme, God takes us behind the scenes and says, don't you worry, let me show you a thing or two. Let me show you that that vast empire that the man of sin shall build will in fact be built on rotten props, and is doomed to failure even before it begins. Three scenes here then. You see, there are three great things that anybody with pretensions to world rule must capture, like a general coming in with his army to capture a foreign land will have the wisdom to see that there are certain hills, there are certain places that are strategic in the battle. He must win control of them. If he can't win control of them, whatever else he does, eh, will never succeed. So when it comes to world government, there are three things that any aspirant to world government must get and grasp and hold if his empire is to remain and prosper. And what are they? Well, see, number one, here stands the woman, and we are told that she's with child, and her child is destined to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And the serpent knows it, and in all his hideous colors of fright, for he's a coward at heart, with a woman in that condition, just imagine it, here he comes with all his hideous colors, waiting for the infant to be born, that he might gobble it up. For he sees it clearly that they both can't rule. Either the child will rule or the serpent will rule, for they can't both rule. He must destroy that child if his empire is to succeed, and there he stands. All the odds look in his favor, don't they? Weak little infant, a woman in her pain. How shall she resist the mighty treachery and power of the foe? And just in that minute, as the babe newborn appeared to be about to slip down the hideous jaws of that serpent, caught up to heaven, settled on the very throne of God. You expert theologians must enjoy your theories. You'll have to permit a simple mind like mine to read this as a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, praise God. You know, none of the princes of this world, they were wise, it seemed, but they were ignoramuses really, weren't they? If only they have known, they wouldn't have crucified the Lord of glory. But Satan and his hosts hounded the virgin son, seed of the woman, hounded him to Calvary. Then, when he seemed to be in the very power and the jaws of the devil, God raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand, far above all principalities, mights, powers, and dominions. Shout hallelujah if you've got any breath. For every epistle almost in the whole of the New Testament reminds us believers that the Lord Jesus, he not only died for our sins, he is at the right hand of God, says scripture. Get hold of it too. The blessed man of Nazareth, God incarnate, the virgin seed born of the woman, human like we are, and is afar above principalities, mights, powers, and dominions, and has a name that is above every name, not only in this age, but that which is to come. Satan's hold on this planet is doomed. He shall never hold it permanently, for the Lord is already in the round. Ah, but there's another problem, isn't there? It is the good purpose of God, so we are told, that in the age to come, not only shall the Lord Jesus rule, but his believing people shall rule with him. That is your expectation too, isn't it? His believers, if they suffer with him, they shall reign with him. Ah, but just a moment. Satan and his hosts, as we shall read here, shall be turned out of heaven, and in their place, believers in the Lord Jesus shall be put. You say that's simple. It's not quite so simple as you think. Because now there's a moral question. If Satan is cast out of his eminent heavenly position because of his sin, do you suppose he's going to stand by and let God take you, a bunch of old sinners, if I may say so, and put you on the throne of the universe, and Satan say nothing about it? Well, imagine something else then if you can. He's not going to do it. He sees God's intention to have you on the very throne of the universe, and he accuses the brethren, of course he does day and night. He says, look at her in the grocery shop, she stole that bit there. Look at that chap fiddling his income tax. Oh yes. And God, you turfed me out because of my, my sin, and you're going to put that woman, that man, and these others on the throne of the universe in spite of the fact they're sinners. How could God do it? Now the whole scheme of our reigning with Christ would perish, wouldn't it? If God had found no answer to it. But you see, we're told they overcame him. How? By the blood of the Lamb. Oh, precious is that flow that washes white as snow. No other fount I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. God's answer to the accuser of the brethren, of whatever age, of course, past, present, or future. Not only cleansed by his blood, but they loved not their lives unto death, and they conquered him by their testimony. They refused to keep silent. They witnessed to the Lord Jesus, and when that threatened to cost them their lives, they were prepared to yield their lives for him. Point number three. Anybody who has pretensions for world government must take another strategic point in Earth's affairs. He must destroy the nation of Israel. Why so? Because Almighty has been pleased to choose them and to announce that they are the vehicles of his purpose in the earth. Not only were they in old times, they will yet be again. Why is that? Well, let Ezekiel explain to us. You will remember that God chose Israel, and then when Israel sinned against God, God sent them all to Babylon and smashed Jerusalem City and let the Gentiles triumph. Then through Ezekiel, God says, but I'm going to restore Israel. Oh, why so? Well, not for their sake, says God. Oh no, not for their sake. I'm going to do it for my own sake. Because, you see, if I don't restore them, all the Gentiles will say, there you are, those Israelites, they made great claims about being the people of God, and that God was going to use them to bring in the savior of the world. See, it's all come to nothing. There was nothing in it anyway. And God says, I'm not having that. I shall restore them. So that the whole world shall have to see, yes, they did go into exile, but they went into exile because I, God, was chastising them, and now the time of their restoration has come. I, God, am going on with my purpose, and I shall restore them. Now you, sir, if you have the chance and you go to Russia and you see Mr. Gorbachev, all sorts of people go these days, and if you should go, madam, and have a word with Gorbachev, raise the matter of Israel and say, don't you understand, Gorbachev, Mr. Gorbachev, sir, that they are God's chosen people, and in old pa- old centuries past, they were the vehicles of God's plan for the redemption of the whole world, and see what Mr. Gorbachev says. I'll say, don't talk such drivel, don't. They're finished. God, there isn't a God. Israel, God's special people? Of course they're not God's special people. And you can see that Gorbcho- Gorbachev will say, but what Hitler did to them. Gassed the whole lot, didn't he? Or six million of them. What did God do about that? And what you'll answer, shall your answer be to Gorbachev? You will say, Gorbachev, you will see that they were God's people, because one day God Almighty is going to restore them. Hence the devilish interest of the satanic persecution of the seed of the woman, and in particular of the Jewish part of her seed, but of course in many ages the Christian part as well, and his determination to extinguish them. And how many times he's tried it? Recently in the lives of some of us here present, has he tried it? And Albania still tries to stamp out anybody that professes publicly the name of God. We shall not win. For we're told that when he tried to destroy her, God caused the earth to protect her. And in spite of the Spanish Inquisition, and in spite of old King John of England, and in spite of the Russian pogroms, and in spite of Hitler, and in spite of the Russians at this present day, Israel is there, isn't it? And she'll still keep there. And Satan's empire is doomed. A few more observations, and we must go home. Have patience with me, and as the man said in the parable, I will pay thee all. Here in the second triad of, uh, of paragraphs, now we have a description of the coming great kingdom of the beast, and gruesome reading it makes. Ah, I saw a beast, and the serpent gave him his throne, and very impressive the throne will be. Don't forget it. That throne will. There's a man already on the throne anyway. Yes. And I saw another beast, and he deceives men. How shall you know it's a deception? How will anybody with an eye to see it know it's a deception? Well, listen to what the second beast proposes, that they make an image of the first beast. How nice. And they bow down to it. Really? Now that's interesting. And they receive the mark and number of the beast and his name on their forehead. Ah. What is the name? Well, the theologians, bless them, have argued about it forever. Uh, God bless them again. But, uh, we are told in simple terms, it's the name of a man. You have the choice, ladies and gentlemen. You bow to the man, Christ Jesus, God incarnate, or you'll bow to another man. Man was made in the image of God, you know. Faith in God makes man again God's viceroy. The devil's man, he will ask you to bow down to the image of a man and thus deny your own God-given image and enslave you. You say, what's the difference between bowing down to the man Jesus and this fearful perversion, the first beast, a mere man claiming to be God? Well, what's the difference between Jesus and him? Ah, well, the difference is this, that in our blessed Lord, truly human, this is God come down to be man, and with this beast, it's man trying to come up to be God. Choose which one you'll have. They who worship the beast shall know the biggest slavery this world has ever. Ah, but see the victory. Ha, I like it. I think John or the Lord or somebody had a sense of humor. He told here that the serpent went away in order to set up his great empire, and he stood on the sand of the sea. That was a silly place to stand, wasn't it? I wouldn't stand there myself if I were thinking of forming a world empire, would you? And says John, I turned around from viewing the kingdom of the beast, and I saw the lamb, and where was he standing? Oh, he was standing on Mount Zion. Why, of course he was. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. Our man is already in. With him there were one hundred and forty four thousand. You say to me, who are they? And I not going to tell you, even if I could. Not who they are, but what they are. You say that could even be more important, couldn't it? And whoever they are, the principles of salvation through the death of Christ are always the same, so that we might take a lesson even from them to our own hearts here this evening, couldn't we? They are virgins. They follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. Utter, complete, and absolute devotion to the Lord Jesus. Yes? You see, ultimately, salvation depends on that allegiance, doesn't it? God will not put up with half-hearted allegiance forever. Who are these? These are those that were redeemed, that were bought out of the earth. Oh, I like that very much, because in the reign of this beast, the law was passed that if you didn't take the mark of the beast, you would, uh, not be able to buy or sell. Who shalt I, says God? Well, I'll show you that. You say I can't buy or sell in your world unless I take your mark. Well, I'll show you, says God, I'm just about to buy a vast company of people out of that planet, redeeming them, buying them by the precious blood of Christ. And if I say to you God requires absolute and absolute devotion to him, now hear how he buys it, friend. For I tell you he buys it. You don't think it's a good thing to buy people's love? Well, God does. He bought them by the blood of his own son. And how shall I resist his claim when I remember that the Son of God loved me and gave himself for me. Thus did God buy from our rebellious planet the devotion of millions and millions of redeemed men and women. And now we have another choice. They sang a great throng before the throne, and none could understand the music, save they who had been redeemed. Ah well, in this world you couldn't buy or sell except you had the mark of the beast. Fair is fair, I suppose. In this world you don't understand the music unless you have been redeemed. And if it's a choice between earth's goods and the music of heaven, which would you choose? If it's a position, a choice between a position in this world and a position in Christ's kingdom, which would you choose? If it's a choice between mere goods and of earth and the music of heaven, who wouldn't choose the music of heaven? But finally, be it noticed that this great crowd of the redeemed, they bear the name of their father on their forehead. And this is the ultimate. You take the mark of the beast, and you are conformed to his image. Or you trust Christ, and you are conformed to his image. The name of the beast, or the name of the Savior written on your forehead. Oh, thank God for believers, redeemed by the blood of Christ and loyal to the Savior, being prepared for the very music of heaven, and on their name, can't you begin to see it being written, conformity to Christ, made pleasing to God. Friend, would you allow me to ask you, as we close now, a very pertinent and personal question. If I could see your forehead as God sees it, whose name would I see written there? The name of the Savior and the name of God, or already beginning to form its letters, the ugly name of the man of sin, man in rebellion against God. The Lord use his word to exercise our hearts and bring us to the right decision in these tremendous things.