Beauty & the Beast: Good vs. Evil

You're listening to A New Beginning with Greg Laurie, a podcast made possible by Harvest Partners, helping people everywhere know God.

Visit our website and learn more about Harvest Partners at harvest.org. And you may get to heaven one day, but Christianity could be summed up in one word. Not do, but done. I don't have to do a bunch of stuff to reach God.

It's done. When Jesus died on the cross, He said, it is finished. Revelation is one of the most challenging books to study, but so many of us feel much more confident in our understanding of it as we follow Pastor Greg Laurie in his study series in Revelation. And today on A New Beginning, he guides us into chapter 17, where we tackle a passage rich with symbolism, but he'll give us the key to understanding what the Lord is saying to us.

And to study Revelation in even more depth, get the details on Pastor Greg's new commentary at harvest.org. The title of my message is Beauty and the Beast. Let's pray. Father, speak to us now as we open your word, as we peer into the future and look at what you gave to John and the island of Patmos about what is coming in the days ahead.

Help us have understanding as to what this is all about and how it applies to our lives, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Beauty and the Beast. No, this is not a message about how I met Kathy, my wife.

She's the beauty. I'm the beast, obviously. Nor is it a message about the Disney film by the same name. Nor is it a message about Christians versus Hollywood or Republicans versus Democrats.

No. Beauty and the Beast. This is a message about good versus evil. God versus Satan. Antichrist versus Jesus Christ.

First let me start with the beast. The Bible says there is coming a world leader. He'll be charismatic. No doubt he'll be good looking. He'll bring global solutions.

He'll bring a pseudo peace for three and a half years to this war torn planet. And the fact of the matter is the Bible calls him the beast. He's also referred to as Antichrist. The prefix anti, as I've told you before, doesn't just mean against.

It also means instead of. And for those that don't know better, many will hail this charismatic world leader as the very Messiah. I shared recently that I was in Israel some years ago and I was talking with the Jewish man and I told him I believe Jesus was the Messiah. And he said, well, we don't believe that is Jews. And I said, well, who do you think the Messiah will be?

And he said this to me. We believe when our Messiah comes that he'll bring peace and rebuild our temple. I said, friend, you just described the Antichrist. And that's exactly who Antichrist is. He comes in the place of Christ. And this phrase, the beast, is not a description of his appearance but actually of his character. He'll be a wicked man. If Satan never had a son, this is him, the beast.

Well, what about the beauty? Well, that's the church. And when I say church, I don't mean a brick and mortar building.

I mean God's people gathering together. When you become a follower of Jesus, you become a part of the church and you now are the bride of Christ. Now, some guys are listening and you're saying, I don't want to be a bride.

Deal with it. You're a bride. You're the bride of Christ. We're the bride of Christ.

We're the beauty in the story. But this battle between the beauty and the beast, if you will, goes all the way back to the book of Genesis when Adam and Eve were tempted by the devil and the judgment of God came as a result of them eating of the forbidden fruit. And God said to Satan, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed, and he will crush your head and you will bruise his heel. In other words, God is saying a battle has now begun and he puts Satan on warning the Messiah is coming. And so Satan wanted to stop Messiah from arriving in this conflict, this battle of the ages between the beauty and the beast, between Antichrist and Jesus Christ, between God and Satan began. But here is what we know.

The beast is going to lose and the beauty is going to prevail. That brings us to Revelation chapter 17. Where we are chronologically right now is we are in the second half of the tribulation period.

Quick recap. The next event, in my opinion, on the prophetic calendar will be the rapture of the church. Immediately following that will be the emergence of Antichrist. And that will officially start the great tribulation period that begins peacefully but at the halfway point with a temple rebuilt for the Jewish people in Jerusalem.

The Antichrist desecrates it with the abomination of desolation. And then the final three and a half years of the tribulation we have God's judgment coming upon the world. Everything culminates in the great battles of Armageddon and then Christ returns in the second coming.

We will get to that in our next message. And then the millennium begins. Millennium means one thousand. It will be the one thousand year reign of Christ on earth and then heaven and earth become one. That is what the Bible teaches. Speaking of the rapture I believe we will be caught up to meet the Lord before the tribulation begins. Let me give you three quick reasons why I believe that.

Number one. The church is not on earth during the tribulation period but it is in heaven. Now as you will recall Revelation begins with the seven messages of Jesus to the seven churches. That is Revelation chapters two to three. But then we get to chapter four which says after these things.

After what things? After the things of the church. So the church is mentioned multiple times in those first chapters of Revelation.

Nineteen times. But then we don't see any mention of the church until Revelation chapter 19. So all that space in between Revelation is dealing with the other events that are going to happen.

Why? Because we are caught up to meet the Lord in the air. Number two. The rapture happens before the tribulation. The second coming happens at the end of the tribulation. So the second coming will have many signs preceding it. But the rapture it can come at any moment.

Remember He comes as a thief in the night. The rapture is imminent. And by the way the word imminent does not always mean soon. It just means inevitable. In other words we don't know when the rapture will happen.

Jesus says no man knows the day or the hour. The rapture could happen in 30 years. 20 years. 10 years. 5 years. 5 minutes.

Today. It could happen at any moment. It is imminent. It is inevitable.

It is going to happen. Number three. God will not judge Christians with non-Christians. So as I pointed out in the second half of the tribulation God is pouring His wrath upon the world. 1 Thessalonians 1. 9 says you turn to God from idols to serve the living God to wait for His Son from heaven whom He raised from the dead even Jesus who rescues us from the wrath to come. Now some might say well that is a reference to hell.

No it actually isn't. Contextually as you look at it He is talking about how His Son is coming from heaven. So God is not rescuing us from hell in the context of this or of course He does that. But He is rescuing us from the great tribulation period. Reinforcing that idea. 1 Thessalonians 5.

9 Paul writes, God did not appoint us to wrath, that is Christians, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to this. Everyone on earth has an appointment. You have an appointment. I have an appointment. The Christian's appointment is to be caught up to be with Christ. The appointment of this world is to face the day of the Lord in a future judgment. You cannot keep both of these appointments.

Who is your appointment with? Jesus also said to the last day's church of Philadelphia in Revelation 3, because you have kept my command to persevere I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world to test those that dwell on the earth. And then He says, Behold, I am coming quickly. Now that is clearly a reference to the tribulation period because it is a trial that will come upon the whole world. And then the Lord wraps that up with, Behold, I come quickly. So the Lord is gonna keep us from the tribulation period.

We're gonna sit this one out. Hey, I hope you're enjoying this series that we're doing on the book of Revelation. And I'm very excited to tell you about a brand new book that we have just released simply called Revelation, a Book of Promises.

I'm gonna tell you how to get your own copy at the end of the program. But if you can't wait, just go to harvest.org to find out more about getting your copy of this brand new book, this commentary on the book of Revelation called Revelation, a Book of Promises. And now, back to our study.

So let's pick up where we last left off with the beast in our story. The Bible tells us that a powerful religious deception will sweep the earth in the last days, and it's described as Babylon. Babylon is pictured as a prostitute riding a beast, and she's dressed in red.

So we'll call her the scarlet harlot. And it's also revealed as a mystery. We all love a good mystery, right? This is mystery Babylon. Let's read Revelation 17, verse three. So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, which is full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and 10 horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of fornication. And on her forehead a name was written, Mystery Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth. And I saw the woman, verse six of chapter 17, drunk with the blood of saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her, I marveled with great amazement, and the angel said to me, Why did you marvel? I'll tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has seven heads and 10 horns.

We'll stop there. So you read a text like this, and your reaction is probably, What? What does this all mean? But it's not as complex as you may think. Remember, the purpose of revelation is to unveil truth to us. Revelation means unveil. So it is not God's desire to conceal, but to reveal. This is a mystery to someone who doesn't understand the Bible, but to us as believers, we understand it. Babylon is a picture of man's kingdom without God. Man's kingdom without God. Babylon is sort of a code word.

It represents something else. For instance, when we say, well, over in Madison Avenue, they do thus and so. We don't mean the literal Madison Avenue, but we're referring to people who are involved in advertisement and promotion and things of that nature. Or when we say Hollywood, you know, over in Hollywood, we don't mean the literal city of Hollywood. We mean the entertainment industry. When we say, well, over at Wall Street, we don't mean the actual Wall Street.

We're talking about commerce and finance. So when we use the word Babylon in the Bible, it's a picture of pure evil. When Peter wrote to the believers living in Rome, he said to the church in Babylon. Now, in fact, they weren't in Babylon, which was a city. They were in Rome, but because of the wickedness of the city, he said to the believers in Babylon. So Babylon is a point of reference for evil. Contextually, looking at the book of Revelation, Babylon refers to an entire worldwide political, economic, and religious kingdom under the control of Antichrist. But Babylon can be personal as well. It's basically a life that is consumed with pride, sensuality, idolatry.

Effectively, anything that takes the place of God. A little history lesson. Babylon began on the plains of Shinar back in the book of Genesis, and we read about the world's first dictator. His name was Nimrod. And by the way, his name means we will revolt. So don't name your sons Nimrod. I know it's a Bible name, but it's not a good one. So Nimrod was a wicked man. In fact, he's described in the book of Genesis as a mighty hunter of men's souls in defiance of the Lord. So Nimrod, this wicked man, directed the people to build a tower, and it was known as the Tower of Babel.

And in their estimation, this was the tallest building that had ever been erected. And at the top of it was an astrological observatory. So this is the beginning of mankind looking to the stars for direction. And in fact, in God's judgment of the Babylonians, he mentions in Isaiah 47, 12, you labored with your sorcery and your astrology from your youth. So clearly, God does not approve of this.

So listen to me. Don't be reading your astrology column in the local newspaper. Don't base any decisions in your life on what the stars say. And it really doesn't matter what your sign is because these are things that a Christian should not look to. Yet, 70 million Americans read their astrology every single day. By the way, that's around 23% of the population. It's amazing to me that a person would actually make a decision based on what some random person wrote that they probably just made up and actually say this is how I'm getting direction for my life. Think of all the magazines and sites you see that have an astrology column. Imagine how it would be if there was a collection of scriptures to read each and every day.

What a game changer that would be. But this all started with ancient Babylon. And by the way, if someone really is searching for truth, God will lead them to himself. We all love the Christmas story and those wise men. But don't forget that the wise men phrase comes from the root word magi which is the word that we get magician from. So the magi were actually astrologer astronomers who looked to the stars for direction.

They were very important, powerful individuals that would give advice to the king. And so what does the Lord do? He sends a star that leads them to the child Jesus.

So here's the Tower of Babel. A classic example of man trying to reach God. That's religion in a nutshell. Religion is man's attempt to reach God.

Christianity, in contrast, is God's attempt to reach man. Religion can be summed up in one word, do. Do this and you'll reach nirvana. Do that and you make it to heaven one day. Do this other thing and you might find inner peace.

A lot of dos, do this, do that. But Christianity could be summed up in one word. Not do, but done. It's done. When Jesus died on the cross, he said, it is finished, which means it is accomplished. It is completed. I don't have to do a bunch of stuff to reach God.

God has done the heavy lifting to reach me and sending Jesus to die on the cross for my sins and rise again from the dead. And we can have him live in our hearts. But man is a religious creature.

He always has been. But he sort of likes to make it up as he goes. Sort of a do it yourself faith. You know, we like the idea of forgiveness. We just don't want to repent. We like the hope of heaven, but we don't like the reality of hell.

We sort of like to pick and choose what appeals to us. That's Babylon. Babylonian thinking, if you will.

Babylon was also the beginning of humanism. People came together. God said, I want you to spread out across the earth.

And the people said, no, let's come together instead. Let's come together in defiance of God. Let's come together and build this tower and look to the stars, not to the Lord, for direction in our lives. And so they build this tower and they're all excited about it. They're thinking it's really going to be impressive to God. It's almost like they're saying, hey God, there's a new kid in town.

We're here. Check out our awesome tower. And the Bible tells us that the Lord came down to see it. And it's kind of almost humorous because it's so tiny the Lord says, actually, I don't have a telescope in heaven strong enough to even see your mighty tower, so I'm going to come down, way down, down, and get on my hands and knees and see if I can find your awesome little tower.

And that's us with all of our accomplishments thinking we don't need God. Of course, God sent confusion to them. No one could understand each other. And they were babbling. And so that's the root word of Babylon. Now, of course, it was a mighty kingdom of Babylon as well, ruled by Nebuchadnezzar, remember? It was a massive, mighty world power, which was ultimately defeated by the Medo-Persian Empire. And that was when the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar was ruling.

His name was Belshazzar. So it was the end of Babylon's babbling. . Great insight today from Pastor Greg Laurie on the mention of Babylon in chapter 17 of Revelation, the title of today's message, Beauty and the Beast. Well, as we've seen today, Bible prophecy can be a heavy subject, and Revelation is very candid about the tribulation to come. But Pastor Greg, your book, Revelation, a Book of Promises, is a positive book, isn't it? It's a hopeful book.

It's an inspiring book. Well, I think it is because the Book of Revelation is a hopeful book as well. And Bible prophecy is not given to scare us, but to prepare us. And God gives us these things to give us hope. In fact, Jesus said, when you see these things begin to happen and those things he was speaking about were fulfillment of Bible prophecies happening in your lifetime. When you see these things begin to happen, Jesus says, look up, for your redemption is drawing near. That's why the Bible calls us the blessed hope.

And so there's something hopeful and wonderful and encouraging when we look at last day's events. And by the way, God wants us to understand what is going on in the end times. And I say this because some people would say, oh, no one can understand Bible prophecy nonsense.

Of course you can. The very word revelation means the unveiling. You see, it's not God's desire to conceal, but to reveal. And Jesus, speaking of an event that's coming on the prophetic calendar called the Abomination of Desolation, said, let the reader understand. Paul, talking about the event that we sometimes call the rapture, said, brothers, I would not have you ignorant concerning these things.

So God wants us to understand them. And so I've just written a brand new book based on the biblical book of Revelation. And this book is gonna be easy for you to understand.

I've written it in every man terms. It's like we're just sitting down over a cup of coffee and we're talking about end times events and I'm trying to help you understand what this means to you and how it applies in your life. So the title of the book is Revelation, a book of promises. When we were designing the cover, I said to the designer, I don't want any flames on the cover.

I don't want it to be black with red type on it. Let's make it colorful and hopeful because that really is the message of Revelation. It's a hopeful message. Now, obviously, the book of Revelation talks about the tribulation period. It talks about the antichrist. It talks about the mark of the beast. But that's not all it talks about. It talks a lot about heaven and what heaven will be like.

And it gives us a perspective on life on earth because we get an eternal perspective. So I hope our listeners will order a copy of this brand new book, Revelation, a book of promises. Yeah, and we'll be glad to send one your way to thank you for partnering with us so these daily studies can continue.

It's only through listener support that that's possible. Your donation helps this insight continue to be heard here in your community for your benefit and the benefit of so many others. So get in touch today with your investment and we'll be glad to send you Pastor Greg's brand new book, Revelation, a book of promises. And by the way, we're including a custom bookmark along with the book. It shows the timeline of God's end times events graphically.

It helps you see the order of events very clearly. It comes automatically with the book. You can write a new beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, California, 92514, or call 1-800-821-3300.

That's 1-800-821-3300. Or go online to harvest.org. Well, next time, more insight from Revelation 17 and what we're to know from this scene involving the beast and the scarlet harlot. Join us here on A New Beginning with pastor and Bible teacher Greg Lord. This is the day, the day when life begins The preceding podcast was made possible by Harvest Partners, helping people everywhere know God. Learn how to become a Harvest Partner, sign up for daily devotions, and find resources to help you grow in your faith at harvest.org.