Thursday, June 18, 2020
MacArthur's Jet Tour of the Book of Revelation, plus Rev 17
John MacArthur did a one-sermon "Jet tour of the Book of Revelation" sketching out the entire book in a little over an hour, which is very helpful for approaching that complicated subject. I've listened to many of the sermons in his vey lengthy series on Revelation but still have many to go. Having an overview like this is very helpful.
He doesn't try to identify the Antichrist or even the Harlot Church, which I understand to be the Pope and the Roman Church, as I've spelled out in many posts. I also believe the "666" is the sum of Roman numerals in a title of the Pope, which I've also argued here, though MacArthur says it means only the number of Man. Which doesn't tell us which man of course, which I thought was the whole point of giving us such clues. None of it will be clear until it happens of course.
Added later: Listening to MacArthur on Revelation 17 done back in the 90s he's talking about how risky it is to try to predict who the Antichrist will be from current events, naming a number of attempts to do that in those years. And of course he's right so although I favor this current Pope, and have given my reasons for it, I know I may be wrong. MacArthur mentions that in the early years of Christianity some offered various Popes as the Antichrist, and certainly the Bishop of Rome had been identified as Antichrist by "pope" Gregory on the occasion when Byzantine emperor Phocas made the Bishop of Rome Universal Bishop in the year 606 AD. And I did a post here a while back showing tha the Popes have been identified as Antichrist down the centuries. Which makes a particular Pope at the right time a very likely candidate for the Final Antichrist of the Tribulation period. Francis is the current Pope and although he has some stellar qualifications for the role he is also old enough to make it unlikely. What it means of course is that if he is that final Antichrist all these things would have to unfold rather soon. Very soon. If he has the health to live to ninety or more that's still pretty soon.
Chris Pinto I think believes the Antichrist will be a Pope. As I recall Pinto identifies "the mark of the Beast" as the sign of membership in the Roman Church, which he argues from a historical usage of the idea in reference to the ceremony that brings one into that Church.
Anyway here's MacArthur's jet tour of the book about the final days of Planet Earth:
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Well, now I want to add his sermon on Revelation 17 since the question of the identity of the Harlot Church has come up here. He first describes the final Harlot Church, "Mystery Babylon" as an amalgam of all the false religions that come together to form the final World Religion. Then (around 15:00 on the counter) he does finally identify the Roman Catholic Church as possibly the main form of that final world religion, and quotes Martyn Lloyd Jones who called it Satan's greatest achievement, even greater than Marxism. He points out that Pope John Paul who was Pope at the time he gave this sermon, was totally devoted to "Mary" and that the RC version of Mary is derived from the religion of Babylon. (See "The Two Babylons" by Alexander Hislop which traces the history of all the false religions from Babylon to Catholicism). He goes on to describe all the false doctrine that contradicts Christianity, that may well characterize the final world religion.
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.Added on June 24: Hm. Wild thought hit me after hearing MacArthur's latest teaching which is all about the Antichrist.. What if Obama is the final Antichrist? And Pope Francis the False Prophet? I could defend the thought, using many bits of information I've collected in earlier posts that show his qualifications for the job, some going back years, but I think I'll just leave it at that for now.
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