I've found that discussing the Antichrist religion has become commonplace enough these days that it can be considered "boring" material. The crazy part, though, is so much of the world is oblivious to what the Bible says about it even as we're seeing it take off in ever more astonishing ways.
Here's an outtake from a sermon by Richard Jordan that I found on YouTube just this evening:
Can I tell you that your ancestors knew the issues of Baal worship? They knew why it permeates our world.
In Revelation
17, this great whore that sits upon many waters is the beast that is riding the
Antichrist. This is the religious system of the Antichrist; the Antichrist
church.
Verse 2: [2]
With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the
inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.
In other
words, the wine of her fornication is the intoxicating spiritual deception.
When you’re drunk, you’re in a stupor. They’ve been deceived; there in this
stupor being desensitized to the things of God by the overwhelming influence of
this woman.
Verse 18: [18]
And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the
kings of the earth.
It is a system
that runs the governmental systems of the world; of the nations. Why does it
run them? Because they choose it. When they choose not to run on God’s Word,
this is the lie program they follow.
Verse 3: [3]
So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit
upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads
and ten horns.
You go back
in Jeremiah, for example, and God talks about Israel committing spiritual
fornication by worshipping other gods. Here’s the source of all that other godlessness.
She’s not
just the harlot; she’s the MOTHER of harlots. She’s a mother church that has
all kind of other churches springing out of her. This is a whole religious
system with all kind of different groups and denominational heads in it—different
ways of denoting it but all the same source.
Her colors
are purple and scarlet. Her symbol is a golden cup and that golden cup is
filled with the wine of her fornication, with some doctrine that produces
people going after other gods.
Behind all
that is that corrupt system of Verse 18 that rules over what goes on in the
earth.
Paul says in I
Corinthians 10: [16] The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the
communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the
communion of the body of Christ?
You and I
share a communion in the blood of Christ and the body of Christ. Verse 20: [20]
But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to
devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with
devils.
That cup
filled with the wine of her fornication is designed so that you can’t drink of
the cup filled with the communion of the body of Christ. Did that go over your
head?
What Paul’s
talking about in Ephesians, he’s talking to a bunch of people who are used to
drinking the wine in the cup of paganism and he’s saying, “Don’t be drunk with
that pagan false doctrine. You want to be filled and controlled by what God’s
given.”
Deuteronomy
32: [15] But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou
art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made
him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.
[16] They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations
provoked they him to anger.
[17] They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew
not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.
[18] Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten
God that formed thee.
They leave
their Rock (Christ) and go after another rock. [31] For their rock is
not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.
[32] For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of
Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter:
[33] Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.
Hello, we don’t
all worship the same God. Even our enemies themselves being judged—a blind man
walking backward in a dark cave could figure it out, he says.
Their rock is
the false god. [37] And he shall say, Where are their gods, their rock
in whom they trusted,
[38] Which did eat the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of
their drink offerings? let them rise up and help you, and be your protection.
You see,
there’s some gods who are drinking the wine, eating their sacrifices. That’s a
religious system that’s governing.
Psalm 16:4: [4]
Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god: their drink
offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips.
So the drink
offerings offered to these other gods are blood.
There’s a
false religious system that was developed in Genesis 11 and goes all the way through
the Bible. It contaminated the nation Israel—took Israel captive, and when it
did here’s how they worshipped:
Jeremiah 44: [15]
Then all the men which knew that their wives had burned incense unto other
gods, and all the women that stood by, a great multitude, even all the people
that dwelt in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying,
[16] As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the
LORD, we will not hearken unto thee.
[17] But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our
own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink
offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our
princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had
we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil.
[18] But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and
to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been
consumed by the sword and by the famine.
[19] And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out
drink offerings unto her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out
drink offerings unto her, without our men?
“We’re going
to go by the tradition of what we’ve always done. We don’t care what God’s Word
says.”
“The left off
to burn incense to the queen of heaven.” Where did that come from? Well, you go back to
Judges 2:13, Judges 10:6 and you’ll see that involved in Baal worship is also a
female deity called Ashtaroth, Astarte, all kind of names. The Romans called
her Venus. The Greeks called her Minerva, Diana. The Egyptians called her Eostre.
The Roman Catholics call her Mary, but she’s been there a long time before Mary
came along.