Forecasting Hope 12: Revelation's Two Women, Truth & Error (Pastor Greg Hudson, 10/26/24)

This is our final session of something that's been going on for about two and a half to

three weeks.

This is our 12th time together, this Forecasting Hope series.

And we're going to pass out some little cards that we've had each time, a little response

card.

If you have a question, a prayer request, whatever, we'll take those at the end and

there'll be a little handout as we complete our time together.

But let's bow our heads and we'll have a prayer as they're passing those out in just a moment.

Dear God, we thank you so much for a baptism that's going to take place.

We thank you for the cross that we heard a song about.

We thank you for a year of ministry in this place.

What a privilege and a blessing it is.

But God, be with each one of us today as we open up your Word.

May we learn more about you.

In your name we pray.

Amen.

People have noticed that if you go online and begin to look for a church in your area,

that you could find a whole bunch of different options.

You can find hundreds and hundreds of churches.

There's some that you can't pronounce.

There's some maybe that you've heard of, maybe that you haven't heard of.

And some have said, you know, this is crazy.

This is insane.

And we mentioned this last night.

There's one Bible.

There's one God.

How can there be so many different denominations?

And we're going to look in our final session together as we're studying the book of Revelation

and Bible prophecy, that Revelation actually predicted that something like this would happen,

that a church would go and it would begin to split up and it would leave us in the situation

that we are in today.

So we're going to look at prophecy and we're going to look at some history as well.

And so we're going to start in Revelation chapter 12.

Revelation 12 · chapter mention

Now we've been here a couple of times.

And as Kevin mentioned during the announcements, if you haven't seen any of this, you can go

back to our Facebook page and other places and catch up on that.

But we're going to look at Revelation chapter 12 at the beginning.

Revelation 12 · chapter mention

We've looked at the middle.

Last night we looked at the end, but we're going to start at the beginning.

So we're going to look at Revelation 12 and verse 1.

And these verses will be on the screen, but please follow along as well.

So verse 1 of Revelation 12, the Bible says, now a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman

clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and on her head a garland of 12 stars.

And then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth.

And then verse 3 says, and another sign appeared in heaven.

Behold, a great fiery red dragon having seven heads and 10 horns and seven diadems or crowns

on his head.

His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth.

And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth to devour her child

as soon as it was born.

She bore a male child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron, and her child

was caught up to God and to his throne.

And so we can picture this.

We can picture several different symbols.

There's a woman with a child, there's a dragon with heads and horns, and some of these things

we've already interpreted through our time together.

And so if we put those together, we've seen that in Bible prophecy a woman represents

a church.

And if it's a pure woman, then it's a time when the church is being faithful.

If it's an impure woman, it's a time when perhaps the church is not being faithful.

And then the Bible doesn't specify clearly, but the sun and the moon, many people look

at that and feel that that's talking about the righteousness of God.

Because the sun gives light and the moon reflects light.

And then again, it doesn't quite specify exactly, but 12 stars, people think, indicate that

this could perhaps be the 12 apostles, those that were followers of Jesus.

And then the next few the Bible is clear about.

This child, this male child that's talked about, this is clearly Jesus because it says

he rules nations.

He's caught up to God and to his throne.

And then we've already seen several times that this dragon clearly represents Satan.

And it even specifies that they are just a few verses later.

And then there's another creature that's there as well, that also represents Satan as well.

And so when we picture this, when we put all of this together, we have a picture, excuse

me, I misspoke there, that the dragon represents Satan, the beast, I misspoke there, is working

with Satan, but it represents Rome.

Sorry, I jumped ahead of myself.

And so what we see here is that Jesus and his church in chapter 12 are being attacked

by Satan through the Roman Empire.

That's how Revelation 12 begins.

This beast is attacking this child and attacking this woman.

We spent a whole night looking at that beast power a few nights ago.

And so the question is, did this happen?

Did this occur?

And you can think to when Jesus was born, we remember that story.

When Jesus was still a baby, Mary and Joseph had to leave.

They had to go somewhere different.

Do you remember where they went?

They went to Egypt.

Why did they flee to Egypt?

Because Herod, who was working with the Roman government, sent soldiers in to kill all the

babies, all the male babies who were two years and younger.

So at a very young age as a baby, Jesus was being attacked.

And throughout his life, he suffered different attacks and different people after him until

finally of course we recognize that there was a time when Jesus was arrested by Roman

soldiers.

He was tried in a Roman court by a Roman governor and he was nailed to a Roman cross.

But thankfully as Jesus was placed in that tomb, he did not remain there.

And three days later, he resurrected and he gained victory over death and victory over

sin and he promises that for us as well.

And that is good, good news.

And when Jesus laid down his life, it sealed the devil's fate.

And so then Jesus ascended back to heaven and now Satan recognizes, I can't get Jesus

anymore.

I can't touch Jesus.

I can't conquer that male child there in Revelation 12.

And so then Satan, the dragon, turned his attention in a different direction.

If I can't get Jesus, then maybe I can go after his followers.

I can go after the church.

And in those early days of Christianity, the first and second and third century, there

was intense persecution against those who stood for Jesus and wanted to follow him because

it was illegal to be a Christian in the Roman Empire in those days.

And this structure in Rome is an example of that.

And what structure is this?

Many of you have seen that.

Maybe some have been there.

That's the Roman Coliseum.

You can see circled there in the corner, a little car.

So you can see how immense this structure is.

Supposedly it could seat 60 or 70,000 people.

So think about a football stadium today or a baseball stadium.

That was the size, except instead of hitting home runs or catching touchdowns, the people

were there to see people die, basically, whether it was gladiators fighting or criminals being

thrown to gladiators or to wild animals.

Criminals such as Christians.

And that area under the field was tunnels and halls that they would keep those hungry

animals there until it was time to sick them, to open up the gates and allow them to go

and eat the criminals, the Christians.

And there were people who were willing to stand for Jesus and say, no, I will not burn

incense to the emperor.

I'm going to stand for Jesus and his truth even if it means I'm risking my life, even

if it means I die, I'm not going to give up the truth of scripture.

And so the dragon was not able to defeat the male child.

And even through this, the dragon was not able to conquer the woman.

Because history tells us that there's a phrase that says the blood of the martyrs watered

the situation, watered the church and caused the church to grow.

Because for every Christian that died, three or four more said, you know what, I'm going

to stand for that Jesus.

I'm going to stand for him as well, even if it costs me my life.

And so that dragon, Satan, kind of followed that old saying, if you can't beat them, join

them.

And so that's exactly what happened.

Satan's strategy changed.

If I can't beat them down, if I can't cause people to reject Jesus, then let me shift

just a little bit.

Let me go with a different plan.

And so about 300, a little bit after 300, the emperor Constantine of the Roman Empire

became a Christian.

Yay, that seems like a good thing.

Soon Christianity became legal.

In fact, in 313, the Edict of Milan, they could build churches, they could meet.

It was now legal.

And he would think that would be a good thing.

Except Constantine had grown up pagan.

And as he was wanting to unite this empire, he was bringing pagan teachings alongside

with Christian teachings and mixing them together.

And Satan didn't care if people were following that, because if they were following different

pagan teachings disguised as Christianity, then it was taking them away from Jesus.

And through the years, more and more, this Christian faith in Rome became a mixture of

truth and error.

And it became a system where the traditions of man became equal or even above the commands

of God.

And from this Roman Empire, this religious system became known as the Church of Rome

or the papacy or the Roman Catholic Church as it combined different traditions with Christian

teachings.

And this was the time when church and state became united.

The civil government united with the church government.

And so this papal Rome became a persecuting power and spread the doctrines through the

time.

And this union lasted for 1,260 days or 1,260 years.

And we can read that as we go on in Revelation 12 verse 6.

Revelation 12:6

It says, then the woman, the church, God's followers, fled into the wilderness where

she has a place prepared for her that they should feed her there for 1,260 days.

And we've seen that a day equals a year.

So that 1,260 years, those 42 months, that time, time and a half a time as we've studied

it lasted from 538 when the emperor gave that leader of the Church of Rome civil authority

down until 1798 when France, General Berthier came and arrested the pope.

It lasted for that same time period just as was prophesied here in the book of Revelation.

And so that union of church and state, we refer to it as the middle ages or the dark

ages because during that time the Bible was forbidden.

You couldn't read the Bible.

You couldn't have the Bible in your own language.

You couldn't follow the Bible.

And it was a time of spiritual darkness, the dark ages.

Let me just give a little example of what that was like.

We're going to put a quote up here during this dark age time.

This is a quote from a fairly famous book known as Fox's Book of Martyrs.

And it tells stories of people through the years who gave their life, who died as a martyr.

So here's just one story from Fox's Book of Martyrs.

It says a Spaniard named, I'm going to say Juliano because he's Spanish.

I'm not sure if that's the right pronunciation or not.

He traveled into Germany and there became a convert to the Reformed religion.

That's the Protestant faith.

He's talking about Protestantism, those who were wanting to get back to the Bible.

And it goes on to say, when he went back to Spain, he took with him to Seville a number

of Bibles.

And he succeeded in this dangerous enterprise so far as getting books into the hands of

a great number of people.

Juliano was immediately seized and put to the most cruel tortures to make him confess

the names of all to whom he had given the hated books.

What book had he given away?

The Bible.

And it's called the most hated book.

And for that simple act of owning a Bible or sharing a Bible, he was persecuted and

people risked their life.

They were living in that time of darkness, that time of the dark ages.

So that's Revelation 12.

Let's turn over now.

We're going to look at another woman in Revelation, Revelation chapter 17.

Revelation 17 · chapter mention

Revelation 12, the woman was a pure woman, a faithful church, faithful followers of God.

But in Revelation 17, it's a totally different picture.

So we're going to pick up the story in verse 1.

Revelation 17 and verse 1.

The Bible says, then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and talked with

me saying to me, come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot.

This is an unfaithful woman who sits on many waters with whom the kings of the earth committed

fornication.

And the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication.

So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness.

And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, which was full of names of blasphemy, having

seven heads and ten 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 filthiness of her

fornication.

Whatever this means, this does not sound like a good picture here, a good situation.

But what we have is now an impure woman dressed in particular colors, wearing different things.

She's holding a cup of fornication here and representing unfaithfulness.

And so again, we've got a woman, a church.

But this is not a pure woman.

This is an unfaithful woman.

And just like today, certain people dress in certain ways, so in Bible times, harlots

are prostitutes dressed in a certain way.

And this echoes that clothing that they would wear.

And of course, her cup, it says clearly, is fornication, unfaithfulness.

And then once again, we have a beast power representing that beast of Revelation 13,

which we saw represents Rome.

And so we can put all of these things together, and we can see that this woman is unfaithful.

She's a harlot.

She's got this cup of fornication.

And so she's unfaithful to God and to his word.

And so this is a picture of a church in the Middle Ages acting like a harlot, joining

now with this beast power and accepting different eras and traditions.

And this is a picture of this union of church and state coming together in one thing.

And as I've said over and over, any time church and state come together in history, no matter

the church, no matter the state, it has never been a good thing.

And so here we see this woman.

She is riding on the beast.

In chapter 12, the beast was attacking the woman.

But now this church has joined in with this empire, with this state, and is willing to

persecute other people.

And so we have a pure woman in Revelation 12.

We have an unfaithful woman, an unfaithful church in chapter 17.

And during those Middle Ages, it was easier sometimes for people to just go along, to

just follow along with whatever the government, whatever the church was saying to them.

Because if you went along, you could go about your daily life.

You could conduct business.

But if you stood for Jesus, oftentimes you would be persecuted.

And there was only a few who were willing to stand for God.

And could it be that even in our day and age, that we have to take a stand?

We have to be willing to suffer, not in the same way.

But sometimes when we stand for God, maybe we'll be criticized.

Maybe someone will talk about us.

And so we need to make sure that we are willing to stand for Jesus no matter what.

But let's go on.

Revelation 17 verse 5 here.

Revelation 17:5

Revelation 17 verse 5.

Revelation 17:5

It says, and on her forehead a name was written.

This is the name.

Mystery.

Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth.

And so we begin to see here what the Bible is prophesying about.

What is Babylon?

Well, last night we looked and we were reminded that Babylon is about confusion.

Babylon is about that group that's opposed to God as Jerusalem was conquered by the nation

of Babylon.

And during this time period that's represented, during this middle age time period, there's

religious confusion.

Because human authority is placed above God's authority.

So it's Babylon the Great.

But then it also says the mother of harlots.

And so this unfaithful woman gives birth to daughters.

She's the mother of harlots.

And isn't it interesting that that church in Rome is even still today often referred

to as the mother church.

But what we're going to see in just a moment is that as the middle ages were coming to

an end there would be groups of people wanting to get back to the Bible, wanting to break

away from this harlot that they saw.

And yet during this time the devil wanted to make sure that he continued to have them.

And so as they were wanting to change the church of Rome, Rome wouldn't have it.

And so that is why people begun to break away.

And why we can look online and see hundreds and hundreds of different denominations.

And that is the beginning, the foundation, the ignition of the Protestant Reformation.

Because people were rebelling against the idea that man's word could be placed above

God's word.

And when that Protestant Reformation, that Protestant, that protesting, that Reformation,

that change, they wanted to bring people back to the Bible.

And so they had to separate.

But sometimes that separation only went so far and we see that this woman gave birth

to other daughters, to other churches.

So we're going to take a moment here and we're going to trace some history.

We're going to go in two different directions.

We're going to trace history where the church stepped away from God.

And then we're going to thankfully reverse that and we're going to see how bit by bit

God brought people back to him.

We're going to start by going to 2 Thessalonians.

Second Thessalonians, we've looked at this a couple times.

Second Thessalonians chapter 2.

2 Thessalonians 2 · chapter mention

So kind of right in the heart of the New Testament.

Second Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse 3.

2 Thessalonians 2 · chapter mention

Notice what it says.

Let me see if I can get there.

Second Thessalonians chapter 2.

2 Thessalonians 2 · chapter mention

Let me get to the right one.

I'm at first Thessalonians.

1 Thessalonians 2 · chapter mention

Chapter 2 and verse 3.

It says, let no one deceive you by any means for that day, the day of Jesus coming again

in the context, that day will not come unless the falling away comes first and the man of

sin is revealed, the son of perdition.

Paul is saying that before Jesus comes, something's going to happen and God's people are going

to drift away, are going to fall away.

And it was even happening in Paul's life because many of the books of the New Testament are

letters that Paul wrote to churches.

And in many of those letters he's addressing different challenges, different things that

they were already beginning to lose sight of.

And he knew through prophecy, and prophecy proclaims that after the death of the disciples

and the apostles, that that would just accelerate.

So here's some examples.

From 100, in the 100s, 100 to 200 AD there was something called Arianism.

And that has to do with a teacher who was teaching that Jesus was not divine, that Jesus

was simply a man, he wasn't fully divine.

And then in 321, that's when Emperor Constantine passed that first Sunday law.

In 327 they began to bring images into the church even though the second commandment

says something different.

In 538, as we already mentioned today, church and state united and began to enforce, you

better do what we say.

In 590, a teaching about purgatory, some sort of in-between place between heaven and hell

was invented basically to raise funds.

And we go on, 850, they began to teach that Mary could be an intercessor.

Simply doing away with the true intercessor, Jesus our only mediator and our heavenly high

priest.

And then in 1198, well now you can go and confess to a priest, to a man, instead of

going to the one that we're supposed to confess to, Jesus, and have mercy.

In 1229, the Bible is banned.

You're not supposed to have a Bible anymore.

1311, well let's introduce some different types of baptism to replace that immersion.

And finally 1480, a horrific event that begun known as the Spanish Inquisition where true

believers in what the Bible said were persecuted and that intensified and that became more

and more.

What a depressing story.

You would think that when the Bible was banned that all hope would be lost at that point.

But the good news is that when it seems like all hope is lost, that's when God steps in.

Because as people were taken, the Bible was taken from them, it's at that time that God

began to ignite something that we refer to as the Protestant Reformation.

And so we're going to take some time now.

We've seen the church drifting away.

Let's reverse that course and let's see how God brings it back.

And so we're going to trace down through some centuries and there's many other names that

we could mention.

But what about John Wycliffe?

John Wycliffe was a priest.

He was a parish priest and he didn't appreciate that the people, his people couldn't have

access to the Bible.

They weren't allowed to have a Bible and even if they had one, it was in Latin.

Most people couldn't read Latin.

And so John Wycliffe began to translate the Bible into English.

And the fact that most of us here have an English Bible, we can say thank you to John

Wycliffe.

He wanted to get God's Word into the people's hands because he knew that if people could

read the Bible that faith comes by hearing.

And he began to do that at the risk of his own life.

And after John Wycliffe died, the Church of Rome realized what he had done, that he had

begun to get the Bible into the people's hands.

And so an incredible thing, they dug up his bones after he died.

They burned his bones and they threw the ashes into the river.

Just to say we spite you.

We don't like what you did.

But he started that as the morning star of the Reformation.

And then one of his followers, one of his disciples was someone named John Huss.

And John Huss said, you know what?

We need to live our life according to the Bible.

The Bible is the highest authority.

And we would say, well of course it is.

Now we would say that.

But in those days, no.

It was the authority of the Church and then the Bible.

And so he began to teach people, no, you need to live your life according to the Bible.

And because he did that, because he taught people that, in 1415 he was burned at the

stake simply for telling people to live their life by the Bible.

Simply for telling people that the Church doesn't change the Bible, but the Bible should

change the Church.

And then the 1500s, we come across someone named Martin Luther, perhaps the most famous

of the reformers.

And let's take just a minute here.

I know we're a little bit late here, but let's talk about one of his stories.

He was also a priest, a parish priest.

He also didn't appreciate that the people didn't have access to God's Word.

And he was one that felt no assurance in salvation.

He never felt like he was forgiven.

But one day he found a Bible chained to the wall of the convent.

And he was looking through it, and there was one verse that he read that changed his life

and changed the world.

And it comes from Romans chapter 1 and verse 17.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

And the verse says, the just shall live by faith.

That's a whole new concept.

The salvation is not by works, not by penance, it's not by going to a human leader, but eternal

life comes by faith.

Faith in Jesus as a personal Savior.

And for the first time, Luther realized that he as an individual could go to Jesus and

find forgiveness and that Jesus' perfect life would cover his sinful life.

And as he began to proclaim that, we can look back and be thankful because we can recognize

that even though I have made mistakes and you have made mistakes, that when we accept

Jesus as our Savior, his perfect life covers our life.

And that verse transformed his ministry as Luther began preaching about the cross.

Now there was someone else at that same time who had a totally different mindset.

And he believed in, in fact, his role, his job was to sell indulgences.

That if you pay enough money, you could buy your salvation or I could buy your salvation.

And his name was Tetzel.

And Tetzel went around trying to scare people into buying these indulgences.

And one day he came to Luther's town.

And how many indulgences do you think they sold?

They didn't sell any because Luther had been telling people, you don't need that.

You only need to go to the cross of Jesus.

You only need to confess your sins before him.

And because of that, Martin Luther did something.

He wrote down 95 theses.

Now this is not Reese's peanut butter cups, but theses, statements.

He wrote down 95 ways that the church was in error.

And he went and he nailed it to the door of the church in Wittenberg.

I apologize if I'm saying that wrong.

Why would he nail it to the church?

Well because that was the community bulletin board.

That was like putting it on the internet so it could go viral.

And as the printing press was just becoming more and more available, sure enough, it did

go viral.

And so believe it or not, on October 31, 1517, if my math is correct, that's 507 years ago.

This week is when that happened.

And many people look at this as the opening day, the first day of the Protestant Reformation

because this is when those teachings begin to really get more and more popular.

And eventually Luther was called before the leaders and they wanted him to recant.

They wanted him to turn his back on this.

And if he didn't, he was at risk with his life and this is what he said.

He said, unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason, I am

bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the word of God.

I cannot and I will not recant of anything since it is neither safe nor right to go against

my conscience.

May God help me.

I cannot and I will not recant.

And Martin Luther ended up dying a natural death.

He died of old age because God was with him.

And we could talk about more and more people and we could mention more and more reformers,

but we don't have time to do that.

So I'll just throw up here Roger Williams, a Baptist preacher who actually came to America.

And he reintroduced this idea of baptism by immersion from the Anabaptists and this idea

of religious liberty as he started the colony of Rhode Island which gave even more religious

liberty than other colonies.

And what about a local Georgia boy here, John Wesley?

Yes, he did come and he preached in Georgia.

And he was the founder along with his brother of the Methodist Church.

And he began to talk about being born again and about walking as a disciple and overcoming

sin and how we need to systematically study the Bible.

And his classes became a forerunner of what we would refer to as Sunday school or Sabbath

school.

And then William Miller, maybe less known, but in the 1800s, again another Baptist lay

preacher and he began to emphasize at this time people were studying the prophecies of

Daniel and Revelation.

But people thought that Jesus wasn't coming for a thousand years or more.

But he began to say, you know what?

I think that these prophecies are saying that Jesus is coming soon.

And Jesus didn't bring these truths back all at once.

The authority of scripture, righteousness by faith, baptism, all these different things

because it would be too much, too fast.

But unfortunately, century by century, something happened.

Those followers of those reformers got frozen in place.

And those that were following John Huss didn't necessarily want to follow Martin Luther.

And those who followed Martin Luther as the next person got more teachings, they became

Lutherans.

You know, we don't need what Roger Williams says and so forth.

And they began to corral themselves around a leader instead of around a new truth that

was discovered bit by bit.

And we need to make sure that we are not following a leader, but that we are following God.

And so as we come through our course in history, that leads us to Revelation 12 and verse 17,

which we looked at last night.

The dragon was angry, was wroth with the woman and went to make war with the remnant of her

seed which keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus.

And so after that 1260 year period, when the church was hiding in the wilderness, the next

verse says that at that time, this remnant would arise, this remnant would come up and

it says it would keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus.

And as you study through church history, that's what happened in the 1800s.

During the Middle Ages, people were forbidden to have the Bible.

But then suddenly the Bible is being translated into different languages.

The printing press is printing more and more Bibles.

Bible societies are printing Bibles and selling Bibles so that more and more people have access

to the scripture.

And so people of different backgrounds and different denominations begin to study.

Wow, we can read the Bible for ourselves.

And so Episcopalians and Catholics and Baptists and Methodists come together and begin to

study the Bible.

We have religious liberty.

We have the scripture.

Let's see what the Bible says instead of what tradition says.

And so a mighty movement came together as people began to rediscover these truths from

different churches, from different places.

And it was about this time that two of the truths that we've talked about here, the soon

return of Jesus and the seventh day Sabbath began to be rediscovered, began to be found

again, because that group would keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus.

And these Christians, as they studied the Bible, many of them went back to their churches

just like the Reformers and they wanted to bring this knowledge and change them.

But too often those folks were rejected, were disfellowshipped, were excommunicated, were

kicked out of their church.

And so they began to gather together, to band together.

And one of the groups that came from that is none other than the Seventh-day Adventist

Church that came just at that time that Bible prophecy was saying these truths would be

gathered back together.

And I think that that is a fulfillment of this as we see people standing for the Word

of God.

We see people standing to follow Jesus and not the traditions of men.

And we can see that as God has used people in many different churches, we can see that

yes even the Seventh-day Adventist Church fits in to this end time scenario.

And I want to end with a verse here, Revelation chapter 18.

Revelation 18 · chapter mention

We talked about this one last night as well.

But Revelation 18 reminds us that God has people everywhere and God calls us to come

out of religious confusion and to come and stand on the Word of God.

Revelation 18 in verse 1, it says, After these things I saw another angel coming down from

heaven having great authority and the earth was illuminated with his glory.

And he cried mightily with a loud voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen.

And then verse 3 picks up and says, For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath

of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her.

These false religious systems meant to confuse people, meant to uplift the traditions of

man and put down the truth of God like we saw in the church in the Middle Ages.

But there's an invitation.

Verse 4, I heard another voice from heaven saying, Come out of her, my people, lest you

share in her sins and lest you receive her plagues.

Jesus says, I have people everywhere.

I have people that are walking in different paths, but I invite them to come and to be

a part, to come out of Babylon, to come and to place yourself above these false teachings,

above these traditions, and to make sure that you are following the Word of God.

And that is God's invitation to each one of us.

So as we close our forecasting hope series, as we close our sermon today, you've got a

card.

And so we've been doing this each night.

This card's a little bit different.

If you've got questions, if you've got comments, if you want to take a next step, whatever

that next step is.

For Mariela, her next step is to be baptized.

Maybe that's the same for you.

I think there's something there that we can all check.

I believe the Bible is the inspired word of God and should be our guide.

So just prayerfully look through that and respond in the way that Jesus is leading you

today.

Dear God, what a story that even though people have walked down a path away from you, that

you did not abandon them.

And that bit by bit, year by year, century by century, you have led us back to you.

And Lord, be with each one of us here.

Help us to recommit ourselves to you, to take the next step with you, whatever that may

be.

And Lord, we just pray that your fount of every blessing will be poured out upon us.

In your name we pray, amen.