Revelation Class (June 28, 2026)

Prayer for the Revelation Class

You'll open this up with a word of prayer, brother? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day that you blessed us with. We thank you that you've given us not only the ability but the desire to be here, to hear your word.

We pray, Lord, that you would bless our time of study. Bless Mike's preparation time. And just pray that you'd help us to understand and to know you better. And we thank you and praise you for it. In Christ's name we pray, amen.

Revelation 18 and the Fall of Babylon

We finished 17, so hey, baby. Blame it on your girlfriend back there. Not going to read 17 because we finished it. But we'll read 18. 18 may move a little faster because it is basically recalling a lot of what has already been said.

So I'm trying to do it in two weeks. But let's read Revelation 18. And 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 out with a mighty voice saying, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great. She has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of unclean spirit and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird.

For all the nations have drunk from the wine of the passion of her immorality. And the kings of the earth have committed acts of immorality with her. And the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality.

And I heard another voice from heaven saying, Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive her plagues for her sins have piled up as high as the heavens. And God has remembered her iniquities and paid her back even as she has paid and give back to her double according to her deeds in the cup which she has mixed, mixed twice as much for her.

So the degree that she glorified herself and lived sensuously to the same degree give her torment and mourning. For she says in her heart, I sit as a queen and I am not a widow and will never see mourning for this reason.

And in one day her plagues will come, pestilence, mourning, and famine. And she will be burned up with fire for the Lord God who judges her is strong. And the kings of the earth who committed acts of immorality live sensuously with her will weep and lament over her.

And when they see the smoke of her burning, standing at a distance because of the fear of her torment, saying, Whoa, whoa, the great city, Babylon, the strong city, for in one hour your judgment has come.

And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her because no one buys their cargoes anymore and cargoes of gold and silver and precious stones and pearls and fine linen and purple and silk and scarlet and every kind of citron wood and every article of ivory and every article made from very costly wood and bronze and iron, marble, cinnamon, spice, incense, perfume, frankincense, wine, olive oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle, sheep, cargos, horses, chariots, slaves, and human lives.

The fruit you long for has gone from you. And all these that were luxurious and splendid have passed away from you and men will no longer find them. The merchants of these things who became rich from her will stand at a distance because of the fear of her torment, weeping and mourning and saying, Whoa, whoa, the great city, she who was clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, for in one hour such great wealth has been laid waste.

And every shipmaster and every passenger and sailor and many as make their living by the sea stood at a distance and were crying out as they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What a city is like the great city.

And they threw dust on their heads and were crying out, weeping and mourning, saying, Whoa, whoa, the great city, in which all who had ships at sea became rich by her wealth, for in one hour she has been laid waste.

Rejoice over her, O heavens, and you saints and apostles and prophets, because God has pronounced judgment for you against her. Then a strong angel took up a stone like a great millstone and he threw it into the sea, saying, So will Babylon, the great city, be thrown down with violence and will not be found any longer.

And the sound of the harpist and the musician and the flute players and the trumpeters will no longer be heard in you any longer, and no craftsman or any craft will be found in you any longer, and the sound of the mill will not be heard in you any longer, and the light of the lamp will not shine in you any longer, and the voice of the bridegroom, the bride, will not be heard in you any longer for your merchants or the great men of the earth, because all the nations were deceived by your sorcery, and in her was found the blood of the prophets and the saints and of all who have been slain in the earth.

Babylon as a Pattern of Apostasy and Judgment

Good morning. We're in Revelation 18. So last week we finished up 17, which talked about the coming doom of Babylon, and which I would say that you have, just as in the Old Testament, you have the little horn.

This means trajectory or pattern. So we have seen that actually led to what we would say would be what we saw of the beast, which sets a pattern over this is governmental and political structures, and this is an individual, but it also leads to what we have now seen, Babylon, which was a world empire.

When did Babylon... Let me ask this. Did Babylon... I've asked twice. Let's make sure we're still all on the same page. Did Babylon fall? Did the empire of Babylon fall? Yes. It did. You may know what date.

It's important. It's important. It's important. 539 B .C. That is a fulfillment of what God said. It's not a test, sorry. It's not a pop quiz. Put your Bibles under your desk. No, that's important because that is a fulfillment of action, but we're going to read this morning in Daniel, believe it or not.

There's a prophecy about the colossus, but as we have read, Babylon carries on, correct? Has to. Why? Because three times already in the book of Revelation, we have heard what? Babylon has fallen. Babylon has fallen.

Babylon has fallen. So along with Babylon, Babylon is associated with war or harlot. So, does Babylon carry on today? It does. In what way? Just as each one of these, it's not trick questions, it's because in prophetic literature, it sets patterns, structures, motif, whatever fancy word you want to use, which carry on.

Just like the little horn, when we saw the little horn in chapters 7 and 8 of Daniel, it set a pattern, right? It did set a pattern because the first one that comes up in chapter 7 is actually talking about the little horn that's going to show up in the Roman Empire.

But then in chapter 8, he backs up and says, well, you know what? It actually began in the Greek Empire with Antiochus Epiphanes. And then we also see the little horn that raises itself up, speaks pompous things against the people of God.

Where? In the book of Revelation between chapters 11 and 13. So, we see that pattern. Same thing with the beast. Where's the first time we saw the beasts come up? It would have been in the book of Daniel.

Daniel then sets... Remember, he gives the Colossus, which we'll read this morning in the main service. But then, that's in chapter 2. Then in chapter 7, he lists beasts. One was like a lion. One was like a ram.

One was like a bear. One was like... Actually, the ram and the bear were both representative of the Persian Empire because one was raised up all cattywampus, and the other one had a big crazy horn on one side, meaning the Medio-Persian.

And then you had the one that was a flying goat or a four-winged leopard, which was the Greek Empire. But then when you get to the last beast that he gives of the four beasts of the world empires that Daniel was talking about, it was this crazy hybrid with the...

Remember the teeth? The guy from 007, Jaws, had the iron teeth? Okay, that's it. But when we get to Revelation, we see the beast appear again, and he's ruthless, tramples down the people of God, and does all these things.

But then, it goes... That beast then also points to an individual, which would have been the false prophet. So the beast and the false prophet come together. The beast is going to eat Babylon. Who was the beast at the time the book was written?

Rome. Rome. Who would have been the cheerleader for Rome at the time? He ain't dead yet. He will. It would have been Nero. Remember, Nero is actually called the second beast. You have two beasts that come up.

But who's the cheerleader that points back to... that Rome should be worshipped? Who does that? The false prophet. Who was that before 68? It would have been Nero. He would have been the first one that would have said, hey, he wants some sort of allegiance to that.

Well, after the false prophet dies, the beast turns on Babylon. Babylon, whom I believe is apostate Jerusalem. And why would the whore, the harlot, be apostate Jerusalem? Because that's when it's been all the way through the Bible.

You can go all the way back to... whether you want to go back to once the kingdom split, the nation of Israel, Samaria became a harlot. Hey, anybody ever read Micah? I know a lot of people don't read Micah a lot.

But you really should. Micah speaks specifically about the coming destruction of Samaria and Jerusalem because of their harlotries. And what was the harlotries? They fornicated with the nations around them and became an apostate Jerusalem.

So, just as all these pointed to something, Babylon will carry on today, and there is coming an apostasy. And to be an apostate, what do you have to have once done? Confess allegiance to Christ or to God.

I'm hoping this is answering part of your question you asked me last week, okay? So, if Babylon continues to carry on at the end of the age, there will be a great apostasy. Everybody in here has read 2 Thessalonians, correct?

What does it say? With the man of sin will be revealed, and what follows that? The great apostasy. So, at the end of the age, just as God destroyed Babylon in its original context dealing with the destruction of Jerusalem, at the end of the age, there will be a great apostasy, and God will destroy the false church.

You say, well, isn't the church been faithful to Christ? Well, I would say the bride of Christ is faithful to Christ. But the institution of the church? Do you think the institution of the church has been faithful?

Come on. How many do we see rainbow dolls on TV now? Or, I sent Keith a picture. I was doing some work in the old city in St. Augustine two weeks ago, and I had to pull into a parking lot to pay for my man for the week to pay because he had to park down there.

They had kids out there dressed up in rainbow shirts with rainbow signs saying, come worship with us at a, well, I don't care, Grace United Methodist, right in the square down there at the old city. I was like, man, a lightning bolt should come right now.

And what they were doing with the children, getting them to promote that. So, institution of the church is going by the way of apostasy. The bride of Christ is staying faithful. And why do they stay faithful?

Not because we're white knucklers, but because we have the, we're in His hand, correct, and the persevering power of the Holy Spirit. And we'll see, we read it a minute ago, just as He tells the people of God before the destruction of Jerusalem come out from among them, what are we to do if the church starts to become an apostasy, turns to apostasy, what are we to do?

I'm hoping this never happens here, okay? But if this church begins to go by the way of liberalism and apostasy, what should you do as followers of Christ? One, bar me at the stake in the back. Okay? Stone me.

Okay? Permission to do that. But you should leave the church. You should leave. You're not gonna make reform. Denominations have constantly gone the way of liberalism. And when they begin to go that way, you do try to stand for truth.

But once they make that turn, and then they put people in leadership that are no longer faithful, you know what you gotta do? You know why you gotta do that? Because what does it tell you to do? Submit to the leaders that God has put over you.

And if you can't submit to the leaders that God has put over you, you have to depart and find somewhere where you can. So, I hope that answers part of your question. Go ahead. That was perfect.

That was good. Okay. Because even in Jerusalem at that time, like you were saying, there would have been believing people, believing believers who would have left and gone.

Yeah, and because they listened to what Christ said. When you see the surrounding cities, our armies run to the hills. Okay? And even in the Old Testament, and maybe we'll get to it today, in Jeremiah, this is heavy on Jeremiah.

I mean, super duper, super duper heavy on Jeremiah, this section. Because Jeremiah prophesied the coming destruction of Jerusalem and Babylon, remember? It was both. He gives them, dude, he's an equal opportunity offender.

He's gonna offend the nationals, but then he's going to offend the people that love Babylon. Look, you know, at the end of the book of Jeremiah, I think it's in chapter 51, at the very end, he said, yeah, because it's right before we go to the summary of the book, of Jeremiah's book, he says, I want you to take a scroll, I want you to tie it up, put it to a rock, and I want you to throw it into the Euphrates.

He says, what you're doing is representative of what's going to happen to Babylon. It's going to be destroyed. It'll be a world empire, and everything is gonna go, just like a rock goes to the bottom of the Euphrates, so will it be with Babylon.

And it actually says that here almost a quotation of that at the end of chapter 18 here. So he was an equal opportunity offender, so if you want to get more information and understanding on Jeremiah and the quotations and allusions here, read chapter 50 and 51 of Jeremiah.

So, that being said, I shall proceed on to walk through 18. It says, now after these things, I saw another angel coming down from heaven. After what things? After what we just went through in chapter 17, and he has seen the fall of Babylon, which I believe is Jerusalem.

And anytime we see the great city, what was spoken of earlier in the book, what was the great city in chapter 11 through 13? It was spiritually called Sodom, Egypt, and then it gives you, so there's no misunderstanding of what it is, the place where our Lord was crucified.

That was the great city. So if he's calling the great city Sodom and Egypt, and now he's calling the great city Babylon, who's the city we're talking about? Jerusalem. Jerusalem. And he says, and I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory.

Now we have in the book, in the past, back in chapter 10, saw a majestic angel coming down, great authority, many men, scholarly men, believed in chapter 10 that was the pre-incarnate picture of Christ.

I did not. Because one, Jesus, and after his coming in his incarnation, never is Jesus called the angel of the Lord again. You know that? Ever. Such a far, wide, high, and low. Never is he called angel of the Lord.

Now, we can say that this angel back in chapter 10 was very majestic. He came with a great message. Remember, he was a little book. It was the little scroll. In this case, this one, you would go, man, but he does seem to have some type of Christ-like qualities.

He is descending, he's got great authority, and his whole glory illuminated the earth. Now, let's admit, what does it say at the end of the book of Revelation? It says that, who's the light of the earth?

It's the lamb. Because we don't need the sun anymore. But that's not where we're at today. We're in chapter 18, talking about the destruction of Babylon. So I don't believe this is in any way, shape, or form talking about a picture of Christ or this angel.

Because Christ is never called an angel. And it says there's great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory. I would say this, this angel is probably very close to the throne, though. The closer you get to the throne, you see seraphim, and you get from being just your regular, I shouldn't say run-of-the-mill angel, but your regular run-of-the-mill angel, you get the ones that are seraphim and cherubim.

And it says here that illuminated, his glory just lit up the earth. Verse 2, And he cried out with a mighty voice, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great. Hey, he is speaking this as if it has already happened.

And it has already, that's why this can't be chronological, because back in chapter 16, he did the same thing. Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great. He is speaking of something in the future as if it's already done.

Even though in prophetic literature, you could be speaking, it's called proleptically, or in the prophetic perfect, speaking as if it is an already completed action. And it says here that Babylon has fallen, the great city.

It says, She has become a dwelling place of demons, and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird. Now, when we, it's basically speaking of the removal of all that was benevolent and good about God.

If you remember back in chapter 12 of Matthew, a lot happens in that chapter. You've got Jesus casting out demons, and then they came up to him and said, Hey, he's casting them out by the power of who?

Beelzebub. Beelzebub, yeah. And he says, well, hold on a second. And then Jesus goes into a discourse with them. Look, if I was casting them out from Beelzebub, then that means that the kingdom divided cannot stand.

He rebukes them. And then he goes on to talk about how if a man wants to break into a house, he must first bind the strong man. And once that strong man's gone, you can then plunder his goods. And Jesus is talking about binding Satan, binding Beelzebub, and then he can plunder his goods.

This was just a precursor of what Christ would do when he was on the cross, because once Christ died, death, burial, resurrection, exaltation, and enthronement, all those have to be connected together.

Satan is then bound that he can no longer go out and deceive the nations. He was wholesale deceiving nations as a whole. He can no longer do that. But Jesus has given them just a little bit of glimpse in those three and a half years of his messing in at work, him going out, casting out demons.

And then he goes on in that passage. He's rebuking them now. Those guys that call him, he gives them the blessing of the Holy Spirit, all of that. And then he goes on, and he says, they ask him for a sign.

Well, come on, Jesus, give me a sign. Jesus says, a wicked and perverse generation wants a sign. I've given you signs. The very fact I'm casting out demons should be enough for you. But he says, you know what?

I'm not going to give you no more sign, but I will give you one more. You see, just as John was three days and three nights in the belly of the ocean, in the belly of the fish, so the Son of Man will be.

And then he tells them about, hey, and not only will it be that, but you know, the Queen of Sheba came to Solomon and wanted to hear all these. And this is a continued, the whole discourse of that is Jesus just blasting the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

And he says, you know, that she came to hear the preaching and the wisdom of Solomon. And Jesus says, I want you to know that one greater than Solomon is before you. And they wanted, still wanted a sign.

And he said, you know what? A wicked and perverse generation wants a sign. He said, let me tell you this. He said, there was a man. He was possessed by a demon. He comes on. He's cast out. He was gone.

The place was sweet, swept clean, ready. But nothing was put in its place. And then that demon says, oh, you know what? I'm going to go back where I used to live. He says, but he brings seven more worse than, he brings seven more with him.

And Jesus says the latter condition of that man was worse than the first. Why? Because now he wasn't one demon in the man. He comes back with seven. But does everybody know what it says at the last of that little section?

It's not just talking about a man. He says, so it will be with this generation. This generation. He wasn't, he was making an analogy of when a person's cast out a demon, if he doesn't put something holy in its place, Jesus means, speaking of himself, look, I cast out demons for three and a half years.

If you don't remove that which was evil, I am that which is holy. If you don't put me in its place, you're going to be in worse condition than you were when I came. That's going to, and he says, that's going to be this generation.

Jesus was wholesale nationally by the religious leaders condemned, did not want them, and were they not in worse condition than when he came before he, of course they were. I mean, Caiaphas, Herod, I mean, what happened to Herod?

He bought more arms, wasn't he? What about Caiaphas? What about Annas? What about their sons, Jonathan? Dude, they were the first to be killed when the insurrection day came in. They were the first ones to be slayed, but why?

Because Jesus told them, look, if you don't accept me now, it's over. It'll be in worse condition. Okay. So here it is, the same thing John is saying. This is going to be a place of demons and a prison of unclean spirits, a prison of every unclean and hateful bird.

Well, why are we unclean and hateful bird? Well, birds were obviously a thing to be eaten, and there were certain birds you did not eat. One, you don't eat a vulture. I don't know about y 'all, but that's pretty nasty.

It's funny. I probably shouldn't say it, but I'm saying it anyway. I was being transported from one place to another one time when we were going down the highway, and there was a buzzard eating this dog on the side of the road, and the guy that we were going with says, I got to call my people when I get home, and let them know them turkeys was eating that dog.

He thought it was turkeys. Like, dude, those are vultures. You eat turkeys. You don't eat vultures. So you have unclean birds. There were certain birds you could eat, right? Anything that struck. Remember when there was mosaic legislation?

What kind of fish could you eat? What's that? Ants. Ants. Strikers, too. They had to be striking fish. That's right. Same thing with birds. You didn't need anything carrying stuff. They couldn't eat vultures.

They couldn't eat stuff that fed on death. That's why the whole mosaic legislation, whether it deal with sowing two fabrics together or sowing two seeds in the same field, it had to do with purity, and you couldn't eat shellfish because what did shellfish do?

They ate off the dung off the bottom of the ocean or the lake basin. So in this case here, it's going to be a place of unclean things, unclean birds, hateful birds. And basically, he's leaving it desolate, leaving it to its own demise.

And then it says in verse 3, For all the nations have drunk of the wine that the passion of her immorality and the kings of the earth have committed acts of immorality with her. So here it is. Some of the question, and if you're reading it, you go, well, wait a minute.

How did the nations around them help her commit fornication or commit fornication with her? They promoted Jerusalem to engage in idolatry. Look, I'm not talking about that. I'm not saying there wasn't sexual immorality in the city.

I'm not saying that. We know there was. There was homosexuality on the temple complex, and that happened all the way even back to the time of Josiah because you remember Josiah went in and he killed all the homosexual prostitutes at the temple shrines.

Okay? So we know that's not what this is specifically talking about. Remember, idolatry is a picture of what? Idolatry. Idolatry. And if you were an adulterer, what were you? You were a harlot, and that's what it's saying, that they helped her commit these acts of immorality, and how did they do that?

By one, hey, we know you could get wealthy. You could get wealthy. You just make trade agreements with us. You could become very wealthy, and was the nation as a whole prosperous? That's subjective. Was the city of Jerusalem prosperous from man's perspective?

Very. Read Josephus. You can either read Antiquities or you can even read Towards the Jewish Wars when he talks about how the people around him were sad when Jerusalem fell. What does that sound like?

It sounds like what we read, that we're going to see that with this shit, so those people were sad when Jerusalem fell. Why? Because their cash pot was gone. Yeah, I mean, they were buying and selling, and Josephus talks about all the wares and jewels and all the things that were available within the city.

Well, when the city falls, and that was your cash cow. They were like Wall Street over there. Yeah, it was like, and then, you know, the Mount of Olives and the Court of the Gentiles was basically the Walmart version of sheep, cattle, and birds.

I mean, that's basically what they did. They were using that, or they were extorting their people. So when it falls, it's going to be hurtful to those who had made money, but they caused them to commit acts of immorality by doing those things with her, and I just want to make an application because just as, at the end of the age, there's going to be an apostasy, which makes the, the, I don't like the visible church and invisible church because that's not the, that is the language of Augustine.

He's a smart man. I just don't, I don't care for that. If you use that language, that's fine because that's not the biblical language. The biblical language is global church and local church. When you're speaking about people that fall away from the faith, you're talking about the faithful and the apostate.

So if the apostate church, at the end of the age, we're seeing pictures of it now. When I say this, you'll see. The government says, well, you can take our funds. The beast offers money to churches, whether it be for BPK, whether it be for childcare.

After that, hey, we'll give you money to start a little school, but here's some things you can and can't teach, and then they capitulate on saying, okay, well, we won't teach. You can teach Jesus, but you can't preach and teach the kids the exclusivity of Jesus.

And you've got to bring in Mohammed. You've got to bring in Gandhi and all of that. Okay? I mean, this is happening, and the churches are gathering that money. Why? Because the churches, not all of them, so I don't want to make a huge brushstroke.

Because they're trying to make money. They're trying to make money. Is the church to be a place of profit? No. I think if Jesus was here today, he would go through many churches, and he would fashion himself up whips, and he would...

And he may even lay waste to some leaders in the churches. What would Paul say? He might send Titus with a rod, like he did with... Remember what he told the Corinthians? Hey, man, you don't cut the foolishness out.

I sent Timothy to you, and he was a little timid. Y 'all roughed him up. But, buddy, when I send Titus... I'm not talking about Titus from The Vespasian Son. I'm talking about Titus, his right-hand man.

Man, just think about the name Titus. Barrel-chest, square-jaw Roman, walking in there. Yeah, he's coming to get rid of the riffraff. So that's how I would see at the end of the age.

Modern Church Compromise and COVID-Era Money

Yeah, a good example of that, too, is like during COVID with all the churches that took out SBA loans.

For their staff. No, people have forgot about COVID.

And then, like, the government was literally telling them, here's your money, shut down. Like, it was, here's your money to pay your people, and then just shut down, don't have services.

Or you had guys that claimed to be pastors like the jack-off over there at Celebration Church. I mean, he's on the news. Stove all the wings. $900 ,000 he took of PPE money or whatever. Yeah, okay, look at that.

Why did he take the money? Because one, he's a false teacher. I've said that from the day he was over there. Okay, we went there for a little while, and I'm like, this is a little weird. I mean, this is a little weird.

You know, it's all about him. Well, it only got worse. It eventually brought to full fruition, what was it about over there? Money, money, money. But yeah, it's funny you say it, because me and another guy were talking the other day, and people have completely forgot about all the COVID masks.

It's like, boop, yeah, you know. And it says here in that next section, and the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality. Yeah, they became rich. They became rich because Jerusalem became a place not to come and worship God, although the temple was there.

People made pilgrimages there. The men were required to come three times a year, and they made their way there. But not only did the leaders of the Jewish people extort God's people, but you then had the people that would come in and sell goods and services there.

I mean, that was already happening at the time of Nehemiah. Nehemiah, he already said, he made his reforms. Nehemiah would have been probably 444 B .C. to 430-ish. 450, yeah, 430-ish, because Malachi was probably written around 430 B .C.

So he made major changes, and he said, look, this is what we're going to do. We're not going to buy or sell on the Sabbath. But if you remember in the book of Nehemiah, he has to go back. He's the cupbearer for Artaxerxes.

So he goes back. He does whatever he's got to do for him, does his service. But then when he comes back to Jerusalem, remember what was happening? They were opening up the gates on the Sabbath, and they were buying and selling inside Jerusalem.

And he says, wait a minute. Do y 'all not know that our forefathers were hauled off into captivity, enslaved, and put to death because you broke the Sabbath, and now you're doing the same thing because you want more money and more commerce?

He says, he goes, that's funny, because he says, he goes out there, and he closed the door, and he tells all those people that were outside the gate, he says, I want you to know this. You don't come here on the Sabbath.

And if you come here on the Sabbath and you're sitting outside our gate, he says, I'm going to put my hands on you. He says, get away from here. Our forefathers were punished because of what you're doing.

So they were made wealthy, the merchants of the earth, the merchants of the land. Remember, too, Jerusalem got tons of cash from who? Rome. Tons of cash from Rome. Tons. Remember when we talked about how the woman rides the beast?

The woman was riding the beast. Who extended the temple complex to 35 acres? Who raised it up, not R-A-Z-D, that means, but raised it up so that it then sat higher up on a hill and then gold-plated everything, marble, and did all the impunishments?

Herod. Herod. Where'd he get the money? Rome. Rome. Who put Herod in place? Rome. That's right, Rome. So they constantly got money. That's why you had those sects that were sects that we often forget about.

We often just think about the Sadducees and Pharisees, right? You know, there was another group, Herodians, that were constantly. And the Herodians were more, they wanted to be Jewish, but they couldn't be because they were descendants of Edomites.

So what did they do? They wanted to ride the fence of, well, we're going to be Jewish because we are the descendants of Abraham. But what we want to do is also be Rome lovers. And that's how they tried to ride the fence.

Come Out of Her, My People

Verse 4. It says, And I heard another voice from heaven saying, Come out. Here, this is it. Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive her plagues, for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.

Okay. Go back to Jeremiah. You can go back and if you want to look, it's Jeremiah 50 and 51. I believe it's in Jeremiah. If somebody wants to look it up and fact check, I think it's in Jeremiah 51, verses 6, 9, and then I think it's 53 or 63.

One says, Remove yourself from Babylon. Destruction's coming. Remove yourself from her iniquities. It's coming. And then it actually says at the end of Jeremiah 51, Come out from among her, my people.

Please come out, for destruction is coming. He's talking about Babylon. Ancient Babylon. Same thing. He's saying here, Babylon's destruction's coming. Jerusalem's destruction's coming. And what's he telling his people?

If you're in the city, when that destruction's coming, I want you to come out. Don't be part of her punishment. There's no reason. You're not the object of her punishment. So if you want to remove yourself, I'm giving you clear indications when that's going to take place.

And Jesus said, when you see the surrounding armies, come out from among her. Do not participate in her sins and receive her plagues. Plagues were always related to covenant curse. I know we could go all the way back to the earlier part of the book with the plagues that they got.

What were the plagues that were promised in Leviticus 26? If you obey my words, I will make you prosperous. You won't need to make alliances with the nations around you. You won't need to worry about any figs not being on your tree, no fruit on the vine.

You won't have to worry about any cattle being in the stall. You won't have to worry about any grain in the field. But if you don't do what I tell you to do, what did he say? I'm going to make your ground as brazen bronze.

Which means what? You can't plant anything. I'm going to dry up all your springs. I'm going to then send armies into you and they will enslave you. And then if you don't turn, you know what I'm going to do?

I'm going to see to it that your women eat their children and that the men are made laid waste like women and stomped like mud in the streets. That's Leviticus 26. Those are the plagues that he would put on them.