The Future of Sin

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Don Filcek; Revelation 18 The Future of Sin

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You're listening to the podcast of the Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week,
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Pastor Don Filsak preaches through his series, Thy Kingdom Come, taking us through the book of Revelation.
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Let's listen in. Welcome to Recast Church.
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I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here. And I'm glad that you've taken time out of your busy week to join us here at Recast Church.
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I recognize that you've got all kinds of stuff that you could be doing this morning on this wonderful, beautiful summer day.
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And so, obviously, you value gathering together as God's people. That's a beautiful thing. I hope that we are all rewarded this morning by growing in our faith as a result of gathering together as God's community.
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And really, ultimately, I hope it's part and parcel of your purpose in being here to hear from God in his word, as we're going to open that up and dig in and see what he has for us.
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But before we jump into God's word, a couple of brief and important announcements this morning. First, I just want everybody to be aware that we have brought on a new staff member.
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He started this last Monday, Nathan Douglas. Nathan, if you want to just kind of stand up and wave to everybody, it's Nathan. Nathan is our new youth director.
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He's going to be directing Gravity, which is our high school ministry, and then Recast 180, which is our middle school ministry.
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And he's going to be working for us 20 hours a week. And also, equally, he is partnering with Young Life.
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So they do this thing called a church ministry partnership, where he'll be working 20 hours in Matawan High School with the youth there, and then 20 hours with us.
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He's going to be raising support for that half where he's working in the schools. Nathan has already been working, is it three years now?
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Two years in the high school already. And so he's got a lot of relationships here in this community. You can be praying for him for the
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Young Life portion. He's raising that as financial support. And so be praying for him. And then also, just very simple, his email address is
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Nathan... Yeah, I'm sharing this in front of everybody, dude. Nathan at recastchurch .com.
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So go ahead and send him an email or whatever and welcome him, or just greet him this morning while you see him, during connection time or whatever.
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And I'm very grateful for the way that God has led us right at the beginning here of the next school year, just in time to get him with his feet on the ground and helping us out.
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So, grateful for that. Second, I wanted to update you all on the building progress. You'll notice that there's an architectural rendering of the building that's out there.
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We just threw that up on the easel. They gave that to us as part of the whole process. We closed on the front street property this past week.
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And a big thanks to Steve Isham for just kind of spearheading and being the one to go and take care of that for us.
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So, just glad for these elders who help us out with this kind of stuff. And he was there to represent us at that closing and take care of that.
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And so that property is officially ours. We are now officially the owners of approximately 24 acres in Matawan, which we don't want 24 acres.
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So, be in prayer for the process of now the sale. We wanted to make sure we had that property in hand and ours.
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You know, we didn't want to be without any property. So, we wanted to make sure we had that first. Now, we're going to be in the process of selling that McGillen property that we owned or own currently.
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So, be in prayer for that. And then, also, we have the blueprints completed. They're awaiting an architectural stamp.
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We've got the construction advisory team is meeting this next week to go over some finalizing plans on that.
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And all of that, the purpose of those blueprints is to get a more refined estimate so that then, hopefully, by sometime in September, we'll be bringing to the congregation a vote for a loan to begin construction.
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And so, we are, again, just amazed by the way that God has continued to provide for us. The elders have all along been kind of targeting and shooting to have about 50 % down.
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We are approaching that. But, again, just very grateful for the way that the Lord has provided for us in that way.
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So, continue to pray for all of that process, too. It's been a really cool thing to see over the last seven years, how he's been guiding and directing us.
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And how many of you are grateful that the schools let us use this area upstairs now?
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Now, how many of you are excited about the possibility of getting our own? And Eric's hand, who sets up the sound equipment most mornings, he was really the first one to raise his hand because there's a lot of cords that get run and all of that stuff.
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So, absolutely, I'm looking forward to that time when we can have our own facility. Let's switch gears now and get our minds kind of focused on the
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Word of God before we come to worship in regards to music and singing songs.
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Revelation 18 is where we're going to be this morning. And it's one of the longest chapters in the book of Revelation. And if scholars are right, then this entire, the majority of this entire chapter is a song.
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It would have, at some point, been set to music. It's got rhythm. It's got the qualities in Greek of song.
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And so what we're really looking at here in our text this morning is a funeral dirge over Babylon.
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Now, how many of you have ever heard of a funeral dirge before? Probably not very many of us, but how many of you know what a funeral dirge is?
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Okay, it's kind of like a song of lament, a deep, kind of dark, brooding song about death and the loss of somebody.
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It's a mournful song. And if all of those scholars are accurate, and this is indeed mostly a song, then this chapter is the longest song in the entire book of Revelation.
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And it is singing about the final death of humanistic unity, humanistic sin against the
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Almighty. It's celebrating, in one sense, the death of sin. And this funeral for the sinful world system is met by a variety of responses.
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We'll see them in the text as we read this and go through it. And the real focus of our time this morning will be to determine our individual honest response to the demise of this sin -curse system that we live in and we breathe in and we move in and we work in and we raise families in and we struggle and strive in.
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What will be our response when this finally goes away? Will we mourn the destruction of the sin that we have enjoyed?
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Or will we celebrate and rejoice that this old system is passing away and the kingdom of his son is breaking in?
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What will our response be? So let's, if you're not already there, Revelation 18, navigate over there, flip over there in your
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Bible. If you don't have a Bible on your lap, we want everybody to have a copy of the word of God and Eric's got some in his hand.
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Just do me a favor and raise your hand. If you don't have a Bible, we want you to be able to see. This is one of the longest chapters in the book of Revelation.
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I am going to read it in its entirety. It's beneficial for you to be able to follow along and see that in there.
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Excellent, so yeah, a few up there too. Eric, I don't know if you see him. There you go. But Revelation 18 and recast.
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I love to remind you of this each week, that this is God's word. This is a powerful and amazing thing that we have the privilege of listening to and reading together.
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That's one of the reasons I read it to us every morning. I don't just explain it, but I want to read it because this is God's word to us this morning.
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This is what he wants you and I to hear, the Almighty. So Revelation 18. After this,
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I, remember that the I is John being inspired by the Holy Spirit. After this, I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was made bright with his glory, and he called out with a mighty voice.
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Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great. She has become a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast.
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For all nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living.
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Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues, for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.
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Pay her back as she herself has paid back others, and repay her double for her deeds.
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Mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed. As she glorified herself and lived in luxury, so give her a like measure of torment and mourning, since in her heart she says,
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I sit as a queen. I am no widow, and mourning I shall never see.
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For this reason, her plagues will come in a single day, death and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire, for mighty is the
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Lord God who has judged her. And the kings of the earth who committed sexual immorality and lived in luxury with her will weep and wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning.
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They will stand far off in fear of her torment and say, alas, alas, you great city, you mighty city
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Babylon, for in a single hour your judgment has come. And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her since no one buys their cargo anymore, their cargo of gold, silver, jewels, pearls, fine linen, purple cloth, silk, scarlet cloth, all kinds of scented wood, all kinds of articles of ivory, all kinds of articles of costly wood, bronze, iron and marble, cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots and slaves, that is human souls, the fruit for which your soul longed has gone from you and all your delicacies and your splendors are lost to you, never to be found again.
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The merchants of these wares who gained wealth from her will stand far off in fear of her torment, weeping and mourning aloud, alas, alas, for the great city that was clothed in fine linen, in purple and scarlet adorned with gold, with jewels and with pearls, for in a single hour all this wealth has been laid waste.
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And all shipmasters and seafaring men, sailors and all whose trade is on the sea stood far off and cried as they saw the smoke of her burning.
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What city was like the great city? And they threw dust on their heads and they wept and mourned, crying out, alas, alas, for the great city, where all who had ships at sea grew rich by her wealth, for in a single hour she has been laid waste.
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Rejoice over her, oh heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, for God has given judgment for you against her.
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Then a mighty angel took up a stone, like a great millstone, and threw it into the sea, saying, so will
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Babylon, the great city, be thrown down with violence and will be no more. And the sound of harpists and musicians, of flute players and trumpeters will be heard in you no more, and a craftsman of any craft will be found in you no more, and the sound of the mill will be heard in you no more, and the light of the lamp will shine in you no more, and the voice of the bridegroom and bride will be heard in you no more, and your merchants, for your merchants were the great ones of the earth, and all nations were deceived by your sorcery, and in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who had been slain on the earth.
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Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship. Father, it seems like a strange introduction to worship, to read this funeral dirge, this lament over the death of sin, and Father, just even, just to think in terms of rejoicing over the demise of one here in the text, even though it's a figure of speech, and we look at it, and we could easily be confused in our minds and in our hearts, and Father, that is in part because our lives have been entrenched, have been entangled with sin since our birth.
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Father, we confess that we are not what we were made to be. This morning we have sinned, we sinned yesterday, and tomorrow we will sin.
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Father, it is only your grace, it is only your mercy that gives us hope that we will not be judged like Babylon, that we are not a citizen of that kingdom anymore, we are not a citizen of that city, but a citizen of the new
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Jerusalem, a citizen of your eternal kingdom with a king named Jesus. And so Father, I pray that in this contrast between Babylon and the city that is coming of his established kingdom,
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Father, that we would rejoice and be grateful and moved in our hearts because we are a part of that kingdom.
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May we rejoice and sing only in as much as we understand how much we have been saved from.
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Your just wrath poured out on the planet because of our sinfulness rising up before you.
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We are those whose wrath was poured out on the sun. So may we rejoice that we need no longer face your condemnation.
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There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. May that put a swing in our step and an enthusiasm in our voice as we lift up praise to you this morning in Jesus name, amen.
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Get comfortable at any time during the message, I say that all the time, just get more coffee, juice, donuts, you can get up and stretch out in the back, but most importantly, keep your
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Bibles open to Revelation 18 as we walk through this good sized chunk of text with a little bit of a otherworldly feel to it.
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All throughout the book of Revelation, you've been, as you read it, as you dig in or you just study it, or even if you just read through it in your
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Bible reading, so you're reading a chapter at a time or whatever, a lot of times it feels like it doesn't quite touch our world in the way that some of the gospels do or the epistles do where you can just read it and go, oh,
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I know what God wants of me right here, right now. A lot of times the book of Revelation doesn't quite fit our mindset or the way that we lived this past week.
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And so it takes a little bit of digging in. And as I mentioned in my introduction, this text is primarily one long funeral dirge.
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If we set it to music, it would be in a minor key for those of you that are musical. And the song really falls out into three separate movements that we're gonna see this morning.
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The first is in verses one through eight. For those of you that are note takers, you can put these as your headings.
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Verses one through eight are Babylon indicted. Verses nine through 20 are
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Babylon lamented. And lastly, verses 21 through 24 are a re -emphasis of Babylon destroyed.
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And so that's the movement. And I already identified two weeks ago, obviously I was on vacation last week, but we went through chapter 17 two weeks ago.
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And we identified that Babylon is a representation of this present world system in opposition to God.
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Not just the world system, not just politics, not just the way that we do things, not, I mean, how many of you have some systems in place for budgeting in your household?
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Or you have some systems in place for the way that you do things around the house or discipline or for the kids or whatever?
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So you have some systems. This isn't an anti -system message. Babylon isn't evil because it's a system.
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It's evil because it is a system of human unity against the
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Almighty. It is in direct opposition to him. Remember that Babylon got its roots clear back in Genesis chapter 11, rather, in that whole
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Tower of Babel incident where humanity rejected God's command to disperse across the face of the planet and instead united in order to go past his command to forsake his command, and they sought to make a name for themselves.
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And that same spirit has been passed down from generation to generation to the nation, from Babylon to Rome to our current era.
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And in the future, according to the book of Revelation, according to verses chapter 17 and 18, there is a future time, a future manifestation of this
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Babylon of powerful human unity against the creator God. And it's ultimately gonna be crushed once and for all, and we're seeing that here in this funeral dirge.
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God has been ever so patient. It's very important for us to remember when we come to these passages of final judgment, when we come to what we see as just kind of almost a delight and a rejoicing in this, is that what we're looking at is a rejoicing ultimately in justice.
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God has been so patient with us. God has been patient.
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Raise your hand if you acknowledge that God has been patient with you. God has been patient with the human race.
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He has given us breath in our lungs. We don't deserve to be alive today. According to the pages of scripture, what we deserve is eternal condemnation today because of our rebellion against our creator.
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And yet he has been grace, he has piled blessings on us and grace upon grace, not even withholding his own son for us.
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Has he been patient? Crazy patient. Crazy gracious.
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And it's important that we set these passages of judgment in that context where we recognize the scope of human history has been one great big demonstration of God's patience and love toward us.
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But a day is coming when he will act on his plan to remove this sin -cursed human system and replace it with the kingdom of his glorious son.
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I look forward to that day. Are you looking forward to that day? That day when this sin -cursed existence will be no more and it will be a glorious kingdom with no sin, no pain, no suffering, but delight and rejoicing in our savior forever and ever.
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Beautiful thing. And so John is given a vision of another mighty angel in verse one who comes down from heaven.
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He's an angel of great authority. He illuminates the world with his glory. And again, these angels throughout
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Revelation probably ought to and are there intentionally to create and add a little bit of level of mystery to us and pique our curiosity at the reality.
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At least at the bare minimum, we should walk away from the book of Revelation recognizing there's a lot more going on behind the scenes than you and I often acknowledge.
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We have a very Western scientific approach to life, to the world around us. Have you ever identified that in yourself?
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It's kind of an American way. And at the same time, there's a lot going on.
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Have you seen that in the book of Revelation? There's angels doing things all over the place. There are messengers coming to earth from heaven and doing all kinds of things.
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But this angel specifically comes down to make a declaration, to basically trumpet or to herald news.
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And this is the news that he comes to bring. Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great.
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Fallen is Babylon the great. I think we could take some liberty and put the great in quotes.
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Like I put it in air quotes there. I always find it ironic that when people first united against God at Babel to build a great city and to build a great tower and to make a name for themselves against the
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Almighty, Genesis 11 five says this. The Lord came down to look at their city.
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They said, we'll build something amazing and God will take it in and he will be so impressed with us.
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We'll make a name for ourselves and God will know who he's up against when he comes up against us.
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And God comes down to look at the best that mankind can create.
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It's intentional. The language is intentional there. He comes down to look at their cute little tower that they've built.
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It's like, oh, they're so proud of it. Look at them down there in the sandbox making towers. And any of you with kids ever had your child make something and just desperately wanna show it to you?
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Just be like, oh, here, look at this. And it's cute and it's like whatever. But I mean, that's kind of the thing.
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I mean, God comes down to look at humanity's best attempts to oppose him.
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To come down to look at it. From the perspective of earth, however, to say Babylon the Great is a pretty big deal for you and I.
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Now, to God, it's nothing. But to you and I, where we live, how many of you know that there are forces arrayed against you that feel overwhelming?
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You ever feel like you're drowning in this culture? Anybody? As a Christian, do you ever feel like you're swimming upstream and you're not making any headway because the current against you is so great?
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Babylon the Great. From our perspective, it is great. It is an overwhelming flood from day to day, right?
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Sometimes it feels very, very much like we're alone in this battle against sin that we struggle with that entangles us, that entrenches us.
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So from the perspective of those within this humanistic system, that is you and I, this system is a system that elevates mankind.
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It elevates our comfort. It elevates our power. It elevates our unity, right?
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Is that a big deal in our culture if we could just all come together? If everybody in the world could just come together and get rid of our religious divisions, get rid of every division that there is, and if we could just come together, what is the world saying?
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Well, that's how we get to whatever it is that we're trying to achieve. Whatever they say out there in the nebulous they, whatever they want for humanity, it has a whole lot to do with us uniting together and just being the best that we can be.
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What does that even mean? I don't even stop to think about it. We just could easily buy into that system that, man, if we could just all get along, we would usher in a kingdom.
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No, if we just got along, we would just completely try to forsake our creator, and it would turn into Lord of the
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Flies. Anybody know what I mean when I say Lord of the Flies? It gets ugly really quick when we're left to our own devices when we unite, we destroy things.
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Our system, our world system seems powerful, and if we're not careful, even as Christians, we may be tempted to think of the power of this world system as insurmountable.
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We live in a sexualized culture, don't we? We live in a materialistic culture, right?
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We live in a live for the moment kind of culture, independent, self -reliant,
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American dream kind of culture, right? Is that where you live? That's where I live, and I'm a pastor.
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I don't go to your workplace. I'm sure it's even more pronounced in the places that you work and in your neighborhoods and in your communities.
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You see it, you hear it. You see it in yourself, right? I mean, it's not just, it's very easy for us in the church to stand here and talk about them out there.
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What about in here, right? Do you see it in your own heart? Do you see that you don't really have to have a neighbor come and entice you to materialism.
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I mean, the commercials are just tapping into something that's already in you. Have you noticed that? Those commercials are trying to win you over in something and grab ahold of the hooks that are already in you about your belief, latent belief, that the more that I accumulate, the more stuff
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I have, the better stuff I have, the better my life is gonna be. What I find is that, man, if I get a new snowblower, it's one more thing to maintain, right?
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Any of you at that age that you're kind of like, more stuff means more maintenance, I gotta figure out. Now I gotta call technical support on one more device, right, great.
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So it doesn't necessarily work out to our advantage. But the angel's cry in verse two is important for our perspective.
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This great Babylon called herself great. She has fallen.
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See that in the text? What we think is insurmountable in the end will fall. She is deserted.
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She has become, according to the text, a haunt of demons and wild, unclean animals. In the absence of humanity who has been removed and judged, the animals will have free reign in Babylon.
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Well, that gets us kind of towards our first point. The indictment really begins in verse three, the indictment of Babylon.
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Why has she been treated this way? Why has she been left desolate? We know from chapter 17 that she has been identified as the great prostitute in that passage.
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And she has led all the nations into her sexual immorality. You see that in the text. The kings and leaders of the earth have been compromised with the promises of wealth, power, and fame that the world system has to offer.
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What does she have to offer? Well, she offers life without God, life full of human potential, life with human pleasure as its ultimate end.
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And that's lured many, and the world gets rich from her offers of luxurious living.
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With this indictment, a command is given to the people of God from heaven, a voice heard from heaven.
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It's not very clear whether it's God's voice or it's another angel, but a voice from heaven that says, come out of her.
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Come out of Babylon, my people. An interesting observation about that is to come out of Babylon means that we're in it in the first place, right?
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Do you get that? Do you see that right? It's just kind of obvious, but you could miss it for the simplicity of the point.
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And that is that the people of God are mixed in with Babylon. Right now, it's not like you're supposed to be in a commune.
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You're not supposed to be removed like the Amish. You're not supposed to be out there on a mountaintop like a guru who is just kind of living an ascetic lifestyle.
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You're in with Babylon for now. And Scripture is full of that type of analogy of the people of God mixed in with those who are not.
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Lot lived, where did Lot live? Does anybody remember their Bible? He lived in Sodom.
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Okay, he lived there. But a day came when he was given a very certain command to flee.
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Lot, today's the day. Get your family, don't pack your stuff, get out the door and flee this place.
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Judgment is coming. There's a day coming like that. My people, get out now.
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It's time. Lot lived in Sodom, but that day was required for him to flee.
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Jesus told a parable, by the way. It's all throughout the Bible, and you'll see it in a variety of different places. I'm just kind of hitting a couple of them.
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Jesus told a parable about the wheat and the weeds. According to the old King James, it would be wheat and tares, wheat and weeds, being sown in a field, and the wheat was sown, but in the middle of the night, some bad guys came in and sowed the tares or the weeds in with the wheat.
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And so rather than pull out the weeds and compromise the wheat, it's all left together, and it's gonna be sorted out in the end,
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Jesus says. They'll eventually be separated out. But the way that life is right now isn't that separate, right?
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We can even be confused about our own family. Are they in or are they not in? I mean, how many of you are glad that it's not up to you to be the judge of who's a
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Christian and who's not, right? That's in God's hands, that's up to them. I'm a poor, I'm poor at guessing that.
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As a matter of fact, I would suggest to you, I'm very open to your deception. If you wanna come and tell me a credible story that you gave your life to Christ at a summer camp,
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I'm gonna believe you. I'm gonna take it at face value. And that's one of the risks that we have as a church when it comes to wolves and sheep living in community together, is that it's very easy to pull the wool over a sheep's eye.
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That's a weird analogy. I don't know what that looks like, but yeah, it's very easy to fool a sheep, right?
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I mean, and so there's this whole notion of we have, we're bad at guessing this kind of stuff.
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Who's the wheat, who's the weeds? And I'm not sure that it's up to us to determine that, but it is up to us to bring the gospel to bear in each other's lives consistently.
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That's why I preach the gospel to you guys. I hope you don't tune out at the end. When I start to go into communion,
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I start to explain the gospel. Man, that's the time, if you wanna take a nap at the middle of the message, make sure you're awake for that.
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Okay, I just, I don't know. Please stay awake for the whole thing. But it's the gospel.
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We all need the gospel preached to us regularly. It's not like, oh, that's how I started. No, that's how you started.
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That's how you carry on, and that's how you'll finish. Yup, it's the beginning. There's no like, well, now that I'm a
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Christian and now that I believe the gospel, what's the real meat? The gospel. That's the meat.
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That's what I have to offer. I wanna be a one -trick pony. I wanna keep telling you the gospel because that is the message that will bring you to glory.
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It's not, oh, I've been saved. Now tell me all the things I have to do to be pleasing to God.
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I thought that you became pleasing to God at the cross. Okay, so that's the place where it is.
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So it's all about the gospel. I got a little off my notes here.
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When the people of Israel were exiled to Babylon in the sixth century BC, they were told this.
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This is an interesting thought because I'm thinking in terms of being called out from Babylon, and I don't want you to miss the understanding that this is a future thing that's gonna happen because it would be very easy for somebody to misread this, and I think this has been misapplied and misused and abused, it's abused churches.
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You've just gotta separate yourself from those non -Christian pagan neighbors. You gotta get away from those people.
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That's not what this text is saying. Babylon itself, sixth century, they destroyed
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Jerusalem. They knocked down her walls, poked out the king of Israel's eyes with a hot poker after killing his sons in front of him, grew some terrible stuff.
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I'm just quoting scripture. It's in there, and then they haul him and his people off into exile in Babylon, and those people, those
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Israelites, now living physically in the pagan nation of Israel, are told to be a blessing to the place that is exiled them.
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Look out for the interest of the city and be a blessing to the city and the culture of Babylon.
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Wow. I'm saying all this to clarify that I don't believe that we're supposed to leave the world and hide out in communes until the
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Lord returns. Instead, I think God is warning that a time is coming when that indeed will be needed.
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We need to walk so carefully, and I think that's another point here. We need to walk so carefully lest we take part in Babylon's sin, and therefore share in her plagues, as the text tells us directly.
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But this is about a future calling for God's people to flee a literal wrath that is coming, and yet for all of us, this should be the first wake -up call of the final point that we're gonna get to in the text.
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It's not too early to steal that thunder and to make sure that it's in your mind as we go through. Are you compromised?
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That's the point. How much are we in love with our Babylon? How much do we love the commodities that she gives to us?
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How much do we take pleasure in the sins that she so readily delivers up to us? How much would we be sad?
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Man, this takes some honest introspection. Be very easy to brush over these with a nice Christianese answer, a not very thoughtful answer that just says, oh,
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I don't love sin. I don't love anything of this world system. I'll just be so glad to see it go. How much would we be sad to see the collapse of this sin -cursed world system?
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You have to deal with some specifics in that in your life and in your heart. What would you miss? According to this text, her sins, the sins of Babylon, are heaped up as high as heaven.
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It's an amazing word picture that takes us right back again to that tower. Ironically, humanity set out to build a tower and a great city and a name for themselves, and they wanted that tower to go up to the heavens to get
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God to recognize how awesome we are. Look, God, how awesome we are. We're amazing. We're so cool.
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We built this really great tower. Now, do we have your attention? Not yet. But what will, in the end, finally rise up to the heavens?
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Will stack up upon itself to the very throne room of God to the point where he goes, you got my attention now?
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Is our wickedness, our sin. Wow. We, as a human race, will, in the end, get his attention.
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In his patience, he has been graciously, gloriously waiting, but we are stacking up sin and testing the patience of the
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Almighty as a human race. Babylon will, therefore, receive a double portion from the very cup that she used to judge others.
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There's a great ironic twist in this. And as much as she has glorified herself and lavished herself in luxury, as much as she has poured out condemnation on God's people from this figurative cup of her wrath, that's the very wrath, that's the very cup that God's wrath is gonna be measured out to her in.
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According to verse seven. We measured, according to verse seven, that will be the measure of the torment and mourning that she will receive according to how much she has lavished herself in luxury.
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And in verse seven, she's quoted. We see a direct quote from the woman herself.
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She said, I sit as a queen. I am no widow, and mourning I shall never see. The arrogance of this world system,
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I suggest to you, has crept into many churches who will now teach the power of positive thinking and the power of positive speaking.
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You could hear something similar to this quote from Babylon if you had stayed home this morning and tuned in to TV and watched some preachers there.
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You could have heard some say, we as a church, we sit as a queen. We will never be a widow. We will never go through mourning.
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Or as a culture, we will never go through mourning. Babylon has named her miracle.
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She's claimed her miracle. She has spoken her victory. She has visualized her future.
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And it's nothing but good. You see that in the text? She's got it. She's got it figured out, and she knows it.
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I was watching the Olympics this past week. Any of you watch any Olympics the last couple weeks? Pretty fun, entertaining, some stuff there.
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There was a commercial. I don't even remember what it was for. Linda thinks it was a car. I'm not positive. I think it might have been a car because there was kind of a mountain scene.
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And I remember a car winding along as this voice is overlaid over this beautiful scenery and this car is riding.
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And it says, and I'm gonna paraphrase it. But it says something to the effect of,
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I don't know the future, but I know that it's wonderful. I don't know what the future holds, but I know it's wonderful.
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And I was like, that sounds kind of familiar. I think I saw that. I think I saw that in here somewhere, right? Like, is that not the message?
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Is that not the message that the world system wants to offer to you? Is that not the fundamental? We got you covered.
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Cover, they are, they've got you covered. They've got your future figured out and it's gonna be great and it's gonna be better because it's gonna be an iPhone 10S or whatever.
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You know, I mean, it's gonna keep going, keep going. The iPhone 115SC with, you know, holographic imagery and you can control your own
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Death Star from it. I don't know. Whatever it is, it's gonna be great.
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I mean, you're gonna love this, right? Well, scripture says, get down on your faces and tremble for you do not know what tomorrow holds.
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Humble yourself before the mighty hand of God and say,
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I will go to such and such a city if the Lord wills. I mean, like, do you recognize that your travel plans and whether you get to that destination, that next trip that you have, whether you get to that destination is in his hands?
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It's in his hands. It's up to him. So scripture indicates for us that we should all show some humility or be fools.
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But we don't know whether or not this very night our souls will be required of us.
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That's what scripture says. Doesn't say I've seen the future and it's wonderful for you. Now, here's the reality.
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Here's the glorious flip side of that. If you are in Christ, I do know the future for you. I don't know the physical future for you.
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It might be a pathway of suffering in this world just like your Lord and Savior, which is a beautiful thing. As hard as that is to say, and I'm in that.
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I'm in that camp too. I mean, I'm not just speaking to you. It may be hard, but I can tell you that on the other side of any suffering you face on this planet is wonderful.
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It is glorious for those who are in Christ. An eternity with no condemnation. A meeting with your
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Savior with no reference to sin. As far as the east is from the west, your sins cast away.
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And a well done, good and faithful servant. I can tell you it's wonderful for those who are in Christ despite the fact that it might go through some valleys.
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Because right now, I mean, the fact of the matter is, I don't know if you realize, all of this life that you live right now is the worst hell that the believer will experience.
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But this life that we face right now is the greatest heaven that any unbeliever will experience.
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What we experience is the worst that we will ever endure is the best that they will ever endure. A reminder of the calling that God has placed on our lives to share the glorious destiny of an eternal kingdom with the
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King. She who said she will never see mourning according to our text is consumed in one single day.
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In verse eight, death, mourning, famine and fire have come for her. She guessed wrong about her wonderful future because she has come to oppose the mighty one.
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The Lord God, the Almighty is the one who judges. Now a quick reminder in case you're lost about who she is.
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Again, refresh your halfway through this message. Babylon is a system of thinking in that it stands opposed to God.
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Every indication in chapters 17 through 18 is that she has been manifest in the world through Babel, through Babylon, through Rome and she will have an ultimate final manifestation in the end.
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And quite likely many other manifestations between Rome and the end. So we've seen a cycle of rebellious human systems and governments that arise to power with arrogance only to falter under the judgment of the
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Almighty. Have you seen that? Any of you ever study history? A couple people? No one? Okay, there are just, nobody likes history.
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If you study history, you'll notice that there's a cycle of human systems that rise and fall and then rise and then fall and then rise and fall all the way up to the time where there will be a final one of those that will be adamantly, vocally, directly in opposition to the
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Almighty. And it will be one final end judgment for all the peoples united against him.
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And we may be tempted to look around us for the Babylon, right, is that a temptation? You read the passage and you're like okay, who's
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Babylon? Who is this final, if it all went down right now, who would this be?
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And some of you here will perceptively notice that America fits this description over the next dozen or so verses.
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I don't know if you've noticed that. Any of you ever notice that there's a little bit of similarity between the things that are said of Babylon and the things that America holds dear?
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Now I'm not gonna equate America with the final Babylon at the end. I love my country,
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I believe that she's been used by God in many powerful ways to do a lot of good. But I equally believe that America could go away and God would remain sovereign and his purposes could be fulfilled through others at any time.
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I think it's very important to say, to clearly mention to everybody that America is not
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God's chosen nation. That's not very popular to say, is it?
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It's true. Where we fit into the big picture of God's plan as a nation will be really easy to see when we're in heaven.
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We have to figure out where we fit into that whole plan. How many of you know that like looking in the rear view mirror is pretty easy? Then you can kind of go, oh, now
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I see how it all fit. That's always the nice thing about the way that history and time works is that the rear view mirror is always the best place to trace the hand of God's sovereignty.
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You can always see it in the rear view mirror. How many of you would like to get that in advance? You'd like to see that up front.
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I mean, we pray for that, right? Kind of show me which way you want me to go. But for now, instead of spending our time trying to figure out if America is or isn't
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Babylon, let's take the text on as a stern warning for us to guard ourselves against the humanism, the commercialism, the materialism, the sexualism,
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I think I made that word up, and all other kinds of isms that Babylon peddles to the nations. We don't even need to know who
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Babylon is per se in the end to know that these types of things are coming at us all the time from her.
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Babylon's been indicted, her sins have risen to the very throne of God, and the mighty one will judge her and when she has fallen, we get to verses nine through 20 where we get the bulk of the funeral dirge, the mourning after her, because the nations are beside themselves with the fall of the superpower.
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In verses nine and 10, the kings mourn the loss of their lover, in verses 11 through 17, the merchants all mourn the loss of luxury that they have gained from her.
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In verses 17 through 19, the sailors all mourn the loss of work and income that she has provided. Each one, by the way, each group that's mentioned is selfish in their mourning.
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I don't know if you caught that when I read it. They miss what they gained from her. Plain and simple, they don't miss her, they miss what she was able to provide for them.
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And three times it's repeated that they stood far off from her and observed her demise. They have gained from her and been close to her when times were good, but now that she's being judged, they are happy to keep their distance.
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In verses nine through 10, it sounds like Babylon will have a center of, maybe a geopolitical center or an actual city where that world system will be headquartered, and in the end, that will fall.
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This place will be a place of commerce, a place of opportunity, a place of power, a place of sexual immorality, a place of industry, a place that the whole world would miss if it was destroyed, a place that the whole world would be shocked if it fell, a place that represents the power of mankind united in making a name for themselves, and I don't know about you, but all of those things hit pretty close to home.
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Hit close to home. The kings, the merchants, the sailors in this analogy, according to verse 14, had set their longing and their very souls for the fruit of Babylon.
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That's what they longed for, it's what they wanted. Their purpose and their lives were wrapped up in the stuff she had to offer, and a day comes when they realize she wasn't all that they thought she was, and that just kind of points to the fact that sin cannot make good on the promises it makes, it cannot make good on the pleasure, the joy, or the fun that it offers.
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For a season, notice that, for a season, sin pleases, doesn't it? For a season, sin kind of works for us.
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For a time, it can capture our longings, but in the end, it leaves us like those before and after meth pictures, right?
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Have any of you ever seen those? Before meth, here's what, I could've put one up for you, I thought that would be rude, but that picture that there's the before and the after, and she looks beautiful, or he looks really handsome and rugged, and then by the end, he's got like pockmarks and sores and really pasty skin, you know what
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I'm talking about? Terrible. And that's what sin will do to us. It promises good things and leaves us weeping and wailing on the shore, watching everything around us consumed by famine, plague, and fire, and I'm not being melodramatic, sin really is that dangerous and scripture wants you to have that image of sin.
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This isn't talking about their sin, someone else's sin, someone, your next door neighbor's sin, or your friend's sin, or your mom's sin, or your son's sin, this is talking about your sin, and it does that to us, it's destructive.
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The nations mourn her sudden and severe demise. Now, some have just kind of seen, okay, the fire, the famine, the plague, you know, all of this stuff, well, is this a nuclear attack to describe this?
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But the silliness in trying to identify what takes down Babylon in the end is shown when we consider we have no clue when
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Jesus is gonna return. So, sure, you can use the modern weaponry of our warfare now, but I mean, if Jesus tarries 2 ,000 years,
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I think we're gonna be past the whole nuclear weapon thing onto something else. Like I said, maybe we'll all have our own personal death stars 2 ,000 years from now.
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I mean, I don't know what's the world gonna look like, what's the weaponry gonna look like, and so it's kind of foolish for us to assume that we have some kind of inkling of what this weaponry would be, or what could possibly bring down the world, and partly, in part, just because we know what's gonna bring it all down.
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It doesn't matter what the intermediate cause is, what the tools of the weapons or the warfare, it's
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God's judgment that's coming. Whatever it is, it's God's judgment that's brought.
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And the nations mourn, but in verse 20, we see a significant twist. All in heaven, saints, apostles, prophets, followers of the
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Messiah from both the Old Testament and the New Testament are commanded to what? Rejoice over the demise of Babylon.
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The kings, the power brokers, the hardworking sailors, the people of the world mourn and grieve that she is gone, but those in heaven rejoice.
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Consider for a moment what a radically different life we are called to as believers. The very things that the world around us would mourn losing, we will rejoice that they're gone.
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Is that a different lifestyle? Is that a different set of values? Is that a different attitude? Absolutely.
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They will cry while we do our happy dance. It's opposite.
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How is that possible? Are we called to be heartless? Are we called to laugh at the destruction of others?
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How many of you find that uncomfortable? Just being honest, it's kind of a bit uncomfortable, right? Let me suggest to you that we are called to rejoice in justice.
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We are called to rejoice in justice. We are called to rejoice in the funeral of the human rebellion against our creator.
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And for those in heaven, we know that with the failure of the kingdoms of this world comes the ushering in of the answer to the prayer many of us have prayed over and over and over again.
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Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it currently is in heaven.
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That's what all of this stuff spells out for us. It's the coming of the king to bring his kingdom. When we get down to the end here, verses 21 through 24, just kind of brush through this.
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An angel gives a picture of the destruction of Babylon by chucking a huge millstone into the sea. Any of you ever chuck a big stone into the water?
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How long does it take till you can't see it anymore? Not long. You see a splash? Makes a big splash, and then it's gone.
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And that's the imagery of the destruction and demise of Babylon. Huge splash, everybody mourns, and then she has no more.
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It'll be over quickly. And the judgment will be complete. After judgment, those who have stood on the side of opposition to God in Babylon will be without music, it says, without craftsmen and culture, without the mill to grind food.
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They will be without light, without celebrations, without commerce. It's not gonna go well for the future of Babylon.
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Not that wonderful future that she was sure of where there would be no mourning for her.
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She who took the blood of the prophets and saints, she who has been a murderer will be judged for all her sins.
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So where do we go with this for our lives? Well, where we're gonna go with it is we're gonna go to communion. That's how we end every service.
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We intentionally go there. I want you to take a moment this morning to do something a little different.
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I know that a lot of times we're just kind of up, get to the table, Dave starts playing his song. We're quick to get up, go to the table.
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I'm not gonna judge if you're quick, but nobody's gonna wanna be first now. I want you to take the time to stop and pause and think.
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No rush to the table, no hurry out the door. Take a moment to reflect about the destruction of the world system that is coming.
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And consider what you will be sad to see leave. Some introspection to think, what will
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I be sad to see go? And I wanna be careful for you to completely and utterly understand that we are not talking about material things.
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The new earth is gonna be a material place. I'm gonna miss TVs, I'm gonna miss tables,
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I'm gonna miss comfy chairs, not that, right? You're not gonna miss these. These are part of the old world system.
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These are gone, okay? It's not the stuff.
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It's not the, oh man, you know, I love my truck. I love my house,
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I love the woods. I love the hunting rifle that my grandpa left for me. I love, you know, it's not, that's not what
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I'm getting at. It's the sinful stuff of the world that will pass away. It's not the stuff. It's the sin that's going away.
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And so it'd be very easy for us to kind of leave it on the surface and go, oh man, I'm gonna miss my house.
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I'm really sorry, God, I'm gonna miss my house. But what may be deeper down is
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I'm gonna miss the satisfaction I get from gaining stuff. I'm gonna miss the materialism and the way that I get that rush when
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I buy something new or the self -satisfaction I have and having built a kingdom for myself.
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Maybe your house is a component of that, right? Like it's getting to the deeper stuff that's the issue, the sin.
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Like you go, well, I love my house, so I'm sorry, God, for loving my house. What is that?
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Is that idolatry? What is it? Name it and call it what it is. Take some time to think that through. And it takes a little bit of a mental effort to go deeper than just the material, physical stuff around us.
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But don't rush and consider what you'll be sad to leave. What would you mourn over on that day when it's all gone?
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No more trashy TV like Game of Thrones. No more murdering like those first -person shooters.
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No more pride and arrogance or lording it over your direct reports at work. No more gossip mill that gives you a sense of power over others.
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No more medicating with alcohol, shopping, food, movies, porn, whatever's your particular brand of coping.
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What would you miss if sin was dead and the funeral was being held?
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Confess what you're tempted to cling to from this world system. And then if you recognize Jesus as your king and have asked him to save you, then come to the table to take the cracker to remember his body was broken to cover you.
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And take the cup of juice to remember his blood that was shed for you. His sacrifice was to give us freedom from these sins and the effects of these sins.
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He has removed the chains of sin and he has taken on himself the wrath of God toward our sin.
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Without the death of Jesus, we're still in our sins. Without faith in Jesus to forgive us and to save us, we are citizens of Babylon.
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We are citizens of that community, citizens of that kingdom that is failing and faltering, that is telling you it will always be here for you and will cease to exist and will be judged.
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And if you don't know which city you're currently bound to, please come and talk to me afterwards. And I would love to introduce you to the doorkeeper of the city of life.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much that there is a city of life because all of us are born as citizens of Babylon.
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All of us are born as citizens of rebellion against you. All of us are rebels to the core and you have rescued us.
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You set this plan in motion to send your son in the fullness of time to become sin on our behalf, that we might be declared your righteousness, that we might become your righteousness.
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What an amazing, amazing twist. So Father, as we get a chance to take communion, I pray that we would have that introspective moment where we would look and see where sin has so entangled us that maybe we're even blind to it.
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Would you illuminate it? Would you bring your light to bear and root it out? And even if it means some pain and some discomfort for us,