God's Man in Babylon — Steve Gallagher

The following message is provided by Eternal Weight of Glory. For other sermons, teachings and articles, please visit EternalWeight .com. I'd like to open up in prayer. Everything that's been said about you this morning, Lord, is so true, that you are good, that everything to do with you, with your kingdom, is pure goodness.

But we're constantly faced with another kingdom that is intrinsically evil, dark, and even though it often presents itself in a sweet, a syrupy sweet, a false sweetness, a flattering sweetness, a carnal sweetness, the reality behind that syrupy smile is something very evil and vicious.

Once we look behind the facade of the sharp-looking building, so appealing, once we get behind that facade, then we see the reality of what's really making up and driving this kingdom. It is a factory of death, and it is continually churning out souls for eternal damnation.

Lord, I pray that you would make this real in this service today, and even as this meeting began, with the recognition of the battle that we all face with the world, the flesh, and the devil. God, just make that real to every heart in here and those who may listen later to this message.

Make it real. God, that the enemy, Satan, is not playing some game. He's hungry for souls. Hell is hungry for more souls. Make it real to us, I pray. Please anoint my mind, anoint my words this morning, O God, in that wonderful name that we have cherished this morning.

That name that represents a beautiful kingdom, Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. And I want to focus on the first of that horrible trilogy of opposition that we constantly face, at least all sincere believers face, insincere believers, or unsaved people.

I guess it's the same thing. I don't know. But they don't really face the battle because they've long since acquiesced. But we face a battle, those of us who are serious about the things of God. We face an opposition constantly, relentlessly in our faiths, don't we?

Babylon as the Spirit of the World

And I'm not going to be focused so much on the flesh or the devil as much as I want to focus on the spirit of the world this morning. The spirit of the world is personified in Scripture by a city. Actually, there's two cities personified in Scripture.

There is the city of God, which is Jerusalem. And one day believers will go to the new Jerusalem and we will spend a happy eternity with our Savior, our Champion, the Captain, who has fearlessly and courageously led the way.

But there's another city as well. And John the Apostle in the book of Revelation calls it Babylon. And Babylon is the representation of the anti-Christ forces at work in this world. And one day those forces are going to be so unified in their opposition to everything to do with God's kingdom that they are going to come together in one mind and in a unified effort to actually overthrow God's kingdom once and for all.

And it's nothing like you have seen in the nice little rapture movies that have come out in the last number of years. Those movies have done more harm than good by far, trust me. They have made light of something that is very much active within the church today.

So this city, Babylon, represents this anti-Christ spirit that is very ancient. And I want to take you back just briefly. I want to just give a little bit of background on this city. Of course, those of you who have read my book, Intoxicated with Babylon, already know the story.

But for the sake of those who haven't, let me just reiterate it real quickly that in Genesis 10 and 11, there is a story that unfolds. It's a couple of hundred years after the flood. And God has told the people to go out across the earth.

But a great grandson of Noah named Nimrod took it upon himself to create a city. So he gathered other people around him. And as part of the draw, they decided to build a tower. And this tower was going to serve a number of purposes.

For one thing, because he was such a rebel, Nimrod, he was doing this in a very defiant spirit of God. According to Josephus, he had it in his mind that they were going to build a tower so tall that the semi-god, Jehovah, couldn't overcome them again with water.

So they built this tower. But as it's coming about, you know, people started gathering. It's like, wow, this is a tremendous spectacle. This is the world's first skyscraper. And it became a gathering point, a focal point of mankind.

And there was a spirit that was emerging there in that city. The mentality was we don't have to submit ourselves, subject ourselves to this ruler, Jehovah. And in fact, what came out of this whole thing was a belief system that actually, you know, there probably are more than one God.

There's probably more than one God. Actually, there's probably many different gods. And this Jehovah was just the god of Shem, you know, the god of the Semite people. But maybe the sun represents a god and maybe the stars represent different gods.

And maybe there's gods in nature, you know. So this whole belief system kind of came into being and flourished there in Babel. And, you know, eventually from there came the worship of the planets and astrology and the fertile cults and Greek myth—we call it Greek mythology when actually it started in Mesopotamia and fanned out also into Egypt and into Greece and other parts of the world.

But let's just call it Greek mythology. All of those can find their way back to the same origin, which was this rebellious city, Babel, about 2500 BC. And that's probably, I assume, why John said that Babylon is the mother of all harlot religions.

Nebuchadnezzar and the Captivity of Judah

All right, so now let's fast forward 1700 years to 600 BC. And by now, 1700 years in this city. You know, and I know God spread them out and everything, but people stayed there in Babel and that city, those who spoke that language, over time that city built up again.

And that same ancient evil rebellious spirit remained there and grew and flourished. And so finally, in God's timing, he allowed it to happen. Babylon became the world power, the greatest world power that the world had seen at that point.

And it all came together with Nebuchadnezzar. So, of course, Nebuchadnezzar, representing fallen mankind, attacks what? The city of God. Really, what happens is, it's about 605 BC, and this first attack began a process of this kingdom of Babylon absorbing into itself the people of God.

And this actually takes place over a 10-year period or whatever. And it happens over three stages, you know. So, in this first stage, Nebuchadnezzar comes in, conquers the city, and takes back to Babylon, apparently, a couple thousand people.

Something like that, it seems. So, they get back to, you know, maybe I ought to just read it. Why don't we just read these first few verses in the book of Daniel. I do have a message, and I am getting to it, but I'm trying to establish a background here.

Because this thing that Daniel and his other brothers in the Lord faced is the very thing that you and I are facing today. So, that's what makes it important. Daniel 1, verse 1, In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it.

Okay, if you wish, you can write next to that verse, 605 BC. The Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand, along with some of the vessels of the house of God, and he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his God, and he brought the vessels into the treasury of his God.

Then the king ordered Ashpenaz, the chief of his officials, to bring in some of the sons of Israel. And then he says, now listen, before you send all these captives down to the slave market, I want you to handpick out of there the hundred best-looking youth that you can find out of that group of people we have just brought back to Babylon.

Okay, now it could have happened back in Jerusalem, what I'm talking about, but it seems like it happened in Babylon. So, they are extracting out of a group of people, a smaller group of 100 young people.

Then the king, verse 3,. Then the king ordered Ashpenaz, the chief of his officials, to bring in some of the sons of Israel, including some of the royal family and of the nobles, youths in whom was no defect, who were good-looking, showing intelligence in every branch of wisdom, endowed with understanding and discerning knowledge, and who had ability for serving in the king's court.

And he ordered him to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans. That's the country that Babylon was in, the race of people. The king appointed for them a daily ration from the king's choice food and from the wine which he drank, and appointed that they should be educated three years, at the end of which they were to enter the king's personal service.

Now among them from the sons of Judah were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Then the commander of the officials assigned new names to them, and to Daniel he assigned the name Belteshazzar, to Hananiah Shadrach, to Mishael Meshach, and to Azariah Abednego.

Babylon's Attempt to Redefine God's People

What I want to do is use this story to illustrate how the spirit of Babylon works to seduce God's people. So the first one is this. The spirit of Babylon seeks to alter our self-perception, the way we see ourselves.

One of the things that it does in order to draw God's people, now I'm going to use that term loosely, okay? When I say God's people, I'm saying people who have been called. Whether they have truly been converted, I don't know, but I'm just going to incorporate all those who, let's just say Christians.

And what the spirit of the world wants to do to draw these Christians into its own kingdom, one of the things that it does is to alter the way that we see ourselves. We see it in verse 7. He did it in a very blatant manner, that he had these four, and not just these four, unspoken in this story is another 96 young people, right?

And unspoken probably in this story is another 1900 people who have already been gone off into the slave market. So you've got 96 other young people here, and you've already got all the others who have been sold off as slaves, doing who knows what kind of menial work out in the fields and so on.

But there are a hundred of these young people, or there's 50, or there's 200, whatever it is. And all of them have Jewish names, and all of them are given new Babylonian names. It's all part of the indoctrination process to absorb them into this new kingdom.

And just as one example is Daniel, and that name meant God's judge. That he was going to be a judge for God on this earth amongst God's people, and that he would grow up. And back in those days, a name really meant something.

It's much different than you and me, John, Dick, and Harry. For us, a name doesn't really mean much. But back in those days, a name really represented the character of this person, and what their life should constitute.

And so, this young man who has been raised in the environs of Jerusalem, raised up hearing the preaching of Jeremiah. I don't know if you realize that, the connection there, but Ezekiel, who came later in the next captivity, and Daniel, they were both about the same age.

They grew up hearing Jeremiah preaching in the gates of Jerusalem. Who knows how they must have been affected. I am a firm believer that their lives were transformed hearing the preaching of that man of God.

Because there was hardly anyone in Jerusalem at that time who really lived for God. How else did these young men develop the kind of convictions that saw them through the days ahead? So, here is this young man with a name, God's judge.

And what is the name he's been given? Belteshazzar, which means Prince of Baal. In other words, a representative of a demon god. You see how this new culture is trying to change them over, trying to get them to completely walk away from their Jewish heritage, and much more importantly, I mean they didn't realize the importance of it maybe, but much more importantly, to leave behind Jehovah, this weak god of the Jews, and to embrace Baal, the god of this mighty nation.

And to throw themselves into this new culture, this new mindset, this new religion. And it's inferred, it's not spoken outright, but it's inferred that the other 96 did this. They went along with this.

They embraced, even though by name they had been God's people. They threw themselves into this world spirit that was very much anti-God. Well, we can only imagine the tremendous pressure that these young men faced.

Now, you know, in one sense, from a humanistic standpoint, I guess you could say, you can hardly blame the 96. You know, I mean, you've got a king with complete life and death say over every person around him, and you're going to come into his close environs.

You are under a tremendous amount of pressure to conform, right? I mean, there is a tremendous pressure, more than we can imagine. And you understand because you saw the other 1900 people go off to the slave market.

There is a great deal of pressure on these young people to conform themselves to this new culture. So these 96 apparently go along with the flow. Now, I want to, again, I want to bring this back to our situation.

We're not under that kind of pressure. We don't have that level of pressure. The pressure that we face is different. The pressure that we face is much more subtle. And I was thinking about this, the enormous pressure that is out there to conform to American culture.

You know, let's face it, most of the church, I would say, the American Evangelical Church, if I looked at their lives and how they lived their daily lives, I would have to say they much more resemble Americans than they do Christians.

In other words, the main things that stand out about the way they live life is they much more conform themselves to the flow of life in America, the American lifestyle, the way we do things, all the things that make up this culture.

You know, they are doing the same things. The only difference is really a few outward differences, which is simply that they go to church and, you know, abstain from certain things and so on. But really, in their hearts, they've given over.

Most American Christians have given over to the culture in which we live. Romans 12 .2 is one of those verses where Paul tried to bring this reality to the Christians of the first century. And I'm going to read it in a couple of different translations.

I like the way they just express things a little differently. Let me just read these. This is the Phillips translation, and I believe it's accurate to what was expressed by Paul. Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold, but let God remold your minds from within so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands, and moves towards the goal of true maturity.

That's a very wonderful way he expressed it. What about Knox? Let's see how Knox said it. And you must not fall in with the manners of this world. There must be an inward change, a remaking of your minds, so that you can satisfy yourselves with what is God's will, the good thing, the desirable thing, the perfect thing.

Lastly, let me read Goodspeed, a different translation. You must not adopt to the customs of this world, but by your new attitude of mind be transformed so that you can find out what God's will is, what is good, pleasing, and perfect.

All right, that's the word for us today. I want to bring it back again just to remind us what we're talking about here. There is an enormous blanket, spiritual influence, pressing down on us in this world to try to conform us to it and its mentality, the spirit of this world.

And one of the ways it's going to do that is to try to get us to see ourselves, first of all, as part of that culture. To identify ourselves with that culture. And yeah, yeah, we're Christians, but really, the reality of the way we live our lives is that we really do see ourselves as part of the culture in which we live.

The Seduction of Worldly Comforts

All right, number two. The spirit of Babylon will seek to seduce you. Look at verse five. The king appointed for them a daily ration from the king's choice food and wine. Some of the other translations calls it delicacies or rich, sumptuous food, you know, stuff like that.

Let me put it to you this way. These Jewish young people were raised in a culture that was pretty much vegetarian. Meat was a luxury that you rarely got back in those days in that culture. So they ate a lot of fruits and vegetables.

And it was a simple lifestyle, but they were content with it. That's all they knew. And so what is the king of Babylon doing? He's giving this hundred young people the same food that he's eating every day.

For three years, they're in this training program. Why is he allowing them to eat at his banquet table day in and day out? Because he has an ulterior purpose in mind. He's trying to get them addicted to this lifestyle.

That's the whole point of it. Nebuchadnezzar understood something. He knew if he could get these young Jewish people addicted to his food, and not just his food, but, you know, just get used to the luxuries of the palace life.

If they could become accustomed to, you know, being part of the leadership team of this worldwide empire, the pride involved with that. He knew that he would have their allegiance for life. This was a well thought through strategy.

He understood that if I can get them so addicted to this lifestyle, they will lay aside all their concerns, all their questions, all their hesitations and reservations, that they will give themselves completely to me.

Well, tell me that that isn't exactly what the spirit of Babylon is doing today in our world. You know, the life that you and I take for granted, the way that we eat, is this. It's the very same thing.

Now, I'm not advocating that we all become vegetarians, okay? That's not the point. I'm just saying that we have been raised up in this culture, and, you know, if we ever had a depression or something, what a shock that will be to our system.

How many people will just commit suicide because they won't be able to handle going on with life without all the luxuries they've become addicted to? The enemy is trying to do to you men. He's constantly trying to seduce you in with all the allurements, all the enticements.

What am I talking about? What enticements? A fleshly, carnal lifestyle. Television. You know, just sports. Just all the things you can think of where you go to get entertained, where you go to find pleasure, and so on.

All of those things are, to one extent or another, in direct competition with God for your heart. All those attractions take your heart out of Jerusalem and put your heart right in Babylon. Now, am I saying it's wrong to have a favorite sports team?

No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm not even saying it's wrong to watch some television. What I'm saying is a lifestyle that demands having all of this stuff that you can get your hands on. Now, Kathy and I have, for 26 years, we have not had network television in our home.

26 years we have not had network television in our home. No satellite, dish, no cable, no antennas, nothing. 26 years. We've had a DVD player and, you know, we've watched a little bit of stuff, but it's very controlled and very little what we have watched.

But I think I live in the reality of how many American Christians, it is part of their daily life to go home after being out in the pollutant atmosphere of Cosmos all day long at the workplace, then going home and what do they do?

They flip the television set on. Because now they, well, you don't understand, Brother Steve. I'm tired at the end of the day. I need to relax. I need to get my mind off stuff. I need something to occupy my evenings.

Well, whatever your reasonings are, however good they may sound, the bottom line is when you turn that television set on, especially the kind of television that comes across the networks and the cable and all that, when you turn that television on in your home, you are opening your home up to the spirit of Babylon.

That is spiritual reality in our day and age. But Brother Steve, you're being totally fanatical. You know, the problem is why I sound that way is because we've all grown up with television. We have all grown up in Babylon.

We're not like Daniel and the others that are brought into it and have to face the temptation. This is all we've known. And now we're being asked to extract it out of our hearts. God is asking that. In fact, God is demanding it.

You need a new master ruling in your heart. You know, I use television because it's one of those things that is so influential. It has such a powerful impact on the way that we think. Your heart is who you are.

It's the core of your being, right? It's the core of your being. And there is a battle going on. Twenty years ago, I used to go preach in churches across the country. Sunday mornings, I'd give my testimony message.

And Sunday nights, I gave the same message week in and week out. And I can't remember one church that appreciated it. The title of the message was, The Battlefield is the Mind, but the Prize is the Heart.

And the whole point of that message was I would talk about television and how this battle to draw your mind into the world system. What a battle, a tremendous spiritual war going on. But really, you know, the battle is taking place in your mind, but it's your heart that the enemy is after.

And it's your heart that God is after. Well, I'm getting ahead of myself. The technological achievements that we've had over the last 50 years have ramped up this battle, have given the enemy a much greater vehicle to affect our minds.

You know, but this is all really was foretold in Scripture. You know, John talked about the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life. Paul, when referring to the end times, said that men would be lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

Jesus said before his return, he compared it to a time of Sodom and Gomorrah. And the psalmist spoke of people being in a rage against God. Why? Because God was attempting to take them away from all their little prizes that they were lusting after.

Raging in their hearts. And if you have ever been in a lust for anything, you know the truth of that statement. It becomes a rage inside you, a demand, an insatiable demand to get what you want. I want to just ask you before I move on, do you have a list of untouchables in your heart?

And you got to be honest with yourself. This is one of those messages where you have to really examine yourself you can blow me off if you wish, that's your choice. But those who are sincere, you're going to consider these things that I'm bringing out.

And I want to ask you, do you have a list of untouchables in your heart, in your life? Are there things that, hey, I'll do the Christian thing, but don't expect me to give that up. That's something we all have to face with the Lord's help.

Babylonian Indoctrination and the Battle for the Heart

All right, number three. The Spirit of Babylon is seeking to indoctrinate you in his mindset. Look at verse four, the end of that verse. Here was the purpose for this training program was to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans.

In other words, to immerse them in the mindset of Babylon. The Spirit of Babylon is seeking to indoctrinate you. This was the first order. I mean, this was what it was all about. He's telling this Ashpenaz, I want you to bring this hundred young people out of Jerusalem, and I want you to completely indoctrinate them into Babylonian ways.

I want them to have the same values that we have. I want them to hold the same perspectives about life that we have. I want them to have the same goals in life, the same things that drive them and motivate them.

In short, I want them to be one with us. That's what Nebuchadnezzar was doing with this group of a hundred young people. Now, every culture has group think. And it's interesting because I've been around different countries around the world, you know, how different cultures are a little different.

But of course, with television and Internet, all of that is being fused into one for the most part. Just little by little, all the variances are kind of going away. This one world mindset that's being propagated in different ways, you know, it has some flavor of different cultures, but it's taking on its own look.

But anyway, you know, I was thinking, why do women have the hairstyles they have? Who came up with these hairstyles? Susan, why does your hair look like that? Because it's easy. Yeah, but it came out of a book, right?

Yeah, it came out of a book because I know because there's another girl looks just like you here. You know, I mean, where does that come from? What about your clothes? I'm going to pick on Susan. She's acting like she's taking care of the baby back there.

Where do you get the decisions? Where do you women decide what clothes you're going to wear? Huh? Walk into a store. Sure, the store tells you. But it's all part of the fashion trends, right? I'm going to pick on Manny for a second here.

Manny's my buddy. Now, Manny, you look a little different than the rest of us here. I know you got a couple other brothers back there holding the line. Those will hang by over the internet. Manny comes out of the Amish community.

And there's a whole culture there. And you guys kind of look the same. You wear basically the same sort of clothes. You kind of have the same beards and hair styles, pretty much. You know, take an Amish community in Pennsylvania and go down into Kentucky and find another one.

And they're pretty close. And they have the same kind of belief system. Right? That's a culture. Now, where'd all that come from? I don't know. I don't know who dreamed it up. But it's intact. And it's in place.

And, you know, the American culture, the rest of us, more fit in with the American, you know, culture as it is. What I'm trying to get at is this. That the spirit of this world has its own mindset. That it's constantly trying to keep us in subjection to.

Manny, if you showed up back in Pennsylvania. And you had some, I should make someone stand up here. But I won't. This young guy over here with that surfer shirt on. Yeah, I'm talking about you. In my day, that was a surfer shirt.

Striped, red and white shirt. That's a fine looking shirt for our culture. There's nothing wrong with it. How would you feel if you wore that shirt around your Amish community? You would feel very self-conscious and out of place.

I mean, you could start something, you know, I mean. It wouldn't take. Never mind. But this, stand back up again. Thank you. Thank you. For him to go into that Amish culture is what a true believer looks like in this world.

Do you stand out like that? Like he would be in that Amish culture? Does your life stand out like a big red and white sore thumb? Get back up again. I'm not done with you. The spirit of Babylon is constantly, relentlessly trying to absorb Christians into its mindset.

And it's like I said, the battle is for your heart. The battle is for your heart. That's what it's all about. John told the Christians of his day. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

And both of those terms are the word agape. Now, in this context, it's a neutral term describing an inward passion. And so what John was saying, and they understood Greek in those days, you know, it wasn't a second language like it is to us.

What he was saying to them is, if your passion is in this world, the things of this world, you don't have a passion for the Father. Let me just put it this way. The enemy is happy for you to call yourself Christian.

He doesn't care if you go to church. He's, in fact, he's happy to have people going to church. He's happy to have people in Christian church. So long as he possesses your heart, you keep going to church.

And play that religious game. And one day you're going to find out to your horror that you have long since given your heart to the spirit of this world. You think I'm a hard preacher? Listen to James.

You adulteresses, don't you know that the friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Don't you understand that when you make yourself a friend of this world, when you incorporate this world into your life and you incorporate your life into this culture, that you are making yourself hostile towards God.

And that's how God sees you. Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Is there anyone in here that wants to stand up and say that that is out of balance preaching?

Does anyone want to go into that passage in James 4 and say that I'm taking it out of context? But Brother Steve, that doesn't fit in with what I grew up in. Yeah, I know. That's why I'm up here preaching this message.

But really what I'm trying to point to is this word he used, adulteresses, because that has a whole realm of signification. In other words, and I'm going to preach a message on this in a couple of months.

It'll take you that long to get over this message. I am going to preach a message on the harlot of the end times. The harlot wife of Jesus Christ. That message is coming up probably in November. But anyway, you adulteresses, what he's saying here by using this term, this is a letter that went out to the churches all across the empire.

Okay? This is a letter that he sent out. And he's referring to different ones in these different Christian communities out there. And he's saying, look, if you are making yourself one with this godless culture, you're an adulteress.

What does that mean, adulteress? It means that your heart was given to one, but you have taken it back. Maybe you still have maintained the outward facade of a relationship, a marriage. But the reality is you are making yourself one with a whore.

That's what that means. You've united yourself. You've made yourself one with the spirit of this world. This is serious business. It's serious. It's urgent. It's not, this isn't meant to be just a nice little sermon.

Oh, I'll have to go home and just kind of think about Pastor Steve and what he said today. And you know, maybe I can change a couple little things in my life. No, this is, I have touched on something enormous here.

Examining the Heart and Rejecting Babylon's Allegiance

Who has your heart, men? Who has your heart? Who has your heart, really? Better take it serious. Who has your heart? What's going to show out when you get back in the real world out there? You get back into the hustle and bustle of American life.

And you've got almighty God looking down upon your daily lifestyle. What is he seeing? When he looks in your heart, what's the treasure there? What's really important to you? How does that play out, the way you live your life?

What do you think about during the day? What excites you? This is what these hundred young people were facing. It was more outward. For us, it's more of an inward battle. The attack, the assault. Is very subtle in our day.

It wasn't so subtle back then. But it was still a tremendous pressure they were under. To conform and to give over to all the rich delicacies and the pleasures that were awaiting them. If they would give their hearts to the King of Babylon.

Look at Daniel's response to the offer. Verse 8. But Daniel made up his mind that he would not defile himself. I'm going to read that in a couple other translations. Amplified. But Daniel determined in his heart he would not defile himself.

The King James. But Daniel purposed in his heart. The NIV. But Daniel resolved not to defile himself. I will not. Is that in your heart? I will not. The filthy, vile kingdom of darkness. I don't care how syrupy sweet it comes to me.

I will not give my heart to Satan. Is that in you? If it's not, you better start pleading with God to get it in you. Because the pressure is only going to intensify in the days ahead, men. This is not a game.

It's life and death. And you are going to have to make up your mind if you are going to be an outcast. You have got to resolve it in your heart. You have to count the cost. Are you willing to pay the price?

To be a follower of Jesus Christ? When it means that you are going to look like a fanatic, a loser, a nothing. Are you willing to pay that price? Daniel did. And he lived in that spirit the rest of his days.

And 66 years later we find that same resolve in his heart at Belshazzar's feast. When the king of Babylon at that point offered him all this stuff. And Daniel's response, an old man by now. Been through many battles over the years.