Keep sharing good news without ads.
Bro. Bill Nichols
Mystery Babylon. I've babbled a little bit so let me kind of clean it up. The first aspect, the first mystery of Babylon was the false religion. The Babylon representing the false religion. Chapter 18 doesn't talk about the false religion.
Chapter 18 talks about a false commerce. The second aspect of Mystery Babylon is the commerce. Just as God's true religious system was corrupted and replaced by Satan's false system, so too will the system of commerce approved by God be corrupted and replaced by Satan's false commercial system.
So right now we're existing in a system that is corrupted by the world. A commercial system that's corrupted by the world. Anybody know what God's original plan was for men and commerce? Even before the curse God had a plan for man.
And He had a plan that man worked. And He had a plan that the man that worked enjoyed the fruits of his labor. Now I'm not saying that everybody has to be a farmer or everybody has to be a shepherd. But what the Lord said in Genesis 2, turn to Genesis 2 .11, and the Lord God took man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
And the Lord God commanded the man saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat. And He put a colon there and He stopped the thought. And then He went on to say, except for one you can't eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
But what kind of a plan did God have for man before the curse? Did He plan on man being idle? He planned on man tending the garden. He had work for the man to do. Was it tedious work? No. It was a joyful work.
Did He get good from doing the work? He did the work and He got the benefits. After the curse God put a little more stress on man. The work was harder. And in chapter 3, 17 He says,. And to Adam He said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat it, cursed is the ground for thy sake.
In sorrow shall they eat of it all of the days of thy life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat the bread, till thou return unto the ground.
For out of it thou wast taken. For thus thou art, and into thus thou shalt return. So what was the basic plan of God for man, for commerce for man? Every man should work and every man should receive the rewards for his work.
Now how has Satan corrupted that? In Satan's corrupted system some men work and others receive the benefits. Now the ultimate extension of that corrupted plan is slavery. If you take that to the nth degree, that's slavery.
Now you know we start off with saying would it not be nice if every one of us were to do what they could and we pool all of our resources and everybody put into the system what they are able to and everybody take out of the system what they need.
Wouldn't that be a wonderful system? And it sounds attractive just like the apple sounded attractive to Eve and Adam. But Satan doesn't hide his corruptness in things that are disgusting. He hides his corruption in things that look good.
If all of the corrupt things in the world looked bad we wouldn't partake of them. We swarm to get the corrupt things because they look good. According to the Hebrew sources and to ancient scribes it was Nimrod in Babylon who introduced slavery into the world's commercial system.
He was a mighty hunter of men before the Lord. Actually it's kind of read before the face of the Lord, in the face of the Lord like you do something in someone's face. It is done in spite of them. Cush begat Nimrod and he began to be a mighty one in the earth.
He was a mighty hunter before the Lord wherefore it is said even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord. But what was he hunting? He was hunting men. And what did he do with them when he found them?
He enslaved them. And he used these slaves to build the temples, to build the Tower of Babel. And one thing that is interesting in the latter part of Revelation 18 there is a listing of the merchandise of Babylon under the rule of the Antichrist.
And there are two really interesting items in the list. Let's just go to the list and we'll come back to it later. The list is in 1813. We start going down the list and everything sounds nice and neat.
And cinnamon and odors and ointments and frankincense and wine and oil and fine flour and wheat and beast and sheep and horses and chariots. These things were for sale and for trade in Babylon. And those are all normal items aren't they?
Frankincense is not something we work in too much today but we do cinnamon and we do odors and we do ointments and we do wines and oils and flour and wheat and beast and sheep and horses and chariots.
We call them cars. But we deal in that kind of thing. But look at the next two. I'm sorry? Oh I'm sorry. Revelation 18 verse 13. The first set is just a list of common ordinary commodities that people buy and sell.
Today's list would be a different list but this is what they sold at that time. All normal items to be bought and sold. But look at the last two. And slaves and the souls of men. Slave trade has been banned for years in all civilized countries.
Is there any slave trade anywhere in the world today? Oh yeah. But we disapprove of that. We say we know that can't be right. Civilized people do. It will reappear under the Antichrist's false commercial system.
Okay. So that's the preview. Let's look at verse 1. 18 -1. Now we just did chapter 17 and we looked at Babylon as a false religious system that was going to be destroyed by God. And now we're going to look at Babylon as a false commercial system.
And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven having great power and the earth was lighted with his glory. There is a word here that says another and the another is alos. Which means another of the same kind.
So even though a lot of people think that this other angel, this another angel is Christ it probably is not. Because if they wanted to be Christ they would have said heteros one of a different kind. So this is a normal angel but he has great power and the earth is lighted with his glory.
And he cried mightily with a strong voice saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen. And has become the habitation of devils and the whole of every foul spirit and a cage of every clean and hateful bird.
As I was studying this passage I got two perspectives and I'm not sure which one I agree with. Babylon fell because it was inhabited with demons and foul spirits and every unclean beast. That's the reason it fell.
Or it fell and was inhabited by demons and every foul spirit and hateful birds. So it's not clear to me whether Babylon is fallen because it became the habitation of devils or because it became the habitation of devils because it had fallen.
What do you think? You think the devils were there beforehand and that it fell because of the demons. That's what Dr. MacArthur thought. Dr. MacArthur.
Dr. MacArthur.
Exactly. Now there's two kinds of bad doing here that we two kinds of activities that are spurred by demons. Righteousness and unrighteousness. The fall of a false church. But now we're focusing on things.
Material things. Chapter 18 deals with material things. Chapter 17 dealt with spiritual things. Chapter 17 dealt with the false church. Chapter 18 deals with the false economy. That's why I wanted to go back and bring that up.
It's not that God has anything against people of wealth. It's not that He doesn't want you to have wealth or won't let you have wealth. It's not that He thinks poor people are better than rich people or rich people are better than poor people.
We get carried away with that sometimes. We think maybe what I have to do is give everything I've got away in and then the Lord will accept me. He doesn't accept you because of what you give away or what you keep.
He blesses some people with wealth and He blesses some people with other things. If you're His, He blesses you with what you need to be blessed with. Some people need to be blessed with wealth. Others, if they had wealth, would be cursed.
Everybody needs to be blessed with spiritual things. For all nations have drunk the wine of the wrath of her fornication and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.
So what has she done? She has lured, Babylon has lured the nations into idolatry. What are they worshipping? They're worshipping things. It's not bad to have things. What's bad is if they control your life.
I learned this on a fishing trip. I took my nephew on a fishing trip to Yellowstone, just outside Yellowstone, Beartooth Range. My goal was to hike up into the mountains and I had a little break down fly fishing rod that I packed in.
So we went up and we walked in. We walked up one day on a lake and while I was putting up the tent I told him he could take my fishing pole and fish. He didn't understand how fly rods worked so he took the fishing pole, put it together and tied the line onto the end.
He threw the line out and of course the line went, the lure went, and the last tip of the rod went. The good thing about me was I did not show anger that he could recognize. The bad thing was I felt anger.
I said how could he possibly have done this? Everybody should know that you don't tie a but he was like 14 years old. He didn't know. He didn't know because I didn't tell him. But I was angry and so we didn't finish the rest of that trip so we walked back and on the way back I kind of cooled off.
I got to thinking, I have spent more than $1 ,000 driving out here. And I am worried about a fishing rod. If that means that much to me, I don't need to have that fishing rod. If it means that much to me that it can make me angry and poison a whole event, it is too much value for me to have.
So I never replaced that fishing rod. I bought another one more expensive. But I don't have the same passion for it as I had for the first one. I control it. Except when I was drifting down the stream two years ago last night.
I was trying to decide whether to throw that thing on the bank and swim for my life or wait for you to catch me. I held on to the rod and waited for my brother to catch me. So I still love that rod too much.
That's one of my. So seriously the idea is the problem with the commerce, the problem with the wealth was not the wealth. It was that the people worshipped the wealth. Religious Babylon lured the nations into idolatry with false gods.
Commercial Babylon seduced the unbelieving world into a stupor in which the people of the world will substitute their passion for material things for God. And materialism will become their god. I think the whole point of this passage is the two reasons that Babylon was destroyed.
One was for its religious system which substituted one god, false gods for a true god, and the other which substituted material things for the true God. And I heard another voice from heaven saying come out of her my people that ye be not partakers of her sin and that ye receive not her plagues.
God still has people in the world at this time. And this is his call to them to disentangle themselves from the world system before they're destroyed along with it. Now we have to live in the world. I mean that's where we are.
We are in the world. We have to live in the world. There is a system that we have to work within. I go to work every day. I get paid. Most of us work. Brother David's got a commercial venture that is successful.
But he has to work within the system. But within the world system. He has to work within whatever system the government puts on the trading of stock. He can't just go out and do what he wants to do. But what he can't do he has to follow the world system to that degree.
But what he can't do is he can't allow the world system to take him over. He has to remain true to what really is control of his life and that's God. When he does that, if he lets the system entangle him too much then he'll lose what he thinks he's gaining.
We all do that. We get too entangled in the world system. We work in the world but we're not part of the world. In Romans 12 he says,. Paul says,. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind that ye may prove what is good and acceptable and the perfect will of God.
So what are you told to do? Don't be entrapped into the world system. Can you live in the world? You have to. We have no other place to live. Now, so what's Babylon being punished for? False religion and being entrapped by materialism.
Verse 5,. For her sins have reached into heaven and God hath remembered her iniquities. That's a little bit reminiscent of what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah and the Lord said because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great and because their sin is grievous I will go down and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it which hath come unto me.
And the men turned their faces from thence and went toward Sodom. But Abraham stood yet before the Lord. Verse 6,. Reward her even as she rewardeth you and double unto her double according to her works.
In the cup which she hath filled, fill her to the double. So what's happening here? What's the angel requesting? Double unto her double. The typical punishment in the Hebrew culture for stealing was to repay double.
The punishment was double the crime. So the angel is requesting that God give back to Babylon double according to her deeds. How much hath she glorified herself and lived deliciously so much torment and sorrow give her for she saith in her heart I sit as a queen I am no widow and I shall see no sorrow.
Now I highlighted two parts of that passage. She hath glorified herself I want to think about what's wrong with that and I sit a queen I am no widow and I shall see no sorrow. So what about the first portion?
She hath glorified herself. What's wrong with that? Only God gets the glory. There's a passage in Isaiah that says I am the Lord that is my name and my glory will I not give unto another neither my praises to graven images.
So when she demanded glory when she glorified herself she was sinning wasn't she? She was sinning the same sin that Satan sinned when he wanted to put himself on the level of God. I will ascend above the most high.
That's what Satan said. Well what about the last passage? I sit a queen and am no widow and am no widow and shall see no sorrow. What's wrong with that? She's pronouncing things she has no right to pronounce.
Okay you're correct. What else? I sit as a queen and shall see no sorrow. She is riddled. That's right. Well I don't know whether she put herself even with God or not but she certainly put herself on a high level.
First she glorified herself and then she says I am sufficient. I am sufficient to take care of everything. I don't need anybody to protect me. Widows needed someone to protect them. Widows needed someone to protect them.
She says I'm not a widow. I'm a queen. I don't need to protect somebody to protect me. I can take care of myself. She's taken pride in her ability to take care of herself with no help from whom? With no help from God.
Yes? I didn't do the Scofield Bible.
In fact, it brings the opposite of what it says. So I put not true. And then I put the Scofield was wrong here. Read Isaiah 13, 19 -22 carefully. It all happens in the end of the age. Babylon does exist.
Isn't that striking though that the scholar of that had because it didn't fit his theological box. I don't know. He was not on millennial but he spiritualized that for some reason.
Well, there are spiritual aspects. I can understand where he came from. There are spiritual aspects to Babylon. Babylon is a representation of a false religion. It is a representation of a false commerce.
But it is also.
A real city. So they were trying to... No, it will protect itself.
All of those things. All of those things we get in real trouble when we try to protect the Bible. The most compelling argument against evolution is it came with the information age with code. A code means nothing unless you know the code.
And so evolution couldn't happen unless the code and the sender and the receiver developed at the same time. So it could not possibly happen. I think though it's going to be worthwhile to go back to 13.
You said 1319? Could you read that? Isaiah 1319.
When God overthrew Solomon and Gomorrah, it shall never be inhabited neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation. Neither shall the Arabian pitch a tent there, neither shall shepherds make their foal there.
The wild beasts of the desert shall live there. So it sounds like Babylon is just desolate forever. But what you don't realize if you don't keep reading the chapter 14 is that the time period of this picture is after the tribulation period.
So what it's teaching the prophet was seeing Babylon at the end of this age not before this age when it started. So it's there and then at the end of this age when Armageddon happens, Babylon is destroyed and it will never be inhabited again until the millennial kingdom.
That's what it's teaching. Yeah. It is. It's a great reference.
But you would think even in his time, even in his time he should have known it says it shall never be inhabited neither shall it be dwelt with, neither shall the Arabian pitch his tent there. Anybody that came through and pitched a tent there did that ever happen?
Sure it did. And now he'd be in real trouble when Saddam Hussein started building it. Well that's interesting. That's certainly worth going into. Because I didn't have, I didn't refer to the Scofield Bible I didn't recognize that that was going to be a problem.
Well no. Don't do that. I've been called Dr. Bill once. And it was by mistake too. I sit as a queen and shall see no sorrow. I have the ability to take care of myself. I am the captain of my soul. It's like my favorite, my anti-favorite poem.
Because for a long time it was my favorite poem. And you get things so wrong when you rely on human thinking. That sounded good too. Invictus. Out of the pit that covers me. Out of the dark that covers me.
Dark is the pit from pole to pole. And all of that. I think whatever gods may be for my soul, I am the master of my ship. I am the captain of my fate. That's what we all want to be. We all want to be in charge of our lives.
She is in charge of everything. That she has the ability to take care of herself. So what happens? Therefore shall her plagues come in one day. Death and mourning and famine. And she shall be utterly burned with fire.
For strong is the Lord God who judgeth her. So when is this going to happen? Immediately. Instantly. Almost instantly. In one day. Death and mourning and famine. And she will burn with fire. For strong is the God who judgeth her.
How certain is her doom? For sure. It cannot be avoided. For the God who judges her is strong. No one can frustrate God's plans or keep Him from accomplishing what He intends to accomplish. Many people can frustrate our plans that no one can God.
Job said, I know that thou canst do everything and that no thought can be withholden from thee. And despite the many devices in a man's heart, nevertheless the counsel of the Lord shall stand. So what God says will come to pass.
In Proverbs, I'm sorry in Isaiah it says, the Lord of hosts hath sworn. This is 1424. The Lord of hosts has sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so it shall come to pass. And as I have purposed, so shall it stand.
This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth. And this is the hand that is stretched out upon all nations. For the Lord God hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? And His hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?
So what God said in His mind to do is done. If God said in His mind to do, it is done. Yes. Well, I think it's all predestinated. It's like once you recognize the validity of predestination. I don't think you can read the Bible again without finding it in every verse.
God's plan is the only plan. It's the only plan, and it is followed exactly. There are no Brother David was talking about swerving. People swerve. Isn't that the word you used? Swerving? People swerve, and their course changes.
God's course doesn't swerve. If there's a curve in God's plan, it was in there from the beginning. It was not a reaction to a dog stepping out on the road, and he had to swerve around it to avoid hitting it.
It was His plan from the beginning. Now the most famous king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, affirmed God's. He says, God doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest thou?
When did this happen? After he stood on the wall and looked out and said, look what I have done. I have built this Babylon. And then he spent some time wandering around in the fields eating grass like an ox.
Pride goeth before the fall. But you know, if you're His, and I think Nebuchadnezzar was His. If pride goeth before the fall, even if you fall, you don't fall ultimately. You don't fall to the pit. You fall as far as God needs for you to fall for you to come back to His fold.
And if you're not His, you fall all the way into perdition. And the kings of the earth, who committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her when they shall see the smoke of her burning.
Now there are going to be four groups of people that are talked about here. The kings of the earth, the political leaders, the kings of the earth, the sellers of merchandise, the merchants, the transporters of merchandise, and the consumers of merchandise.
And I'm going to quicken it up because I'm running over into the next hour. Standing afar off in the fear of her torment saying, alas, alas, that great Babylon, that mighty city, for in one hour thy judgment is come.
The political leaders and all the others were standing afar off. They weep in the morn, not because they are emotionally attached to the city. Why are they mourning? Because they've lost their source of wealth.
They've lost their source of power. They've lost the items that they are the consumers have lost the source of the items that they have brought together that they've learned to love. That they've learned to worship.
They are bemoaning for themselves not because they are concerned at all with Babylon. I want to stop and offer time for comments for anybody that wants to say or ask or do anything, say anything. And Isaiah?
I picked up Isaiah 1424. 1424, that's just after what Brother David was talking about. And I think it probably runs right on into it. Ron, could I ask you to dismiss us please? Okay, I'm sorry. Could you dismiss us please?