I want to bring to the forefront
in any study of any book of the Bible is that in light of a lot of
negative things that we read concerning the judgment of God
against those who are found without Christ is the comfort and the peace
and the assurance that God's true people have in Him. I always think about the book
of Isaiah, I think it's chapter 40 or maybe chapter 42, I can't
remember. He says, comfort ye, comfort
ye my people, for the Lord hath given her double for all her
sins. And that double, I believe, is
not only the putting away of our sins, but the gift of righteousness
imputed to us, whereby we stand before God justified And so I've
entitled this message with the words of verse four. It says,
I heard another voice from heaven saying, come out of her my people,
come out of her. And that is God bringing his
people out of a sinful state of existence in what is called
Babylon. Now some people would hear this
message and say, well, I've never been to Babylon. Where's Babylon
today? Well, physical Babylon is around
the area called Iraq and Iran, that area there. And physical
Babylon was a place where God used as his judgment against
Judah, the southern kingdom of Judah, for their sins. and he
brought them into captivity in Babylon, kept them there for
70 years, and then delivered them out of Babylon and allowed
them to go back to their homeland, though they were, from that time
on, under a foreign government, one or the other, leading up
to the Roman Empire, which was in existence when our Lord come
to this earth the first time. But at that time, what happened? Babylon when when Babylon destroyed
Jerusalem and the temple and took the people captive that
was the end of the state of Israel and It's never been the same
now. I know they talk about Israel today in 1946 and all that or
48 or whenever it was they came back into existence there is
a country there, but there's no issue of religion or connection
with God other than providence to that state of Israel today.
They're not the people of God, that nation. The people of God
are spiritual Israel who live in a spiritual Jerusalem. And
in the book of Revelation, you see these two great cities. You
see Babylon, which is indicative of all that is in opposition
to Christ. foreign religion, foreign to
the truth, foreign to the gospel, in any form, in whatever it comes. And much of Babylon calls itself
Christian, but they deny the doctrine of Christ. And so anyone
who's in a state of unbelief in religion or whatever, they
live, they're citizens of Babylon. And even God's people start out
that way in this world, as I said in the lesson before, talking
about our standing before God in Christ that never changes.
Righteous in Him, our sins are put away. But we're born into
this world in a state of depravity and spiritual death, falling
in Adam, in unbelief, ignorant, until God the Holy Spirit, sent
by Christ to His people, He comes and calls us out of Babylon.
Come out of her, my people. And He actually brings us out.
Our coming out is not because of a decision we make, walking
in an aisle or getting baptized. Our coming out is not of our
own free will. It's God bringing us out by the
power of His Spirit through the preaching of the gospel. where
into he gives us a new heart, a new life, a new mind. Well here in Revelation 18, and
then we become citizens in our experience of the heavenly Jerusalem. The Apostle Paul spoke a lot
of that, about heavenly Jerusalem in Galatians chapter four, where
he showed a contrast between Jerusalem which is above, and
Jerusalem which is below. The Jerusalem which is below,
we're in opposition to Christ. But the heavenly Jerusalem which
is above, they're Christ's people. They're gathered together under
the headship of Christ, under his truth, the gospel. And then
the book of Revelation, a book of Hebrews speaks of the heavenly
Jerusalem. occupied by the people of God
under the headship of Christ, believing in Christ, having been
given new life, spiritual life, the gift of faith and repentance. And then in Revelation, we see
these two cities, Babylon the great. Look at verse one of Revelation
18. And after these things, I saw
another angel come down from heaven. Most commentators says
this is another appearance of Christ to John. having great
power, the power of God, the power of truth, the power of
the Spirit, sovereign power, not anything to compare with
it. He will do His will. That's what it's about. And the
earth was lightened with His glory. Now we can think about
this as the second coming of Christ, but we have manifestations
of it all the way through the New Testament. I think about
the Mount of Transfiguration. We're going to be studying that
next week where Christ showed His glory to three of His disciples
as He spoke in that vision with Moses representing the law and
Elijah representing the prophets. His glory, the glory of God in
the face of Jesus Christ. You want to know God? Then you
must look to Christ. Because He, in the glory of His
person, and in the power of His finished work, is the revelation
of God. And that without Him, the only
way you'll know God is by judgment against your sins. Oh, how awful
it will be for those who stand before God without Christ. Oh,
my soul, think about that. But His glory will shine through
either way. But His glory shines through
in every attribute in the salvation of sinners by His grace through
Christ. And verse 2 says this, it says,
He cried mightily with a strong voice, the voice of God, the
voice of authority, the voice of power, the voice of truth.
And here's what he said, Babylon the great, great in the eyes
of men now, and great in number, Babylon the great is fallen,
and he repeats it, is fallen. Why does he repeat it? Because
he's emphasizing that from this fall, Babylon cannot and will
not recover. This is it. Babylon's done. all opposition to Christ, religious
or unreligious, is fallen, fallen, and has become the habitation
of devils. It always was the habitation
of devils. But now it seems that everything
is out in the open and the hold of every foul spirit and the
cage of every unclean and hateful bird Remember the fowls of the
air? These fowls that feed upon the
dead? That's what it is. Now, you remember,
as we look back in chapter 17, how Babylon appeared to the world. She appeared to be beautiful,
enticing, seductive, outwardly. I think about Christ when he
talked to the Pharisees, he says, you do outwardly appear righteous
unto men. We all know what we call in the
eyes of men and women, good people, kind people, humble people, who
are lost in their sins because they don't know Christ. Sometimes
we'll always say that, well, they're just such kind people.
It's almost as if we think, well, if you don't believe in Christ,
you're just some kind of old meany ogre or something. That's
not true. Remember again, Christ said,
you do indeed appear righteous unto men, moral, kind. And I'm
glad they're like that, at least in the world. But my friend,
when it comes to salvation, When it comes to righteousness, when
it comes to a right relationship with God, it is all by His grace
in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not through our
kindness or our goodness. Should we as believers be kind
and good? Should we seek to match them
in their dedication, their sincerity? Well, of course we should. We
should outshine them. But the glory goes to God. Let
your light so shine before men that they may see your good works
and glorify your Father which is in heaven. And that's what's
going on here. Babylon. She's not going to be
revived. And never forget now, many times
Babylon comes in the name of Christ but denies the doctrine
thereof. She's the dwelling place of every
evil spirit and the source of every false gospel inspired by
Satan. And here she's going to be exposed
for what she is. Look at verse three. For all
nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.
That's her damnable false doctrine, false philosophies, false ideas
in opposition to God's word, God's way, God's truth. in opposition to Christ. The
kings of the earth have committed fornication with her. That's
the ungodly governments. You think about how ungodly nations
and governments have allied themselves with false religion. How many
of them have? And they make a lot of money.
They draw a lot of people. That's the committing of fornication
with her and the merchants of the earth. It's a big business.
You know, false religion's a big business. Think about that. And they're waxed or grown rich
through the abundance or the power of her delicacies. Selling
her indulgences. Things like that. Selling her
icons. Selling pieces of the cross.
How many of you ever been to the Holy Land? Quote Holy Land,
unquote. You know, those are the kinds
of things that Babylon is dealing with. Because it feels good to
people. It looks good. That's how she
entices them. And then look at verse four.
Now here's the salvation of the Lord. Behold, I think about Moses
standing on the shore of the Red Sea and the Egyptians coming
after the people and they start complaining and he says, stand
still and behold the salvation of the Lord. Well look here,
he says in verse four, and I heard another voice from heaven saying,
come out of her my people. Who are God's people? Well, they're
identified in so many ways in the scripture. They're identified
as the elect. God's elect. God's not willing
that any of them should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
They're identified as his church. The word church, it's the word
ecclesiaste. which means congregation called
out, called out ones. This is the clarion call of the
gospel to God's people to flee from every vestige of Babylon
before it's too late. This is a call to faith in Christ
as he's identified and defined in the scripture, in the word
of God, Because it's imperative that we know that the Christ
we follow is the true one. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 11,
they come preaching another Jesus, another gospel by another spirit. I wanna know that the one I'm
trusting is the one who's able to save to the uttermost. Them
that come unto God by him, don't you? Would you like to stand
before God like those false preachers in Matthew 7 saying, we preached
in your name, we've done this, we've done that, only to hear
Him say, depart from me, you that work iniquity, I never knew
you. And that's what self-examination
is about. It's not examining ourselves
to see if we measure up because we've done better than we did
last year. It's us examining ourselves to
whether we're in the faith. That is, am I looking to the
true Christ? Or am I looking to a counterfeit?
Am I being deceived? Am I being fooled? And that's
why I tell you, search the Scriptures. Test the Spirit. Test me. Because
not everyone who claims to be preaching Christ is preaching
the true Christ. That's serious business, isn't
it? Babylon is good at disguising
herself in these ways. Who are God's people? They are
the election of grace. They have been redeemed by the
blood of Christ. He owns them. And He did not
die to make them savable. He did not die for them conditionally. He died for you if you do this. He secured the salvation of His
people. His name shall be called Jesus,
for He shall save His people from their sin. That's the Jesus
of Scripture. His people are those who are
born again by the Spirit. That's how they come out. God
finds them, sends the Spirit to bring them under the gospel,
gives them life from the dead, and they hear the gospel with
spiritual ears, see it with spiritual eyes, believe it with a new heart. believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
They're regenerated. They're converted. They're convinced
of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. Whereas before in
Babylon, they were seeking to establish their own righteousness
before God, now they're submitted to the righteousness of God in
Christ. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believe it. So God the Father chose them.
gave them to Christ, conditioned all of their salvation upon Him.
God the Son incarnate, the Lord Jesus Christ, redeemed them by
His blood and established righteousness whereby God is just to justify
them. And then God the Holy Spirit
is sent of the Father and the Son to give us spiritual life
and effectually, invincibly call them to Christ to come out of
Babylon. And it's not just coming out
of a place, it's coming to Christ. And here's what he says in verse
four. He says, come out of her my people, that you be not partakers,
partners. I think that's what, when brother
Mark read that, it said partners. It's the word of fellowship,
what it is. That you might not be in fellowship
with her in her sins, partners of her in her sins, and that
you receive not of her plagues. Partners fellowship 2nd Peter
1 and verse 4 says that we are made in Christ. We are made partakers
of the divine nature What does that mean? we're brought into
fellowship with God the Father God the Son and God the Holy
Spirit as God the Holy Spirit reveals the promises of the gospel
to our hearts and our minds and John wrote in 1 John 1, our fellowship
is with the Father and the Son. And he wrote in 2 John that those
who abide not in the doctrine of Christ have not God. But those
who abide in the doctrine of Christ have both the Father and
the Son. And he says, be not a partaker of them, a participant
with them, a partner with them, because if you do, you're a partner,
a participant in their evil deeds, religious or otherwise. Don't be in fellowship with Babylon.
Don't take part of her sins, her spiritual fornication, her
idolatry. The wages of sin is death and
to take part with her is to take part in her utter destruction. That's what he's saying, her
plagues. Why perish with Babylon when there's life in Christ? Look at verse five. And this
is important. For her sins have reached unto
heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities." Oh, my soul.
Oh, I pray God doesn't remember my iniquities. What are you talking
about, preacher? Does God forget something? No. No, that's not what it means.
God doesn't change. What it means is this. It's just
like over in Hebrews chapter 8 and other passages. God says
of his people, whom he chose, whom he redeemed by the blood
of Christ, he will remember our iniquities no more. What does
that mean? It means that when we stand before
God at judgment, unlike Babylon, God will not hold our sins against
us. Our sins will not be brought
up to testify against us. You know, a lot of people who
call themselves Christian, they still think that when they get
to the judgment seat, that God's gonna outweigh, gonna weigh their
good works with their bad works and he's gonna reward them accordingly.
Well, I got news for you. If that's the case, the reward
you're going to suffer is damnation. We're still sinners. Saved by
the grace of God. What does that mean? That God
won't remember. He will not impute them to us.
He will not charge us with our sins. That's what he means. How can he do that and be just?
He charged them to Christ. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. Who
can condemn us? It's Christ that died. Yea, rather,
is risen again, seated at the right hand of the Father, ever
living to make intercession for us. Do you realize that the Bible
teaches in the gospel that if Christ died for you, God can
remember your sins no more? He would be unjust to do so. We stand before God in a righteousness
that God has charged to us. But Babylon, he says, her sins
have reached unto heaven. In other words, when she goes
to judgment, her sins go with her. And God hath remembered her iniquity.
Just like those false preachers in Matthew 7, depart from me
you that work iniquity. I never knew you. I never chose
you. Never loved you. That's what
that means. Can you enter into that? Somebody said, well, how do I
know that refers to me? Well, where is your hope? Where
is your salvation? Where is your assurance? Is it
in yourself? What you do, what you try to
do. You know, one of the things that I remember
about my own upbringing in false religion is the altar call. Y'all have experienced that.
Preachers standing down there begging people to come down the
aisle and give your heart to Jesus. They come down there and
they talk to you a little bit, and you repeat a prayer or something
like that, and you get baptized. And often when you talk to people
like that later on in life, and if you are talking about salvation,
now maybe not every time, but often when you say, do you know
if you're saved? Are you sure you're saved? Well,
you know, when I was 14 or 15 or 16, I did this, I did that.
What a lame, lame testimony. And it's sad, isn't it? But that's
what Babylon promotes. That kind of thing. And they call it your spiritual
birth date or whatever. My friend, this thing is too
important for me to look back on my life and try to find a
point in my life when I gave my heart to Jesus when the Bible
doesn't even say that. Now I know that it says, my son,
give me your heart. I know that, but that's talking
about believers. And what that's talking about
is dedicate yourself to Christ. That's not talking about a walk
in an aisle and motion and all that. This thing is too important. It's too vital. Oh my soul, think
about it. The Bible says that in Christ,
who was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. That's what's important. Do I
know Christ? Right now, today. Is He my only
hope? My hope is built on nothing less.
You know it. In Jesus' blood and righteousness.
Come out of Babylon. Come out of her. And then look
at verse 6. He says, reward her even as she
rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works,
in the cup which she hath filled, fill to her double." Well, what that's telling us
is her punishment is according to her works. You see, if we're
in Christ, I don't want my reward or my punishment or anything
to be according to my works, do you? I want to plead Christ. My only plea, Christ died for
me. My only plea, my righteousness
is Christ. But Babylon has no substitute
before God. She has no mediator, no sin bearer. no offering for sin except her
own works, which are not good enough. And she's rejected and
despised the Lord Jesus Christ, the only way of salvation, the
only way of forgiveness, the only way of righteousness, eternal
life and glory. And this double here refers to
the fact that she'll receive the end, a double punishment
compared to what she inflicted on true believers, because Babylon
being the enemy of the church has been the great persecutor
of the church. I was talking to a person several
years ago about this, to several people, actually. And they brought
one to talk about and one to find out what we believe here.
And they brought their Bibles, and we sat down. And I asked
them this question. I said, is your Bible written
in English? They said, well, sure. In yours?
I said, yeah. I said, well, do you realize
that the man who first translated The Bible into the English language
was burned at the stake by religion, by Babylon. There's been more bloodshed of
believers by false religion than any other entity. And if it was
an ungodly government, it was in cahoots with false religion.
Think about Rome and the Jews coming against our Savior and
against the apostles. Now, all of this is not God being
unjust, it's His justice. God's gonna do what's right.
And if He fills her cup double, that's what they earned. But
oh Lord, don't give me what I've earned. Don't give me what I
deserve, give me your grace, your mercy, your unconditional
love in Christ. Look at verse six, or verse seven.
How much she hath glorified herself. You see, this is the thing about
Babylon and false religion, works or in religion, free will religion,
decisional religion. It glorifies, they glorify themselves. We made the difference. We did
it. and they live deliciously, so
much torment and sorrow give her, for she saith in her heart,
I sit a queen and am no widow and shall see no sorrow, speaking
peace to herself where there is no peace. See, she thinks she's okay. Oh,
and don't upset her now, don't tell her the truth, huh? Because
then she gets upset. Leave me alone. You remember
Jeremiah, the lone prophet of Judah? One of him, many false preachers,
and what was their message? Peace, peace, when there was
no peace. And look at verse eight. Therefore
shall her plagues come in one day, death and mourning and famine,
one day. In other words, it's gonna be
a short work. This is not gonna be, when Christ comes again,
this is not gonna be a long drawn out thing. It's just gonna happen. You know, 1 Corinthians 15 tells
us that all true believers in our glorification will be changed
in the twinkling of an eye. It'll be there before you know
it. Well, Babylon's destruction too, her death, her mourning,
famine, and she shall be utterly burned with fire. And it'll all
be the strength which is in the Lord, for strong is the Lord
God who judgeth her. And understand that God's judgments
will always be according to truth. and they'll always be right,
not only in Babylon's fall and judgment and destruction, but
in the salvation of his people. He's just to justify his people
on one ground, the merits of the obedience and the death of
the Lord Jesus Christ, his blood, his righteousness alone. All
right, let's sing as our closing hymn, hymn number 118, When I
Survey the Wondrous Cross. Let's stand.