Okay, well, we're coming back
to Zechariah chapter five. We looked at the first part last
week, and I've called the, I've given the title to this message,
A Vision of This World's Wickedness. And people would say, I'm sure,
in religion generally, that you're starting a new venture in a new
hall in a public place. What a terrible message to come
out with. A vision of this world's wickedness,
where are we going to find any hope in that? But I think that
we will. Because, as I said earlier on,
what are the scriptures? These are they, said Jesus, that
speak of me. They speak of him. And if they
speak of him, they speak of the way of salvation. They speak
of the truth of eternal life. Is that relevant to us in these
days? This is a passage that relates to a period about two
and a half thousand years ago. Many would say, what's that got
to do with us? It's got everything to do with us, because we're
alive, we live. We live and move and have our
being in God and in Him alone, and we must meet Him and be ready
to meet Him. So what is His Word? What is
the mystery of godliness that He reveals to His people through
His Word? Well, let me remind you of the
scene of Zechariah, the prophet Zechariah, next to the last book
of the Old Testament. One of the Old Testament prophets.
It was about two and a half thousand years. I'm not going to be precise.
Historians will tell me, oh, you're out there by 50 years
or so. It doesn't matter. We're talking about two and a
half thousand years ago. And Jerusalem and the temple
in Jerusalem had been flattened, raised to the ground by Nebuchadnezzar
and his Babylonian armies. And they'd been carried away
captive to Babylon. Carried away captive because
of their repeated idolatry. And God warned them through the
prophets. And they took no heed and it came. And he came and
destroyed their temple, their magnificent temple. That wonderful
building of Solomon, King Solomon. It was awe-inspiring to anybody
that came to visit. And what was it? Why was it there?
Jerusalem is there to this day, the city is still there. But
why was this beautiful temple there in those days? What was
it there for? It was because it was an earthly
picture of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is where God
meets with his people. It was that earthly picture of
that kingdom, but it was in ruins. In the days of Zechariah, following
the Babylonian captivity, it was in ruins. But God said it
must be rebuilt. It must be rebuilt. How did he
do that? He moved a heathen emperor, Cyrus, the emperor of the Medo-Persians,
and he foretold it 200 years before it happened. He put it
in the heart of Cyrus to tell the Jews to go back to Jerusalem. Not only did he put it in his
heart to tell them to go back, but to resource them so that
they could go back and rebuild this temple in Jerusalem. Why
must it be rebuilt? Why must it be rebuilt? Because
God's eternal kingdom must triumph. It must triumph. You might remember,
some of you, that when we looked at Revelation, I ended up writing
a book on it, and I called the book, The Kingdom of God Triumphant. God's eternal kingdom must triumph. The multitude of people, the
innumerable multitude of people that God loved before the beginning
of time and chose and united with his son, the Lord Jesus
Christ, who himself is God, fullness of God, dwelling bodily
in Him. He chose them and put them in Him, in eternal union,
and those people must be qualified to inhabit that kingdom of God. As we are by nature in the flesh,
in sin, we are unfit to inhabit that kingdom, for nothing that
defileth shall enter therein. All have violated God's holy
standard. All have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God. In Adam, we all sinned. You say, that's not fair. How
does that affect me? Well, the proof of it is that
we all sin, don't we? We all sin every day in thought,
word, and deed. Even our best efforts are sin.
And as sinners, God's law judges us all guilty. Judges us all
unfit for his kingdom. Judges us all as being incompatible
with the being, the holy, pure, perfect being of God. And none
of us, in ourselves, can remedy that. We're condemned by nature,
in the flesh, as sinners, to timeless, eternal separation
from God and his kingdom. So how's he going to populate
his kingdom? God himself must become man. God himself must
become man as the substitute of the people he loved, the multitude
he loved. He must become man so that he
can pay as a man the sin debt of the men, the mankind that
he chose in Christ before the foundation of the world, so that
his justice is satisfied. He must come and pay the ransom
for their release from the bondage of sin, from that which keeps
them out of the kingdom of God. He must pay his own ransom to
his own justice. And how must he pay it? It must
be in blood, but God in his... essence in his nature, a spirit,
doesn't have blood. God is a spirit, so he must become
man. So in Christ he became a man,
so that he might shed human blood for human sin, to pay the sin
debt of the people he loved. But it can't just be any human
blood. It must be sinless, precious
blood. The blood of the Lamb of God.
God incarnate. God must be born. God in flesh. He must be made
of a woman, it says in Galatians 4. When the fullness of the time
was come, God sent forth his Son made of a woman. Made under
the law to redeem those who are under the law. Made of a woman
without a human father. so that he didn't take on that
sin of Adam. And he must grow without sin
as a perfect lamb of God. And this is the point, for these
people rebuilding this temple, he must come and he must walk
the streets of Jerusalem and preach in the courts of the temple
and go to the cross of Calvary outside that city wall to bear
the sin of his people, its punishment in their place, and then rise
from the dead rise from the dead for their justification. He was
lifted up for their transgressions and raised for their justification,
it says in Romans 4, 25. The imperative is there for these
people, 2,500 years ago, to complete the rebuilding work because they've
been flagging, they've been losing heart. Opposition, they faced
opposition. There were all sorts of things
against them. It was imperative that they complete this rebuilding
work. And these visions given to Zechariah were to tell them,
as it was preached to them, it was to tell them the reason why
they were doing it. They weren't just doing it. You
know, you come across occasionally, you see that somebody's found
a ruined building that's two or three hundred years ago, and
they set about a project to restore it, and they try raising money,
and you think, well, that's all very nice and good for you, but
why are you doing it? What's the point of it? Is anybody going
to live in it when you've finished it? Is it just for the virtue
of saying, oh, haven't you done a good thing in restoring this
building? It wasn't like that. They were restoring this temple
because it had to be done, because the Son of God was coming to
walk its courts, and to preach in its courts, and to turf out
the money changers, and to fulfill all righteousness there, that
then he might go and redeem his people from the curse of the
law. The message to incentivize them came from God in heaven. By two prophets, Haggai, the
one before Zechariah, and then Zechariah. And to Zechariah,
God gave visions, many visions in one night. And the ones that
we're looking at today in chapter 5 are still part of this one
night. Everything in chapter 1, 2, 3,
4, and 5 so far is in one night. And I think even as we go on
into chapter 6, visions from heaven. The mystery of God revealed. This is what he told them as
they were flagging in their enthusiasm for getting on with this work.
He told them in the first vision that he is with them. You know,
the man on the red horse amongst the myrtle trees, it was a picture.
It's this mysterious language. It's this allegorical language,
this parable type language, to convey heavenly truth. To try
and get the people to understand this is God in heaven, giving
these eternal pictures. He is with his people. The God
who is amongst you is mighty, it says somewhere in the scriptures.
And his kingdom, secondly, his kingdom and his eternal purpose
shall be completed. Whatever opposition, whatever
difficulties, nothing is going to stop God's eternal purpose.
And then the third vision, because they were fearing all of the
powerful nations and empires around them, the horns of power
of this world. And he gives them a vision that
the horns of power of this world cannot stop this kingdom being
completed and triumphing. The picture in Nebuchadnezzar's
dream that Daniel interpreted, a little stone cut out without
hands, and that stone becomes a mighty rock and grinds all
the rest to powder. So you see, it's all part of
the same vision of the triumph of the kingdom of God. They will
complete this earthly picture, this temple in Jerusalem, for
Christ to come. And the question is, why? Why must they do it? Because
of Satan's kingdom, of this sinful, God-rejecting world. That kingdom
must be destroyed. It must meet its just end under
the purposes of God, and God's kingdom must triumph. In the
first part, first four verses of chapter five, we saw the vision
of a flying roll, which was symbolical of access to God, because it
was the same size in this vision of the porch of the temple and
of the holy place in the temple, and they were symbolical of access
to God. The flying roll confirms how
all the world has access to God. It's by perfectly keeping the
justice and righteousness of God, which of course we cannot
do. We're all in sinful rebellion against God. And it all came
down to those two things. It was stealing and it was swearing
falsely in the name of the Lord. And we found last week that all
sin comes under those two categories. But then we go on to see in this
next vision from verse 5 down to verse 11, how is that sinful
world most manifest? That's the message of this seventh
vision in verses 5 to 11. So let's outline the vision,
first of all. It's mysterious. It's eternal
heavenly truth communicated to sinful man. You see, the language
that we use to communicate with each other, it cannot communicate
these mysterious truths of eternity. So God uses pictures and allegories
and parables using earthly words to convey to God's people heavenly
truth, as we saw in Ephesians 3. Read again, if you would,
the first ten verses of Ephesians 3, about the mystery of God that
was shown to Paul the Apostle and the other apostles, and thereby
from him to his people. So then, what does it say? Let's
just outline it briefly, just at a high level. Verse 5, the
angel that talked with me, the angel that talked with me is
God himself. It's Christ. Christ is the messenger.
Angel means messenger. He is the messenger of the covenant.
He is the one who speaks the word of God, for in the beginning
was the word. And the Word was with God, and
the Word was God. If you look back in chapter 1
and verse 12, it's the same angel of the Lord that's speaking with
him. Down in verse 13, the Lord answered
the angel that talked to me with good words and comfortable words.
And then you carry on down in that chapter, and it's clear
that this angel of the Lord, the Lord showed me in verse 20,
the Lord showed, it's the Lord Jesus Christ, it's God, the word
of God speaking to his people. That's who is speaking. And he
shows him, in verse six, he shows him an ephah. It's not a term
that we use these days, but what it is, is a huge basket, a great
big basket of, well, I'll use the units that we use, it's 35
litres approximately. It's a big, big basket, a big
container. And it says this, this is an
ephah that goeth forth, he said. Moreover, this is their resemblance
through all the earth. Now, there's some mystery there
with that translation. It would be better if it said,
this is the eye, that which all the earth looks to, for the object
of its faith. It's what the world looks to. This container This big basket
in the vision is what the earth looks to. It's the object of
the world's faith. And verse 7, there's a big lid
on it, a big heavy lid. Behold, there was lifted up a
talent of lead. Speaking of weight, it's heavy.
It's heavy. There's a heavy lid on top of
it. Whatever evil and wickedness it contains is contained by a
heavy weight on the top of it. That tells us immediately That
gives us encouragement not to despair because it's Christ who
measures the extent of all of this. It's Christ who controls
all and even the wickedness, he controls it because he is
the one who opens the lid. He opens the lid and he reveals
in the midst of it, a woman. This is a woman that sitteth
in the midst of the ephah. And verse eight, and he said,
this is wickedness or He said, this is the wicked woman. And
he cast it into the midst of the ephah. He put it in there
to contain it, the wickedness. He put it in this container that
he has measured out, and he cast the weight of lead, the lid,
the heavy lid on top of it. He controls it. Then look, verse
nine. I lifted up my eyes and looked,
and behold, there came out two women. And the wind was in their
wings and they had wings like the wings of a stork, big wings,
big powerful wings. And they lifted up this basket,
this 35 litre basket with its heavy weight, between the earth
and the heaven. All could see it, it's lifted
up between the ground and the sky. And I said to the angel
that talked with me, where are they taking it? Where are they
taking it to? Verse 11, to build it an house
in the land of Shinar and it shall be established and set
there upon her own base. Where are those two women from?
I don't really know. It says they came out, maybe
they came out from the Ifar or elsewhere, can't be sure. But
they display the Ifar throughout all the earth and carry it away
to a house in Shinar and set it on its solid base. What is
the nature of this wickedness? It's a vision, because he says
this is wickedness, or this is the wicked woman. What is the
nature of this wickedness that is shown to us here? What is
this wicked woman contained in the ephah under the heavy lead
weight? Well, there's no need for much
speculation because the scripture illuminates it and makes it plain.
The wicked woman is false religion. It's false religion. You say,
well, well, point out to me a religion which is false. I'll point it
out to you. It's all of it except the one
that isn't false. All of it. All religion. All
human philosophy that denies the revelation of the one true
God. All of it. All religion, all
human philosophy that denies the revelation of the one true
God is false religion that is represented by this woman. Turn
over to Revelation 17 and keep your finger there in Revelation
17 for later. But let's read the first six
verses of Revelation 17. Revelation 17 is after the end. At the end
of Revelation 16 is the battle of Armageddon and that's the
end. And then the chapters that follow in Revelation 17 onwards
give more detail or give a different reporter's perspective on the
things that John has already seen, culminating in the glorious
picture of the paradise of God in heaven. But in the start of
chapter 17, remember, Armageddon's happened, it's finished, it's
done, the end has happened. And in chapter 17, we now start
to get different perspectives on what was really going on.
There came one of the seven angels, which had the seven vials of
the final plagues of God, and talked with me, saying unto me,
come hither, and I will show unto thee the judgment of the
great whore that sitteth upon many waters. with whom the kings
of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth
have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. So he
carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness, and I saw
a woman sit upon a scarlet-coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy,
having seven heads and ten horns, and the woman was arrayed in
purple and scarlet colour. and decked with gold and precious
stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations
and filthiness of her fornication. And upon her forehead was a name
written, Mystery, Babylon, Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots
and the abominations of the earth. And I saw the woman drunken with
the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.
And when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration. The translation
would be better. I wondered with great astonishing
shock. I was horrified at what I saw. Why? Because in an earlier chapter,
a woman was the picture of the true church of God. Yet here
is a woman. claiming to be the true church
of God, but being this harlot, being this mystery, being this
Babylon, the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of
the earth, drunk with the blood of the saints. He was shocked
because what he thought initially was that which symbolized the
true people of God clearly was not, and it's expounded to and
shown to him what really is the situation. You see, It's a picture
of false religion, and it's portrayed like that in the book of Proverbs.
In Proverbs chapter 2, verse 10, we read this, When wisdom
entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy
soul, discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep
thee. What is that? That's Christ. Christ is made
unto us, wisdom from God, and righteousness. and sanctification
and redemption. 1 Corinthians 1.30. When wisdom
enters into the heart, when Christ is there, you're free from false
religion. Discretion shall preserve thee
and understanding shall keep thee. But in verse 16, It's there
to deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger
which flattereth with her words. Oh, do you know, the philosophy
of the false religion of this world flatters with its words,
which forsake the guide of her youth and forget the covenant
of her God, for her house inclineth unto death and her paths unto
the dead. In chapter five of Proverbs,
if we were just to turn over there, briefly in chapter five
and verses three and four. The lips of a strange woman drop
as an honeycomb. Oh, they seem so alluring and
sweet. And her mouth is smoother than
oil, but her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged
sword. It's speaking about false religion.
And if you read on into chapter seven of Proverbs, the allegory
continues there of the young man seduced by this alluring
woman. It's not really speaking about
sexual morality in this world. What it's speaking about is false
religion and the allure to mankind in general of false religion.
Universal false religion. The paradigm of their life, the
basis, the philosophy their life is built on, which rejects God,
which ignores the true God. Is that not the society, the
world all around us? It's alluring. It's seductive
to the world. It's apparently harmless. It's
a woman. It's not a vicious man and not
a vicious beast. It's a woman. Seductive, apparently
harmless, but it's cunning, satanic delusion. In verse 6, it's that
which the earth looks unto. This is the eFather. This is
what the earth looks to. It's the religion of this world.
Whatever its name, whatever label it has, it's fundamentally all
about attaining a utopia, a heaven of sorts, but without... This
is the key. I know you've heard me say this
many times. It's attaining that without the satisfaction of the
righteousness and justice of God. That kingdom of God can
only be attained by people such as we are if the righteousness
and holiness and justice of God is satisfied concerning sin. But people build it around them
like they did back in Genesis 11 at Babel, Nimrod, the great
rebel, the mighty rebel, Nimrod, built, and the people with him,
built the Tower of Babel to reach up to heaven. Whether it was
a literal tower or whether it was a metaphorical tower doesn't
matter. The point is he was trying to reach a heavenly state without
satisfaction of the justice of God, and that's what Satan's
religion always seeks to do, to achieve that without the satisfaction
of the justice of God. That tower of Babel was built
at a place called, verse 11, Shinar. If you look in Genesis
chapter 11, it was at Shinar. If you look in Daniel chapter
1, the place where Nebuchadnezzar took the stolen treasures from
Solomon's temple in Jerusalem was the temple of his God in
Shinar. Read it there. It's Babylon. Babel is the location of Babylon.
And it literally became Babylon. And it's this philosophy of godlessness
which governs economics, the economics of the world. Philosophy. in all of the educational establishments,
the politics of this world. Increasingly these days, it's
changed so much since I was a young scientist many years ago, but
science, you know what the scripture calls it, science falsely so-called,
leading to all sorts of modern day nonsense in the name of science. You know, the nonsense of dystopian
controls over us all, and net zero lunacy, and all sorts of
things like that. My purpose this morning is not
to get on a political soapbox and make political points, but
the fact is that it fits entirely with what this is all about.
And all the world looks to it to make its life better. All
the world sees it as the thing which will make its life better.
Because as Proverbs 14 verse 12 says this, There is a way
that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways
of death. And this way of this world's
religion, of this woman in this ephah, which is what this vision's
picturing, the end thereof is the way of death. It's the broad
way that leads to destruction, rather than the narrow way that
leads to life. It's where the whore, this world's
false religion, of Revelation 17 sits. If you turn back there,
in Revelation 17, it says, The great whore that sitteth upon
many waters. What does that mean? Sitteth
upon many waters? Well, actually, you don't need
to look very far, because Revelation 17 comments on itself. In verse
15, it tells us, it tells us, He said unto me, The waters which
you saw, where the whore sits, other peoples and the multitudes
and the nations and the tongues of this world. This false religion
is buoyed up by the peoples of this world. You see the hordes
following the falseness of even the obvious, blatantly obvious
world religions, but of the general philosophy of this world, which
is God-rejecting, which is godless. It's everything that denies the
gospel of God. It's everything that denies salvation
from sin by God himself paying redemption's price with his own
blood. You say, surely it was Christ
that paid for the people's sins with his own blood. Yes, but
it was God. Tells us that in Acts 20, doesn't it? Verse 28.
Paul said, look after the church of God, which God purchased with
his, God's own blood. God purchased it with his own
blood. How? He became a man. He became Christ
in whom dwelt the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And there,
in that body, he shed that precious blood to pay the price. You know,
who shall bring any charge against God's elect? Who shall say to
you in that day, Satan, the accuser of the brethren, what are you
doing here to come into heaven? You cannot come here. No, he's
cast down. Why? Because Christ has died and shed
his blood for his people. The justice of God is satisfied. Who shall lay any charge to God's
elect? Christ has died. It's wickedness. This is wickedness. This is the
wicked woman. What is wickedness? It's to deny
God. What's the biggest wickedness?
It's not to believe God. That's the sin against the Holy
Spirit. The wickedness of denying God.
It's wickedness because it calls God, who cannot lie, a liar. The wickedness of this world,
the religion of this world, the gospel-denying religion of this
world, the God-denying religion of this world calls God a liar. But I want you to see this before
we close. The removal of the wickedness.
The vision shows worldly wickedness in this basket, this ephah, with
the heavy weight on it being removed. And it must be removed
for God's kingdom to triumph. The two women? With storks' wings,
what are they? Well, perhaps it's alluding to
the two witnesses that were in Zechariah chapter 4 and verse
14. You don't even need to turn a
page. These are the two anointed ones, and that rings with Revelation
11 verse 4, the two witnesses. The two witnesses lying dead
in the streets, and then they stand on their feet. It might
be alluding to those two witnesses who, by the power of God's word,
preach the gospel and remove the evil to its just destiny,
the land of Shinar, Nimrod, the land of Nimrod, the land of Babel,
the land of Babylon. It might be that. Its hellish
end of that evil is what it's talking about. The hellish end
of all the world's rebellion against God. But maybe The women
are symbolical of the world's wickedness destroying itself. I don't know, I'm not being dogmatic
about this. Maybe it's symbolical of the
world's wickedness destroying itself, because all of that is
in the purpose of God. These two women, look, I lifted
up mine eyes, verse 9, and looked, and behold, there came out two
women. Well, the only thing that they could have come out of in
the context of this is the ephah itself. Turn over again to Revelation
17 and look at verse 16. These, these are powers, worldly
powers. These shall hate the whore. Worldly
powers shall hate the false religion of the world and shall make her
desolate and naked and shall eat her flesh and burn her with
fire. Why? Verse 17, for God has put it
in their hearts to fulfill his will and to agree and to give
their kingdom unto the beast until the words of God should
be fulfilled. God God orders it that the world's
own wickedness destroys itself. Read on into chapter 18 of Revelation. Read on there. Babylon, Babylon
is fallen. This world's religion is fallen.
And there's graphic detail of its destruction. There's graphic
detail of all those whose Hopes and aspirations and joys are
in this world, having all of that taken away from them. The
merchants weeping and wailing in the day because this world
is taken away. This is coming. You know, I know
I sound like the the old street preacher with clapperboards over
my shoulders saying, the end is nigh, prepare to meet thy
God, and all that that the world makes such great fun of. But
the word of God is absolutely clear, this world is coming to
an end, and I sincerely believe that we're in the last days now.
I know we're in the last days since Christ came, but I think
we're in the little season at the end of time before Christ
comes again. It's fallen in graphic detail. Its destruction and sorrow is
laid out there in Revelation 18. And if you want any help
with it, my book still has a little PDF. This is for anybody watching
the broadcast or listening to the sermon. On our website, biblicalgospelchurch.org,
at the bottom of the home page, there's a PDF of my book on Revelation
which might help with that. The message of scripture to God's
people has always been what it says in Revelation 18 verse 4.
Come out of her, my people. Come out of this world. Flee
from this world. Flee from its false God-denying
philosophy. Flee to Christ. Flee away from
it, from the wrath to come. John the Baptist said to the
scribes and Pharisees coming out of him, who has told you,
you brood of vipers, to flee from the wrath to come? Even
then he knew the wrath was coming. We're 2,000 years nearer it now.
Flee from the wrath to come, but where to? Where is the only
safety? The only safety is the message
of the gospel. It's in the cleft, the break,
the cleft in the rock of ages. Rock of ages, cleft for me, let
me hide myself in thee. It's in Christ crucified and
his blood shed for my sin so that divine justice is satisfied
by the death of God's son for his people. It's to be hidden
in Christ is where the safety is. So that he is as pleased
with me as he is with his own son. That is what he says. How
is the wickedness of this world taken away to its final destiny? It's in one of only two ways. Is that what these two women
represent? It's in one of only two ways. Firstly, as we see here in Zechariah
chapter 5, by God confining it for eternity to hell. In Revelation
17, but actually just, it's in chapter 16 and verse 17, so a
few verses before chapter 17, the seventh angel poured out
his vial into the air and there came a great voice out of the
temple of heaven from the throne saying, it is done. It is done. It is gegonen. It is completed. It is finished. It is completed. It is done. God's justice is
satisfied because the sin of this world and the woman in the
basket, the Ifa, has been taken and set on its permanent base
in Shina, in hell, away from all that is God. Or, the other
way, the only other way, is by God himself paying its just penalty
in the person of his son, Jesus Christ, dying on the cross. Because
in John chapter 19 and verse 30, when he'd gone through his
agonies, there on that cross. He didn't cry, it is done. He
cried, it is finished. It is finished. Tetelestai is
the Greek. It is paid in full is what it
said. God's justice for satanic rebellion,
for the world's rebellion, is satisfied either. by an eternity
of hell or by the death of Christ. He took all the rebellion of
the multitude he loved in sovereign grace before time and he paid
its debt on the cross. Let's just look at some verses
in Colossians as we close. Colossians chapter two and verse
10. Let me read this to you. You
are complete in Him, if you believe in Him. The fullness of the Godhead
dwells in Him, and you are complete in Him, which is the head of
all principality and power, in whom also ye are circumcised
with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body
of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. buried
with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through
the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from
the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision
of your flesh, hath he quickened, made alive together with him,
having forgiven you all trespasses, all sins, blotting out the handwriting
of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us,
and took it out of the way, and nailing it to his cross. and
having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of
them openly, triumphing over them in it. This is the victory
that Christ accomplished when he took away the evil of his
people there. The evil of the world and of
Babylon is being taken away to Shinar, set on its base of hell
for eternity. But the sin of his people was
taken away by Christ on this cross. You say, Okay, I realize,
I'm either on the broad way that leads to destruction with the
rest of the world, or I'm on the narrow way that leads to
the celestial city, to life. And I want to be on that narrow
way. What must I do, as the Philippian jailer cried out to Paul? Answer,
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. Whosoever
shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Believe
on him. Come to him in faith. You don't
need to move a muscle, but come to him in faith. Trust him. You
don't need to understand, you need to trust him. Jesus is the
way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but
by him. The door is open, he said, come
unto me and I will give you rest. That's the message. That's the
message we want to preach from here. What do you make of this? Anybody listening to this? What
do you make of this? Do you know, in the Acts of the Apostles,
Some reacted violently against it, of the people that heard
this message for the first time. But there were some that were
called the Bereans, and they're called in the scripture the Noble
Bereans. Because what did they do? They heard Paul preach, they
heard this gospel message preached, and they went and they searched
the scriptures for themselves to see if these things are true.
And that's what we ask. Go and search the scriptures
to see that they're true. Amen.