What's happening in this world?
What is going on in this world? If you turn with me to Zechariah
chapter 5, we last were in Zechariah and we're looking at a flying
scroll which was over all the earth. And here we see in verses
5 down to 11 we see another picture which covers all of the earth
and in covering all of the earth it covers all of time. It covers
this age that we are living in today and so these words are
relevant for us. and we don't have much time so
I'm going to introduce it and then we'll look more at it but
I trust that you will find it helpful just studying what God
says and hearing what the Lord Jesus Christ has to say to us.
Then the angel, verse 5 of Zechariah chapter 5, Then the angel that
talked with me went forth and said unto me, Lift up now thine
eyes and see. Lift up now thine eyes and see. Lifted up eyes are the only eyes
that do see. Lifted up eyes, lifted up by
God Almighty, under his instructions are the eyes that see. You might
recall that the Lord Jesus Christ healed a blind man in Matthew,
Mark chapter 8, and the man looked and he saw trees walking and
then Jesus came and he took him by the face and he lifted up
his eyes and he saw the Lord Jesus Christ and he saw clearly
lifted up eyes see clearly and to see what is this that goeth
forth And so here's the picture, and I said, what is it? And he
said, this is an ether. An ether is a measure of commerce. It's about 38 liters, so it's
a 10-gallon bucket, or basket, or bag. It was the largest measure
of commerce. that they had that goes forth.
More ivory said, this is their resemblance through all the earth. So this is universal throughout
all this earth. As with the flying scroll and
its curse, it goes through all this earth. That word resemblance
can mean eye. This is the eye that goes through
all the earth. And behold, there was lifted
up a talent of lead. So we have this, imagine there's
this big basket, round basket, and there was a talent of lead,
and the talent of lead was lifted up. The talon of lead weighs
60 kilos, and so we're having a basket which is 38 litres,
40 litres, 10 gallons, and you have this enormous lead weight
that goes on. And when it's lifted up, this
is what you see. And this is a woman that sitteth
in the midst of the ether. And he said, this is wickedness. This is wickedness. And he cast
it in to the midst of the ether, and he cast the weight of the
lead upon the mouth thereof. Then lifted I up mine eyes, and
looked, and behold, there came out two women, and the wind was
in their wings, for they had wings like the wings of a stork.
And they lifted up the ephod between heaven and earth, this
basket with this huge lead weight covering the mouth of it. Then
said I to the angel that talked with me, Where whither do these
bear it? They are carrying this basket
and the lead weight and the woman as well. So we have a basket,
a woman in the basket, a lead weight on top of the basket,
and we have these two women that carry this ether between heaven
and earth. And where are they going to bear
it? And he said unto me, To build it house in the land of Shinar
and it shall be established and set there on her own base. Now the land of Shinar is the
land of Babylon and so if Between now and next week you have an
opportunity to read Revelation 17 and 18. We will see what Babylon
does and you'll see that these pictures in the Old Testament
are the pictures that are necessary for understanding clearly what's
being said in the book of Revelation. John is just repeating the pictures
out of the Old Testament in the book of Revelation. And so here
we have this picture that goes through all the earth. This is
it that goes through all the earth, verse six. It is wickedness. And it's wickedness that is seen. And wickedness is seen only when
the Lord is revealed. Most of what men think is wonderful
is in God's eyes abomination. And wickedness is measured And
wickedness is limited. It has a lead weight on it. Wickedness is such that it can
be carried by God's messengers to a place of God's choosing.
It has a place prepared for it by God. And listen to the power
of our Lord Jesus Christ. The angel in verse five is the
Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to what he does in verse
eight. He says, this is wickedness. And listen to the power of our
great savior over all the things of this world. He cast it into
the midst of the ether. This is wickedness. He cast it
into the midst of the ether. And he cast the weight of the
lead upon the mouth thereof. It came from Babylon. and it
goes to Babylon. All the wickedness of this earth
comes to Babylon and comes from Babylon and goes to Babylon. Shinar is the region in which
Babylon is situated in Babylon. Shinar means two rivers and they're
those two rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that border
those lands. But if we go back to, just briefly
go back with me to Genesis chapter 10 and we'll see the beginning
of all this. It begins, this whole notion,
this whole picture of Shinar begins in Genesis. In verse 9 of Genesis chapter 10, it speaks
of Nimrod, verse 8. And Cush begat Nimrod, Nimrod's
a great grandson of Noah, and he was a mighty hunter before
the Lord. It means he was a mighty hunter
in the very face of the Lord, in opposition to the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom
was Babel. The beginning of his kingdom
was Babel. And the word Babel means confusion
by mixture. And that's exactly what Satan
does in this world, and that's exactly what comes out of the
religion of Babylon. It is, this wickedness is a woman,
is pictured as a woman. Eve was deceived, but that woman
is pictured, let's turn back to it, let's turn over to, and
you know what goes on in Genesis chapter 11, we have the picture
of the Tower of Babel, and the Tower of Babel is a mixture,
isn't it? It's mixing the works of man to earn his way into heaven. That's what the Tower of Babel
is about. Men were making a name for themselves
in a tower that reached into heaven that they would no longer
be under the judgment of God. And that Tower of Babel was a
mixture, wasn't it? It was They took the bricks,
they took bricks and made them like stones. So they were trying
to replicate in that building what God alone makes stones. And these men were trying to
make bricks that looked like stones. And then they were sticking
the bricks together with a thing called pitch. And the word pitch
is the word for atonement or propitiation. And so it's a picture
of man-made works religion. which tries to mimic the things
that God makes and tries to give some credence in sticking this
thing together to the propitiation, the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
So they're not ignoring the Lord Jesus Christ. All they're doing
is mixing his works with the works of men. And God came down
and confused the language of those people. And so we really
must go back to what the Bible says about humanity. There is
just one race of people on this earth. It's Adam's race. Within that race, there are many
nations and there always have been and there will be until
the Lord returns. And the nations were scattered. The nations were scattered throughout
this world. All of the people were scattered
according to Deuteronomy 33, according to the number of the
children of Israel. Scattered amongst those scattered
nations. are the children of God. In whatever
nation they are in the world, God has his children. You read
Revelation, he's gathered his people together, he's washed
them in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and he gathers them
together out of every tribe and nation and kindred. This is wickedness. But in Revelation we have this
picture of this woman and she is pictured as a woman who causes
the inhabitants of the earth to be made drunk with the wine
of her fern fornication. He says in verse one, he says,
there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials and
talked with me saying, come hither and I'll show you the judgment
of the great whore that sits upon many waters. And we know
what the many waters are. They are all the peoples of this
earth. Verse 15 of Genesis. The Great
Hall sits upon peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues, and
so we know what they are. 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. This
is Babylon. So he carried me away in the
spirit into the wilderness, and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-colored
beast, and the scarlet-colored beast is Satan himself. And the
scarlet is the color of sin. And what is Satan displaying?
All he's doing is displaying sin. full of the names of blasphemy
and having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed
in purple and scarlet color and decked with gold and precious
stones and having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations
and the filthiness of her fornication. And upon her forehead was a name
written, Mystery Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots
and abominations of the earth." Where do they all spring from?
Where do all the abominations of the earth spring from? False
religion. Every single time you see something
that is evil in this world, the root cause of it is false religion,
a denial of the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, a denial of
the simplicity within him. And I saw a woman drunk with
the blood of the saints and with the martyrs of Jesus. And when
I saw her, I wondered with great admiration. It doesn't mean she
was in admiration. He was just wondering at the
power that she had. She was drunk. And she makes the whole earth
to be drunk. And this earth, what an amazing
picture of what's going on in this world, that this world I'm drunk. They don't know what
they're doing. They don't know where they're
going. It's like the people that the Lord spoke of in John chapter
12, isn't it? They either walk in darkness,
they don't know where they're going. And when you think of
the confusion that we have in this world, you can see the power
of Satan. If you Google or ask Siri to
tell you how many Christian denominations are in this world, it's some
staggering figure, 45,000, Siri says. I don't know whether Siri's
right or not, That's remarkable, isn't it? And what Satan has
done is he's so confused, confused the religions of this world,
and confused in the midst of all that, confused the glory
of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, that people will only
find it by the grace of God, and the whole world will be drunk,
and the whole world will be drunk in its religious idolatry, But this is wickedness. This is wickedness. That word
wickedness is the same word that's used in 2 Thessalonians 2 about
the man of sin that deceives the whole world. That deceives all those who have
no love of the truth. They might have an acknowledgement
of the truth, but no love of the truth. So let's go back and have a look
at our picture. This woman came out of Babylon. Babylon means confusion and she's
the mother of harlots and they are building this tower with
part of the works of man and part of the works of God as they
see it. It means confusion. And we know
what that looked like in the fall of all of us. God true to His character and
to His justice. We delight in our confession
of the simplicity that's in Christ. And if you turn with me to 2
Corinthians 11, you'll see how significant it is to stay focused
on the simplicity. He says, He would to God that
you could bear with me a little in my folly indeed. Bear with
me, for I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy. For I
have espoused you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste
virgin to Christ. You think of what we read about
in Revelation 17. It's all about fornication. It's
about pleasing the flesh. by indulging with her, but I
fear, this is his fear, he wanted to present them as a chaste virgin
to Christ, but I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent Begadi
through his subtlety, say your minds should be corrupted from
the simplicity that's in Christ. If you've lost the simplicity
of Christ, it just means that your minds have been corrupted,
isn't it? That's where simplicity means
the singleness, the onlyness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then he says, for if he that
cometh preaches another Jesus, and there are thousands of Jesuses
out there, you just go to any church and you'll find another
Jesus and another Jesus. There are dozens of them in this
town alone. Another Jesus whom we have not
preached, a Jesus not preached by the Apostle Paul, or you receive another spirit
which you have not received, or another gospel which you have
not accepted, you might well bear with him. It's amazing,
isn't it? Into the very churches that the
apostles were pastors of, these false teachers would come, slithering
in like serpents. If you go over the page or down
in the verses, He says, for such are false apostles, deceitful
workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And
no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel
of light. Therefore it is no great thing
if his ministers also be transformed as ministers of righteousness.
your righteousness, their righteousness, anything but the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is Babylon. This is where
it comes from and we'll look, Lord willing, more about it next
week. But I want us to see that this wickedness, this wickedness
is only seen as wickedness when the Lord Jesus Christ reveals
what wickedness is. You only see wickedness in light
of who he is. How do you tell crooked stick
from a straight one. Just lay a straight one down
next to it. We're not told to look and look and look at the
crooked stick. We look and look and look at the straight stick
and then all of a sudden we'll see the errors in the crooked
one. So wickedness is seen when the Lord Jesus Christ is revealed
and God says that he's measured it and he contains it and he
controls it and he lifts it up between heaven and earth. It's
carried by God's messengers to a place prepared for it by God,
and the Lord Jesus Christ casts that woman into the ether. He
casts the lead on top of it. So don't fear, brothers and sisters. I want us to finish by thinking
just very briefly before we have the Lord's Supper about what
it is for the simplicity, what it is to proclaim and to love
the simplicity that's in the Lord Jesus Christ. And I think
it's contained in two words that I just loved, and I repeat it
twice in the Bible. There are two words. When the
Lord Jesus Christ was revealed as God Almighty on that Mount
of Transfiguration, and he had those... Peter, James, and John
with him, those three witnesses, and his deity shone through his
humanity, for want of a better word. And he was shining brighter
than the sun could shine, and it was just the most remarkable
sight. And Moses and Elijah came and
spoke with him, and we know what they were talking about. The
conversation was about the cross. And God the Father spoke from
heaven. He said, this is my beloved son
in whom I'm well pleased. Do you hear him? And I love what happened. After
Moses had finished all of his work, after Moses is finished,
all of the law is finished, they saw no man save Jesus only. When God the Father has finished
speaking, and he says, you hear him, they saw no man but Jesus
only. When Elijah, who represents all
the prophets, has finished speaking, when all of the prophecies of
God have finished, you see Jesus only. And if you've heard the
gospel in church, you see Jesus only as you go from here. Jesus
only. That's our confession, isn't
it? Jesus only. How can I stand before
God Robed in the very righteousness
of God Almighty with no sin, Jesus only. How can I be sanctified
as I walk through this world? Jesus only. Why would God love
me? Jesus only. What is my ground of assurance
before God Almighty? Jesus only. Do you see how simple
it is, isn't it? What's the one object of faith?
What's the one person I look to? Jesus only. What is the great reward at the
end of this life? Jesus only. Where do I want to
be found? Jesus only. When God comes looking
for me, I want him to find his son. Who is the brightness of God's
glory? Jesus only. Who has saved you? Jesus only. The word of confusion
is the word and, isn't it? What is all my righteousness
before God Almighty? Jesus only. What's the Bible
all about? Jesus only. What's the message
that we confess and preach? Jesus only. What do I want you
to hear? Jesus only. What does the world
need to hear? Jesus only. What will it be like
in heaven? Jesus Only, what do the people
of God that go from here see? What is the constant source of
their gaze and delight forever? Jesus only. Who's the brightness of God's
glory? Jesus only. How can I have my sins forgiven? Jesus only. Whose blood is precious? Jesus only. You see our confessions
are simple confessions and the world just adds an and to all
that. Or a but. Jesus only. On what basis does God love you,
Jesus?