After these things John wrote
you remember these things being The judgment and destruction
of mystery Babylon The great whore the great epitome of false
religion embodiment of false religion in this city of Babylon
After these things I saw another angel come down from heaven and
having great power. And the earth was lightened with
his glory. Now, I believe that this is the
Lord Jesus himself because of the way he's described here.
But we really can't go far either way, whether we believe this
is just a mighty angel that the Lord gave something to say, or
if it's the Lord himself, because every angel speaks for him, all
of the messengers of God speak for him, but I believe the way
it speaks of his power, who having great power in the earth was
lightened with his glory, we know that the Lord Jesus is the
very brightness of the glory of God, Hebrews 1.3, and that
he is the wisdom and power of God, 1 Corinthians 1. 24 so it
seems to be referring to him. We've seen that in other Parts
of the book of Revelation where the Lord Jesus himself has spoken
But then in verse 2 it says he cried mightily with a strong
voice Saying Babylon the great is fallen is fallen Now he cried
with a great a loud voice From the cross and said it's finished.
I And when he said that, this was done. He's just saying now,
look at the result of this is caused by the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that he destroyed every enemy there. He crushed
the serpent's head and all who serve the serpent are destroyed
along with him. False religion. Every enemy of
God and his people rolled up into one great evil city. That's what this Babylon is.
Everyone that is anti-Christ all gathered. You remember it
said the Lord gathered them, the kings, the rivers dried up
and the king said, looky here, and they came right into the
Lord's trap. And they're all dealt with as
one, all of his enemies. It says Babylon is fallen is
fallen. It's repeated because of the
greatness of the fall of it If you'd turned it with me to Matthew
7 chapter 7 verse 24 Matthew 7 24 We will see that there Matthew
7 24 The Lord said whosoever heareth these sayings
of mine. He went about everywhere preaching
concerning himself. Whoever hears about me, whoever
hears the gospel and does them and acts upon it, it's not just
words. I will liken him unto a wise
man which built his house upon a rock and the rain descended
and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house,
and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock. And everyone that
heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not. See, the
gospel demands doing. It renounces all of our doing
as a way of righteousness, but it's a call to obedience to Christ. That's what we do when we hear
the gospel, is we do away with what we do. That's what Paul,
read Philippians three, and that makes perfect sense. He renounced
everything that he was, everything that he did, everything that
he knew, that's doing the gospel. It's trusting Christ, it's seeing
him as our only righteousness before God and laying hold of
him as such. But doeth them, those are key
words there, whoever doeth them not shall be likened unto a foolish
man which built his house upon the sand, and the rain descended,
and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that
house, and it fell, and great. It could have just said it fell,
but it goes on. It says great was the fall of
it. You see our text there? Great,
it's fallen, it's fallen. It was a spectacle. It's a spectacle
to see and to understand when God finally deals with all of
his enemies, which are all of our enemies, and puts them down
for good, including our own sinful nature. You see, Babylon is the, Babylon
is the best that man has. Babylon was a great city in an
earthly sense. It's known for its time to have
been the greatest city that there ever was on the earth. Not comparable
to cities nowadays, but for its time. And so it pictures the greatness
of man in all of his achievements, you know, his architectural achievements,
his medical achievements, his scientific achievements, all
of it together, that's what's pictured here. It's everything
that man knows and man does and man accomplishes at the same
time that it's all the evil because what man does is evil. It's not
the things themselves, it's not knowledge, science is just knowledge,
but man's knowledge is evil. They come up with ways to figure
out how there's no God with their knowledge. From a spiritual standpoint,
everything that man comes up with is evil. And that's what's pictured by
Babylon. The best that man can come up
with in natural things would have been quite impressive to
go there and you could have benefited from all that they knew and all
that they were able to do. But when you take that to the
spiritual realm, the best that man can do culminates in them killing God. All of man's efforts resulted
in the cross. All of man's ambition in spiritual
things, it was the highest of the high in man's religion that
crucified the Son of God. And so that's the achievement
of Babylon, spiritually speaking. The great fall of Babylon, because
it was a great, it was man getting as high as he could get. And
when you look at that in a spiritual sense, man's best is the worst. And the Whore of Babylon is arrayed
decadently, as we saw in verse 4 of chapter 17. She's arrayed
in gold and pearls. and beautiful, beautifully and
expensively arrayed to represent all of man's pursuit of godless
gain. It's gain, gain, gain, but with
no glory to God, no looking to God like the rich man that said,
look at all my stuff, I'm gonna have to build greater barns,
and God said, you're a fool. This night thy soul shall be
required of thee. The Lord did say that the love
of money is the root of all evil. The love of gain, of promoting
self, of increasing self, the flesh. And so she represents
that. She's drunk with the blood of
saints and martyrs to show, and that's in verse six of chapter
17, to show her absolute murderous contempt for God and all who
represent God. all that's good and holy. She
can't kill God, so she kills everyone associated with Him
that she can. And so we see that. That's true
of this world. It can't stand anything to do
with the true God. If you even hint that man does
not have a free will, that God does as He pleases with man,
you're absolutely despised. It says she's full of names of
blasphemy, Verse 3 and I want us to remember all this before
we get into these next verses It says she's full of the names
of blasphemy to express her absolute hatred for the gospel of Christ
blasphemy is Saying things false lies about God lies about how
sinners are saved And that that displays her Absolute hatred for the gospel
of Christ and her attempt to deceive sinners To the eternal
damnation of their souls. That's what Satan was in the
business of doing all the way back to the garden to deceive
to Pervert the Word of God to the damnation of the souls of
those that listen to him and that's what he accomplished there
That's still the business they're in. And so of course, she's full
of the names of blasphemies. Man's best is in reality the
worst. What he calls his best is the
worst. God hated self-righteousness
more than anything. And that's man saying, look how
good I am. This is my best. I've done my best. Your best
is the most evil thing God can think of. A proud look is number
one on his list. Self-righteousness. So in spite
of all of man's efforts to thwart and disrupt and defeat and confuse,
God is using them all and everything that they do and everything that
they say to accomplish his eternal purpose of grace toward his elect
and the glorification of his son. You talk about losers. Everything they do accomplishes
the exact opposite of what they want to accomplish. It's the
very definition of loser. Absolute, ultimate, eternal losers. Great is the following. Notice
the three ways that Babylon is described in the latter part
of verse two. The habitation of devils, number
one. Number two, the hold of every foul spirit. And number
three, a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. That's interesting. There's a lot we could say about
that. We'll say it as briefly as we can. But this is what God
calls religious people, the best that this anti-crust world can
come up with. Habitation of devils, the whole
of every foul spirit, a cage of every unclean and hateful
bird. We call them Baptists. We call them Catholics. We call
them Presbyterians. We call them Muslims and Buddhists
and so on and so forth. And this is not just organized
religions, though. Don't make that mistake. Although,
let's face it, everybody's religious in one way or another. Even people
that haven't maybe darkened the door of a place of worship their
whole lives, they still say, well, me and God got a good thing
going. My good outweighs my bad. That's their religion. It's the
same works religion that they practice in the Baptist church.
You just don't go in there to do it. Same thing, works. I'm doing okay, I'm doing my
best. Good to my mama and all that. That's a Baptist, that's
a Catholic. They're doing their best. So it's not just people that
are in on the organized religion. It's everybody that's outside
of Christ. Anti-Christ. That hates Christ. The Christ of the Bible. Whether
they go to a place of organized religion or not. First of all,
the habitation of devils. It's where they live. It's where
devils live. It's where devils live you remember
God said that he lives in his church Listen to Ephesians 2 19 now
therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners but your fellow
citizens with the saints and of the household of God and are
built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets and
Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone in whom all
the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in
the Lord. This is a picture of God's church. It's people, it's built up, it's
picturing stone upon stone here, but it's people, it's you, he
says. And listen, in whom you also are builded together for
an habitation of God through the spirit. Same word that's
in our text, habitation, a dwelling place. Antichrist is The habitation
of devils antichrist religion is the habitation of devils But
we his church are called the habitation of God Think what
a contrast the habitation of devils Not good church going
folk devils The hold of every foul spirit Now, it's amazing
to me that almost, oh, I don't know that I've ever run into
a situation where a word had two different meanings, two different
primary meanings that both didn't apply. I believe that's the way
the Lord wrote this book, and it's just clear. Listen to it.
The hold of every foul spirit, the hold. Two meanings for the
word hold. One of them is like you would
think of like a castle hold, a castle, the inner chamber of
a castle maybe. Something or someone that's guarded,
that's kept, that's protected, that's watched over. And this
applies to false religion. They are a hold in that sense.
They are like a castle that protects all of their religious rituals
and ceremonies and all the little things that are precious to them.
You start pulling apart some of the things that they believe
and you'll see in what sense this word hold applies. They
guard that stuff, boy. You tell them that an invitation,
what's called an invitation in religion, maybe you don't know
what that is. Well, I grew up in it. And the invitation is
the last anywhere from 15 minutes to over an hour where they sit
there and beg people to come down to the front because they
equate coming down to the front and shaking the preacher's hand.
They equate that to salvation. Come and get saved. That's what
they say. They make no bones about it. The invitation. And
they sit there and sing, boy, they'd sing just as I am without,
oh, Lamb of God, I come, you know, and just, it's almost like
an advertisement. It's like a time of getting people
saved. You tell them that that's not
scriptural and it's of the devil, and you'll find out what this
means. It's a whole, they protect, they guard their traditions.
They guard their religious ceremonies. They're very, very adamant about
them. They're sacred to them, and they
guard them. An anti-Christ doctrine that
they preach, you start picking that apart with the truth, and
it's not hard to do. I've told you many times, I had
a man get red in the face, and the veins in his neck stood out,
and he said, I don't want anything to do with a God like that. All
I did was tell him God saves who he wants to save. Sounds simple, doesn't it? He
couldn't stand it. They're highly offended when
they're questioned on their false doctrine. They guard, they protect
it. They set up a carefully crafted
defense. In a lot of cases, the preachers,
you start quoting the truth that opposes their anti-Christ doctrine,
and they'll come up with scriptures, they'll have answers. It's a
carefully crafted defense against the truth of God. Instead of
defending the truth, they defend against the truth. I've witnessed
that many a time too. But you go into a freewill Baptist
church or any church just about, so-called church, and start telling
the truth of the sovereign, effectual, almighty Christ, all you've got
to do is say Christ accomplished exactly what he came here to
accomplish. And you'll find out how that
sense of the word hold applies in our text. It's a guarded,
defended thing. But also this Greek word for
hold is most often translated prison in the New Testament.
And both apply, both richly apply to false religion. Because that
to which they hold, that which they treasure and guard as precious
to them, is that which imprisons them. They love the bars of their
jail. They love them. They're in bondage
to the law of God and that which they perceive to be the law of
God. They make up stuff and say, well, if you don't do that, you
know, you're not a Christian. But they use the law of God too. They also make up a lot of stuff. Prisoners of their own deception
and lies. The Lord said the truth, the
truth shall make you free. What would the truth make you
free from? Free from error, free from your
sinful thoughts about who God is and who Christ is and what
you are before God and how God saves sinners. The truth of salvation accomplished. The truth of salvation that's
not waiting on you to do something. The truth of the Lord Jesus Christ
who finished and perfected salvation for his people. That set sinners free from the
bondage of the law. And listen, the next one is this,
a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. The reason bird is because
cage, caged bird. But notice that the false religion
itself is described in these three different ways, and also
those who are in false religion, members of it, are described
in three different ways. Think about this for a minute.
The very ones, it says hateful, they're hateful, and you know
that about religion. The self-righteous are the most
vicious people in this world. The very ones that are running
around talking about love, love, love are the most hateful creatures
on God's earth. And those who count themselves
as not as other men are, like the Pharisee said about the public,
I thank you, Lord, that I'm not like that old publican. The very
people that count themselves as not as others are, and as
doing many wonderful works, as promise keepers and things like
that, are the most foul, unclean creatures on God's earth. You
see that word unclean? Unclean. Pictured in the scripture
as leprous, contagious, stay away from them. It's not that
you can catch sin, but it's a picture. They're toxic, poisonous, stay
away. We'll talk about that more in
a second here. And like a bird in a cage, like a bird in a cage, though
they love to chirp about free will, free this and free that,
free will this, free will that, they're taken captive by Satan
at his own will. 2 Timothy 2.25, in meekness, instruct those that oppose themselves
if God peradventure will give them repentance to the Acknowledgement
of the truth and that they may recover themselves out of the
snare of the devil Who are taken captive by him? at his will Paul's
just teaching Timothy there about what it is to preach the gospel
You're preaching in the gospel to prisoners like it said of
our Lord Jesus Christ the prophet said in and preached freedom
to the prisoners. They're in bondage to the law
of God, hoping in that which can only condemn them, and caged by Satan without any
hope of escape. The only way you get out of that
cage is for the Lord Jesus Christ and his gospel to set you free. Verse three in our text. For
all nations have drunk of 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. Now everybody in this world who
has ever or ever will inhabit this world loves, they drink
it up, they relish the false doctrine, The rituals and the
ceremonies, the self-righteous affirmation that they receive,
their self-righteousness is fed in these false churches. The
celebration of their prideful rebellion against the God of
the Bible, all of that which false religion provides for them,
they eat it up. They love it, they shout for
it. They give all their money to support it. It's pictured here as drinking
wine and committing fornication because of the unity, the fellowship,
the common bond of iniquity that they have with one another. These
are symbols of unity. To be one with Christ is to eat
his flesh by faith and drink his blood. And so to be one with
this whore is to drink of the wine that she drinks. that she provides. And also because
the vileness of false religion in the sight of God, the word
fornication here indicates all manner of sexual depravity. It's not just what you might
think. It's prostitution, it's adultery,
it's incest, and everything like that. And again, it's the spiritual
opposite. We saw this before. It's the
spiritual opposite of being a chaste virgin married to Christ. Second
Corinthians 11.2. That's what Paul said. I have
married you to the Lord Jesus Christ as a chaste virgin. It's the opposite of that. Spiritual
adultery, spiritual everything disgusting. in that regard. The merchants
of the earth waxing rich is also, of course, spiritual language,
although religion does get physically rich off of people, even poor
people. Talks about them devouring widow's
houses, and that's exactly what it's talking about. They deceive
people and are like some kind of a spiritual vampire, draining
people. The false religion business is
good. Not only though in a physical
sense. This is not just talking about the fact that false religion
is a great money making scheme. It is that. But this is spiritual. And turn with me to 2 Peter chapter
two. This is spiritual and this is,
I believe it's expressed Well there in 2nd Peter chapter 2
as anywhere beginning with verse 1 But there were false prophets
also among the people Even as there shall be false teachers
among you. That's what we're talking about
Babylon. That's false religion Even as there shall be false
teachers among you who privately shall bring in damnable heresies
she had the names of all heresies and her Even denying the Lord
that bought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction
And many shall follow their permission pernicious ways This is what
it's talking about when it says all the nations of the earth
have drunk of the wine many many shall follow their pernicious
ways by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken
of. That's everything we've been
talking about. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words
make merchandise of you whose judgment now of a long time lingereth
not and their damnation slumbereth not. So of course it includes
them cashing in off of people that just don't know any better.
But also there's a spiritual element to this. They make merchandise
of your soul. All they care about you, you're
just a number on the board. And believe me, I've been in
it, I know what I'm talking about. Judah sold his soul for 30 pieces
of silver. False preachers everywhere in
the same way. How did Judas sell his soul?
In what form did that horrible transaction occur? He betrayed
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's how they're doing it.
That's how the false preachers are doing it. By betraying the
Lord Jesus Christ, they will sell out their own souls and
the souls of all their hearers for earthly glory, earthly popularity,
the praise of men, money, self-promotion, and everything like that. Now,
the more you talk about this, the more you understand, though,
really two things thank god for his mercy because we'd be right
in the big middle of that by nature we'd be right in the big
middle of it without the grace of god and
the other thing you begin to understand more and more as you
look at these these things in the book of revelation is that
those upon whom God pours out his wrath, richly deserve it. They richly deserve it. They
are murderers of the souls of men. Verse five. We'll look at verses
five through eight together and we'll come back to verse four.
For her sins have reached unto heaven and God hath remembered
her iniquities Reward her even as she rewarded you and double
unto her double according to her works in The cup which she
hath filled filled to her double Now that may sound like it's
talking to us you we are to reward her Double, but we'll see that
that's not right in a minute how much she hath glorified herself Man they brag on everybody for
everything they can think of can't they You can be awarded something
in the so-called church of this world just by having more children
than anybody else, or having the fewest children, or having
the oldest children, or on Mother's Day. I've been in it. If you
give enough, they'll put your name on the end of a pew. They
glorify man in what they call their gospel. They say, it's
all up to you. God's done everything he can
do. That's not quite enough though.
Now it's up to you. What are you gonna do? And that's
the difference between life and death. That's what passes for
a gospel in religion. Think of the audacity of that.
You just took all of God's glory and put it on yourself. Every
bit of it. It's all up to you. God's glory is that he has mercy
on whom he will have mercy. Moses said, Lord, show me your
glory. And you know what he said? He said, I'll have mercy on whom
I will. How much she hath glorified herself. and lived deliciously, so much
torment and sorrow, give her." You see how it's a reciprocation. How much she hath glory in herself
and all that, to that extent, you recompense under her torment
and sorrow. Not godly repentance, but sorrow. There's a big difference. Godly
repentance gives a hoot about God's glory. Sorrow is just sad
you got caught. Therefore shall her plagues come
in one day. Oh my, what a day that's gonna
be. Death and mourning and famine. And she shall be utterly burned
with fire. For strong is the Lord God. who
judges her. You see, it's not up to us to
judge her. It's not up to us to recompense to her what she's
got coming. The Lord does that. God keeps the books. We are to do what we know to
do, to resist and oppose false religion in this world, which
99% of that is just preaching the truth, preaching the truth. But God keeps the books. It's
not our business to bring down false religion. Now, if false
religion comes right up on me, then I'm going to deal with it
harshly. If it comes into my home, if it hits me in the face,
and I'm real specific about things, and I don't mind being specific
with people about it. Our business, as it relates to
false religion, is to stay away from it, but if it won't stay
away from us, then we're to confront it head on. There are a few places
in scripture, it's rare, where this type of thing was dealt
with, and it was dealt with swiftly and taken care of. God does and
shall use the gospel we preach oppose false religion However,
he'll use it. He'll do that but notice in the
last Phrase there of verse 8 that it's God that judges her now
not us She gets exactly what she deserves
because God knows God Keeps the books But look at this in verse
4. Let's talk about verse 4 for
a little while and we'll be done. I You're familiar with the verse
where God said that we're not even to bid Godspeed to those
who preach a false gospel. And we're gonna read that verse.
But do you remember the reason for that? You remember what it
says right after that? Don't even bid them Godspeed.
If they come, And this is important, this is what I'm talking about,
being confronted with false religion. They come, we're gonna read it
in just a second here. If there come any unto you and
bring not this doctrine. How many times do we see that
in the scripture? False doctrine is just simply not Christ. That's all it is, it's not Christ.
If any men come to you, don't even say to them, have a good
day. Don't bid them Godspeed. You've got to deal with it harshly
now. Not to just deliberately insult people and be petty about
it, but you gotta let people know. I tell this story every
once in a while, it seems like every two or three years, and
I hate to talk about it, but it's the one example in my life
of the situation. or a lady that was the pastoress
or whatever you call them of a Methodist church came in here
and she wanted us to give money to this guy that was with her
that had come over there. I believe it's the church up
here around the corner on Arno Road there. I guess that's, is
that Patensville or Arno? That little church is on. Anyway,
she came in here and there was a fellow with her and he sat
on the back row And she came right down here to talk to me.
We were in here eating already. And she called me, she found
out who I was and called me out here. And she said that their
church gave this man all of their offering. And you know how religious
people, she had this big old grin on her face. And she said,
we gave him all of our offering this morning to help him out.
And we just knew that y'all would want to join in as well and be
a blessing to this man. And I said, I started to just
say what I was gonna say right then, but my wheels are turning.
I haven't been confronted like that too many times. I gotta
say something. I can't just say go away, really. I needed to give her some kind
of reason. So I'm sitting there thinking about it. I said, hold
on one second. So I went and I gathered up all the men. And
I said to the men, and this was the long time, how long ago was
it? You remember that, Jeanette. Long time ago, right after we
got it. I think this building was still red at that point. But this is just a perfect illustration
of what I'm talking about. Like I said, I don't like talking
about it, but you just can't illustrate it any better than
this. I got all the men back in my office. I said, I explained
what the lady had said and everything and her attitude. We just knew
y'all would want to be in on it. And I said, I'm fixing to
walk back in there and I'm gonna tell her that we worship a different
God than she does. And that we don't want anything
to do with her or anything she does. And I said, if anybody
wants to come with me, come on. And they all came with me. We ganged up on her a little
bit. I'm not sure that was the right way to handle it. But I
told her, I said, we worship a different God than you do.
If you are, and she said, I'm the Methodist pastor down here,
so I knew what she was. I said, if you're a Methodist,
that defines what you believe, and you worship a different God
than we do, and we don't wanna have anything to do with this.
I said, if you wanna stay and eat with us, this fellow, if
he wants to stay and eat with us, you're more than welcome
to do that. In any time, either one of y'all
ever wanna come hear the gospel, come on in. We can't be involved
in this. And you would have thought I
slapped her in the face. I mean, you can imagine what
her expression was. She was in absolute shock. But
that's just the truth of the thing. And if I had said, if
I had complied, maybe given them some money, the way that they
handle it, I didn't like, Another thing I don't like about that,
and this is just me, we probably won't even put this on, this
is just us talking tonight. If you're gonna beg for money,
then be man enough to come do that yourself, okay? I hope if
I ever have to beg, that I'll just be honest about it. I'm
broke, I need some help. And I won't send some religious
person, to do my begging for me. I didn't
like anything about it. And most of y'all have never
seen my temper, but you probably know I have one if you've known
me long enough. And it rubbed me the wrong way.
And, but if I had, if we had given him some money, you reckon
that would have applied here? Don't even bid him Godspeed.
If they come to you with another gospel, Don't cooperate with
them. Don't have anything to do with
them. Listen to 2 John 1,9. Turn over
there with me if you would. This is where we're, this is
the passage I'm talking about. And I know you remember that
passage, but let's look at a little bit of context of it. 2 John
1,9. Whosoever Whosoever transgresseth and abideth
not in the doctrine of Christ. You see how that's worded? It's
very important to notice how this is worded now. It doesn't
name Methodists and Presbyterians and all that, but they define
themselves by those names. I know what that means when you
say I'm a Methodist. I know what that means. I know
that means you preach works. By definition, if you say I'm
a Catholic, I know what that means. It means you worship Mary
and the saints. You pray to an intercessor other
than Christ. It means all kinds of blasphemous
stuff. By definition, you have defined
yourself by that name. And if that ain't you, then don't
use that name. Don't present yourself that way.
But all of it is just simply this, not Christ. You abide not
in the doctrine of Christ. There's one truth and everything
else is this He that abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God They have
a different guy It's just not it's not complicated. They have
a different guy. They don't have the God of the
Bible Talk about God they say we have God they say we speak
for God, but they don't They speak for a different God
He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ he hath both the father
and the son. Oh, that's glorious isn't it?
Not just God strictly understood as God, but we have the son we
have the one who came and gave himself for our sin We have God
On Calvary, make an atonement for us. We have God with us,
living, perfectly righteous as us in this world. if there come
any unto you and bring not this doctrine. And they do. Not near
so much anymore now that people don't come door to door. That
was a common thing back in the day for religion just to go door
to door. And they'd always ask the same
thing. If you died tonight, do you know
if you'd go to heaven or not? That ain't the question. That's
not the question. But anyway, there's not a whole
lot of that anymore. But every once in a while, every
once in a while, they get right in your face with it. And depending on the situation,
the Lord will just have to tell you how to deal with it. But
I tell you how you don't deal with it. You don't even wish
them well. You don't bid them Godspeed.
You don't cooperate with them. You don't have anything to do
with him. You don't even make them feel like. I don't think you can even say
nothing because then they're just gonna assume that you're
fine with it. Unless you say something, unless you tell them
the truth in some way or another, some wording
or another. And bring not this doctor, receive
him not into your house. Don't even give him a place to
sit down now. I didn't write this Don't give
him a place to sit down Neither bid him Godspeed And
here's a pretty good reason for it for he that biddeth him Godspeed
is partaker Of his evil deeds Well, I don't believe in anything
they say but I wanted to be nice and It's time to not be nice. You cannot overstate the extent
to which we are to have nothing to do with false religion. And
when they insist on having something to do with us, they need to understand
why that's not gonna happen. As nice as you can say it, don't
buy anything from them. Don't support them in any way,
not a dime. If you give them a dime, they're
gonna take that dime and they're gonna use it to deceive the souls
of men. Don't send your children to be
taught by. I've said this over and over
through the years and still people do it. I highly do not recommend
that. Don't support them in that way.
And don't trust them at all. How can you trust them? Don't go around saying we agree
on a lot of things. We don't agree on a lot of things.
Well, you say, well, what if they say God is love? Chris,
don't we believe that's in the scripture? We don't agree with
them on anything they say because all that they say has to be taken
in the context in which they say it. Does that not have something
to do with the meaning of what people say? The context in which
they say it? It has everything to do with
the meaning of what they're saying. So we don't agree with any of
it, nothing they say. And everybody needs to understand
that. It's evil, it's wrong, and it's deadly. 2 John 1, 9, where we just read,
I just wanna leave you with this thought, it's the simple, clear
guide that we follow. If it's Christ, Christ alone. Christ who finished
salvation the Almighty Christ who saves whom he will now He's
not begging sinners to do anything He did everything For the salvation
of his people that's not complicated People don't don't they're not
confused by that they just hate the Christ of the Bible And that's it, it's Christ or
not Christ. He that hath the Son of God hath life, and he
that hath not the Son of God hath not life. May God keep us looking to him
alone. And my fond wish is that I never
have to say another word to a false religion in any way, shape, or
fashion. I don't want to have anything
to do with it. I don't like conflict, not a bit. No desire for that. But if the time comes, we have
clear direction from God. And in the meanwhile, we'll just
pretend they don't exist and let God deal with them in other
ways. And thank God for his gospel
of grace in Christ Jesus. What a blessing. What free and
wonderful grace that he's taught us the truth in this wretched
world. Let's pray.