Babylon representing false religion And really It's we say false
religion in it and it sounds like we mean you know that Catholics
and Presbyterians and Methodists and all that and that is false
religion, but really It's everybody outside of Christ Everybody's
religious In some way or another, everybody believes in somebody.
If you believe in yourself, you're worshiping somebody. So this
is everybody outside of Christ. And you just see that in the
text of it. There's hints everywhere through
that that's the case. The fact that everybody that's
died in the world, their blood is found in this Babylon. But
it says rejoice over her in verse 20 Revelation 18 20 rejoice over
her over Babylon over Antichrist thou heaven and ye holy apostles
and prophets for God hath avenged you on her All who traded and
did business in false religion or with them? mourned the destruction
of Babylon we saw that in verse 10 and Talks about the reaction
to the kings of the earth seeing That she is burning the smoke
of her burning. They shall bewail her verse 9
and lament for her Verse 10 standing afar off for the fear of her
torment saying alas alas that great city that mighty city For
in one hour is your judgment come in verse 15 and 16 the merchants
of these things which were made rich by her and Shall stand too
far off for the fear of her torment weeping and wailing and saying
alas alas verse 19 They cast dust on their heads and cried
weeping and wailing saying alas Alas but the very thing that
they consider disaster they consider Tragedy we consider victory That
which they lament we rejoice over and fall of that which is
Antichrist thou heaven Apostles and prophets all who represent
Christ in this world are found in him they rejoice That's the
difference. It's cause for them to praise
God and to be happy and what a sweet reminder at the end of
this verse verse 20 that Of course God does all things for his glory,
I believe, primarily. But he's glorified in doing this
for us. His glory is that we're you. He's avenged you. That's what
it glorifies him to do. To have your salvation integral
to his glory is a real nice thing. And you know it's gonna happen
if you're his, if you belong to him, if you believe on him.
He's glorified in doing this for you. For you, God hath avenged
you on her. This is my body which is broken
for you. This is my blood that I shed
for you. Isaiah 43, for since thou was
precious in my sight, thou has been honorable and I've loved
you. Therefore will I give men for you. That's what's happening
in our text. I'll give people for your life.
So what a wonderful, comforting reminder. This is the destruction
of God's enemies, but always remember, ours too. It's the
destruction of all of our enemies. And remember this, again, we
can call them false religion. We may call them false religion,
we may call them world leaders. We may call them politicians,
the leaders of this world. We may call them tyrants, same
thing. God just sees them as antichrist,
all of it. All of them. They're all religious. It doesn't matter which one,
it's all one. If it's not Christ, it's the
same thing. He that hath not the Son hath
not life. He that hath the Son of God hath life. Verse 21, and
a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and cast
it into the sea. saying thus with violence shall
that great city Babylon be thrown down and shall be found no more
at all. And this demonstration is clear
from scripture what this demonstration shows. You might wonder the significance
of that millstone unless you're familiar with the word. In Matthew
18, six, our Lord says concerning a certain type of person that
it were better that a millstone be tied around his neck and he
be cast into the depths of the sea. You remember what kind of
person he was talking about? But who so shall offend one of
these little ones which believe in me that's our text You are
avenged on her he has avenged you That's what's gonna happen to
Babylon and for that reason because God avenges his own God avenging his little ones
that believe on him He tells us who his little ones are, those
that believe on him. And verse 22 in our text, and
the voice of harpers and musicians and of pipers and trumpeters
shall be heard no more at all in you, talking about Babylon,
and no craftsman of whatsoever craft he be shall be found any
more in you. And the sound of a millstone
shall be heard no more at all in you. Now, two types of people
here in false religion are mentioned in this verse as being shut down,
no more, the end, over, finished. First, these musicians, they
represent music in the scripture, generally represents joy and
celebration. And music is an expression of
joy generally in the word of God. I do believe that these
different instruments though mentioned are significant. We'll
spend a little bit of time talking about that. But the harp we see
there, he said they're harpers, no more. You remember in the
case of David and Saul, the harp was the instrument used for calming
the spirit. You know, you don't listen to
harp music to dance. That's for relaxing. It would calm Saul's spirit when
David played on the harp. But false religion harps, but
there's no genuine rest. There's no in works religion. There's a false peace. There's
they cry peace when there is no peace There's a false joy
and the Lord says even that will be taken away as our Lord said
in Matthew 25 29 from him that hath not Shall be taken away
even that which he hath They think they have what they think
they have which is not what they think it is even that's going
to be taken away and They say they have faith. Well,
it's not God-given faith. And even that which they think
is faith, that's not going to hold up. That's not going to
endure. The trumpet is seen often in Scripture as a battle call.
1 Corinthians 14, 8, for if the trumpet give an uncertain sound,
who shall prepare himself to the battle? False religion rallies
its godless troops to that which is vain. They have a zeal of
God, but not according to knowledge. The trumpet sound to them is
a call to destruction, though they think it's otherwise. Pipers
are seen in the scripture as those who expect a response as
a result of their piping. Matthew 11, 16, but where unto
shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting
in the markets and calling unto their fellows and saying, we
have piped and you didn't dance. We have mourned unto you, and
you have not lamented." In other words, they piped, and there's
a big, long story John Gill talked about of how the Jewish tradition,
there were pipers at the markets, and people would react to them.
It was a traditional thing of some kind, but you see what it
pictures. They pipe expecting a reaction,
and they go, wait a minute, you're not following along. You're not
playing the game. False religion pipes in order to elicit either
response, either joy or mourning, in that they bribe people with
heaven and they threaten them with hell. It's either we're
all getting on the glory land express or you're going to hell
if you don't live the Christian life. It's both. There's dancing
and mourning. But none of it's real. None of
it means anything. because heaven and hell doesn't
hinge upon what they say it hinges upon. They pipe in order to get
sinners to do something, to react. Gospel preachers pipe in such
a way that sinners will mourn their own sin and rejoice in
Christ alone. Now the second type of person
mentioned in this verse is the craftsman. This is a clear picture
of false religion in that the wares that false religion puts
on display for people to indulge in for people to buy It's everything
that false religion produces Craftsman in his workshop is
producing These things and you can see that as all the trinkets
of religion you can see it more in a spiritual Sense though is
what's going to be the main message of this. It's all that false
religion produces. What crafts do they produce?
They're pictured as craftsmen because they're always working
to bring to market a product that people will buy. They'll spend their money on.
That's what they're after is people's money. It's evident. You listen to them for 10 minutes
and see that. rather than resting in Christ, trusting in Christ,
spending all that they have on him, that pearl of great price.
I've got to have that pearl. Don't need anything else. They
produce cultured pearls of their own making, and men and women,
sinners, are a lot more attracted to those than they are that true
pearl. And they know that, and so they
keep cranking them out. And notice the words there, whatsoever
craft of whatsoever craft he be. It doesn't make any difference
what it is if it's not Christ. And preaching Christ, worshiping
Christ, doesn't involve us making anything. It doesn't make any difference
what the product is. If man crafted it, it's corruptible,
it's imitation, and it's worthless in the kingdom of God. And God's
gonna shut them down. Gonna shut down production. Thank God for grace in all of
these. We don't wanna just see the negative
side of this, but thank God. I keep remembering that verse.
As we see Bible and fall and see all of the sort of detailed
description of that fall, I keep thinking of that verse where
God calls to his people and says, come out, come out of her, come
out of her. Verse 23, in the light of a candle
shall shine no more at all in thee. and the voice of the bridegroom
and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee. For thy merchants were the great
men of the earth, for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived. The light of false religion our
Lord taught is darkness. Matthew 6.23, if thine eye be
evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. Therefore the
light that is in the darkness How great is that darkness false
religion has no real light now and we see that in the scripture
to the law and to the testimony if they speak not according to
the To this word it's because there's no light in them But
even that darkness which they call light Will be revealed Taken
away, it'll be stuffed out The truth will be revealed to them
and then they can't they can't call it light anymore Not unto
salvation the truth revealed to them then won't result in
salvation. It's too late for that There
is such a thing as too late for mercy But they will confess then that
Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father And they'll know that their light
has always been darkness. Always has. No voice of the bride or bridegroom
in her. You've heard of the rule of first
mention in the scripture. When you're studying scripture,
that's a good rule. If you want to understand what
something means, go back to the very first time it was used in
the word of God. The reason that is is because
you have to go back to the beginning you you have to know what marriage
is to understand This principle this this the truth that's being
taught here this goes back to the very beginning when God saw
that it was not good for man to be alone and he made woman
and gave her unto the man and You'll remember one of the things
that he said to them was multiply and replenish the earth And we
see that In religion here, what happens now in false religion
is an aberration of that. There's an unholy union, not with flesh and spirit like
in believers, but an unholy union that results in stillborn children
in a spiritual sense. It's death producing death. God would have his world populated
with people who honor and glorify him. We don't speculate where
the scripture doesn't speculate typically, but our Lord did present
hypotheticals. And so I think we can, in a limited
way, do that. Our Lord said, if this message
were preached in these places, they would have repented, if,
it's hypothetical. So we can kind of do that at
times. If there had never been any sin in the garden or for
a longer period of time, God would have populated the garden
with people like Adam and Eve that walked with him, that rejoiced
in him, that glorified him. You see from the start, from
creation, that God is of a will to populate. He's going to populate heaven
with a people that's going to praise his name forever. Why?
He doesn't need anybody. Well, he does it for his glory.
But he would have his world populated with those who honor and glorify
him. And false religion is constantly
and continually turning out children and populating the world with
those who hate Christ and the God of the Bible. Babylon's merchants it says Were
the great men of the earth Thy merchants were the great men
of the earth Past tense Because that which our Lord said in Matthew
5 5 has come to pass In this text it has not tonight in this
text Blessed are the meek For they shall inherit the earth
Not that not the great men the great men of the earth are no
longer Babylon Babylonians spiritual Babylonians Not those that the
world sees as strong and mighty are in charge now, but those
who are humble and waiting on God Desire to serve God and God
made his earth for them For his people and he's going to give
them a new earth wherein dwells righteousness and Babylon's not gonna be part of
that earth that heaven nor earth a new heaven and new earth Now let's look at the last part
of 23 before we move on to the final verse for by the sorceries
were all nations deceived By the sorceries All of false religions pretend
righteousness, which is made up of their works. They're living
the Christian life, they like to call it. All of their false
assurances, you know, you come down and say the right things
and you're going to heaven when you die. Just as sure as you're
born, you're going to heaven when you die. That's a false
assurance. Paul said, after believing on
Christ for I don't know how long, said, I don't count myself to
have apprehended. I pressed toward the mark. My
salvation is not a decision I made or some past experience. It's
that person that I'm running for as fast as I can. So all of their false assurances,
their hypocritical messages of peace, we mentioned a while ago,
they cry, peace, peace, where there is no peace. I believe
that's in Isaiah, an inscription of false religion. Everything's
fine, you've made your decision for the Lord and everything's fine now. That's
not how it happens. Their works of iniquity that
they call wonderful works They say we did it in Christ name
we did it in your name According to God all of that is witchcraft I Don't know if it's a tactic
of the devil or not for witchcraft to be Portrayed in this world as you
know weird Potions and a big cauldron over a fire and you
know, they're stirring and bubbles or cup grits green and you know
to take people's Minds off of what true witchcraft is. I don't
know about that But this is witchcraft what you
see in pulpits What you see going on in religion when you what
you see at the at I can't think of an adjective
strong enough that's appropriate for polite company. These concerts
that they have now. Worship now is a concert in the
religion of this world. They don't have worship service,
they have concerts. People jumping around on the
stage. I'm not that old-fashioned, okay? But that's horrible. If you ever watch it, I think
you'll agree. But the word sorcery is there.
Of course, it refers to the occult, too. There is an element of that
in this world. But it's interesting that the
first two definitions of this word, if you look up that word
sorceries, there are three definitions. And the third one is what we
normally would think of witchcraft. The first, you know what the
first one is? The use or administering of drugs. That teaches a lot, doesn't it? Forget about physical drugs that
people take and do stupid things. That's the picture. You know,
when somebody does something that's completely irrational,
somebody says, so-and-so did this. I'm like, what? Is he on
drugs? And he probably is. Not kidding. If it's bad enough
to where you're just saying what? He probably did take something. What's the first thing you come
to mind? Have you ever wondered how does
religion get people to believe that they can pay their loved
ones out of purgatory? How do they get people to believe
that? How do they get people to believe even worse, that Jesus Christ
is the Son of God, that He's God in human flesh, and yet He
can't save who He died to save. How do they get people to believe
that? How do they get people to believe that He died for the
purpose of saving people that were already in hell when He
died? How do they get people to believe
that? Moreover, how do they get people to not even think about
that when they preach? It don't even come into people's
minds to ask the question. Are they on drugs? Yes, spiritual
drugs. That's what our text is talking
about. It's something going on. It's not just a question of rationale. It's a spiritual delusion that
people are under I don't have to read you the
reference text, do I? To show you that that's under
the direction of God. That's according to God's purpose.
Those who hate him are given over to strong delusion. They're
seeing things, they're hearing things. They're hallucinating. They're
irrational. They don't know up from down. The lies they tell are like a
drug that makes otherwise perfectly intelligent people do the unthinkable,
say the unthinkable, believe the unbelievable. You know what the second definition
of the word sorceries is? In Strong's Concordance, I believe
that's the authority on Greek and Hebrew. Poisoning. Poisoning. It's not just disagreement on
points of doctrine. That's why we're so adamant about
don't let your children even visit, not even as a friendly. Don't have anything to do with
them as much as possible. And the word deceived there,
we know what that means, but let me just remind you, let me
give you just a little bit of an expanded definition of that.
What happens when this witchcraft, this drug is administered, this
poison is injected? Deceiving, it means to lead aside
to cause to stray from the right way, in other words. Here's Christ. And all you got to do to spiritually
poison somebody and absolutely destroy their lives, which is
what drugs do. I've seen it do it a lot of times.
So don't tell me it don't. And to poison people spiritually
is get them away from him, to stray, to wander away. to think of Christ as not vital,
not important, to leave aside. And it doesn't
matter what brand it is, what name by which it goes, the tragedy
of false religion and the reason there will be a great rejoicing
at the fall of it is Christ for his sake. Think about that. For Christ's sake, these people
were blinded to him. They were blinded, they were
led away, they were attracted by other things besides the one
thing that they needed. Somebody did that. That's why there's gonna be rejoicing.
Eternal consequence. Somebody did that. And when whoever it is receives
eternal hell for it, we're gonna be shouting the praises of God. And rightly so. It's hard to
do that now, because we love some of them, don't we? I wouldn't
give you two cents for most of them, whether right or wrong,
I'm just being honest about it. But I love some of them. And they're right there in the
big middle of it. To be led away from him who is
everything. To be caused to forsake your
own mercy by the devils of anti-Christ, man-centered, free will religion. No wonder Paul said I would that
they were even cut off Verse 24 and in her was found
the blood of prophets and the saints and of all that were slain
upon the earth Cain and Abel Were a macrocosm
I don't like to use fancy language, y'all know that, but that's the
word of the day, microcosm. That act of murdering his brother,
Barak Cain, has played out since that day, every day, millions
of times across this world. He that trusted in his own works,
And again, you don't just see this in false religion, you see
it in politic, you see it in the world, the fashion of this
world, in every aspect of it. Those that trust themselves,
those that promote themselves, those that are in it for themselves
and they have no regard for God whatsoever, and was angry that
God wouldn't accept what he thought he produced. And I noticed I
said, what he thought he produced. He didn't produce anything. God
gave him that. But he said, look what I've done.
And I think so much of God, I'm gonna offer it to him. He murdered the one who trusted
Christ alone. It's that simple. And every way that a person can
be murdered, it happens every day. all over this world. Just as mankind, apart from Christ,
is universally enmity against God by nature, so they also are universally
enmity against the people of God. And that enmity is played
out every day in many different ways. And you think about how
that there aren't even anybody really in most countries, there
may not be, but a handful of people that even know the Lord. Little small countries in the
corners of the world and things like that, I don't know. I don't
know how many there are. But even where there's not, even
where there's not somebody that they are directly murdering,
they're doing it indirectly. with forcing their evil on mankind. The evil of humanism, godless
religion, godless policies and everything else. In my own family, it's displayed for years now. Not Vicki and the kids, you know
what I'm talking about. But in my own family, Cain and
Abel. Just as sure as I'm standing
here. Let's face it, we all have blood on our hands by nature.
The only difference is the blood of God's Son. Praise God for that precious
blood.