Revelation chapter 16. I'd like
to spend just a little bit of time tonight on the latter part
of verse 16 and just beginning of chapter 17. There is an interesting statement
made here with regard to a city by the name of Babylon. Babylon. I have to be reminded as I go
through this book of a passage that we've just gone over, and
would you turn with me back to the book of Revelation chapter
11. Revelation chapter 11. Chapter
1, verse 1, this is the revelation of Jesus Christ. It is Christ
being revealed. It is Christ being opened up.
The word revelation translated in other places in the New Testament
is the word lighten, a light to lighten the Gentiles. It never
has been translated great, aggravation, or war. That's what's been interpreted
in modern times. In the times that this book was
written, it was used, a word was, it meant enlightened, a
light to lighten the Gentiles. That's what the Lord Jesus Christ
is. And this word, as it's used here in the book of Revelation
is the revelation or light of the Lord. It's the light of the
Lord. Now here in chapter 11, verse eight, it's an interesting
word, but it gives us some information on how to look at this book.
The scriptures share with us here, and their dead bodies shall
lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called
Sodom and Egypt. Spiritually called Sodom and
Egypt. Now, if we didn't have the rest
of that verse, we'd wonder, what are they talking about? But the
rest of the verse clarifies it for us because spiritually, These
words, metaphorically, they're speaking of the city of Jerusalem. Look at the next part, where
also our Lord was crucified. So the writer of this book is
led by the Holy Spirit to share with us some information about
how this book is to be looked at, and that is, it is to be
looked at spiritually. We just are not going to read
Babylon and say, oh, that's that city way up there in Iraq. That's
not the intent of that word. It's not the intent. If we go
back, and we are going back to the book of Genesis and see where
that word came from, it will give us some interesting information
about what that word means. Going back over here to the book
of Revelation chapter 16 and verse 19, And the great city
was divided. Chapter 16 and verse 19, the
great city was divided in three parts, and the cities of the
nations fell, and great Babylon come in remembrance before God. It gave unto her the cup of the
wine of the fierceness of his wrath, And every island fled
away, and the mountains were not found. And there fell upon men a great
hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent.
And men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, for
the plague thereof was exceeding great. And there came one of
the seven angels, which had the seven vials, and talked with
me, saying unto me, Come hither, 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-colored beast full of the names of blasphemy,
even seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in
purple and scarlet color, decked with gold and precious stones
and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of the abomination
and filthiness of her fornication. And upon her forehead was written,
Mystery Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and abominations
of the earth. And I'm gonna stop right there,
because there's more here than we'll ever be able to cover tonight.
But I wanna look at this subject of this Babylon, this Mystery
Babylon. No one religion could have the
prize for persecuting the saints the most. Not one religion. that we could name could win
the prize for persecuting the church the most, the saints of
God. Not one religion could win the prize for propagating the
worst truth. Now I had some people come to
my door first time since we moved into our new place. They came
there and they had their literature in their hand and they wanted
to talk about the economy. And they were going to go over
to Matthew 5, and I never let them get that far. And I said,
whoa, just a moment, just a moment. Would you answer a question for
me? And the lady says, OK. And I says, do you know the difference
between butter and imitation margarine? She said, yes. One of them is a real product.
I says, why in the world would I ever trade in my butter for
your imitation margarine? You deny that Jesus is God. Why would I ever trade in this
for that? And with that, she left. She knew the difference, though.
One is a real product. One is real, that's what she
said. Now, Mystery Babylon, this Babylon, has all error. Babylon has all air and it is
not just one group, one church, one name. It is all false religion
wrapped into one. Now, I don't think any of the
authors of any of the books on eschatology for the last 150
years ever dreamed that our world would come under the assault
of the Eastern religion, Muslim, like it is going on right now.
They didn't even realize about this. And to say that there is
a Christian religion that is the mother of harlots, when we
have this going on, we have to back up just a little bit before
the Church of Rome. It is just one. out of many that have the name of air. Not one
name will cover all the air of religion. This Babylon, the great
harlot, represents all false religion in this world, no matter
what name that religion bears. There is only one religion. Now,
I've heard people say there's two religions in the world. I
want to back up. There is only one religion. That's false religion. There's only one. And that is
free will, works-related religion. There's only one religion. And
when you compare, or you put in the same sentence, the religion
of the world and the religion of God, we've already created
a misnomer. Because the grace that we have
in Christ is not a religion. It is a birth that comes from
God. It is reality. It is not a religion. So this, as we look here, there's
only one religion in the world, all free will, works-oriented
worship, worship of man as his own deliverer. And we find this
goes back generations before what we find in Rome. It's interesting,
I've just been reading a book that Wayne Boyd recommended to
me about some of the legions of Rome. He got involved, and
he said, Norm, you'd really like this. Well, I do. It's very interesting. But there
was a legion, one of the legions of Rome, that was used to carry
Saul of Tarsus, Paul, to Rome. And the majority of that legion
were Baal worshipers that came out of Syria. And it said they
worshiped the sun. That's what Baal worship is,
is worship of the sun. Now, Baal worship is not the
only worship of the sun. You can go to almost every group,
every civilization on the face of this earth, and you will find
people that have worshipped the sun. Egypt worshipped the sun
long before there was even a church in Rome. like we think of. It's this Baal worship, this
worship of the sun. And I've heard Tim and Nancy
talk about mythology, which is just religions of the Greeks,
the Romans, and Thor up there in the Scandinavian countries
is the same as the gods among the Greeks and the Romans. And
they had their own woman. And the Bible talks about this
as the woman of heaven. And it's just so easy to imitate
this, bring this down into a Christian connotation, and share with everybody
that we believe in this woman of heaven. And it's always been
here. It's been around. Now, there's
something about this religion that I have to say. Idolatry
is not a gradual decline by well-meaning individuals. That might have
been simple-minded. The original idolatry was very
planned. Very planned. The original idolatry
was very planned. And it was planned at Babel.
We know it as Babylon or Babel, but there it was planned. It
was planned by man to be an absolute opposite of what God stands for. And the guy that started the
city of Babel was the great grandson of Noah. Nimrod, and he went
down there and started that city. Now, as we get there, there's
only one religion of the world, and that's works related, free
will, man worship, and then we find that there is that which
God ordained, which is of his spirit through his word, and
whatever we want to call it, Christianity in its purest form. Christianity has misnomers though,
because you visit with people in the United States and the
polls tell us that 96% of the people in the United States or
86% of the people say they're Christians. This is a misnomer. I don't know how to explain it.
We have to say true belief. We start having to describe what
we're talking about. Real grace. Sovereign grace. The real word of God, real birth,
real new birth. That person that I talked to
today would have told me if I had let her go far enough that she
was born again by going down into the baptismal waters. Now,
she's not the only one that I could visit with that would tell me
that. Most of what is in the Christian realm will tell you,
when I went down into the baptismal waters, whether I was an infant
or whether I was an adult, that gave me the new birth. And that
is so contrary to what the Bible has to say about the new birth.
It is contrary, and this is contrary to God. God has already decreed
how men will meet Him, and that is by His free and sovereign
grace, by faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and His
blood and righteousness alone, not depending on one iota of
our works. Now once we get over to works,
we're into that mystery Babylon. We're into the Babylonian religion,
and it covers every scheme around the world, and all the religions
of the world can trace their head at the Tower of Babel and
go beyond there to Cain himself when he denied God, God's Word,
and God's authority on things. Now we know what Adam did, but
Cain shows us what that brings about. I will do it my way and
no other way. Turn with me, if you would, to
the book of Luke, chapter 11. Luke, chapter 11, as we think
about what the Lord Jesus Christ had to say to us in this book
of Revelation. Now, the wonderful thing about
it is the blood of Christ overcomes this religion. We're all religious. We're born
into this world religious. We may say that we're an agnostic,
and that's a religion. We may say we're atheists, and
that's a religion. And we may have been born into
Muslimism or Shintoism or any of the other Eastern religions,
or been born into a Southern Baptist church religion. or any
other kind of religion on the face of the earth. And yet the
Lord Jesus Christ shares with us about this in the book of
Luke chapter 11 and verse 23. Luke chapter 11 and verse 23
we read these words. He that is not with me is against
me. That's pretty cut and dried.
There's no slack there. There is no tolerance. When I
was in engineering class down at OIT, when we were doing our
drafting, we had to put up here on the side plus or minus .003
thousandths of an inch. That was the tolerance they allowed
in this piece of equipment that we were designing. There's none
of that when it comes to God. He does not give a plus or minus
tolerance. He that is not with me is against
me, and he that gathereth not with me scattereth. Now there's
no tolerance here. God does not give tolerance. It is not a almost all grace
and then a little of mystery Babylon. It is all of grace or
it is all of works. That's all there is. Now turn
with me back just a little further in the book of Matthew chapter
7 verse 13. Matthew chapter 7 verse 13 it
shares this about this great subject of where we are. Matthew
chapter 7. We're either on the broad way
or we're on the narrow way, but there's no place in between. I don't know if you've ever heard
this, but I used to hear it a lot. God voted for you. Devil voted
against you. Now it's up to you. Now that's
not found in the Bible. In fact, that is absolutely contrary
to the depravity that Adam brought us into. There is not one witted
truth about that. There's not one thing about it
that's true. If we're going to put the devil
in the middle of it, this is it. God either chose a people
or he didn't. Now, if we had the previous,
It tells us that there is a borderline right down through the middle
here. Here's God voting for us, the devil voting against us.
We're standing in the middle and now we have the ability of
making a choice right there. We never find that there's any
median ground with God. In fact, the truth of it is,
we all fell in Adam, we're all dead in trespasses and sin, and
we desperately need God on our side. We need God choosing us. We need God. And we will never
have any contrary spirit about God choosing a people if we've
really been born again and know what it is to have really been
dead. We'll have no problem with God
doing anything he wants to do for us. All right, here in the
book of Matthew chapter 7 and in verse 13, the scriptures tell
us this, enter ye in at the straight gate. For wide is the gate and
broad is the way that leadeth to destruction. And that's the
only place it leads. It doesn't lead anywhere else.
It doesn't lead to part deliverance and part destruction, it leads
to destruction. Goes on to tell us there in Matthew
chapter 7 verse 13, enter ye in the straight gate for wide
is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction
and many there be which go in there at. Because straight is
the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few
there be that find it. Now, what is the only way that
anybody will ever find that way, the narrow way? You've got to
be given eyes to see it. And Christ is the narrow way.
You must be given eyes to see it. The other is a broad way
and it always leads to destruction. There is no other place that
it leads to. It is not leading partially to
bliss. It is leading to destruction.
But the narrow way always leads to life everlasting. The thing
that's mentioned in that verse of scripture is there be few
that find it. God is very gracious when he
opens anybody's eyes to see this narrow way. But if he does not,
they won't even recognize that there is a narrow way. We'll
continue on in our religion going down the broad way that lead
it to destruction. Now, isn't it interesting how
many towns have the street name Broadway? Broadway? It's the Broadway,
and many there be that are on it, and the end thereof is the
way of destruction. Now turn with me, if you would,
back to the book of Genesis chapter 10. In the book of Genesis, there
is a direct descendant from Noah. Now it's interesting, Noah's
found in that wonderful faith chapter, Hebrews chapter 11.
I really appreciated that song we just sang. And if you read
through the book of Hebrews, you find out that that song had
a lot to say, was drawn from a lot of Hebrews. He is, Christ
is much better than anything else. Much better than the law,
much better than Moses, much better than Aaron, much better
than the sacrifices, much better than Levitical priesthood. That
book just goes on and on to show us how great the Lord Jesus Christ
is. Now, over here in the book of
Genesis, chapter 10, we're introduced to a fellow by the name of Nimrod. Nimrod, it says, was a mighty
hunter. His name means rebellion. Now, whether he had his name
changed for him or his daddy had some idea what he's going
to be like, I don't know. But his name means rebellion.
And it says he was a mighty hunter. Now, I don't know how many times
I've heard bow hunters are called nimrods. That's what he was,
a hunter. He used a bow. But it goes so
much deeper than that. He is a rebellious man against
a holy God. And in this, Genesis chapter
10, and there in verse 9, or verse 8, and Cush begat Nimrod,
he became a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter
before the Lord. Wherefore, it is said, even as
Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord. Now, this is not a
positive thing. I want to put that down right
now. He's not spoken of in a positive
manner or he'd have never started the town of Babel. There's only
one other person prior to this that ever started the town, a
city. His name was Cain. This man starts
a city by the name of Babel and Babel means confusion. Joshua there says, Mommy and
Daddy and Grandpa, and the rest is babble. Children, we get the word. They're babbling. It's confusion. And someday, you'll click with
them, and they'll be able to start saying words. And then
we pull out the soap. Now Babel, here it says, and
the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erich, and Archad,
and Caelan, and the land of Shinar. Now go one more chapter, chapter
11. And the whole earth was one language
and one speech, and it came to pass as they journeyed from the
east that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they
dwelt there. And they said one to another,
go to, let us make brick and burn them thoroughly. I want
to underline this. This happened on purpose. This false religion happened
on purpose. Adam's sin happened on purpose. Cain's sin happened on purpose. And this religion, the mother
of harlots, every false religion that has ever been developed
has been developed from this place We can go right back to
here and find out what works religion is like. We can go right
back here and find out where baptismal regeneration started. We can go back here and find
out where free willism started. We can go right back here and
find out every false religion stationed itself right here.
They were against several things. They were against blood atonement.
They were against God's sovereignty. They were against the Word of
God. All of these things culminated in this and they plainly and
very methodically came up with this idea. Go to let us make
brick and burn it thoroughly. And they made brick for stone
and slime they had for mortar. And they said, go to let us build
us a city and a tower whose top may reach into the heaven. Let
us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad from the face
of the whole earth. Here is where it started. This
is where sun worship started. This is where astrology started.
This is where false religion started in an organized form. Before this, we find this guy. Look what he did. He brought
vegetables. God says bring a blood sacrifice.
He brought vegetables and God was not pleased with this sacrifice
and he rose up and killed his brother over it. We follow this
through. We find how many times this happened
that individually they were against God. But now we have a consorted
effort by a civilization to be against God. And over here is
a group of people that are still worshiping God. They didn't take
all of those guys with them. Over here we have people that
worship God. We have people that are represented
in the 11th chapter of Hebrews. Over here we have a group of
people that still know the necessity of a blood atonement. And over
here at Babylon we have a group of people It is not necessary
to have a blood atonement. It is not necessary to have Christ's
righteousness. It is not necessary to preach
about sin. It is not necessary because we
can take care of the problem by ourselves. And from that point,
we have what's recorded in the book of Revelation. The Babylon,
the mother of harlots started and it has propagated down through
the ages. There's a quite a number of generations,
but they have this common link. Ask someone, you get into a discussion
about Christ, get into a discussion about religion, ask someone,
what do you think about the word of God? Now God's people say it is the
word of God, every bit of it. Faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the word of God. And those that have descended
from Babel will say, well, as far as it's translated correctly,
all the excuses that people will use against God and God's word. Over here is a group of people
that have stood, Noah stood on this. Jesus will lay down his
life for the sheep. Why did he offer a lamb after
the ark settled on Mount Ararat? He believed in a blood atonement
and he believed in a blood atonement for a certain number of people.
And over here we have it developed and has continued to develop,
God loves everybody. came right down from the Tower
of Babel. He has no distinction. He does
have a distinction. Why did he choose Israel if he
doesn't have a distinction? Why did he choose Abraham if
he doesn't have a distinction? Why did he choose Jacob if he
didn't have a distinction? If he didn't have a distinction,
why did he have Judah as his tribe? If he didn't have a distinction,
why did he send his son to begin with? If we could do it by staying
on the broad way, why did he send his son? Well, the reason
is we can't get there by being on the broad way. We can't get
there by the mystery Babylon religion. We must be true. Translated out of the kingdom
of darkness into the kingdom of his dear son We must have
that new birth. All right, it goes on to tell
us here Go to verse 4. Let's build a city in a tower.
Let's they're not going to try to build it up into the outer
Outer space it's a platform for religious services denying God,
denying his sovereignty, denying blood atonement, expressing free
will, works religion, and it started there in a consortium
effort. It says in verse five, the Lord
came down to see the city and the tower which the children
of men builded. We're gonna find out whether
God put his stamp of approval on this religion or whether he
said, I don't like it. Does he put his stamp of approval?
He says, no. I am going to break up the languages
here. Well, he could break up the languages,
but unless he works on their heart, they will carry what developed
there with them into every nation, kingdom, and place. And that's what happened. They
took this sun worship. They took this Tower of Babel
worship, denying God and denying all about God and promoting their
own free will. They took that with them into
their generations. All right, it goes on to say
here, The Lord came down to see the
city and the tower, which the children of men built it. And
the Lord said, behold, the people is one. They have all one language.
This they began to do. And now nothing will be restrained
from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down
there, confound their language that they may not understand
one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad
from thence upon the face of all the earth, and they left
off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called
Babel, because the Lord did there confound the language of all
the earth, and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad
upon the face of all the earth. Babel is where it started. This is mystery religion. This
is Babylon mystery religion. And this is what God is going
to, says, he's going to bring down. He will not have this in
His presence. Now, turn with me, if you would,
to the book of Proverbs, chapter 7. Proverbs, chapter 7. This is good advice. This is
real good advice, but let's look at this from a spiritual standpoint. Proverbs, chapter 7, verse 6. Proverbs, chapter 7. There is
only one religion in all the world. All free will, works-oriented
worship, worship of man as his own deliverer. Those that follow
this will usually inform you of what they have done. There's
only one true worship of God through free grace. These will
tell you what God has done for them. Now notice here in the
book of Proverbs chapter seven, Proverbs chapter seven, this
description is shared with us. Now, it is great advice, but
let's look at this from a spiritual standpoint. For at the window of my house
I looked through my casement, and beheld among the simple ones
I discerned among the youths a young man void of understanding
passing through the street near her corner. And he went the way
to her house. In the twilight, in the evening,
in the black and dark night, and behold, there met him a woman
with the attire of a harlot and subtle of heart. Now this is
the description that God has given to this mystery Babylon. Never do we find the church ever
called by these terms. Now we recognize that we are
like that woman that Hosea married. We were with God. We lost it in Adam. We are running
around in religion, works-oriented religion. We may be in the best
religion. There was a lady, we know, and
heard the gospel hundreds of times, and finally the Lord opened
her heart down there at Crossville. Now, where the gospel is preached
all the time, We would never, ever, we never find where the
gospel is being preached ever related to this kind of symbolism. This is left for the mystery
church, this mystery Babylon, this one that has all kinds of
secret societies. You make a profession and then
we'll tell you the secrets of our religion. You make a profession. You get baptized. Then we'll
tell you what we're really like. And we never find that in the
truth of Jesus Christ. He never springs anything on
us. He said, I did not do anything
in a corner. I didn't hide anything. He spoke
it out openly. The gospel is open. It is out. It is declarative. It is telling
the record. That's all there is about the
gospel. It's just telling the record. And there's nothing.
Now, it's a mystery. There's no question about it.
But it's not hidden. We don't spring things on people.
We don't get them in and then tell them, oh, you're going to
have to do this now. It's the gospel. It's never termed
by these inglorious terms. In fact, the Apostle Paul shared
with regard to the church, I will present you spotless. Spotless. All that we had in
that religion is taken away, and we're given Christ. Now this
Babylon, this hill, this mystery Babylon, this harlot Babylon.
God Almighty is powerful to overcome and he has overcome that in every
one of his children. He removes that. It tells us
over there in the book of 1 Thessalonians 1, that's part of repentance
is taking us from the worship of dumb idols. to worship the
living God. That's what he does. Dumb idols
is nothing more than Baal worship. I mean, idolatry developed at
Babel. Sun worship, all of that stuff,
all of those gods and deities that are human. They're human. They're nothing more than human
with a little deity about them. And the thing about God, He is
God and He condescended to become man so that He could redeem His
people from their sins. So this mystery Babylon, this
Babel, this confusion, that we find in religion, Confucian,
Babylon. God, in his wonderful mercy,
is going to overcome that, put it away, destroy it. And he shares
with us, as we read there in Matthew and also in the book
of Luke, straight gate, narrow way, broad gate leads to destruction. If you're not with me, you're
against me, is what he said. And if you're not gathering,
you're scattering. There's no middle ground. It's
either we are or we're not. We are with Christ or we're not. The great harlot represents all
false religion in this world, no matter what the name of that
religion bears. They all have a center. They
go back to a place. The church, you know where it
goes back to? God in Christ Jesus before the world began. False
religion goes back to Babel, Confucian. And that goes back
to Cain. And that goes back to Adam. And there's no peace in that. All right. We're going to stop there. You can just do that.