Thank you so much for that. Look
at Revelation chapter 17. I have two references that I
want you to look at as we consider this subject. Two great cities. Two great cities. First of all, Revelation chapter
17 and verse 18. I spoke to you this morning about
Babylon the Great. Well, this is one of the great
cities. Revelation 17, 18. The woman
which thou sawest at great harlot, false religion. She's beautiful. She's seductive. She draws people in. She's quite
attractive to the natural man. And now John, he hears the angel
say, the woman which thou sawest is that great city. She's the great city which reigns
over the kings of the earth. That's one great city. Now go over to chapter 21. John sees another city. Revelation 21, 9 and 10. There came unto me one of the
seven angels, which had the seven vows, full of the seven last
judgments or plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither. I will show thee
the bride, the Lamb's wife. And he carried me away in the
Spirit to a great and high mountain. And he manifested to me, he showed
to me that great, great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending
out of heaven from God. Here are the two great cities. One is Babylon. One is Jerusalem. Let me begin this way by saying,
the evil one, the devil, Satan, he is a master, master counterfeiter. He's always had a twofold aim. One. Here's his aim. It is to
ruin any worship that man would render to God. His goal is to
actually keep God from getting that honor and glory that is
his deed. That's Satan's goal. That's always
been his goal. He wants to rob. God of the glory
of creation. Evolution will do that. He would rob God of the glory
of divine providence, that God governs all things. Well, fatalism
or luck, that takes care of that. Then he would ruin that honor
and glory of God in salvation. Salvation by grace. Salvation
by the doing and the dying of the Lord Jesus. And he would
rob God of the glory of salvation by insisting that in addition
to what the Lord Jesus did, you've got to add something to His death. It's always been His goal. Don't
be fooled by Him. He wants to rob God of His glory. Secondly, His intention is to
deceive folks like us men and women and young people
to deceive us with a religion that is based upon man's doing
and man's works. What he has done, what he continues
to do is pass off a false copy of the original. It doesn't matter to him if you're
religious. That's okay. Because false religion
is under his realm. And if you want to live a reckless,
ungodly life with no religion at all, that's okay too. That's
just fine. Here's his goal. He wants to
keep you from Christ Jesus. The Lord Jesus, He's the way
to God. The Savior said, I'm the way,
I'm the truth, I'm the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. So His goal is keep you from
Christ. He doesn't mind if you join up,
get involved in religion. He just wants to keep you from
the truth. He is a master As I said, it counterfeits. Falsehoods. Falsehoods. We talked about Babylon
this morning, which means confusion, mixture. What he wants to keep
you from listening to is that message of purity, that message
of the blood only. of the substitutionary work of
the Lord Jesus. He doesn't want you to know how
God can be just and justify the ungodly. He doesn't mind if you
get baptized and wash all your sins away. That'd be fine with
Him. You heard that all the time. That's just fine with Him, because
that's His counterfeit. I had a friend of mine, he said
he grew up in the Church of Christ, and it said, Be damned or be
dipped. That was the message. Be damned
or be dipped. You better be dipped in water
or God's going to damn you. He said, that's what I grew up
under. That's all I knew. And he said, I went to my preacher
and I said, dip me. Dip me. I want to go in the waters
of baptism. If that's going to wash all my
sin and guilt and all my transgressions, all my iniquities away, then
I want to go in there. Well, that's not going to wash
anything away. We know better than that. It's
the blood of the Lord Jesus that washes sins away. There is a
fountain. There is a fountain. It's filled
with blood. It's filled with blood, and that
blood's drawn from Emmanuel's veins. That's what we're seeing. And when sinners just dive into
that, they lose all their guilty stains. That's where stain's
removed. That's where sin's removed. at
the sacrifice of Christ Jesus. This is how God can be just and
justify the ungodly. It's not by you doing something.
It's not by you adding anything to the death of the Lord Jesus.
That is very insulting to the Lord. If you want to insult God,
just Just keep on imagining that you can do something, whether
it's baptism or membership or good works, whatever it is, just
keep on going down that road thinking you've gotta make some
contribution to the death of the Lord Jesus Christ and you're
insulting God. This is what we read in Galatians,
the second chapter. If righteousness, that's what
we gotta have, isn't that right? Don't we have to have righteousness?
Doesn't a holy God demand righteousness? He doesn't demand the best you
can do. He demands righteousness. He demands perfection. And this
is what we read in Galatians chapter two. If righteousness,
if it comes by the law, that is by legal obedience, by obedience
to rules and regulations or obedience to the 10 commandments, if that's
how righteousness will come to you, then the Lord Jesus is dead
in vain. It wasn't any use for him to
die. That's why that verse, Galatians 2.21, here's the first words
of it. I do not frustrate the grace
of God. I don't frustrate the grace of
God. I'm not gonna nullify the grace
of God. I'm not gonna make void the grace
of God. But you see, if men entertain
this thought, if they fall for another one of the lies of Satan,
that they've got to do something to get eternal life, you frustrate
the grace of God. You make void the grace of God.
What you're saying is, I don't need grace. I don't need the
blood of Christ. I don't need the righteousness
of the Son of God. I can go up my own ladder that
I make. I'll make it step by step, rung
by rung. I'll climb all the way up to
God. That's what they did in Babylon.
The Tower of Babel. That's what that was about. I'm
going to build it all the way to God. I'll go to heaven by
my own manufacturing process. I'll build my own tower. But the foundation is the rock
Christ Jesus. And every other foundation you
try to build on is sinking sand. Our Lord Jesus, He spoke, and
it's the last of His great message on the mountain. He said there
are two builders. Each of them built a house. One
of them, he dug down, built on the rock. Built on the rock. And then the house was finished. Him and his family moved in.
And of course, the storm's going to come. And the wind's going
to blow. But it didn't hurt the house.
Why not? It had good foundation. A good
foundation. He said, that's a wise man. That's
a wise man. We used to sing that chorus.
Wise man built his house upon the rock. Then he said, then there's another
man, this second man, he also, he decided he wanted a new house.
But he wanted it fast. And he didn't have any concern. He didn't give any thought about
digging a foundation. He just built it on the sand.
And boy, it looked good. It looked just as good as his
neighbor's house. And people riding by in their
chariots, they said, boy, them sure are two pretty houses, aren't
they? Boy, both those fellows, they built houses. That second
guy, he sure did build his house fast, didn't he? Yeah, he did.
And then that storm came. And there's that house built
on the rock. And he just stands there, and the wind blows. Oh,
it blew so hard, and the rain just pounding on that house.
That house built on the rock, it stood. Oh, but that house
built on the sand. The winds blew. Oh, terrible
winds. It came crashing down. The Lord Jesus said, great was
the fall of it. Great was the fall of it. Let
me tell you something, you build on anything other than Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. Anything other than the grace
of God. Anything other than the blood of the Lord Jesus. The righteousness of the Lord
Jesus. Build on anything else, you're on sinking sand. And you're
a fool. You're a fool. Because sooner
or later, that no foundation house that you have built is
going to be exposed as being faulty. Faulty. Satan wants you to build a house
on sand. Yes, indeed. You see, He has His preachers
just like God has His preachers. The Lord has His servants who
go forth declaring the message of Christ and Him crucified.
Men are set apart. The Lord teaches them. The Lord
equips them. The Lord gives them knowledge.
He sends them out like He sent John the Baptist. There was a
man, a man sent from God, whose name was John. That's who I want
to listen to. I want to listen to a man sent
from God. A man sent by God. Well, how
do you know? How do you know when you're listening
to a man who's been sent by God? He's got God's message. Well,
how do I know it's God's message? You'll know it's God's message
by this. Who gets the glory? That's how
you'll know. Who gets the honor? Who gets
the recognition? Whose name is Bragdon? On whom is everything dependent? And if the man you listen to,
if he makes salvation in any way dependent on you, you're
listening to a counterfeit. You're listening to one of the
devil's preachers. Because the Lord's preachers,
he sends them forth with his message. And His message is full
of grace. His message is full of the blood. His message is full of Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. We love the Savior. We brag on
the Savior. We delight in the Son of God.
We glory in Him. We sing magnificence in Him. He's all of our hope. He's all
of the love of our hearts. He's the one we believe. He's
the one we look to. He's the one we lean on, Christ
and Christ only. We don't have any hope in ourselves. Do you have any hope in yourself?
Do you rely on yourself? Well, if you do, you're relying
on nothing. You're vanity just like me. There's nothing to us. You can't
lean on yourself. The arm of flesh will fail you. Ye dare not trust your own. You say, well, I got my faith. It's not your faith. He gave
it to you if you got any faith at all. Salvation's of the Lord. And Satan, he sends his preachers
out. And they're oftentimes very educated,
very smooth, dedicated, and seem very sincere. But they are not the real McCoy. And you know them by their doctrine. You know them by what they say.
Satan has his preachers just like the Lord has his preachers.
And Satan has his preachers, they set forth a counterfeit
gospel. Hey, I preach the gospel. I'm
not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, the good news of Christ.
What is the good news? The good news is the declaration
of that which has already been done. It's a work that's been
finished. Really, the declaration of the
gospel, it only involves us to this degree. Listen to the gospel
and believe the gospel, but it's not about you. You see, that's
the way it is. Satan has so blinded our minds,
he makes us think that it's all about us. It's not about us,
it's about him. It's about the Lord God of glory. That's who this is about. And Satan has his preachers,
and they go forth preaching the false gospel. Like I preach a
true gospel, and there are many preachers who preach the true
gospel. Some of them I know, a lot of them I don't know. But I'll say this, I'll echo
the words of Galatians 1, it's what the Apostle Paul said. If any man comes preaching any
other gospel than the gospel I preached to you, he said, let
him be accursed. And he said, I don't care who
he is. If it's an angel from heaven,
which is not gonna happen, but he said, if an angel from heaven,
he comes down here and preaches a gospel that I'm not preaching
to you, let him be accursed. I wrote this down. Any message
that reduces the death of the Lord Jesus to an effort, an effort
which must be supplemented by the will of man or the work of
man, that is a counterfeit gospel. If you got to add to what he's
done, You got the wrong gospel, my friend. It won't do you any
good. And Satan, you know, he not only
has counterfeit preachers and he not only has a counterfeit
message, he's got a counterfeit faith that he gives people, a
faith that's phony. There is such a thing as genuine
faith, which is the gift of God. For by grace you save through
faith, that not of yourselves, it's a gift of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast. God gives us faith. If you believe,
it's a gift of his grace, isn't it? But Satan, he has a counterfeit
to true faith, it's false faith. False faith is what, in the book
of Acts, Simon. Simon who was the sorcerer. That's
what he had. Philip went into Samaria preaching. Lots of people believed in this
guy. He was a sorcerer. His name was Simon. He said,
I believe too. And Philip, he baptized everybody
who said they believed the gospel. And things went on well for a
while and then word got back to the apostles in Jerusalem,
that a great work was going on in Samaria. And Philip, miracles
were performed by Philip, but he couldn't give the gift of
the Spirit of God to anybody, because he wasn't an apostle.
So word got back to Jerusalem, and Simon Peter, he went to Samaria
to check on things. And there he met, Simon the Sorcerer. Peter and John went to check
on the situation. And they laid hands on people
and gifted them to perform unusual works, the gifts of the spirit.
And this is what Simon the Sorcerer said, I want them gifts. I'll
pay you good money for them. And Simon Peter said, thy money
perish with thee, thy heart is not right in the sight of God. Before the eyes of men, it seemed
like he was a genuine believer, but his was a false faith, a
counterfeit faith. He wanted the gifts, watch it
now. He wanted the gifts, but he didn't
want the gift. the unspeakable gift of Christ
Jesus. A lot of people today interested
in the gifts, but they don't want the unspeakable
gift of the Son of God. Judas had a counterfeit faith.
Demas had a counterfeit faith. Diotrephes, he had a counterfeit
faith, a faith that wasn't real. Here's Satan, he's a master counterfeiter. Why, he even counterfeits Christ
himself. Who is the Christ? Well, he's
the seed of the woman. He is the anointed one. That's what Christ means, anointed
one. The word Christ is used in the
New Testament 514 times. He's the Messiah. He, all of the Old Testament,
tailors a garment that fits one man, Christ Jesus. And you know what Satan does?
He presents false Christs. False Christs rise up. And people
say, here's Christ, here's Jesus. If you listen to religion today,
and there's so many voices in religion, it just about drives
you crazy. If you try to listen to all of
them, because they all say different things, but they're all using
the name of Jesus. Right? They're using the name
of Jesus. Anyway, well this preacher, he's
preaching Jesus, and that preacher's preaching Jesus, and that television
preacher, he's preaching to thousands of people down in Houston, Texas.
He mentions Jesus, and his healing preachers, they preach Jesus.
And pastor, you talk about Jesus. Which is the right Jesus? What was that program years ago?
They'd say, will the real so-and-so please stand up? What's my line? I don't remember what that was. But anyway, I'd say, will the
real Jesus please stand up so we'll know who you are? And he says, I'm the way to God. I'm the mediator. I'm the prophet. I'm the priest. I'm the king.
I'm the fulfillment of all of the Old Testament offerings.
All of the sacrifices. I'm the one all the prophets
spoke about. I'm here. I'm the great I am. I am the bread of life. I am
the light of the world. I am the shepherd. I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life.
I am the vine. I'm the resurrection and the
life. I am. That's who I am. He identifies
himself in the Word. This is the real Jesus. But Satan's
got a false Jesus. You know how you can tell a false
Jesus? Typically, he's weak. He can't do anything unless you
let him. That's a false Jesus. He's knocking on your heart's
door, begging you to open up and let Him in. Because He doesn't
have enough omnipotence to come in Himself. That's not the Jesus
of the Scriptures. The Lord Jesus of the Scriptures,
He reaches into the heart. And He opens the door to the
heart. And He makes a welcome for Himself. By nature, we don't welcome Him. We don't want Him. We don't believe
Him. We're rebels against Him. But
then He comes to us and He slays us by His Spirit. And He brings
us down. He brings us low. And we say,
Who art thou, Lord? He says, I'm Jesus. I'm the Jesus
who can save you. Our Lord, he entered into Jerusalem
for his triumphant entry. And everybody said, who is this?
Who is this? He's the Christ. He's the Christ. But Satan's got his false Christ. He sends him into the world.
Better be sure that you believe in the right one. There's only one Lord Jesus Christ. And I'll tell you what Isaiah
said about him. He shall not fail. Know what he said, Ron?
He shall not fail. If your Jesus is a failure, if
he wants to do something, but you block him, you got the wrong
Jesus. The Lord Jesus does his will
in his way. He's the sovereign. He does his
will in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of
the earth. And nobody can stay his hand or say unto him, what
doest thou? That's the Lord Jesus Christ. He shall not fail. I tell you,
a false Christ can't save you. That's what Isaiah wrote about.
Isaiah said, why do you call on a God who can't save? That's
what he told the people. Why do you pray to a God that
can't rescue you? I'll tell you what the God I
pray to, He saves, Bill. He saves. He's able to save to
the uttermost them that come unto God by Him. Satan's got all these counterfeits. And since the Lord has got a
city, The new Jerusalem, the city of God, you read about in
Psalm 46. Since the Lord has his city,
Satan's gonna have his city. The Lord's city is called the
new Jerusalem, the holy city. Satan's got his city, great city. It's Babylon, Babylon. See, Zion is the city of God. Zion stands with hills surrounded. Zion kept by power divine. Zion's a holy city, not through
her own doings, but through the imputed righteousness of Jesus
Christ. Zion, Jerusalem, loves holiness
and hates iniquity. Zion is the city within which
there's no need of artificial lighting and no need of the sun
that shines in the sky. Because the Lamb of God is all
the light in the city of God. It's not a literal city. Look over here in Revelation
21, if you're still there. Revelation 21. Once again, In verse 10, he carried me away
into the, Revelation 21, 10, he carried me away in the spirit
to a great and high mountain, showed me that great city, the
holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the
glory of God. Well, who is she? Look back up
in verse nine. She's the bride. She's the lamb's
wife. That's who she is. This is a,
this city four square, this is the new Jerusalem. Don't worry
about that Jerusalem over there in the Middle East. No, that's
not the Jerusalem that matters. This is the Jerusalem that matters,
the city of God. She's the bride of Christ. When you think of a bride, you
think of a wedding. Right? You think of a wedding. A Jewish wedding is made up of
four elements. Number one, the betrothal. More
binding than an engagement. At the betrothal, the terms of
the wedding were announced. Blessings were pronounced upon
the bride. And from that day onward, they
were legally betrothed. In fact, it took a divorce to
break it off. Illustration, Matthew chapter
one. When Joseph found out that Mary
was pregnant, he was of a mind to, scripture says, put her away
privately. What does that mean? Divorce
her. because it was illegal. That's a legal agreement they'd
entered into. It took a legal justice or a
judge to break it off. That's the first part of a Jewish
wedding, the betrothal. Then there was the interval,
and the interval, that's the time between the betrothal and
the actual wedding feast. During that time, two things
happened. Number one, the bridegroom paid
a dowry to the father of the bride. It could be land, it could
be service. Jacob served seven years for
Rachel. He served Laban. You know what
the scripture says? It seemed but a few days because
of the love that he had for her. That was the dowry. It could
be money, could be land, or service. Something else happened during
the interval. The bride would get herself ready.
She's preparing herself. Thirdly, there was the procession
at the end of the interval. The groom dressed in his best
attire. He's joined by his friends. They
all go to the house of the bride. And he gets the bride, and he
says, you coming home with me? And she goes home with him. He
receives the bride. They all go back to his house.
The fourth part is the wedding feast. That's when the official wedding
took place, husband and wife. The wedding feast began with
all of its festivities. They announced the couple. And
this celebration, it lasted usually a week. Sometimes if you had
enough money, it lasted two weeks. Depends on how long the money
lasted. Let me tell you about another
marriage, a marriage made in heaven. First of all, the betrothal.
In old eternity, we were betrothed to Christ Jesus. We were given
in covenant love by the Father to Christ, the Son of God, as
divine election unto salvation. We were set aside for Christ,
promised to Him, and divine blessings, blessings were pronounced. For back then in that covenant
of grace, we were blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus. We were given to Christ, a legal
union, never to be separated from, one
with the Son of God. We've always been one with Him.
Just like a husband and wife are one. These two are one. They're no longer two separate
individuals. They're one. We're one with Jesus
Christ. How long have we been one with
Christ since God gave us to him in the covenant of grace? That's the betrothal. Then the
interval. And during the interval, I'll
tell you what had to happen. the son of God had to come down
here and pay the dowry. Yeah, he had to pay the father. If he's gonna have us for his
bride, he's gotta pay. What's it gonna cost? His death,
that's what it'll cost. That's the dowry the father demanded
and commanded. It'll take your blood, that's
what it'll take. What is the price of redemption? The bloody death of the Lord
Jesus Christ. But something else during the
interval, the bride makes herself ready. She comes to Christ by faith.
And she gets a bath in his blood. and she gets a new garment on,
it's His righteousness. She's spotless before God. She's made beautiful through
His godliness. Thirdly, there's the procession. One day Christ is coming back
and with Him, all the holy angels. And with him, all the saints
who've departed. This will happen at the end of
the interval. He's coming down here where we
live to take us where he lives, take us to his home. And fourthly, then is the wedding
feast. Oh, what a celebration it's going
to be. Behold, I and the children thou
hast given me. Of all that thou hast given me,
I've lost nothing. Here they all are, Father. Here's
the groom himself. Here's the bride. Made beautiful
through His righteousness. And we'll stay with Him not for
a week, Not for two weeks. There'll be a celebration that
won't end after 14 days. This is an everlasting celebration. This is the city of God. It's
the city of God. This is not Babylon. Babylon
is a false city. It's a city that will surely
one day fall. Babylon is fallen, is fallen. That's the voices that John heard.
We read that this morning. But this, the city of God, she
will last forever. In the beginning of Revelation
chapter 19, the saints of God, they see Babylon fallen. The Lord hangs a millstone around
her neck and she sinks down to the lowest pit of hell. where
she deserves to be. And the saints of God shouted,
hallelujah, hallelujah for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. He's done away with the whore.
He's done away with the harlot. She is no more. That city is
destined for a fall. And I tell you what, if you in
Babylon, I hope that what the Lord says in Revelation chapter
18 will be for you. Go over to chapter 18 of Revelation
and verse 4. I heard another voice, Revelation
18 verse 4, I heard another voice from heaven saying, Oh, come
out of her, my people! That's the people He came for. That you be not partakers of
her sins. and that you receive not of her
judgments. It can't be that one of God's
people will perish. Babylon's gonna perish. And the
Lord's people, they're often found in Babylon. I was. Many of you were. But then that
effectual call of grace came and said, come out of her. Come
out! Come to me. And boy, when he
issues that effectual call, we come to him, don't we? There
are two great cities. One of them is going to last
forever. The other one is destined for great fall. Which city are
you in? I tell you, I'm a citizen. I'm
a citizen of the new Jerusalem. And my, really, My home and my
people, a few of them are down here, but this is not my home. My people are not here, just
a few of them, you and some more. I'm going to heaven someday to
be with him where my people, and no, nothing but kinfolk in
heaven. Nothing but kinfolk, nothing
but brothers and sisters in heaven. That's where we're going. To
be with the Lord Jesus forever and ever.