You know, the more I read the
scripture and study it, the more I'm convinced that there's nothing
recorded in this book by accident. And, you know, I try to really
study translations and make sure that we get back to the original
intent of the Holy Spirit's inspiration And that's what it is, the Bible
being the verbally inspired word of God. And so I decided to take
my time through this. What we're talking about, the
title of the lesson, this lesson and the next one that's going
to come up in two weeks is called The Merchandise of Damnation. That's not a very positive title,
is it? But you have to understand here
in Revelation 18, what we're talking about are things connected
with the fall of Babylon. What is Babylon? Babylon is false
religion. Babylon is the false church.
That's what Babylon is. And I brought this out last week,
how Christ told when he was exposing the Pharisees, by their false
message. One of the ways he described
them is the blind leading the blind. And he said they all fall
into the ditch together. So, don't think, as far as the
Bible is concerned now, Babylon and those who are connected with
Babylon, false religion, the false church, the religion of
Cain, the religion of salvation by works and the wills of men,
that not only is that system going to fall and be destroyed,
but all who are connected with that system. Now here, what we're
talking about is the merchants of the earth. Look back up in
verse 11. He says, the merchants of the
earth shall weep and mourn over her for no man buy their merchandise
anymore. Now, and I mentioned this last
week, how we know that false religion is big business. I mean,
it's a money-making machine. You all know that. You can see
it. Now, that doesn't mean every
little false church, you know, is rich and all of that. But
it is a big, big business, a money-making machine. But that's not the essence
of what he's talking about here. The essence of what he's talking
about here is false religion preaching a false message, giving
out false refuges that make merchandise of the souls of men. And you
remember Christ mentioned that about the Pharisees. He talked
about their missionary efforts in Matthew 23. You remember what
he said about their missionary efforts? Now, when I'm talking
about their missionary efforts, we are missionary. Because we
want to spread the gospel. We want to tell the truth. But
there are missionaries of Babylon. And they go out all over the
world seeking converts to their false religion. And you remember
what Christ said about that? He says you encompass sea and
land to gain converts. And when you gain them, what
did he say? You make them two-fold more the
child of hell than you are. Now, that's exactly what he's
talking about here in this merchandise. And I'm just going to look at
these two verses. Like I said, I have two lessons
on this, the merchandise of damnation. These two verses. And I want
you to see. Now, somebody will ask me sometimes,
you know, well, how do you come up with what this symbolizes
and what that symbolizes? Well, I do it through the scriptures. Comparing scripture with scripture.
And listen to what he says, let's just read the two verses. He
says, the merchandise of gold and silver, precious stones,
pearls, and then he says, and fine linen, purple and silk and
scarlet, and all thine wood or sweet wood, all manner of vessels
of ivory and all manner of vessels of most precious wood and of
brass, iron and marble. Why is he so specific? in naming
these things because they stand for something and we know that
from the Old Testament. He says in verse 13, cinnamon
and odors, ointments, frankincense. You all have heard of frankincense,
haven't you? You know the gifts that they brought to the wise
men brought to the child, Jesus. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
Wine and oil, fine flour, wheat, and sheep, and horses, and chariots,
and slaves, and souls of men. Now I'm going to get into the
last part of that in two weeks. As I said, I won't be here next
weekend, but in two weeks I'm going to get into the last part
of that. But think about this. Merchants of the earth. Who are
they? False preachers merchandising
a false message, selling a false salvation. a human works righteousness. That's what they are. As opposed
to the preachers of the gospel who preach salvation totally,
at all times, at every stage, to every degree, by the sovereign
mercy and grace of God, based on the blood, the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, if we preach the gospel,
We're not making merchandise of men's souls. We're telling
men of Christ. See, Christ is the way. Do you
know that you're a sinner? Do I know that I'm a sinner?
Do I want forgiveness of sins? You're not gonna get it by spending
your money or going to confession or paying penance. That's merchandise,
you see. You get it by looking to Christ. His blood alone. His righteousness
alone. That's where all forgiveness
of all sin is. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses
us from all sin. Now if I preach that, I'm not
making merchandise of your soul. I'm telling you the truth. I'm
telling you the only way of safety. You want righteousness? You're
not going to find it in anything you do or anything done in you
or done by you. It's all done for God's people
in Christ. You see the difference? This
merchandise that they're selling, this false religion, this false
salvation, this false refuge, this false security, it's a merchandise
of death and damnation. But here's the point. It looks
good to the natural man. It looks great. It looks like
it works to the natural man. Now, what is the natural man?
Well, that's us as we are naturally born, dead in trespasses and
sin, fallen in Adam. And as we naturally think. It's
kind of summed up in two verses in the book of Proverbs. There
is a way that seemeth right unto men, but the ways are their ways
of death, ways of destruction. But it looks good. And that's
why you have these symbols used here. Look at the first one and
understand now, these are things that are opposed to salvation
by God's grace through the blood and righteousness of Christ.
These are things that are opposed to eternal life. They're all perishable. He says
in verse 12, look at it, the merchandise of gold and silver
and precious stones and of pearls. Well, we all know how we naturally
think of these physical gems, gold, silver, precious stones,
pearls. There's a commercial that comes
on TV now that says, buy gold. Because gold will never lose
its value. Now, do you believe that? It's
going to lose its value. Real gold. It may be valuable
now. I don't have any gold, but it
may be valuable now on the market. I don't know. But it's going
to lose its value. And silver. Silver is not as
expensive as gold, but it has some value to people. Precious
stones. I didn't know this, and ladies,
you may want to jump on me or correct me after it's over, but
somebody told me that diamonds are not rare. They're not rare. You know, I used to think they
were. I thought that's why they were so expensive, because they're
rare. They're not rare at all. And
they mentioned some company over in South Africa that they're
the reason the diamonds are so expensive. It's not because they're
rare. Now, if you want rare stones,
get rubies and emeralds. Those are rare. But diamonds
aren't rare. But they're precious to a lot
of people. Precious stones. And then pearls. We know about
pearls. These are precious metals, precious
stones, that make a person appear wealthy and fine. They got everything. Everything
that a human being could want. Wealthy. Things which people
use in some way or some fashion to try to buy happiness, security,
reputation. Remember back in Revelation 17-4
that Babylon, the great harlot herself, was described this way,
she's decked with gold and precious stones and pearls. And here's what, I've got this
in your lesson, these are symbolic of how the natural man in his
sin and depravity imagines vainly that he himself and what he is
inherently and what he does is good and valuable enough to save
him, to keep him secure. Oh, if I just had a bag of gold,
you know. Well, in religion, how does that
measure? Oh, if I just do enough, whatever
enough is. And you know, nobody really knows
what enough is. The only one who can tell you what enough
is, is God. And you know what he tells us? That we'll never
do enough to earn salvation. We'll never do enough to make
ourselves righteous. No matter how good we try to
be, or we could say it this way, no matter how successful we could
be, We can never produce the precious gold and silver and
stones of eternal life and salvation and righteousness. We can't do
it. You remember reading in the Bible,
I think in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 is a passage that comes to
mind, how that the true people of God, sinners saved by grace,
are called God's precious jewels, precious stones, as compared,
as contrasted rather with the wood, hay, and stubble of false
professors, false religion. You know what the most valuable
thing in God's eyes is? His glory. And you know where
his glory resides? In the face of Jesus Christ as
the savior of his people. Why are God's people precious
to Him? Is it because they have some
sort of inherent value like a bag of gold or a string of pearls? No. It's because He's glorified
in the salvation of such worthless wretches as we are. That's right. And when you consider
this, He spared not His own Son. Why? Because He must be just
when He justifies. And it was His love that sent
His Son to provide what His justice and His law demands. And out
of that, He's glorified. And that's why a sinner saved
by grace is called His precious jewels. Well, everything that
He's mentioned here is going to perish, going to lose its
value. But the thing about it is, salvation
comes to sinners by the grace of God. And how does the grace
of God come to sinners? By the precious blood of Christ,
which will never lose its value. If we're in Christ, we stand
before God clothed in His righteousness. And that leads us to the second
part of this. Look at verse 12. He's talked about the gold, the
silver, the precious stones, the pearls. Then he goes to fine
linen, purple, silk, Now that's cloth. What do you use cloth
for? To make clothes. From the very beginning, when
Adam and Eve fell, what was the first thing they realized? They
were naked. They didn't have any clothes
on. Now, there's a lot of speculation that revolves around that kind
of thing. I mean, I've even heard people say, ask the question,
I said, well, you know, you mean to tell me, were they dummies
before they fell? They just didn't know they didn't
have any clothes on? No, that's not what it's all about. Nakedness
in the Bible is a symbol of standing before God without righteousness. That's what nakedness is. And
man, in some small measure, even the fallen natural man, realizes,
like Adam and Eve, that he's naked and he's got to do something
to cover up that sin, to cover up that shame. What did Adam
and Eve do? They sewed fig leaves together.
All they could do is cover it over. They couldn't remit it.
They couldn't remove it. So they just covered it over,
hidden from view. It's kind of like when you look
at the state of natural man as described in Jeremiah 17. What
does Jeremiah say? The heart is deceitful above
all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? People all the time say, well,
you can't see my heart. Well, that's a good thing. That's why when God saves a sinner
in the quickening, in regeneration, in the new birth, what does he
say? I'll give you a what? A new heart. And that's a heart
cleansed by the blood of Christ, by the way. It's a heart of faith,
purified by the blood of Christ. It believes in him and reaches
out to him. So nakedness is a symbol of being
found before God in shame, exposed to His wrath. That's
why He says that those who stand before Him, whosoever shall call
upon the name of the Lord, shall not be what? Shall not be ashamed. Why is that? Because we who call
upon the name of the Lord, sinners saved by grace, stand before
God clothed in the imputed righteousness of Christ. And therefore we don't
have anything to be ashamed of. That's right. If I call upon
the name of Christ, that's what God's people do. redeemed by the blood, regenerated
by the Spirit. If you're regenerated by the
Spirit, you'll call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,
you'll have His righteousness has already been imputed to you. And so we stand there clothed
in righteousness that we had no part in producing. If we had
any part in producing it, it would be filthy rags and we have
every reason to be ashamed. But in Christ, we don't have
any reason to be ashamed. Well, all of this in Revelation 18 verse 12 symbolizes
the efforts of self-righteous unbelievers trying to clothe
themselves just like Adam and Eve in their fig leaf aprons
so that they can appear righteous before men. Fine linen. symbolizes man's work's righteousness. Purple symbolizes man's claim
to be a child of God, a child of the king. Purple is the royal
color. Silk shines and symbolizes man's
glory, his claim of glory for himself. Scarlet is the color
of blood, symbolizing man's claim of working righteousness through
his own suffering. How many times have you ever
heard somebody say, well, I know he or she's in heaven because
they suffered here on earth. I've heard that a lot at funerals.
And listen, I do not relish or rejoice over the suffering of
any individual, but I know this. Now listen to this. There is no amount of suffering
that a sinful human being can go through on this earth that
would earn that individual heaven. If it could be done by suffering,
Christ would not have come to suffer for his people. He suffered
like no other individual. And though I sorrow over the
suffering, I've seen people suffer. I watched a man die of emphysema
one time. You ever seen anything like that?
Just gasping for air. bubbling coming up out of his
mouth, trying to get that next breath. And it's a horrible sight. Now, he was a brother in Christ,
which I'm so thankful. And I can honestly tell you,
his suffering's over. But you can't say that about
everybody. But I watched that, and that's terrible. And I just
thought no human being ought to suffer that way, but that's
God's business. That's not mine. I'm not smart enough or wise
enough to even make a judgment on things like that. But here's
what I'm saying. There's no amount of suffering
that a human being can go through that would make that person worthy
to be saved. Works will not do it. Even suffering
will not do it. You know, I was thinking about this and
I put it in the lesson. How Christ told the Pharisees,
you do indeed appear righteous unto men. Outwardly. Paul spoke of that in his past
religion before his conversion. He said, as touching the law,
a Pharisee is touching the righteousness of the law blameless. That's
how he outwardly appeared. In the parable of the rich man
and Lazarus, you remember that? In Luke 16, Christ, I put in
here, he spoke of a rich man and a poor man. And he described
the rich man as clothed in purple and fine linen. And he fared
sumptuously every day. But you remember Lazarus in rags
outside the door, the dogs licking his sores? But here's Lazarus
who was a righteous man, a sinner saved by the grace of God. And
listen, the point of that parable was not that Lazarus's poverty
qualified him for salvation. It doesn't. Poverty in this life
does not qualify a sinner for salvation. And listen, riches
in this life does not disqualify a man or a woman for salvation. That's not the issue. The issue
is that appearances can be deceiving. People would look at that rich
man who fared sumptuously, clothed in fine linen and pearl, oh,
he must be doing something right, he's blessed of God. And they'd
look at old Lazarus laying down there, the dog's licking his
sore, hungry, in rag and say, Lazarus, let's figure out what
you've done wrong to deserve this. No, that's not the way
it is. Lazarus was the blessed person. He was the sinner saved by grace.
Lazarus, though he physically was clothed in rags, eternally,
he was clothed in the righteousness of his Savior. The rich man,
physically, he was clothed in fine linen and purple, but eternally,
spiritually, he was clothed in filthy rags. Isaiah 64.6. So think about that. Sometimes the fine linen in the
book of Revelation, and I've got two passages there cited
in your lesson, is used to describe the righteousness of Christ that's
imputed, charged, accounted to his people. It's called pure
and white, clean and white, meaning that Christ's righteousness in
which we stand is flawless. We have a perfect righteousness.
But here in Revelation 12, that fine linen and that purple is
used to describe the opposite, the false doctrine, the false
security of the merchandisers of men's souls. Now look on in
verse 12. He says, he talks about thine
wood. That's a, I've got in here a
sweet perfumed and costly wood. All manner of vessels of ivory.
All manner of vessels of most precious wood and of brass and
iron and marble. Now what are those used for?
To build. Building. You're gonna build
something. The wood. I'll tell you what
it reminded me of. It reminded me of Matthew 7.
Building a house. That's what religion is about,
isn't it, sometimes? You could kind of equate it that
way. You're going to build your house in this life. I ain't heard
a preacher use an illustration, a false preacher use an illustration
years and years and years ago talking about how he's building
his house and when he gets to heaven he'll see the finished
product. It's going to be a mansion and all that. Remember in Matthew
7 as Christ closed out the Sermon on the Mount? He said, these
things I liken them to a man who builds his house on a rock. And the rains descend, the winds
came, and it did not fall because it's built on a rock. And then
he talked about the man who builds his house on the sand. The rains
come, the winds, and it fell because it's built on sand. What's
he talking about? Well, in one, the man who built
his house on a rock is not working for his salvation. He's looking
to Christ who is the rock and foundation of his whole house.
And what determines whether or not the house falls? How good
the house looks? The color of the paint? The materials
it knows? The foundation. If Christ is
our foundation, that house cannot fall. If Christ is not our foundation,
it's built on sand. But let me give you another aspect
of this. The true church of the living
God is called God's building. Turn over to Ephesians chapter
2. I want you to see this. And I didn't cite this in the
lesson, but you might just pencil it in. Ephesians chapter 2. And there's several passages
we could look at on this. The true church of the living
God is God's building. Ephesians chapter 2, he's talking about how the Gentiles,
believers now, God's elect among the Gentiles, have been brought
into the kingdom of God, along with believing Jews. God has
a chosen people out of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation,
Jew and Gentile. And because they're all saved
by grace, based upon the righteousness of Christ imputed, there's no
difference as far as our state and standing before God. We're
all equal in Christ. And look at verse 19 of Ephesians
2. He says, now therefore you are
no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens In other
words, you Gentiles who have been saved by the grace of God,
you're not some step or degree below a saved Jew. You're a fellow
citizen with the saints, sanctified ones, and of the household of
God, and are built, look at that, built upon the foundation of
the apostles and prophets. Now what is that foundation?
Here it is, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.
in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto
an holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are builded together
for an habitation of God through the Spirit." That's the true
church. Now, contrasted with that, back
in Revelation chapter 18 and verse 12, is the building of
Babylon. Thine wood looks good, sweet
wood, expensive. Vessels of ivory, beautiful things. Appears great, doesn't it? Looks
good. All manner of vessels, most precious
wood, brass, iron, marble. What a building. But it's gonna
fall. It's built upon sand. It's connected
with the great harlot Babylon, the false gospel. It will not
last. God's building will never fall.
It's built upon Christ. It's all of grace. Let me go
to verse 13 and I'm just going to do the first part here and
then close. He says in verse 13, cinnamon, odors, ointments,
frankincense. You know what those elements
were? You remember back in the old tabernacle of the temple?
They had the altar of incense. Well, these were the very ingredients
used in the oil of incense. And in the tabernacle, because
they are connected with the blood of the Lamb, which is Christ,
they were sent up as the prayers of the saints through Christ,
who is the intercessor, and they were received and accepted by
God as a sweet-smelling savor. But in contrast to that here,
we have all that looks good and smells good to men, but is a
stench in the nostrils of God. Unacceptable. It's not through
Christ. It's not washed in His blood.
It represents all the prayers, all the worship, all the service
of Babylon and her followers. It's fruit unto death. and it
stinks in the nostrils of God. Smells good to men and women,
natural, but not to God. I'll deal with that in a couple
of weeks too, but that's where we'll leave off.