All right, let's look at Revelation
18. Babylon is fallen. We've talked a lot about Babylon,
haven't we? In these lessons. Let's just
go verse by verse. Verse one, after these things. You see, John is given a series
of visions here. And what he's speaking of, a
lot of people, you know, they get bogged down in what we call
chronological, historical time. Saying, well, this happens then
and this happens. A lot of times we don't know
when these things are happening. Or if sometimes it's kind of
hard to tell if they're future or they're happening now. And
then many times, a lot of, most of the time in the book of Revelation,
What John is talking about are things that have a beginning
back in the beginning of the New Testament church. The New Testament times, the
last days, you know when the Bible refers to the last days,
It's not talking about some future as far as our reference is concerned. It's talking about the New Testament
days. That's the last days. And that
ranges from the first coming of Christ to the second coming
of Christ. John in 1 John 2, for example,
he says, you've heard that it is the last days, that the last
days will come. He said, well, it's already come.
So a lot of times, Revelation is talking about things that
had a small beginning 2,000 years ago, approximately. But it kind
of, it's like a snowball rolling down the hill. It gets bigger
and bigger and worse and worse as we come nearer to the second
coming of Christ. So understand that. But when
John says, after these things, he's talking about as he saw
them in the visions that were given him. He had this vision
in chapter 17. Now after these things, he says,
I saw another angel. Now understand the word angel
does not necessarily refer to an angelic being. You know, there
are angels. God created the angels. We read
in the Bible about the elect angels who are in contrast to
the angels who fell with Lucifer, Satan. Lucifer, Satan, is an
angel, but he's a fallen angel. The word angel literally means
messenger. That's what the word means. Christ
himself is sometimes referred to in the Old Testament as the
angel of the covenant. And that doesn't mean he's an
angelic being. He's not. He's God. He's the
Son of God, the second person of the Trinity. And in the New
Testament ages, he became incarnate. He's God manifest in the flesh. He's God-man. Every bit God and
every bit man without sin. And that's a mind-boggling truth.
So when you read this, another angel, you have to understand
that it's talking about a messenger. Now who is the messenger? It
can be an angelic being. In fact, the scripture in Hebrews
chapter 1 talks about angels being communicators and helpers
in the Old Covenant during Israel's time. And that's why the whole
theme of the book of Hebrews is that Christ is greater than
everything. He's greater than the angels.
He's greater than Moses. He's greater than Aaron and the
priesthood of Israel. He's greater in all ways. Better
than. The surety of a better covenant.
But who is this angel? Here's what's happening. After
these things, you know, what we're seeing here, John has been
given this vision of the seven vials or bowls of God's final
wrath upon earth. He's been exposing Babylon for
what she is. Back over in chapter 17, verse
5, mystery Babylon. That means that you're not going
to recognize Babylon unless God shows you. That's what that means.
That's what a mystery is in the scripture. It's something that
God has to reveal to me, else I'm not gonna know the difference.
I'll be deceived. And when God reveals this by
his spirit through his word, then that mystery is uncovered.
And so the mystery, the great of Babylon the Great, the mother
of harlots and abominations of the earth, Babylon, remember,
represents, symbolizes false religion. And that would be any
religion that comes in opposition to the gospel. The gospel of
God's grace. Salvation is by grace. If you
ever come, if we ever come to really understand the reality
of grace, and of course God's people do through the preaching
of the gospel, we will see that that is exactly what sets true
Christianity apart from all other religions. And believe me, I've
studied a bunch of them. I was majoring in comparative
religion when I was in seminary. And I had to study Buddhism,
and Hinduism, and Shintoism, and Islam. I studied them all. Talk to adherents
of all those. And I know, and there's such
a conglomeration of false religions that it's hard to tell the difference
anymore. And of course we live in a day of modern pluralism. You know what pluralism is? That
means, well, we're all going to heaven, we're all worshiping
God, we're just going different ways. There's many right ways. That's pluralism. That is anti-biblical. You know what? Listen to me now
and don't think I'm being too harsh. That's Babylon. Isn't it? And we live in a day
of relativism. You know what relativism says.
That means there's no absolute truth. In other words, a thing
may be true for you, but it may not be true for me. I've got
another truth. That's relativism. Now, you can
come up here and tell everybody here that you believe the moon
is made of green cheese. Now, you're wrong. But you say,
well, it's true to me. That's just an extreme example
of relativism. And that's the spirit of the
age. You know what that is? That's the spirit of Antichrist.
It's the spirit of Babylon. It's false religion that says
that salvation is conditioned in some way to some degree at
some stage on the works or the wills of men and women, rather
than on Christ alone. And that's what sets Christianity
apart. Now, here's what you have to be careful of, though. When
it comes to Babylon, you know, there are a lot of people who
will claim to be Christian. And who'll say, well, you know,
I recognize that those Buddhists are not saved, they're lost,
or those Muslims, you know, all that. One of the things that
we have to be careful of, and it's promoted throughout the
Bible for believers to be aware of, is false Christianity. That's part of Babylon, too.
That's part of her deception. And John, especially in Revelation
and in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, deals with that. False Christianity. That which comes in the name
of Christ, but denies the doctrine of Christ, the truth. All right? And that's what you have to be
aware of, and that's why we have to be students of the word, that's
why we have to be self-examiners, all of that. So here's what John's
saying. Here's this vials of wrath coming
down upon the earth, exposing Babylon, and this angel comes
down from heaven. Who is this angel? Well, now,
I believe that this angel is not an angelic being. It's a
messenger, and it's none other than the Lord himself. It's Christ,
who is the messenger of the covenant. He's the word of God incarnate.
And he's coming down from heaven. Christ. Somebody said, where
is Jesus Christ now? Well, the Bible says he's seated
at the right hand of the father ever living to make intercession
for his people. And so we have an advocate with
the father. He is our advocate. In other
words, we are totally, totally represented. And, and, uh, uh,
add, he is our advocate. In other words, first John two. The merits of his blood and righteousness
is that which continually pleads on behalf of his people. In other
words, here's what that says. That says that God has never
accepted me or blessed me or communed with me on my own merits. Now I'm going to tell you something.
That sets true Christianity apart from other religions. False religion. God saves me, God blesses me,
God accepts me, God justifies me, but never at any time on
my own merits. It's always based on the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ imputed to me. His merits charged to
my account. Now that's grace. Grace reigns
through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord,
Romans 5.21. And a multitude of other scriptures
that we could say. So here's this angel come down.
Now here's why I believe this is Christ. He says in verse one,
having great power. Now we know God can give power
to anybody he wants to give. But this power, I believe, is
talking about the power of God. And it says, look here, and the
earth was lightened with His glory. That's why I believe that's
Christ. Is there any place in the scripture from Genesis to Revelation Where it says that any human
being or any angelic being, the earth is lightened with that
angelic or human being's glory. No. Christ, Jesus Christ, is
the embodiment of the glory of God. When God brings a sinner
to salvation through the preaching of the gospel and the power of
the Holy Spirit, You know what that sinner sees according to
2 Corinthians 4 and 6? The glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. The Bible says in Colossians
2 and verse 9, for in him, that is in Christ, dwelleth all the
fullness of the Godhead bodily. If you want to see the glory
of God, don't look at a church building. It may be beautiful. But I want to tell you something.
If a false gospel is preached from that pulpit, it's the ugliest
thing on earth to God. Is that too hard? It's true. It may be full of people, but there's no glory of God there
unless Christ is preached in the truth of his person, who
he is, and the truth of his redemptive work, what he accomplished on
Calvary to ensure the salvation of his people by righteousness.
So here's Christ coming down in this next vision that John's
talking about. Look at verse two. He cried mightily. In other words, this is a voice
of power and accomplishment with a strong voice saying, Babylon
the great is fallen, is fallen. And the reason that's repeated
is for emphasis. What he's talking about here
is a time when Babylon, false religion, falls. My old buddy
Tim James, a preacher of the gospel, he was preaching a series
of messages against idolatry one time. And a lady come up
to him after the message and said, you are an iconoclast. And Tim didn't know what that
meant, an iconoclast. And what that is is somebody
that tears down idols. And so Tim said he thought about
it and he said, well, I guess icon is the idol and class must
be the sound it makes when it hits the dirt. So, yeah. So I guess that's what
this, this is what this is. We are an iconoclast because
we preach against idols. And that's what's happening.
This idol is going to fall and this Babylon, all false religion,
and it's not going to get up, is falling, is falling. And when
he says Babylon the great, understand that he means great in the eyes
of the unbelieving world, not great in the eyes of God. You
see? This is great. This is the way
men see Babylon. Men and women see Babylon as
something great, you know. And it's unrighteous judgments,
what it is, unrighteous evaluations. So it says that Babylon, look
at verse two, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen. Now remember,
that's false religion. It goes all the way back to the
Tower of Babel, which means gate of God, and how they perverted
that trying to get to God by their merits, their works, their
efforts, their wills, instead of by God's way through the blood
of the Lamb, you see? And he says, and they become
the habitation of devils. Now, Babylon has always been
the habitation of devils. But what he's showing here is
now that's going to be exposed to the world. And it says, in
the hold of every foul spirit and a cage of every unclean and
hateful bird. Think about that. When Christ
was teaching the parables of the kingdom in Matthew 13, you
remember how he talked about the kingdom of heaven was like
a grain of mustard seed? The smallest of plants which
grew from such a small seed into a great tree? And what he was
talking about there is how the church on earth would start out
really small, the New Testament church, Twelve apostles. But it would grow into such a
great tree because the gospel would be spread. But he said
that it wouldn't be long to where these birds, what he called fowls
of the air, would lodge in its branches. You know what that
is? That's Satan's foulness. Every foul, what he's talking
about, every unclean and hateful bird trying to infiltrate the
church from outside. That's what that means. So in
other words, as the church would grow and the truth would spread,
Satan would go on the offensive. And there are times, and we'll
be talking about that a little bit later in Revelation 20, there
are times when Satan would be allowed to attack the church
so much and seem successful to the point where it looks like
the church is dead. Remember the two witnesses we
read about in Revelation 11? That's the church. Don't go looking
for the names of Old Testament characters there. You can't back
that up with the scripture and you say, well, I just believe
that's the way it is. Well, believe what you want to believe. That's the church. The two is
the number of a proper God-honored witness. You've got two testaments,
Old and New. Out of the mouth of two, at least
two or three witnesses, this truth will be confirmed. That's
the church. And Satan would be allowed to, but what happened
here is as time went on, Satan and his foul spirits would attack
the church from outside. That's the birds lodging in the
branches. You remember the next parable
in that Matthew 13 after the mustard seed? It was the parable
of the leaven. Remember a little leaven leaveneth
the whole lump? You know how leaven works. Well, that's Satan
attacking the church from within. But, and to the world, to the
world, it's going to seem like Satan wins the battle, even though
they won't recognize that it's satanic. Where the truth is preached
will be fewer and fewer. And I'm not just saying that
because we got a small church. Seriously, I'm not. But where
lies are preached, that'll grow bigger. Why is that? Well, if I stood up here and
told people what they wanted to hear instead of what they
needed to hear, what do you think would happen? That's right. They'd flow in. Look at that
guy out in Houston. I think it's Houston. I mean,
he fills up a stadium, and what does he tell them? Oh, how good
you are, how, you know, you can have your best life now, all
that. And somebody said, well, you shouldn't name names. Well,
the Bible tells me to. The Bible says in Romans 16 to
mark them, which calls division among you, contrary to the doctrine
which you've been taught. You know what that word mark
means in the original? It means name them. Point them out. Do you love your
children? Sure you do. Do you love your
grandchildren? Sure you do. If you knew that somebody was
trying to lure them into something that would harm them, would you
call the name then? Sure would, wouldn't you? Well,
look at verse three. He says, for all nations have
drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. Now wine
in the Bible symbolizes different things. Sometimes we can talk
about the wine press of God's wrath. Christ went through the
wine press of God's wrath. The wine there would symbolize
the blood. Of course sometimes wine means wine, just the strong
drink. And the Bible says don't be drunk
with wine. Well, what's the wine of the
wrath of her fornication? Now that's talking about spiritual
fornication and it's talking about false doctrine. That's
what the wine is there. And all nations have drunk of
it. You see, this is what's natural to man. And they drink that wine
and they get drunk on that false doctrine and they are lured into
a stupor of false refuges. You ever seen somebody who gets
drunk on strong drink and they think they're bulletproof? They
think they can whip anybody. I've seen it. And they get in
the car, oh, I can drive. I can do anything. I'm invincible.
They don't say it that way. But you get drunk, you get into
a car, and you think nothing's going to happen to me. And the
next thing you know, they're laying over in a ditch dead somewhere
or killed somebody else. Well, that's what this is. Drunk
on the wine of false doctrine puts people, makes them feel
like they're okay, they're fine. That when they come to the judgment,
they're going to be okay. We read that last week in Isaiah
28, remember, when that false refuge, the leaders of Israel
who were rejecting God's Word and saying,
we're fine, we've made a covenant with death and with hell, and
with hell we're at agreement, and when the overflowing scourge
of the wrath of God comes through, we're going to be fine. That's what's happening here.
Look at verse 3, the kings of the earth have committed fornication
with her, the leaders. Why don't we see that today? He says, and the merchants of
the earth, now we're gonna talk about the merchants of the earth
later on in this chapter. But those are, what is a merchant? You know the king, that's the
leader, the kings of the earth. The political leaders, the civil
leaders have drunken of that false doctrine, that false religion.
They bought into it. They bought into the pluralism
of today. They bought into the, what was
that called? The relativism of today. Now, I realize and understand
this now, and I thank God that in our country, we have a constitution
that gives us the freedom to believe, if we want to, that
the moon is made of green cheese. If that's what you want to believe,
you have every freedom and liberty and right to believe that. But
that doesn't make it true. You understand that? The gospel. of God's free sovereign grace
through the blood and the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ is the
one way of salvation. But most people don't believe
that. They believe there are many other ways. I have no desire to pass a law
to stop them from believing that. God's law is enough, isn't it?
God's word is enough. If you want to start a church
over here and say that Jesus Christ came from Mars on a spaceship
and you can get a following and people support that, then I support
your right to do that, but you're wrong. Do you understand what
I'm saying here? Well, the merchants of the earth,
those are those who buy and sell, and I'll tell you the reference
that you need to see there about the merchants of the earth. It
has to do with religious leaders who make merchandise of men's
souls. I realize there's all kinds of
things that we can think of and put into this category. For example,
if you try to make a trip, if you go make a trip to the Holy
Land, which I don't believe there's any such thing on this earth,
all right? If you want me to explain that,
I don't have time this morning, but listen, there's nothing special
about that land over there. Nothing spirit this and somebody
said well, I just want to visit where Christ walked. Well, okay,
that's fine, you know But that's not the issue They'll be over
there selling you pieces of the cross That right That's fake don't buy into that
stuff I But here's what you need to understand. The preacher who
stands behind the pulpit and the lectern, who preaches a false
gospel of salvation based on anything but the righteousness
and the blood of Christ, he's selling you a bill of goods too.
Or she is. They're making merchandise of
men's soul for filthy lucre's sake. They use legal fear or
false love. Are we to love everybody? Of
course we are, the scripture says that. But that doesn't mean
believing that everybody's right. Look at verse four, he says,
and I heard another voice from heaven saying, come out of her,
my people. Don't stay with Babylon, come
out of Babylon, that you be not partakers. The word partaker
is a word of fellowship. Don't be in fellowship with Babylon.
Don't be in agreement with Babylon. Let me show you, look over at
2 John, just turn back a few pages to 2 John verse 9. 2 John verse 9. And I'll hurry
here, I got one more verse and that's it. Verse 9 of 2 John,
it says, Whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine
of Christ, that's the doctrine of his person and the doctrine
of his finished work, hath not God. They're not in fellowship
with God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath
both the Father and the Son. He's in fellowship with the Father
and the Son. Now, verse 10, if there come
any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, this truth, receive
him not into your house. Now the house there's not talking
about your homes. It's talking about the household
of faith, the church. In other words, you're not to
receive that person as a brother or sister in Christ because they
deny Christ. All right? And he says, neither
bid him God's speed, for he that biddeth him God's speed is a
partaker, same word that we see in Revelation 18, of his evil
deeds. Now go back to Revelation 18.
Verse four, and I heard another voice from heaven saying, come
out of her, my people, that you be not partakers of her sins
and that you receive not of her plagues. To be in fellowship
with Babylon is to be in the same state as Babylon. Those who are in unbelief and
those who continue in that and die in that will be under the
wrath of God. Look at verse 5 and we'll close
with this. For her sins have reached unto heaven. In other
words, they're not hidden. They're open to God. God knows
the score. God knows the hearts. He knows
what's going on. And you can disguise false religion
under morality, under charity. You know, let's take it this
way. And I'm not saying this to be
mean. Here's a church that does not
preach the gospel, but let's say they feed a lot of poor people.
And somebody said, well, now they've got to be a true church
or they couldn't do it. My friend, false religion can do charitable
works. It's not disguised. Now that
may hide it from view. That may hide the deadliness
of their poisonous message from the world, but it doesn't hide
it from God. Her sins have reached unto heaven. Everything in a right relationship
with God has to begin, be based on, be centered around, and ultimately
lead to the Lord Jesus Christ and the glory of his person and
the power of his righteousness and his blood. the gospel, everything. And so he says, and God hath
remembered her iniquities. Now what that means is that God
will charge her with her sin. One of the things that God says
in his word to his people, and I'm going to reference one of
these verses this morning in the main message, is that he
will not remember our iniquities. Now that doesn't mean God forgets
or he erases knowledge out of his mind. God doesn't do that.
He doesn't change. It means that God will not bring
them up and hold them against them. He does not impute or charge
them to us. We stand before God washed in
the blood of Christ and clothed in his righteousness. And that's
our right standing before God. Okay.