Alright, let's take our Bibles
and turn to Revelation chapter 18. I want to look at verses 4 through
8. In verse 4, he said, And I heard
another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her
sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues." Now both Christ and His messengers,
here it's talking about another voice, and I said this last week
when When God's messengers are speaking, Christ said, he that
heareth you, heareth me. You're my ambassador. You're
my representative in this world. And when they hear you, they're
hearing me. Now, he says that to those he
sends. He don't say that to everybody
who says I'm a preacher. But to those that God sends,
he said, he that heareth you, heareth me. And this is just
a spiritual fact and a fact of scriptures that when you hear
this man, you're going to hear the second voice also. And this
voice comes from heaven itself. And I can't explain that, I just
know it so. I know when I heard the gospel
from a man, I knew that man was Son of God. You know that's what John said
over in 1 John? Chapter four, I can't give you
the exact verse, but he said, he that is of God, heareth us. Now you can't explain that, but
it's so, it's just so. You know by the spirit of God
that that man is God's messenger and he's telling you the truth.
You know it in your heart because the spirit of God verifies that,
and you also know it by what he's saying. He's preaching the
word of God. So he hears this voice from heaven,
and this voice is saying, get out of her. Come out of her,
my people. And both Christ and His messengers
declare to those who believe to come out of the religion of
Babylon. He doesn't want you to stay there.
He doesn't ask you to stay there, nor does He tolerate you to stay
there. But He says, come out of her.
Now what does that mean to come out of her? What does he mean
by that? Well, it means to have no fellowship
with her. Fellowship is fellers in the
same ship. That's what a man told me years
ago, and it makes perfect sense to me. Fellowship is fellers
in the same ship. I've got no common ground. with those who are outside of
Christ except for my sins. That's the only common ground
I have with them. They don't know God. I know God. They don't
believe what I believe. They won't confess what I confess.
They don't worship the way I worship. I've got no fellowship. I've
got no common ground. And believe me, my relatives
have tried everything to find one piece of common ground. It's
just not there. So it means to have no fellowship
with her. In Ephesians chapter 5 verse
7, Paul tells the church, Be ye not therefore partakers with
them. And he describes a big, long
line of their conduct and their attitude. And he said, Don't
be partakers with them, for ye sometimes were darkness, but
now you're light in the Lord. So walk as children of light. Verse 11, and have no fellowship
with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove
them. Now, what do we know about the
religion of Babylon? Well, I know it's false religion.
I know that it's the religion of devils, because he tells me
that in these first several verses here in Revelation. It's become the habitation of
devils and the hold of every foul spirit. You know, our Lord
gave that example to his disciples. He said there was a fellow, he
said, and this evil spirit went out of him. He didn't say why,
it just went out. It shows you right there that
that these things have power to come in, they have power to
come out. Well, this evil spirit, whatever it was, it went out.
And then the fella said, well, he said, I know what I'm gonna
do. I'm gonna clean up my house. So he swept it and garnished
it, put him in some nice candles, give a nice scent. He cleaned
everything up, swept it, shined it all up, made it look real
pretty. That same spirit come by and looked back in that house,
and he said, wow, looky there. He went back in and took seven
more with him. Now what this is talking about
is a man who made a false profession of faith. Something happened
in his lifetime that motivated him and he made a false profession
of faith. And that false profession of
faith took with it seven other demons more evil than the one
that was in there to start with. And our Lord said his last end
was worse than his first. He was a lot worse off after
that happened than before. So we know that this religion
of Babylon is a religion of devils, and it's a stronghold for every
foul spirit. This is the rulers of the darkness
of this world, these spirits. Paul said this to the Corinthians,
those things which the heathen sacrifice, they sacrifice to
devils. Well, they don't say that when
they sacrifice them. They say they're sacrificing
them under their God. They say that those songs that
they're singing is worshiping their God. They don't say they're
worshiping devils. But Paul said to the Corinthians,
those things which the heathens, those who don't know any better.
You know, we think of heathens, we're thinking about hot and
tots over in Africa somewhere. Eskimos, completely cut off from
the rest of the world. We think heathens. Barbarians. But that's not what a heathen
is. A heathen is simply a man in this world. That's all it
is. And he was raised in false religion, he was raised in idolatry,
and he don't know anything else. And that's what these Gentiles
were. And Paul said to them, those things which the heathen
sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to God. And I
would not that you should have fellowship, now watch this, with
devils. Hmm. You mean that's what goes
on down there? That's exactly what goes on down
there. 1 Corinthians 10, 17-21. You
can read about it. And the same thing applies to marriage. A
young believer is not to take a wife of this Babylonian religion. And my pastor made this statement
years ago. He said if the son of The devil
marries the son of God, you're going to have trouble with your
father-in-law. That's right. In either direction, you're going
to have trouble with your father-in-law. He tells us to be not unequally
yoked together. It's an unequal yoke. For what? Fellowship. See, that's
what we've been talking about. What fellowship hath righteousness
with unrighteousness? What communion hath light with
darkness? And what concord, what's that
mean? That means harmony, it means
agreement. What concord or harmony hath
Christ with Belial? Belial means shame. And what
agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are all
the temple of the living God. As God has said, I'll dwell in
them and walk in them, and I'll be their God, and they'll be
my people. Wherefore, come out from among them. Isn't that what
John's saying here in the book of Revelation? Come out of her,
my people. And Christ is confirming this
from heaven itself. Come out of her, and be you separate,
saith the Lord. So first of all, coming out of
Babylon means to have no fellowship with her. Secondly, it means
to stop supporting her. Don't give her your support.
You know, in the book of John, he said, if one comes to you,
and he's talking about from a church, from a religion, a relative,
a friend, a neighbor, whatever, If one comes to you and he brings
not the doctrines of Christ, now he's coming in his own name,
he's coming in the name of the Methodist Church, the Catholic
Church, whatever, he's coming in the name of some religion,
he's coming to you, but he's not bringing the doctrines of
Christ. He's bringing the doctrines of
universal love and freewillism and works for righteousness.
And he's not bringing those doctrines of Christ. They said, don't let
him into your house. What do we do? Open the door.
Come on in. No, don't let him in the house.
Leave him standing on the porch. Well, you say that's offensive.
He needs to be offended. I thought I was going to have
to literally throw Some people off my property one time, they
came and wanted to come up and talk to my wife. And I said,
no. I said, we go to this church out here. We don't believe what
you all believe. And about that time, my wife
came out the front door. And my driveway was kind of long.
And they just took off up the driveway. Went right around me. So I walked up there. And before
they could get out of the car, I said, I meant what I said.
Hit the road. Don't invite them into your house.
Don't even bid them Godspeed. Don't say, well, the Lord bless
you. Why would you want him to bless this doctrine of devils? You don't want that. You don't
want that. We say, shouldn't I pray for
him? Yes, you should. Pray that God will give them
some light. Pray that God will send them a preacher. Pray that
the Holy Spirit will give them a new birth, give them ears to
hear. But don't let them think when they go away that by your
statements that they're doing okay. Don't support them. Don't support them with your
language and don't support them with your money. I knew a fellow one time that
God saved out of religion. And he was a supporter of a man
who, he ran some kind of missions church, but the man was Armenian
to the core. And after a while, he got convicted
about it, and he came and talked to me about it. And I said, well,
I'm not your lord, but I'll tell you, he asked me what I would
do. And I said, I'm not telling you what to do. I'm going to
tell you exactly what you asked me, what I would do. I'd cut
him off. You're promoting a man down here who's preaching lies.
Yes, he's doing a good work as far as the mission that he does,
but that's a come on. And what you're doing when you
support him, that's not all that he does. He's also preaching
to these young kids, and he's preaching to them lies. We said in the pew of a Babylonian
religion, we're supporting her with our presence. So he tells
us, come out of her. Have no fellowship with her.
Don't invite them into your house. Don't say Godspeed. Don't support
them. Not with your presence and not
with your money. And then thirdly, offer no hope to her. Don't let
them walk away thinking that That false profession of faith
that they've made has some kind of security in it. Don't let them walking away thinking
that there's some gold in there, but part of it is still gross.
Don't offer them any hope. Now, you've got to be careful
about this. I'm telling you, Satan is so subtle. He won't just come up on your
front porch and do this. What he's going to do is he's
going to find Something in your life where he can intervene where
you're going to feel really bad. He's going to come to you during
the funeral. He's going to put his arm around
you, and he's going to start being sympathetic, and he's going
to start doing all this. And he's going to try to influence
you into telling him when he leaves, well, I know that you're
of God. You're a little bit off in your
doctrine, but no, no, that's not how it is. That's not how
it is. Don't offer her any help. Do
not yield to her any value for her attendance and sacrifices
and experiences and their devotion. You know, John the Baptist saw
those Pharisees coming. Here's the religious crowd. This
is the hierarchy of the religious crowd. This is the Billy Grahams.
And here they come. And they're coming down toward
John the Baptist. And John the Baptist quit preaching,
and he turned toward those Pharisees, and he said, you vipers, he said,
who warned you to flee the wrath of God? Huh? He didn't say, well, come on
in. Come on in, sit down. And then felt good about it,
because they had a lot of religious training, and a little bit of
foundation, and maybe a few words he could speak, he could turn
things around. No, he knew exactly what they
were. And he called them exactly what they were. But that's not what happens.
We wind up calling them brother and sister. Brother so-and-so,
sister so-and-so. And don't go to their funerals
and talk about their death as though it'll be a blessing to
them when they spent their lifetime preaching contrary to Christ. And don't talk about their present
trouble as being some kind of a blessing sent from God to prove
their faith. What it is is an evident token
of their perdition. That's what it's called in the
scripture. And then fourthly, it means to
publicly denounce their doctrines and practices by identifying
yourself with the church of the living God. and with His messenger,
and His doctrines, and His Son. All right, Revelation 18, verses
5 through 8. There's a strong and solemn warning
to those who will not bow to the Christ of God, who will not
believe His gospel, or hope in His grace. And to all such these
warnings is given, And the God of heaven is a God who can and
must and will punish sin. That's what we're going to tell
him. He must, his character demands it, he must punish sin. And he will punish sin, we have
example after example after example. Peter talked about the old world. It vanished. Why? Vanished under
the wrath of God. Well, you reckon God will punish
sin? He did. But even more than that, He punished
sin in His Son. The sins of all His people. He
didn't let them slide. He didn't wink at them. He didn't
excuse them. He punished their sins in their
substitute. These are all things concerning
the judgment of God. Let me give you five things. Five things I know about the
judgment of God. I know, first of all, that her
sins have reached unto heaven and God hath remembered her iniquities. Remember who he's talking to.
He's talking about the great whore. He's talking about the
city of Babylon, the city of false religion, and all the world
that patronizes her and have committed fornication with her
and who were made rich by her delicacies. Basically, the whole
unbelieving world. That's who he's talking to. And
in spite of their religious services and contributions and association
and devotion, her sins have ascended up to God undiluted. Now here
is where men are deluded. They don't understand. They think
by what they're doing, they think by their coming to church, by
their praying, by their gifts and offerings, by their prayers
and by the things that they do, this somehow softens their sins
before they come before God. But here he tells us that's not
so. God, does He remember the unbeliever's
sin? He remembers even the thought
of it. I tell you, if that ever goes
home to you, if the Holy Spirit ever takes that home to you,
you'll tremble in your seat. You'll sit and shiver before
God. He understandeth my thought afar off. All things are naked and opened
unto him with whom we have to do everything. I do a good deed. Let's say I do a good deed. I
go down to the hospital and I visit somebody and I take them a little
something down there, a gift, and give it to them. Why did I do it? You see, God looks on the heart. He looks on the motive. It's
not so much what you do, that widow only had a mite. Put a
mite in there, that's nothing. That rich young ruler was ready
to give thousands. But here's this widow and she
gave a mite. But it's why she did it. And
what she did, she gave all that she was able to give. She gave
it. He looks on the heart. Looks on the heart. Oh, but the unbelievers, their
sins are remembered by God. Now he tells the believer, he
said, I shall remember their sins no more. And no reason to
remember them. They've been faithful. They're dead. They're dead. They died in Christ. God's justice
has been, he's just and justifier. And he looks on them with the
righteousness of Christ and sees favor, and he doesn't remember
their sins anymore. They're behind God's back, wherever
that is. Scattered as far as the east
is from the west, buried in the uttermost depths of the sea.
But to unbelievers, that's not so. He remembers everything. He remembers that tiny babe that
come forth from the womb speaking lies. He remembers every false
motive, every foul word, every idle thought, the Scriptures
say. He remembers it. And there's
coming a day when it comes up to heaven and it comes up and
ready for judgment. So in spite of all their religious
services and celebrations and associations and devotions, her
sins come up before God undiluted. They think their offense has
been softened by what they do, but they haven't been at all.
for all of her worship and ministries and prayers and sacrifices she's
rewarded only the wages of sin. Why is that? Because she would
not bow to the Lord of glory. She would not receive him for
who he is. She would not believe on his
holy name that was manifested in him. She would not acknowledge
his offices or his accomplished redemption. She despised him
as the way of salvation and set about to make their own way,
the way that seemed right. Our Lord said that in that great
and terrible day of the Lord, some would say unto him, have
not we preached in thy name? We're just talking about this
just before the service. Some are going to say that. I
believe in my heart Billy Graham's going to say that. Have not I
preached in your name? Have not I done many wonderful
works in thy name? Have not I dedicated my life
to you? Depart from me. Now listen, ye
workers of iniquity. That's what it is. I don't care
how it's painted. I don't care how it's camouflaged.
That's what it is. it's a work of an equity and
he said apart from a now listen to that i never knew i never know the scenes of god's elect have
been put away god says i remember them no more
but the scenes of false religion are not so every idle imagination
did you know that's why the the old world was destroyed Every
thought, he said, of the imagination of their heart was only evil
continually. And God said, I'll destroy it.
Will God destroy a man because of his imagination? He did. He
did. Her sins have reached unto heaven,
and he hath remembered her iniquities. All right, the second thing we're
told about the judgment of God is that it is in exact proportion
to their sins. Verse six, listen to this. Reward
her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her, double according
to her works. In the cup which she hath filled,
fill to her double. How much she hath glorified herself
and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her.
For she saith in her heart, I said a queen, and am no widow, and
shall see no sorrow. Now he uses the word double here
three times. Three times in verse six. Does
the Lord mean by that that she'll be punished twice as much as
she sinned? Not at all. It means that she
will receive punishment exactly to the proportion of her sin. You're going to see these two
things. You're going to see exactly what she did and exactly how
she was judged according to that. The word double means the same. Reward her as she rewarded you. I'm going to read this with the
same in the place of the word double. Reward her even as she
has rewarded you and the same unto her. The same according
to her works in the cup which she has filled, filled to her
the same. The living God is exacting in
his justice. He's exacting in his vengeance
and wrath. And every transgression and disobedience
it said received a just recompense of reward. There's no degrees in heaven.
No degrees. But there are degrees of punishment.
And the worst is reserved for those who despise the free grace
of God. And he tells us that over and
over in the Gospels. Those who have trodden underfoot
the blood of the Son of God. He said those who transgressed
the law under the law of Moses, under two or three witnesses,
they were taken out and without mercy they were put to death.
Of how much sorer punishment, huh? He said it shall be more
tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment
than for those who believe not his gospel. And then the third
thing he tells us here about divine retribution or judgment
is that it is sudden and without warning. It just comes upon a
man. You know, people think they're
going to live forever. The old saying, when I was a
kid, you think you're six foot tall and bulletproof. Men think
they're going to live forever. And even if it ain't forever,
it's going to be a long time. And sometime between now and
the end, I'll have time to do this and accept him. And you
would if what religion was saying is so. If you had the will to
do it and the ability to do it, maybe you would do it. But that's
not how it is. And when God's judgment comes,
it comes all of a sudden. I don't believe there was anything
other than the messengers that he sent down into Sodom and Gomorrah
to warn Lot and his family. I don't believe there was any
other sign of God's judgment coming upon that city. And I
believe the same thing about this world. You're going to hear
his messengers, or one day, judgment's going to come on you in an instant. In an instant. One day you're
going to wake up and you're going to have no want to to come to
church. You're going to have no want
to to worship. You're going to have no interest
in the word of God. He will have sent you strong
delusion to believe a lie, and you'll find one that suits you.
And that's where you'll stay till you die and go out and meet
God. So here's what I know about it.
Listen to this, Revelation 18, 8. Therefore shall her plagues
come in one day, one day, death and mourning and famine, and
she shall be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord
that judges her. One thing which becomes more
and more evident to me as I study the scriptures is that God is
God. I'm telling you, you better hear
Him. He's God. He's not an interested party.
He's God. And if God says a thing, who's
going to alter it? Who's going to challenge it?
Who's going to stay His hand? And if the Lord should set His
mind and heart to bring you in to answer for your sins, who's
going to prevent it? And here's the thing, God has
told us in his word that these things shall come to pass, and
that they shall come swiftly, and that they shall come without
mercy. Yet like Satan of old, they imagine that if they deny
it, they can somehow alter it. That's never going to happen.
Never going to happen. I grew up in religion. I played
religious games my whole young life. And one day, and it seemed
as if it were in a moment, his judgment swept over my soul and
it left me trembling in my boots. Is that your experience? One
day I was, oh, maybe troubled a little bit, but not much. The
next day I was shaking in my boots. There was nothing I could
do about it. It was as if I had no power to
resist it. But oh, thank God, it was a gracious
act of the Holy Spirit bringing me to see something about my
guilt and something about my condemnation and God's justice
and righteousness. And it was a gracious act of
the Spirit convincing me of sin, of the nature of it and the condemnation
of it. And this gracious act is followed
by a revelation of Christ the all-sufficient Savior, and something
about the saving grace of God. But just as quickly and powerfully
as my condemnation swept over my soul, so shall judgment sweep
over the souls of men, especially in that great day. Nowhere to
hide. They'll cry for the rocks and
mountains to hide them from the face of the Lord. But there's
nowhere to hide, nowhere to go. So what hope have we? We have
hope in Christ alone. Christ alone. And I'm going to
tell you, by the grace of God, as long as I have breath, I'm
going to keep on telling you, look to Christ. Look to Christ. There's hope nowhere else.