If you have your Bibles, travel
with me to the 13th chapter of Isaiah. I'm going to read verses 6 through 12.
I'm going to try to finish out the chapter next week. Well,
I won't be here, though. I'm going to go see my mom. I
may be preaching next week, so a week after that. Chapter 13, verse 6. Our Lord
speaking to the Babylonians. behold Israel captive. Howl ye,
for the day of the Lord is at hand. It shall come as a destruction
from the Almighty. Therefore shall all hands be
faint, and every man's heart shall melt. And they shall be
afraid. Pains and sorrows shall take
hold of them. They shall be in pain as a woman
that travaileth. They shall be amazed one at another.
Their faces shall be as flames. Behold, the day of the Lord cometh,
cruel, both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate,
and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the stars
of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their
light. The sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon
shall not cause her light to shine. And I will punish the
world for their evil. and the wicked for their iniquity.
And I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will
lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. I will make a man more
precious than fine gold, even a man than the gold wedge of
over. Let us pray. Our Father, we bless
you and thank you that we have your word that gives an honest
report of who you are and what we are. an honest report of the
consequence of sin, the necessity of judgment, in order that you
might be just and justify them that believe on Jesus Christ.
We are thankful for that substitutionary sacrifice that He made to you,
where He died in our room instead. And you accounted that death
as ours. And because the void was left where sin was removed,
You made Him to be righteousness unto us. And we thank You for
that. Father, we praise You for Your
kindness and mercy towards sinners. But we would heed Your warning
in Scripture, for these things are not said in hyperbole or
just to make men afraid. When You warn and You promise
and you threaten them, it will soon come to pass. Bless us to
believe you and honor you for who you are. Father, we ask for those of our
company who are sick, going through various trials, tribulations.
We ask, Lord, you might be with them. Comfort them and strengthen
them. I pray especially for Wayne and
Henry, Laverne, Robert and Clara, Virginia, Peanut. We ask Lord your help for them,
for this young girl who's in the hospital, for this family
of this young man who was beaten up. Father, we ask in these cases
that you would intervene. We know that we can say words,
but we know that only you can touch the heart. And we ask,
Father, that you would do that. It would be according to your
good pleasure and will. Bless us now to worship you as
we consider your greatness. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. We read the words of the Old
Testament. A lot of times people, especially in this day and age,
they think the Old Testament reveals God in only one capacity,
and that's the God of wrath. They even talk about when somebody
wants to do you harm, they say, I'm about to go Old Testament
on you. And what that means is that wrath
comes down the pipe. And then you look at what's going
on in the world today, and they say this is the New Testament
age, and it's true. And in this age, all people are
put in the hands of a mediator as they always have been, but
they've always been in the hands of a mediator. And no man has ever
really seen God's wrath and will not until he comes again in his
might and his power and by the words of his mouth consumes this
earth and all the inhabitants thereof with his church by his
side. But today's age believes that
God is not like He is in the Old Testament, but He is. Our president stood today and
talked about this young journalist who was beheaded by the ISIS
group over in Syria. And he said something about a
just God wouldn't do that. And I think he was probably talking
about Allah being the God of the Muslims. But a just God would do that
and has done that. And we'll do much worse than
that when he comes again. to answer and avenge His elect
upon this earth. When you read these words like
this, it's hard, I expect, to imagine if you told anyone in
today's religion that this is the way God is, because He never
changes. And so He can't be that way.
I remember many years ago, Jessie Raphael, she had a talk show
when the talk shows were huge on TV. And someone said something
about God acting in a way where people perish. And she said,
that's not my God. That's not my God. My God wouldn't
do that. I expect her God wouldn't. But
the God of this world acts according to his good pleasure. And he
never asks questions and he never takes counsel of anyone. And
he doesn't ask you what to do with your family. And he's not
going to. I've been convinced for many
years that we don't know what, we don't want to know what God
does in Providence. We don't know. And we would be
thankful. We ought to be thankful that
he never asks us. Because we disagree with him.
I expect on just about everything he does because his thoughts
are not our thoughts. nor His ways our ways." The title
of this message tonight is The Destroyer, because that's how
God describes Himself. The Destroyer. Now the remainder
of this chapter is about the destruction of Babylon, and the
promised delivery of the Lord's people. And we know that all
these are types and shadows of what is yet to come, though they
happen historically. The first verse of this passage,
in verse 6, is what is called a paranomasia. It's a form of
language. It's a pun or a play on words
that describes the Lord as He is revealed in this context. This phrase, destruction from
the Almighty, in the original actually reads, the Hebrew words
are cheshad mishaddai, which means destruction from the destroyer. This is what's coming. Destruction
from the destroyer. The Lord who is mighty to save,
slow to anger and plenteous in mercy is here described in the
capacity of the terrible action which is about to take against
Babylon. And this description that the
Lord gives of himself leaves no room or even a modicum of
mercy at all for the Babylonians. Now in the next chapter we'll
see that this is all done because God has mercy on Jacob. That's why all of this is done
to the Babylonians. But you don't find terms of salvation
here, of mercy and grace. You don't find God describing
Yourself as a just God and a Savior here. You find Him describing
Yourself in one way, a destroyer. God the destroyer. And it's always
important to understand that when God makes a threat, he always
answers his threat. He always does. For Israel, this
will be utter destruction of the great empire. And it will prove an act of love
for them and for mercy for them, but for the Babylonians it is
not so. The theme that runs throughout
the Bible as we've discovered, especially as we've studied the
Old Testament, even in the New, is that the salvation of God's
elect is always accompanied with the final dissolution of the
enemy. That's the way this is going to end. That's the way
this story ends. That's the way our story ends. And of course, this temporal
deliverance is a picture of the final deliverance of the elect
that will occur when the Lord Jesus Christ will come in glory
with His saints. And He will come then as the
Destroyer. Him that is righteous, let Him
be righteous still. Him that is unjust, let Him be
unjust still. No foul bird or unclean thing
is going to last upon the face of the earth when God comes as
the Destroyer. Now He will by that time have
called out His people to form that great army which will never
have to draw a weapon for their captain and their hero and their
Lord will speak and it shall be done. But in that day God
will put an end to Babylon the great whore which Babylon always
is a representative of in the Old Testament. And He will consume
the earth with fire and in that day time will end and time will
be no more. There will not be a morning and
an evening in that day, just as it was in the seventh day.
Every day of creation, the first six days, always had an evening
and a morning, from darkness to light, as God said. Always
did, but not the seventh day. It doesn't say the evening and
the morning of the seventh day, because there are no evening
and morning. When God rested in His completion of His work,
there's a picture of Christ resting in our salvation. And in him,
in that day, when God winds this thing up completely, there will
be no morning and evening. Christ will be the light of that
place. It will be eternal sunshine and
eternal light in that place. We won't need to sleep because
we won't ever get tired. There'll be no weariness, no
sorrow and no tears as it's described in scripture. But when that comes,
it's over and it's not going to be pretty. The metaphoric
language used in the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ about
that day is terrifying. It's terrifying what men will
have to go through when God Almighty speaks and ends this thing up. Now, these words and descriptions
are a threat from the Lord to Babylon. And when the Lord makes
a threat, it's a promise of judgment. You can count on it. The destruction
is on the way as if a massive, marauding, murderous horde was
appearing ominously on the horizon, completely surrounding your city.
And you know, suddenly, there is no hope. This is what the
threat comes against Babylon. There is nowhere to run. There
is no possibility of escape. The disruption comes from the
destroyer. Babylon is full of pride and
arrogance. All we have to do is read about
them and find that so in this very book. And it's about to
be brought down low. About to be laid low in God's
Word. About to be laid desolate in God's Word. These words spoken
by the Lord are a catalog of terror. A catalog of terror. Through terror from the hand
of the Lord. The Medes and the Persians are
the slaying swords in the hands of the Lord to do this. And these words address the effect
of the Lord showing up. People talk about Lord come down. You might not want that. You
might want Him to stay where He is until He's finished with
this thing and come back when it's time. People talk about,
oh, the Lord came down. You know, every time the Lord
comes down in Scripture, things happen. The Lord came down and
spoke to Abraham, and Sodom and Gomorrah were consumed by fire
and brimstone from heaven. The Lord came down and died on
a cross. The earth shook. The sun went black. Rocks split
in twain. People died. When the Lord shows
up, He might open up the earth and swallow people up, because
when you have an earthquake, don't think, well, that's one
tectonic plate rubbing against the other, though scientifically
it is, it's God speaking, everywhere in Scripture. When you see a
lightning bolt come down and hit a tree, don't think that's
just a weird science of electricity. Scripture says He wraps His hands
with lightning and makes it hit the mark. When you hear the thunder
roll, that's our Lord speaking. When you see the clouds roll
in, those are the dust of His feet. That's all metaphorical
language to show that nothing happens on this earth. It has
to do with destruction and power. He is in the whirlwind, saith
the Scripture. He tells the sea, this is as far as you can go
and no further. And sometime He says, come on
in. And it does. And when it does, you have things
happen like it happened over in Japan or in Indonesia. The sea simply takes away the
land. Why? Because God is who He is. You
say, is that judgment? I don't know. God didn't tell
me. God didn't tell me. But He said
to Israel, I've given Sheba for thee. I've given Ethiopia for
thee. Wiped out a whole nation for
you. And now He's about to do the same thing for His people.
Babylon was not a little city. Babylon was an empire. A huge
empire. A rich and prosperous and brilliant
empire. And they're going to be brought
to nothing. And it's a terror that the Lord speaks of here.
It's the effect of the Lord showing up in anger and the response
of the visitation on those that are recipients of the hand of
the destroyer. The first word that proceeds
out of the mouth of the destroyer is howl. How ye, how ye, for
the day of the Lord is at hand. The day of the Lord is at hand.
He's talking about the day of His wrath is at hand. And again, this is wrath, tempered
with mercy, because we see in verse chapter 14 that this is
all done for Jacob, for the mercy toward Jacob. But He says nobody
is going to escape out of this outfit. 1 Peter, or 2 Peter rather,
speaks of that day. And it speaks of that day in
the context in which men have come to the place where they
don't believe that's really going to happen. Like we have today. Old men talk about eschatology
and preachers talk about all these things going to happen
out there in the end times. It's already been the end times
since Christ came. But they talk about it like these
are all things. And they try to get newspaper articles. I
saw a thing on Facebook the other night. A young lady who I know
believes the gospel of Jesus Christ, but she said, Tell me,
tell me we ain't in the end times. Well, they are in the end times,
no doubt about that. And is it about to wind up? Every
generation since he said it believes it's about to wind up, so it
may wind up. It may wind up, but it's not
going to come by observance. Our Lord said this thing is not
going to come by observance. He says, when I come, people
are going to be given in marriage, they're going to be married,
they're going to be having babies, they're going to be going to work, going
on, and I'm going to come. And I say, nobody's going to know
except the ones who are looking for him. In 1st Peter, or in
2nd Peter, these were saying, well he's not come, so he's not
going to come. We're not going to worry about that. God is slack
concerning his promise. But he says in chapter 3 in verse
10, but the day of the Lord will come. As a thief in the night. You know from 3rd Thessalonians,
it's not a thief in the night for you. Believers, you'll see
it. It ought to be a surprise for
you. It's going to be a surprise for everybody else. But it shouldn't
be because God has warned men since the beginning about this.
If they would have heard, if they would have listened, they
would have been warned, but they won't listen. But the day of the Lord
will come as a thief in the night, in the which heavens, the heavens,
shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall
melt with a fervent heat. The earth also and the works
that are therein shall be burned up, the earth and the works,
seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved. What manner
of persons ought you ought to be in holy conversation and godliness?
Looking for and hasting the day of his coming. The day of God
wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the
elements shall melt with the firmness of fervent heat. People
sit back before he ain't coming. You know what they're really
saying? God's holding off for a reason. And He is. For it's the long suffering of
God that is our salvation. It goes on to say in that same
passage of scripture. Howl ye, he said. Howl ye. This will be no day where palm
fronds are laid before the Lord and songs of hosanna will fill
the air. The sounds will be the terror of a dying beast in the
moment it knows when death is imminent. Howl ye. Howl ye. We don't consider ourselves as
howlers, but I've heard animals howl when death is near. I've
heard the plaintive, horrible, terrified screams of And that's
what our Lord is talking about. These are not going to be beasts
crying out. It's going to be men and women and children crying
out. Verse 7 declares that men will
find themselves unable to garner even the conditioned response
of self-defense. This conditioned response of
self-defense. You see something come at your face, you raise
your hand, you stop it. You see somebody throwing a punch, you
put your hand out to stop it or block it, do something. That's
nature. That's what we do. See someone
coming at your middle section, you'll turn. Why, that's them
to fit. Our Lord says in that day, they're
going to be too afraid to even do that. They're going to be
absolutely paralyzed with fear. Says this, Therefore shall all
hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt. shall melt. Their hands will be fanned and
their heart will melt. And men will not fight against
the destroyer when he comes. They will run if they can. They
will hide and tremble. Because they've thought something
about Him. They've been told something about Him. They've
been preached to something about Him that was all a lie. They
think Jesus Christ is this namby-pamby nobody's sweetheart Jesus who
walks around trying to help people and some people let Him help
them and some people won't. He's just a nobody and he's a
milquetoast, sweet sop, savior so they think. They think he's
just for them and he loves them and has a wonderful plan for
their life and he don't want to destroy them, but the one
that's going to show up is not that. What a surprise! It's going to be a shocking,
terrific surprise to you. The one that they disregarded,
the one that they discounted, the one they thought weak and
puny, interrupts their arrogant existence and appears to them
as the destroyer. But in Revelation, it's a unique
appearance as the destroyer. It is the destroyer who is the
Lamb of God. And once in His substitution,
He has taken away the sin of the world. Now the Lamb of God
takes away the sin of the world again, and takes the world with
it. In Revelation 6, this is the
description given. Verse 15-17, And the kings of the earth, and
the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the
mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves
in the dens and the rocks of the mountains. and said to the
mountains, fall on us, kill us, kill us, kill us. Fall on us and hide us from the
face of him that sitteth on the throne and from the wrath of
the Lamb. You know how Hollywood scares
you by taking a creature or a person that looks so innocent and sweet
and turns them into a devil? I remember when I was a boy,
I'd go to horror movies. I loved horror movies. The one
that scared me most was these innocent little children that
suddenly became these evil creatures. They terrified me. Terrified
me. Now all these people think that
a lamb is just so sweet and fuzzy and nice and warm and cuddly.
But one day say, oh, don't let that lamb see me. Hide me from
him. Because that lamb is the destroyer. And He's going to take away the
sin of the world. Flat out, isn't He? He's going
to take it away. He's going to take away the sin
of Babylon. That's what He's talking about here. What will be the
surprise and terror of wicked men, religious men who have drank
the Kool-Aid of the notion that Christ has done all He could
do and salvation actually depended on their own will and their acceptance
of that poor hand-wringing solicitous nobody called Jesus? Terror will
ensue. Our Lord describes it with just
two words, How ye? How ye? Then in verse eight,
declares that they shall be afraid and the fear will be so great
that it will hurt. Have you ever been that afraid? That it was
painful. Where your insides are not up
and you start feeling like your heart's cramping and your lungs
can't breathe. That's what he's talking about.
They will be in pain, the kind of pain that a woman experiences
in travail. Men don't know anything about
that. Thank God men don't know anything about that. I'm glad
I don't know anything about that. I've seen my wife twice in travail
and it didn't do a thing for me. It scared me to death the
first time I saw her. When Sarah was born, she'd been
in labor for a long time, about 16 hours or something like that.
They rolled her out in the hall and let me look at her and she just had a pain.
All her face twisted all up, and I thought, take her back
in that room. I don't want to see this. But you women know about it.
One woman described it as taking a hold of your upper lip and
then peel it back across your head. I don't know whether that's
what it is, but that's how she described the pain. But what the Lord is
saying, He's describing the worst pain known to humanity, and that's
a woman in travail. That's the worst pain known to
humanity. This is how much that fear is going to hurt. This is
how much that terror is going to hurt. The kind of pain that
a woman experiences in travail, like the hard labor that proceeds
giving birth. And it says also, they will be
amazed one at another. And this means no matter where
they look, there will be none to help. Every face bears the
same terror. No matter where you look, there's
not a hero. There's not a man standing in armor. There's not
a man standing up and saying, I'm going to fight this for you.
There's nobody the greatest. We just read the kings of the
earth and the mighty men of the earth, the captains of the earth,
the ones that people count on to protect them. Everybody's
going to have this look on their face. Everybody's going to be
in the pain of terror. It says their faces will be as
flames. This refers to the effect of
being burned and speaks of blackness and darkness. This has to do
with the expression or appearance born of hopelessness. A darkness
of despair that is woefully obvious. I've seen people who have come
to the place where they're hopeless. And it's the saddest, darkest
face you'll ever see. There's a darkness that hangs
over them like a pall. And this is what this is talking
about. Everywhere you look, there's going to be this dark, terrified
fear. Terrified fear. Countenances,
deep darkness, visible, palpable, blackness of desperation is what
that's talking about. Then in verse 9, it declares
that the day of the Lord will be cruel. Nobody calls God cruel. He's sweet. He's a gray-haired
granddaddy sitting up on some cloud trying to help everybody
he can. God is cruel, it says. And this
is God speaking about Himself in verse 9. Behold, the day of
the Lord cometh cruel, both with wrath and fierce anger. And fierce anger. This is another description of
our Lord that does not fit well in the thesaurus of men. But for men the fierce anger
of the Lord will seem to be all cruel. All cruel. Look at verse 16. How cruel?
Their children also shall be dashed to pieces. Before their eyes their houses
shall be spoiled. and their wives raped, ravaged. That's cruel. Don't be an enemy
of God. Fly to Christ right now if you
can. Seek Him while He may be found.
God is God. He will lay their land desolate,
the fruited vine, and the hanging garden will dry and wither, and
all the sinners will be destroyed. And these sinners are the inhabitants
of Babylon who have abused the children of God. The Lord will
avenge His elect. There are those that cry unto
the altar, O Lord, how long? How long? Scripture says the
Lord will avenge His elect, and that right soon. That right soon. Verse 10 further describes that
darkened state of those who are made to taste the vengeance of
the destroyer. for the stars of heaven. The constellations
thereof shall not give their light. The sun shall be darkened
in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to
shine." This is a two-fold description of this blackness and darkness.
First, the stars and constellations shall not give their light. This
is a personification of the heavenly bodies. It's a language too.
The verb intense suggests the stars will refuse to shine. The
constellations will refuse to shine as if they would not give
a hint of light to those who are in despair. The stars say,
let them suffer. Let them suffer. They won't shine. The sun and moon being darkened
has a different verb in tense, one that declares that they will
be caused to go dark. As the day of our Lord's crucifixion
when the Lord shut down the sun, well might the sun in darkness
hide and shut his glories in. The sun and moon picture and
signify the Lord and His church in Scripture. Remember Christ
is called the Son of Righteousness. He'll rise with healing in His
wings. And the moon is a picture of the church in the prophecy
of Joel. The moon has no light of its
own. It gets its light from the sun, so if the sun goes out,
the moon don't shine. It's as simple as that. This
will be utter darkness when the Lord is no comfort but terror. And the church, the people who
have his word, are not around and not to be found. That's what
this is talking about. Today and in the past time in
history, the church has been despised and mocked. But when
tragedy strikes, you know what happened? The churches fill up.
Why is that? People don't give a hoot about
religion, don't care about religion. Let two planes run into two towers
in New York City and the next Sunday the church will be full.
Because men know they need something. Because something outside their
control is happening. They don't have answers and they
won't answer. So they show up in church and it lasts for a
while. But then they grow apathetic about the whole thing again and
don't care. What would happen? The Lord and his church were
no longer here in this earth. You couldn't find them. When
tragedy struck, where would you go? To the bar, the bordello,
the community center? Where you gonna go? You'd look
for it, wouldn't you? You'd cry for it. You'd weep
for it. The sun and moon go dark. Disregard
the church if you will, but she's the only place She is the only
place of light in this world, the only place. Without her presence
you cannot imagine the darkness. Amos spoke of it this way, in
Amos chapter 8 verses 11 through 13, Behold the days come, saith
the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land. Not a famine
of bread, people don't have bread. Not a thirst for water, they
will have something to drink. But the hearing of the words
of the Lord, a famine. And they shall wander from sea
to sea, and from the north even to the east. They shall run to
and fro, and seek the word of the Lord, and they shall not
find it. You want to know what a dark
world is? A world without Christ. A world without His church. You
know why the Dark Ages were called the Dark Ages? Because the false church was
huge and the true church was hiding in little lean-to's and
caves to meet in the way. And even our historians call
it the dark ages. Why? Because that's true darkness. Secondly, heavenly bodies often
refer to luminaries. people of fame and importance,
people who the world looks to and respects and counts on, then
they will suddenly be diminished. Their star status destroyed to
the point that they are in the same darkness as everyone else.
No one to run to. Nowhere to hide when the destroyer
comes. Scripture says, Who shall stand
in the day of His wrath? And in verse 11, the destroyer
promises to punish the world for their evil. And I will punish
the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity,
and I will cause the arrogance of the proud to cease, and will
lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. And this word world
is like every other time the word world is used in scripture.
The word cosmos is never used as a term that includes all things. It is almost always used as a
term that speaks of a specific area or a specific group or a
specific people, a specific place. Jude speaks of the world of the
ungodly. That's not the whole world because
some of this world are saints. They've been made so by the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Luke chapter 1 we find Caesar
sending out a decree that all the world should be taxed. I
wonder how many Native Americans paid that tax. No, we didn't pay no tax. Why
not? Because you wasn't of that world. That world was the Roman
Empire. That world, when it says God
so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever
should believe in him should not perish but have eternal life.
That word world meant something to the guy he was talking to
near Nicodemus. That word world meant God loves
Gentiles as well as Jews. And that shook him. That shook
him. The world here is Babylon, as
it will be accounted in that day when our Lord's comes. But
the New Testament application is the world of false religion,
and it will be destroyed at the Lord's coming. What is important
is the why, the reason that is applied to the cause of this
judgment. It is simply a litany of the depravity of humanity,
particularly attributed to Babylon. Sermons could be preached on
each one of these sins, evil, wicked, iniquity, pride, haughtiness,
all of those. We wouldn't have to look outside
ourselves at all to find every bit of that in us. Don't go jumping
on anybody else's. You're the problem and so am
I. Remember that such terms are almost exclusively employed in
scripture as indicative of religious sin, however. And you find the
word wicked and evil in scriptures not really talking about murderers
and thieves and lawbreakers. Most of the time it's talking
about religious church-going law keepers. Religious sin. Babylon will be
judged for religious sin. We're able to read the book of
Daniel and see that everything that the Babylonians did was
enwrapped in religion. Whether it be the high tower
that Nebuchadnezzar built that he would have all men bow down
to. or be cast in that oven of fire and Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego refused to be cast into the fire. Nebuchadnezzar as he
looked in the flames that were boiling up and had burned the
men that actually threw those three boys in the fire, saw a fourth man in that fire
with him. He said, I see a fourth man in there and he looks like
the Son of Man, looks like the Son of God. Why did he do all
that religion? Bow down and worship this 90-foot
golden tower in the plain of Deuteronomy. Belshazzars, he
held a party for his people, just couldn't do it without religion,
so he went to the temple and took those holy things that God
had declared, the cups and the saucers, and said, let's use
those to have our party, because you can't do without religion.
Babylon's punished for religion, evil, wicked, haughtiness, pride,
and iniquity. The Tower of Babel that began
this empire, was a tower intended to reach heaven by the power
and skill of men. It was a religious tower. All sin is against God and the
destroyer will destroy those who practice it. That's what
God said. He must punish sin. And He will. He'll punish it
in you or He'll punish it in the substitute, the Lord Jesus
Christ. But your sin must be punished. Then in verse 12, I
will make a man more precious than fine gold. even a man, even
a man in the gold wedge of Ophir. This phrase right here was one
of the phrases that the Dutch used to go down to South Africa
because they thought South Africa was Ophir and they went down
there to find gold. And they got on the shore and
they were met by the South African people and they said, we're Christians,
let us pray. They were Dutch Calvinists, that's
what they were. This is a bit of a pun. They said, let us pray. And the men who were there waiting
for them said, they told us to pray. We had the land and they
had the Bibles. And so we prayed with them. And
when we opened our eyes, they had the land and we had the Bibles.
That's the kind of Christians those fellows were. Verse 12 speaks of the desolation
that will come if a person under the onslaught
could just find a man to help. Just one man. He'd give all his
gold to have him. Everything he had. That's desperation. Do you remember that day? When all was lost? You looked at your life and your
so-called Christianity and saw that it was empty. Suddenly, we just had one man
who could do something about this. Just one man. But men are not saviors in redemption. It's not bought with silver and
gold. It's bought with the precious blood of the Lamb. But in that
dark day, for that world, the Lord will come will not come
as merciful and a gracious Savior. They'll see the man. The man
will show up, the man Christ Jesus, the one mediator between
men and God, but not as Savior. The Savior of the elect is the
destroyer of the world, one and the same. But He does not destroy
without warning. All of this is said before it
took place. The Babylonians were warned. And God always warns. Even in Solomon and Gomorrah,
if it's just ten men there that fear the Lord, I'll save that
place. And the angels came in and said,
don't do this to Lot. Don't try to bring him into your
home and have perverse relationships with him. Don't do this. God's
coming if you do. They were warned. Everywhere
God warns this book is full of warnings a rebellion against
God and men don't take it seriously, but they will One day they said
oh if I had a man I'd give everything I'd get all my life. I'd give
my children my home my gold everything I had for that man And be too
late that man shows up you're gone You're gone This context
is a warning So we find in Revelation the voice of Christ calling to
His elect. Those still who are found in Babylon. Those still
who are under the grip of false religion. And I'll guarantee
you this. This is the mission field. The
churches of America are the mission field. Because that's Babylon.
And I believe there's some of God's elect in there. There's
some of God's people. Because the last word we have
on it in Revelation 18. Our Lord says, Come out of her.
Come out of her, My people, that you be not partakers of her sins,
that you receive not her plagues and her judgment. Come out of
her, My people. Turn with me to 2 Corinthians
chapter 6. 2 Corinthians chapter 6. We read
these words. Verse 14. Be not unequally yoked
together with unbelievers. What fellowship hath righteousness
with unrighteousness? And what communion with light
and darkness? What concord hath Christ with Belial, the son of
the devil? What part hath he that believeth with an infidel?
And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are
the temple of the living God, as God hath said, I will dwell
in them, and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they
shall be my people. Wherefore, come out from among them. Come
out. and be separate, saith the Lord.
Touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and I
will be your Father. You shall be my sons and daughters,
saith the Lord God Almighty, the Savior, who is the Destroyer. Father, bless this strong understanding.
We pray in Christ's