Well, good morning, brothers and sisters.
Let’s go to the Lord in a word of prayer before we get started.
Lord, we just want to thank You that You do reign. Lord, no matter what the circumstances of this earth bring, we can look into the heavenlies and know that You are ruling and reigning over all things.
Lord, we do rejoice as Your people that one day Your reigning will be manifested on the face of this earth as it is in heaven. It will be done on earth. Every jot, every tittle, everything that You desire will be accomplished, Lord.
So, Lord, we do praise You in this way. And Lord, we give this time unto You, Lord, that You may speak, that we may hear. In Your name we pray. Amen.
This morning, I’m going to start on a couple of messages that I want to give concerning two cries in Scripture. These two cries are found at the end of what we call our Bible, in the book of Revelation. There are two cries that are given.
I’m going to deal with the first cry this morning, and Lord willing, we will get to the other cry later on next month. The first cry that I want to concentrate on this morning is found in Revelation 18:4.
I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people,
that ye have no fellowship with her sins,
and that ye receive not of her plagues.
This verse is in conjunction with the section of Scripture in Revelation 17 and Revelation 18, which is talking about Babylon. So, what we’re going to look at this morning is coming out of Babylon. What does it mean to come out of Babylon?
There are some things we need to understand before we start in on this. What I’ll be going through is where, when, and what is Babylon; why come out of Babylon; and then when and how to come out of Babylon. There’s a little caveat on that one in the end.
I want to start off by saying this: when we look at Scripture, I believe that Scripture applies to man as he is created. Man was originally created as a spirit, a body, and a soul.
There are many times when brothers get together, or you have brothers who are full of the Holy Spirit but seem to disagree about a certain piece of Scripture, and you can’t figure out why they can’t reconcile. What I believe happens is they’re looking at the same coin, but different sides.
One may be looking at a spiritual aspect, one may be looking at a physical aspect, or one may be looking at the aspect as it applies to the soul. When it comes to this subject of Babylon, I’m going to be dealing with how it applies to the souls of us—how it applies to our lives, literally, because that’s what the soul means. It means where you live, where we live today.
So, this is the context that I’m going to be coming out of.
Here is this unusual cry at the end of the age: “Come out of her, My people, that you will not participate in her sins and her plagues,” speaking of Babylon. So, we’ve got to address what is Babylon? When is it, and where is it?
Now, early on, when some dear saints decided that I needed to go to seminary, I used to hang around with a group of people who were premillennial dispensationalists. We had this all figured out, by the way. We had it all mapped out. We knew everything about it. We could tell you what every bit of Scripture meant, how it formed, and what it was in the plan.
Since that time, in certain brothers’ eyes, I would have become more foolish. In my estimation, the Lord has shown me that I don’t know, and I can’t tell you everything there is about it.
There are a lot of dear saints who have it nailed down that Babylon is going to be a physical city at the end of time. Some people even say it is the city of Rome. Some people say that it will be the recapitulation of the Iraqi Empire, and that the physical city of Babylon will rise from the desert. Some people were afraid that’s what Saddam Hussein was up to.
I’m not going to address that. That’s not what the Lord has laid on my heart. But I will preface that by saying there may be a physical city that arises in the end times that is the center of the government of the Antichrist. I’m not denying that.
But what I want to do is deal with the subject matter of what Babylon means to us today. What is it? To do that, we need to take a history lesson and go back and look at some things.
If it is not a physical city right now, what does it mean to us? The history lesson I want to take you on goes all the way back to Genesis. It goes back to Genesis 4.
In Genesis 4:16-24, and Genesis 6:1-8, we have a story—a true story—of how Cain sinned. When Cain sinned, he wandered away from God, and he wandered into this place called Nod.
Now, Nod actually means wandering. That’s the literal translation of it. It means a place of wandering. So Cain, after he killed Abel, and after the Lord told him that He would not kill him but would give him a sign, went out from the Lord and went to this place called Nod.
There are some things about Nod that I want to go through. Some scholars that I’ve read say that maybe it was the very Shinar Valley where physical Babylon resided later. We’ll get to that. But all we know from Scripture is that it is east of Eden, and it is a place of wandering.
In that place of wandering, Cain established some things that we take for granted in modern life. As Cain went out, he established cities. He was the first one to have a city, and he named it Enoch after his son.
Other things that were established in that culture included polygamy. Lamech took two wives. That’s a first.
Nomadic life and animal domestication were also developed. One of the sons, I believe Jabal, of Cain’s descent, led a nomadic life and domesticated animals. He’s the first cowboy. So, those who like Westerns, there’s the source of cowboys.
Musical instruments and harps were formed by the descendants of Cain in Nod. Those descendants also developed metallurgy. Tubal-cain worked with brass and iron.
The most significant thing about Nod that I want to bring up—and I’ll tie this together in a minute—is this little verse toward the end of Genesis 4, where Lamech says:
Hear my voice, ye wives of Lamech;
Hearken unto my speech:
For I have slain a man for wounding me,
And a young man for bruising me:
If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold,
Truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.
This is the first time in Scripture that I can recall—and I may stand corrected—that the word of God was twisted to man’s benefit and use. I really believe that is the source of when the Lord speaks about Babylon as the mother of harlots, full of abominations. I believe this is where it starts.
I think Babylon actually started before there was an official Babylon by that title. Nod probably was the first Babylon. It was the twisting of God’s word that I think was the most significant thing.
Romans 1:18-25 has a couple of things that I want to outline. In verse 21 it says:
For even though they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither gave thanks;
but became vain in their reasonings,
and their senseless heart was darkened.
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.
Then, in verse 24:
Wherefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts unto uncleanness,
that their bodies should be dishonored among themselves.
When I read what Lamech did, it reminded me of these verses of Scripture. Man professed to be wise. Lamech professed to be a wise man: “Hey, I know what God said about my father or my grandfather. I’m going to say it applies to me, and applies to me more.” It was the first twisting of the word of God.
That is early history. Then, after the flood, we have Babel—the Tower of Babel.
Babel was in Ur of the Chaldees. It was a complex where, after the flood, the people looked out and said, “Oh, there’s the Shinar Valley.” If Nod was in Shinar, maybe its history had been passed down through the generations through the survivors on Noah’s ark: “Hey, Shinar is not a bad place to settle.” They may have heard stories of that.
So they came to the Shinar Valley and gathered together. What did they decide to do? They decided to build another city, another complex. In this city, they decided to build a tower reaching unto the heavens.
Now, what’s wrong with that? What’s the problem with that? Well, the Lord saw a problem, because He said, “Look what they have decided to do.” They gathered together, and look what they are going to do.
They were building a tower to heaven. What does that mean? I think the significant thing is that it is the epitome of man trying to get to heaven from a source other than God Himself.
That is the real key in Babel: man tried to use earthly things to get to heaven without seeking the God of heaven.
It is also a direct conflict with the word of God in Genesis 9:1. The Lord told Noah and his generations, when you get off the ark, “Go out throughout the earth and replenish the earth.” What did they do? They gathered in the Shinar Valley and built themselves a way unto heaven.
This is Babel. This is the Tower of Babel.
Later on in history, we have Babylon proper. We have the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar.
As our short history lesson continues, what I want to concentrate on is Daniel 2:37-43. It gives the picture of the Babylonian Empire in the form of a dream.
Daniel and the Jewish people—or at least the Hebrew children who were in places of power—were threatened to be killed because there was a dream that no one could interpret. All the magicians and Chaldeans had come together and tried to interpret this dream, but no one could do it. Yet Daniel did.
The dream basically consisted of a picture of a statue whose head was gold, whose breast and arms were silver, whose belly and thighs were bronze, and whose legs were iron. As it went down to the toes, it became iron mixed with clay.
The Lord gave the interpretation of the dream to Daniel. He saw what it meant, and by the Lord interpreted the dream. The interpretation has a lot to do with where I am trying to come to.
The Babylonian Empire did not end with Nebuchadnezzar. The statue says that it is a continuation. The Babylonian Empire is a continual thing. It continues even into this day.
The head of gold represented Nebuchadnezzar. I have heard several things about why the head of gold was Nebuchadnezzar, but I think it has to do with his authority. Nebuchadnezzar was a ruler who could speak something and then turn around and say, “That didn’t mean that. I want to do it this way.” There was no one who could stand against him.
The next kingdom, the Medes and Persians, could write a law, but once they spoke it into existence, it could not be reversed. As you go down from the head on this statue, you see that the elements become less and less malleable, less and less precious.
Gold is very malleable. As you go down, silver is a little less malleable, a little harder, but still precious. As you go down to iron, iron is very strong, but it takes a lot of heat and pressure to change anything in it. Then you get down to the legs that are clay. Clay is very malleable, but it is mixed with iron, making it a difficult substance to deal with.
So, this is a history lesson of Babylon. Babylon, to me, still exists and will exist until the day that the Lord takes His throne.
These things that we see in these pictures lead to the fact that Babylon, as it is stated in Scripture, may yet be a physical city. But I really think that it is a place where people live. It is a state of where they live. It is how they live.
That is the brief history I wanted to cover. Babylon has a heritage. It thinks of itself in a particular way.
In Revelation 18:5-8, this is the heritage of what Babylon is:
For her sins have reached even unto heaven,
and God hath remembered her iniquities.
Render unto her even as she rendered,
and double unto her the double according to her works:
in the cup which she mingled mingle unto her double.
How much soever she glorified herself,
and waxed riotous,
so much give her of torment and mourning:
for she saith in her heart,
I sit a queen, and am no widow,
and shall in no wise see mourning.
Here is the heritage. Let me explain it this way: there is a mix in here of what the Lord says about Babylon and what Babylon says about herself. Babylon says, “I’m it. I’m the pinnacle of what there is. I am all there is. I will be a queen.”
“I will not be without a husband.” J. B. Phillips translates this a little differently in his version of the Bible. He says Babylon says it this way: “I’m a queen, and I won’t be without a man.”
“I have a suitor. I have those that adore me. I have those that love me. I am the pinnacle of existence. Here I am.”
The Lord sees the heritage in a little different way, as you can tell from the verses I read. He sees Babylon as full of filth, disgusting, full of iniquity. His very title for her is Babylon, the mother of harlots, with the abominations of the world.
The thing about it is—and where I’m trying to get to—is that Babylon equates with the world: with the world system and with the things that go on in the world.
I believe that it is a picture of the world system. Babylon the harlot represents the religious system that is out there trying to pull people away from God. Babylon the city represents commerce, trade, and the good deals that have been made.
If you don’t follow me on this, switch over to Revelation 18:11 and read with me for just a second. This is spoken in the negative because it is a picture of Babylon burning. There is a reaction from the people:
And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her,
for no man buyeth their merchandise any more;
merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stone, and pearls,
and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet,
and all thyine wood, and every vessel of ivory,
and every vessel made of most precious wood,
and of brass, and iron, and marble.
I could go on. If you close your eyes for just a second and I read those verses, I thought of the local mall.
I can go into the local mall and pick up articles of gold and silver and fine stones. Commerce with the world. I can buy, sell, and trade.
Even this buying, selling, and trading goes to the very core of buying, selling, and trading human lives. By the way, if you think human lives are not being traded and bartered today, start reading your paper and listening to the TV. It is still happening.
The slave trade is still going on, even though it has been abolished in most nations of the world. Underground, they are still trading human lives.
This is what I think Babylon is. Though Babylon may be a physical city in the end times, it stands for the greed, corruption, immorality, and religious falsehood of the world system. It stands for all that is opposed to the Lord’s glory and purpose.
That is what I think Babylon is.
So, I need to move on to the second point: why come out of Babylon? You may be going, “Well, that’s quite obvious,” but I want to take it from a different perspective.
I listed these places in history where we saw Babylon, and there was a coming out that happened in those places.
If Nod really was Babylon before the flood, then the coming out was Noah. So, what happened when he came out? Why did he come out? What prompted him, and what result happened?
When Noah came out of Babylon, he symbolized the rescue of creation. There were two of every animal, and eight people were put on the ark. The rest of the world was flooded and destroyed.
My wife does not let me watch the Discovery Channel when there is anything biblical said there, because I will stand up and start arguing with the TV.
They had a special—and to divert for just a second—they were talking about the human genome and research into our gene pool. They made a fantastic discovery. They said the human gene pool grew from a very small population into a large population, then collapsed down to a very small population, and then grew back out.
“What could have caused this? A meteor? An earthquake?” And I’m sitting there: “The flood, the flood.”
So my wife doesn’t let me watch the Discovery Channel anymore when they do this. But we know that the world was a very large population and then collapsed to a very small population. We know for a fact that it collapsed down to eight people and two of every kind of animal.
When Noah heard the call of the Lord to build the ark, it was the rescue of creation.
When Abraham, who was in Ur of the Chaldees—which was part of the Babylonian complex—heard the Lord’s call, there was another coming out.
You see, we think we have metropolises now. Ur of the Chaldees was part of Babylon, and Babylon was most likely like the East Coast is now. I remember going up to Washington and having to take a train to a little town outside Washington, D.C.
I remember sitting on the train and watching the signs as I went by. Here was one city, and there was actually a building that was in two cities. There was just a signpost that designated the difference between the cities.
I have heard from scholars that this was somewhat the degree of the Babylonian complex. It was a chain of cities all grown together, and Ur of the Chaldees was part of that.
If that is true, then the second call out of Babylon was Abraham. What was the result of that? It was the reestablishment of a man of God.
It started with one man hearing a call: “Abraham, leave your goods. Go to a land that I’m going to tell you about. I’m not going to tell you where it is now. You’re just going to have to trust Me and follow Me.”
In faith, Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees and walked. He got stuck along the way, and that’s Jerry’s story. I’m not going to get into Jerry’s stuff, although Jerry got into mine a little bit, and I was like, “Oh, that’s interesting.” But that is just confirmation that the Lord has the same thing on his heart.
The thing about it is that Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees, and it reestablished a people for God. From Abraham, we have the children of Israel and the reestablishment of a people for God.
Then we have Babylon proper. We know that Nebuchadnezzar II came and took the children of Judah into captivity. The children of Israel in the split kingdom had already been taken, but he took the children of Judah. This is where we have the message of Daniel.
In the fulfilling of time, after seventy years, Cyrus rose up and put out a decree that anyone who wanted to go back to Israel could go back.
Now Babylon had matured into a very sophisticated society. It had actually been taken over by the Medes and the Persians at that time, but it was still Babylon.
It was a place to be. It was a center of culture. It was not a bad place at all. There was everything you could possibly want, everything you could possibly need. It was a metropolis that probably would compare to any of the metropolises we have today.
They may not have had air conditioning and some of the modern technologies we have, but it was not a bad place to live. Yet there was a call that went out.
Nehemiah and Ezra answered that call. When they answered that call, there was a rebuilding of the house of God and a recovery of the land.
Lastly, there is a call that we have here that we need to examine. That is the call: “Come out of Babylon, My people.”
There are some people who say, “I’m a Christian. I don’t have to worry about that. That call is for someone else.” It is not.
The call actually says, “Come out of her, My people.” It is not addressed to the world to come out for salvation. It is addressed to the people of God to come out of Babylon.
If Babylon is what I believe it is—this world system—then there is a call that is going to come at the end of time that says, “Come out of her, My people. Totally get out. Judgment is coming.”
Everything that this world stands for is going to be consumed. It is going to be done away with. It is going to be burned with fire.
The peoples of the world who gather around are going to cry and mourn: “There goes Babylon. That’s everything I knew. It’s all I have. I don’t understand. What are we going to do? How are we going to live? How are we going to be?”
“Everything I knew was wrapped up in this system,” which I think the Lord is referring to as Babylon.
If that is true, then there is a final call that is going out. But is the call going out now?
Let me back up a minute and say this: when these came out of Babylon, it gave glory to the Lord, and it accomplished His will on the face of the earth.
In the end—or at the end—the Lord must come. His ultimate glory and purpose must be fulfilled.
What stands between that and the second cry that I hope to take up next time is this cry: “Come out of her, My people. Don’t take part in what is fixing to take place.”
That leads to the last point: when and how are we to get out of Babylon? I’m going to give you the sevenfold plan of how to get out of Babylon.
If I do, don’t listen to me.
Because really and truly, it is not a when and a how. It is a Who who can get us out of Babylon.
In all that I have said—and I hope I have been somewhat coherent and you could follow me in some of this—there are a couple of things that have happened. There is a hearing, there is a heeding, and there is a heading.
I’m not going to tell you how to get out of Babylon. I can’t. Right now, our lives are so intermingled with having to go to work and function in this world system that I’m afraid if I tell you the call has already gone out, some of you may take it as, “Well, do you want me to quit my job?”
No. Paul already answered that. He said, “If you don’t work, you don’t eat.” So, we have to deal with this world. We have to be in this world, but not of it.
When it comes to this subject matter, as I said, there is a hearing of the call. Let me say it this way: if any man is sitting up here telling you, “The time is right. Get out of Babylon. Come with me. We’re going to go establish a kingdom somewhere else,” don’t go.
That is how Jonestown got started. That is how the Branch Davidians got started. That is how several other things got started: men took the word of God and used it for their own purposes.
Now, I’m not saying don’t pay attention to the words of godly men who are crying out to you. That is not what I’m saying. But when someone stands up and says, “Y’all need to come out. Follow me. We’re going to establish God’s work in a place. We’re going to clear the trees in the middle of the Amazon and set up a godly kingdom on the face of this earth,” be very suspicious.
There is only one call that you need to heed, and that is the Lord’s call. If the Lord has not called you, if the Lord is not calling you, don’t go.
I was at Harvey Cedars a couple of years ago, and a brother was sharing. He addressed the fact that the business of this world may have too much of a hold on you.
He did not suggest quitting your job and going out and living like monks, but he did say this: “If the world has too much of a hold on you, are you holding on too much to the world?”
Where are your priorities? What is it that you are holding on to? That message had an effect on me.
I can’t say that it has an effect on you. It has to be the Lord calling us out of Babylon. It has to be the Lord bringing you out at His timing, for His purposes.
If it is the purpose of man, we see where it leads. Lamech used the word of God and started a doctrine of his own. Noah heard the word of God and built an ark.
Abraham heard the word of God and walked out and wandered the land, never obtaining the promises, but seeking diligently for that city made without hands.
Nehemiah and Ezra went back to a place that was laid desolate in waste, rebuilt the temple, rebuilt the walls, and reclaimed a place on the face of the earth that the Lord could say, “This is Mine.”
It cannot be a hearing of men. It has to be a hearing of the Lord.
But with that hearing, there has to be a heeding. You hear the Lord say, “Come out.” Okay, that’s nice. I hear it. Maybe one day I’ll do that. I’m close to retirement. Maybe that would be a good time. I’m not close to retirement; I’ve got to work another thirty years. Maybe one day, Lord.
If there is a hearing, there also has to be a heeding. You’ve got to go.
I’m not going to get into details of my personal life, but there have been several times the Lord has called me to do something. I will testify to the Lord’s great patience and mercy, because I heard, and I was like, “I don’t know, Lord. Are You sure that’s what You want me to do?”
The Lord dealt with me over a period of time until I finally got to the place where I said, “Lord, have Your way. Do what You want to do.”
What I’m telling you, in essence, is that I’m stubborn. Don’t be stubborn. When you hear the Lord’s calling, heed it. Walk out.
“Well, there’s all this stuff. There’s my house, my car, my things, all these things that I’ve got to keep up and do.” I’m not telling you to leave your financial obligations. I’m not telling you to leave your financial responsibilities.
But if the Lord is calling us to be less in Babylon and more in His kingdom, then we need to heed and start walking.
That comes to the last point: we have to head to the destination. It is not enough just to hear the Lord’s call, “Come out.” It is not enough just to heed, “Yes, Lord, I’ll go wherever You say.” When He says go, we have to go.
Jerry told the story of Abraham. Abraham spent several years in Haran. He was on his way out of Ur of the Chaldees to the Promised Land, but he got stuck in Haran for years. We do not know how many.
But we have to head where the Lord is heading. We have to go where the Lord says go.
Now let me wrap some things up and clarify some things again. What I am trying to indicate here is not that everyone should quit your job, go out, and trust that the Lord will take care of us without working. I think that is a direct violation of Scripture.
Paul said, “You don’t work, you don’t eat.” He had to tell the people at Thessalonica that. They were staring up into heaven, waiting for the Lord to return, and I can just see Paul going, “Excuse me, you can’t do it this way. You have to keep going until the Lord returns.”
So, that is not what I am indicating.
What I am indicating is this: where are you living today? Where are you living?
I have to ask myself that all the time. “Where am I living today?” Well, you may say, “You’re living at 8125 Chesterfield Millville Road.” No, where am I living? Which kingdom am I living in?
Am I living in Babylon? Am I dependent on the things of this world to bring me joy and satisfaction? Am I asking the world to give me what I need to survive?
Am I doing that? There are a lot of times I do. I find myself there.
But we know, as we have heard this morning, that everything—not just some things, everything that we need—is in the Lord Jesus Christ. All provision has been made.
Where are we living? Are we still living in Babylon, relying on its system to provide for us? Or are we actually living under the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, who provides?
Too many years, personally, I have spent trying to do things in my own power. The Lord has brought me to a place where I have no power left to do anything.
I work in computers, just briefly. Technology has outrun me. There are young guys talking about stuff that makes me cock my head sideways and go, “What are you talking about?” They have to explain to me what they are trying to accomplish.
I have come to a place where the Lord has taken away most of my ability to make it through this world. Day by day, there is grace. Day by day, there is grace that the Lord brings to provide.
What is your trust in? Is it in your economic situation? Is it in your bank account? Is it in the things of this world?
The things of this world are collapsing. One of the things in the statue that I did not get to is that there was a stone that was cut out. It hit the bottom of the statue that Daniel saw, and it crumbled.
That stone grew into a great mountain which consumed the world. The stone is the precious stone we started off this meeting about: the Lord Jesus Christ.
The crumbling of the world system has begun. It began two thousand years ago when the Lord died on the cross of Calvary.
This whole time, the world system—Babylon—has been falling. What are you putting your trust in?
It reminds me briefly of the parable the Lord told about the one who went out and stored a bunch of stuff in his barn. The Lord said, “You fool, this day your life will be taken. You have wasted all this time gathering up material things.”
But that is what the world teaches us. If we store up all this stuff, we will be safe. Not necessarily.
I’m not saying that we should not save. I’m not saying those things should not go on. But where is your trust? Is it in assets and bank accounts, or is it in the living God?
When everything is shaken, what will we have left? When everything is shaken, what will we have left as a people?
The people who trust in Babylon are sitting, mourning, and just cannot function. They are sitting there looking, going, “The world system has collapsed upon us. Our banking institutions, our way of living, everything else is gone. We don’t know what to do. We don’t know how to be. We can’t function. What’s going on?”
Yet the people of the Lord in heaven cry out, “Hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.”
The last thing that I want to ask is: why are we waiting till the last minute? Maybe we are thinking, “Well, that cry is going to come out when these four things happen.”
As I said when I started, we all had it figured out. We were premillennial dispensationalists, proud of it, and had it all figured out and mapped out to the last detail. “When this starts happening, we know this is coming in. Boy, we better get ready.”
Yet the cry is already here: “Come out.”
How do I know that? John said it this way:
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.
If any man love the world,
the love of the Father is not in him.
I want you to think about that. Think about what Babylon stands for. It is gold, silver, and all the fine things, but the Lord considers it filthiness, abomination, heresy—a harlot.
When you look at it from God’s perspective, this world is not something that we can live in comfortably. We need to be in the world; we do not need to be of it.
That is why I think the call has already gone out. I think the call has already gone out because it is in Scripture already. The warning is already there.
Can we physically leave our jobs right now? I would not suggest it if you have a job, unless the Lord is telling you to go somewhere else and has strongly convicted you of it. No.
But in our lives, in our daily lives, where are we living? Because if we are living in Babylon and trusting Babylon, when that final call comes—“Come out of Babylon, My people”—what is going to be your reaction? What is going to be my reaction?
Are we going to sit and mourn and shake our heads and go, “I don’t know what to do”? Or, with prepared hearts, are we going to say, “Hallelujah, the Lord our God Almighty reigns”?
Are we going to be prepared for that day?
It boils down to this: do you know the Lord, and do you want to follow Him in His ways?
If you do, and you know Him, and you want to follow Him in His ways, when you start looking at the things of the world and the way the world works, it should turn you off.
You should want to have as little to do with it as humanly possible—not be hermits, but not touch the things of the world and handle them in love.
We have some of our youth sitting here. A word: don’t get started on the things of the world. Don’t look at cars, homes, things, and possessions.
Put your treasure where it will not corrupt, where it will not fade, and where it will not fall apart.
Those of us who are older—I know for a fact that I have been in Babylon. I have left Babylon, and I have gone back and returned to visit some.
It is time that we start concentrating on the things of the Lord instead of ourselves and what we want.
This is only the first part of the message. There is glory coming, so I do not want to leave y’all on a down note.
For those who come out of Babylon, there is the other call that comes out: “Come, Lord Jesus. Come.”
I want to see Your presence. I want to see Your glory. I want to live in Jerusalem.
Not to give too much away from the next message: Jerusalem, Salem, place of peace.
Babylon itself has an interesting play on words. The Chaldean people thought it meant “gateway to the gods.” The Hebrew translation of it is “confusion.”
We want to come to the Lord our God. We want to leave confusion and enter peace and order.
It is just hearing, heeding, and heading that we need to do. He has already told us how this world is going to end up. It is going to collapse. It is going to burn. It is not going to be redeemable.
It is going to be done away with. When it does, the glory of the Lord and the way He wants the world to run will come into place. The false system leaves; the glory enters.
May we work for that day. May we pray for that day. May our daily lives be that which reflects living in the kingdom of God—in Jerusalem instead of Babylon.
May it be that the world cannot get a hold of us; that we be in the world, but not of it.
May this be our heart’s cry: “Come out of Babylon, My people. Don’t partake of what she has got. It ends in destruction. Come to the Lord and trust in Him.”
Let’s go to the Lord in prayer.
Father, as we take up these matters, Lord, we pray that Your truth would reign in these things.
Lord, we do not want to be those who partake of the world, of its pleasures and its glory, to find that at the end of the age we are sitting and mourning for the things that happen to it. We want to be on Your side. We want to be in Your place.
We want to be heading for the place where You have called us to dwell, which is the New Jerusalem, Lord.
Lord, we know that we have to deal with this world system. As we carry out our lives, we pray that they would be conducted in such a way that it is not done by the world’s standards, but by Yours.
Lord, bless Your people. May they hear Your voice. May they walk according to Your standards. May we all follow You.
Lord, we love You. We thank You that You do not tell us these things as judgment to condemnation, but Lord, You tell us these things for discipline, so that we know where we may walk and may walk in wisdom—Your wisdom.
Bless Your name, Lord, that You leave these things for us. We thank You that You do. We thank You. Guide us. In Your name we pray. Amen.