Come Out Of Her My People

Hello, Mr. Jackson! I'm glad you're here. Mr. Jackson asked me to apologize to those that are on the phone hookup. There was a... they missed muting the phone, so it's possible that you guys were able to hear and listen to each other's conversations. He's got that fixed now, so hopefully it's a little bit better listening experience, so to speak, and you're able to be able to hear things maybe a little easier without the background noise of each of the individual phones. But it is good to be here with you all. Happy Sabbath and absolute warm greetings to our congregations that are gathered here with us, those that are on the phone hookup, as well as those joining via the webcast today. Just want to make sure and extend our warm greetings to all of you. It's so nice to be together, so nice to gather on the Sabbath, and to worship and sing praises to our great God. You know, when I was a teen, I remember one of my favorite books of the Bible to read was the book of Revelation. In fact, I think, as I think back, I probably read that book two to one, maybe even three to one, to a number of the other books of the Bible as I read through them. I would sit down to do Bible study, or at least what I termed and thought of as Bible study when I was younger. I just was fascinated at the things that existed and the things that were written in that particular book, and I think some of that was simply just the incredible visions that were recorded in its pages. I think some of that is the very vivid nature with which John recorded these things as he was, you know, isolated on the island of Patmos and receiving this, but I think even looking back to a certain degree, I was interested in eschatology. I liked being able to kind of sneak a peek at the back of the book, so to speak, and to sneak a peek at what was coming. Within the pages of that book were descriptions of seals, bowls, trumpets, horsemen, plagues, destruction, incredible destruction.

There were descriptions of the throne room of God, of the 144,000, the ministering angels of God. There were descriptions of these mysterious two witnesses that had this incredible power and went around and they taught people God's way. They declared God to the world, and at times, you know, it was just interesting to read about the resurrection. It was interesting to read about the coming judgment and ultimately the coming kingdom of God. You know, in the pages of that book was a description of a time to come and a final judgment of God on this earth and a judgment on this system that has stood in opposition to Him for so many millennia. You know, looking back again as a young man reading the book of Revelation was exhilarating. As an older man, as I read it now, quite frankly, it's sobering. It's incredibly sobering. There's still a sense of wonder, there's still a sense of curiosity as to how some of these things will ultimately be fulfilled and achieved based on the prophecies that are contained within. But as I've begun to understand, as I've grown older, as I begin to understand what these things mean, what they will look like not just to this world but to God's people, it takes on additional shades of meaning. I think many of you would agree with that statement as well. As you go along and as you learn and as you read and as you understand what these things truly mean and what they truly, you know, put together and how they're going to occur, it takes on new meaning. Let's turn over to Revelation 18 today. Let's turn over to Revelation 18, and we're going to go ahead and pick it up in verse 1. Now while you're turning there, while you're headed over to Revelation, as this book kind of builds from its beginning upwards into what we might say the climax of the story, again, building to kind of this set of chapters 17, 18, and again the chapters that follow, we see a description of a power that's been in existence for thousands of years. We see a description of a system that has stood in opposition to God, it stood in opposition to the way of God, it stood in opposition to the people of God for millennia. This system we know is political, we know it's economic, we know it's religious. We know this system has its tendrils in everything, has its tendrils in entertainment, has its tendrils everywhere. Regardless of which of those aspects it takes, whether it takes the political, the economic, the religious, the entertainment side of things, the fundamental attitude behind this system is the same. It is a system that is driven by rebelliousness, rebellion against God, and sin. Revelation 18 records the victory of God and the ultimate fall of this system. Revelation 18 and verse 1 says, after these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven having great authority and the earth was illuminated with his glory and he cried mightily with a loud voice saying Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen and has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird.

For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury. We see as of Revelation 18 again as this story builds throughout the pages of Revelation. We get to the point of Revelation 18 and we reach a climax in the story. We reach a time where this system again which has been around for millennia comes to an end and it's broken down. System is shattered, it's destroyed. The nations, its kingdoms, its political leaders, its economic giants, its giants of industry we might say, and its religious establishments, those that have committed fornication with this system, with this mystery religion of Babylon the Great.

These are folks that have become intimately involved in this system in its ways.

They're merchants, they're rich, they're powerful, and they become rich through their fornication and the receipt of luxuries in that process. Verses 4 and 5 represent a linchpin, so to speak, kind of a moral of the story.

You know, we talk about prophecy. Prophecy is fascinating. It's interesting, but we always want to find that application piece. We always want to find that piece where, okay, that's interesting, but what do I do about it? What's the connection? What do I do about it? Verses 4 and 5 represent that linchpin.

Revelation 18 of verse 4 says, and I heard another voice from heaven saying, come out of her, my people. Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. You know, as John again writes this, he's following the instructions that he was provided in Revelation 1.

Why was Revelation provided and recorded? What is the reason for the existence of this book? Go back to Revelation 1, verse 1. You can go there if you'd like. This book was written. This revelation was provided to show God's servants things which much shortly take place. Verse 3 says, blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written in it, for the time is near. So as John is having this revealed to him, John is recording these things.

He's doing as he's instructed. John records the voice of a second messenger and ultimately the warning that that messenger provides, again, for the benefit of God's servants, for the benefit of us, those who are interested and those who have given their lives to God and are living his way of life. And what he records and what John puts on paper and has been preserved throughout time is, come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins and receive of her plagues. The angel reveals to John that the sins of this system have reached God, that he has remembered her sins.

He says in verse 6 of Revelation 18, render to her just as she rendered to you. Repay her double according to her works. In the cup which she has mixed, mixed double for her. In the measure that she glorified herself and lived luxuriously, in that same measure give her torment and sorrow, for she says in her heart, I sit as queen, and am no widow, and will not see sorrow.

Therefore her plagues, it says, will come in one day, death and mourning and famine, and she will be utterly burned with fire. It says, for strong is the Lord God who judges her. So we see as a result of her sins, as a result of the sins of Babylon the Great, God will render to her as she rendered to the people of God. She will be paid back double for her sins. To the degree that she lived luxuriously as a result of her ill-gotten gain, she will in the same measure receive torment and sorrow. And we see as a result of that, that her destruction will be in a single day.

In a single day. Death and mourning and famine, because strong is the Lord God who judges her. Now we understand that God judges rightly. We know that he's righteous. We know that he's impartial. We know that he's just. For Babylon to be completely and utterly destroyed in such a way reflects no bias, reflects no partiality. Babylon receives the consequences for her actions. Verses 9 through 20, if you continue on in the account, records the world's response. I'll let you kind of skim it as we review it here, but it records the world's response, and it records their mourning over her destruction, over the destruction of this political and religious and economic system, which quite frankly, brethren, made them rich.

It made them rich. It made them powerful. It made them mighty. It made them people of renown. It made a name for them. They were recognized. They were known.

We might say in today's vernacular, they were influencers. We might use that term.

They were known. They were influencers. And as these individuals watched the city burn, as it records in Revelation 18 verses 9 through 20, as they stand afar off mourning its loss.

Now, interestingly enough, you know, you look at prophetic nature of the book of Revelation. You look at duality of prophecy. You know, it's likely that we, and we recognize, it's describing the downfall of a system, but it could also very likely be describing the destruction of a physical port city that at that point in time is associated with this system. That it's not just prophetic and figurative in such a way that we're talking about a system that is being dismantled. It could quite literally also mean that there is a destruction of a physical port city that these individuals are watching burn, and that they are seeing quite probably live on national television as we see these things happen.

Verse 20 says, Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you holy apostles and prophets, for God has avenged you on her. That we're actually supposed to rejoice in the destruction that comes to Babylon the Great. Verse 21 to 24 indicates the finality of this victory. It says, A stone like a great millstone is cast into the sea, sinking into the depths forever, and the great city is cast down, it says, with violence, the streets will go silent, the artisans will stop producing their wares.

Says there won't even be a light of a lamp or the voice of the joy of a wedding. The great men, the merchants, and those who deceive the nation, it will all be desolate, a heap of ashes and destruction. This is the judgment of God for her sins, for the blood of the prophets, for the blood of the saints that were shed at her hand. Now once again, when we talk about prophecy, we're talking about a proof of God's promises. That is one of the things that is incredible about prophecy. There are hundreds of biblical prophecies which have been fulfilled. Hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of biblical prophecies that have been fulfilled. And there's many more that are still yet to come to fruition that we see in the pages of Scripture where God says these are the things that are going to happen, whether that's in reference to the coming kingdom of God, whether that's in reference to the judgment of Babylon, whether that's in reference to the seals and the bowls and the trumpets that we see in Revelation, or any other, you know, dozens and dozens and dozens of Scripture or of prophecies throughout the rest of Scripture. But one of the beauties of prophecy is that it is an assurance that the other things that have not yet come to pass will come to pass, because the other prophecies have been fulfilled. Babylon will fall. Babylon will fall. And we, as the people of God, are instructed to come out of her, to not be within the walls of that city, so to speak, when it all comes crashing down. And so in order to do that, for us to understand that, we need to know and understand what Babylon is. We need to recognize its tendrils throughout society. We need to recognize it in various aspects of our lives. Title for the message today has come out of her, my people, and we're going to begin at the beginning. Let's go back to Genesis 10.

Genesis 10. Okay, we're going to go back and take a look at Babylon. We're going to go back and take a look at where it began, kind of how it developed throughout Scripture, and then circle back on where we started today. Genesis 10, and we'll turn back and pick it up here in beginning in verse 6.

Now, in the chapters that are immediately preceding Genesis 10, we see the story of Noah and the flood.

We see the story of the early, kind of post-flood world, and as chapter 10 proceeds, we see the nations which descended from his sons. It's 70 in total. We see the nations that descended from his sons. Genesis 10 and verse 6 gives us a little piece of that genealogy. It says, the sons of Ham were Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan. Got some weird kid names back in those days. I wouldn't suggest naming your kid Put. I'd get made fun of it track and field.

Mizraim... well, you can make all kinds of rhymes with that, but sons of Cush says were Siba, Havilla, Sabta, Ramah, and Sabtikah. Again, don't name your kids that. The sons of Ramah were Siba and Adon. It goes on. It says in verse 8, Cush begotten Nimrod. It says he began to be a mighty one on the earth. So Nimrod, we see, is connected with Cush. Now, the commentaries vary a little bit as to how. Some commentaries advocate that he is a descendant as opposed to a son, that he might be a grandson or a great grandson in the way that kind of there was some naming conventions used in Jewish history that kind of made it seem like maybe they were a son, but maybe they really weren't. The other side of that claim he is a son, but that he was born after the other sons became fathers, so therefore he is listed last in the genealogy. And that illustrates that he would be the youngest, so to speak, of Cush, if that were the case. But either way, Nimrod, we see, is associated with Cush, and we see that he becomes what is known as in this a mighty one on the earth.

Now, the word mighty here in Hebrew is gibor. It's gibor. G-I-B-V-O-R, at least in the transliterated version, and it's the same word that's used to describe the men in Genesis 6 and verse 4, who became mighty, who became of great renown. These are men who made a great name for themselves, made a good reputation, or I should say a great reputation of themselves, because it wasn't always good, but made a reputation of themselves as a result of their exploits. So this is Nimrod. He was a man of great renown. The Hebrew word that makes up the word Nimrod, where his name actually comes from, is marada. Marada means rebellion. Nimrod's name means rebellion. That's the root word from which it came. In fact, we call somebody today...

We might use the term today Nimrod, if we were calling somebody something. And it's not a kind term, right? It's not a kind term. It's not a term of endearment, so to speak, if you were to call someone a Nimrod. Verse 9, verse 9 of Genesis 10, says, he was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Therefore, it is said, like Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord. And so there's a kind of a phrase that goes along with Nimrod. He had quite the reputation as a mighty hunter. Ultimately, that's what made him of such renown. There's a number of legends that surround this. There's a number of different stories that try to connect him to both real and mythological figures throughout Babylonian history. It's a challenge because sometimes the timelines don't match, but at this point it seems among most scholars the two most popular contenders for who Nimrod was historically was Sargon the First, also known as Sargon the Great, or they sometimes will connect him with the Sumerian hero Gilgamesh, and then a number of the exploits, so to speak, that are recorded in the Gilgamesh epic were kind of outlandish tales of the things that Nimrod did. We can't know for certain. We don't know for sure because, again, much of this was lost to history. But what we do know is that Nimrod was a real person. He was someone who founded the nation and the empire here of Babylon, and we know that he was rebellious. We know that he was rebellious. In fact, the phrase here, before the Lord that we see, like a mighty hunter before the Lord, it says, doesn't necessarily mean like in God's presence, that he was before God in God's presence, so to speak. Sometimes individuals can be before the Lord in that they are yielding themselves to God and they are, you know, yielding themselves to God's will. The word for before here is the Hebrew word penim, which means face, or in front of, or countenance. Keel and Delish point out that it actually translated could mean a mighty hunter in the face of the Lord. A mighty hunter in the face of the Lord. I quote Keel and Delish. This is commentary on the Old Testament, Volume 1, pages 165 to 166. It says, the name Nimrod from Maradah we will revolt, points to some violent resistance to God. It is so characteristic that it can only have been given by his contemporaries and thus has become a proper name.

In addition to this, Nimrod, as a mighty hunter, founded a powerful kingdom.

And the founding of this kingdom is shown by the verb resit, the Hebrew word resit, to have been the consequence or result of his strength in hunting. So that the hunting was most intimately connected with the establishment of his kingdom. Hence, if the expression a mighty hunter relates primarily to hunting in the literal sense, we must add to the literal meaning, the figurative signification of a hunter of men, a trapper of men by stratagem and force.

Nimrod the hunter became a tyrant, a powerful hunter of men. This course of life gave occasion to the proverb, like Nimrod, a mighty hunter against the Lord, which immortalized not his skill in hunting beasts, but the success of his hunting of men in the establishment of an imperial kingdom by tyranny and power. But if this be the meaning of the proverb in the face of Jehovah, it can only mean in defiance of Jehovah as Josephus and the Targums understand it.

What scripture records for us definitively is that Nimrod was the founder again of a city of Babel, the capital of what would ultimately become the kingdom of Babylon. Verse 10, it says, the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Eric, Akkad, Calne, in the land of Shinar, and from that land he went to Assyria, and he built Nineveh, Rehobothir, Kala, and Resin between Nineveh and Kala, that is the principal city. And we can learn two other pieces from this that give us a little bit more of a hint as to the kind of person that Nimrod was. Prior to this passage, all of the references to these families are patriarchal. They're tribal in some ways. They're clans, and so you have a family grouping that is ultimately headed up by the patriarch of that family, maybe the progenitor of that family. You know, most of the names of the eons afterwards come after the first name of that particular person. The Akkadians came from Akkad, etc.

The first mention of a kingdom or a dominion in scripture, the first time that word is used, is used in reference to Nimrod, that he established a dominion. He was imperial.

He established the foundation and the beginnings of an empire. The New King James Version, which is where I read that particular passage from, it states that from Babylon, he went to the land of Assyria and built the cities of Nineveh, Rehoboth-Eir, Calon, and Resin. That's in addition to the cities that he built of Eirik and Akkad and Calne. Now, you may be noticing, depending on your translation, that passage might read a little bit differently in your Bible. Other translations attribute the founding of Assyria to Asher. It might say, and Asher went up and built...

Interestingly, there's a debate here, and I only mention it because there's such a difference in translations, but it comes down to the vowel points that are on the Hebrew word yatza.

With the vowel points, as the Masoretic text includes, which is what the King James Version was ultimately translated from, it means Asher, a proper name and an individual that we see in the genealogies. Without yatza, or without vowel points, yatza means he, and it is referencing he went up to Assyria, or Asher in Hebrew. And so it's impossible to know for certain, but there's been a number of theories that have said Nimrod and Asher are the same person. There's a number of other modern translations that indicate that Nimrod had a hand in the process of building this, and ultimately developing what eventually became the Assyrian Empire. But Micah 5 and verse 6, we'll reference it. I won't turn there for sake of time, but Micah 5 and verse 6 includes a reference to the lands of Assyria, and then in the next breath, and the lands of Nimrod, which appear to at least corroborate that he had a hand in the process of the development as well of the Assyrian Empire. Assyria and Babylon were both used as instruments of God's judgment. They had similar policies of relocation of those they took captive. They would go in and lay waste to a place, abduct all of its people, put them somewhere else, bring someone else in, drop them into that place.

Both Babylon and Assyria did those things.

They were both parts of one another's empires, as one waned, or waxed rather, and the other waned. You know, they were kind of involved back and forth. It's not outside the realm of possibility that Nimrod was a founder of both. Again, impossible to know for certain, but I wanted you to see that because, or at least mention it, because it may be in your translation written slightly different. But Nimrod became a ruler. He had dominion. He had a kingdom.

He was over other men. Now, we could say that was maybe through military subjugation. Don't know. Maybe he did that through alliances, creating different connections between nations. But what we do know is that ultimately he did not follow God, that he was rebellious toward God. Genesis 11, verse 1. Genesis 11, verse 1, just over the page here from where we're at. Genesis 11, verse 1, says, Now the whole earth had one language and one speech, and it came to pass as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there.

Then they said to each other, Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.

They had brick for stone, they had asphalt for mortar, and they said, Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top is in the heavens. Notice the next phrase, Let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.

Let us make a name for ourselves. What was God's instruction? Genesis 10, verse 32, These were the families of the sons of Noah, according to their generations in their nations. And from these, the nations were divided. They were spread out. They were diverged. They were scattered on the earth after the flood. God intended for these nations to each have their own portion, a place for them to settle, a place for them to dwell, to grow, and to multiply ultimately in the location in which He provided them. God intended, purposefully, to scatter the nations abroad like a so-or-so seed.

But what did they do instead? Verse 4, Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top is in the heavens. Let us make a name for ourselves. Let us become renowned. Let us seek to make a name for ourselves, to create our own destiny, to be our own captain. Forget what God said. We're going to make our own fortunes. We're going to sail in our own wind. Let us make a name for ourselves, just like Nimrod did. Let us be renowned. Let us build this incredible city. And why? Lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth. This was their way of preventing God's plan from going forward. That if they came together, and if they built this city, and if they worked together, they could prevent themselves from being scattered abroad, so to speak, as God had intended.

Their intent in building Babel was to consolidate their individual, and in some cases, national efforts into a single city, to grow, to develop, to strengthen their power, ultimately combining their efforts. Verse 5, Genesis 11, says, But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which his sons of men had built. The Lord said, indeed, the people are one. They're unified in a way that God had not intended. They all have one language. I should say they were unified in opposition to God. God always desired that man would be unified with him. But they were unified in opposition to God here. They all have one language, and this is what they begin to do. Now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. It says, Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. I don't know if you've ever thought about this. Do you imagine what that was like?

You're sitting there working on something. Maybe you're working on building the tower, and you turn to the guy next to you, and you go, Hey, throw me one of those bricks! But what he hears is, Ooh, blah, it's a lute la valte! Sorry, what? Somebody drop a brick on my head? What is going on here? The guy next to him doesn't speak the same language. And as the resulting days and hours and weeks go on, you're wandering around the city going, Alalalala! Waiting for someone who can hear you and understand you! Because no one else can! Would have been unreal to witness. Would have been unreal to witness. Verse 8, So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all of the earth, and they ceased building the city. Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. That's where we get our English word Babel from. You know, gibberish, unintelligible language. That's where we get it from. Because the Lord confused the language of all the earth, and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth. Moral of the story, they tried to do it themselves. God's plan still went through. God's plan still went through. You know, God came to see what they'd built.

God came and recognized that they were unified, recognized that that single language had enabled families and nations to begin working together to coordinate opposite of what He intended. You know, it's easy nowadays, by and large, to be able to do business in the world without speaking anything but a single language. I can go on and I can type what I need to tell somebody. And I mean, I've translated English to Yoruba into West Africa. Now, it's really messed up, and it doesn't always work, but the general gist of what I'm trying to say is there. Now, it's not perfect. You couldn't do that 20 years ago. 25, 30 years ago. If you didn't know the language, you needed to translate or you needed something else. It's been made very easy nowadays, and as it's become easier, the world has become closer and more unified, just like time in battle. Their opposition to God has become more unified as a result of being able to communicate with one another more easily. But God came to see what they'd built, and He recognized that something needed to be done, and so what He did was He had them, or it confounded the languages, and ultimately scattered them as He originally had intended. And those nations ended up in different places. They were dispersed, they grew, they developed.

But, you know, as time went on, it probably didn't take all that long for them to begin learning one another's languages. You can imagine, you know, if you go spend a couple of years, most people in a foreign country, you can have a pretty passable working of that language, and in fact, many people a lot faster than that. So it's likely that it didn't take all that much longer for those nations to begin speaking the languages of their neighboring nations and being able to cooperate, but by and large, you didn't have the connection that you would have had, you know, nation to nation, way apart in your areas. Then the languages may have been significantly different. But that ability, or inability, I should say, to be able to communicate really brought Nimrod's imperial plans to kind of a screeching hall for a time, for a time. But that fledgling empire, that fledgling kingdom that Nimrod founded, would come roaring back to life later. It was founded on rebellion. It was founded on not following God. It was founded on receiving God's instruction and believing that they knew better than God did. That God provided them with that instruction, and they said, no, you know what? I know better than you. I'm gonna go ahead and do this.

That's what this kingdom and what this empire was founded on. It was founded on pride. It was founded on rebellion. This nation ultimately was founded on the tenets of Satan and his rebellion, as was mentioned earlier today in the sermonette, the fall of Satan, or fall of Lucifer, I should say, who became our adversary that we now know as Satan. And it ultimately would become symbolic, the nation of Babylon, would become symbolic in Scripture of rebelliousness against God and a prideful rejection of God and his ways. Now history records the Babylonian empire as it develops over the years from Nimrod's beginnings. Historical documents show that they have their own creation story, they have their own version of Noah's Ark, and they have a number of other counterfeit versions of a number of biblical stories. It's like they took the stories of creation and what happened, and they put their own little Babylonian twist on it so that they could illustrate how it was really them. In fact, there's a number of people out there that point to those Babylonian stories and say, that's why we know the Bible is false. It's because look at these Babylonian stories.

They're pretty much the same. The only difference is Marduk's in them instead of Noah or whatever.

It's in Babylon where the pagan traditions of Christmas and New Year's and Easter were developed.

It's where a lot of those background, you know, pagan aspects of these these holidays developed.

Eventually, a number of those were co-opted by the Greeks, by the Romans.

It's in Babylon where a false religion sprung up which honored false gods, which honored idolatry, bringing in an unbelievable amount of just detestable worship practices, some of which have come down through history to today. Everything about Babylon was a counterfeit to what God had created and God had planned. This gentleman named Alexander Hislop, he wrote a book entitled Two Babylons. I'm going to quote here for just a second. He says, the tower of Babel was actually the worship of Satan in the form of fire, the sun, and the serpent.

However, Satan worship could not be done openly at that time because of the many who still believed in the true God of Noah. So a mystery religion, so to speak, kind of an underground thing, began at Babel where Satan could be worshipped in secret. He goes on to say, Babylon was at that time the center of the civilized world. Thus, paganism had opportunities of sending forth its debased counterfeit of the truth to all ends of the earth. Brethren, it's not a coincidence that there are ziggurats, pyramids, and temples all over this world. You find them in South America, you find them in Central America, you find them in Egypt, you find them in Asia. It's not a coincidence. And it's not a coincidence that in those temples and in those pyramids and those ziggurats, they worship the sun and they worship serpents. They worship fire. It's not a coincidence. It's a Babylonian export. It's a Babylonian export. Some of these places worship consisted of human sacrifice and other just horrific abominations to God in their worship of these idols. But brethren, modern Christianity is not immune either. There are common Christian teachings in the Christian world around us today that also have their origins in Babylonian worship.

Concepts of a Trinity, immortality of the soul, as was kind of discussed again in the Sermonet this morning, that would allow for ghosts and other things. The concept of hell. All of these things have their roots in Babylonian counterfeit of God's truth. And so it's in this kind of landscape, so to speak, of this false religion and this idolatry and this paganism in which Abraham, as a young man, found himself. Let's turn to Genesis 12. Genesis 12, just another page over here as we kind of walk through a little bit of history. Genesis 12 and verse 1 says, now the Lord said to Abram, get out of your country! Get out of your country! From your family, from your father's house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and I will make your name great. That's kind of interesting. On one hand, you have Nimrod and you have Babel seizing a name for themselves. Whereas Abraham, who was promised that God would take care of him ultimately if he had faith and obeyed, God says, I'll make your name great.

Where does that renown come from? In the right way it comes from God. It says, I'll make your name great and you should be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. I will curse him who curses you and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Verse 4 of Genesis 12, so Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him and Lot went with him and Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Huron. Abraham was specifically called by God to sever ties. Severt ties with his country, with his family, with his household. You know, often in the ancient world there were three places where you would find idols. You would either have national or city gods. You had the gods of Canaan, you had the gods of whatever, you know, country. You had city gods like, you know, Ephesus and Diana.

You had specific gods to certain cities. You had specific gods to certain countries.

So often nationally or country you would have idols. Other places you would have idols, you'd have certain clans. It had a very specific god. This is the god of our clan.

You might also have within your family, and this still occurs in some parts of the world, ancestral gods, worshiping your ancestors, people who came before you and your family. And these gods would have been in the family of Abraham from their country of origin, potentially as they traveled from Ur, which is the southern part of the Babylonian kingdom.

Ur of the Chaldeans is in the southern part of Iraq, just south of the location where Babel was, many miles, but still within that influence of the Babylonian kingdom.

Joshua 24 actually references the false gods that Torah worshiped when they dwelled across the river. What river is he talking about? The Euphrates, when he dwelled in the land of Ur, when he was in the Babylonian empire or kingdom, so to speak. God makes the point to Abraham in Genesis 15 that he called him out of Ur of the Chaldeans. Now that process started with Abraham's father, Terah, leaving Ur for Haran, which is a long trip. You'll look on the map as to where they believed that Haran was from Ur at the southern part of Iraq up to Haran, which was kind of present-day Turkey. It was a haul. It was a long trip.

But it was finished and completed when God called Abram out of Haran. When he told him, get out of the country, leave your family, leave your household, leave your, you know, your family's home, forsake it all. He said, walk away from all those trappings. Walk away from all of those things.

We might say God instructed Abram to come out of her, to come out of those trappings and of that world that his family had known for centuries as they grew in this Babylonian empire at this time.

What God was asking Abram to do was to give up his old identity and to become something new.

The cultural background study Bible actually puts it very, very well. I'd like to share it with you today. It says, God's covenant with Abram targets the most essential elements of identity in the value system of the ancient Near East. Land was connected to one's survival, livelihood, and political identity, and in parentheses more so than self. Inheritance fixed one's place in the family and ensured that generations past would be remembered in the present and the future. When Abram gave up his place in his father's household, he forfeited his security. He was putting his survival, his identity, his future, and his security in the hands of the Lord.

Abram was asked to give it all up for a God which was previously not known to him, but promised him exceeding blessings if he only believed and obeyed. We know the rest of the story. We know God fulfilled his covenant with Abram. Through Abram's seed, the world was blessed both materially and spiritually, both physical blessings as well as spiritual blessings. Through the coming of Messiah. But Abram had to step out on faith. He had to step out on faith and in obedience trust that God would take care of this national, this family, and this individual identity that he had forsaken. And we see that God did. He made a nation, multiple nations, of Abram.

He, his family, exponentially grew, right, to become like the sands of the sea and the stars of the sky. Individual identity, there aren't many people around today that don't know the name Abraham. God made a name for Abraham. He made him a man of renown. It wasn't like Nimrod. He didn't go seeking it. He didn't go looking for it or seizing it. God promised him that name as a result of his obedience and his faith. Now you fast forward about a thousand years or so, maybe 1100-1200 years, the Neo-Babylonian Empire begins to rise again in the Middle East. Okay, so for a while there as a result of the confounding of the languages and some regional disputes between the Assyrians and the Babylonians, by and large Babylon was not a major empire up until this point of the Neo-Babylonian Empire in about the 600s BC. As the grip of the Assyrians kind of began to lessen a little bit on them, they were able to rise up in power and kind of consolidate some of the scraps of what Assyria couldn't hold on to, and eventually they took a world stage yet again. That coincided with the fall of Judah, that coincided with the books of Daniel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and a number of the other minor prophets. So the Babylon that we see in that time is a reincarnation, so to speak, of the empire that Nimrod started, and it was a continuing process. They called it the Neo-Babylonian Empire in history, but under King Nebuchadnezzar that empire would flourish. They would conquer significant portions of the Middle East at that point in time, and they again would consolidate all these little fragments of the Assyrian Empire into a power base that enabled them to be an absolute world power. Let's go over to the book of Daniel.

Book of Daniel, you've been here already today, which is awesome. We're going to go to a couple of different places here in the book of Daniel, so if you'll turn over there.

In the book of Daniel, we know the general background of it. Daniel and his friends, who were members of the royal family, who were nobles by and large, were captured during the siege of Jerusalem and taken back to the land of Babylon as captives. There were multiple waves of captivity. David came... or David, Daniel came through on one of the initial waves of captivity.

It was soon discovered that Daniel and his friends were very capable men.

They were able very quickly to learn the language, understand the literature of the Babylonians, and as a result, they showed promise to be able to be trained in service to the king. Now we know, as we look at the story of Daniel, there's no question God was incredibly powerfully with Daniel and his friends. You know, in very, very miraculous, very out-of-the-park kind of ways. But we also know that in this process, God had plans, significant plans, for Daniel as God was using the Babylonians as an instrument of his judgment. Daniel 2, if you want to go ahead and kind of begin turning over there, we see Nebuchadnezzar was very troubled by a dream that he had had. And as you look at the dream, and as you see the explanation of the dream, you can understand why that might be something that was a little bit of a troubling thing. And Nebuchadnezzar sought for a man to interpret his dream.

But Nebuchadnezzar wasn't an idiot. He didn't want to run out there and tell all of his advisors, here's what my dream was, what does it mean? Because they could just make stuff up at that point.

What he said instead was, basically, I'm going to start killing all the wise men until one of you can tell me what my dream was and what it meant. A horrible, horrible thing. But he didn't want somebody making up something. He wanted a legitimate interpretation of his dream.

Anyway, enter Daniel. Daniel makes the point and says, look, this is not humanly possible. The only way this can happen is through divine inspiration. Please give me some time. Please don't kill my friends. I would like to interpret the dream here for Nebuchadnezzar. He goes back, he prays to God. God intervenes in a very powerful way, provides Daniel with the content of that dream and the understanding of that dream to which Daniel then goes and lets Nebuchadnezzar know.

Daniel 2 and verse 31, he says, this is what you saw, basically, to Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel 2 verse 31, you, O king, were watching, and behold, a great image. This great image whose splendor was excellent stood before you, and its form was awesome. And it's possible, it's quite possible, that it was in the likeness of Nebuchadnezzar. You can't, you know, guarantee that in many ways, but it's talking about this image. The image's head was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron, partly of clay.

And he says, and you watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on the feet of iron and of clay and broke them into pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, they were crushed together in the chaff, or it became like chaff from the summer threshing floors. Says the wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found, and the stone that struck the image became a great mountain, and it filled the whole earth. So Daniel was able to describe the dream. He was able to provide its interpretation. He told Nebuchadnezzar that it was he who represented this head of gold, that this was this Neo-Babylonian empire, which he was head at that point in time, but he makes it clear as a result of God's blessing was he the head of this kingdom at that time. He said God has given you a kingdom. God has given you power, strength, and glory. He tells Nebuchadnezzar that essentially all children of men, beasts, birds, they were in his hand. At that point in time, there was nothing at that point in time that was going to touch the Babylonian empire. Now that wasn't the case throughout history. We know that they were conquered because that's the rest of the vision. He talks about how afterward there would be a kingdom that would come. It wasn't as powerful as their kingdom. It was actually inferior, but it was it was a silver. Then after that, another kingdom which was still inferior. Finally, a fourth kingdom that was as strong as iron with the eventual development near the end of that kingdom of iron and claytoes that were strong and fragile. And then lastly, he described this stone which destroyed these kingdoms, cut from a mountain without hands, that then grew into a mountain that filled the entire earth. There's additional prophecies contained throughout the book of Daniel to help us to identify these kingdoms. Ultimately, we recognize and we rightly teach that history records these empires through time. Babylonians were conquered by the Medo-Persians, which were the silver kingdom, were conquered by the Greeks, which was the bronze kingdom, who were then conquered by the Romans, which was the iron kingdom that ultimately divided into the two legs, and on down through time of the reoccurring Roman Empire, we reach a point in the future at some point in time where the ten toes of iron and clay are present, partly strong, partly fragile, before that stone which represents Jesus Christ and His coming kingdom destroys all of it. Before Jesus Christ, the coming king of kings, takes His throne back from who usurped it, so to speak. I don't want to spend a lot of time getting into this specific prophecy. I want to look at a different aspect of things. We have a lot of booklets, a lot of articles on this if you're interested in it further, but I want to make the point here that when you look at this statue, this entire statue is Babylonian, so to speak.

And what I mean by this is this. No, as you go down through time, it is no longer the Babylonian Empire, but that system that started with that gold head that had its root all the way back in Nimrod is the same system on down through history as you move into the Medo-Persians, as you move down, you know, into the subsequent kingdoms that came along, that system translated and moved from kingdom to kingdom to kingdom.

The head of that statue is Babylonian, and as such, that head turns the body, and the rest of those systems are also Babylonian, quote-unquote, in that sense.

Again, these other kingdoms are just successions of man's kingdoms, but the system, the way of thinking, the way of living in open and direct rebellion toward God is maintained from head to chest to trunks to legs to toes. It's concurrent. It's throughout. It doesn't matter if it's Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Alexander, or whichever Roman emperor we're talking about at the time. Every sub-circles every subsequent culture conquered the previous and took their false gods, took their pagan elements, took their idolatry, and added it to their own. And each of those cultures progressively got worse and more in open rebellion against God. We know the toes of iron and clay at the bottom of this particular statue represent the incarnation of this at the time of Christ's return.

Might say at least the time that immediately precedes it. It is these 10 kings that the Babylonian woman described in Revelation 17 and 18 where we began today, it's these 10 kings that she is writing and directing, that she is controlling, which means, brethren, that we are currently living in a world that operates within a Babylonian system. We are currently living in a world that operates in a Babylonian system because we're still somewhere along the lower portion of the legs of that statue. That Babylonian system is a result of the woman that we see described again in Revelation 17 and 18, Babylon the Great, this woman who is drunk with the blood of the saints, martyrs of Christ, that is directing the seven-headed beast of Revelation through history.

She's got the reins at the moment. Now you look at Daniel. Daniel had no choice, really, but to live in the Babylonian system. He was taken to Babylon as a captive. You know, it was very clear God was working with him, using him mightily, and as we know from his story, he didn't bow to the influence of the Babylonian Empire. Despite being in it, he maintained his integrity. He refused to bow before the idol. He refused to stop praying to God. He maintained his integrity throughout his captivity, and I find it fascinating because we also know that Daniel was a state official.

He was essentially an administrator in the Babylonian government, which meant that he was upholding, in many cases, Babylonian law, enforcing, quite possibly, Babylonian law, and provided that Babylonian law in conflict with the law of God.

Daniel continued doing what he did, but in the places where it did, he would happily go to that denful alliance and wait for his God to deliver him.

Brother, this is generally where we find ourselves today. In some ways, we are held captive to the world around us. You know, we can't necessarily do what Abraham did in a physical sense and leave the country where these things are taught, because they're everywhere. It's across the world where these things are, because this system, this Babylonian system, is everywhere. We're surrounded by them. You know, we can't leave Ur, the Chaldees, and leave Haran and end up in a place physically where these things are no longer the case. We can't necessarily leave our families, many of whom might subscribe to these things. They say you can't pick family. You can't.

We certainly can choose to not have anything to do with family members that do these things, and we can cut those relationships off if we choose. But really, the only control that any of us have is over our personal decisions and how we interact personally with this system. Now, we can choose, as Abram did, to come out of it spiritually. We absolutely can. We can maintain our calling to be separate. We can discern between the holy, between the unholy, and we can ultimately refuse to come under the influence of this system spiritually. And we absolutely should. We absolutely should refuse to come under the influence of this system spiritually. This system, this Babylonian system, is a system of rebellion. It's a system of counterfeiting God's ways to seem like they're God's ways. It's a system of pride. It's a system of selfishness, of thinking that we know better than God. It's a system that is designed, implemented, upheld, and operated by Satan the devil.

When we see decisions in the world around us made that are explicitly against God, whether those decisions are political, economic, or religious, brethren, we are seeing manifestations of this system within our own culture, within the culture of the world around us. It doesn't matter if it's in the world, it doesn't matter if it's in our own nation. If it is against God in direct rebellion to God, it is of this Babylonian system. There are so many, so many hot button issues politically in this country.

There are so many, so many things, and some things that really don't seem like they should be that big of a deal turn into a really big hot button issue. And it's really easy, very easy for us, to point the finger at one side of the aisle politically, while completely and totally ignoring the plank in the eye of the other side of the aisle.

Somehow saying to ourselves, well there's less evil here, so that's the way to go.

More evil, less evil. Folks, it's still evil. It's still evil.

We reside in Satan's system. We reside in a world, and sadly a nation, that has turned its back, by and large, on God, and has chosen to follow the counterfeit, not God. And we know that it has to be this way.

We know that it has to be this way. Prophetically, it's coming. And yet, we keep wanting to reach out and grab the wheel to keep the car from hitting the ditch.

Folks, the ditch is coming. It's inevitable. The ditch is coming. So what does that mean for us as Christians while we reside in this system? Let's go to John 17. John 17. We'll see Christ's prayer here. We're going to begin in verse 14. John 17 and verse 14.

Jesus Christ says, I've given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Verse 15. I do not pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have also sent them into the world, and for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth. So we would say, you take a look at this passage and this thing, that this prayer that Christ has made, he makes it pretty abundantly clear that his disciples are not of the world. They're not a part of the world's system. They're his own.

They're not of the world, just as he is not of the world. We might say, you know, in the common vernacular, we might say in, but not of, right? In the world, but not of it, which is true, but I want you to look at where he goes in verse 18. Verse 18, he says, as you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. Now while his disciples were not of the world, while in the same sense we are not of this world, we're being sent into it, just like Christ's disciples were sent into it, ultimately just as he was sent into it. During his time on this earth, Jesus Christ did not compromise. He didn't get in the mud and wrestle with the pigs. He didn't make a choice for the lesser of two evils. He stood up against evil in whatever form it took. He stood up against Satan. He stood up against Satan's counterfeit system, and he preached a gospel of repentance and of the coming kingdom of God to anyone who would listen.

He spoke of the only solution to the ills of this world. And brethren, that message is one of incredible power even today, and that message needs to go out to this world. It needs to.

And it's a message that when we stand up and we say it, it's going to cause us to come under fire from this particular system. Particularly as things advance through the events of the Book of Revelation, as we see these things begin to become fulfilled into Revelation 17 and 18, when God's final judgment against his counterfeit system is fulfilled, you know, as followers of God and followers of His way, this rebellious nature of the Babylonian system should be easy to spot.

This rebellious nature of the Babylonian system should be easy to spot.

It is manifested in peoples and nations that believe they know more than God Himself, who are unwilling to submit to His ways through their arrogance and their hatred of righteousness.

It is represented by an unwillingness to listen to God, or a desire, we might say, to even put Him in a box in which He agrees with every single thing that they agree with, but not necessarily other things. We know, too, it can be accompanied by a divisive spirit of discord, of false worship, false teachings, and an unwillingness to repent.

These are all manifestations of this false system that is drunk on the blood of the prophets and the saints. The instruction that we see in Revelation 18 verses 4 and 5 is to come out of her, my people, to not be found within the boundaries of the city when God chooses to destroy it, similar to Lot and his family. Get out! Don't look back, because the destruction is coming.

We, too, brethren, have to ensure that we are spiritually removed from that system, spiritually removed from the rebelliousness against God that's a part of that system.

We have to be out of that system like Abraham got out of his country, but yet we have to go boldly into the world to preach his way, like Daniel lived that way in the middle of Babylon. Keeping a faith, keeping an obedience in God, keeping our integrity intact in the process, despite being immersed, so to speak, in the very system that we're to come out of.

Let's go over to Revelation 19 to close today. Revelation 19. We're going to ultimately go back to kind of where we started. As the events of Revelation 18 come to a close, as this system, which was founded with Nimrod and the Tower of Babel, kind of fully further expanded as an agent of God's judgment in the rise of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, and as God used them in very specific ways, kind of as that system then was translated or transmitted down through the chest and the trunks and the legs of that statue to the point where we are today. As Revelation 18 records, at a point in the future, that stone is going to come and it's going to destroy this system. It is going to shatter this system into pieces, and the kingdom of God is going to be established on this earth.

Revelation 19 says, after these things, I heard a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven saying, Alleluia, salvation and glory and honor and power belong to the Lord our God. For true and righteous are His judgments, because He's judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication. He's avenged on her the blood of His servants shed by her, those precious saints over the years who met the end of their lives at the edge of a sword, or burned in Nero's gardens. Their blood will be avenged by God. Again, they said, verse 3, Alleluia, her smoke rises up forever and ever. And the 24 elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sat on the throne, saying, Amen, Alleluia. Verse 5, then a voice came from the throne, saying, Praise our God, all you servants and those who fear Him both small and great. Verse 6, the sound of that, says, was a voice of a great multitude, sound of many waters, and is the sound of mighty thunderings, all the hosts shouting Alleluia for the Lord God, omnipotent reigns. Brethren, we take a look at history and time around us. We're getting down to the final stretch. Fulfillment of this passage is coming. Eyes up, test the spirits, be vigilant, and come out of her, brethren.