Why Is Babylon in Prophecy?

I think we can all, again, examine the news that is reported more or less on a daily basis, ask the question, why is there so much confusion and chaos in the world? It seems wherever you look.

Why the conflict? Why the violence? Why all of the things that are going on? Why is there the great disparity between the rich and the poor? Why are decisions made by governments that seem upside down? They are hard for us to really grasp why in the world will you make that kind of a decision? We used to hear in the church, the old axiom, that there is a cause for effects. The Bible shows us, in fact, that there is always a cause for every effect. In fact, it says in the Bible, there is no such thing as a causeless curse. That is what, in fact, the world is going through right now. A curse. A curse where there is death, where there are people being maimed. Over in Paris, of course, where the terrorist attacks took place, there were over 100, maybe as many as 157 or more, people who were killed by terrorists, and another 200 that were maimed that were injured. That will, of course, go on for many of those people for the rest of their lives. Just what happened in Boston with the marathoners were running, and many people were injured. They lost limbs, and many of them will suffer for the rest of their lives. But again, there is a cause for every effect that we see, and that is an axiom. And why, though, do we have all of these terrible problems that we see in the world? Well, the answer to it, in fact, is the problem began in ancient times.

You know, it's interesting that as we look over into Genesis chapter 10, we find the answer for why all this confusion, you know, why all of this chaos that is in the world today. But in Genesis chapter 10, let's notice over here, this is at the very similar beginning of what we would call civilization. You know, Cain and Abel were born. Of course, Cain killed Abel. Cain went on and married. He married his sister, and he ended up having tragedy, and the people began to multiply upon the third case of the earth. And eventually, there were cities that were founded that were raised up, and Cain was responsible for doing a lot of that, you know, himself. But let's notice here, and of course, later others did the same thing. But in Genesis chapter 10, in verse 8, it says, in Cush begotten Imrod. Now, Imrod plays a very important role, you know, in history. A lot of answers that can be traced right back to Imrod and his mother, Semiramis, by the way. But anyway, here it says, he began to be a mighty one on the earth. Not that he just was a great man upon the face of the earth, but actually, if you look at these verses, and you look into the Hebrew, here you find that he was a mighty tyrant upon the earth who was against God. He turned against God after the flood. After all that the world had been through, after the noation, deluge that took place, Imrod, rose up, and he was against God, and he began to do things on the earth that were contrary to God's way of doing things. And going on, it says, and he was a mighty hunter before the Lord. And actually, you know, again, that means he was a mighty tyrant against the Lord. Therefore, it is said like Imrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord, and the beginning of his kingdom was Babel. Do you get that? The very first city that Imrod established was Babel. Now, the word Babel, by the way, or Babel as somebody would use it in the modern-day word, somebody babbles on, you know, incessantly. The word Babel means confusion. The word Babylon means confusion as well. In fact, the word Babel is attached to everything having to do with Babylonian. It was confusion. And from the very beginning, it was confusion. And it was there at Babel, by the way, or Babylon as it would become later, that the tongues were confused, you know, and man began to separate on the face of the planet due to language. They began to be dispersed upon the planet. But the first kingdom that was established by Imrod was Babel.

But was it just a kingdom that was ruled by a king? Because we see in the Bible, brethren, much said about Babylon, especially in the New Testament. We see a lot about Babylon, a lot of prophecies in Isaiah about Babylon. Babylon, of course, plays quite heavily in the book of Daniel. In fact, that's where Daniel was captive in Babylon, in the Babylonian Empire. But, you know, why does Babylon occupy an important place in the Bible and in prophecy? You know, because we read about Babylon, in fact, in the book of Revelation. You know, so why does it play this prominent role in prophecy? Well, again, the first kingdom that was established was Babylon. So what was Babylon? What is Babylon? Is it a city? Is it a kingdom? Or is it a political system? Or a worship system? Just what is it? What is it? What exactly is Babylon? Well, let's try to answer that remainder of the sermon today. Let's go to Deuteronomy, Daniel, chapter 4. My tongue wants to say Deuteronomy for some reason. But Daniel, chapter 4, over here, the prophet Daniel, as I mentioned, he and his three fringe, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, were captive in Babylon. They were taken there as young boys, and they were brought up in the arts, in Chaldean mysteries. You know, the wise men of the Babylonian Empire, these were the astute, the intelligentsia of society. So they took the very best of the Jewish captives, and they gave them this opportunity to rise within the Empire. And Daniel was one, and in his three friends were the others that rose to very prominent positions in Babylon. But here in Deuteronomy, Daniel, chapter 4, Daniel 4, in verse 1, it says, Nebuchadnezzar the king to all peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth. He was in charge of every human being upon the face of the earth, the first world-ruling empire. And he had that kind of power and that kind of authority, he had the power of life and death.

And he says, peace be multiplied to you. He says, I thought it good to declare the signs and the wonders that the Most High God has worked for me. How great are his signs and how mighty his wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion is from generation to generation.

I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at rest in my palace, he says, and I saw a dream that made me afraid. He was in terror because of this dream that he had seen. And the thought on my bed and the vision of my head troubled me. But we were very troubled by this, so he issued a decree that all of the wise men of Babylon were to be brought together, basically to figure out what this dream was all about. And so they brought all of these wise men, the Chaldeans and soothsayers and everybody, and to hear this particular dream. And this is the dream he had. He says, I was looking and behold a tree in the midst of the earth, and its height was great, and the tree grew and became strong, its height reached to the heavens, and it could be seen to the ends of all the earth. Well, this was a huge tree. Its leaves were lovely, its fruit abundant, and in it was food for all. And the beast of the field found shade under it. The birds of the heavens dwelt in its branches, and all flesh was fed from it. I saw in the visions of my head while on my bed, and there was a watcher. Now, by the way, a watcher here is an angel. But a watcher, a holy one, coming down from heaven, he cried with a, it says aloud and said thus, chop down the tree and cut off its branches, strip all of its leaves and scatter its fruit, let the beast get out from under it and the birds from its branches. Nevertheless, leave the stump and roots in the earth. When everybody knows that when you leave the stump of something, you know, if you don't want to cut a tree down, if you don't get the roots out, what's going to happen? It's going to grow back up, right? But notice, and it says, bound with a band of iron and bronze, and it says, in the tender grass of the field, let it be wet with a dew of heaven, and let him graze with a beast on the grass of the earth. And, of course, the leader, in other words, of this tree, of course, that symbolized something more than just a tree, was going to be turned into a beast. You always know the story again of what happened to Nebuchadnezzar. But going on, it says, let his heart be changed from that of a man. Let him be given the heart of a beast, and let seven times pass over him. And this decision is by decree of the watchers, and the sentence by the word of the holy ones, in order that the living may know that the most high rules in the kingdom of men gives it to whomever he will, and sets over it the lowest of them. So, you know, here this vision, Nebuchadnezzar sees, and like I said, and what it says, it evoked terror in him. I mean, the tree was going to be cut down, chopped down, and the leader was going to be turned into a beast, and he grasped. Be like an animal, in other words. So, Nebuchadnezzar brought all of his astrologers, all the Chaldeans, all the wise men in, to interpret this dream. Of course, Daniel was the only one that could.

But the tree symbolized a king and his kingdom. We can see that, in fact, over in in verse 20, on down to verse 22. Daniel says, The tree that you saw which grew and became strong, whose height reached to the heavens, and which could be seen by all the earth, whose leaves were lovely, and its fruit abundant, and which was food for all, under which the beasts of the field dwelt, and in whose branches the birds of the heaven had their home, it is you, O king, who has grown and become strong, for your greatness has grown and reaches to the heavens and your dominion to the end of the earth. So, the tree symbolized the king and his kingdom here.

And this kingdom that Nebuchadnezzar had been the king of grew very strong and powerful, exercised great authority. And this prophecy, by the way, is important because God gave a decree here. You notice that even though Nebuchadnezzar was the most powerful upon the face of the whole earth, it's the watchers that pass on this information from most high God. It's not Nebuchadnezzar that's making a decision here. In other words, it is Almighty God that is making this decision. And not only that, we see that God says He sets up kings and He takes them down. And I think it's very telling that God says He puts over them the basis of men. How does that make Nebuchadnezzar feel? It would be terrifying if you saw a vision that you were going to turn into a beast and your kingdom was going to be destroyed, wouldn't it? Everything was going to collapse. So this prophecy is very important, brethren, and it is dual in many respects. The seven times, by the way, tie in to, in fact, when the next system is going to arise, you know, that is going to emerge in the future. That's another sermon altogether. But anyway, it is dual. Please understand that. But when we look in the book of Revelation, don't we see, again, the battle of this mission? But think about the fact, when you first begin reading the book of Genesis, what's the first thing that stands out in your mind? You know, after the creation of man. God put man in the garden, and what was then the garden? There were two trees. You know, trees are very emblematic in the Bible. There were two trees in the garden. There was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As we know, that that was the way that Adam and Eve chose for mankind, all humankind, for that matter. And the knowledge of a good and evil tree, by the way, basically represented this. Man would acquire for himself knowledge, and some of the knowledge would be good, and some of it would be bad.

But the end result would be death. So in essence, what Adam was saying to God, you get out of my business, we're going to determine for ourselves. We're going to use the, you know, scientific method of trial and error, and we're going to determine for ourselves what's good for us. So the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is man deciding for himself that he's going to rule himself apart from God. And frankly, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the best that he can do. And the world out here that you see out here is a world of confusion and chaos because man chose that way. The tree of life, by the way, on the other hand, pictures and represents, you know, the man letting God rule in, basically. Letting God reveal to him what is right and what is wrong, not deciding again for the self and being selfish, but letting God be the king, letting God make those decisions for us. Now, when we look again at the tree that is shown over in Revelation 22, I'm not going to go over there to it, but it talks about this tree, these trees that are, in fact, there. And what does it say about the tree? It says that the leaves, there are for the healing of the nations. So here we see a tree is for the healing of nations. Now, we're not just talking about, by the way, sickness and disease, although certainly God is going to do that in the world tomorrow. But the nations need to be healed in their minds. People are going to have to have their character changed. It's for the healing of the nations, a change in about in the way that men think in a reason. Interestingly, for Adam and Eve and for Nimrod, and for the people that came after those that were the founders, you might say, Babylon seemed like a good idea. It's like Adam and Eve. Eve, when she looked at the tree, didn't she say it was a lovely fruit? It was a nice-looking fruit, and she decided she was going to eat it. And Adam, of course, he did the same thing. But again, Babylon seemed to be good as a tree. The leaves were lovely. There was abundant fruit. Food to feed all peoples, in other words, even the Bible says that. So it seemed good, like it seemed good, to Adam and Eve in the garden. So here we see in this prophecy in Daniel 4 that Daniel is describing more than a city that was sacked by the Medo-Persians. He's talking about more than a city. Babylon was destroyed in 539 BC.

And so it ceased, and the Medo-Persian Empire came on the scene. But remember, there was an iron belt put around the stump, so it was not allowed to grow. But it was still alive. In other words, it would take the band off, it could grow back, in other words.

So what do we see from all of this, brethren? Babylon was a city.

Babylon was a kingdom. In fact, in the Bible, Babylon is called the Lady of Kingdoms. But Babylon is a system, a system. It's a way of life.

It's a way of life that was implemented, frankly, after Adam and Eve.

That goes back, particularly Cain, in the choice that Cain made and all, his progeny, that chose that way afterwards.

And it was not arrested and changed by the flood. It survived, and Nimrod cranked it back up after the flood was over when he founded Babel. And Babylon is a system that's existed ever since. Now, where is Babylon today, brethren? And what does it mean for us? What does it mean for the church today? It's very important for us to know these things. Yes, indeed, brethren.

A tree, brethren, can represent a way of life, just like in the book of Genesis, just like over in Revelation 22, I mentioned to you. It's a way of life, the way that people live. Christ, in fact, talked about good trees and bad trees. He said, you can't get good fruit from a bad tree. And so, a tree pictures a way of life. Let's go over here to Isaiah 13. Isaiah 13 and verse 1 over here.

The prophet Isaiah speaks a good deal about Babylon. In fact, he is the one who gave prophecies about a king for the future, way in advance, in fact, over a hundred years, in advance of a king that is prophesied to come along.

Of course, the Babylonian system was a very brutal system. But in Isaiah 13 over here, Isaiah writes this. He speaks of Babylon. He says, the burden against Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amos saw. And so, this prophecy is about Babylon. It's a burden here. There was a prophecy against Babylon. What's going to happen to Babylon? And it says, going on down here, verse 6, he says, He says, Wail for the day of the Lord as at hand. The day of the Lord that came to, by the way, Babylon 539, is going to come to Babylon in the future again. So, this is dual as well. He says, Wail for the day of the Lord as at hand. It will come as destruction from the Almighty.

And so, God is going to destroy Babylon. Wait a minute. I thought Babylon was destroyed. And yet, over in the book of Revelation, it tells us that Babylon has fallen over there. In 539, 8 BC, Babylon fell.

But again, it's dual. It's dual in its purpose here in the prophecy that we're reading here. Down to verse 19.

It says, In Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans' pride. It is, again, a bunch of pride, isn't it, that peoples can have? Even the terrorists over in Paris had their pride that caused them to do some of the things that they did. ISIS and so forth.

It says, The beauty of the Chaldeans' pride will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. And where is Sodom and Gomorrah today? It will never be inhabited, nor will it be settled from generation to generation, nor will the Arabian pitch tents there, nor will the shepherds make their sheepfolds there. But wild beasts of the desert will lie there, and their houses will be full of owls, ostriches will dwell there, and wild ghosts will caper there. So it's a desolate—it's going to become desolated, in other words. So Babylon, brethren, was considered glorious. It was considered glorious. But what kind of a system was it? It was a deceptive system. Like I said, it was a brutal system. It was destructive.

It was Satan's system.

In fact, we look out in the world today, brethren. All that is here in the world today is a reflection of what was in the mind of the devil out here. This is the way Satan would live out here in the world today. The way we see people living, you know, whether you're talking about music, whether you're talking about business, or whether you're talking about whatever it is, brethren. This is the way he would live.

Satan's system, by the way, is a destructive system. It destroys—it's a destructive way of life. And that's why we have, again, the chaos, the confusion, the violence in the world today. And, brethren, you know, we're going to have the things that happen in Paris happen here. You can believe it's going to come eventually. But it's Satan's system out there. And Satan's system, brethren, cannot exist with God's way of life. And that's the message, by the way, this world's going to get in the future.

And they're getting it now via the Beyond Today program and the Good News and other things that are going out to the world and preaching the gospel. Satan's system cannot exist with God's way of life.

And Babylon, brethren, in the Babylonian system is a system that God is going to destroy. He's going to rid the earth of forever in the future. Let's go over to 2 Chronicles here. In 2 Chronicles, like I said, eventually, Babylon did fall. And it was replaced by the Medo-Persians. And so other kings began to emerge.

But in 2 Chronicles over here, in chapter 36, it talks about what, in fact, God was going to allow to happen, particularly for the descendants of Daniel and those that were the captives in the Babylonian Empire. In 2 Chronicles 36 and down to verse 21, it says, "...and to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land has enjoyed her Sabbath, as long as she lay desolate, she kept Sabbath to fulfill seventy years." So the Jews were in captivity in Babylon for 70 years. But notice in verse 22 here, "...now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia," again, this is after the downfall of Babylon, "...that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled. The Eternal stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying, Thus says, Cyrus, king of Persia, all the kingdoms of the earth, the Lord God of heaven, have given me. And he has commanded me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is at Judah, who is among you of all his people. May the Lord his God be with you, and let him go up." So he made this decree, he made this decree that the Jews were going to be able to go back and build the temple that was in Jerusalem. Now again, be reminded, brethren, that Cyrus was a pirate. Cyrus was an evil man, like Nebuchadnezzar was an evil man. Like, in fact, Bill Shrizarr was an evil man, where he was eating and drinking from the utensils from the temple, and he saw the handwriting on the wall. You know, many, many teakle and farset. The kingdom is going to depart from you. It was that night, in fact, that very night that the Babylonians fell. Cyrus came in. In fact, they stopped the river from going under the wall, and they went under the wall, and the gates were left open, and they came in and they conquered Babylon that night when Belshazzar saw this handwriting on the wall. And, you know, the handwriting is on the wall for America, too, for the future. Be aware of that, brethren. It's coming very rapidly. But 50 years after the conquest, over 50 years, in fact, after the consequence of Jerusalem, God stirs the spirit of the Persian King Cyrus to send Jews back to build the temple. Again, the Babylonians, they ravaged when they went in, and they conquered people. They raped, they pillaged, and they would take people and they would displace them from the lands, and they would bring other people into those lands as they did with northern Israel. They brought many other people in there that occupied, and that's why, to this day, a lot of Jews consider those people fake Jews up there. But anyway, that's another topic. But it was a brutal, brutal kind of an empire. Think about this, that Nebuchadnezzar had four of his own trusted advisors thrown into a fiery furnace. He was a tough dude. And Cyrus represented this kind of system. Now, some have said that actually Cyrus may have had a mother that was Jewish, but I'm not absolutely sure on that. But somehow God was able to soften the head of Cyrus.

Maybe he wised up. He read what had happened to Babylon's Nebuchadnezzar, and he maybe wised up a bit. You better listen to, you know, God, what God has to say. Maybe he had a little terror in his own mind. Let's go over here to Isaiah. Isaiah 45. Let's notice here what it says. This again is talking about Cyrus over here. In verse 1, Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held. Notice to subdue nations. God raised him up, in other words, before you. Loose the armor of kings to open before him the double doors. This is why he was able to go in and conquer Babylon, by the way, that these doors were left open. They would have been locked. So that the gates will not be shut. I will go before you and make the crooked places straight. I will break in pieces the gates of bronze and cut the bars of iron. I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places. And why? Why does he do this? That you may know that I, the Eternal, who call you by name, am the God of Israel. For Jacob, my servant's sake, and Israel, my elect, I have called you Cyrus by your name. So God named him before he was born.

I have named you, though you have not known me. You get that, brethren? He didn't know God. And he said, I am the Lord, and there is no other. There is no God besides me. I will guard you, though you have not known me. So he was like Nebuchadnezzar in this regard.

Somehow God softened his head, and he made, again, a decision to send the Jews back to build the temple. But, you know, God was able to do that. God was working with Cyrus to accomplish his will and what he intended for the temple in Jerusalem, again. God worked with Cyrus, and he worked with Daniel. But over here in Daniel, the book of Daniel, let's notice over here quickly, and we won't take a lot of time with this. But Daniel was fasting for three weeks. He was, you know, fasting before God. He wanted to understand the things that God was revealing to him and other things that needed to be revealed to him as well. But notice that God dispatches a messenger. He sends Gabriel to him. And Gabriel says, you know, from the day you began to humble yourself before God, I was dispatched. But on the way, he said, I was way late.

And it goes on to say, you know, here in verse 13, after verse 12, there is no fear, Daniel, from the first day that you sent your heart to understand to humble yourself, your words were heard, and I come because of your words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me 21 days. And behold, Michael, one of the chief priests, came to help me, for I've been left alone there with the kings of Persia.

And here, what is he talking about? He's talking about demonic forces here. Not talking about physical people that delayed him. Obviously, a physical person couldn't delay an angel of God. But we're talking about evil, wicked demons here that were, in fact, standing beside the kings of that time, the Grecian king and the king of Persia, as a matter of fact, with delaying this message being delivered to Daniel.

And so, here we see, again, God is trying to work with Cyrus to bring about what his plan is for, again, sending the Jews back down to reveal the temple. We see also, in comparing the Scriptures, that God allowed Cyrus to rule. You know, he's the one that installs kings. He sets them up.

And, you know, sometimes we think elections may put people in the office far from it.

But God allowed Cyrus to rule just as he allowed Satan to rule as the god of this world. Actually, God is in charge, ultimately. But for a time, he's allowed, again, these things to be.

You know, Satan told Jesus Christ, remember, after he'd been fasting for 40 days and nights, the kingdoms of the earth are mine. I will give it to you if you bow down and worship me. Well, Jesus Christ, you know, in fact, Himself said, My kingdom is not of this world. So, in reality, Satan was right. The kingdoms of this world are Satan's. You know, I wonder sometimes, who is the demon that oversees San Francisco?

And I wonder sometimes if he doesn't camp out on Mount Diablo, but I am. But, you know, the kingdoms of this earth, again, belong to Satan and his minions, his demons.

But just as Adam told God to get out of this business, the world has done the same thing.

Well, Israel, in fact, did the same thing. They rejected God and they rejected His government. Remember over there in 1 Samuel 8, you know, that they wanted the king to rule over them. And why? Because they were rejecting God as a ruler over them. And eventually, Israel and Judah, by the way, rejected the laws of God. They rejected the Sabbath. Israel went into captivity in 721 B.C. and Judah followed suit in 604 B.C. Israel went into captivity to Assyria and Babylon for the Jews. But what has happened since the time of Adam, again, is a system has developed that is going to be in place up until the return of Jesus Christ when another kingdom is going to be established. This time, it's going to be a kingdom that will never pass away. But God has allowed the devil rulership over this system now.

Now, we don't talk about Babylon very much in the world today, do we?

We don't hear about Babylon because there is no such kingdom, you know, on the face of the earth. No government that's called Babylon up on the face of the earth. It seems also ancient to us, don't it? When we read the Bible, yeah, that's way back then.

It's an unlikely presence, isn't it, in the modern world of technology and science.

But we read back over in Daniel 4, verse 14 over there, that the tree was cut down, but the stump was to remain. So, in other words, it remains alive. It's still here. The roots of it are here, in other words, and the roots of every nation and kingdom, brethren, go back to Babylon.

It all goes back to Babylon. And that great tree that was chopped down represented a way of life that is, again, the roots of it are still here in the world today. And what is, again, that way of life? It's a way of pride. It's a way of lofty attitude. It's a way of power, of wealth, of influence, and renouncing God's influence in the affairs of men.

And more and more, this world is becoming more and more secularized. And Satan the devil, again, has been controlling this kind of world that is out here. And this is what started, by the way, in the Garden of Eden and has been perpetuated for the last 6,000 years.

It's going to be around, in fact, for a long time. Now, after Babylon, of course, you have the Medo-Persian Empire, then you have the Greco-Maxedonian Empire. And then there is also, in the book of Daniel, talks about a fourth empire that's going to come on the scene, that is going to have great power.

And this fourth one is going to be, it will have seven successive resurrections to it. It will rise up and fall down seven times, and we're on the seventh time right now, in this time and day that we're living in now. And so this is what we're watching for, the last resurrection of what was called the Holy Roman Empire that began with Justinian, you know, back in 554 BC with regard to the Holy Roman Empire. And the last resurrection of the world-ruling empire, the Holy Roman Empire, is shown in Revelation 13. So over here in Revelation 13, we see this last resurrection of this final beast that's going to emerge, you know, all of them are beasts, by the way, from Babylon to the Persians, to the Greeks, to the Romans, because they behave in a brutal way, in a very brutal way.

But in Revelation 13, verse 1, it says, I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns. Now this is a beast, isn't it? And upon his horns ten crowns, you know, showing rulership. And upon his head heads the names of blasphemy. Blasphemy, of course, against God here. And the beast that I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion. These, of course, mirror what Daniel talked about.

In other words, that in this final resurrection of this fourth beast that is to emerge, that Daniel talked about, it's going to be a beastly kind of a system that's going to emerge. It's going to have great influence, you know, over the entire world. And it says, and the dragon, of course dragon symbolic of the devil, gave him his power and his seat and great authority. So again, here we see this satanic now, Satan himself, giving over great authority to this beast. It's a system. It is going to be a king as well that's going to have rulership at that time.

Now let's go over to Revelation chapter 14 over here. Revelation chapter 14. So it's going to have this great far-reaching power. And the European Union right now is not that system. It's going to have to reconfigure in the future. And you know, who knows this attack that has happened in Paris may just be a catalyst to bring some of these things about.

But in Revelation 14 down in verse 6, it says, And I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those that dwell on the earth, to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth the sea and the springs of water.

And it says in another angel following, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she has made all nations drink the wine of the wrath of her fornication. So, you know, this system is going to lead people down a primrose path, by the way, it's going to lead to utter destruction. So Babylon is fallen, is fallen. Babylon fell once, but remember, the band was put around it, and Babylon is going to rise again. And this system arises to dominate the world again, and is going to have to be cut down again. Its power and its influence are going to reach points of bringing the world, you know, to climax.

It's going to have such power in the world, it's going to bring the world to a time when there's going to be utter destruction, you know, for this kingdom.

And where does it have its influence? It has its influence over the entire world. Revelation 12 verse 9 tells us that Satan the devil has deceived the whole world. That's hard to grasp. I remember when I was first studying the Bible, and I thought, well, surely all these Christians out here couldn't be wrong. But in reality, they are wrong, many of them. 99% of them are wrong because Satan has deceived even religions today. And so we see, again, these saints that are going on, brethren, in the world. Let's go on down here to chapter 13 now, verse 7. But it was granted to him to make war with the saints. So here's where our trouble comes in, brethren, for those who are saints of God, to overcome them. And authority was given to him over every tribe and tongue and nation, and to have great, awesome power.

Like, in fact, Nebuchadnezzar did. And all who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. And, brethren, we better hope that your name is in the book of life. And not only that, but it remains in that book of life.

And it says, if anyone has an ear, let him hear. Let him hear. Better listen up and be aware. We're talking about serious times, rather than are going to come. I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. This is going to be, you know, some sort of a religious leader, because he's like a lamb, but he speaks like the devil. Again, the world's going to be upside down backwards when this time comes. And he exercised all the authority of the first beast in his presence, and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast whose deadly wound was healed. And he performs great signs so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth and the sight of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he's granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived. And he was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast. An image of the beast shall both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. So a great martyrdom is coming in the future. And, you know, so the mark of the beast, as we know, we've always felt, by the way, that the mark centers around the Sabbath in some way.

That mark will be if a person is willing to work on the Sabbath, you know, that that mark, in other words, you'll have to prove it by working on the Sabbath. You want to embrace the beast. Or it's going to be on the forehead. The forehead is an intellect. In other words, either embracing the false religion, you know, of the future beast power, or proving it by working on the Sabbath. Breaking God's law, in other words. Because this will stand against God's law. It is going to be, brethren, a political system. It's going to be a religious system. It's going to be an economic system. Why must this be destroyed, brethren? Because, brethren, like I said, it's deceitful. It's evil. It's based on vanity, jealousy, lust, and greed. That's what it's all about. That's what the world is all about today, brethren, that we see out there right now. What the world is all about.

It has to be destroyed. It cannot coexist with God's way of life, which is coming. The King of God, brethren, is coming. The world is going to be manipulated by the devil and his minions to war and destruction. Believe me, brethren, it's coming. It's being stirred up right now in the world. These things are connected with what's going to happen in the future. It's what is happening. The terrorist acts, brethren, are going to cause people to be angry. It's like World War II. Men were signing up to head off the war to fight, you know, the Germans, or, you know, the fight in the war in World War II.

There was a hatred that was there. Young men went off the war. Some of them never came back. Some of them came back, never forgot what they saw, what they experienced. It's going to be a religious system that will kill saints. That's how brutal it is. You know, we think, you know, these ISIS people cutting off people's heads is, you know, of course, in this system it's going to come, it's going to be done in a sanitary way, you know, but it's going to be nonetheless brutal. And what it will be like is the religious system will pronounce a curse on somebody, and the political system will carry out the sentence, which either change your religion and embrace the religion of the beast, or you will be, some will be beheaded during this time. If they do not take the mark, as it were.

But the Bible tells us in the book of relation, I don't need to go through and show you the scriptures that talk about this, but the end result, God's going to bring down Babylon. And what is Babylon? Babylon is the United States, brother. Babylon is Canada. Babylon is Australia, and Europe, and Saudi Arabia, and Africa, and India, and Korea, and China. Babylon is a way of life, whose tentacles go everywhere in the world. There is no place that is not Babylon today, and the whole thing is going to come down, and be brought down.

Now, what, brethren, does all this mean for the church? Why am I not telling you these things, brethren? I'm telling you these things, brethren, to alarm you. To alarm you!

I mean, if Nebuchadnezzar had terror because of a dream he saw, when we know what's going to happen, shouldn't we be a little bit alarmed?

I assume here that all of you who are here want to be in the book of life. Am I talking in the right crowd here? Right group. We all want to be in the book of life. We want to be in the kingdom of God, brethren. But do we understand, brethren, what is at stake in the future, and how difficult it is going to be to remain faithful? If we cannot remain faithful now, brethren, in this time, when you have relative peace, I can promise you we will not remain faithful one second in the world that is coming. So, like I say, I'm trying to alarm you.

I'm not going to preach you a soft little lullaby to put you to sleep and tell them how God loves you, and we know he does. And just don't worry, you'll be in the kingdom, no matter what you do, because it's not true. It's just not true. So why does it matter, brethren?

You know, God has given us a way out of this Babylon that is out here, and he's done it through calling us into the church. The church, in fact, the name of the church in the Greek is Ecclesia, the called-out ones. We're called out of the world. We're called out of the society. Now, hopefully you're out of the rat race that's out there. You're not a part of this world. You're not out there rooting for them. And by that, I don't mean that we're rooting against people, but I'm talking about the way of life that people live out there. But we have been given a way out through repentance, in other words, turning around 180 degrees and beginning to go God's way of life. And it's high time, brother. We highly value our calling more than ever.

You know, Jesus Christ explained some things. He talked about the parable of the sower. Let's go over here to Matthew chapter 13. I don't want to take a lot of time with this, but in Matthew chapter 13 over here, Jesus talked about the parable of the sower. You know the parable over here?

A sower went out to sow, and he sowed some seed, held by the wayside. Are you a seed, by the way, brethren, that's held by the wayside?

I hope not. I don't think it'll grow. Well, it is by the wayside. The birds came and devoured it. Some fell on the stony ground, the stony places. You plant a seed on a rock, it probably won't grow, will it? Where they did not have much earth, and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. And when the sun was up, they were scorched, and behold, they had no root. They withered, and some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them.

But others fell on good ground and yielded, it says, some a hundredfold, and some sixty and some thirty. Then he says, He who has ears to hear, let him hear. You get what he's saying here, brethren?

Of all the seed that is sown, brethren, only a small amount falls on good ground.

Most of it falls on stony ground among thorns. It doesn't come up, it doesn't produce anything. Of course, a good sower doesn't sow on stones, does it? But some of it's going to fall on the stones. And in other words, people's calling can be very short-lived and ephemeral.

And interesting, it says that some grew thirty, some sixty, and some a hundredth. Now, we've always looked upon this, brethren, as you grow thirtyfold, sixtyfold, hundredfold. We sort of looked at it that way, haven't we? But, brethren, is this about just about you and me? Or is this, brethren, about how, as the gospel goes out, the gospel will have a diminishing impact in the world and will get fewer and fewer that will respond? I think that may be a possibility here. That is, we get closer to the end of the age that fewer and fewer are going to respond. And, you know, there won't be millions upon millions in the first resurrection, let me tell you that. They're going to happen that way. How many are going to be, I cannot say. You can't either. But, again, be aware, brethren, that a lot of the seed falls in areas that will not grow. And Satan is looking for the opportunity to snatch you up, to destroy you. Did you fall on good ground, brethren? You have roots. You have roots that go down. How deep are your roots? I guess that really depends on how close you and I are to God, doesn't it?

Jesus goes on to explain to his disciples later, brethren, that these are mysteries. These are mysteries. In fact, he talks about the kingdom of God. He talks about, you know, how that the kingdom of heaven is a secret and it is a mystery. Now, the kingdom of God is a real thing, by the way. It's a real thing. But the understanding is, in fact, a mystery. You know, he goes on to talk about how, in fact, he compares the harvest to the time when the sower goes out. He goes out to sow the seed and he sows good seed. But, you know, during the night, you know, the saboteur comes in and he sows the tares. And Jesus said, this is the way the harvest is going to be. So again, brethren, did you fall on good ground? Or is it possible that you are a terror? I'm a terror, you know. Who's a terror? How do you know who's a terror? Well, I'll tell you this, a terror can really tear into you. And that might be a good indication because that shows the attitude is not right of a person. But, you know, a terror, by the way, looks like wheat, looks like the good stock when it's growing. But you know what the problem with a terror is? It doesn't produce any fruit.

So again, are we producing fruit as God's people? You know, Jesus Christ talked about the kingdom of God being, you know, like a man who saw a pearl of great price and he went and he sold all that he had. Have you sold all that you have to come to buy the pearl of great price? Brethren, it's a battle out there. The world is in the system. Have you bought the pearl of great price? Have you sold, you know, everything to come and do this to fulfill your calling?

Like I said, the kingdom of God is the real thing. Now, what do I say that, brethren? It's because, you know what, the world is out here that you see that's grown large, grown large, and the tentacles of Babylon is out here all over the world. This is a counterfeit of God's kingdom. It's Satan's counterfeit. That's why it makes it so appealing.

That's why when, you know, when you grow around to his holidays, I mean, you can't miss, can you, the music, the the temple, the lights, you know, how do you get the kids? Well, you know, you get them with the candy, you get them with the gifts, you get them with with all of those things that are associated with his way of life. We're going to be into that not too long, you know, when as soon as Thanksgiving is over. In fact, it might be that night to start setting up you know, the things for what I call bail mass, you know, time.

So, so, brethren, Satan is counterfeiting the kingdom of God. And the thing is, it's a deceptive kind of a kingdom, and you know where it's going to end in destruction. In fact, when Christ returns, when Christ returns, he talks about how how that prior to this time that the deception will be so great that even the elect of God could be deceived. It is, it will be possible.

If you don't have your head in the church of God, if you're not committed, if you don't have deep roots, brethren, you'll buy into the system of this world. God wants us not to again buy into this. Remember, Christ Himself said, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he that does the will of my Father in heaven. You know, Paul warned of the fact in the last days he said he told Timothy, he says, preach the word in season and out of season. He says, because the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but with itching ears, they're going to to basically heap up their own teachers, begin to follow their own teachers.

And so he warned Timothy, you better preach as long as you can. And not only will they turn their own teachers, he says, but they will turn to fables. And the world at large, by the way, out there, brethren, is in storybook land right now. It's a world that's leading to destruction. I mean, and after all, brethren, the leader of that whole system is Satan the devil. One of the names that he has is Apollya. Which means destruction. So, brethren, Babylon is here. It's everywhere in the world. It will be in Europe. It will emerge in a very striking manner in Europe. You're going to see it come up there. It's going to have great power. It's going to arise, going to have a false prophet that is going to somehow bring about a religion that is going to be worshipped throughout the entire world. And again, in Revelation, we see all through Revelation, Babylon, those going to fall. And God says to us, brethren, come out of her, my people, that you not be partakers of her plagues. And so, brethren, let's make sure that we're not a part of this world and society out here. Let's not be a part of this chaos that's out here. But let's make sure we have deep roots in the church. If you have deep roots in the church, brethren, you're going to be ready for the kingdom of God when it comes. So, let's come out of the world, brethren, and let's be separate.