Today on the verdict with Pastor John Monroe. But in the last days. Prior to the second coming of Jesus Christ, there will be a powerful force called Babylon in our world, an economic, social, religious, and political force described in Revelation 17 and 18. And it will reach its final form in the Great Tribulation and the worship of the Antichrist. This is the verdict.
The Bible teaching ministry of Pastor John Monroe. Yesterday, we began a fascinating lesson about the rise and fall of the city of Babylon. And today, on the verdict, we'll continue peeling back the layers of history and prophecy. To recognize how the spiritual significance of this ancient city lives on.
Now, continuing our study in Daniel, here's Pastor John Monroe with part two of a lesson titled Babylon the Great. Last time we learned that Babylon is not only the name of a city, it represents a rebellious and arrogant spirit which is always opposed to God. We saw it in those who built the ancient Tower of Babel. and we see it in our culture today. The Bible says that God is opposed to the proud and gives grace to the humble.
Are you a proud person? Do you think you know better than God? God wants us to have a humble spirit before Him. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. As we have seen in the life of Daniel, God blesses those who trust Him and who obey Him.
So today we continue to look at the interesting subject of Babylon the Great. Let's open our Bibles to Genesis chapter 11. And learn first of all That man tries to reach God by his own prideful efforts. This is the first thing we want to learn about Babylon. The people of Babel deliberately disobey God's command.
Here is open rebellion against God. God commands man after the flood to fill the earth. And now they say, we want to come together in one place. Rather than populating the whole earth, they don't want to be dispersed. And by their own efforts, they try to reach God, and in so doing, act independently of God.
Because, what's their motive? They want to make themselves great. They want to make a great name for themselves. And so they build a huge tower, a big tower. Babylon represents then man's organized rebellion against God.
Now secondly, As we look back at Genesis 11, we see that God judges acts. of rebellion. Genesis 11 verse 5. And the Lord came down. to see the city and the tower Let's take a look at this.
which the children of man had built. And the LORD said, Behold, They are one people And they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language so that they may not understand one another's speech.
So the Lord dispersed them for From there over the face of all of the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babble. Because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. and from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all. of the earth.
As the Babylonians went to work, others were impressed. God was totally underwhelmed by it all. First then, man tries to reach God by his own prideful efforts. Secondly, God judges acts of rebellion. But you say, what is the way of blessing?
Well, the writer of Genesis is going to introduce us now to a man who lives in Babylon. In fact, from the Ur of the Chaldeans. And through this man. God is going to bless. And this man is going to be a source of blessing.
Too many. Genesis 11. Same chapter. Verse 27. These are the generations of Terror.
Terah fathered Abraham, Nahor and Haran and Haran fathered Lot. Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his kindred in Ur. Of the call The ends. Where is Abraham living, or Abraham as he then was called, when God calls him? He's living in Babylon.
Ur of the Chaldeans but here is a man in faith, Who's going to do things God the way? He obeys the voice of God and so is going to be blessed. God's blessing comes. through obedience. Face.
You want God's blessing in your life? You feel you've missed out in God's blessing. Here it is. God's blessing comes to us through obedient, humble. Faith.
Genesis 12, verse 1.
Now the Lord said to Abraham, Go from your country. Let's get out of Babylon. And your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great name. And I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you, I will curse. And in you, all of the families of the earth shall be blessed.
So Abram went as the Lord had told him. A man walks in faith. He goes from east to west. He goes from Babylonia. to Canaan.
Or being in Babylonia. What characterizes Abraham here? Submissive faith. Not arrogant self-reliance, but submissive faith in God. How does God's blessing come to us?
How did it come to Abraham? How will it come to you and me? Let me suggest four things to you. First of all, obedience, not. rebellion.
Rebellion is Babylon. If you want God to blast your life, Be obedient to God and stop rebelling against God. Any rebellion in your life? Madonna's choreographer, who I must confess I've never met or even seen. But she says this.
Madonna told me to break every rule I could think of. And then when I was done to make up some new ones and break them. That's really cool, isn't it? Let's see how many rules we can break to show how anti-authority we are. What areas of disobedience in your life?
Or is your life obedient to God's word?
Some of you read the Charlotte Observer, as I did, and there was an article about Harvey Cox, the Retiring professor of Harvard who's written a new book, and the article in our local newspaper was entitled Christianity Faces a Transformation. I thought, well, that's great, we need transformation. Read the article, How Sad? The point of the article was, according to Harvey Cox, the expert in religion apparently in America, he says. that today There is this new spirituality, and it's a wonderful thing.
And the point of this, of course, is not what you believe. It's not doctrine. I mean, who's concerned about doctrine nowadays? What's it all about? What's the new spirituality all about?
According to Harvey Cox. And he's probably right, sadly. It's about experience. That's about me. It's about my enjoyment, it's what I think, not God's revelation, not what God has said, but about me.
The postmodern spirituality then is very subjective, it's therapeutic, it is non-moral. We are told that the answers to our problems are found within ourselves. You've got the answer within yourselves. You just need to look deep within. The Bible says, My heart's deceitful and desperately wicked.
Why am I going to find the answer in my deceitful heart? The message of the gospel is the very opposite: that you don't have the answer. Babylon says yes, we do have the answer. The new spirituality, like Babylon, is more concerned about feeling good rather than actually being good. And today I hear pare parents even Christian parents who tell me, well, we just expect our students, our teens, to rebel.
I'm thinking, where do we find that in the Bible? Is it true that if you're a student, if you're a teen, That a little bit of rebellion is alright. Rebellion is never, ever right. Whether it's a two-year-old or a 12-year-old or a 22-year-old or a 62-year-old or an 82-year-old, we are never to rebel against God's word. Students.
God gives you parents. If you're like me when you were a teen, you didn't always agree with your parents. And when you're sixteen, you think your parents know nothing. It's amazing over, I think. and how know how wise my parents were.
Don't rebel against Your parents, God puts them in that position of authority over you. Don't rebel against the word of God. The spirit of Babylon is all round us. Break the rules, do your own thing, live your own life. Who cares about beliefs?
This is self-actualization. And it is fundamentally the spirit of Babylon. It is against God, and it is not the way of the followers of Christ. Jesus says, No, I want my followers to humble. themselves.
and follow me. Obedience, not rebellion. Secondly, humility, not pride. We will see that in more detail next week as we look at the particulars of Daniel 4 and Nebuchadnezzar. We see his pride.
Are you humble or are you proud? Peter says, who probably was a somewhat arrogant individual, Riding under the inspiration of God as a wise man, he says, God opposes the proud. 1 Peter Five, but gives grace to the humble. I don't know about you, but I want God's grace on my life. I don't want God to oppose me in my life.
I want God to be with me. I want God to bless me. He gives grace. To those who are humble. And the Tower of Babel illustrates this principle: that human pride results in God's judgment.
Don't, don't fight against God. You can never win. and you will bring disaster to yourself. and to others around you in the process. Third, Obedience, not rebellion.
Humility, not pride. Third, grace not works. Was Babylon working to try to get to God? It's interesting in the New Testament when Paul writes about justification by faith in Romans 4, he presents as his first witness, as it were, Abraham, this great man of faith, and said, Now. How was Abraham justified?
Was it because of his works? Absolutely not. No, says Paul. If it were works, he would have something to boast about. If we work for our salvation, we nullify grace.
And turn salvation into something we earn rather than being freely received. Do you understand? God wants to bless you on the principle not of what you do, but what Christ has done on the cross and now offers freely to you. Here is an individual who's drowning in the sea. He can't swim.
He's gone under it a couple of times and he's shouting, save me, save me. And then a boat. That's one of his enemies. The man drowning has treated The man in the boat terribly. But the anime.
extends grace and puts out his hand. and the drowning man takes it and he's pulled into the board. On onto the ship. That's grace. God reaching down to us, not us reaching up to God.
But God reaching down to us in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. Works look to what we do. That's not the gospel. That's not the way to God's blessing. Grace looks to what Christ has done on the cross and God and not us.
gets all the glory. Force, faith. Not Self-effort. Faith, not self-effort. Faith never draws attention to itself, but to the one being trusted.
Faith. Is trusting a person. God is saying to you today, trust me. Believe me, lean on me, rest on me. You can't save yourself.
You can't get through this crisis on your own. I have salvation for you. I have blessing for you. I'm holding out my hand to you. Take my hand.
Trust me with all of your heart. God's blessing comes. through a Biden faith. Although ordained a deacon at the age of 22 and a priest at 25 in the Church of England, John Wesley was not truly saved until he was 34. Here is Wesley in his own words.
On May 24, 1738, John Wesley wrote this in his journal: In the evening, I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street where one was reading Luther's preface to the epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, While he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. What a beautiful expression. I felt my heart, says Wesley, strangely warmed. Here's a man who had a lot of religion, but he didn't have Christ.
He said, I felt now that I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. You see, Wesley now understood that salvation was received by faith. Hello. That's not religion, that's Christ. Have you trusted Christ?
Do you hand it over your life? to Christ. The spirit of reb of Babylon, rebellion, pride. Self-reliance, man's religion. God's blessing comes To whom?
To the obedient. To the humble. To those who have faith. to those who look alone to Christ for salvation. Salvation.
By grace. What's your response? God's way or Babylon's way? Babylon's way really is our own way. Our own way often seems more exciting and fulfilling, doesn't it?
Our song is the great Sinatra song. I Did It My Way. We thought, how wonderful! No, how sad. How sad to go through life doing it your own way.
Don't do it your own way, do it God's way. Your own way will always lead you away from God. Your own way will always lead you away from God's blessing. Pride leads to independence, self-reliance, and disobedience. Humility leads to trust in God and a deepening of faith as we obey God and as we humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God and obey His word.
Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel 4 is acting as if he were God, and that everything he had done, he had achieved by his own efforts. And his pride and his arrogance led. to God judging him as we read. and his kingdom And Daniel 5 comes to a very abrupt end in one night. The head of gold of Babylon falls.
Man's arrogance, you see, is ultimately never tolerated. By God, and the sounds of Babylon, which begin in Genesis, that refrain continues down through the centuries as the symbol of human autonomy and defiance of God. We hear the refrain in the study of Babylon, but Babylon, the great, will fall. When we come to the book of Revelation, two great cities are described: Babylon. and the new Jerusalem.
The characteristics of Babylon: rebellion, idolatry. immorality, pride and hatred of the people of God. But in the last days, Prior to the second coming of Jesus Christ, there will be a powerful force called Babylon in our world, an economic, social, religious, and political force described in Revelation seventeen and eighteen. And it will reach its final form in the Great Tribulation and the worship of the Antichrist. During the Great Tribulation, Babylon will be very strong and very impressive.
It will be allied with the revived Roman Empire and the Antichrist, but it will fall. Praise God. Swiftly and Completely. Listen to it. In Revelation 18, verse 1.
After this says John, another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was made bright with his glory. And he called out with a mighty voice, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great. That's it. And what's the response in heaven in Revelation 19? Hallelujah.
Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just, for he has judged the great prostitute, that's Babylon, who corrupted the earth with her immorality and has avenged on her the blood of his Servants. And what happens in Revelation twenty one verse two? Says John, I saw the holy city. What a contrast from Babylon. I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.
Babylon is us trying to reach God. Here is the new Jerusalem. That's the gospel, isn't it? Coming down Out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Yesterday I had the joy of officiating at a wedding.
And the bride comes. Dressed. and white. In her beauty, in her purity. Ready for her groom.
That's the picture, says John. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people. And God Himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more.
Neither shall be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away. Here is the great, continuing, eternal kingdom of God. Babylon Is us trying to reach God our way, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the new Jerusalem, as it were. God comes down, down, down to save us, says our Savior. I've come.
to seek And to save. The lost. The Lord of heaven, the eternal God, coming into time and space to save us, so that he will take us. to the new city, the holy city, not Babylon. The new Jerusalem.
Are you a person of faith? Person of humility. Putting yourself at the center of your world will you realize that there is a God. and that your only hope for a truly meaningful life For eternal life is to trust in God. Will you renew with me this morning your faith in God?
I need to do that, and you need to do it. Abandon your self-effort, repent of any arrogance and pride, and. Rebellion in your life. Afresh, place your faith. Jesus Christ, who comes to save you, to transform you, to look to Christ and live and trust Him with all of our hearts and be part of Of that great kingdom, which as Daniel says, which is everlasting and which shall not pass away.
and which shall never Ever. Be destroyed. Don't you want to be part of that kingdom? Therefore, seek that kingdom with all of your heart. And make that first in your life.
Keep Christ first. And he will bless you. And he will guide you. Let me lead you. In prayer.
Let's have a moment. of silence. Let me ask no one to leave at this point. But let's each of us, as we've heard the word of God, Miko response. turned from any rebellion.
pride, self effort. Perhaps some have never trusted Christ Today, for the first time, cry out to the Saviour. Turn from your saying and Trust Christ. If you know Christ, draw closer to him. And say, Lord, I want to serve you.
I surrender my life to you. Bless me. Lead me and guide me. Father, we confess that the Spirit of Babylon is in all of our hearts. We need this divine transformation.
We thank you for our Lord Jesus Christ, who is meek and lowly in heart, and who still says, Come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek. and lowly in heart. May we find that rest, that comfort, Father, that joy, that peace, that blessing in Christ. And in Christ alone, we realize that you are the only great God.
that none of us here will try to make a great name for ourselves, but rather that your power through us will be a source of blessing to others. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. This is the verdict featuring the Bible teaching of Pastor John Monroe. There's still more to hear when John returns in just a moment, so stay with us.
From matters of truth and identity, to the subjects of love and grace, our world seems more confused than ever. but to find truth and certainty about who we are and find peace, we must turn our attention away from the world and look to the Word of God. To help you do that, John wrote a booklet titled Eternal Security, Finding Certainty in a Chaotic World. Through this special resource John shares his personal testimony, along with a careful examination of Scripture, to offer us clarity on matters of eternity. Get your copy today by visiting our website at the verdict.
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Now, here's Pastor John Monroe.
Well, what's your verdict? Will you obey rather than rebel? Will you be humble rather than proud? Will you receive the grace of God rather than trying to reach God through your own efforts? Rather than us trying to reach God, God has come to us through our Lord Jesus Christ.
So today, Humbly cry out to God to receive Christ as your Savior and live a life of humility following Jesus Christ. Don't forget to join me next time as we look at Nebuchadnezzar and learn what happens to those who oppose God. Thanks for joining us today on The Verdict. I'm Michelle Davies. Today's program with Pastor John Monroe was produced and sponsored by Calvary Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.
