How to Live in Babylon
AI Transcript
you have your Bible, can begin to make your way to Revelation 18. Revelation 18.
So I think I was standing on about the seventh hole, somewhat distracted.
because I probably just triple bogeyed the par three. I was standing at this place here, a beautiful course. It was about 15 miles away from our house, but not in America, in Czech Republic. We lived in Brno, Czech Republic, and our friends invited us, my friend invited, hey, let's go play golf at this golf course called Austerlitz. And I was like, sweet, let's do that. So after triple bogeying another par three, I was a little distracted when my friend said, hey, do you know what happened here? I said,
Like here on the par three, par five that I'm about to hit. It's like, yeah, right here. I was like, no, I have no idea. It looks like a golf course to me. It's like, yeah, well, this is where Napoleon conquered and defeated the Holy Roman Empire. I was like, really? What? Right here? Yeah, right here. So I was like, well, that's interesting. Let me go look into that. And so I went home and sure enough, 220 years on December 2nd this week.
Napoleon it's known as his masterpiece. He led his army against two other armies the the Tsar of Russia and the Holy Roman Empire Emperor out of Austria at that time they had gathered it was about 60,000 to 90,000 and it's Napoleon's masterpiece because he used a military strategy of deception and and was able to overcome and and he reset the whole chessboard of
Europe. He dominated the rest of central Europe for the rest of his life. All these things happened and I was just totally unaware of it. I was just trying to not get another triple bogey. That was my whole thing. And so I was like, wow, this radically affects world history. regardless of whether or not I was aware of it, the reality, it was still true. And I was thinking about that this week as I was looking at Revelation
18 and how one of the points of Revelation is to remind us that there is actually more going on than meets the eye. are massive things happening all around us that are raging around us. now, like at Austerlitz, I could be totally unaware of that. And that doesn't take away from the fact that reality is happening
around us. Now, but if I'm unaware of what Napoleon did, that doesn't really affect my life. But if you and I are unaware of the battle, the spiritual forces that are raging around us right now, it radically affects our lives. And we have such janky theology when it comes to these things, because we're all children of the Enlightenment and of modernism and postmodernism. And we are like, well, whatever I can see, smell, taste and hear, whatever I can measure, that's reality. But Revelation is saying,
No, no, there is a reality that is bigger than that. if you're totally unaware of it, that's why you're getting your teeth kicked in. That's why you're struggling. You're full of anxiety and addiction and you can't quite get things right in your marriage. And your kids are struggling and you're just like, I don't know what's going on. And Revelation says, we know what's going on. Wake up. There is a battle raging for your soul right now. We have to wake up. We need a little bit more charismatic.
theology in our life. It's just what we need. Like I get it. We're like reformed and we like the Bible and we should. But it's pointing to realities. Massive realities. Sure, be unaware of what happened at Osterlitz, but don't be unaware of what's happening right now in this space, in your life, in your family, in your relationships, in the ways that you're tempted and depressed and anxious and angry like
It's all spiritual. So we have to push back against the ignorance of our day and of the church. This this word revelation is trying to wake us up. It's trying to invite us to get into the fight. Listen, how easy is it to win a battle when your enemy doesn't even know they're fighting? Just come up and sucker punch a bow. What happened? This is what's happening to us. We're getting sucker punched and we're like, I don't know. I don't know.
Let me look up and see what my 401k is doing. Maybe that'll help me out. Ridiculous. Get into the fight. This is what Revelation is wooing us to, calling us to. Like there are realities that are beyond the realities that you can see. And so as we look at this passage, we're now starting to come to the end of Revelation and we're on the third set of judgments. There was seven seals and seven trumpets and
Seven bowls and and chapter 17 and 18 is a description of the seventh bowl and Rick preached about this last week How Babylon is this? described as this prostitute wooing the nations I don't know if you noticed this but last week when John actually sees This this imagery
In verse six of chapter 17, it says, when I saw her, this prostitute, after this description of her being adorned in purple and gold and jewels and all this, he says, when I saw her, I marveled greatly.
She's fine. She's hot. And the angel says, hey, John, eyes over here. What are you doing? What he's showing us again, what he's showing us is that the prostitute, if you weren't here last week, I'm sorry, you're to have to go back. You're like, what is this church? But the prostitute is good at what she does. She's attractive. She knows what she's doing in the tempting and the wooing and the
The calling you away from the kingdom of God to put your eyes on her. so chapter 17 and chapter 18 is is trying to expose that. But but she's good at what she does. She always offers life, but delivers death. But we believe her offer, even though every time it leads to death. you know, do this. Bow to me and you will finally have enough money to feel.
Secure for the rest of your life. Okay, what do I have to do to get enough in my bank account to feel secure? It's a false promise, right? Maybe some of you saw this week former wide receiver Odell Beckham has a hundred million dollars and he was lamenting I don't know how I'm gonna live on that with the rest of my life You're like hundred million dollars Give me a shot, but I tell you what if you had a hundred million dollars, you will still not feel secure
You still won't feel like it's enough. It's a false promise. It doesn't deliver. And she constantly does that. Like if she was to come to you and say hey follow me and I'm going to all the stuff that you worked for so hard your life I'm going to destroy that. I'm going to break your marriage. I'm going to get you addicted and anxious and depressed in all these ways. Follow me. None of us would take that bait. You got so many of us end up in that place.
Because this is what she does. She puts out the bait and we buy it and we go down. so she's good at what she does. But in Chapter 18, 17, she looks beautiful. But 18, she gets exposed for what she really is. Again, in that time, Babylon was this was this kind of shorthand figure for Rome. But as we saw last week, there are many Babylon.
They rise up and devour themselves all the time, all the time. For the first century, the Christians, it was Rome. her who sits among the seven mountains. And because that's what Rome is, there's seven mountains that surround her. But we see that it pops up everywhere, everywhere, everywhere she pops up. And so she promises life, but gives death. And in chapter 18, he begins to show them.
What is actually happening here? And this kind of serves as a warning to all of us that would put our lot in with Babylon, but particularly to, for example, the church at Laodicea. You remember those seven churches at the beginning. This was still written to them, but remember the church at Laodicea. What was their thing? They were lukewarm. They were neither hot nor cold. Jesus says, I'm going to vomit you out of my mouth. Why? Because you say I'm rich.
I'm prosperous. need nothing. The church at Laodicea was, well, as I said back then, was the closest to the American church that we have. This church is just self-sufficient. We're good. We can pay for our own stuff. We have a retirement account. We're good. We don't need anything. And Jesus says, that's disgusting to me. I want you to trust me. I'm going to spit you out of my mouth if you don't wake up to reality. This is...
a warning to the church at Laodicea. It's a warning that comes from the love of Christ to them and to us. so I'm getting ahead of myself. We're not quite in chapter 18. Yeah, it's a warning that the ship is going to go down. the churches in the first century, the ship that they're pointing to is Rome. And they're saying Rome is going to go down, which was crazy because at this point, Rome has been dominating the world as
The ancient world knew it for 500 years. Rome is called the Eternal City. And John writes and shows him like, no, the ship is going down. And they're looking around. like, it doesn't look like it's going down. It looks like it's winning. It's like, no, the ship is going to go down. And eventually the ship that is Rome does go down. But how it goes down is particularly interesting to me. Again, let's do some history lesson here for 300 years.
The church is persecuted by Rome, eventually it starts to turn and more and more become Christians. In 325, there's the Council of Nicaea, where now Rome is kind of recognizing and they're recognizing the theology of Christianity. But it wasn't until 380 AD, the Edict of Thessalonica, where Rome officially became a Christian nation, or rather, Christian empire.
380 Thessalonica, but by 380 it was already starting to crumble the tax base was going away that the Edges of the Empire were we're shrinking and so on and so forth. But by 380 this is a Christian nation We're Christians now and we're 30 years later 410 a lyric in the Visigoths walk into Rome not even having to draw a weapon because the slaves that the Romans had opened the gates
welcomed them in the eternal city after 800 years falls. What happened? It's a Christian nation. Well, as we know in our own history, it's one thing to call yourself a Christian nation and even put laws in place. And it's another thing to actually function as a Christian nation. So at 410, when Aleric rolls into Rome, the world is shook. The eternal city has
fallen. People start pointing fingers. The pagans and those that call themselves Christians who then reconvert back to paganism. They start blaming Christians. This is the Christians fault. Rome would have never fallen under the pagan gods. They would argue. I mean it's a good argument. But thanks be to God 600 miles to the south in a town called Hippo.
was a bishop there named Augustine. And Augustine gets news that Rome has fallen and people are blaming Christians and the Christian gods. so Augustine in 413 takes up his pen for the next 13 years, writes a series of 22 books. You can get them on Pigment on Amazon. It's 1200 pages. But over those 22 books in a book that is now titled The City of God, he addresses all these things and he addresses
the pagan philosophy and the pagan gods and he shows no they haven't they never delivered that there was weaknesses too but in the second half of his book he begins to explore this idea well what does happen and he says listen there are wherever Christians are there are actually two cities going on at the same time on parallel tracks there's the city of man and then there's the city of God and they coexist
And they go together as Jesus would say, it's the wheat and the tares. But the city of man, the focus of the city of man is on self and how to promote self and power and authority and the hatred of God. is its destiny is ultimate destruction. But at the same time, within every city, there is the city of God and the focus is on God and the love of others.
It's about giving yourself away. It's the upside down kingdom that Jesus taught us about and its ultimate destiny is eternity. But these two things will go together. The city of man and the city of God. And so I don't know if you felt this last week as Pastor Rick was preaching about Babylon and how there are elements in Babylon in every city. But yet here we are. I felt attention.
I felt like why is it that I am drawn to the city of man and why is it so hard to live for the city of God? I feel this tension living here. The good news is if you feel that tension, you should feel that tension. Because we do live as citizens of two places. We live as citizens of the city of man and citizens of the city of God. And they are in conflict. And so if you feel no tension, you're probably in a much...
worse condition. Like, do you feel any tension? Man, why am I drawn here and yet I'm drawn here? Why is my soul pulled apart? the question I want to address out of chapter 18 is how should we live in Babylon? Because we all live in Babylon. And for God's people, citizens of two kingdoms, the city of man and the city of God, how should we now live? And I believe chapter 18 begins to
address that. if you have your Bible we're we'll pick it up in verse four of chapter 18. It says then I heard another voice from heaven saying come out from of her my people lest you partake in lest you take part in her sins lest you share in her plagues for her sins are he tied as heaven and God has remembered her iniquities pay her back as she herself has paid back others and repay her double for her deeds
Mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed, as she glorified herself and lived in luxury. So give her a like measure of torment and mourning, since in her heart she says, I sit as a queen, I am no widow, and mourning I shall never see. For this reason, her plagues come in a single day. Death and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire, for mighty is the Lord God.
has judged her. Again, John is writing in an apocalyptic way with apocalyptic literature telling us truths that the rest of the Bible already tells us, but he's doing it in this way to hit us in a different spot, not just in our intellect, but in our gut. But like he wants us to feel something when we hear this description. And the description is that Rome, Babylon, and all Babylon's, they are going down.
And they are going down swiftly. They could go down in a single day. It looks like they're eternal, but they are not. And it's a warning. It's a loving warning to us that if we put our lot in with Babylon, be careful. It could be a single day and you're taken out. This is God's grace to us that he is appealing to us. It's a single day. But he also shows us he exposes Babylon, the prostitute, for what she is. She looks
Beautiful in 17, but in 18 we see what she actually is look at verse 1 after this I saw another angel coming down from heaven having great authority and the earth was made bright with his glory and he Cal called out with a mighty voice Fallen fallen is Babylon the great She has become a dwelling place for demons a haunt for every unclean spirit a haunt for every unclean bird a haunt for every unclean detestable beast
for all nations have drunk the wine of her passion, of her sexual immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed immorality with her. And the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living. She is exposed for what she is. She's filled with demons. Like she's filled with demons. Again, you can be unaware.
of the battle that rages around us. That just makes you more susceptible. And God is showing us, no, is a real battle raging for your soul, raging for your family, raging for our church, raging for our nation. There is full of these detestable, unclean spirits, unclean birds, unclean animals. And all the earth has gone in with her, but it is going down unless they repent.
But how? How are we to fight? How are we to engage? Well, verse four gives us a clue. Maybe you saw it when I read it the first time. Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, come out of her, my people, lest you partake in her sins. Come out of her.
So what does that mean? Come out of Babylon. Again, remember this was written to real people in a real time and a real place, particularly the church at Laodicea. So what were the Christians at Laodicea to do when they read this verse? Were they to take it literally, literally, like, okay, where's the edges of the Roman Empire? India, let's go 3,700 miles away.
And then we'll get out of Babylon. Will that do it? the only problem with that is when you cross over from the Roman Empire into India, you enter into a new Babylon. And so it can't be literal. Well, maybe it's this idea of and again, we see this in church history. We see this in America today. We should come out of her in such a way that we have a radically separate subculture, Christian. So we don't.
We just kind of insulate us us for and no more. We make sure our kids never hear anything about that. Don't get any icky sin of the culture around them. Let's just let's just huddle up. And that's how we'll come out of her. Again, I get the impulse and I think there's probably something to that, except. Babylon also lives on in our own hearts and our own minds.
And to be faithful to the city of God is to be faithful of the commission of the city of God. To be a light in the darkness, to be salt and light, to woo people in, to bring people in. So if you totally separate yourself from the culture, then you have no impact on the culture, then that's not a faithful way to be in the world. So what does it mean by come out of her?
I think it's two words. I'll put them on the screen. Faithful presence. As God's people, citizens of the city of God, we are called to faithful presence, which is contrasted to complicit participation. It means we are thoughtful and think and but we are very much in amongst the world. Again, Revelation does not teach us anything that the
rest of the book of the Bible already teaches us how to live. And so the Bible interprets the Bible. So let me give you some examples. In Jeremiah, when the people of God were first dragged off to the literal city of Babylon, some false prophets would rise up and they would say, it's not going to be that bad. God says they're going to come back very soon. And through the prophet Jeremiah, here's what Jeremiah says.
verse 29, chapter 29, verse seven, seek, but seek the welfare of the city. What city? Babylon. Seek the welfare of Babylon where I have sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. That was literally a command to the people of God in Babylon. And I think that that was the then, the always and the now is we should seek the city.
We should seek the welfare of our city and our nation. I pray that America continues to have a prosperous economy and a nation and all those things. I'm praying for it because part of my welfare is tied to it. So it's not anti-America. It's I'm seeking the welfare of the city. That's Jeremiah 29. Or how about Jesus in his prayer for you and for me on the night that he was betrayed. John chapter 17 he says I have given them your word.
And the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. So we're not of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one in the midst of this spiritual battle. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. This is the idea where we get where
in the world but not of the world. Faithful presence. We are to be very much present throughout the whole culture. Faithfully, not bowing to our idols but present. Or John who writes in his epistle, 1 John 2.15, do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
Context matters here. You're like, well, I thought for God so love the world. No. Well, what he's saying is the things of the world that are the city of man that are anti-city of God. Don't love the things that are an offense to a holy God. Man, when I look at my own life, so much of my delight and pleasure is in things that are offense to a holy God. And I am called to repent when I recognize those things. So do not love the world or anything in the world.
or Peter writes in his epistle, Dear friends, first Peter two, 11 and 12, Dear friends, I urge you as foreigners and exiles. That's who we are. Foreigners and exiles to abstain from the sinful desires which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans. There it is in the world, but not of the world. Though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God.
On the day he visits, faithful presence. This is what God is calling us to as a church. Or as James Davison Hunter, a theologian, philosopher says, faithful presence is against the world for the world. That's how we live. We live against the world for the world. What was that? This is like Bonhoeffer in Nazi Germany. He is against Germany in a sense for Germany because he loves Germany.
And the way to love Germany is to stand up against that which is an offense to a holy God. This is our calling because we love our people. want our neighbors that don't even know the Lord. We want them to flourish. But they are culturally going down paths that do not lead to their flourishing but to their death. And so we stand against that. So what does faithful presence look like? I think it's a question we all must wrestle with.
If you are a citizen of two kingdoms, you must wrestle with what does it look like for faithful president? Why am I drawn to the city of man and not the city of God? We wrestle with these things. I've come up with just five. You could come up with 500 more of your own, but let me just put these out for you. So if we are to be faithfully present, we must reject the empty promises of comfort and security in Babylon.
Promises are empty because the and so many of these things they are good things or as Augustine will talk about in the city of God. They are good things and loved in the wrong way. He calls it disordered loves. So when you you put comfort and security as your highest love it gets disordered and you don't live faithfully in the way that God has called you to. And so Babylon says hey you can have comfort.
and security and safety. And we're in Parker, Colorado. We're like, yes, I like that. Those are good things, but they're not the ultimate thing. If comfort and security is your ultimate, then when God calls you to take up the cross and follow him, you're not going to do it because your loves are disordered. And so we've got to reject the empty promises of comfort and security in Babylon and say, no, what does God have for me? Maybe it's a life of uncomfort.
Maybe it's a life of risk because I have eternal life of comfort and security to come. So number that's number one. Number two I would say we reject the endless distractions of Babylon that try to seduce us numb us and silence us.
In early 1980s, guy by the name of Neil Postman wrote a book called Amusing Ourselves to Death. And he was alarmed of the TV culture where we are just constantly vegging out. And he would say, like my philosophy professor at Denver Seminary, often would say, only problem with that is you're not a vegetable. You're an image bearer of God. Your life is meant to be lived on purpose.
and with intentionality. But if you constantly just feed yourself with distraction after distraction, entertainment after entertainment, you are useless in this world. That's not a faithful president. Postman wrote that in the 80s. There's no Internet. There's no 24 hour news cycle. There's no constant stream of sports. There's no social media and doom scrolling. How much more must we fight against distraction that seduces us and numbs us if we're going to be faithfully present? Number three.
We reject the false hope of the material consumption of Babylon by living lives of radical generosity. The promise of Babylon is if you get enough, you will be happy. The upside down kingdom says no, as we give ourselves away, our time, our money, our place, our home, as we give that away, the world is like, that's crazy. And yet it woos people into the kingdom of God. It shows that our God is a generous God.
And through His love, we show His generosity to the world. Number four, we reject the twisted sexual ethic of Babylon. Babylon says sex is all. Sex, it can be transcendental. And if you're not having transcendental sex, you haven't really arrived in life. what? What a false promise. Like, has anyone had transcendental sex?
Is that too much for a Sunday morning? But that is the promise. So what happens instead of loving another person in a covenant way, that person becomes something to consume rather than to love. And we start to make our identity of these things. It's a false twisted ethic. And so we say, no, sex is a very good thing and loved in the right way, in the right order. It is God's design. And we're going to unapologize.
stand for that, that God has created it within the confines of covenantal love between a man and a woman. And in our culture that is so confused and discouraged and in all these ways, we're going to show that and be unapologetic about that. And we're going to be kind and loving and calling people to that because it is the path to flourishing. Like you're not complicit if you're kind to someone who doesn't believe what you believe on this thing. Right?
We can be kind, we can be loving, and still unapologetic. This is God's good way for this. Then finally, I would say we reject the hostility of Babylon by practicing the radical hospitality of heaven. I mean, we live in a hostile world. Just go on your next door app. See how your neighbors talk about each other.
Now we enter into that as the people of light. When everyone's hostile to each other, we're like, hey, come on in. Come on in. We open our home to people who don't believe like us, think like us, love like us. We open our home and we serve them the best food and the best wine. And we just say, hey, tell us your story. Because we believe you're an image bearer of God. And that your story
matters. We practice radical hospitality of heaven. Well, I would just say this as we were getting towards the end of this book, we know how the story ends. And so, however you live in the city of God, in the city of man, as the people of God, we live from a posture of victory and not defeat. We know how the story ends, right? So, let's start living
from that posture of victory. Let's remember who we are and who's where we know how the story ends. That's why comfort and security are not our highest priority. We have that forever. And so now we can enter in because we know we're on the winning side. And so this means we should keep our prophetic voice and prophetic witness in this world. Like Babylon will tell you, hey, believe whatever you want. Just keep it personal or private. But the city of God says no.
Open your mouth. Risk it all. Tell people that the only way to heaven, the only name by which people must be saved is the name of Jesus. We're not just another voice in the culture saying, hey, you might want to try this. No, we have the only hope that the world can have. We have the only savior of the world. And so let's be unapologetic because we're on the winning side. And so we lean into that. We keep our prophetic voice and witness.
If you're just joining us again, you're like, what is this church? What is going on? Babylon and prostitutes and all this. But maybe you sense like, yeah, I am anxious. I am depressed. I am kind of hung up in so many areas. How do I get free from this? The offer on the table to you is you can come out under that. Bible says you can be transferred today by faith from the domain of darkness and brought into the kingdom of the Son God loves. You can do that by faith. Do it.
Because in a single day, that ship could go down if you stay with it. And for believers, you must not be seduced by Babylon any longer. In a single day, that ship could sink. See, we live in the city of man, but we live for the city of God. Amen? Let me pray for us to that end.