night we will try to conclude this coming out of Babylon and I want to explain a little bit more about what is Babylon because like I say I'm focusing on here faith faith is the theme here it's not actually I'm not trying to elaborate on Babylon, but I'm trying to allow y'all to know what Babylon is and the call to come out of Babylon. So that's why I didn't preach sarity. I more or less taught because, and speaking of Lot's wife, we're not concentrating on the story of Lot and his wife and everything. It's on her rebellion or her looking back. So I'm not going to focus too much on her telling Bill of Salt and any of that, because that's really not the significance of the story. When he was saying, remember Lot's wife, he was saying, remember what happened when he called Lot's wife out, that she looked back. And we have to have faith to come out when God calls us out. Revelation 18 and 4 says, I heard another voice from heaven saying, come out of her, my people. so that you will not be a partner in her sins and receive of her plagues, that you won't partake of her sins. Because as long as we are around those of the world or in the world, it rains on the just and the unjust and some of the sins that they're doing or whatever, we may receive of those plagues. Because like I say, it's not a geographical movement. It's not a geographical movement. Then I heard another voice calling from heaven. Come away from her, my people. Do not take part in her sins, or you will be punished with her. I heard another voice from heaven saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers, or ye receive not of her plagues. So there's three different translations. One says partaker, and the other one says part of her sin, a partner in her sin. So sometime we could remain in situations and we become, I think I preached to you a few lessons ago in talk, we become complicit in someone else's sin. We partake or take part in it. So that's why hanging with the world and the things of the world, it's like when God called Abraham and his family from where they was into another country, God separated him from that country. When he called Israel out of Egypt, they came out. Their sanctification was geographical. In other words, their setting apart for the purpose of God was physically removing them. He literally moved them from one place to another place. It was to establish a community of people. In other words, he called Israel out and said, now this is my people. That millions of people that he called out of Egypt, those were to be his people, a community of people. So now as he calls us out of Babylon, We're not coming out geographically or physically, but he's calling a spiritual people out. In other words, from participating in the world. We will be in the world, but not of the world. Our separation is morally. Don't do what they're doing. Watch what they're watching. Their actions, their, in other words, their ethical behavior. I told you about a lot of the politics and things going on. If you vote going along with a part of this, You're partaking and you're helping establish it. I'm not saying what side of the Supreme Court issue, who was right or who wrong. But God's gonna punish one side of that debate. Somebody is wrong. Either he did it or he didn't do it. But the nations will be punished for a lot of the unethical things morally, and the people will be punished for what they're doing that's unethical and immoral. So God holds us individually accountable, and he holds us corporately accountable. In other words, the ones that's not praying at home or doing what they're supposed to do at home and praying all the time. God holds you individually responsible for not praying or having prayer to you. But also, those that don't go to prayer services, that's not a part of the church, God holds them responsible because we both have a time of corporate prayer. In other words, when we all get together and pray. So that's when it says, forsake not the assembling together of yourselves. And someone had asked me about teaching and everything or whatever. And I said, one of the biggest things is none of us are lone rangers. Garden Community had fixed the church as a unit. We are a body. Maybe different individuals or whatever, but we operate as one body. We're part of the body of Christ. So no one is separated by themselves. unto themselves. But we must be separate from the manner, the lifestyles, and the attitudes of the world system. The attitudes of the world, they have a specific attitude. If you can't see the attitude of whatever, you're part of that attitude. That's why God has us in the world, is shaping our attitudes in our ways and our character. He's making our character. In other words, He's calling us out of Babylon to be clothed in Christ. We're supposed to be putting on Christ. So if we're putting on Christ, that means we're taking off the world and the things and the ways of the world. you understand that when he's calling us out he's talking to us and we have to hear that communication to leave Babylon we have to have faith in his word because that's what's going to shape us that's what we hear in the preaching and teaching of God's word we have to have This system that's motivating us we have to come out of there and make God's way our way And you remember I told you hope was one of those motivations one of the things that helped motivate us His God's attitude should not be our attitudes and this is how we come out of Babylon by our change of attitude and our change of behavior, our morality, our ethical outlook and all that. In other words, we're changing to a spiritual community. We're becoming something died out there. Something might have got caught in that air conditioner or something. But anyhow, what has happened is that, you remember I said that that he called them out so Abraham's family was separate into a little community, whereas Israel was a separate community. Well, right now, as he calls us out spiritually, we're forming the kingdom of God. That's why he says the kingdom of God is among you. Some parts of the gospel, he says, is within you. the ecclesiastical church, the one he's calling out of the world, the first fruits. He is shaping us to be the community of the kingdom of God, to rule and reign as kings and priests. But he's preparing us in this world to rule in the next world. That's why we are walking by faith and not by sight. And we mind Godly things. We're not minding the things of the world. This is not our world. This is not our home. So it's different from us. It's different from us. So that's the community he's setting apart, a kingdom. And that kingdom comes as we pray, thy kingdom come. That will be to fulfill the Davidic kingdom. You will have humans here on earth. You will have physical bodies and physical people fulfilling the kingdom of God during that millennial reign. During the reign of Jesus Christ, there will be a kingdom on earth, and things will go the way God promised that they would go, the way He had designed. He is re-inhabiting the earth. He's repopulating it with His people. That's why it says, fret not because of evil doers, for they shall soon pass away. God's doing a work and it looks chaotic right now whatever but there is a work going on and that's why he tells us we will stay right where we are he says I don't pray that you take them out of the world but keep them from the evil that's in the world so it's coming the kingdom will come to earth that kingdom will come thy kingdom will come and that's what we look forward to so it's a spiritual sense this is all spiritual We are still sanctified by a change of attitude, of practice, and of conduct. Instead of immoral, we become moral. Instead of being unethical, we become ethical. Instead of being spiritually anti-against God, along with the things of this world or whatever, we become spiritual foggot. doing the things that are pleasing unto God. So that is how we come out of Babylon. We are set apart for that purpose. God is right where we are physically. He's doing a spiritual work in us, calling us out of the world. Can we understand what I'm saying? That's our sanctification. Now, some of us may move geographically. Some of us may move from out of the church we're in. Some may move because of job reasons or other reasons that God had brought about to move them from a place that was like He took Enoch. Enoch was translated. He says God took him. In other words, He took Enoch from one spot to another spot because the world had became so evil within that spot where he was. So that's a type of coming out of moving away. So Enos was translated. God took him away from where he was. Well, we should be translated. Some of us are not going to be physically, though. We'd be in a home. The husband and wife might not have the same relationship because one might be a believer and another an unbeliever. was spiritually to keep things according to God's word. You don't necessarily have to divorce or whatever. That's what Paul talks about in the Corinthians. If the unbeliever wanted to dwell with the believer, they can. But don't follow their ways or whatever. Don't go to their churches. Don't follow their religions or their faith or belief. We're contending for the faith that was delivered to the saints. That's why it says your enemies may be those of your own household. Maybe your children, maybe any of your relatives or people or whatever. But we're contending, that's why it's agonizing and struggling. And we have to suffer. That's why I want to make instances, not just endure. Endure is long-suffering and forsaking and forbearing and putting up with. But it's not some suffering. We want to put that in a literal sense. We want to think about suffering because suffering you can understand and identify how Christ suffered. Suffering, you know what suffering is, like I'm almost suffering from this heat right now. I'm suffering from it, you know. We got to get this. And suppose the air conditioning man is supposed to be coming by tomorrow to fix the air conditioning. Babylon is an enemy of God and it is used in several different ways in the Bible. That's why I say right now I'm not going to teach on the aspect of Babylon. because babylon is we see it as a literal city but it's a second babylon is a worldwide system of government it's a worldwide system of government that's another thing that babylon is a system that's why i say i live in we live in babylon so this world system is babylon no nation is not babylon satan deceived the whole world Okay, the trade, the entertainment, and so on. That's why if you're not losing interest in watching TV, probably something is wrong with you. If you're not watching less TV and entertainment in this world, probably you're not growing in the faith. If any of the entertainment in this world hold you and still you're in a really entertaining way, you're not becoming vexed with it or losing interest in it, Babylon may be thriving in you. Love not the world or the things of the world. Now I didn't say that we're not still going to do it because Paul had that struggle. We're going to struggle to come out of Babylon. Agonizima. We're going to agonize. It's not going to be easy. That's why it says, will he find faith when he comes back? That's what we're focusing on. A third way of Babylon symbolizes is a spiritual entity. That's why when I was teaching out of the book of Jeremiah, and I go back and teach out of the book of Isaiah starting after we finish some of this, we will start with Isaiah, the book of Isaiah. You see Babylon physically, but it's a spiritual entity. It's against God. All things Babylon is against God, but this is a spiritual entity also. But we don't want to digress into that. We want to focus on that he's coming, he's calling his people out of Babylon. So that's out of the world system, the world government, out of the spiritual, the political sense of it, out of the religious sense of it. Because the religions has apostatized. They've apostatized against God. And he spoke of the great falling away. Satan's menaces transformed into angels of light. So that's why I gave you the story of Nabok, about government, what do you call it, eminent domain taking his property and stuff or whatever. I gave you the story of Abigail, her faith to go against the design of what her husband was going with, the head of the family, who's symbolic of being the head of the family. And faith takes faith is an action. Those are both people that took action and here he's calling for action on our part coming out of Babylon. That's why we use Lot's wife. That's the other person we're using. Lot's wife was symbol of the mother that's full of Babylon that was rebellious against God, didn't listen to the Word of God, had enjoyed all the amenities of a saved wife. In other words, Lot was blessed with a whole lot of goods and a whole lot of stuff. she had lived with the saved, she had heard the word of God preached a lot more than this likely told us. She had seen the victory of Abraham against the kings that had came and took Lot. She had heard of the crossing of the Red Sea. She had heard of all these other things. So, people hear the word of God, but they still look back. And God's word, God's saying, if you look back, you're not worthy to follow Him. The directions was, the obedience was, not to look back. And the family kept going and left her behind. So the focus is on she disobeyed God. It was an outright rebellious disobedience, and it was immediate. The minute she looked back was when she turned herself. So God's coming in and a twinkling. And sometime we're not gonna be able to put sin off, God's gonna judge us immediately. And it's not always judged immediately, but here it was. OK. Communication and leaving Babylon. I started Saturday on Romans 7, chapter 15-25. Paul had been converted about 25 years or so. or twenty years when he wrote this and verse seven he says that sin sufficiently was strong enough to pull him in the wrong direction that still remained in him uh... i don't know if you have that in mind or not but i'll read it to you as we go so i won't just be calling out names and numbers to you verse seventeen he says now then it is no more i that do it but sin that dwelleth in me physically by the life he had lived during the time up until when he was on that Damascus road. That life was in him, and it's in all of us. Whatever we've learned in the world and lived up to this point in time, that's still in us. That's in our flesh. That's why I said we can't geographically leave it behind. We can't physically leave it behind. Paul said that sin dwelleth in him. You will have bad thoughts. That's why the scripture says bring every thought into the captivity and obedience of Jesus Christ. They will come through your mind but we are to bring every thought into the captivity and obedience of him. Casting down imagination and other thoughts. You can't act upon everything coming to your mind or you can't say everything that comes into your mind. The thoughts and intents of man was evil continually, if you read in the book of Genesis, is why he destroyed this world. So we have to develop a whole thought, different thought life. I think we went over, I don't know if we went over a series on the thought life in the mind or not. But it's your thinking which corrupts you. You can't let these things enter into your mind or you have to pull down those strongholds that Satan has put in your mind, which are called strongholds. These are things that are in ground and they're sitting down watching TV for hours and watching immorality and all these things on there. That has holes on you and it's going to be a struggle to let that go, to have faith, to trust God and leave that behind, come out of Babylon. it still was pulling him ahead of Paul in that direction. In verse 18, he leaves no doubt that that sin was in him. Paul says, verse 18, For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. For to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. So, it was no doubt that this was in him and it was twenty years later. You're dragging around the old man, but you have to defeat him. That's why it says, contend for the faith. It's a wrestle, it's a struggle. Verse 19, he admits to occasional sin. Now he admits to it here. He said, for the good that I would, I do not do, but the evil which I would not, that I do. So I don't think we're going to be sinless. That's why what the law could not do, it was we through the flesh. So you will fall, but we need to get back up. And we need to fight to stop losing that same battle. We got to start taking other heels. We got to grow in the faith. We've got to start pulling off those weights and seeing this perception of us. You can't stay locked in that same sin and say, shall we continue in sin that grace shall abound? In other words, it's like you said, new scripture, new words. In other words, we've got to look at this as a way where God can start showing us things that were sin that we've been doing or whatever, and we didn't realize the sinfulness of. We didn't realize this. This is things we were doing, we were committing and going along with, like, and mummying and complaining and tailbearing, all that. God's gonna start to show you, if you come out of Babylon and start growing in the faith and meditating in His Word and talking with Him, He will show you the nuances of how much of a tailbearer we are, how much of gossips we are, how much sin is in our life. In other words, it's not going to be the same sin everybody else and everything is doing. It's a sanctification process. He's going to be washing your life. That's why I said it. He called you so you would be washed by the word. But you can't do that continuing in Babylon because you've got to get away from the old friend. You've got to get away from all these people and things that you were around, anything that pertained to that old life you would need to depart from. You're not going to have people coming over your house, sitting up, talking to you and going on in there if you're coming out of Babylon. The reason they're doing it is because they're keeping you in Babylon. They're keeping you in Babylon because you're striving to hold on to the things of the world and help pull them out. You might not be able to pull them out. They can pull you back in, but you can't pull them out. Me and my brother did some stuff today. But when he comes to town or whatever, we only meet occasionally. We eat breakfast together. Me and him at Don Rae this morning, we do the thing. But see, we can't travel in the same circle even though he says he's religious or something now or whatever. And that's why I don't have a whole lot of friends or whatever because That's Babylon a lot of times if they don't have that same discernment or perspective you have and you see they're doing things or saying little innuendos or things that God's putting a profound thing in you to it you seem like an oddball to them and you are an oddball to them but you're proud to be that oddball because God's pulling you out. God, you're not trying to blend in, and that's what happens to a lot of people. They're blending in, trying to keep the free and keep the family, keep all that together, and God's pulling it apart. He's scattering it, and you don't, you're not contending, you're not standing up. Maybe if Lot would have stood up, his family could have followed him successfully, but he was a weak man. He was a whiner. You don't hear the death of Lot because he wasn't an example to follow. He's someone that goes kicking and screaming. He just made it out by the skin of his teeth. You don't see any inheritance or none of that. He's done wasted everything. Everything was left behind. No respect for Lot, even though he was a righteous man. It has people that the Bible says are righteous and just, but you won't have any rewards laid up. Because you thought with your heart, not with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. See, with his righteousness, some calls we have to make, it's not calls that we would make. You wanna make a different call, but you got to make the hard call. And people don't like the hard call. But you have to be led by the Spirit of God. You have to continue to be led by the, and that's what Paul did. We see here in verse 21 that evil was always present there. He says, I find then a law that when I attempt, when I would do good, evil is present with me. And that is self. That's the old man that you're dragging around. So I say you can't geographically leave Babylon because self could be there. And that's your worst enemy. Because it's going to want to concede. It's going to want to compromise. It's going to tolerate things it shouldn't tolerate. You might not want your wife mad at you or whatever. Sometimes she's going to have to be mad. You might not want your husband mad. Sometimes he's going to have to be mad. Your children will have to be mad. Your parents will have to be mad. That's why he says the households will be separated. God's going to pull different ones out of different households. which ones is up to God. But you have to learn if God's talking to you, save yourself. You save yourself from this. God's calling you and you want that call to get louder. But by staying in Babylon and continuing there, it's going to get duller and duller and you're not going to hear. But you remember Lot's wife, it might happen all of a sudden. Bam! He might just stop all of a sudden. Today is the day of salvation. When you hear his voice, harden not your heart. She hardened her heart and turned around. It was over like. He said, you remember now, it was like as of the days of Noah, people could be marrying and eating and drinking. But just like when Lot and his wife went out of Sodom and Gomorrah, he said, it was a calm day. If you read in that verse, Chapter 19, I think it's Genesis 19, and it was a calm and a nice day when they left out. But it's like that storm down in Florida, that might be the calm before the storm. He say the world will be like that, it's gonna say peace, peace, and it's gonna seem peace, but all of a sudden, sudden destruction will hit. Sometime calamity comes without warning. But God has warned his people, he had called them out of Babylon, he had told them, unless you partake of sin. So we need to, as Abigail, we need to hasten up and go. She hurried up and did what she was supposed to do. Faith is a ashen, it moves you, stagger not at the promises of God. But Lot lingered. The angels had to drag him and his wife and daughters out of there by the hand. They lingered behind. They wasn't strong in faith now. That's why Jesus rebuked his people for having little faith. He said, O ye of little faith. Now he didn't say of no faith. But see, some people have so little faith. In other words, they don't exercise and use that faith and build it up. In verse 23 he says that a war raged within him between law and the sin of his mind. Verse 23 says, but I see another law in my memories, warring against the law of my mind. In other words, the flesh is pulling against the spirit of God. See, there is a spirit in man, but when God plants that seed of faith, that spirit, the word of God, when he births you again, it's a struggle to grow. By taking heed unto the word of God is how you grow. By being an overcomer, in other words, resisting the devil, resisting the things of Babylon, resisting the things of this world. That's why I say it could be a literal Babylon that's pulling you down. The city life, the cares of this life, the cares of this world. It could be a political or a religious entity pulling you down. It could be spiritual, okay? So it says, warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. Now, we have two different things. The law of sin in his members and there's a different law that is in his mind. Whichever one you feed will be the strongest. You have to feed it with the word of God. You have to feed it with prayer. You have to feed it with doing the works of God. You have to resist the devil and he'll flee. Now he might not be going far because he's always with you. And he mentions these two again in verse 25. He says, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. He's serving the law of sin with the flesh, and with the mind the law of God. See, that's why I say we will sin. But that's why I phrase John and say, if you sin, you have an advocate with the Father. That's why you need to consistently be praying to God about the things the sins of things that occur during the day, that by reading and studying his word, that he shows you of sin, he convicts you of that sin. You get a little bit more tender towards sin, sensitive towards sin, when you get strong in the Lord. But if you're callous against the word of God and become dull of hearing, your conscious start in the heart, and you become cold, you become callous. You're not hot or cold, you look warm and God's about to spit you out of your mouth at that time. The evil that lived in him was a remnant of what he had absorbed in this world. And we all have absorbed that in the world. The law of his mind was that new seed from the word of God where God, he circumcises and gives us a new heart. He writes those laws within us. But don't be like Lot's wife. Remember Lot's wife. She disobeyed the knowledge of what God had said. Just like Eve, she disobeyed what God had said. Do you know what God had said and you're doing contrary to that? Tell me that. And that's all the things. That's everywhere. That's the decisions in your life. That's why we're not as strong as we should be. Everybody in here, if you think you're not doing what you should be, that's why you don't, you say old wretched person. If you proud of yourself, you got a problem, I think. That's why we all keep our head hung, because we need to press on towards the mark of the high calling praises. We hadn't wretched yet. The war was between the remnant of Satan's world and its new heart. Galatians 5 and 26. If we go to Galatians the 5th chapter, 16th through the 17th verse. it's going to kind of confirm this last thought, what Paul was saying. He says, I say then, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary, these are opposites. This is a dichotomy. You have two different opposing factors within the same individual. so that you can but you so that you can not do the things that you wish if you're walking in the spirit you're not going to do the things that you want to do that's why Paul said in Romans that he do he don't want to do that he don't want to do is that what he's doing in other words you will have to be led by the spirit the spirits will tell you one thing but the fleshes will tell you another So that's why some people can't lose weight. They're not necessarily hungry, but they're driven by the flesh. That's why he labels gluttony as a sin. Because once you get close to the God, he's going to work with you in that area too. He's gonna work with you in all areas. He will glorify. He wants to be glorified in every area. He don't want you to be depressed and down. He's with you. I could do all things to Christ's favor. But there may be another key to why you can't overcome in that area. There's another symptom going on why you can't overcome in that area. We need to find that out. That's what sanctification is, that process. So you can't do the things. A lot of times I want to sit down and watch TV. I want to do this and that. But it ain't about what I want. My wife was asking that to spread some dirt at the house. And I said, well, why you didn't do that? Or why you do this? Sometimes you do it because an idle mind is a workshop for the devil. We can't just sit down and give up. It's like you come into the church wiping and cleaning and going on. You have to Faith is an action. And that's what we show by our works, is that faith is driving us. There's another motivating factor. Each influence on his mind was communicating to him. This is why we cannot physically escape Babylon. It has left its mark on our perspectives. It has left its mark on our attitudes and our character. And we carry it with us everywhere we go. That's why a man has to take heed to himself and walk circumspectly. You have to say, I know I just ate somebody off of you or something. No, I don't want any of that. You have to be able to exercise self-restraint or self-control. But it's through the spirit that you do these things. Physically, it is impossible. But through Christ, I can do all things because he strengthens us to be able to do those things. Our escape from Babylon is possible, I'm telling you, but it has to be accomplished if God wouldn't tell us to do it. If we couldn't do it, he wouldn't tell us to do it. He didn't empower us and He commanded us, come out of my people. He's calling us and telling us to come out. So we got to strive, we got to choose to come out. So we achieve this by choosing and choosing to allow the law of our mind to triumph over the law of the flesh. That means you're strong in the word of God and it's going to tell you what you shouldn't do and what face the consequences. A lot of us don't like to face the consequences of our wrong or face what's going to happen if we found to be wrong. We don't want to take that loss. We don't want to suffer. It could be painful sacrifices a lot of times. It's really going to be a battle. It's not going to be easy. That's why I say it's not just enduring, it's suffering a lot of times. It's sacrifice. It's giving up. It may be you may not have a family. Your people might leave you. You know, a lot of times you might want to be out eating and drinking and being with them and having a good time. But the Spirit may be leading and guiding you. Are you going to follow the Spirit? Or are you going to look back? Remember Lot's wife. First we need to consider a vital promise God made. Paul proclaims in Philippians 4 and 19. And my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in Christ Jesus. He's going to supply. That's a promise that God's going to supply. I would need, according to his thing in Christ Jesus, we was about to make a mistake that would have been a very costly mistake. But at the last moment, through faith, God intervened and it didn't happen. We were about to move two graves, and the graves we were about to move were the wrong graves, were the wrong corpses. at the last minute. We've been planning this for months and months, but then we've seen the markers we were at the wrong break. My nephew said, no, this is it over here. See, so sometimes you have to go walk by faith or whatever, but God's going to supply the need. God's going to step in. Abraham had went through this whole process before God supplied the ram and the bush. He was committed to do what he felt through faith was right. See, so faith is the unseen. We see through the eyes of faith and we leave it up to God to do the rest. This assurance could just as easily read, he shall supply all our need gloriously. It is a full of exuberant expectation. You expected him to do it. You remember I told you about hope. That's what your hope is in Jesus Christ. That's everything you do. You hope so in Jesus Christ. You hope it in Christ. But it's based in faith. It has to be. That's why I say, will he find faith? Will he find faith when he comes back? If you notice, that's the question he's asking in Luke 17. Will he find faith? Or we gonna be like Lot's wife. A lot of people are not strong enough. What do we need? We need faith in the fact that God is and that He is indeed personally and individually with us. That He is with us, in us. In other words, Christ in us to hope of glory. That you carry Christ around. That's what we have to see, that He is in us. He says, I'll come to you. He's going to send the Holy Spirit in His name. So that Christ is in us, we're being shaped and molded into his image. So he is indeed with us personally and individually, and that his word is true and absolute. We have to have faith in that. Without that, we dead on the vine. In addition, we need vision and hope regarding the value of what is to be gained or lost in making the right choices. We need, in his word, that's what we have hope. He has made promises that we hope in. We know what we're going to lose sometime, but are we carrying the cause in what we're going to gain? What's to be gained and what's to be lost. I might lose a friendship, but I'm going to gain Christ. Paul said, I counted it all lost for the sake of Christ Jesus. All his education, everything that he did, he counted that as done, he said, because this is this world. See, we're not trying to gain houses and cars and things in this world and stuff. That's part of the world. We need to have that love of God and love of fellow man. Let's look at Ephesians 2 and 2. In that book he writes about the course of this world. Let's go there personally because he's talking about the course of this world. Now when he talks about the course of this world, it's cosmos in other words. He's talking about the cosmos. In other words, it's translated world. It means an orderly system. It's an orderly system. To human eyes that's looking at it, all the activity throughout the world don't look orderly. It looks chaotic. It looks confusing, to say the least. But that's according to what perspective you're looking at it in a physical sense. If you look at it in a physical sense, the world is a ball of confusion. It's a temptation thing. But what is going on through the spiritual eye, to the discerning eyes, the eyes of the one whom God has revealed himself. If God has started to reveal and speak to you and call you out of Babylon, you see it's an orderly system of deception in this world. It is cloaked by restless activity among humans that are involved in constant wars, thousands of different religions, of its distractiveness of evil conduct, people killing people, stealing, raping, murdering, robbing, all kinds of wicked immorality going on. Time-wasting businesses, you know, different advertisements on televisions of little stuffing going on. Like I was saying about reunions and get-togethers and all this. All that's a bunch of vanities and things. It's a complex system in the world. You start to see through these smokescreens. You're not chasing after them no more. God starts to waken you up. He quickens you. He makes you alive to see this is a sinister plot behind all this. That these people are not serious. That these people are being deceived. That the world is lost. that they're on the right, wrong track. If you had Ephesians 2 and 2, and Paul says, and you who he had quickened who were dead in trespasses and sin. In other words, he'd waken us up. He made us aware. We're conscious. Now we can see, sitting there watching the talk shows, watching television, watching sports, watching all these things. They was talking about the game, and I said, I don't know who won, and don't care who won. The gain, nothing really in the world really makes anything to... When you start losing sense of value of things in the world, God may have hope to you. When things in the world stop mattering to you, when you start seeing these things, God may be quickening you, making you alive to see all this is just a facade. I need to wake up and see the real life, see the real world. Where in time past you walked according to the course of this world. You did just like the rest of them, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. In other words, that's why he called you out of that world. You used to walk that way. So if you're not coming out of Babylon, you're still walking according to the course of the world. You're still walking that way. Notice something to which we generally do not pay much attention, and that is the word world in that verse. According to the course of the world. Do you pay attention to that? Let me read it again. When in time past we walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. The word world appears as the object of the preposition of, the course of this world. This prepositional phrase modifies the word course, walking according to the course of this world. It's showing us as Paul is speaking of a specific course available for us to choose from among other courses. If you can go this way, you can also go another way, right? The course of this world is going the broad way. We used to walk that way. So you can choose to go the narrow path. You can choose the narrow path. The broad way leads to destruction. That's the course of this world. So he's talking about a specific cause, and that's of the one that's of this world. And Satan's the god of this world. And he's deceiving the whole world. And they're following him off the cliff. You remember the sermon? Get out of the car. The car's going off the cliff. Babylon is going to be destroyed. It's going to be cast into the ocean like that millstone and it shall never rise again. Get out of the car. Get out of the world. Don't follow this course of the world. You got a drunk driver driving you. You got somebody that blinds leading the blind. The Greek word, kos, means aeon. We won't go too deep into that, but you see what I'm saying. You can make a choice either to follow the world or not follow the world. But he tells us to keep us in the world, though. He says, but keep us from the evil that's in the world. So we shouldn't live as the world lives. We should be on a different track. We're not headed to the same destination. We in the world but not of the world. We should have heaven on our mind and we should live that way. I don't want to talk about that. I have talked about Eon and Aeon. the time factor in Elm's sermon of preaching back about time and what's the course and the zeitgeist and all that to help distinguish what that world was and what the world's course was. This is the spirit we must be converted from. From which we must be converted though. The spirit that's in the world. that love the world and the things of the world. Because the Bible says, love not the world and the things of the world. So something has to be working in us to take that desire away in that our desires become his desires. And that's when we start receiving the desires of our heart. Because as children of God, those that's left in Babylon, that's why it's so hard for some of us because the way of the transgressors is hard. God's not going to allow you to enjoy going to hell. He's not going to allow you enjoying. That's why a lot of us are sick. That's why a lot of us are in poverty. That's why a lot of things are going on because you're disobeying unto God. Once you get back within the borders of God, you'll see blessings. You'll see a restoration of those things that are lost. And then if you don't, God will have it to where you could, as you said earlier, endure. See, because a lot of us are not able to endure, we're giving in. It says, the love of beneath shall wax cold because iniquity is abound. A lot of us giving in to the political and the religious systems of this world because it looks like it's winning. It looks like this is the right way. You're being deceived. You're being deceived. It is the unseen foundation and the fountain of our pre-conversion conduct, and it is the same spirit still motivating us when we act carnally or in the flesh. Despite conversion, it remains with us, compressed like a spring that is ready to jump back and influence our conduct. So remember me and what I keep telling you. The do good is there, but to do evil is ever present with you. You have to constantly examine yourself and see whether you're in the faith. That's why I say all of the decisions you make during the day, everything is a choice. You got to start choosing life. He told him in Deuteronomy, choose life. The only way you can choose life is know what God's words say and live according to His word. He says, His word, how can a young man receive this, he says, by hiding the word in his heart, taking heed to the word of God. Reading the book of Proverbs, he's telling me, follow my instructions. So, we got to start more diligently studying and taking heed to the word of God, but being a doer. exercise of use of doing that which God tells us to do and not doing what he tells us not to do and a lot of good examples are in the Old Testament Hebrews 11 and 8 Paul first draws attention to the fact that when God called Abraham as he was called then he disobeyed without knowing where he was going I said it the wrong way he didn't just He blindly left. When he called Abraham, he didn't actually know where he was going. Listen, it's in Hebrews 12, 1-3. Hold on, I'm talking from Hebrews 11-8, but what I'm going to quote is in Genesis 12, 1-3. Paul was discussing it in Hebrew about Abraham not knowing where to go. He was referencing this back to Genesis 12 through 3. 1 through 3. Now the Lord had said to Abraham, get out of your country from your family and from your father's house to land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make you a great name. And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and will curse those who curse you. and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed so he had to leave his country which was essentially Babylon you remember I said he stayed in Ur of the Chaldeans so he was called God commanded or told him to get out of Babylon and that was his ethnic kindred so his house and his near relatives like Lot 4 implies that he did not dilly-dally around waiting for further or more specific instructions, but that he left quickly. It is not said how God appeared to Abraham. Notice in Genesis it didn't tell us how. Was it in a dream? Was it by an angel? Or was it just how this happened? Perhaps he had appeared to him physically through You remember the angel of the Lord would make appearances in the Old Testament. Somebody said the angel of the Lord appeared to him. Whereas he talks to Moses through the burning bush. But God apparently had been preparing him. Maybe God was preparing him beforehand by revealing his existence to him. Have God been showing you through your life that he does exist? and with different things you know it was God and because the book of Romans says he had appeared the grace of God had appeared to all men Titus well God's here showing and he could have brought Abraham brought it about by social circumstances things happen, like I say, sometimes God throws us in the fog of urgency or some things God moves us out of a certain place. And then you say, you remember, like I said, what happened at the cemetery today? Well, you know, that was God. I know that was God stepped in because the people had the cable and thing on the wrong one at that time. See that's why I say, sometime God waits and see how far things go and he makes an intervention. So sometime God's waiting for us to do the actions. And so we don't know what the circumstances that added to Abram's urgency, but we know that he did take his father with him. That became a problem and I think he dwelt in Haran until the father died because God hadn't called the father out. He had specifically told him to leave his father's house. He had told him to leave there. In Revelations 18 and 2, Let me hammer that point of bringing out a little bit more often. Often God provides incentive by leading a person through experiences and preparations for a more formal calling later. So just like with Abraham, I don't know what was going on in his life and some of our lives. I don't know what God's doing to prepare you for what he has further up the road. But sometime you'll see that God was necessarily working in your life to prepare you for something greater. Especially when you walk in by faith and already call of God because each past experience builds up stronger faith and a stronger work. You become brighter and brighter. In other words, as you learn of God, you emit more light. You become stronger, it's ever increasing faith. You take greater faith chances. So people of a little faith, they're not mistaken when the big thing comes. It's what Jeremiah said, if you can't run with the footman, how you gonna run with the horseman? If you can't do the little things, how is it gonna happen when it become a big challenge? So that's why God is preparing us, like I said, for the community to come, for the kingdom of God. As royal priests, as a priesthood, a priest teaches others the laws and things of God. And if we're the rulers, priests, and kings with him, that means he's preparing us now for a greater role later. It's all through faith and by faith. In God's description of Babylon's evil qualities, He links, I think I talked about this Saturday, that He was linking it with birds, demons with birds. As He did in the parable of the sower, but the birds came and plucked the word out of some people's... And that's what happens when we stay in Babylon and become partakers along with other sins. Because sometimes we want to, you go to my church, I go to your church. You're kind of split with the religions and things and whatever. And now, you can start believing in it. I noticed on, I don't know how many of y'all listen to sermon audio to stuff on, but you go to a lot of people and start noticing the difference with Easter and Christmas and things that it's not biblical. And I think if you looked at it the other day, a lot of cities and states and things that say, well, look, this Columbus Day is not right. We're not gonna celebrate Columbus Day. They stopped celebrating a lot because they know he didn't discover America. Columbus didn't discover America and that's what's taught in history over here. But now they know that the Native Americans was here long, he came in and that's what brought disease. That's what brought disease into this nation was Columbus and he brought the old world diseases to America. That's why a lot of Indians and a lot of the pilgrims and things died out. They brought those things here. But then also, the Normans, the Swedish people, the other people see, that left Ericsson, the Viking. He had been here hundreds of years before Columbus had. So sometimes this world is a facade, and it's not what's going on that's true. And if you study American history or whatever, you'll see it was against the law. It was against the American law to celebrate Christmas back when America's was first born. It was against the law to celebrate Christmas, because they knew it was pagan. But this business community, this business Babylon, this merchant who did business with the whole world, that's why he calls us out of Babylon. You know, a lot of the Christians' debt and distress and vain comes at Christmas time, trying to get toys and gifts and all this other stuff. A lot of people, it's an immoral, unethical time of year for them. But along with Babylon's deception come all of these, that's why it says, come out of her unless you partake of her plagues. But we will stop there tonight.