We're going to finish this morning with the paper we started Wednesday night, coming out of Babylon. Because I tell you, it's not geographical in that you would have to have faith to come out of Babylon. Because like I say, if it's not physical and it's not geographical, it's a spiritual movement. That's going to require leaving a lot behind. And a lot of us can end up like Lot's wife. And that's what I'm going to be preaching next week on this same subject. But in Luke, the 17th chapter, in the 32nd verse, we have, I guess, next to the shortest verse in the Bible. A lot of people say Jesus' whip was the shortest verse in the Bible. The third verse of chapter 17 says, remember Lot's wife. That's all it says, remember Lot's wife. And that's on the heels of a discussion he was making with the disciples because the Pharisees had came asking and demanding about the kingdom of God. And see, the world can't see this forming And that's what's happening. Satan's sending all kinds of people to pull you off the trail. It might be your wife. It might be your best friend. It might, you know, I went over to Sister Harris' house just now to get something out of her house or whatever. Two or three women standing around or coming out or whatever. All this could be the themes. See, it's not a physical fight, but it's spiritual. So all things, it could be your best friend. Like I say, when he says you must hate mother, father, sister, or brother, you have to be able to leave all that behind and focus on the Word of God. Focus on God calling you out of that. See, so like I say, it's not physical, it's not geographical, but it's spiritual because friends will hinder you, people will hinder you. And Lot couldn't be hindered, his daughters couldn't be hindered, but his wife could be hindered because she didn't listen to God, she disobeyed. She looked back, and that's why of all the people in the Bible, he didn't say remember Abraham, remember Sarah, remember Abigail or nobody, he said remember Lot's wife. This was a fallen woman, but she was a rebellious woman. Now, we're going to have to go back to where we was last week. I'm putting that in your mind as a seed to plant in your mind. I'm just planting that seed. We're given the charge to come out of Babylon according to Revelations 18 and 4, unless we share in her judgments and plagues. So if God's calling you out, and like I said, God calls you, and you're not listening for an audible voice, hey, come out here, but it's the circumstances, it's the things that's bearing in on your life that you should see what's wasting your time. you should see what's that's not of god you can see what's not fruitful or what's hindering you you know some people you have to say well okay well i'll show you that if i have time and paul was talking about that hebrews about laying uh uh off of hebrews we just we saying as paul as the canonical writers did to make sure it got in the scripture but he says uh about leaving The sixth chapter of Hebrews says, therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on to the perfection, not laying on again the foundations of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrines of baptisms and of laying on of hands and of resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits. In other words, those are teachable, and as I say, as the church growing, you got different people you can teach that to at other times. But if they have wasted their time, you remember the five foolish virgins? If they hadn't got the fundamentals of the baptism, if they hadn't got the fundamentals of the doctrine, They will have to search out those that sail and buy. In other words, those preachers are people of whoever held up their time, because we're going on, he says, we're going on into the profession of the saints. We need to understand other doctrine and other teachings. See what I'm saying? We need to be growing in the Lord. Now those people are hindering us from growing in the Lord because we didn't become dull of hearing from getting stuck with them. If lots of daughters would have went back to help their mama, they'd have perished. They listened to Jesus and listened to the Word of God. They kept running. Nobody looked back but up. That's her problem. If your brothers or your sisters or your mama, whoever get lost, they lost. God calling me this way. Paul said, forgetting that which is behind. Let us press on toward the mark of the high court. If he's calling you out, he's preparing you and he's doing a job in such a way that you would take care of those things that he purposed to giving you to take care of. So on the way out of Babylon, there he is working, there's preparations to do. That's why I say the people that's in the physical that hadn't been born again can't understand this. And they do it like with a hammer and chisel in the wrong way. They do it in a religious way, but they don't have the spirit. They're working for Jesus Christ. They may be helping people and teaching people and feeding the needy and doing good religious stuff, but they hadn't been born again. So the blinds leaving the blind, they'll be lost. Those are the ones that's gonna think that I was in the church, I went to church, I did all this. But you lost because you didn't do what Jesus told you to do. He's like, they're like Martha, they're covered by a bunch of work or whatever. And Mary was sitting down there listening to the words. She chose the good thing. So we have to choose the word of God and follow after that. He said, if you don't come out of her, you'll be a partake of her plagues and judgments, which means you will fall along with that. You're not going to overcome once he, because if you started 18 and 1, it says Babylon is fallen, is fallen. In other words, this foregone conclusion. When I say the nation of certain people are lost, they're lost. You can stand back there all you want and think you will get through to them and think you will help them. They're stuck right where they belong and you will be stuck right there with them because it's not for them to comprehend. Some people not to comprehend, but they'll be able to function on that level that God has them on. But you're not gonna be satisfied because you were trying to Consume, this was your pride, your lust, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life, whatever it is you were looking back for. Whatever physical thing you got out of it, it wasn't spiritual. Now you didn't turn to a pill of salt. You'd have been doomed to destruction because you wasn't pressing on toward the mud. If we have a discerning heart, we should have a good idea of what will attract vultures as it will be giving off the smell of spiritual death. God gives us that discerning heart and we can make good choices. That's why I say we have to make good choices so people could be, so explain this to me and that, about the Bible and all that. Look, I really don't have time. You could come to the church or whatever. and you can get caught up to speed, we'll have a way to get you caught up to speed. But so far as me wasting time with this and that, the time you should have been digging foundations and laying the foundation, we're pressing on now. We're going on to farther and deeper territory. We might have somebody that can teach or have time for you in that, but right now, I've got to study the Word of God. It's just like Peter and him when they say, well, look, we have to give attention to the word of God. And let's point out some deacons for this problem or that problem. And that's why I told you this morning. I said, thanks, deacon. You saved me this morning because this was very important. That's the word of God, teaching that. And that's what the deacons are, hands and pillows for the deacons. He says, but God's gonna give you a discerning mind that those things, and if you have faith and trust in God, when you start doing those things in your everyday life, it's just those little things, that's how faith is built up, that's how trust, because your focus is on Jesus Christ. That's hearing the word of God coming out of Babylon, all that pulls you out of Babylon. That's taking heed to the call, that's not looking back. You're pressing on toward the mob, and it gives you a heart. And that's why I say your faith is ever increasing. It's an increasing faith. And when I was telling you about in the book of Luke, that's why I said this is getting kind of complicated, because people think that, well, I'm going to go to church and do this. Well, you rise up in the morning or whatever. You go to sleep in church, or you're just going to church to be at church. You hadn't prayed during the week. You hadn't prayed before you came to church. So you wasn't looking for God, you didn't find God. But if you've been hungering and thirsting and pleading for God to fill you and do something in your life and make a change in your life, you'll find Him if you're really seeking the Lord. But some people that's just in it for just to be in it, or people just coming to your house, or people just say, oh, pray for me, and talking religious stuff. These are religious people Jesus was talking to. These were his disciples when he said, remember lots. Why? This wasn't the world he was talking about. It's just like in the Ten Commandments, that commandment, the Fourth Commandment, and the other commandments, all the commandments are there. But you remember what the Sabbath, it says, remember the Sabbath? In other words, I don't have to explain that to you. That's foundational doctrine. That's something you should already know. You should already know by Lot's wife that she was in direct disobedience. She was in direct disobedience, and she turned back, and the angel had told her not to turn back. And she perished, and she was preserved in that state of rebellion for the rest of, throughout eternity, and it was shown by her being preserved. You saw it as a preservative. Like I said, that followed up on the hills. If you read Luke 17th chapter, that would help you this coming week. This coming week it would help you if you read Luke the 17th chapter and starting maybe at the 17th verse all the way down to the 37th verse. Jesus answered and he had just healed some lepers. One leper came back. One of the lepers came back and Jesus said, well weren't there ten cleansed? But where are the nine? There are not, and he says, there are not found that they are not found that return to give glory to God. Say this stranger, this is the only one that came back. He said unto him, arise, go thine way, thine faith hath made thee whole. It was your faith to come back and worship and glorify me. That's what actually made you whole. The rest of them were made whole in a different way. It was temporary. Okay? It was just like the resurrection of Lazarus. Lazarus eventually died. We're talking about a faith that this faith is one that you have to contend for. Earnestly contend, in other words, always strive and struggle to be pleasing unto God, and this is something that people's trying to get away from you, trying to get that anointing away from you. And when the Pharisees, and when he was demanded of the Pharisees when the kingdom of God should come, He answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation, neither shall they say, Lo, here, or lo, therefore. Behold, the kingdom of God is within you. See, it's within you. He had planted that seed of faith. But you're hindering the growth of it by not watering it with the word, not exercising faith, not increasing it by prayer in the works to do. So it's already done. You're not to observe and see the kingdom coming. That's what Lot's wife was. She was like the religious people that had enjoyed all of the luxuries, all of the things because her husband was saved. You remember Lot was righteous. So he was rich in wealth and she had enjoyed all of those things. And a lot of people could enjoy a lot of the things and all of the benefits of the church, but they're not gonna make it in. She was almost saved, but she looked back. Almost there, and no song, 99 ain't gonna do. You gotta get 100. You've got to get on you. You can't stop back. So Sometime you have to save yourself from this untoward generation No matter how much you love or how much you love in the world You love the world of the things of the world. You're not worthy of following Jesus So all this should put us to mind and remembrance lots why? that we have to be discerning of what's going on around us. Those people, those things around us are to hinder us, are to hinder our progress. Do we really believe the scriptures about the swiftness of Christ's return? It is easy to look out at world events and compare them to our understanding of prophecy, and we know that things are bad and getting worse, right? But the end still is not. But Jesus was gonna come suddenly. Destruction was gonna come suddenly. The world's going to think things will get better or whatever. But it was just like Sodom and Gomorrah. If you keep reading that 17th chapter, it says, it's going to be as the times of the days of Noah, or as it was with Sodom and Gomorrah. When you remember Noah, there was eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage until the flood came. Sodom and Gomorrah was going on about their business or whatever. It was sudden destruction. And see, Lot's wife didn't have time to repent. I want you to get the magnitude of that statement. Remember Lot's wife, she didn't have time to repent or change anything in her life. When she looked back, whoop pow, it's it, boom. Just the idea of disobedience. You remember Ahab had a chance to repent when Elijah told him what he had did, and Ahab humbled himself and repented? But see, this was rebellion against known sin, and this is a statement here. That's why with the faith, you can't put salvation off. You can't, the day is the day of salvation. Here's where, so a lot of people, how many people you've witnessed to and went out and talked to trying to get them in church. I'm going to come one day pastor, I'm going to come one day brother. And they keep promising they're gonna come and this and that. And you've been, 10 or 20 years, you've been talking to those people and it's always sitting on there, reading and everything. But they're gonna stay stuck in their old church. The church that they're in or wherever they are, they're not gonna come out of Babylon because they're comfortable there. They're comfortable in their church. That's their mama's church, everybody else with their church. And like they say, they're gonna die in that church. And they will die there. But he's calling his people out of Babylon and don't you get stuck with them. Lots of children in Latin live to fight another day, but not as white. This conclusion is filled with assumptions, though. If we look and conclude that everything will continue just the way it is and that Jesus will come one of these days way off here or whatever, but Jesus didn't tell us to live like that. We should live like the day is that day, that he could come at any time, that we should be looking for him. The conclusion is filled with, one is that our understanding of end time events is correct. If you want to take that assumption that you know how it's going to end, looking at wars and rumors of wars, you know how it's going to end or whatever. And the second assumption is that even if we do have a correct understanding, we will never lose it through deception. We think that we can see how this thing turn and we can change at the last minute. We could be like the thief on the cross and get in. We got time to change it. They tell you one of these days I'll do this and one of these days, yeah, but tonight your soul is required of you. It come up on us suddenly. So you taking assumptions that you have time and you might not have time. I go see people all the time that was in the church or around the church. Now they don't know who they are. Some of them are dead. Some of them are friends of people out in the world or whatever. And that's why I tell you, be careful looking back into the world, old friends, old people, and they're not pressing on toward God. They'll hinder you. They'll drag you back. Don't look back. It tells us not to look back. A third is that our faith will remain constant to the end. But didn't I tell you that he says, pray that your faith not fail and I showed you where Gideon's faith failed that's why he told Peter that I pray that your faith not fail and see that's the thing that's going on now the whole world is being deceived we live in Babylon and most people can't see that that we're living in Babylon Babylon is worldwide So you can't come out geographically or physically. But see, you being deceived by patriotism, your allegiance to the flag, your allegiance to your country, all that is idolatry. Your allegiance has to be to God, allegiance to Jesus Christ. That's why Naboth's faith thing failed, because he stood up on God's word. And you trying to save your life, and you're going to lose your life. You trying to save it, she tried, Lot's wife tried to save her life and she lost it. That's why I said it's going to take faith. It's going to take faith. That's going to be the earnest faith. That's the only way you're going to hear the word of God. You can't become dull of it. And so the devil is able to deceive the whole world. The God of this world had blinded this world. He's blinded them through religion, through another Jesus. So we're in the most dangerous place to be at here in Babylon because this is where the other Jesus is. This is another Jesus being preached. This religion has put this political system in power that's in there. And if you read, study, The Woman Rides the Beast, it's the church that brings that in. Like back when the Roman church rode the back of the Roman government in, and they started to punish. It's not gonna be long in this nation before the true people of God can see it. Well, the true people of God see it now, and they are fleeing, they're coming out of Babylon, and it takes a long time. We don't know how long God could do it. But each and every day, He's strengthening you right where you're at. Right where you're at. You don't have to go anywhere. God's right where you're at. The kingdom of God is right there among you. But you're not going to see it because it's through the eyes of faith that you see this. A fourth assumption, or bad assumption, is that when we do decide to get serious, that we will have ample time to build character and take on the image of God and complete our sanctification. You mean to tell me that you can mold and build character the way you want it when you get one? And I told you Jesus Christ is the author and the finisher of your faith, and he says, come out from among them and be separate? See, because he was a weak Christian, Lot caused his wife to get killed. He can't fault Lot because she was on her own. She should have been able to see that. So she was married to someone that got saved. But she seen that Lot was a weak Christian. There are a lot of weak men, weak people that are leaders today. If you're a weak woman that's in the lead of your home, you'll be another Lot and not Lot's wife. See, Lot's wife is unnamed. See, in other words, married to a Christian, are going and sitting in church, but still not make heaven, not make it out. Because they look at you doing the same things that they doing. You celebrating the same holidays, drinking and gambling and doing, and Jesus tell us that that servant that got drunk and did all this with the rest of them, He will come back, his Lord's gonna come back in a day that he knoweth not, and he's gonna receive. That's why it says, come out from among them, be ye separate, and I'll be a God unto you. You got to be separate right there, right here. That's where the biggest struggle is, is not to participate in this world system. Love it, not the world. So it takes faith to come out of Babylon. It takes agonizing. contending for that faith. A fifth is that our Creator will go along with our agenda, pushing Him off to the last minute. Come on, come on out. Well, you just wait a minute, Jesus. I'll come when I'm getting ready. A lot of people say, well, I'll come when I get ready. That's how God operates, though. He's calling you, and you will come when you get ready. You will put God off. Those are a lot of brazen assumptions that we make. And when you hear his call, you need to heed his call. That's why he told them, now remember Lot's wife. She was close, but close only counts in horseshoes. It don't count in life. If we are misjudging these things, we might hear those terrible words, depart from me, you that work iniquity, I never knew you. Matthew 7 and 23. You could be saying, Jesus, did we do this in your name? Did we go to church? Didn't we give? Didn't we help the needy? I never knew you. If we are delaying the time to start seeking God, the vultures may be eyeing us as one who may not be spiritually able to survive what lies ahead. That's why I tell you, It's gonna get rough, you know, it preaches it and the messengers aren't telling you the angels came in and do you know they grabbed lots white by the hand of Jekah out angels wretch out read chapter verse 19 of that chapter in Genesis and it says that angel grabbed her her daughters and lots body and and pull them out anger from heaven dragged up and but she still got lost and When the preachers are preaching and teaching, don't worry about what Brother Jackson said. That's his talk. I can come when I get ready. Keep procrastinating. Procrastinating. See, when Abigail found out what her husband and neighbor had did, she didn't procrastinate. They say she hastily put this food and stuff together and went out and did it and sought David. You have to make haste in the word of God. Be haste. That means be diligent. Be heed to yourself. Awareness, consciousness, and God should be waking up your awareness. You should be aware of God every minute of the day. Everybody that speaks to you. Everything that happens is a consistent awareness of what's going on in and around you. It's consistency. Perhaps all of us have seen this happen to people we care about. I have a brother that I kept asking him, when was he going to come back or whatever? He'd be back. He'd be back. No, he's not either. He's not. I'll see him in a day sometime, but he's not coming back here. See, when I say about Babylon, he says, unless you partake of her plagues. See, that's why I say it's gonna be a lot of people that, God's people that perish outside the church. So I'm not saying that these people are lost. I'm not saying like so, because it's not me to judge anybody else. But you won't make it in the church, though. You won't be in the church. You get out of the church. That's why I tell you, be careful visiting old church members or whatever, for you know you could be standing right out there with them. Women that sit around and talk with unmarried women or different women about their husbands or men talk about their wives or whatever before they know it's somebody else got that wife or husband or whatever. The vultures are trying to find out where you're spiritually weak at. They're trying, by your words and things, they're watching you. Satan, your adversary the devil, is out there like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. It's 24-7, you have to be alert. And there's no time like the present to seek our healing, to protect it, to beat off these hated birds, because as I you'll see next week when I'm talking about it in Revelations when he tells them to come out Revelations 18 chapter 4 verse in the 5th verse listen at what he says those that get stuck in there it says I've heard another voice saying, come out of her my people that ye be not partake of her sins. So they are his people. But some of them will get sick and they will die. They will not make it out of Babylon. There were many a people that didn't make it out of Babylon to come back to Jerusalem. They didn't make it. They stayed in Babylon. They had got comfortable in Babylon. That's where they died at. Very few came back to Babylon. And that's why I said, we have to have a great understanding of what's being preached or taught, or we will get this thing wrong and go out to say something and something that you don't understand, something the preacher's preaching or teaching and God's word is doing, and you're going to lean to your own understanding and you're going to be lost. You have to stay with God till you get crystal clear clarity, and that means forever. Faith, hope, and love, those will never pass away. You'll be ever learning with God. Like Job says, he's heard of God, but now he knows, now he's seen with his eyes. Verse five says, for her sins have reached unto heaven, and God had remembered her iniquities. Reward her as she has rewarded you, double for her According to her words in the cup which she had filled filled with double She had become evil and wicked and in every hateful and verse 2 says and cried mightily with a strong voice said Babylon the greatest fallen is fallen has become the habitations of devils and the whole of every foul spirit and cage of every unclean and hateful bird Those are all unclean birds that are carrying birds are are animals that destroy. It's like the birds of the air destroyed the word that was sown by the sea, by the sower, because there are different religions that can pick you apart. There are different doctrines and things out there. They are not doctrines of God. That's the other Jesus. Those teachings and everything will damn your soul to hell. And those are the birds of the air. He says, in this nation, Every religion thrives. All these different religions, whether it be Christianity, Islam, or whatever, it's out there. And that's where the anti-Christ is going to rise up, is in Christianity. Because anti doesn't necessarily mean what people think it is. Anti means in place of, also. In other words, there's another Jesus arising in the place of this Jesus. It looks just like this Jesus and teaches and preaches, but it's like Satan's doctrine that came quoting scriptures. So that's why your parents and people told you all these through the years about everybody in the church won't be saved, this is the church and that, that, because we see in Revelation Jesus fighting against the church. But we have to understand his words in the book of Matthew and other places where it says the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church. That's because you have a false church. That's why a lot of people are coming out of the mega churches and away from the mega teachers and preachers because they are part of this fallen Bible. Satan's ministers are transforming the angels of light. So there are many churches revelations tell you to come out of, repent, and come away from. So that's the great deception, is religion has combined with politics, and that's the beast. So you have a bad system. But he tells us to come out. But once you receive that mark, you can start trying to mark others and pull others back. In the parable of the 10 virgins, the foolish ones thought that they had time. You remember, they didn't rise to trim their lamps. They didn't keep them trimmed. They didn't keep oil in their lamp. A group of half the church is foolish. They don't pray. They don't study. They're not out doing what God purposed them to do. Unless you're out doing what God called you to do and seeking and doing that, you're not getting out of here. They were left behind. The five foolish, it says, go to them that buy and sell and get it. The five wise went on in, left the five foolish. Now, all these was in a condition where they should have known God. They did know. They said the five wise virgins and five foolish. Don't be part of the foolish that's in the church thinking you're going to get on. You can't ride your mama's coattail. You can't ride your brother's or your daddy's or your grandma's coattails. Each man's faith have to stand up on his own. They probably was aware that the reserves of oil were not full. But don't he tell us to be full of the Spirit? Be drunk not with wine? See, but this world has a wine, Babylon has a wine that's intoxicating. That's why the doctrine, that leaven, that's what drunk, this drink made the saints drunk. It was the wine, the preaching and teaching of Babylon. It was these other doctrines. These other Jesus. They did not count on falling asleep. They did not count on life happening. Things just happen in life. My sister told me the other day, said, well, Pastor, I'm not going to be able to do what I want to do or do this or do that because things happen. I said, well, that's God working on you. God's working with you. Till you realize things happening, you're not going to be able to do everything you want to do. Satan's going to block here, and Satan's going to block there. But where he's blocking here and there, he opens up a door somewhere else. He's opening up. So that's why it takes faith not to deter and get off that trail. They didn't do proper preparations. A lesson we can draw from this, if we're not putting everything we have into our calling right now, no matter how much time is left, it's not going to matter. If you're not putting it all into it right now, it's just like me and somebody was talking when the United States had went to war with Iraq or whatever, and they was talking about the weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein had or whatever. And all of us, I was talking, and the guy was talking. He said, well, he don't have a super weapon or a super bomb. The United States had actually lied on him and was attacking Iraq. Because if he'd have had it, he'd have used it. If you have a weapon, if you have it, you'd better use it. You'd better not save it, because you might not get a chance to use it. Don't underestimate your opponent. Throw everything at Satan now while you can. Each day you put it all into it. You put all you can into each day as you live because tomorrow ain't promised. Tomorrow ain't promised to you, so you try to deal that death blow while you can. You get ready and throw everything you got into this thing. So don't end up like the foolish virgins and let this thing get away from you. Judgment is coming on the world, but right now it's at the house of God. He's judging the house of God at this time. Some of them are getting fixed and fitted in, in bad character. 1 Peter 4, 17 tells us that the judgment starts at the house of God. That's why I see now And every day, and I don't follow the news that closely, because why should you follow the things of this earth, of this world or whatever, when the world's passing away? Oh, that's going to happen. That's in the Bible. We see that. That's going to happen. I'm trying to study and find out religiously what's going on. People are dying all around us and everything. I tell them, people die all the time. That's natural. That's part of the process now. Somebody get robbed and shot and killed, that's natural. That's part of it. And if you read the Bible, they say, well, why you got such a morbid point of view? Because the Bible tells me this is going to get worse. It says, iniquity shall wax worse. In other words, you're politically, you're religiously, they're going to get worse than what they are now. Man, it's not going to get any better. He might get more conniving and stealthily in what he's doing. You know, a lot of times you have those friends of people you know that's treacherous. treacherous. In other words, they keep coming after you one way or whatever, but after they realize you didn't got helped in any way, they try to come after you another way or whatever. The devil don't give up. Satan doesn't give up. Snakes don't give up. They just try to outwit you. That's why God said, be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. But the church in the world is getting more violent and vindictive. Christians are getting more violent and vindictive. The hateful Christians, that's full of hate, full of vitriol. You can sense it. You can feel it. Maybe I should give these points here before I go too far in this direction about coming out of Babylon. I wanted to end with them. Thanks to Deacon Hubbard bailing me out this morning. I want to go on to this other one here. Judgment on those who stubbornly resist coming into alignment with him. Voters will literally gather for those who rebel against God in a final battle. These religious people, or the people that's coming out there, whether it be political or religion, they'll rebel against God in this violent battle. Revelation's 19th chapter, 17th through the 20th verse. And I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God, that ye may eat the flesh of the kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of the mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and then sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great. And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army. And the beast was taken with him in the false prophets that wrought miracles before him, which he had delivered them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast into the fire. And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth, and all of the fowls of the air were filled. What do we see here? What are we looking at? The people in this nation, the people in the world throughout, God's people, the religious people that are being deceived by Babylon that would take part in these plagues and deception, these are the slain that are under the altar. These are the ones who had been killed because they didn't know how to fight. There are a lot of people out there trying to fight against the forces of evil. And they hadn't been taught the war because they didn't go to church. They didn't study God's word. They're not living for God. These people will be saved, but they'll die. They're partaking of the plagues because they're in Babylon. Remember, we're trying to live to see Jesus Christ coming. We're fighting wars. He's going to make us stronger. You remember the pharisee, what's his name, Tom Hanks in the book The Green Mile? And he said, well, he had got something that gave him life. And he lived, and he's seen his wife die, his children die, everybody die. He said, well, you're going to die, too, and he'll be here. Because you're going to live to see, that's something, seeing your people die and all this. You're seeing your brothers and sisters die, but you're still here. You want to be here to fight that battle. Now, they're going on home. You hate that they're going on home. But you want to live to see another day. So you can't, a lot of people say, you're going to be all right. No, he's dying. He's going to die here. He's not going to make it. Some of us are not going to make it. But you want to be that one that God gives that life to, that strength to. So he lived. Tom Hanks, you remember, had the dream. He lived. He continued on. The rest of them didn't have what it takes. They wasn't diligent for God. They couldn't fight that fight. So one of these days we'll all, like my dad used to say, an awful day coming. An awful day coming. But we should be living in God tells us that he's gonna turn us over. In a few years, probably, you will see that when this nation breaks apart, you could see it lining up politically here as religion and politics line up. You will see persecution in this nation, and you will see these things. See how they're treating women nowadays in this nation or whatever? It's going to get worse, and like you say, it's going to turn on one another. You think it's bad? No, you just wait. That's what he told Habakkuk. Habakkuk, you think it's bad? No. Says, the just shall live by faith. And he says, now, in Hebrews, that repeats that in the book of Hebrews. He says, but my soul have no pleasure in them that draw back. It's going to be a bloody fight, and it's going to be a lot of them that's going to be scared to fight. You know, people pass if they say, I ain't in this, I ain't. You got to be on one side. Jesus said, you're either for me or you're against me. See, some of the people, that's why he take them out, because they're like Gideon's army, 32,000 of them. And they say, all those that among you are fearful and scared, go back. In a crowd, there's a lot of people. They want that glory of faith, but they're scared. God hadn't given us a spirit of fear. So he takes them out, because in the book of Revelation, we say the fearful and the coward, It's like this blues song I used to hear or whatever. They so enamored by the world, the cares of this life, the women and the men and the things of this life, the song says, he's too weak to fight. He's too weak to fight. You can get too weak to fight because this world has bound you. You don't have any strength. It's been draining you. You too tied up with it. You say, let me finish this, you can finish that. I don't care. I've walked out in the middle of the movies, middle of the games or whatever, people talking about the game. I don't care about the game. I don't care about the movie. I don't care about any of this. I care about Jesus. That's the penultimate right there. If that's where your hope lies, that's where your joy lies. No matter how this, I don't know who won the Super Bowl two years ago. Who cares? They don't care about that. They look at who we're in this year. They don't care about, you have people that used to be for this and that, but those are passing pleasures. They are on to another pleasure. So God strengthens his people, and he's gonna allow this to happen. The evil that's gonna come up, God's allowing this to happen. People say, where God is? That's him sending that. He's allowing that. Job was wanting to talk to God, and he was saying, you tried it. God's right there in the midst of the fire. You remember I told you Wednesday night, God has a habit of throwing us in the fire. He has a habit of throwing you right in the middle of the fire. But the test of your faith is worth it. You're being tried by fire. And every man's work could be tested, and you're gonna receive what's left that ain't burned. So if you're dealing with wood stubble, hey, you got a problem. The multitude of warnings and prophecies mean that this is a possibility because it is a certainty for some. Yet when all that God makes available, there's no good reason for that judgment to fall on us. So all these warnings and everything, you hate for it to happen to them. But look, I can't help it. God had warned us to flee. God didn't warn us, so I'll help you. You make them comfortable. You make them comfortable here on this earth, but you will die in this state. You won't make it through this. You know, some people, one of my brothers, I was telling him about the doctor. He said some evil doctor had told him to get some stuff ready or whatever. I said, I don't think the doctor was really evil or whatever. I think he was telling you to face up to the truth. I don't think it's a good doctor that gives you a good prognosis and you'd like to check out of him. The doctor told him to get things in order or whatever. But he listened to another doctor, somebody just like people go to preachers and things, tell them with itching ears what they wanted to hear. It was a few months later, three or four months later, that he wasn't hearing. That doctor that he called mean was telling him the truth. Elijah, the prophets and things, told him the truth, but that's why they killed Jesus, because he said, I told you the truth, or you go about to kill me. People don't want to hear the truth. They say, tell us a lie. Tell us something that's smooth, something that we can palate. People don't want to hear the truth. They'll kill you about the truth. They love darkness rather than light. They don't want to hear that you have to give this up. That is, the fire and brimstone preachers, their churches are not full. Because people don't want to hear you've got to suffer. People want to hear that it says you're favored by God and you're going to be blessed and God will give you all kinds of money and all good things are going to happen. But the reality of life Man, it's a battle out there. It's a struggle. Sometime, boy, you wonder how you going to pay the water bill. And that's one of the easier bills to pay. If you can't pay the water bill, the light bill, that's a big one. It gets tough out there. It's going to get tough for buying grocery after a while. All that smooth as a thing, the same ones that's feeding you that, those are the ones that's going to feed off your bones. That's going to pick the meat off your bones, the same friends that you had over at your house eating that seafood and all that stuff. When you're broken down and out, they're going to have another group of friends or whatever, they're going to cast you to the side. They will go on about their business. You could be like the prodigal son. You could spend all your inheritance, all of that, you could be wasted and all your friends be gone and you need to go back home. You're gonna need to go back home with something that can make it back home. communications and leaving Babylon. Romans 7, 15, and 25. Though converted for about 25 years when he wrote Romans, Paul comments in the 17th verse that sins sufficiently strong enough to pull him in the wrong direction still remain in him. Don't underestimate. It's in the flesh. Sin is in you. Babylon is in us. It's been shaped. It's been formed and cultured in us. This is something that we carry around dragging this dead man with us all the time. So that's why I say Babylon is geographical, physical, and all that. It's in the mind. If you hear Alcoholics Anonymous and they tell you, you can stay sober for 10 years, There's one drink, and you could be back on that wagon. It's there. It's lying under there. That temptation, you seen that? It was a picture I think Mel Brooks had about this guy. And he was a gambler or whatever. And he had, he was the Maverick, Robert James Garner. And he had lost all his money, because he loved it to gamble or whatever. He got straight, saved the town or whatever. But at the end, he had this water money, and he passed that roulette wheel or whatever. And he couldn't help but put it down on red. You're not going to be able to bypass that lottery ticket. This might be the one. Lot's wife looked back. I might win the big one here. They say it's up to a billion dollars. All I got to put down is a dollar or two. I might win it. But see, you're loving the world. You're looking back. If you've laid aside all those things, don't pick them back up. Let's keep on here. Let me read this one here before I run out of time. to capsize just of coming out of Babylon. And I read to you Revelations 18 and 4. So when God separated Abraham and his family from his family, you remember he told Abraham to come out of Babylon, to come away from his family and all those people and his country. And God separated Israel from Egypt. You remember, he says, come out of Egypt, my people. He called them out. That sanctification was geographical. He was able to call Israel out of Egypt. He was able to call Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldeans, and Abraham went out. But that's not the way it is now. This is the spiritual coming out. It's like when he told Adam, you shall surely die. Adam did die spiritually that day. It was a while before he dropped physically. It was some hundreds of years that Adam lived. He didn't die at that time. Well, let's reverse the order here. You're dead, you're in Babylon, but when God's calling you and waking you up, that's what we're doing. We're preparing ourselves. Those God had called. So coming out of Babylon, it's not that you got to leave Baton Rouge. Not that you got to leave the United States. See, because that's the people that's clinging to trying to save America. trying to save the nation. And when you're trying to save the nation, that's when you're going to lose it. When you're trying to save your life, that's when you're going to lose it. But it's he who loses his life for God's sake. when you lose that way of life. So Abraham lost all that policy. That which I had gained, I counted for loss for Christ's sake. So when you give up on the world, give up on all these things, give up on your people, give up on everything and put it all in Jesus Christ. That's where your faith is, is in Christ. That's when you gain. So we don't know how that's gonna, because like I say, we don't know the man of God, so everybody won't be in an Abraham experience where they got to go kill Isaac, or they got to go kill their son or daughter, where you and your wife, or you and your mama, or sister, or brother comes into a fight that separates y'all completely, or whatever. We don't know how God's handling this. You don't know how God's gonna do things, but you have to be willing to give up all. Not that he's going to bring you to that point, but you have to be willing. See, Abraham was born to the point where he was willing to give up the promised son. So you have to be willing to give up that's dear to you, knowing God can give you better. God can raise that son from the dead. Coming out of Babylon requires faith in Jesus Christ. It says, when I come back, will I find faith on earth? It requires faith to deny your own self, make sacrifices here on earth for Jesus Christ. That's faith that's unseen, something you can't see this, but you're trusting in God. You're trusting in the word of Jesus Christ. That same thing. His purpose was to establish a new community of people all involved in the same purpose. So what we're doing by coming out of Babylon, we're trying to establish the laws of God by faith. not by the law, because we're dead to the law. So by faith in God, we help establish the world. In other words, we're trying to build a new heaven and a new earth, a new Jerusalem, and that's this earth. God's gonna renew the earth. Those people, when they say the earth of the world's coming to an end, most people hear me say that, they're carnal and they're fleshless, so they think, hey, man, this earth's gonna just, boom, blow up the, this earth ain't going to. God's great new theory. When he says the world going in, the America going in, he's meaning the heathen, the people, the system, the world system, Satan, which is the god of this world, all that's passing away. So John, when he opened his eyes, he looked and beheld a new earth and a new heaven. All things was new. Jesus said, who is my mother, my sister, or brother? In other words, we're looking at a new earth, a new Jerusalem, where everybody is out for love. There's no deception. This is the kingdom of God. That's why he says, the kingdom is among you. If you're walking in God's way, it's going to come Without observation in other words you will be in the kingdom of God And it's there suddenly and appears because that's what you were looking for by faith. It is established by faith So everything else that wasn't of God fell away. It was burned up You came out of the world, you pull off, it's like a seed, that seed must die, that kernel of corn must die. So what's in you, that he had planted in you, that faith it had grown to a faith that only the pure in heart see God. So you see pureness around you because God had sanctified you, had set you apart, and made you to where everything you've seen was good because that's what he said in the beginning when he made the earth. He said, and God saw it and he said that it was good. So everything is good. So you still will have computers, you still will have all these things, but you won't have perverts. You won't have evil. You'll still have people holding different things, but it's going to be His kingdom established here on earth. So that means a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses are going to be walking right in there because God has people right there amongst them. that he's calling out of the Jehovah Witness, but that they had been taught the things of God, just like many a Catholic people. Catholic means universal, the Catholic Church. There's gonna be many a Catholic people in the Kingdom of God, but he's calling them out of the denominational body of the Catholic Church. The Word of Faith churches, those churches, Islam, all these people. Yeah, God's going to have a many of people that he's preparing and calling himself, but it's not going to be according to our judgment of who's safe, who's not safe, because we don't know what God's doing. So you don't have a right going around condemning people and, oh man, you're eating that poor, you're going to die eating that. You're legalistic. You don't know God. See, when people speak about God and don't know God, you got a problem there. That's where Joe's friends lie. They were good friends coming to see Joe, but they didn't know God, know about God. They said things of God, but that wasn't true about Joe, but God didn't apply in that instance. So no matter how much of the word of God you know, ask God to let you get skilled in the use of his word, in wisdom. how to use that word because people come up to you quoting scriptures and think, well Satan came up to Jesus quoting scripture. Just because somebody taking a Bible around as a preacher in a church or something, that don't mean that they a child of God. That they still in the world. They of the world. And he's gonna give you that discernment. That's what you trying to do. Come out of the world to where you can see those things that are of God and not of God. So that's walking by faith, but it's coming out of the world. So like Lot's wife that looked back, she shouldn't have ever looked back. If God told you to run and don't look back, run and don't look back. People could be hollering and screaming all they want to. He told me not to look back. Mary told his disciple, and they said, man, what is this guy talking about? She said, whatever he say do, do it. They're filling the water pot. She said, whatever he say do, do it. It's like that night commercial, just do it. When you get to the point like Abraham, he staggered not at the promise of God. In other words, he didn't procrastinate. Lot procrastinated there to drag him out of there. But when God do it, you're Johnny on the spot. You only get to the point where the Lord speak it and you obey it. You want God to be that type friend that he's telling you everything and he's leading and guiding you. Laying aside every weight and sin that's besetting you for running this race. Okay, we're going to stop here and we're going to continue on with this. I'll mark this again. I know you got it for me, but I'll give you this back. But we want to continue on in here because, like I said, It's like when Jude says that he wanted to write and tell him about the salvation, but it was more important that he write about the thing. I don't need your paperback. I don't mark it here, but I always take mine with it, but I don't mark it here. But sin, don't underestimate sin. I told you the other night, if you fail to plan, that means you plan to fail. You have to get ready for this fight. You have to be prepared. And when they left the gate, God taught them to fight. God has to teach you to fight. But we don't fight against flesh and blood. It's against powers and principalities in the high places. Heavenly Father, we come before you this morning, Lord God.