This morning's message, who, what, or where is Babylon? Who, what, or where is Babylon? To get an idea of what we're preaching, teaching in the 50th chapter, in the 51st chapter of Jeremiah, there's a few things we have to know about Babylon. A lot of people go to the book of Revelation and study Revelation without studying Genesis through Revelation. And that's a bad way to do the Bible. That's a bad way to study it because you're going to take it out of context of what it is and you're not going to realize what is Babylon, where it originated from. Because Babylon, the actual city, began with Nimrod in the book of Genesis. That's when God scattered the languages and when he scattered the people. Satan orchestrated this in the garden when he had Eve and Adam make a choice to follow him in his form of government, his form of life, which is a form of life which is hostile to God. That's Babylon. That's part of being Babylon. Babylon without understanding, without knowledge. That's what happened to the people at the Tower of Babel. That they began, God confused their language in which no one understood what the other one was saying. It's the same as we have in religion today. This religion don't understand what this religion is saying. The Baptists don't understand what the Methodists are saying. The Catholics don't understand what the Baptists are saying. The Apostolic Church don't understand what the Protestant Church is saying. It's a great confusion of religious languages. So Babylon, the great mystery haunted, had spread throughout the earth. Babylon is a great mystery. We walk into the Bible with our own concepts, with our own ways and with our own thoughts, shaping and forming God in our image and in our likeness, whereas we have to deny self. We have to crucify that way of thinking. We have to have our minds transformed. and the renewing of our mind in Christ Jesus so that we would think like God thinks. Because his thoughts are not like our thoughts. His thoughts are far above our thoughts. Just those few scriptures out of Revelation, what does that tell anybody here? That Babylon exists until the end time. It's the end time world ruling system. It's not just Jeremiah when he's speaking here, the 50th chapter and the 51st chapter about Babylon's destruction. That prophecy is a partial fulfillment what Jeremiah's talking about. It was only partially fulfilled at that time. So a lot of things in that prophecy Jeremiah spoke of didn't come to pass on the physical Babylon. And that's where you get lost remaining in the physical. You have to be able to have abstract thinking in the spiritual realm. There's no way you can go to Revelations and study that scripture and know what God's talking about. Because He says, we're the angel of God. And this is, you read and follow these television movies and things, you're thinking some angel coming from heaven, speaking and preaching these things. Whereas these are the messengers of God, the preachers of God. It's you, me, and I, and all of us who proclaim the gospel, the word of truth. That's how we overcome the wickedness of Babylon, by the word of our testimony, by the blood of the Lamb. Because we're to do the work of evangelists, we're to disprove, we are to dispute the wranglings of this world. That's why we're not doing what we're supposed to do as a church. And the church is idle when it leave out of the confines of the wall. It's conforming to the image of the world when it go out there. And it's bringing the world and the church evermore and not proclaiming with a loud voice what is the message of the gospel. It's not bringing the good news because it don't have the enemy on the run. But the true church does. So if you're not doing what I just said doing, you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing as a church. God's church is very busy, but there are a lot of souls within the church. And what has Babylon become? Let's read that again. It says, that great power and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried with a mighty and a strong voice saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become. Become there is a continuous verb. It's becoming. It's a place of habitation. It's a dwelling spot of devils. Satan has come into the church. He has transformed. His ministers has been transforming the ministers of light. The apostasy has already begun. The mystery of iniquity doeth yet work. It's in the churches. They are preaching and teaching. They are intermarrying in the churches. They are having same-sex marriages in the churches. All this is going on in Babylon, the church. That great harlot, the whole Babylon. That's what the church has become. Israel led the church into this. That's what had happened. Israel is that woman that we see in Revelation that leads to falsehood. It's never been a Christian nation. God has shown you that he had wrestled with Israel and wrestled with Israel till finally he had to divorce Israel and have Assyria take Israel into captivity and scatter Israel. In a small nation as Babylon rose up, God used Babylon to rise Babylon up and conquer Assyria, a nation which was much larger than it, who had scattered Israel. and he kept rising Babylon up. He rose Babylon up to take Judah into captivity. That was a different tribe because, you remember, Solomon, one of the wisest men in the world, caused Israel to be divided. God divided it during his son's reign and out of respect for David, he said he wasn't going to do it during Solomon's reign. So that's where the division came, where it became two tribes. The tribe of Israel and the tribe of Judah. He rose up Babylon to take Israel into captivity. That's why we're in captivity right now. What did Jesus say? Babylon is a type of the world of this world's government and this world's system. That's where Judah was carried off to, in this world's system. They got accustomed to living in this world's system. They started making money. They started prostrating. Their religion interceded and intermingled. That's why we have Sunday worship. The Christians accepted Sunday worship. The Christians accepted Israel. They accepted all of the holocrists of Babylon. That's how the church became the false church. When Christ was about to leave in the book of John, He said, I take them not out of the world. He left us in the world. He said, but keep them. He wasn't talking about everybody at that time. He was talking about his disciples and followers. He said, keep them from the evil that's in the world. There were a few Jews that came back from Babylonian captivity, but there were a lot more that loved the world. There are many people in the church today that love the world and the things of the world. That's why God said he was going to send such a strong delusion because the people love the darkness rather than light. They love the things of darkness rather than light. That's what the delusion is. That's why the God of this world is able to blind us, because we're not fighting for God. So when He say, I pray that you keep them from the evil that's in the world, He was talking about that minuscule few that would follow Him in His Word, and that would continue in His Word. Are we keeping up with me here on these things about Babylon? We see that Babylon is a place. Babylon started as a small place and it grew large. Babylon was a world ruling power at one time. He pictured it as Nebuchadnezzar as a world ruler. But later on, the Medes, the Persians came in and overtook Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar was long dead then. So the Medes and the Persians took it. And part of that was Afghanistan. But Persia, where is Persia? It's modern day Iran. Babylon is about 30 miles east of modern day Baghdad. That's where the geographical Babylon is located at. And Alexander tried to conquer the world and tried to build a new Babylon. Everybody had attempted to build Babylon. But not knowing that Babylon is a governmental structure, it's a political system, it's a beast world power. When you say the beast, the Babylon is the beast. It's a world ruling system of power. So it's no one particular person. Now, if you follow some of these people that follow Israel and some of this false theology that take you to following Israel, you'll be uttering things like, oh, Saddam Hussein is rebuilding Babylon. But according to God, if that was the actual Babylon he was talking about, it would never be rebuilt. So any preacher that's preaching that type of theology, plus now they have to find another hobby horse because Saddam Hussein is dead. So it couldn't have been that Babylon that he was rebuilding. And God has said Babylon wouldn't be rebuilt once it was destroyed. So we know if Babylon continued until this end time, and that in the book of Revelations is when he announced the destruction of Babylon, and that Babylon is a world ruling system, that means Babylon continues until today. It would have to be in continuance on through today. Now, as we look at these, And I told you that Afghanistan would figure prominently in that. There has been no world ruling power that have went against Afghanistan and remain a world ruling power. No power. That's Great Britain was a world ruling power until they went into Afghanistan. After they went into Afghanistan, that left America and Russia as world ruling powers. After the Soviet Union, Russia went against Afghanistan and the head of that seen what was going on, that nation, and I can say it today, but we will have to leave the names out of this symbolism, but as this nation being the head of Babylon, When we seen that going about, what United States went about and did, they hired Osama Bin Laden to fight against Russia in the Afghanistan mountains. That's how he acquired the equipment and the skill to elude us in Afghanistan. Because when we went against Iraq and all these, we hired, the United States hired Osama bin Laden to fight against Russia and Afghanistan. And they armed him to the hilt with weapons. after the destruction of Russia during the Reagan administration is when the Berlin Wall fell and when Mikhail Gorbachev dissolved it and the USSR was no longer known as that Soviet bloc and Russia and those nations fell apart. That's why the problem as I was telling you Wednesday night with Crimea the Ukraine and Kiev, those nations over there, because Kiev and the Ukraine, all those nations was evangelized by the apostle Andrew. So that's why Russia made a great error going into that. But that, going into Afghanistan, that broke them as a number one ruling power. Russia, during the Cold War, had power. They had the warheads and everything. Several years later, built up on a lie, the United States went into Afghanistan and Iraq. During my first point, I told you, no nation has remained a world-ruling power that has went into Afghanistan. By us going into Afghanistan, being hogtied into a war over 10 to 11 years, have left this country shattered and broken apart. The facade is just humbling alone. We don't see the brokenness of this nation. We've poured so much money into those two wars that even our allies will come up against us when they see that this sudden destruction of this nation as a nation. That's what going against God's powers are. Now, I tell you, in prophecy, if we would look at the first few verses of chapter 50, it says, the words of the Lord speak against Babylon and against the land of the Chaldeans by Jeremiah the prophet. Declare ye among the nations and publish and set up a standard. Publish and conceal not. Say, Babylon is taken, Baal is confounded, Meredith is broken in pieces, her idols are confounded, her images are broken in pieces. For out of the north there coming up a nation against her which shall make her land desolate and none shall dwell therein. They shall remove, they shall depart, both man and beast. In those days, and in that time, said the Lord, the children of Israel shall come, and the children of Judah together, going and weeping, and they shall go and seek the Lord their God. They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherward, saying, come and let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgot. My people had been lost sheep. Their shepherds have caused them to go astray and turn them away on the mountains and they have gone from mountain to hill. They have forgotten their dwelling place, their resting place. Well, there are a few things here that we need to discuss. And I told you some prophecies hadn't been fulfilled. of the walls of the city. Some were torn down by Darius during his reign. But as he told us to go out and proclaim this, and we see the angel in the book of Revelations proclaiming the fall of Babylon. Those names that you see in the second verse are the names of the gods of Babylon, the Magi, and some of the leaders and their idols. In other words, it's false religion that the people worship, the political leaders as we worship today and the religious leaders as we worship today. All have caused the fall. It says her priests, her leaders have caused them to err. If we look at verse 6, it says, My people have been lost sheep. Their shepherds caused them to go astray. They have turned them away on the mountain. So there are false preachers and teachers out there teaching and preaching the wrong things to people. We're not in a habit of just naming preachers or whatever. We speak sometimes of men's doctrines in which they're teaching or preaching. But we can't make this battle personal. We fight not against flesh and blood, but against wicked power. The other night, I was mentioning some of the teachings of some of the preachers or whatever. And I called two preachers names or whatever. But you've seen that I had to cut the tape off several times to discuss this. Because what I was discussing was the doctrine that these preachers was preaching. You understand this? This is a doctrinal battle. We're establishing and setting the record straight on what is doctrinally true about the Bible. I didn't mean for none of y'all, and that's where the layman come into a position where their preacher should tell them about the scriptures in the New Testament. It says, rebuke not an elder. In other words, it's not for the ordinary lay people to rebuke or talk about leaders of pastors or whatever. The elders of the church, if an elder leader is saying, it says the elders are to take that person and to rebuke that person or set that person straight. It's just like a child is not to rebuke another parent or another one, a person in authority, their teacher or any leader or whatever. They are to tell their parents and it's up to their parents to handle that situation. So if I was to immediately fuss with my neighbor or someone else, my father would whip me or my mother would whip me or whatever and say, you don't talk to grown people like that. No one in this church, we don't want to talk about Preble O'Donnell or Joel Osteen. It came to a personal thing about, I didn't want gossip and they was talking about things Preble said that his intent going into, I don't know what his intent was going into the gospel. so we're not to fight and strive with other churches we're to just receive a brother without doubtful disputations if they say they're preaching and they are the lord or whatever well their doctrine should prove that god proves that over time it's not for us to fight and argue with the churches of the world and i was telling you about people that invited me to their church i never did name these people but i was telling you why i couldn't go or why i couldn't teach but i wasn't tear up their reputation, or become as Babylon. We become as Babylon when we do those things. I've listened off and on, not a whole sermon, but portions of it. And I told you all a lot of times that Kremlin will say, if you're not going to do what I say, it's no use coming in. I've heard of Joel Osteen, some of the things. I've passed by here and said, but I've never heard Joel Osteen speak derogatorily about another preacher or another teacher. That young man stands up there and he proclaims what he's proclaiming, believing in what he's believing. Now, I can't defend his doctrines. But I also has to receive him as a brother because there are a lot of people that are on the Kremlow, T.D. Jakes, the Catholic Church or wherever that are God's people. He says, come out of my people. But he had given even the false prophets a job to do and that's preach the gospel. And we'll read that in Ezekiel. If you would have just preached my word, then my people would have heard that word. You have to be fully persuaded in your own mind. If you're sitting in a church or wherever you're sitting, you're singing because that church draws or appeals to something in your belief system. And if Babylon appears to your belief system, that's where you'll be drawn to. So we don't want to get into the point of fighting and striving personally with other people. That's what they did to Jesus Christ. They got into a personal argument with him because they couldn't defend their doctrine. And they turned it into an ad hominem argument. And they said, well, we'd be not born of fornication. Now they're going and talking about he was born of fornication. What does that have to do with the doctrine that he's preaching to teach? So we have to not let these things become personal on us. But the walls, as he was prophesying, didn't come down at that time. It was some several years later when the city rebelled against Darius that he tore some of the walls down. Jerusalem wouldn't have been tore up or destroyed the way it was if they'd obeyed God and went into captivity when he told them to go into captivity. But as you read chapter 50 and 51, 1, he talks about a great destruction of Babylon, but Babylon was conquered without a shot fired. Babylon was destroyed without all the fanfare you see in chapter 50 and 51. But if you hadn't studied Bible prophecy, if you hadn't studied the Word of God, if you hadn't walked spiritual, you'll believe what the movies say. You'll believe what the preachers and things tell you instead of believing the Bible and the book of Isaiah. 45th chapter the first verse it says thus says the Lord to his anointing to whom his anointing We should be God's anointing we would take over peacefully. That's why Solomon was allowed to build the temple of God because he was a man of peace. We can't go around tearing people's reputation. And a lot of people talk ill of Krevlo, Osteen, and all these preachers because they're envious of those people's fame, of their popularity, of their power, whatever. We don't want to be envious or jealous. That's why we talk about people a lot of times. Some preachers talk about other preachers because that preacher got a bigger church than he had. We don't want to be like that. He says Cyrus his anointed. Cyrus was a Median Persian. He was of those kings. But he called him his anointed. We should be God's anointed people. But Cyrus didn't have to fight. Socrates used what? His intellect. He was led by the Spirit of God. That's why he says he's going to teach us to war. He's going to teach us to fight. He says, whose right hand I have holden to subdue nations before him, and I will loose the loins of the kings to open for him the two lead gates, and the gates shall not be shut. Ain't that something? A gate was a sign of power. A gate was a sign of going in. That's why it says the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church. You can't break into the church. You can't close nothing God has opened, and you can't shut nothing God's closed. But he says Cyrus was his anointing. You know how Cyrus conquered Babylon? Belteshaw was violating or profaning the Holy Vessels of God. If you're reading Daniel, fifth chapter, where he gave a feast and he was drinking at the Holy Vessel. And it was a hand that had the writing on the wall, many, many you could tell far from. In other words, it was saying, your kingdom have been numbered. Your days are over. That's when the judgment of God fell on Babylon. That night, Daniel prophesied that your kingdom was going to come to an end. You know what happened? It was all just like the church today. They were sitting there drinking and getting drunk, partying and eating and defiling and not living the way God say live, being proud and high-minded, knowing no one can take them. As a nation, we think that we're so high-minded, that we have so much security and so much military forces, can't nobody take us. God says Cyrus was going to shoot the nations. I was going to leave the gates open. What they did, they dammed up the Euphrates River. The river that ran through Babylon, they dammed up the river, and they walked through on dry ground. They walked right into the city. And those gates, that river was dried up. They walked along the river bed into Babylon. They were drunk. Who left the gate open? They left the gates open. God caused them to leave their defenses down. The world causes you to have your defenses down. He said, that servant which began to eat and drink with the other servants, the Lord shall come in a time that he know not and take all that he has away. See, we're partying with the world too much. We don't realize that we're in Babylon. We live in Babylon. This is Babylon that we're in. Look at the description of Babylon and see what any other nation at this time would fulfill that. So the destruction of Babylon wasn't until later on. But the burning that God speaks of in the 5th and the 51st chapter of Jeremiah, was the city pillaged and burned as I said? That was a little destruction, physical destruction at that time, but we see Babylon is still in existence in the book of Revelation. We see it was in existence at the time of Peter. When he says burning in Bible terminology, that's a sign of judgment. We all will go through the fiery judgment of God. If we look in the book of Revelations, the 18th chapter and the ninth verse, it says, and the kings of the earth who have committed fornication and live deliciously with her, with who? The beast, with this world system, with this false church, with this political alliance. All the people who have lived in that way shall bewail her and lament for her when they shall see the smoke of her burning. They will see this thing coming up on Babylon. Why do we have the Tea Party movement? Why do we have people as this Clive Bundy, that's a secessionist, that they're getting away and he said that he don't recognize the government of the United States. that a lot of people are saying that they believe the unionists are seized from the union, that they don't want to follow things. Because what is happening, Babylon was a melting pot. As Israel was in Babylon, they became wealthy leaders. They became financiers. They became some of the greatest leaders in things. The Jewish system is one of the strongest banking systems we have even to this day. It's like the African American in America. They're in all facets of entertainment. If you look in the corporate world, they're great in the corporate world. They've almost taken over sports. They said over 85, 87% of the NBA is African American. And what happened is, you see the secessionists and the people within these states that say that they are religious, seeing that their way of life is coming toward an end, so they don't believe in United States government as it should be. They don't believe in following the president. It was a time you wouldn't catch anyone in the nation talking about the president as the way they do now. You wouldn't catch people not working in cohesion. After an election, everybody would team together. They even teamed together to work with Bill Clinton, who he had to use vice on, because some of the very ones that voted to impeach him for his affair with Monica Lewinsky, that same House Republican speaker had given his wife that had cancer a letter telling her that he wanted to have an open marriage. He was ready to divorce her during that time. He's ran for President of the United States. We have a senator out of South, a governor that was in South Carolina that's in the House of Representatives that's a famous, he's in the United States Congress now. But all these Bible-believing states and communities that want to secede from the Union, they say they believe in God. But Babylon, that system cannot stand long as you engulf these kind of people. Right here in this state, one of our House of Representatives, one of the leading television personalities endorsed him. He won a seat for the House of Representatives. And after he was elected, he ran on family values. After he was elected, they pretty soon called him kissing an intern. After kissing and going with this intern, and I think he was really done wrong, according to American standards. And that was one of the papers in the journal my son-in-law helps write, this thing from the Picayune I was reading. It was actually done wrong. because the governor asked for his resignation. That's not setting a good moral example, especially for the state that wants to adopt the Bible as their book. I think that was a wrong era, and I had that article to bring to the church for you to read. Most pastors think that's a bad idea, very bad idea. But the governor in the Republican Party asked for his resignation because he was caught in an elevator with his intern. Now, why do I say he was dead wrong? Why did I say before we cast stones or throw stones, we should look at our lives? This same governor, you didn't hear a peep or a sound out of him. of the Republican Party when one of our senators, our junior senators, admitted to prostitution, admitted that he had this infidelity. He's running for governor. And they probably elect him for governor. Why wouldn't the governor ask someone in a senior position if someone, a deacon in the church did that? If the elder in the church did that, the pastor in that board should get that person before they get the smaller person in the church. This guy was just in the House of Representatives. The governor asked for his resignation, but wasn't a sound made when the senator did this. And the senator admitted to having an affair that he was visiting a prostitute. Where's the Christianity in that? This is like casting a stone at the adulterous woman. Where's the man at? What kind of justice does this state have? We're living in Babylon. We're living in Babylon. There's no physical coming out of Babylon, as I said, because It's the evil and it's the world that is Babylon. It's this system that had taken over. That's why I said Jesus said that he'd leave us in the world, because that's there to try us, to prove us and help make us for God. Paul, in the book of Corinthians, was telling us about if a brother be involved in sin or fornication, what we should do. Now, he told them that if it was someone in the church that was doing this, that we shouldn't be involved with that person. that we shouldn't have any kind of communications with that person. And if it comes to a certain point, we should disfellowship that person. But if it was someone else that wasn't a Christian, that wasn't in the world, that wasn't in the church, that we had to have communications for, or else our needs would go out of the world. But if a brother, a Christian did that, So we have to live in the world. We can't distance ourselves from all of the people in the world. But if someone in the church is not lining up, it says have no fellowship with that person. But it doesn't say destroy that person. It says turn them over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. Because you don't want to become the Satan. You don't want to become that punisher. You don't want to be the one that has that shotgun of kill because the Bible tells us thou shall not kill. We shouldn't destroy a person's reputation or we shouldn't speak evil of a person. Love not the world. If you have the love of the world, now when he says love not the world, what he's talking about there, that's the cosmos. That's this world system. the system in which Satan has installed, that system that Satan has installed. And once we love this system, this way of life, we become an enemy of God. To love the world, you cannot be friends with the world and a friend of God. Now I'm not saying people, because God so loved the world, when he says world there, he's talking about the people. the system that he set up, which we should be establishing by faith. He's not talking about the one that the prince of this world rules over. So we can't love this world order, this world system, which is the Babylonian system. So we see that Babylon is not only not a geographical place, but that Babylon is symbolic. Babylon and Zimbabwe. It's a monolithic human government that stands in opposition to God's king. What that word monolithic means, Pastor. It says, of an organization, a system, large, powerful, and intractably indivisible and uniform. In other words, one world government, one world system. That's the government of this world. That's why it says Babylon is the governor of the rulers and that's why it tells us come out of the world, come out of this world system, this world's way of life. That's why it tells us to come away from that. So the apostles looked at Babylon as a place of exile. That's why Peter said that we're pilgrims in this world. This world is not our home. We're not comfortable here. We feel exile here because it's not the way of life that we want to live, that our mind has functioned enough to do. Peter used that twice in the book of 1 Peter. He showed us, he says, Peter an apostle, a special messenger of Jesus Christ. That's what the apostles were, special messengers. They were angelus, as we are, angels, messengers of God. He says of Jesus Christ, writing to the elect exiles of the dispersion scattered abroad in Pontius, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. So we see that he is saying that that's one that's scattered away from his home. That's a pilgrim here. And I told you and had a series on that God scattered. God had scattered Israel and dispersed Israel into captivity in Babylon. Jeremiah had messages for them, and Jeremiah's message was to them before they went into captivity, but God also gave them a messenger while they was in captivity, which was Ezekiel. God always speaks and talks to his people. God is always talking. If he's not talking to you, you have a problem. you have a major problem. Now as God was speaking and talking to those people, and Peter was addressing them, now you see the places where he said they were? Those locales are not necessarily central to one another. Some of them was as far as in Rome, and listen to what he says in 1 Peter 5 and 13. He says, She, your sister church in Babylon. Where is the church at? In Babylon, which was what? Rome. It was Rome. So Rome was a form of Babylon. It was a system of Babylon. And that's the government in which all the patterns of the nation, we are in the Roman law here in America. A lot of our law is written on Roman and French law. That's the form of government we have. The fallen Roman Empire is what we see a lot of times that are rising up. But Rome was just a pattern of Babylon. So that beast world system, Babylon, he says, in Babylon who is elect, chosen with yourself, sends greetings, and my son also. So we see it being symbolic during that time and also during the time of revelations, 18th chapter, the third verse, the 11th through the 19th verse. It's a center of world power existing at the end. You see, I hear y'all thumbing and looking and going on, that's what electronics has done to us. That's what not being able to hear or listen. And during those times when people say, I want your undivided attention, a professor or someone says that, the reason he says that, and the reason a lot of these churches have that, because when those people are striving together, when the multitude drew to Jesus, they were drawing on His power, He was drawing on their power, and they became one. But if you and your wife was being intimate and she was looking at a book or watching TV, y'all would never have the power of intimacy because something else holds your attention. Right now, people with iPads in the church, in their Bibles, that's one thing Satan start, y'all bring your Bibles to church. Well, you can't thumb through that Bible and do all those things and thumb through that iPad and all that and someone still hold your attention because that's why you have so many people reckoning and everything. You can't drive a car and talk on the telephone and text someone. You can only give one thing your undivided attention. That's the same thing we do, God. You can't serve all the other gods and everything else and give God your whole heart, be fully committed to Him. Oh, that's part of the world system. Multitasking is everybody loves to be able to multitask. That's part of the world system. We're not good at one thing, none of us are. Because we all, that's none good, not one. Because we all used to babble and we can't, we have to crucify babble. But it's hard to do. It causes for a sacrifice. It causes for a sacrifice. We need to do something else. We get jittery. That's why most sermons in most churches today, you get a 15 or 20 minute sermon, you done lost the people. They could watch football or do anything else, or even a movie or something on television, but listening to somebody talk for 15 to 20 minutes, that's boring. But in those days, they had discourses that was hours long, because they were feeding off of what Jesus said. The people stayed with Jesus so long that they were afraid the people was gonna die going back. One guy fell out the window and died listening to Paul. He went to sleep. Jesus said, let's feed the people unless they fail on the way back. Because when you're hungry, when you're having a good time, you're lost in time. That's why God's gonna be eternity because we'll be lost in God. We'll enjoy heaven so much, time won't be a factor. Have you ever talked with somebody and the time just flew? But if you come in here, oh man, that preacher kept us so long. You wasn't interested in what I was saying. The people hung on Jesus' every word. Talking earlier, I said, well, do you remember something? Are you paying attention? Because there are people hanging on you, every word. That's why you have to watch the words you say. But a lot of us just talk, talk, talk, and we don't know what we're saying. That's a characteristic of Babylon. Words, the vanity of words. At the center of world power existing at the end, Babylon is. Babylon is so intertwined in us. It says, for all nations have drunk of the wine of her passion, unchastity, and the rulers and leaders of this earth have joined with her in committing fornication, idolatry, and the businessmen of the earth have become rich with the wealth of her excessive luxury and wantedness. And earth businessmen will weep and grieve over her because no one buys their freight or cargo anymore. Their merchandise is of gold, silver, precious stones, and pearls of fine linen, purple silk, and scarlet, all kinds of scented wood, all kinds, sorts of articles of ivory, all varieties of objects of costly wood, bronze, iron, and marble, of cinnamon, spices, incense, ointments, and perfume, and frankincense, of wine and olive oil, fine flour and wheat, of cattle and sheep, horses and conveyances, and of slaves and souls of men, the ripe fruits and delicates for which you are so long you have gone from you, and all your luxuries and dailies, just the whole way of life you have known, of people waiting on you being your servant. A lot of people love to have people around them less intelligent of them because they can rule over them. that they can take advantage of these people. Brother Bundy had said that what the Negro was lacking, that he didn't pick cotton enough, that he was better off. Well, you mean you was better off serving yourself of him? That's you putting his intentions in your mind. This other guy, the duck master, duck hunter, whoever he was, well, they looked at half a inch labor. You see, those are the people that take advantage of merchandise of other people, and they don't want that way of life to leave. And this guy Bundy's wife was saying, I have a shotgun, and I'll fight for this. Now, they want to graze on federal government land free of charge, whereas their neighbors are paying these grazing fees. But yet and still, you want to talk about other people that's trapped in a welfare system? Be careful of talking of others or you'll become that which you persecute or talk about. That's why we shouldn't speak evil of others. The dealers who handle these articles who grew wealthy through their business with her will stand a long ways off in terror of her doom and torment, weeping and grieving aloud. Babylon is burning. So we see Babylon loves to be at the center of world power. The church has become mobilized into being at the center of world power and the church is teaching about power and wealth and that's to get you into that mentality of Babylon. They're not teaching you to seek for the kingdom of heaven. So as you read and study this, we can't go very much further today in this because I'll go over and we have Bible study. But this is only part one and we have such a long series here before I can even break 50 and 51 down to you because if you notice that it comes and goes. But we have to understand what the Bible is about. We see that, I told you that Babylon was east of modern day Baghdad physically. Physically, the destruction, it says, was coming from the north, right? In the book of Jeremiah, the third verse, the fifth chapter said, for out of the north there cometh up a nation against her which shall make her land desolate and none shall dwell therein. Well, the one that destroyed Babylon that time was from the east. It was the Medes and Persians. It was from the east. But if you noticed, that's Bible terminology because one of the figures of speech in Bible terminology is that destruction comes from the north. So that's a figure of speech that the destruction is coming from the north. Not necessarily a euphemism, but it's a figure of speech. Destruction comes from the north. Not that the Medes and Persians was actually physically north of there. That's just like when God said he was coming down to Babylon. God came down to Sodom and Gomorrah. So the destruction that we have that's coming from the north is not necessarily Canada coming upon us, but it's a figure of speech saying that this nation or those people will be destroyed. So we have to go back and study the word of God. But to study something, you would have to know what the word language is. Because I told you we had metaphors and symbolists, that the Bible is a canon of scripture and it's woven together. We can even, as a good preacher could, go back and take what was said this morning as I walk in the scripture. Who paid attention to those scriptures? Did anybody write it down? Let me read that back to you before we close. It was Isaiah chapter 60, first through the second verse. Arise and shine, for then light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon thee. Who is he talking about? The Gentiles. He was going to be a light unto the Gentiles. He's talking about the church. He's talking about Israel. Because we could see a physical Israel also in the end time, because God has to be true to his covenant. Because as I was reading in Jeremiah, that covenant hadn't been fulfilled completely because we hadn't seen Israel and Judah come together and worship the Lord. Parts of Israel and Judah still don't accept Jesus as the Messiah, that they hadn't went to Zion together yet in unity. The covenant was the new covenant in the Lord, the New Testament, that covenant that he ratified at Passover. That he ratified at the last supper. That's the new covenant that they would go in league and perpetually worship God Israel is not yet at that Union physically and Israel has to come to that Union physically because God's Word has to come true physically and spiritually But He's talking to us just like I told you earlier. He's talking to each one of us as in Daniel when it says, some of us will rise in the last days. When you find out your purpose in God, as minute as you think you are, you'll just be as powerful as anyone else in the body of Christ. Even though you are fingered, that you have some sort of affliction or some sort of thing, God needs you. God needs you. God wants you. God loves you and God has given you favor with Him. It's just that you hadn't had the light of God shine up on you yet. It's because of your ill and wickedness towards your brother that your whole body is in darkness. If you allow the light of God to shine within you, you'll start realizing that it's not them, that it's you who has the problem and you hadn't arose and shined. Once you cast Babylon out of you, this world system you'll be able to shine. You'll feel and you'll know that by his stripes you were healed. The reason you can't be healed is you don't want your brother healed. You're envious and jealous. He says, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. You hadn't realized what God had put in you. He had sowed the seed of faith in you. He had given you and birthed you into his family. You hadn't come to that knowledge and understanding yet. For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth. I told you the earth dwells in darkness. We are dwelling in darkness in your whole body because you hadn't allowed the light to shine upon you. You hadn't allowed light. That's why you're hustling. It's so hard to be a Christian because you're making it hard for yourself. You make, that's why everything is a struggle and you're living a false life. It's a facade. If we were to see your heart right now and you to be true to yourself, you would realize, woe is me. That you would see that you're unworthy and that you're dwelling in darkness. I wanted to repeat that word. It says in gross darkness, the people. See, that's why it says, shut up the scriptures under the people. And they love darkness rather than light. It's the lifestyle that you live in that you love darkness, you love these things, you love being in, you love Babylon. You love dwelling in Babylon. You love filth. You're earthly. You're made of the earth. Into the earth you shall return. You come from dust, and you go back to dust. But once you start hating that, once you leave Babylon behind, you're not going to want to be a caterpillar and crawl on the ground. You're going to want to be a butterfly and fly. You want God's wings. But the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. We can't see the glory of God in you because your whole body is full of darkness. You're not allowing it to shine. And the Gentiles shall come to the light, to thine light, and the kings to the brightness of thine rising. Lift up thine eyes round about and see all. All gather themselves together. They come to thee. Thine son shall come from afore, and thy daughter shall be nursed at thine side. He will put everything in proper order once you get your house in order, once you get self right. Once you come out of Babylon, you can't see in the dark. If you're in the dark, you have to come to the light. How can you see in the dark if you're not in the horizon? You have to come unto me and drink, he says. He says, come unto me and I'll give you life. Realize that we are unworthy and that he's worthy. And that you have to eat of his body, you have to drink of his blood. Heavenly Fathers, we come before you this day, Lord God, to partake of your word, to partake of your table, Lord God, to walk in you and to lift you up, Lord God, to be as those that you had said would be. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen and amen.