Now, the subject before us tonight, we have
called a symbol of revolt.
And our theme, of course, is going to
be that which we find in the reading
that Greg Scharf has taken for us from
Genesis chapter 11, verses 1 to 9.
After the flood, life begins anew.
Life begins anew in one sense, at any
rate.
But in another sense, it's very much the
same old story as the other side of
the flood.
I don't know how you feel as you
read the record, how it strikes you.
Are you perplexed or disappointed that this side
of the flood as before, you have the
same kind of arrogance in the heart of
man, setting up the same kind of rebellion
against God, showing the same desire to live
a life that is independent of God?
Now, apparently the Holy Spirit, who inspired the
writers of Scripture, was so concerned that we
should get this, that having already given us
a general history of the sons of Noah
in chapter 10, he feels necessary now to
retrace his steps and to go back, as
it were, into the centre of that history
again, to the time of a man called
Peleg.
Now, we're not very familiar with Peleg.
He refers to him in verse 25 of
chapter 10.
For in his days, the earth was divided.
The great separation, the great distribution of men
took place.
And he's referring, of course, to the incident
before us here.
So he's taking us back now into the
history that is provided in miniature in chapter
10, and he wants to bring out this
one particular incident again, because he wants to
underline the principle that is involved, namely this,
that man is very much the same after
the flood as he was before the flood.
Adam was saved from judgment, but—I'm sorry, Noah
was saved from judgment, but Noah is still
a sinner.
And he has brought with him in the
very ark that God provided the sin of
his heart, the unbelief of his soul, in
certain respects.
And his children manifest this awful rebellion, which
manifests itself in the building of what we've
come to speak of as the Tower of
Babel.
Now, let's look at this picture, then, and
see what have we to look at.
What have we to say, or what is
the book to say?
What is the message?
The first thing I would like us to
notice, we can speak of in these terms.
I want us to look first of all
at the spiritual conditions that produced Babel.
What brought this on?
How did men get this kind of notion
in their heads or in their hearts?
Why set about to build a tower whose
top reaches to the heavens?
What's the idea?
The building of Babel—Babel's city and Babel's tower—
was not something that happened overnight.
It was something that exhibits and manifests the
soil of the human heart and the rebellion
of the human soul against God.
Now, there is an underlying attitude that we
see coming out here, and I want to
say two things about it, other than, of
course, that it's the same attitude as we
found in the Garden of Eden.
Namely, it's the attitude of rebellion.
It's the desire to go beyond what God
has permitted.
It's the desire to do what God has
said ought not to be done, and therefore,
of course, to set oneself over against the
God who's made us and the God who
sustains us.
Let me say two things concerning the underlying
attitude.
The builders of Babel were aggressively disobedient to
the divine command.
Now, that's the first thing.
There is a rebellion here in the sense
that they simply did not want to obey
the word of God.
Now, you remember that early in Genesis, in
chapter 1, verses 28 to 30, God had
told Adam—we read these words— God told Adam,
he blessed the two, Adam and Eve, and
God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply,
and fill the earth and subdue it, and
have dominion over the flesh of the sea,
and over the birds of the air, and
over every living thing that moves upon the
earth.
God has made man his viceroy.
God has given man a position of authority
over the whole universe, and man is responsible
to God for what he does with the
universe.
He is responsible for ruling the whole of
the universe for God.
Now, after the flood, you remember, we were
considering this one night, beginning with the first
verse in chapter 9, God says almost identically
the same thing to Noah and his sons.
In other words, the purpose of God remains
unchanged.
Adam failed.
Now God turns to this man that he's
brought into a new world by his sovereign
grace, and to his descendants, and he says,
Look, you take up the work that has
not been done.
Pursue along the same lines, master everything for
me, till the soil and so forth.
You are to be my servants.
I hand over the universe to you, but
you've got to do this, that, and the
other.
Now, the fulfillment of God's plan, as given
first to Adam, and then reiterated to Noah
and his sons, required them gradually to spread
over the face of the earth.
And as they did thus spread themselves, to
exercise control over everything for the glory of
the Creator.
But listen to what happened.
I'm reading now from Genesis 11 and verse
4.
Come, say the builders of Babel and its
tower.
Come, let us build ourselves a city and
a tower with its top in the heavens.
And let us make a name for ourselves,
lest we be scattered abroad upon the face
of the whole earth.
Now, will you please mark those words particularly,
lest we be scattered over the face of
the whole earth.
What we have here is a rebellion.
The architects and later the builders of Babel
say at this point that they don't want
to be scattered and to be separated the
one from the other.
They don't want to be about the program
that God has given them.
On the contrary, they want to live close
together in community.
A standard of revolt is already raised.
And if we are right in our understanding
of these chapters, then a man by the
name of Nimrod, chapter 10 verses 8 to
11, was at the helm.
The very name Nimrod, at least the verb
that gives us the noun, means quite literally
let us revolt.
Nimrod is a form of the Hebrew verb.
And what it means is let us revolt.
Now, if you read the story of this
man and read what the Bible tells us
about him, you will find that he was
a great hunter.
But more than that, he was a man
who was cross, arrogant, proud, strong, and would
exercise his strength and exercise his influence purely
for his own self-glory.
Dr. Alan Richardson calls him a military despot.
He compares him with Napoleon and Hitler in
his day.
Now, I don't know whether that is justified
or not, but that's the kind of man
that Nimrod was.
Led then by this kind of character, the
architects and then the builders of Babel decide
that they will not be scattered.
They're afraid to be scattered.
And they want to live together, even though
God has appointed for them a different program.
Now, that's the spirit.
Fundamentally, then, the builders of Babel were disobedient
to a divine command.
The second feature I want to mention is
this.
They disbelieved the terms of the divine covenant.
Now, Scripture does not say that specifically.
And so I have to indicate that.
In saying that, I'm saying what, it seems
to me, is the general understanding of Scripture
here, rather than point to a direct statement.
I take it that the tower of Babel
was of such dimensions as it was, a
very high, lofty edifice, not because these people
wanted to present posterity with a work of
art.
That was not the significance of the tower.
I believe that the significance of the tower
was this.
They want to rebel against God, and yet,
they want to be prepared for any judgment
that God may send upon the earth.
He has covenanted that he will not cause
a flood to come again.
But they have in their hearts a sneaking
suspicion.
Of course, this is the kind of suspicion
that unbelievers and disobedient people always have.
You can't have the comforts of God, and
you can't have peace with God, whilst at
the same time you're rebellious in your heart.
And quite naturally, these people wanted to be
prepared.
If God does send another flood, well, we
want a place where we can run and
hide, and climb above the waters.
And it seems to me, at any rate,
that the idea of making a name for
themselves by the building of this tower was
not by the production of a work of
art, but rather something far more significant than
that, a place to which they could run
and hide from any storm or tempest or
judgment that may come in the near future,
because they cannot or will not trust their
God.
The underlying attitude, the overweening ambition.
Now, Greg Scharf has referred to this in
prayers tonight, and I'm very grateful to him
for the way he's done it.
Because he's put his finger, and saves me
from saying very much at this point, he's
put his finger right on the artery.
The whole idea, the whole notion here is
this.
They want to make a name for themselves.
And so, you see, life has been turned
upside down.
The end of living now is not God
and his glory, but it is man and
his name.
There is no more pathetic man on the
face of this earth than the man that
is set out to make a name for
himself.
There is no greater contradiction of biblical religion
from Genesis to Revelation than a little puny
man, a fallen child of Adam, set about
to make himself a name.
Who are we to make our own name?
We are given life, and we are redeemed
by the grace of our God in Jesus
Christ, not to make names for ourselves, but
to make a name for our God.
By obedience and service and self-sacrifice and
the giving of our own lives to the
uttermost, it needs be.
This is our calling.
When man decides that life is an opportunity
to make a name for himself and to
write it into the pages of history, rather
than to write the name of his God
into the breasts and the hearts of men,
the world is turned upside down.
But this is what it is.
Come, they said, let us make a name
for ourselves.
Nimrod and his associates wanted a reputation.
And they got it, but not the kind
of reputation that they had in mind.
Their reputation is written into the pages of
history, and when you go through the Bible
and you come to the book of the
Revelation, you will find, as I am going
to show you before the end of the
service tonight, that Babylon, Babylon is written into
the books of God as something that is
going to be destroyed, locked, stuck, and barren.
None of the dust or ashes of Babylon
will stand in the eternal courts of God.
So we have here a united action, sinners
uniting together as a cohesive force for a
moment.
There was no strike, no lack of material.
They're all united.
They want to make themselves a name.
Now, when people are united in an evil
course like this, you can be well assured
there is a satanic influence that holds them
together.
Sin is a disintegrating force.
Naturally, sin separates men.
They don't get on together.
They quarrel and so forth.
This is the natural order.
When you find sinners united together as a
cohesive force to do something and to succeed
in doing it, I tell you, there is
the mighty hand of Satan, the spiritual conditions
that produced Babel.
Secondly, the eventual confusion that overtook the builders
of Babel.
The story is so well known, I don't
need to dwell upon the details tonight.
Can I just mention them, just two or
three of the threads here?
First of all, we have a divine examination.
It's clothed in anthropomorphic terms, as theologians would
say, truths about God conveyed in very human
terms.
And we read in verse 5 of this
chapter 11 that the Lord came down to
see the city and the tower which the
sons of men had built.
As if God couldn't see from his throne,
wherever he is, in the heaven of the
heavens.
Even so, the writer wants to convey something
here, and what he wants to convey is
this, that God came right up near to
scrutinize, to examine.
God came on the scene, and he looked
and caused his eye to scan over the
whole thing into the hearts, into the motives,
into the spirits of those concerned, as well
as the edifices they have built.
God came and examined the city, and examined
the people who built the city and the
tower.
A divine examination, and then that is followed
by a divine evaluation.
And we have it here.
Behold, says God, there are one people.
This is remarkable.
It says as if, it is said almost
as if God himself was surprised.
I said almost.
As if God himself was surprised.
There are one people.
This is marvelous.
But you see, it is the hand of
Satan.
There are one people, and they have all
one language.
And this is only the beginning of what
they will do, and nothing that they propose
to do will now be impossible to them.
God evaluated man's concerted power to perpetrate the
rebellion he had begun, as it was suggested
by this massive tower and emerging city of
Babel.
God evaluated it.
He saw that such gifts as he had
given to man were now being used to
defy mankind, and to defy his own will
and his own purpose.
And he sees that the unity of the
race, and the things that provide for that
cohesive force, especially their language, is a key
that can be used for further Satanic ends.
And so God intervenes.
God said, Come, let us go down, and
there confuse their language, that they may not
understand one another.
Verse seven.
This, of course, was as much an act
of mercy as it was of judgment.
It was an act of mercy in serving
man from himself.
But it was an act of judgment in
declaring that God the Creator is displeased, the
God who sent Adam and Eve out of
the garden and kept them out, the God
of the deluge of Noah's day, that same
God is displeased with what has gone on
here in the tower of Babel.
And so this is what happened.
He comes down and he confuses them.
We read in verses eight and nine, So
the Lord scattered them abroad from over the
face of the whole earth, and they left
off building the city.
Apparently the city was not yet complete.
Therefore its name was called Babel, or Babel,
because there the Lord confused the language of
all the earth.
Use your imagination for the moment.
This must have been a very shattering moment,
as bewildering to human understanding as it was
a breakup on human sinning.
Imagine it.
Here are people who have been getting on
together and planning together and scheming together, sharing
one another's thoughts together, and suddenly something comes
between them and they don't understand one another.
Oh, the innuity and the resourcelessness of God.
I think you and I need to regain
this kind of conception of God, who is
never at his wit's end.
God sent his flood at the time of
judgment a little later on.
But it isn't only the waters of the
heavens and of the earth that God has
at his command.
God has other means whereby to fulfill his
purposes.
God is never at his wit's end.
And here is a most strategic deed performed
by the Almighty.
He confuses them, and he separates them, and
little by little the power and ingenuity of
man is torn to shreds.
What he could do in concert with his
fellows, he cannot continue to do on his
own.
I guess we need to interject here.
God doesn't always express his judgments in the
same way.
Here, the Lord broke into human life and
frustrated the purposes of evil men.
They got so far, but no further.
They've got their tower, they've made themselves a
name, and now the whole world is before
them, if only they can keep together.
God says, no, full stop, no more, no
further.
But you see, we do have instances in
the Bible when God's judgment falls upon men
and takes an entirely different shape.
Sometimes he gives men exactly what they want.
We read in the Book of Psalms of
a time when God allowed the children of
Israel to have exactly what they asked.
He answered their prayers even, and gave them
precisely what they wanted, exactly, even though they
were in rebellion against him.
But then we have this little rider, and
he sent leanness into their soul.
It's as certainly God's judgment as the other
mold, but it takes quite a different form.
And you see, there are many people in
this world tonight who are under God's judgment
in the second sense.
God determines the way he judges men.
There are people who have everything that they
can ask, humanly speaking.
They've wanted this, they've set off, they've got
it.
There's nothing they lack, humanly speaking.
But along with everything that they've got, they
have this other commodity, this other thing, this
other phenomenon, this leanness of soul.
This is one way whereby God still judges
men.
He allows us to be satiated and satisfied
and filled and flooded with what we want.
And we get it.
The more we have, the more dissatisfied we
are.
It's like feeding on dust.
Here, it's of the other order.
I think it is necessary to interject when
we're considering this, that God's method of judgment
is not necessarily the same in all circumstances.
The spiritual conditions that produced Babel, the eventual
confusion that overtook Babel, and the other matter
I want to consider tonight is this, the
biblical condemnation of the spirit and deeds associated
with Babel.
Now, we're not involved in building a tower
like this tonight.
The rebels of the twentieth century are not
doing anything quite like this.
I don't need to refer again to the
kind of things that we've already heard from
the lips of Greg Sharp.
But we do build our towers.
And there are men and women who do
defy the Almighty God in one way or
another because they want to make themselves a
man.
What I want to say now is this.
From beginning to end, the Bible condemns this
kind of thing.
The spirit and the attitude that produces a
Babel, not just the material entity itself, not
just that, but the spirit, the underlying ethos,
the atmosphere, the point of view, the attitude.
Scripture everywhere speaks of Babel or Babylon.
And, of course, they refer to the same
place and the same spirit.
The Babylon of later history is the Babel
of Genesis 11.
Scripture everywhere speaks of Babel or Babylon as
a symbol of what is an affront to
God and is to be avoided by His
children at all costs.
Babylon is the center of pleasure, illicit pleasure.
And it stands in the Bible symbolically for
illicit pleasure, for sin and for superstition.
May I read you a passage from the
book of the prophet Isaiah?
I want to read some passages tonight from
the RSV.
I think it brings out the truth very,
very clear.
Let me just read you a few verses.
Come down, says the prophet, in the name
of God.
Come down and sit in the dust, O
virgin daughter of Babylon.
Sit on the ground without a throne, O
daughter of the Chaldeans.
For you shall no more be called tender
and delicate.
You said, I will be mistress forever.
So that you did not lay these things
to heart or remember their end.
Now therefore hear this, you lover of pleasures.
This is Babylon.
Who sits securely.
Who say in your heart, I am and
there is no one beside me.
I shall not sit as a widow or
know the loss of children.
These two things shall come upon you, says
God through the prophet.
In a moment, in one day, the loss
of children and widowhood shall come upon you
in full measure.
In spite of your many sorceries and the
great power of your enchantments.
You felt secure in your wickedness.
You said, no one sees me.
Your wisdom and your knowledge led you astray.
And you said in your heart, I am
and there is no one beside me.
Can you see it?
That's the spirit of Babel and of Babylon.
But evil shall come upon you.
For which you cannot atone.
Disaster shall fall upon you.
Which you will not be able to expiate.
And ruin shall come upon you suddenly.
Of which you knew nothing.
Now if you pursue this chapter, you will
find that it speaks primarily of this one
theme.
Babylon is the place of pleasure and of
sin.
It's the place of harlotry.
It's the place of all kinds of sensuality
and of sin.
It's become symbolical of that aspect of life
from which the people of God should always
keep it there.
Babylon is invariably the source of persecution to
the people of God.
And it's presented in scripture symbolically in this
sense.
Indeed, historically, of course, that is true.
When you come to the book of Daniel,
you will find that Babylon is the archenemy
of the people of God.
In chapter three, you will find those three
young men cast into the burning fiery furnace.
And later on, you will find Daniel thrown
to the lions.
Why?
It's because of the power of Nebuchadnezzar or
his successor in Babylon.
Babylon is the center of opposition to God
as well as of pleasure.
It persecutes the people of God.
But not only that, when you come right
through the Bible and you come to the
end in the book of the Revelation, you
will find that this is the picture that
we have of Babylon as the persecutor of
the people of God.
Let me read to you a few verses.
Revelation chapter seventeen.
Then one of the seven angels who had
the seven bulls came and said to me,
Come, I will show you the judgment of
the great harlot.
Now, you remember what I tried to say
a few moments ago, the kind of sin
symbolized by Babylon, right?
It's here again in Revelation.
It's consistently presented throughout the Bible.
Come, I will show you the judgment of
the great harlot, who is seated upon many
waters, with whom the kings of the earth,
notice, this runs in high places, with whom
the kings of the earth have committed fornication,
and with the wine of whose fornication the
dwellers of the earth have become drunk.
And he carried me away, says John, in
the spirit into a wilderness, of course.
This is a wilderness, morally.
And I saw a woman sitting on a
scarlet beast, which was full of blasphemous names,
and it had seven heads and ten horns.
The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet
and bedecked with gold and jewels and pearls,
holding in her hand a golden cup full
of abominations and the impurities of her fornication.
And on her forehead was written a name
of mystery, Babylon the Great, mother of harlots
and the earth's abominations.
And I saw, says John, the woman drunk
with the blood of the saints and the
blood of the martyrs of Jesus.
Babylon, in spirit, still represents not only this
looseness morally and this laxity, but Babylon always
represents opposition to the people of God and
the persecution of the true church of God.
And Babylon is unquestionably destined to the utter
and unqualified judgment of God.
Now, you notice, I've gone from Genesis to
Revelation.
If we had a week here, we could
deal with the intervening passages, we can't do
that.
But I've gone from Genesis to Revelation because
this theme that has begun in Genesis is
concluded in Revelation.
Everything that the ancient Babel stood for is
condemned at last.
This is the thing that I want to
say now.
Babylon is unquestionably destined to the utter and
unqualified judgment of God at last.
Let me read to you again.
I hope you don't mind my reading so
much.
It's nothing like reading the book.
It speaks for itself.
I read from Revelation, chapter 18.
Just a couple of verses chosen at random.
After this, I saw another angel coming down
from heaven, having great authority, says John.
And the earth was made bright with a
splendor, and he called out with a mighty
voice.
What's he got to say?
Fall on this Babylon, the great.
It has become a dwelling place of demons,
a haunt of every foul spirit, a haunt
of every foul and hateful bird.
For all nations have drunk the wine of
her impure passion, and the kings of the
earth have committed fornication with her, and the
merchants of the earth have grown rich with
the wealth of her wantonness.
And then this, and the kings of the
earth who committed fornication and were wanton with
her will weep and will wail over her
when they see the smoke of her burning.
They will stand far off in fear of
her torment and say, Alas, alas, thou great
city, thou mighty city Babylon, in one hour
has thy judgment come.
And again, rejoice over her, O heaven.
O saints and apostles and prophets, for God
has given judgment for you against her.
Then the mighty angel took up a stone
like a great millstone, and he threw it
into the sea, saying, So shall Babylon, the
great city, be thrown down with violence and
shall be found no more.
This is so because he represents human pride
at its highest and worst.
You read of that in Daniel, when Nebuchadnezzar
said, I will set my throne in the
heavens.
And you read the same in the book
of the prophet Isaiah, where we read these
words, When the Lord has given you rest
from your pain and turmoil and the hard
service which you were made to serve, you
will take up this taunt against the king
of Babylon.
What is the taunt?
Let me just read two verses, three verses.
How you are fallen from heaven, O day
-star, son of the dawn!
How you are cut down to the ground,
you who laid the nations low!
You said in your heart, I will ascend
to heaven above the stars of God.
I will set my throne on high.
I will sit on the mount of assembly
in the far north.
I will ascend above the heights of the
clouds.
I will make myself like the most high
God.
But you are brought down to Sheol, to
the depths of the pit.
What does the book say?
My friends, what it is saying is this,
that the spirit and the attitudes that produced
this early Babel lives on because of sin.
And it will live on until the end
of the age, but it will be exterminated.
And it will be brought low, and those
who are guilty of it shall be cast
into hell.
That is what the book is saying.
But my last theme tonight must be this.
Scripture everywhere speaks of Babylon as symbolic of
sin and what God condemns.
But so also does Scripture announce everywhere a
salvation that is adequate to save man from
the spirit and the disaster of which Babylon
is symbolic.
Isn't this wonderful?
Salvation means this, that we can be saved
from such a disaster and from the attitude,
from the spirit that would create it.
Perhaps I ought to say a word in
turning to it, to this effect.
I want you to remember that God was
able to save His people even in Babylon.
We read about the blood of the saints
and of the martyrs.
Only when God saw fit to yield them
up and to make them an offering, I
want to remind you of something to which
we have referred before, that God can keep
His young men in the flames.
And God can keep His Daniels in the
lion's den when it so pleases Him.
And He only yields His servants to the
flames when that is pleasing even unto Him
and for the furtherance of His purposes of
grace.
He is able to save to the uttermost
those who call upon Him, even from the
harlot.
But God's sovereign power is expressed in that
kind of salvation.
God's sovereign grace is expressed in His willingness
to serve to the uttermost men and women
who have attitudes and a spirit and an
ambition, the kind of which we meet back
here in Babel in Genesis 11.
Do you know anything of this?
What's your purpose in living, my friend?
You don't need to answer me.
But what are we living for?
Is it for the sheer expression of self
-will and a pandering to self-glory?
What are we living for?
The gospel of the grace of God as
it is proclaimed from Genesis to Revelation is
a gospel that offers salvation from self, self
-deification.
You remember the terms of the new covenant
as it was announced by the prophets Jeremiah
and Ezekiel?
The benefits included in promise at that point
meant, first of all, the forgiveness of sins.
Your sins and iniquities will I remember no
more.
With the forgiveness of sins, Ezekiel stresses especially
one thing, I will write my laws upon
their hearts.
That's a most remarkable utterance of scripture.
When God writes His law upon the hearts
of men, and that guarantees that they will
want to please Him.
When He commands in His word there will
be something in their souls which says, that's
the kind of thing I ought to do.
God means me to do that, and I
want to do that.
I find it difficult.
Satan tempts me.
The flesh is weak.
But I know that's what I ought to
do.
The law written in their hearts.
And then this, there will be no need
for one man to tell another about God.
Each of them shall know me for myself
from the highest to the lowest of them,
says God.
The knowledge of God.
Now this is salvation.
And if that was salvation in promise, that
is exactly what the New Testament offers you
and me tonight.
Forgiveness of the past.
Your sins and iniquities I will remember no
more.
The writing of the law of God upon
our hearts, so that in some measure we
may be able to say with God's only
begotten and well-beloved Son, my meat, my
joy is to do the will of Him
that sent me and finish His work.
Not to set out to do something for
myself.
Not to write my own name into history,
but His.
Because I come to know Him, and He's
bigger and He's greater and He's glorious.
You know, it's mischievous to say that He's
greater than I am.
He's greater than you are.
It's a profanity to put it into words.
But we have to say to ourselves that
God is greater than we are.
The Lord is King.
Lift up your voice, O earth, and all
ye heavens rejoice.
The Lord is King and none but He.
Do you know God?
The real God?
Lastly, it's a somber note, but I must
sound it because it is in the book.
God's sovereign purpose is pledged and written into
Scripture.
He will scour the earth and the whole
universe of the last trace of the spirit
and of the attitude that produces Babylon.
He will cast Babylon to the pit
and there will be no trace of her
anymore.
Christ died and He rose from the dead.
He sent His spirit to convince men of
sin and of righteousness and of judgment.
And He's coming again to judge the nations,
to judge all men.
That will be the great divide.
Let us not forget.
The same Lord who will say to some,
Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the
kingdom prepared for you.
According to the same Scripture will say to
others, Go, depart.
I cannot for my life of me understand
the logic or the reasoning of people who
believe the word that says that Jesus will
one day say, Come and don't believe what
the word says.
When it gives us forenotice that He will
also say, Depart.
Tonight, therefore, you and I are presented with
a picture.
It's the picture with which the book of
the Revelation concludes.
We've come a long way from Genesis.
But this is a theme of the whole
book.
It's a tale of two cities.
Really, the whole of the Bible is a
tale of two cities.
There is the building of Babylon, which epitomizes
everything in this world, of fallen men and
women concertedly united together to do their own
thing, irrespective of the will of their maker.
That's Babylon.
On the other side, there is the other
city, New Jerusalem.
And this New Jerusalem is coming down from
heaven like a bride adorned for her bridegroom.
Into this new city, noth but defileth shall
ever enter in, though its gates are opened
day and night.
On all sides of the city foursquare, nothing
but defiles enter into this city.
But in that city, you can have all
the defilement that you desire, and you can
be satiated with sin.
That's the city for sinning and lusting.
That's your home, if that's what you want.
But the tale of the two cities doesn't
end there.
Their fate is as separated and separable as
heaven is from hell, as God is from
Satan.
Where is your name written, my friend?
To which city does your heart gravitate at
this moment?
Where is your sympathy?
For where your heart is, where your treasure
is, there is your heart also.
I beg of you, if there is the
still lingering desire in your soul for the
Babylon spirit and the Babylon sin, turn round.
Come to him who alone can make us
clean and purge the past and bring us
into the holy city of God.
You know, a church is nothing other than
the outpost of the city.
And by coming to Christ and to his
people, trusting him as our Saviour and taking
his people as his brothers and sisters and
living and serving alongside of them, we take
our place in the Jerusalem that is from
above.
I close and I leave you with a
question.
What city do you belong to?
Let us pray.
Our God and our Father, we are so
impotent in presenting these amazing, these Himalayan truths
of holy writ.
They are so great and so important that
we feel we have hardly begun to understand
them, let alone declare them faithfully and adequately.
But despite all human feebleness, we pray that
thou wilt write the message into our every
heart and conscience tonight.
Grant that we may be known as men
and women who certainly have no truck with
Babylon, save to declare to Babylonians that a
Saviour has been born, and his name is
Jesus, and he is able to save men
from their sin, even to the uttermost, even
from the gates of Babylon, the city of
the great rebellion.
Our God, hear us.
Make us worthy citizens of the new Jerusalem,
and may the mould of life that belongs
to it in that eternal city be so
practised by us right here and now that
when at last we arrive we shall be
at home.
We ask it in Jesus' name.
Amen.