This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Clark
Wofford, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland,
County of Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Clark as he
continues teaching through God's Word.
There's something that I believe we need to understand today
ourselves in regard to how is this fallen system affecting our
own lives today? How connected are we to this
world system, this fallen world? How much do we love the world?
How much are we under its control even as Christians at
times? And that's what I sort of want
you to step back and maybe take a look at your own heart today,
where you are with everything occurring in these last days.
When I think of the future, I often imagine things like Star
Trek or the Jetsons, but even as far as we've come with
technology, it all seems so distant.
I know we don't have flying cars yet, but if you think about it,
everyone has a personal touch screen device in their hand.
That's pretty wild. In today's message, Pastor Clark
wants you to consider how far the world has already moved
toward the prophecies of the Book of Revelation.
Can you see how the world around you is primed for the Antichrist
now? Here's Pastor Clark in
Revelation chapter 18 with today's edition of Living Waters
of Grace. We'll start our study Revelation
chapter 18, verse one of chapter 18 through verse 8.
That's what we'll try to cover today.
After these things. I saw another Angel coming down
from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was
illuminated with his glory. And he cried mightily with a
loud voice, saying, Babylon the Great has fallen, has fallen,
and has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every
foul spirit, a cage for every unclean and hated bird.
For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her
fornication. The kings of the earth have
committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth
have become rich through the abundance of her luxury.
And I heard another voice from heaven saying, Come up not of
her, my people, lest you share in her sins, unless you receive
of her plagues. For her sins have reached to
heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.
Render to her just as she rendered to you, and repay her
double according to her works and the cup which she has mixed
double for her in the measure that she glorified herself, and
live luxuriously. In the same measure give her
torment and sorrow, for she says in her heart, I sit as a queen
and am no widow, and will not see sorrow.
Therefore her plagues will come in one day, death and mourning
and famine, and she will be utterly burned with fire, for
strong as the Lord God who judges her.
This is describing the fall of Babylon, Babylon the Great.
Now, when you think about Babylon, there's a lot of
different positions as you study commentaries regarding what is
this place called Babylon. Some people believe it's the
modern city of Rome today. Some people believe it's going
to be a rekindled, redeveloped, spectacular nation that will one
day be reestablished on the face of the earth.
I seem to believe, along with some other commentators that I
enjoy their their teaching is that when we look at chapter 17,
we're studying about a system of false ecclesiology, meaning a
false religious system. And in chapter 18, we're
studying about the commercial business, commerce power of this
entity, which is the one world government under the one world
banking, one world financial system.
And so we're the day reading about this eventual destruction
of the city. And whenever we teach the Book
of Revelation, I find that it's real easy to look at things from
a futuristic point of view and not think about where we are
today as believers, followers of Christ.
It's real easy to, as I said in the past, to study this book and
say, boy, these poor people, they're going to be left here
during the tribulation. I'm glad I'm not going to be
there and I'm glad I'm not going to have to deal with this stuff.
But there's something that I, I believe we need to understand
today ourselves in regard to how is this fallen system affecting
our own lives today? How connected are we to this
world system, this fallen world? How much do we love the world?
How much are we under its control even as Christians at
times? And that's what I sort of want
you to step back and maybe take a look at your own heart today,
where you are with everything occurring in these last days.
Now when we think about this world system, it begins to give
us some understanding of light. In Ephesians chapter 2 talks
about where we all once were before we came to know Jesus
Christ. It says verse one and you hath
he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins at one time.
Every one of us here today, we're dead to God, dead to
Christ. Even though we're walking around
physically and we're enjoying our lives and whatever extent
that we're living in them at the present time, there was a time
for all of us that we didn't think anything about God, let
alone Jesus Christ of the Holy Spirit, that it wasn't on our
radar screen, right? We didn't give the the Holy
Trinity any respect or any kind of worship.
We basically worshipped ourselves.
And it also talks about that in Romans chapter 1, but it says
that this is where we all once were.
It says in which in verse 2 you once walked according to the
course of this world, according to the Prince of the power of
the air, the Spirit who now works in the sons of
disobedience. So at one time in our life, and
I remember in my own life, I mean, I didn't come to know
Christ until I was about 20. But there was a period in my
life, and also even after I became a Christian, that I was
very, very influenced by what the world was dictating to me
regarding success, security, materialism, all the things that
we all get caught up in. And at one time, though, before
I knew Christ, I couldn't do anything but walk according to
the course of this world. I was under the influence of
Satan, as you were. I was in darkness.
I didn't understand that there was a Kingdom of God.
I didn't understand that I was a Sinner.
I didn't understand that I was lost.
I was just heading down the road to destruction without any kind
of insight into another world existing.
And it says in verse three, among whom also, and you might
want to underline this in the Bible, it says we all once
conducted ourselves in the lusts of the flesh, lusts of our
flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.
And we're by nature the children of wrath just as others.
So all of us, and this is your kids today, unless they've come
to Christ, perhaps your spouses, your brothers, your sisters,
anybody that is without Christ is walking according to the
course of this world. They're under the influence of
the devil and they're on their way to a crisis eternity.
And if the end times are coming up soon, these will be the folks
that will be left on the face of the earth to have to deal with
the horrendous outpouring of the wrath of the evil 1, the
Antichrist, Satan himself. But there was this time in your
life in mind that all we were thinking about was fulfilling
what my body told me it was good for me or what my mind activated
me to think of. You know, let's commit this sin.
Let's get involved in this kind of sorted activity, blow my
money on these foolish things or whatever it was.
It's different for all of us. Now, I'm probably, and I don't
say this out of any kind of sense of pride or ego, but I'm
probably the worst Sinner in this place.
And the apostle Paul said that he is the chief of all sinners.
So I can't claim that, but I'll tell you, I've done some wicked
things in my life. If it wasn't for the grace and
the mercy of God, I would be in big, big trouble.
And God's mercy endures forever. No matter how bad or how wicked
we have been or what we've done in our past, the cross and the
blood of Jesus Christ is there for every one of us all the
time, to forgive us and to transform us and to make us into
new people. To change our lives, to change
our conduct, our behavior, the way we think, the way we act,
the way we treat others, our priorities, our goals, our
desires, our dreams, our ambitions.
Everything begins to change when we're brought into the Kingdom
of God. But some of you here today might
not have committed really horrible sins.
You might look at your life and you say, well, I'm really not
that bad or I never really did some of the things perhaps that
Clark did or some other people I've met that give their
testimonies, well, that doesn't take you off the hook because
the Bible says that if we've committed one sin, we're guilty
of them all. That's hard to swallow for proud
people. A lot of people less times will
look and say, well, I never did this.
I'm better than that. And so, you know God will accept
me because I wasn't as evil as this person.
Well, the Bible says for all of sin and falling short of the
glory of God. So there's not one of us in here
today. No matter the minimum amount of
sin you committed or the maximum amount of sin you committed,
we're all in the same position, guilty before holy God.
So this is the picture though, of the world system today.
This is the picture of the spiritual Babylon, where the
world today is under the influence of the devil, and the
only thing that prevents it from being really, really bad is the
presence of the church and the body of Christ on the face of
the earth. Today.
We're still salt, we're still light, and we still have an
impact. And whenever the church is
pulled out prior to the beginning of the tribulation at
the rapture, literally all hell will break loose.
And you think things are dark and bad now.
You have no idea what they're going to be like after the
church is no longer on the face of the earth.
It also tells us in the book of first John regarding this world
system. And chapter 2 verse 15 says do
not love the world nor the things that are in the world.
If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in
Him. Now I've had discussions with
people sometimes. Does that mean that I can't like
creation and I can't like nature and and the things that God's
made? No, that that isn't talking
about, that the world system is what the apostle John is
speaking about here. If anyone loves this world, in
other words, the passion of your life is in everything that is
represented by the world, greed and materialism and lust and
idolatry, then you're connected with loving the world.
And John is saying that if you love the world, God's love isn't
in you. For all that is in the world,
the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of
life is not of the Father, but is of the world.
And the world is passing away and the lust of it.
But he who does the will of God abides forever.
So we're studying a revelation today about this present world
system that's one day going to be destroyed and completely
obliterated. And degree of how you see it and
how you understand it. Today there will be a new heaven
and a new earth that God will create at the end of time.
But the world is getting darker. And unfortunately, because you
and I are still living in this world, we are bombarded and
attacked by the world every day. Jesus says it's the cares of the
world, The deceitfulness of riches and the lust are the
things that choke his word out in our hearts and cause us to be
unfruitful. Now the cares of the world, am I
going to have enough food? Am I going to have enough money
to pay my bills? Am I going to have heat to heat
my house? These are all practical
considerations of of us as human beings that we need these things
to survive. You know, is the Social Security
going to be there? Is there going to be enough
money, money in the bank to put my kids through college or, you
know, the cares of the world, It ties us up, you know, am I going
to have enough money to pay my mortgage?
And so many today are not having the funds necessary to pay their
mortgages. You know, can I get a bigger
house and have a bigger mortgage or can I get a better car and
drive? You know, there's not one of us
in here that aren't affected by those kind of emotions.
And we have to be real careful because God trusts us with his
resources. Many of us have been blessed
beyond what we could ever imagine in this life, living in
this this country and the freedom and the economic system
that the free enterprise and the capital environments that have
enabled the United States of America to thrive as a nation
and a country in this world to be prospering.
Yet everything that God trusts you with and trust me with is a
gift. It's not a right.
It's not something that I'm entitled to.
It's the grace of God. And so as I live in this world
and as you live in this world, what am I to do with what it is
that God entrusts me with? And that's where you and I have
to talk honestly with God about what it is we have and how we
use what He gives us, either for ourselves and our own sense of
greed or our sense of His love and His Kingdom and for the sake
of others. We're all struggling with that
to some degree or another. All of us.
The more I allow the world to take control of my heart and
obsess my mind, the less room I have for God and others.
And I've experienced that in my life when I've been full of
myself and what I want and what I think I need and my
possessions and my rights. I don't have time for anybody
but me, myself and I, which is the unholy Trinity.
So John is speaking in Revelation and in this epistle
about the danger of this present world system.
And then the the lust of the flesh is a whole nother
dimension of this world system. And I can't help but to speak on
this periodically through this book because this comes up and
the text is like everything that is on TV that is being
advertised to make you want, it is the lust of the flesh to make
you not satisfied with what it is that God has enabled you to
have. I get a kick out of these
commercials. You know, there's nothing wrong
with driving a Lexus or whatever.
If God enables you to provide, you know, you make the money and
you can, you know, everything's proportional.
If you're making 10,000 a year, you're not going to drive a
Lexus, right? If God has blessed you to make a
half a million a year, you can drive a Lexus.
And some people might think, well, why are they driving a
Lexus? Well, proportionally to their
income, it's not a big deal, right?
But if you're driving a Lexus and you're only making 30,000 a
year and that's all you got to pay, say it's any money you
have, all your money is going to pay for some stupid car payment.
You've gotten hooked by the lust of the flesh.
But everything is in the sense of God's Providence and what he
allows us to do with our resources.
In the Old Testament, he said, I'm going to give you 90%.
You just give me 10%. That's a deal, right?
When God gives you everything and he says I'm going to let you
have 90 and all I'm asking you to do is, you know, give me 10%.
I mean that who would ever run into someone and says, I'm going
to give you everything that I have and bless you with it, and
I'm just asking for a 10% return on my investment In the New
Testament, we don't see the numbers set up like that.
It's even more intense where God says everything you have is
mine. And so it isn't like, well, you
know, if I give 10%, then that that's enough God.
But you know, in the New Testament under grace, it's
like, I just want to, you know, abundantly pour out what God's
bless me with for the sake of others and for the sake of his
Kingdom. So hopefully we're none of us
are thinking how stingy we can be with the goodness of God, but
how abundant can we be because God has been so merciful and
abundant with us. But the lust of the flesh.
And so these commercials, have you seen them?
Nice looking couple come out, beautiful house.
The car, this thing is wrapped and like beautiful, you know,
Christmas wrapping. They pull it apart and it's a
Lexus, a red Lexus or a black like, you know, such a small
percentage of our population can afford that, but they know what
they're doing. I might not be able to get a
Lexus, but maybe I can get a, a Honda, Toyota, Buick, you know,
Chrysler, doesn't matter. You know, I would get something
that is newer or better or brighter or shinier.
And so it just causes us to lust.
Maybe we see the woman on TV and the guy will say, well, why
can't I have a wife like that? Or the wife will say, why can't
I have a husband like that? The constant dissatisfaction
with what God has allowed us to have as a blessing.
And then the pride of life. Many people are interested in
looking good in the eyes of other people.
And so everything they do in life is to impress other people.
Whatever it is they buy or how they live or how they dress,
It's all designed to say, look at me, aren't I great?
You know, I have this, I have that, you don't, too bad for
you. That kind of thing, The pride of
life. And so all these things are
influencing the culture and also the church.
The world is in the church today more than the church, which is
in the world, if you get my drift, Right.
We are being more impacted today as believers in evangelical
communities by what the world says as opposed to what the word
of God says. And so John is addressing these
things in this 18th chapter of Revelation.
And it's really serious because as I study this and prepare to
teach on it, I have to say to my own heart, OK, he's talking
about Babylon. How affected am I by Babylon,
this world system? How am I being influenced by
this false political commercial system that one day is going to
be completely destroyed? And so as John is talking about
chapter 17, he goes into verse 18 and he says, I see another
Angel coming down from heaven. This Angel has great authority
and the earth was illuminated with his glory.
So this Angel, I don't know who it was.
Could it be Gabriel or Michael, the highest created archangels?
I don't know. The scriptures doesn't give any
detail to who they were, but whoever they were, they had such
an anointing on them that when they came, the brightness of
their position and authority illuminated the whole earth.
The Trinity allowed this Angel to manifest the brightness of
the glory in the Kingdom of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And this Angel cries in verse 2 mightily with a loud voice
saying Babylon the Great is fallen, is fallen, and has
become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul
spirit, a cage for every unclean and hated bird.
One day the financial markets will crash.
None of us want to see that, especially those of us who have
our retirement tied up in that stuff.
But someday they will crash. I had a dream last night and it
was weird, you know, I'm seeing the Dow Jones industrial
numbers, you see in the financial News Network and the
tapes and the numbers, everything, the electronic
boards. And I'm seeing everything go
from here to 0. Everything from here to 0.
Can you imagine the worth of this whole earth in one day
being brought to nothing? There was an old song back in
the Jesus movement days when I first became a believer.
The song I wish would all been ready.
Remember that there's no time to change your mind.
The sun has come and you've been left behind.
It says a piece of bread could buy a bag of gold.
I wish we'd all been ready. One day gold will be worthless.
Everybody's saying what commodities are the way to go,
and maybe temporarily they are. You have to be an astute and
wise investor to know how to to take care of the money that God
has given you. You don't waste it and squander
it or hot it in a hole and hope it'll bring forth some kind of
return. You have to be a good steward
with what God trusts you with. But as much as we put confidence
in the commodity market, in the growth of copper, silver or
gold, one day there will come a time, and I'm not saying it's
tomorrow or next week or next month or next year, but it is
clear in Revelation at one day these markets and the plagues
will come. In verse 8, it says in one day
death and mourning and famine. And it says in verse 9 that the
kings of the earth who committed all the fornication, the people
that this completely ignored the throne of God live the way they
want. Says they live luxuriously with
her will weep and lament for her when they see the smoke of her
burning. So all the people left on the
face of the earth at this time will look at all the things they
trusted in, all the things they were excited about, all the
things they had their hope in and their their energy in and
they're going to see it completely be decimated in.
In a moment of time. And so this voice of judgement
from the Angel coming and warning the people about the
impending doom that's going to come upon the face of the earth.
And I don't know if you watch the headlines every day I get up
and I put CNN on and I want to see if the world is still here,
You know, is this is it over? And I look and I see this
morning that North Korea and South Korea are getting closer
and closer to a major conflict. So much to China right now is
involved in urgently, it says urgently wanting to appeal to
their potential conflict here. Now, China is usually the most
non committal nation of anybody in the world.
They sort of stay out of everything.
Meanwhile, they keep making all our stuff, right.
They're getting richer and richer.
Our jobs are being transported all around the world.
So Americans don't have the ability to make a decent
livelihood anymore in a lot of cases.
I mean, they got the best of all worlds.
But what's happening right now? And I watched the last week,
whenever the the attack initially started from North
Korea, it affected the market significantly.
Right now we look in Europe, we have Ireland that's having
problems with their finances and they're looking for a bailout.
Portugal's next. And next to Spain, the contagion
is basically unlimited. They can't stop it.
Everybody's acting like it can stop it, but they really can't.
So what's amazing, what's exciting, what's, what's
depressing in a way is that we're all going to be like
affected by this stuff. But what's exciting in a way is,
is that look up your redemption draws nod.
Because the more we see these things coming together and the
greater the intensity and the greater the instability of the
world system, the more we realize that the Lord is pulling
all these things together for His second coming.
And so as we look at these things in this particular book,
John is describing this potential eventual destruction
of spiritual and financial Babylon and this world system.
It's organized by the Antichrist.
Now it says in Ephesians 2 that this world that we live in, the
Prince of the power of the air, Satan himself is the one that's
influencing and controlling everything.
He's not physically present yet in the form of a human being,
the Antichrist. But one day there will be
someone who will walk around filled with the presence of
Satan and in the flesh, and that will be the day that the
Antichrist will be ruling and reigning on the face of the
earth. Now this chapter 18 though, is
moving up toward the end of the Tribulation the last 3 1/2
years, and so will continue to hear.
He's crying out, warning everybody that's on the face of
the earth as to the impending doom.
A dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, a
cage for every unclean and hated bird.
The Gospels tell us that the birds represent those who come
and take the Word of God when it's planted in the heart, and
come and take the seed when it was planted and take it away.
So it can't take root in the heart of the hear the voice of
God's judgment through this Angel in spite of the darkness
and this last day of the tribulation, God's glory is
going to shine, because the Angel illuminates the earth with
his glory, so the darkness can't ever outshine the light.
And it talks about this judgment.
It says the nations have drunk of the wine for the wrath of her
fornication. The kings of the earth have
committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth
have become rich to the abundance of her luxury.
In the Book of Revelation, Pastor Clark is taking us
through all kinds of events and happenings that are predicted
for the future. But for those who believe and
follow Jesus, there's much to look forward to in heaven with
Jesus. However, for those who are here
on earth during the Tribulation, there's all kinds of chaos that
will unfold. The Bible talks about an
Antichrist, false prophet, and of course that evil enemy Satan.
Do you see how there are such clever attempts for the enemy to
disguise himself as God and even the Trinity?
The true Savior of the world is God and how he comes to rescue
through his triune nature, God the Father, Jesus the Son, and
God the Holy Spirit. Just like Satan tried to take
over for God in heaven and was cast out, Satan will try to
convince people on earth that he is the triune God to be
worshipped instead of the legitimate God in heaven.
It's an attempt, and although he will capture plenty in his
schemes, he will not win. The true God wins, and
Revelation unpacks how that will all happen in detail.
Be encouraged because there's a way out for all of this madness
that will ensue on this earth. But you don't want to wait
indefinitely to make that decision about Jesus.
We don't know when the church will be raptured, and you want
to be ready to be with Jesus. To learn more about this, head
over to calvarychapelonline.com. We're so glad you've been with
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