1. "When we are in ungodliness, we do not like to be confronted. We do not like to hear the truth. We are no friend of God's truth when we are loving that which he says is wrong."

2. "Friend, I'm warning you, don't believe pride in God's grace. I've gotten to hang around Duke students for four years, lived up in Boston, was in Cambridge, England, for seven years. And I've been here for over 30 years. I've been around places where there are a lot of people this world considers very successful. And I gotta tell you my experience: there is no satisfaction in a temporary and passing life."

3. "Pride is a deceiver. Pride is a liar. Pride will put up a distorted mirror to your face and show you how good you are at starting that company, how well you've related to other people, how kind you are, you know, how honest and humble you've been, how successful you've been in this business or in that way."

4. "Friends, through all the conflict that we Christians face in this life, we should never reason from the conflict to think that the outcome is uncertain. That's the strange thing about knowing an eternal God. We're in time, and yet we know from the nature of this God who has revealed his truth to us."

5. "Young people, I just especially want you to notice how ridiculous this is. Her saying, this prostitute saying what she will never say. She's saying this on the very morning of her execution. But again, that's what pride will do. Pride will trick you. It will make you think reality isn't real."

6. "Don't ever think because God hasn't called you to judgment for something, now he never will. You realize God let Babylon, the world system go for years, decades, centuries, millennia. But then he suddenly will call it all to judgment."

7. "We find then that the natural part of this judgment falling for someone who has been on God's side in the conflict is to see this as vindication. There are different kinds of joy. There's the joy you feel when your friend gets a new job. There's the joy you feel when you get a new job. There's the joy you feel when our team wins the national championship. There's the joy you feel as a Jew in hiding in 1945 when you hear the German Nazi government has fallen. That last kind of joy is the joy that is going on here."

8. "Oh congregation of lawyers, what an amazing statement. You of all people know how approximate our best justice is. Our greatest regulations, our most careful laws, our judicial renderings. But here all of God's ways are perfectly true and perfectly just."

9. "Our worship that we experience here is to deepen our trust in the sovereignty of God. When evil seems to prevail, when we are sick or we are discouraged, we recall the Psalms or the words from the Bible or the hymns that we've sung here at church which hold out God's promise of everlasting joys."

10. "When your sins are finally taken from you, will you be happy or sad? That will let you know how you're being oriented toward this last day of God's judgment."

Observation Questions

1. In Revelation 18:2-3, what three specific descriptions are given of Babylon after its fall? What does each description suggest about the nature of worldly systems?

2. Looking at Revelation 18:7-8, what specific claims does Babylon make about herself? How does God respond to these claims?

3. In Revelation 18:11-13, what categories of goods are listed in the merchants' cargo? What is significant about the final item in this list?

4. From Revelation 18:21-23, what specific aspects of city life does the angel say will never be found in Babylon again? What picture does this paint of Babylon's judgment?

5. According to Revelation 18:24, what specific charge is brought against Babylon that justifies her judgment? How does this connect to Revelation 19:2?

6. In Revelation 19:1-5, what specific words and phrases are used to praise God? What aspects of God's character are being celebrated?

Interpretation Questions

1. The sermon compares modern "reaction videos" to the responses in Revelation 18. How does this help us understand the purpose of recording both the mourning of the merchants and the rejoicing of heaven?

2. Throughout Revelation 18, judgment comes "in a single hour" (verses 10, 17, 19). What does this teach us about the nature of God's judgment? How does this connect to Jesus' teachings about His return?

3. Babylon is described as both a great city and a prostitute in these chapters. How do these different images help us understand what Babylon represents in our world today?

4. The merchants weep over their lost trade while heaven rejoices over Babylon's fall. What does this contrast reveal about different ways of valuing things? How does this relate to Jesus' teachings about treasure in heaven?

5. The sermon asks, "When your sins are finally taken from you, will you be happy or sad?" How does this question help us understand the different responses to God's judgment in these chapters?

Application Questions

1. When was the last time you found yourself taking pride in your achievements, possessions, or status? How did this passage challenge your perspective on those things?

2. What specific forms of "Babylon" - worldly systems opposed to God - do you find most tempting or challenging in your life right now?

3. Think about your spending habits over the past month. Which purchases reflected eternal values, and which ones might have reflected Babylon's values of luxury and self-indulgence?

4. When you hear news of successful people or organizations that oppose Christian values, do you ever feel envious or discouraged? How does this passage help you respond differently?

5. In what specific way is God calling you to "come out" from Babylon this week? What practical step can you take to respond to this call?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Daniel 4:28-37 - Nebuchadnezzar's pride and fall provides a powerful historical example of how God humbles those who exalt themselves, just as He does with Babylon in Revelation.

2. Matthew 6:19-24 - Jesus' teaching about treasures in heaven directly addresses the merchant's attachment to worldly wealth that we see in Revelation 18.

3. James 4:13-17 - This passage expands on the foolishness of making plans without recognizing God's sovereignty, illustrating why Babylon's self-confidence was misplaced.

4. 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1 - Paul's call to separate from worldly defilement provides practical guidance for how we can "come out" from Babylon in our daily lives.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Context of Babylon’s Fall and Human Reactions (Revelation 18)

II. The World’s Response to Judgment: Regret (Revelation 18:9–19)

III. Heaven’s Response to Judgment: Rejoicing (Revelation 19:1–5)

IV. The Urgent Call to Repentance and Faith in Christ (Revelation 18:4)

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Detailed Sermon Outline

I was with some friends the other day, and they were answering the question, what's one of the most wonderful sights you've ever seen? Various people mentioned various natural wonders. And then this one friend, who was an astronaut, said, It was always fun when there was a rookie astronaut, that's somebody in space for the first time, to watch their face when they first saw the earth from space. There's amazing wonder and delight you see on a face like that. Well, we love watching reactions of people.

There's a whole class of videos, reaction videos, that are all about just watching the reactions of people when great things, wonderful things, terrible things, surprising things happen. Apparently, those of you who are younger spend a lot of time watching videos like this. I am too old to watch them, but I have read about them, and I went and looked a few up, and I've just got to say there's better stuff to watch, guys. But it is interesting how immediately, emotionally, watching a spontaneous reaction does communicate. It's a very powerful means of communication.

And when my friend made that comment and I was considering this passage in Revelation, I realized this is exactly what's going on here today. If you've been reading the passage, you realize that's what's going on. So we've been preaching about wrath every single study in Revelation for some time now, and we are still there because that's what God has for us in the book of Revelation. Last time in chapter 17, remember we had the prostitute, the beast and the lamb. And you'd think in that trio you put your money on the beast.

And sure enough, the beast did actually consume the prostitute at the end. But then when it becomes a one-on-one face off with the lamb, the lamb wins. Well, that's the account in the Bible of the fall of Babylon, the world system. Now in our next chapter, chapter 18 that we're at today, we get these sort of reaction videos. We get the response.

What do people think when Babylon, the world system, falls? That's where we're at now in God's Word, Revelation chapter 18. And I think what you're gonna see in this is two contrasting responses. Regret on the one hand and rejoicing on the other. In order to try to bring home to us readers the magnitude and significance of this great city that John is seeing in his vision, he records it in a way that sounds a lot like the fall of Old Testament cities in Ezekiel and Isaiah, like Tyre in the Old Testament.

If you're a Bible reader, you'll recognize some of the language. But much of the description really is showing the contrast between the regret that some feel and the rejoicing that others feel. And it's a powerful juxtaposition, the way these two are together. And it presses the question on us, as we read this today, When God's judgment comes, how will you respond?

When God's judgment comes, will you respond with regret at the loss Or will you respond rejoicing? Because finally, there's vindication of God and His claims. That's what we want to think about as we read this portion of God's Word. Open up and the Bible is provided to page 1038. If you're not used to being at a church that preaches the Bible, the sermons are a little longer than you're used to, and the Bible is even more helpful than you may be used to.

So even if you're just here with a friend, you will endure this next period of time better if you will open a Bible, take one of them, we provide them. If you don't have one at home you can read, just take one of those as a gift from us to you. Open up to Revelation, it's the last book in the Bible. The Bible is composed of 66 books and the last one is Revelation. We're near the end of that one, so you're near the back cover.

You're looking for page 1038. And we're going to be looking at chapter 18 and just the beginning of chapter 19.

Here now as I read God's Word.

After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was made bright with his glory. And he called out with a mighty voice, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great. She has become a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast. For all nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living.

Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, 'Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins. Lest you share in her plagues, for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. Pay her back as she herself has paid back others, and repay her double for her deeds, mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed, as she glorified herself and lived in luxury, so give her a like measure of torment and mourning, since in her heart she says, I sit as a queen. I am no widow, and mourning I shall never see. For this reason, her plagues will come in a single day, death and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire, for mighty is the Lord God who has judged her.

And the kings of the earth who committed sexual immorality and lived in luxury with her will weep and 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, you great city, you mighty city Babylon, for in a single hour your judgment has come.' and the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo anymore, cargo of gold, silver, jewels, pearls, fine linen, Purple cloth, silk, and scarlet cloth, all kinds of scented wood, all kinds of articles of ivory, all kinds of articles of costly wood, bronze, iron, and marble, cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle, and sheep, horses and chariots, and slaves, that is human souls.

The fruit for which your soul longed is gone from you. All your delicacies and your splendors are lost to you, never to be found again. The merchants of these wares who gained wealth from her will stand far off in fear of her torment, weeping and mourning aloud. Alas, alas for the great city that was clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet, adorned with gold, with jewels and with pearls. For in a single hour all this wealth has been laid waste.

And all shipmasters and seafaring men, sailors, and all whose trade is on the sea, stood far off. And cried out as they saw the smoke of her burning, what city was like the great city? And they threw dust on their heads as they wept and mourned, crying out, Alas, alas for the great city, where all who had ships at sea grew rich by her wealth, for in a single hour she has been laid waste. Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, for God has given judgment for you against her.

Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea.

Saying, so will Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence, and will be found no more. And the sound of harpists and musicians of flute players and trumpeters will be heard in you no more. And a craftsman of any craft will be found in you no more. And the sound of the mill will be heard in you no more. And the light of a lamp will shine in you no more.

And the voice of bridegroom and bride will be heard in you no more. For your merchants were the great ones of the earth. And all nations were deceived by your sorcery. And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints and of all who have been slain on earth.

After this, I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven crying out, Hallelujah, salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for His judgments are true and just, for He has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality, and has avenged on her the blood of His servants.

Once more they cried out, Hallelujah, the smoke from her goes up forever and ever.

And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who was seated on the throne saying, Amen, hallelujah. And from the throne came a voice saying, Praise our God all you His servants, you who fear Him, small and great.

I'm tempted just to keep reading. The book of Revelation is a powerful account.

Friends, we see here how symbolic this book is. Last time in chapter 17 we saw Babylon die, but it was destroyed and consumed by the beast. This time it's destroyed by the sudden fire. What you learn from things like this is not to read the book of Revelation. Forgive the word, stupidly.

That is with a kind of flat literalism that gets to know this one verse and says, how is this literally fulfilled right now? You have to kind of step back and read all of it. Because John is shown the same truth with different images. Remember we saw this in an earlier study when he heard that the line of the tribe of Judah had conquered and he would come and open the seals, but he looks and he stands and he sees a lamb who was slain.

That's an example, the lion is the lamb. So here the city, the great city, Babylon, it's Rome, it's the Roman system. And we have various images John is shown in this vision God gives him to understand what will happen. And what is clear here is that God will judge those who are in apparent authority right now, the very ones who made old John, maybe the last of the living 12 disciples, Pastor of the church in Ephesus, maybe in his 80s, maybe 90s, had been exiled to Patmos by the Roman government. So he's on this island away from Ephesus in a cave because the Roman government made him go there.

He's away from his flock and that's where God gives him this vision. And of course the great thing about this vision is this overpowering Roman empire is not to be feared. The vision that God gives to John is that the sovereign God, the God of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, rules the universe. And Rome is, as Babylon, a passing power for a time. God's power is eternal.

And part of what that means is that God will judge. And the question these two different responses put to us as we see the kings and merchants and sea captains on the one hand, and then the thunderous, and voice from heaven on the other, the chorus, is how will we respond to the judgments of God? When God's judgments come, how are we oriented toward them? And if you can answer that, you will find out crucial information about your spiritual state today. So friend, it is in your interest to find this out.

I don't have this written down as a point in my sermon, but you'll notice throughout this how sudden the judgment will come, how suddenly it will come. You know, in an hour, in an instant, he uses the image of the great millstone thrown into the sea. So what all that means is that you and I need to pay careful attention to this now. Now is the time when we have our wits about us, When we can pay attention and when we can honestly love, honestly regret, honestly repent, honestly trust and believe in Christ, today is the day for you to do that. So pay careful attention as we look through this passage.

Let's look first at the world's response there in chapter 18. So when God's judgment comes, how will you respond? Will you regret like the world does here? Look at chapter 18 again.

We see this sentence on Babylon announced there in verse 2, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great. This is one of the ways you learn to read the book of Revelation. That sentence has already happened. I don't know if you remember that, but back in chapter 14, if you turn back over a couple of pages, look at verse 8. It's in these three angels, we looked at this back in March, chapter 14.

The second angel, this is chapter 14, verse 8, followed saying, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who made all nations drink the wine of the passions of her sexual immorality. So what's happening now in chapter 18, John is being shown again, as it were, that part of the vision, but it's being expanded. Chapter 17 is really part of that with this vision of how Babylon, the great prostitute, fell, devoured by the beast. Now chapter 18, we're getting the account of the fall and the responses that came when it fell. Babylon is really the perfect image for the world system that's opposed to God.

This is the nation that in the Old Testament surrounded the capital city of Jerusalem, destroyed it, brought the Israelites out in exile. So they're the picture of God's enemies. They stood in the first century very clearly for Rome, not just the Roman state, but Roma, the goddess of Rome, the one who would say, Worldly power is mine. The world system is mine, what we might call worldliness. So why was God judging this city?

Called here in verse 2, the great prostitute. By this other image. Well, you look here in verse 3. For all nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living. And they expanded then in verses 5 to 7.

For her sins are heaped as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. Pay her back as she herself has paid back others, and repay her double for her deeds, mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed, and she glorified herself and lived in luxury, so give her a light measure of torment and mourning. So it's in her heart she says, I sit as a queen, I am no widow, and mourning I shall never see. So Babylon, worldliness, loves pleasure in many forms. That's represented here by sexual immorality.

And remember we said last time in looking at sexual immorality, that would include sexual immorality, but it's an Old Testament image for all unfaithfulness. It's all unfaithfulness to God. So in the Old Testament, the people's unfaithfulness, like breaking any of the commands, like the ones we were confessing earlier, loving the Lord our God or loving our neighbors ourselves, all of those are represented spiritually as a kind of adultery. So any straying from the way of God in the Bible is represented as a kind of adultery and unfaithfulness to the Lord. And Babylon had led the way in being unfaithful to God and had entangled others in her unfaithfulnesses.

And she's unfaithful in many ways. This pleasure you see, she loves pleasure that's represented by the sexual immorality and the luxury, the delicacies as he calls them, and the splendors of this life. You see that in verse... look at verse 9, the kings of the earth who committed sexual immorality and lived in luxury with her will weep and wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning. Or then down in verse 11, the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo.

And then that long list of cargo that I read. So the reactions of the kings in 9 and 10, and then the merchants in verses 11 to 13, and then the sea captains in verses 15 to 19, shows the extent of Babylon's wealth. And now all this was gone in an instant.

Isn't it funny how sometimes you can feel when you're in a great crowd of people, very busy, that this reality I'm in must be all there is. This can never end. This is it. And yet here, in the midst of the commercial activity, in the midst of the apparent prosperity of the trading and the enjoying, in the midst of it all, suddenly, God brings it all to an end. Gone in an instant.

And this is why this world regrets God's judgment, because it's the end of what they really most love and desire. They don't really most love and desire the Creator, they love the creation. They don't love the Giver, they love the gifts. That's what they want. So Babylon worldliness at the core of it really loves itself.

That's pride, isn't it? In verse 7 it's just chilling. Look again at verse 7. As she glorified herself and lived in luxury, so give her a like measure of torment and mourning. Since in her heart she says, 'I sit as a queen, I am no widow, and mourning I shall never see.' what extraordinary pride.

In the sense both of self-concern, she's the center of her own loves, but of also self-confidence, she has no doubt that she is now as she is and she will always be world without end, Amen. But she's misunderstood who is God and who is the creature. But that's the way pride is, isn't it? There is not a person here so unsuccessful that you have not had pride, whisper in your ear something about yourself, something about what you've achieved, and something about a security you have because you've achieved that.

Friend, I'm warning you, don't believe pride.

In God's grace, I've gotten to hang around Duke students for four years. Lived up in Boston, was in Cambridge, England for seven years, and I've been here for over 30 years. I've been around places where there are a lot of people this world considers very successful, and I gotta tell you, my experience, and it's great places for evangelism, because the world lies. You know, people who are in the kind of middle trying to get up, they think that stuff up there is really what it's about. But of course, when the people get up there, they find out, really?

This is all it means to have this money or this title or this responsibility or this celebrity. And that starts to feel empty. Then all of a sudden, it's a great time to tell your friend about Jesus. It's a great time to explain what it means to be made in the image of God, to be made for a relationship with God who made you and who will judge you. And to find out that your life is far more exciting than you even understood.

The Lord has so many more things going on that he gives you opportunities to be a part of temporarily, very temporarily. You know, I've been doing this over 30 years and Caleb gives me two chapters in his book.

You know, and people are talking to me like, Hey Mark, you got a book about you, there's two old chapters on you. Does that sort of puff up your head? And honestly friends, it's just, I gotta read it and I go, Seriously? Thirty years? These are like six stories?

All right, yeah, there it is. You did a great job on the book. I'm just making the point that, friends, there is no satisfaction in a temporary and passing life. We are, as the Bible tells us in James, a mist. We have to be careful not to be deceived.

And this is what pride does. Pride is a deceiver. Pride is a liar. Pride will put up a distorted mirror to your face and show you how good you are at starting that company, how well you've related to other people, how kind you are. You know how honest and humble you've been, how successful you've been in this business or in that way.

And friend, all of it is probably partly true, but that's it. And it's only temporary. It's not ultimate. And you are the one finally responsible to know the truth. Friends, nobody can stand in your place for you.

That is except the Lord Jesus Christ, if you'll let him, because you are made in the image of God to give account to him. And pride here just doesn't see that pride sees it has everything it needs in itself. It's, it's so hollow. Uh, that's why if you look in that long list of things, all the things that were being traded that, oh, now they weren't gonna be traded anymore. That's, I think part of why the Lord showed John that in all the detail.

You know, it's kind of like you're going out of Costco. You know, they check the whole list right there. You know, that, that's what's going on. But what's happening is John has been shown that this very real world, as full as it can possibly be, this is a lot of cargo, a lot of stuff, a lot of trade. Even all of that will not satisfy.

All of that will come to an end. All of that will suddenly fall away. In that sense, worldliness is so hollow. As I read and reread this passage this week, the verses that really echoed in my mind were 22 and 23. I'm not going to reread them again just to save time, but That's where I did all those, this will happen no more, this will happen no more, this will happen no more.

Just read those slowly this afternoon. Think about all these markers of a good and full life happening no more. That's what it means for Babylon, Rome, worldliness to finally fall. Babylon's worldliness, its darkest love is seen in verse 24. Look there.

The last verse in chapter 18. And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints and of all who have been slain on earth.

This is alluded to again down in 19:2, just two verses later, where God's judgment is seen as avenging the blood of His servants. Apparently the only way Babylon could have all of this other stuff that they wanted commercial wealth, religious plurality, sexual flexibility, was by silencing those who objected, those who opposed.

John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim's Progress, a great book. If you haven't read it, read it, enjoy. He wrote his second book, Not as Good, but Still Very, Very Good. Called the Holy War. It's another analogy, or it's another allegory.

It's the town of Mansoul. It's taken over by Diabolus and defended at its five gates, ear gate, nose gate, field gate, you know, five senses, okay? So Diabolus keeps the town of Mansoul from Prince Emmanuel who's gonna come and retake it. But while he's got it, man, he is in control. He's got that place locked down.

Well, except for the town crier, old man conscience, who every once in a while will just grab his bell and go running through the streets of Mansoul, clang his bell, Diabolus is a liar and a thief, Emmanuel is the true prince of Mansoul. And then they get him under control and shut him up and sit him down again. Friends, that's the way it is in this world. When we are in ungodliness, we do not like to be confronted. We do not like to hear the truth.

We are no friend of God's truth when we are loving that which he says is wrong. And that's why Christians so often get killed. That's what's happened in worldliness, in this vision. The blood of the martyrs is represented here. You know, earlier in the book back in chapter six, if you want to turn back there, chapter six, we have this question raised in an interesting way.

It's back when he's doing the seals, you know, he's got the seven seals, that's the seals being broken open, then the seven trumpets that's being sounded out, and then the seven bowls that's being poured out. That's how you, that's the revelation, that's the way it goes. Seals is broken open, The trumpets has sounded out, the bowls has poured out. Each time it's a more and more intense picture of God's judgment. Well, back when you're in that first series in chapter 6 about the seals, look there in chapter 6, verse 9.

When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, O sovereign Lord holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth? Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been. When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, and the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the The fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like a scroll.

That's what we were saying earlier, and where shall I be? The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up and every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful and everyone slave and free hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of their wrath has come and who can stand? You see, this is why I don't read the book of Revelation just as if chapter 18 must be after chapter 17 and 17 after 60.

There are various images talking about, and this is clearly talking about the end. That's about as end as it gets. But what we're having in our own, what we're seeing happen in our own passage, we're getting more detail about that. Now was the time for all of these injustices to be redressed and answered. Christians would be vindicated in their claims and in their very lives by this fall of Babylon.

Friends, I was watching the news the other night and a trial is going on and the anchorman said, Today in the trial, some pictures were produced which were so offensive that they were not even shown to the people in the courtroom. They showed them only to the jury. And because of that, we've decided not to show them either. But we did ask our sketch artist who was in the courtroom just to describe for us the faces of the jurors as they saw the pictures. And as they made the descriptions of some wincing and others turning away or looking shocked, you got the idea that what they were seeing was a terrible image.

Friends, however offenses those images may have been, they're nothing compared to the severity, the grandeur, the certainty of the wrath of God that is coming that's being depicted in this chapter that causes the sea captains and the merchants and the kings to stand far off. Friends, here we have the judgment of the one who drank the blood of prophets and of saints mentioned here. This is the woman prostitute who is presented as so desiring the death of Christians. Back in chapter 17, she's described as drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. Chapter 17, verse 14, she's making war on the Lamb.

But friends, through all the conflict that we Christians face in this life, we should never reason from the conflict to think that the outcome is uncertain. That's the strange thing about knowing an eternal God. We're in time, and yet we know from the nature of this God who has revealed his truth to us, we know what he has planned. Not everything, but like the really big things. We know that we can trust him.

The conflict that we're in does not imply the kind of eternal danger for us if we are in Christ. And that's what the people here are being shown. My Christian friend, do you see the greatness of the dangers we're surrounded by? Let me ask you if you're one of those in this crowd who attends church but doesn't join a church. Let me just encourage you to join us formally or some other Bible preaching church.

It doesn't need to be this one. We got plenty of people. We just wouldn't like to advise you that you are made to follow Christ together. With others. That's what we find again and again in God's Word.

That's how we survive these times of conflict. Young people, look with me again at verse 7. As she glorified herself and lived in luxury, so give her a like measure of torment and mourning, since in her heart she says, 'I sit as a queen, I am a widow, and mourning I shall never see.' Young people, I just especially want you to notice how ridiculous this is. Her saying, this prostitute saying what she will never say. She's saying this on the very morning of her execution.

But again, that's what pride will do. Pride will trick you. It will make you think reality isn't real. She could no more determine her life today than she could her life tomorrow. And when you're young, you're particularly open to this mistake.

You think that because something was that way today and yesterday, it'll be the same tomorrow. But, friend, it will not be. James 4:13, Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit.' yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.

Pride is foolish. And young people, you can let rough times to come teach you this truth, or you can learn it from God's Word. You can see what he says here. The Lord hates pride. Consider what prideful assumptions you've had today.

Consider any ways that you've begun to see that you could be wrong. See if there may be some ambitions you have that maybe you should ask questions about. Share them with your parents or your Christian friends. Try to evaluate those ambitions together. See if they're good ambitions to have.

So much else we could say from this. Well, I want us to move on to the other half of our section, which is just a few verses, but it's chapter 19. It's the opposite response. When God's judgment comes, how will you respond? Will you rejoice?

Because that's what we see after all of this amazing regret in the responses and reactions of the kings and the merchants and the sea captains. You look then at chapter 19. Even before chapter 19, there in 18:20, you see that call, Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, for God has given judgment for you against her. That plea we read in chapter 6, How long, O Lord? It's answered here and now.

This is when the answer comes. And we find then that the natural part of this judgment falling for someone who has been on God's side in the conflict is to see this as vindication. So here in chapter 19 at the beginning we see heaven's response to God's judgment of Babylon is joyful praise and worship. What must John's ears have heard there in chapter 19? Let your eyes fall on the verse.

And imagine what John heard. Chapter 19, after this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven crying out.

Have you ever heard the voice on the other end of the phone of someone you've longed to hear from?

Have you ever heard a great choir sing? Or been a part of singing like in this congregation, where your heart is thrilled? John says here in verse 1 that I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, not a slimly attended religious meeting, but a great throng. And what a roar that must have been. And then, then what that multitude was saying, they were crying out, we read, Hallelujah.

And this chapter is the only chapter, I think, in the whole Bible, in the ESV that translates hallelujah, or at least it transliterates it. Because they do just praise the Lord in the Psalms, where we're used to in older translations to see hallelujah. But they've left, the ESV translators have left that word here in chapter 19 just because we are at the climax of what you praise the Lord for. Hallelujah in the Hebrews. Hallel, which is praise and Yah, Yahweh, the Lord.

Let's praise the Lord. So here the choir, the multitude is singing out, hallelujah, salvation and glory and power belong to our God. They're directing God to be praised for salvation. He has delivered the saints from the malicious monstrous power of Babylon. You feel the joy that you're getting in this verse.

You know, there are different kinds of joy. There's the joy you feel when your friend gets a new job. There's the joy you feel when you get a new job. There's the joy you feel when our team wins the national championship. It is the joy you feel as a Jew in hiding in 1945 when you hear the German Nazi government has fallen.

That last kind of joy is the joy that is going on here. The false pretenders to the throne, the ones who were killing God's people, they've fallen. And now, now the Lord God Almighty reigns. So this great multitude roars in praise of God for saving them. It's now been shown indisputably that all glory and power belongs to our God.

No one else has done or could do what God has done. He has saved us by making Jesus our Lord. Then notice in verse 2 what this great multitude in heaven is roaring out, For his judgments are true and just. Oh, congregation of lawyers. What an amazing statement.

You of all people know how approximate our best justice is. Our greatest regulations, our most careful laws, our judicial renderings, but here all of God's ways are perfectly true and perfectly just. So all power, all might is actually wed to right. The right wins in the end. Praise God, no wonder that jubilation is what it is.

Of course, it has to be observed that at the root of our problem with God is that none of us by nature are so just and true. All of us by nature have sinned. We're all, as we're Babylonians by birth, we've all had to come out of Babylon by repenting for our sins and trusting in Christ if we would know forgiveness and new life. Oh friend, we want you to know that new life. We want you to be like the people that came out of Babylon, spiritually speaking.

Here on this day, John was being shown there would echo out not only God's praise, but the explanation of why he was worthy of such praise. Verse 2, For he has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality. Babylon the Great who has fallen, the great prostitute from chapter 17, the one who leads us in worshiping non-gods as God, the one who exalts herself in her pride. Finally, the blood wrongly shed will be answered for. You see that in verse 2, and has avenged on her the blood of His servants.

And then in verse 3, the roaring doesn't stop. Once more they cried out, Hallelujah, the smoke from her goes up forever and ever. John's using a phrase to say what he saw in this vision, that he'd actually heard Jesus teach several times in the gospel when he would talk about wrong being judged and the smoke going up forever and ever. Friends, the idea of God's wrath, of hell in the Bible, is eternal punishment. We have offended the infinite, eternal, entirely true and good God.

And from the description that we see in Revelation, once out of this life, human beings will never change. Their antipathy to God remains forever. Their own existence never ends. Part of the eternal worship of God is our praise of His continuing justice. Scripture knows no embarrassment over this.

Praise God that His victory is over all who would oppose Him and that that victory is unending.

Thus we see in the Bible the sobering idea that hell is appropriately and justly understood to be eternal.

And so far as John from being embarrassed about such a reality that we see in verse 4, that the most esteemed creatures in heaven are part of this chorus of praise. And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who was seated on the throne saying, Amen, hallelujah. There's no dissent about this. God's goodness is complete and entire, obvious to all. Verse 5, and from the throne came a voice saying, Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, small and great.

Praise the Lord. God's justice is right and it is complete. Oh friend, you should never live as if you can get away with something. Don't ever think, because God hasn't called you to judgment for something now, He never will. You realize God let Babylon, the world system, go for years, decades, centuries, millennia.

But then He suddenly will call it all to judgment. John was shown this to send the news to the churches who were struggling with compromise at the time to the power of Rome. Friends, our worship that we experience here is to deepen our trust in the sovereignty of God when evil seems to prevail. When we are sick or we are discouraged, we recall the Psalms or the words from the Bible or the hymns that we've sung here at church which hold out God's promise of everlasting joys ahead. Pastors who are joining us this weekend, we're glad you're here.

We're honored by your presence. Thank you for coming. We pray that you will notice here how remarkable it is that God would entrust this fierce vision of justice to, of all people, John. You know, he's the one who's known as the Apostle of Love. Writes the Gospel of John, the letters of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, which are all about love.

He is the one to whom God entrusts the vision of his final coming and his final justice. And judgment. But that fits, doesn't it? That there is no opposition in God's nature between His goodness and His mercy, between His holiness and His mercy and saving love. Paul wrote that he did this so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Christ.

Friends, this note needs to be clear in your preaching. Don't just preach a God of love as if it's a thin, pale thing. You need to understand and help your people understand what they have been saved from if they're trusting in Christ. They have been saved from the richly deserved wrath of God because Christ, God's only Son, has taken it for all of us who will turn from our sins and trust in him. Please be clear when you're calling people to trust in Christ.

We're thankful that we are among those, if we're Christians here today, who have heard and heeded this call to go out from their midst and be separate from them. Paul called the people in Babylon to come out, and so spiritually that's what we've done if we're Christians. Be very careful about trying to make this world your friend. We are to keep ourselves unstained from the world. As James asks, Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?

Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. That's why this dear old Apostle John wrote a letter of simple instruction in which he said, Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 1 John is to help you with this very point, with what it means to come out of Babylon. Well, friend, that call to come out is back in chapter 18, it's verse 4.

And that's really how any of us get to be in the place where we can rejoice with the angels in chapter 19, because we have, spiritually speaking, come out of Babylon. We have come to regret our sins. And so repent of them and trust in Christ, and so we can rejoice. That's the Christian path, isn't it, really? We learn the truth and so we begin to regret.

We now don't like what we did, and instead we then turn from, we repent, and then we trust in Christ. And so we rejoice in what God has done and says He promises to do in Christ. Christ is our only hope. Only in Christ can we find reasons to exalt in God's justice and sovereignty as we experience his grace. I pray that God will use this brief time of looking at this section of Revelation to humble you.

I pray that you'll be encouraged as we have our own experiences, as we sing of a little preview of that time and we'll hear that great multitude roaring in heaven. And I pray God will call you clearly to be a part of that multitude. Friends, we could stare at this picture of God's sudden justice forever, but we should conclude. Will you regret God's judgment or rejoice when it comes? You really want to figure that out.

And you don't want to give the right answer for the pastor you're gonna have to face at the door on the way out. You want to give the true answer. What is the case with your soul?

Do you find yourself in a position today when God's judgment comes, you will regret it, you will stand back like those kings and sea merchants and sea captains, or can you rejoice like this great multitude in heaven? Another question that might help you with this? Very simple question.

When your sins are finally taken from you, will you be happy or sad?

When your sins are finally taken from you, will you be happy or sad?

That'll let you know. How you're being oriented toward this last day of God's judgment. For now, let's join our voices in praise and worship of this God. This is the appropriate response for sinners like us to such just and true and long-deferred justice of God. In our final hymn, we call each other to the fullness and richness of being able to live this week in certain hope of the coming of God in His justice, out of the emptiness and poverty of lives lived without knowing what's about to happen.

Our final hymn is page 15. Let me pray and then I'll ask us to stand.

Lord God, we see these two sharply contrasting visions of response to youo justice, and we pray, Lord, that you would give us the humility to see that we deserve mourning and repentance and change, Lord. Must be our lot if we're to be saved. Teach us how we can know youw, trust yout. Give each one what we need. And we pray, Lord, that yout would hear our praises offered in hope of this coming day.

In Jesus' name, Amen.