This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I'm glad you're here for day four of our look through Revelation chapter 18.
We're walking through God's perspective on the world system of pride and
selfishness, Babylon. And we've heard two voices already, the voice of
condemnation, the voice that Babylon has fallen, "This world's not going to
last.

" And then the voice of separation, "Come out from her, my people, because we
know this world is not going to last. " And then there is a third voice in
verses 9 to 19, and it is the voice of lamentation. It is the voice of sorrow
and grief.

In verses 9 to 19, you hear the voices of those who trusted in Babylon, who
trusted in this world's power, and found out in the end where that trust led
them. Let me just walk you through these voices. You hear the voices of three
groups in these verses, of the kings, of the merchants, and of the sea captains.

And in one sense, if you think about this in our world today, we're talking
about government, and business, and transportation. Those three areas that are
so intertwined in our lives in this world, first, the kings in verses 9 to 10,
"When the kings of this earth who committed adultery with her and shared her
luxury see the smoke of her burning, they will weep and mourn over her,
terrified of her torment. They will stand far off and cry, 'Whoa, whoa, oh great
city, oh Babylon, city of power.

In one hour, your doom has come. '" So the kings, the rulers of governments and
nations will see it's not going to last. And the Bible says they're going to be
terrified by that, terrified of the torment, terrified of the fall of Babylon.

And then the merchants in verses 11 to 17. And in these verses, it gets very,
very detailed. I want you to listen, as I read through these verses, at the
detail of what's going to be lost, what's not going to last.

People who have trusted in these details of life. Now I know, as a believer, you
have to be involved in the details of life. There are things that you have to
buy.

If you're a merchant, there are things that you have to sell. That's not the
question here. The question of these people's lives is that was the core of
their life, what they bought and sold.

And because it was the core of their life, these details became what they
trusted, and they're all lost. And so God just goes through what's going to be
lost even in the details. Verses 11 to 17, let me read those verses.

The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no one buys
their cargos anymore. Cargos of gold, silver, precious stones and pearls, fine
linen, purple, silk and scarlet cloth, every sort of citrine wood and articles
of every kind made of ivory, costly wood, bronze, iron and marble. Cargos of
cinnamon and spice, of incense, myrrh and frankincense, of wine and olive oil,
of fine flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and carriages and bodies and
souls of men.

They will say, "The fruit you long for is gone from you. All your riches and
splendor have vanished, never to be recovered. The merchants who sold these
things and gained their wealth from her will stand far off, terrified at her
torment.

" They will weep and mourn and cry out, "Whoa, whoa, oh great city, dressed in
fine linen, purple and scarlet and glittering with gold, precious stones and
pearls. In one hour, such great wealth has been brought to ruin. " So here's
this picture of all the merchants, all those involved in business, who that's
all they've trusted in.

And it's amazing to me how clear this picture is, that all the buying and
selling that we do in this world, you and I need to keep it in perspective. It's
not going to last. And realize who is really supplying our needs.

It is God who's supplying our needs. All your riches and splendor have vanished,
never to be recovered. There's a couple of striking things about these verses
that I just read.

One is that even as these merchants at the end see that Babylon has fallen,
they're still trying to trust in what they've done for Babylon. They say, "Whoa,
oh great city, who, oh by the way, it's still dressed in fine linen. It's got
purple and scarlet.

We put that gold on it, but it's fallen. They're still trusting while it's
falling. " Another striking thing to me about these verses is in verse 13, as we
walk through all that was being sold, fine flour and wheat and cattle and sheep,
it mentions the bodies and the souls of men.

It's not unusual in Rome when this was first read for one person to have 400
slaves. The entire economy, the entire life was about the bodies and souls of
men being sold. So that my life could be better, so that my life could feel
richer.

Now, there are lots of kinds of slavery. There's still slavery in this world
today, which needs to be done away with. There's slavery to drugs, there's
slavery to entertainment, there's slavery to lust, there's slavery to money.

There's all kinds of slavery. And these merchants were as enslaved as the people
they were selling. They were enslaved to purple and silk and citron wood and
cinnamon and spice.

Now, again, there's nothing wrong with selling and buying. There's nothing wrong
with meeting people's needs. There's nothing wrong with a need being met.

God tells us that he meets the need that we have for bread. But what's wrong
with these merchants is this has become their life. This has become their hope.

And then it falls. There are the merchants, there are the kings, and then there
are the sea captains. Every sea captain in the last half of verse 17 to verse
19, every sea captain and all who travel by ship, the sailors and all who earn
their living from the sea will stand far off and they will see the smoke of her
burning.

They will exclaim, "Was there ever a city like this great city? " They will
throw dust on their heads and with weeping and mourning cry out, "Whoa, whoa,
oh, great city," where all who had ships on the sea became rich through her
wealth. In one hour, she's been brought to ruin.

And there it is in that last verse. You heard it said each time with the kings,
with the merchants, with the sea captains, God's perspective on Babylon, the
voice of lamentation is those three words, "In one hour. " In one hour, worldly
treasure and pleasure and measure is going to be lost.

We spend our lives earning it, positioning for it, valuing it, thinking about
it. But in one hour, it's all gone. Now, that's true in even less time in our
individual lives.

In less than a moment, our life in this world ends and our life in the next
world begins. So in a moment, it's all gone. Even here at the end, it's all in
one hour going to be gone and all those who trusted in only this world and the
things of this world and the materialism of this world are going to realize it's
all lost.

Eugene Peterson says about this, "Now it is gone. Salvation by checkbook is
gone. God on demand is gone.

Meaning by money is gone. Religion as feeling is gone. Self as God is gone.

" And as you look through what happens with these kings and merchants and sea
captains with government and business and transportation, you see a couple of
things. You see first of all that they cry, "Woe, woe. " They realize at the end
that they have built their lives on that which does not last.

But you see it especially with the merchants and the sea captains. Even as they
realize that, they look back fondly instead of looking forward to what is going
to last. The merchants look back and say, "Oh, she's still dressed nicely.

" The sea captains look back and say, "Oh, there was never such a great city as
Babylon where all the ships came in. " They look back to what was lost instead
of looking forward to what only God can give. And so they cry, "Woe, woe.

" Are you looking back or are you looking forward? That's the question in these
verses for you and I. There's another thing that happens with these three
groups.

They stand far off as Babylon falls. As they see it falling apart, each of them
stand far off as if that's going to protect them. You cannot protect yourself in
this moment by standing away from somebody else's destruction.

A lot of us do this. I meet a lot of people who want to stand far off from hurt
and pain. So if someone else is going through the loss of their business, you
don't want to get too close to that because it reminds you too much of what
could happen to you.

I even see it sometimes with sickness. Someone's going through cancer, someone's
in a hospital. We don't want to see them.

We don't want to visit them because we want to pretend that that's never going
to happen to us. Let's admit it. We all have this within us in some way.

But at the end, it's going to be seen so clearly. They're going to stand far off
thinking that maybe somehow I won't get caught up in it. They were caught up in
it and the loss is theirs.

The only protection is not standing far off when someone else is going through
problems. The only protection from the falling of Babylon is who you're standing
close to, not who you're standing away from, is standing close to the Savior,
Jesus Christ. Now as we read about this place being fallen and the details of
it, someone on our research team asked a question that I know many people have,
and that is could Babylon be America?

Or maybe you live in a different nation and people are asking that about your
nation. Could Babylon be my nation? It's every nation in history.

There's going to be one great final fall of these nations, but it's every nation
in history that relies on its own pride, relies on its own luxury. It's every
business in history that relies on its own glory, its own luxury in order to
build itself up and make itself feel better about itself. You don't have to
build yourself up to make yourself feel better about yourself.

What do you do? You go to God humbly and you realize He'll give you all the
gifts that you need, the gifts of peace and joy, the gifts of His Spirit, the
gifts of His life. Could Babylon be America?

Yes, but it's also every other nation in history. And then many people ask as
they read these verses, "If we change our ways, could we stop this from
happening? " That's not the point.

The point is this will happen. It has to happen. We want it to happen.

This world, this selfish system, it has to end in order for God's people to gain
their inheritance. This selfishness has to be chased out. And if this is all
that I'm following, then I'm going to be chased out with it.

But I don't want that for me. I don't want that for you. No, for God's people to
gain their inheritance, this is going to happen.

That does not mean that we don't try in this world to make this nation that
we're in the very best that it can be, the very most godly that it can be, to
pray for our leaders that God would work through our nation right now. That does
not mean we don't do that. Oh, it's going to fall anyway.

Let's just let it fall apart. It's going to go to hell one day. Let's just let
it go to hell now.

No, no, no, no. We live right now for the kingdom of God where we are. That's
what God tells us we're clearly to do.

But we don't hold on to it. We don't hold on to it as if it's our hope. In the
end, some will get caught up out of this and others will stay caught up in this,
this Babylon.

In the end, some will trust the Savior. Others will keep trusting this world.
Some will trust the Savior.

That's the key is you trust the Savior and you live out his life. Father, as we
pray today, we thank you. We thank you for this news because it's the news that
selfishness will not last.

It's the news that our pride is not going to win in the end, that the glory and
luxury we try to build into our lives. And it seems for a moment, at least to
some of us to be to be what people are really longing for. It's not going to
meet our needs.

In the end, you are the one who will meet our needs for all of eternity. So
thank you for this good news that the things that we build build on our pride
and selfishness will not last. But the things that you build into our lives
through your grace, through your power, through your love, through your mercy,
those will last.

Thank you, Jesus, in your name. Amen. One final voice in this chapter, and that
is the voice of celebration.

Don't miss tomorrow.