December 30

Celebration tonight at my house, 7:00 pm, pizza, salad and more!! Sorry for the confusion on the date.

My final entry for 2009: I am so thankful for the team of people who made this journey together. It has been a challenging year and yet God has given us all the resources we need to live victorious lives even in the midst of a culture that is rapidly deteriorating. Thank you for making this journey with me. I am looking forward to the team he will put together for next year.
Revelation 14-19
I always laugh when people say how the God of the Old Testament is an angry God and Jesus is a loving, pacifist in the New Testament. When people say things like this I know they have never read through the Bible. The conclusion of human history ends in a head to head conflict between good and evil. This conflict is so terrible that over half of the world’s population is wiped out in the maelstrom.
That makes every Old Testament story of violence look like a Baptist Sunday School Picnic compared to Revelation. The holiness of God and the wickedness of the human heart are headed for a showdown. You can even see this today. People are tired of hearing about what the Bible says. They don’t want God to interfere with their lives anymore. This opposition to God’s truth will only intensify at the end of history.

One important term that is repeated in the last chapters of Revelation is the word Babylon. How are we to understand this word? The city of Babylon was founded by Nimrod (Gen 10:8‑11). The name bab‑el means "the gate of God." Ironically, the famous tower of Babel was an idolatrous attempt by man to defy God and deify himself. When the Lord sent judgment on the builders he confused their languages and the word “babble” came to mean confusion. Later in history, Babylon became a great empire before finally falling to Media‑Persia. But from the beginning of Nimrod's city in Genesis 10, an insidious anti‑God "Babylonian influence" has been felt throughout history. In our reading today Babylon is both a city and a system. Whether the city will be rebuilt once again on the Euphrates is a matter of debate. But this term is used in Revelation to definitely refer to a worldly system and philosophy that stands in opposition to God. Just like WALL STREET and MADISON AVENUE are actual streets but they also stand for the financial or advertising enterprises.
John used “Babylon” to warn his readers that a vast anti-God philosophy stands in opposition to the truth found in the Word. The true church is a pure virgin but the false religious system is a harlot who had abandoned the truth and prostituted herself for personal gain. In the end times the world will be wildly spiritual ... but it will be wildly wrong. This apostate religion is growing rapidly even as I write this blog. What we need to watch out for is the watering down of the gospel message. It is very easy to be seduced into accepting popular opinion in the church.
An illustration of how this is working even now. One of the most popular TV pastors refuses to mention the word “Sin” in any of his sermons. He uses terms like, gospel, salvation, Jesus but he refuses to say anything about sin. In the end his salvation message is salvation from a poor self image, salvation from not reaching your full potential.
The warning about Babylon is this ... come out of her, my people so that you will not share in her sins... for her sins are piled up to heaven.
We serve a holy God and he has called us to live holy lives. That is the message God gives us in the last days.