His Perfect Love

Guest (Male): While having money is not a sin, the love of money is. Here is Pastor Matt.

Matt VanderVen: I want to be clear: God is not saying there is anything wrong with wealth or money here. Having a home is fine, but when it becomes your idol, that is the problem. Does everybody see that? If it is your purpose, if you are striving for that and that is what you are doing, then it is not good.

Just like Lot's wife, Lot knew right and wrong, but he listened to his wife. He listened to this one who was not speaking biblical truth, and because of that, it caused death and destruction.

Guest (Male): Here during the holidays, we certainly see materialism and commercialism at a heightened level, but this can easily lead to a trap or a prison that is hard to get out of if we are not careful. Today on His Perfect Love, we will look ahead to a time when Babylon will fall, both the religious and commercial systems.

Revelation Chapter 18 also has some important things to say to us in the present about the dangers of materialism. So, let's lean in and listen to what Pastor Matt VanderVen has to say in today's highly applicable lesson.

Matt VanderVen: He is proclaiming truth. That is what he is doing here. And he is saying, "Babylon the great is fallen." And he announces that Babylon is fallen. He doesn't say it once; he says it twice. Why does he do that? Actually, he says it two other times down there. But why does he do that? The phrase is repeated like a solemn chant. Almost like, "It's fallen, it's fallen." It is a declaration.

The city has become a dwelling place of demons. Do you realize that so much of Revelation is written in the past tense with the affirmative? In other words, the idea behind it is it is done, even though it hasn't occurred yet. How is that possible that God could write that way or inspire that by the Holy Spirit that way? Because God is—don't forget this now, this is important—all the ones you love, too, who have gone on to be with Jesus. They are outside of time.

Did you ever think about the idea of time? That God dwells in the past, the present, and the future all at the same time? My brain can't handle the physics of that; it starts to mess me up. How are you in the future and yet in the past? Because He is. And all the loved ones whom we have who have gone on to be with Jesus, they are experiencing this right now.

I can't wait to sit at the feet of Christ, worshiping Him and saying, "So, is this now? But how? What?" And He is just going to be like, "Easy, son. Easy, son." It is a prophetic picture of the absolute desolation and destruction where their proud achievements, their proud humanism, their proud materialism, their proud commercialism of man becomes the demonic haunts of an unclean and a horrible creature.

That is exactly what he is pointing to here. It is a prison, he says. It is a trap. And it is used by demons that themselves are forced to whisper and lead. Did you realize that commercialism and materialism is a prison and it is a trap? You want proof of that? I don't want to raise hands out of respect, but how many of you have debt? How many of you have taken on debt because you shopped to cope with something?

How many of you have shopped to buy something that really was out of the bracket that you should have bought something in? How many of you did something because you thought, "Well, we need it," or "We have to have it," and yet now we look back on it and we are on an eight-year payment plan? A ten-year payment plan? Some of us thirty years for one of those houses. In California, forty years they have mortgages for.

That means you move once and it is your lifetime. It is amazing. Do you realize that in this country—forgive me, I am like historical—how many of you saw a recent nation that just overthrew their government? I was just talking to my son about this recently. They went to a democracy and it was really interesting because, as part of that, you start to think about just change and the things that come from it.

I can remember a time when my parents and my grandparents, coming from another country and coming here, the houses were $6,000. And you might say, "Well, the wages were different." Yeah, but if you calculate the relativism, that's what's important: relative wage earning. It's called cost averaging. If you calculate what we earn as the ability to earn today and then you calculate the delta—that means change or difference—of what an actual house costs, the percentage is exponentially higher.

Somebody might say, "Well, yeah, but back then they earned a dollar a day and their meals." That's what my grandfather earned when he first came to this country with my mother. He worked in what we would call a concentration camp—they didn't call it that back then, but that was it—up in Mount Morris, New York. A dollar a day and your meals. He worked in a salt mine. He couldn't speak English. He was just happy to get out of the country.

He had Mussolini and some things going on there earlier. He knew there was a rise of that kind of stuff even before Mussolini was in, so he was like, "I need to get out of here." He came over here, my mother, the whole thing, and he was happy for a dollar a day and his meals. Now, you might be looking at that and thinking, "Wait a minute. A dollar a day and your meals?" Yeah, but he could buy a house.

He eventually worked for the railroad, he had the pick and the shovel, and eventually, he was able to buy a house. He owned the house, and he owned it within like 15 years. It was just different. And people who were actually second generation or third generation here, many of them turned around and they were buying houses with cash. Or a vehicle a lot of times was cash.

I don't know of anybody recently who has bought a house with cash. I have young men living in my house, and I am blessed to have a home to live in. And I tell them, "Hey, what is your rush to get out and run and do all these things?" I see a lot of you shaking your head out there because you're older and wise; you have been there. Save your money.

And then you turn around because what does the Proverbs say? "The debtor is a slave to the lender." It's not saying you don't have a mortgage. We understand it's almost near impossible to get a home today without a mortgage. But to run up the debt to just get out and say, "I got my own house." Do you realize just even two generations ago, families lived together?

That wasn't this idea that everybody just goes out and has to get their own home. You might have had a floor in the house. My wife grew up in the Bronx. She had the uncle and aunt on the third floor. Lisa and her mom and dad were on the second floor. And Grandma was on the first floor when you would walk in. That was very normal.

How we've gotten into this mindset where now all of a sudden everybody has to have their own—you don't. Why? Because of this whole idea where we gotta have it, we gotta get after it. Let's get it and it doesn't matter that we're running up debt. What happens when they start to invoke the debt prison again? Like England? You know, so many of the plays, like A Christmas Carol and all these different things that people watch and they forget the back scene for the context?

They had debtors' prisons. And you don't think that is going to come back? People want their money. Other countries that have invested in America that don't have the compassion because they don't know you, they want their money. We have to be wise stewards. There is no rush to get into debt. There is no rush to do these things.

This is talking about the temptation, and this is what it's saying here. He is talking about really these things that lead like demons. It is a prison. It is a trap. It is actually demonic to overspend in some ways. I am not talking about for food or clothing that you just need to survive. I am talking about for what we would say sometimes we call it our needs, but they are really wants.

And then he talks about a hated bird. That reminds me of vultures; they sort of circle the prey. You ever seen that? Waiting to devour maybe something got hit in the road and then you see the vultures and they start to circle the prey. They have ensnared men and women in Mammon and wealth and idolatry to the point of death.

I think about Dubai and all the wealth there. And now they are in trouble; they need some help. They want people to start coming in. They had a really big high influx and now they are like, "Oh man, we need people to start coming to Dubai again and vacationing and doing things." Probably you have maybe even noticed there are even commercials now. "Come here instead of going to that island; come to Dubai. We have a paradise that is awaiting you."

And this idea of selling a paradise and selling like your life is all about these paradises. Please don't think that this is not intentional. And please don't think that this whole thing where so many people take loans and put it on their credit cards to go on these extravagant trips and we are paying for it ten years later, five years later, not to mention with 29% interest.

Look at verse three. I am saying this and relating it back to us in application today. Please understand that. It's only going to get worse. "For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and 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."

Okay. So, who has been the participant? Three groups: the nations, the kings of the earth, and the merchants. You should be taking notes if you are; write that in the side. Three groups he's targeted here: the nations, the kings of the earth—that's your leadership—and the merchants. So, that's pretty much your entire scope. You have those who sell, you have those who buy, and you have those who lead.

You pretty much just covered the whole commercialization. It encapsulates everyone. That is the whole point. And in some ways, they have committed spiritual fornication of idolatry because they put Mammon instead of the worship of the God Most High. It says "abundance of her luxury." Babylon's world system's sin is not only idolatry, but it is pride, it is greed, it is self-centered, and it's all based on wealth.

Look at verse four. "And I heard another voice from heaven saying, 'Come out of her, My people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues.'" How many of you think that is God? Anybody raise your hand if you think that's God. I see a couple, two or three. Okay. Interesting. Let's keep reading for a minute. "For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities."

When have you ever seen God speak of Himself in the third person? "Come out of her, My people, lest you share in her sins." The voice comes from heaven. I believe it is an angel. It is not the voice of God. Why? How do I know that? Because I just read in verse five. It speaks of how God remembers and God does not speak of Himself in the third person here.

It is inconceivable that a child of God could be part of a religious Babylon, although elements can creep in. Chapter 17 is really important. But believe it or not, this is a pretty straightforward concept: do not mingle Christianity with false, unbiblical doctrine. That's what we are to see here. And that revolves and turns into commercial Babylon, because when you start to flirt with it there, it comes out in other aspects of your life.

But commercial Babylon with its materialistic seduction is a constant threat to guard against for both believers and unbelievers. "Lest you receive her plagues." Do you see that there? The warning is focused towards saints who are in the position that Lot was in when he was living in Sodom. I think back to Genesis 19. Lot was focused on the temporal. His wife really wanted to live in the city.

Lot could have gone anywhere. Remember Abraham and Lot, and he saw how nice it was? He saw this established city and he said, "I want to go over there," because his wife said, "Boy, that is really nice over there." Then he became even part of the political system there. He's at the gates, which is a place of position and authority. And meanwhile, he's living in compromise.

Doesn't this remind you of Sodom and Gomorrah? Lot and his wife and children were God's people in a place they shouldn't be, a place ripe for destruction. And just like Lot, we all have choices to listen to God's warning. I believe this is for those in the Great Tribulation to listen to, but also for the Christian today to get things right.

Many in the church are being seduced by mere material possession. Just like Lot's wife, they keep turning back and they are not completely surrendered. And that is sin. When you take your eyes off of Jesus, please remember that materialism is also a sin. It is in the form of the lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.

Covetousness—we so often just go to sexual immorality, but it is not just the lust of the eyes of looking at another person; it is also coveting other things, other possessions that God clearly didn't say were for us. Again, I want to be clear: God is not saying there is anything wrong with wealth or money here. Having a home is fine, but when it becomes your idol, that is the problem.

Does everybody see that here? If it is your purpose, if you are striving for that and that is what you are doing, then it is not good. And just like Lot's wife, Lot knew right and wrong, but he listened to his wife who was not speaking biblical truth. And because of that, it caused death and destruction. It is like Lot's wife; many do not recognize they're holding onto the past, an old life which was all based on the care of this world.

This call to part from Babylon and the worldliness that is represented is a theme repeated frequently through the Scriptures. Ephesians Chapter 5, verse 11: "And have no fellowship with unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them." How about Isaiah Chapter 52, verse 11? "Depart! Depart! Go out from there, touch no unclean thing; go out from her. Be clean, you who are vessels of God."

Second Corinthians Chapter 6, verse 14: "Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness?" And do you realize there's degrees of yokness even within believers? Are we equally yoked? Are we equally mature in our faith? There is a warning to that, too, because if you take a plastic purported Christian and you take someone that's sold out for Jesus, do you think there's going to be some marital issues there? Absolutely.

These things you discuss early on, even before premarital counseling. Proper premarital counseling, if done correctly, resolves most of this or says, "Pause." How many of you know what Pre-Cana was? Some of you know what it was because you grew up in a denomination and you went to Pre-Cana and it was a worksheet.

You thought, "Yes, no, yes, no. Okay, we're going to have a joint account, we're going to do this." That is not premarital counseling. Premarital counseling is understanding yokness. It's understanding that God has given me a word, the other person has received a word. It's understanding that I am making a vow and a commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ.

It's also understanding that He has acknowledged this and ordained it. And that means that we both surrender our differences. And if we are not able to do that—if there's, "Well, I want to live here," or "I want to attend church here"—those are the kind of warning dangers. No, I've done this a number of years; I'm telling you. When there is not yokness, it is not that we can't work through those things with pastoral discipleship and biblical counseling. We can.

But the reality is to recognize that. Yokness, the quality of yokness, matters. And sometimes we just take it slow, make sure it is right, and then when we do it, God is glorified. Because all of us who have been married here—it's difficult enough because you're taking two different individuals and you're bringing them together. And now the Bible says you are becoming one flesh.

He didn't say one spirit. Isn't that interesting? It would be easier if it was one spirit. No, you have one spirit in you, but you're becoming one flesh. How many of you like to use your own toothpaste? If you're married and you like to use your own toothpaste, go ahead and raise your hand. How many of you don't care and you'll use your spouse's toothpaste? Do you see, even in a group of believers here, half of you want your own toothpaste.

How many of you share toothbrushes? Oh, now that's too far! But aren't you doing the same thing with the toothpaste because it touches both? I am just bringing up silly examples, but yokness matters. Now, I made that really simple because I made it about marriage. That is an easy layup for the example. All of us can relate to that.

When I do premarital counseling sessions, it's easy to identify those things, work through them, and then give the blessing on the marriage, or say, "We need to pause." And I've had to do that. That's real love, sitting with somebody and saying, "Let's wait." It's hard. They don't like you, but they love you because years later they sit back and go, "Pastor, I thought you were crazy, but now I understand."

None of us could until we've gone through it. None of us have arrived. But we don't flirt with these things. Jeremiah 51:45: "My people, go out of the midst of her! And let everyone deliver himself from the fierce anger of the Lord." Jeremiah Chapter 50, verse 8: "Flee from the midst of Babylon, everyone, and everyone save his life!"

God is telling us in so many passages: do not become like commercial Babylon, like idolatrous Babylon. Verse five: "For her sins have reached to the heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities." It says basically the sins of commercial Babylon have piled up like a tower, just like the Tower of Babel. And God is...