in a world of conflicting values, when questions are more common than answers. God's Word provides everything we need to live a God-centered, truth-driven life. Now, here's the Word for Life broadcast, brought to you by Brookside Baptist Church. Well, good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on this Word for Life today, November 8th on this Friday, and I hope it's a great day for you. Great way for us to start here with the Word for Life, and I'm Mark Widmer, joining Pastor Ken Keltner as we are back in the book of Revelation. For the last several episodes, you've heard from some great missionary testimonies of who were with us at our recent mission conference back in October. And I hope those were a real blessing to you as much as they were to us. But we're in chapter 17 of Revelation and Pastor Ken, set the background for us. Well, Pastor Mark, you know, we just finished an election and, you know, anxiety seemed to be high going into it because we don't have a crystal ball to look into the future. However, we as believers are privileged because I suppose we have what everyone in the world wishes they had, and that is some perfect, accurate information about the future. And it's all laid out for us on the pages of scripture, most completely in the book of Revelation, which is the last book in the Bible. And if you've been with us in our study, we have taken a little break with our missionaries. We finished the judgments, we're now in Revelation 17. And so, if you've been with us for months now, we've been working our way through this tremendous book. It's been a marvelous journey for us to go back right now to the future. And God's word tells us, even though it was penned over 2000 years ago, it's just preeminently accurate in its timing. It's informative about the future of our world. So in the next several broadcasts, we're going to be in Revelation 17. And friends, I would say that most of us would agree, we live in a broken and a hostile world that really yearns for attention. And with that, as believers, we have to be living in light of eternity of where we're going to be one day, because we have the assurance, the Spirit of God living within us is our guarantee That we're sealed and that we will be in the presence of God when we leave this earth, but the bible talks much about the future For christ is going to come a second time. He's come a first time First time he came as a babe that was prophesied in the old testament that he would be born in bethlehem He would be born of a virgin All of that took place, and Jesus came as the Lamb of God, as John the Baptist described Him, who takes away the sin of the world. He's going to come a second time to the earth. Now, the rapture isn't part of a second coming. The second coming is Jesus coming to the earth. The rapture, we're going to be caught up in the air to meet with the Lord. And so, when he comes a second time, he is going to set up his earthly kingdom for a thousand years. And so, by way of introduction, this is going to be a little bit longer of an introduction, you know, and some of you might be going, man, get into Revelation 17 now. But I want you to understand that we're really given a picture here in the next couple of chapters in Revelation, a picture of two primary cities, which are in contrast to one another. And I didn't come up with this title, but many have used this title for this section of Revelation, the tale of two cities, because there are two cities that are mentioned more times than any other cities in the Bible. One would be Jerusalem, the city of God. The second would be Babylon, the city of man. Jerusalem is mentioned the most appearing more than 800 times in our Bibles. The first time it appears in scripture is in Genesis 14, and the last time is in Revelation chapter 21. And so throughout scripture, Jerusalem is pictured as a special city that's in the plan and the purpose of God. It is in fact known as the city of God. The name Jerusalem means foundation of peace. So thus, it would really be correct to understand this to imply that the city of Jerusalem is the place of God's peace. I mean, this city is certainly the place where God made peace with all mankind as His Son hung on that cross. And in so doing, a peace treaty was fashioned in the blood of Jesus for all who would believe. Paul wrote this in Romans 5 and verse 1, and Pastor Mark, I'll have you read that passage for us. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace, which we stand. and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Even to the Colossians, Paul wrote this in Colossians 1, 19 and 20. And so if you could read Colossians 1, 19 and 20 there for us. For it pleased the Father that in him all fullness should dwell, and by him to reconcile all things to himself, by him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of his cross. You know, it was the blood of Jesus Christ that was shed on behalf for our sins. He was the perfect sacrifice to take away our sin, lived a perfect life and took upon himself the sins of the world. So back to the city of Jerusalem, it truly represents for the believer, the foundation of our peace. Now, right now, the city of Jerusalem is experiencing anything but peace. Would you or I refer to Jerusalem as a peaceful city right now? In fact, in the Psalms, we're told to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. It's not a peaceful city right now. In fact, we were planning a Holy Land trip in, what was that? February of 2025. And we've had to cancel it because there's no peace in that region. But friends, the reason there is no peace in Jerusalem right now is that King Jesus is not yet ruling in the city. However, he will be ruling one day and we'll get to that when we arrive at Revelation 19. However, in the meantime, there is another city prominently featured throughout human history. That city is Babylon. And just as the city of Jerusalem represents the plans and the purposes of God, this city named Babylon represents the plan and the purposes of man. The city of Babylon is mentioned in the Bible nearly 287 times in 253 verses. And can I tell you, these references are never positive. Babylonians, or Babylon as a city, its origin was pagan, humanistic, rebellious against God. There's an Old Testament scholar by the name of Dr. Charles Dyer who summarizes the early prominence of Babylon in this way. For nearly 2000 years, Babylon was the most important city in the world. It was the commercial and the financial center for all Mesopotamia. The center of a geographical X that linked the Orient with the Mediterranean and Egypt and with Persia. Its scribes and its priests spread its cultural heritage throughout the known world. They've featured the arts of divination, astronomy, astrology, accounting, and private commercial law. All of it sprang up from Babylon. Babylon first appeared for us in the Bible in Genesis 10. Its last appearance is going to be in Revelation 19 when it is completely destroyed. But I believe in order to understand the significance of Babylon's rise and fall in the last book of the Bible, we have to go back to its origin there in the first book of the Bible in Genesis. The founder of Babylon was Nimrod. Nimrod was that mighty hunter who defied God's decree that he'd given to Noah and his family to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. By the way, in the same context, Noah was given a promise by God concerning the forces of nature, which through the flood had devastated the topography of the earth. You know, Pastor Mark, when we're out in Colorado, there's a place called Dinosaur Ridge. It's just outside of Denver. And you look in these jagged rocks or the imprints of animals' footprints, you know, or paw prints or whatever. And it looks like, you know, if you're reading what the rock imprints are telling us, that they were nervously running around trying to find something, probably higher ground. And I'll never forget the one leading this tour said, I want you to look at all this. Colorado is a beautiful state. Said, look at the beauty here, right here at the foot of the Rockies. He says, what do you see, God's creation or do you see God's judgment? And I thought, hmm, no, it doesn't look exactly how it was created because God brought a worldwide flood and changes took place. God promised though, that not only would water never again flood the entire earth, but that the systems of weather and resources of the planet would sustain life in general. God said to Noah in Genesis 8, verse 22, he said, while the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease. In other words, the remainder of the earth's duration, that is until Christ creates a new heaven and a new earth, which when we get to Revelation 21, we'll see that. In other words, the earth is gonna experience normal seasons of seed time, harvest, gotta say it, winter, it's coming, and summer, and the 24 cycle of night and day. God promised that's how it's gonna happen, that's how it happens today. The decree from God through Noah following the universal flood was to disperse or to spread out all through the whole earth. But along came the great grandson of Noah, the world's first tyrant, a man named Nimrod. I don't know if you know much about Nimrod, but Nimrod defied God's commands and he attempted to build a one world federation of nations. However, it was more than just some political power. It was deeply religious. He would be the founder along with his wife. We're going to, I want to get into his wife here and just, and maybe our next broadcast. She was very, very involved. And he was the founder of creating a blasphemous, idolatrous, one world religion. So my friends, false religion is not new. It's been with us for centuries and it comes in all shapes and sizes. Often it appears harmless and even attractive. But friends, don't forget Satan is the one who is behind all of the false religions of the world. And I'll close with this statement. Whenever the God of Scripture is left out, there is only one other source of authority, and that is Satan. My friends, he is the enemy. Not other believers, not other people. Satan is the enemy. He's the ruler of the darkness of this age. And as believers, Jesus said, you pray this, Father, lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from the evil one. May we have victory as we move on and move out today in our service for God. Thank you for joining us, and we'll pick up again with this introduction and Revelation 17 in our next broadcast. We hope you enjoyed today's program. If you have a question we can answer or would like information on the Word for Life, would like to donate to continue to produce this broadcast, or need resources for your Christian walk, Contact us at Brookside Baptist Church, 4470 North Pilgrim Road, Brookfield, Wisconsin, 53005. You can also visit us at brooksidebc.org. That's brooksidebc.org. Or call us at 262-783-6180. That's 262-783-6180. Thanks for listening today, and please tune in again as we bring the Word of God to your life.