Reading from Revelation 14, verses 4 through 8, And I heard another voice from heaven saying, Come out of her, my people, so as not to participate in her sins, and so as not to receive of her plagues. For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered about her iniquities. Render to her just as she rendered to you. Yes, pay her back double according to her deeds, and the cup that she mixed, mix double for her. to the extent that she glorified herself and lived luxuriously by so much give her a torment and sorrow because in her heart she says, I sit a queen and am not a widow and I will certainly not see sorrow. Therefore her plagues will come in one day, death and sorrow and famine and she will be burned with fire because the Lord God who has judged her is strong. Father, we thank you for this, your word, and I pray that as we dig into it, that your Holy Spirit would touch our hearts and enable us to be equipped to function in this world and even in the modern church situation where there is so much compromise and where the lines that you have set up have been erased. We pray that you would challenge our hearts and our minds this morning, in Jesus' name, amen. In the last 20 years or so, there have been quite a few Christians who have gone back to the Roman Catholic Church, have gone back into Eastern Orthodoxy, and they've actually repented of the Reformation, and they have repented of so-called sin of separation. Now, there is sinful separation. I'm not questioning that, but the Reformation surely wasn't it. These people who have been, as they worded it, going home to Rome. have painted the Reformers as breaking the unity of the body of Christ. And of course, the Reformers said, no, you are the ones who have broken the unity of the body of Christ because you have betrayed your Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ. You have abandoned the true Catholic doctrines of the first 12 centuries. You've rejected biblical law. You have disciplined people for simply holding to what the church has always held to, the five solas that the Reformation was reestablishing. So it was the reformers who claimed to be the true Catholics who were simply seeking to bring the church back to the old ways, the old paths that the church had been in before. But in any case, one of the big controversies at the time of the Reformation was the question, is separation biblical or is it treason against Christ? And then the reformers switched that around and they said, is staying in an apostate church biblical or is it treason against Christ? And really those two questions have been coming up in almost every generation. People have conscience issues over separation. After all, Jesus prayed For the unity of the church in the high priestly prayer of John chapter 17, it's very clear that Jesus was passionate about unity in the church, and we should be passionate as well. If we don't care about the unity of the church, we do not have the heart of Christ, and I agree with that. The question is, what kind of unity are we talking about? Now some struggle in the totally opposite direction. They are so determined that everyone has to agree with them that they've abandoned the institutional church altogether and they have entered into what I refer to as a hyper-perfectionism. As one apocryphal separatist was reputed to have told his wife, All be heretics, save me and thee. And sometimes I have my doubts about thee. And I've actually run across more than one person that has gone to that extreme. They have alienated just about everybody and they've alienated even their own families. So what is the biblical balance? This sermon is not going to address every question that people might have on this important topic, but I've got three books that I'm going to recommend this morning that do address all of the different questions on that. The first book here is by Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, and it's called The Basis of Christian Unity, an exposition of John 17 and Ephesians 4. What he does in this book is he shows exactly what Jesus prayed for in John 17. John 17 is one of the most abused and misinterpreted chapters in the modern ecumenical movement. Jesus did not pray for organizational union at the expense of of unity of truth or unity of holiness. Now he prayed for unity in the truth, unity in holiness, unity in the power of the Holy Spirit. Anyway, this is a helpful corrective to some of the false doctrines of unity that are going around. Now this is another A very helpful book, it was written in 1821 by the Presbyterian Thomas McCree. It is called Unity of the Church. You'll probably find it on Amazon, described as two discourses on the unity of the church, or divisions and their removal. And he points out that the Bible guarantees a true unity of the church without any compromises whatsoever in our future. Guarantees that it is going to happen. It's going to be a unity based upon the Word of God based upon the merits of Jesus Christ the power of the Holy Spirit Ephesians chapter 4 absolutely guarantees that that is going to happen but Ephesians 4 tells you not to be looking back to the apostolic age for this to happen. In fact, the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 4 made it quite clear that in his day and age the church was being tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. But the same passage indicates that sometime in the future, the church is going to grow up. It's going to mature. It's going to be 100% united in the truth of Jesus Christ. And by the way, that's a great proof of post-millennialism because God always answers Christ's prayers. He prayed that the church in history would have unity in the truth. It's gonna happen. His prayers are always answered. It's going to happen, but it's going to be a long process of time. Anyway, in this book he not only shows what true unity in the church looks like, but he also shows the disasters that come when you follow the false unities that are being promoted by the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, Latitudinarianism, and other false ecumenical movements. What they end up doing is betraying Christ. It's treason against Christ, and it's a deliberate, deliberate disobedience to many very clear-cut commands of the Lord Jesus Christ. So that's a very helpful book. The third booklet is actually just a long article written by Herbert Carson. It's called United We Fall. I like that title. United We Fall, subtitle, A Study of Current Ecumenical Pressures. And I wanna start my sermon this morning by reading a paragraph from this book. Carson says, for many in the churches today, and especially for the leaders, the prime sin is that of disunity. They point to the divided state of Christendom with its multiplicity of denominations. This, they maintain, is the supreme scandal of our time. Their prime aim, therefore, is the reunion of the sundered fragments to produce one church. Such, they claim, is the object of Christ's prayer, and the movement to realize this aim must be from the Holy Spirit. In spite of the implied charge and such a claim that those who oppose are resisting the Spirit, There are many who are prepared to do just that. They see ecumenism not as the great hope for the future, but as one of the most serious contemporary challenges to a truly biblical Christianity. It is therefore not simply one more movement to be tolerated or even ignored. It is rather an enemy of the gospel, which must be resisted. Now today, what I want to do is look at this passage in Revelation chapter 18 and give you an introduction. It's only going to be an introduction to a biblical theology of separation. He calls the Jewish believers who were still in the compromised Jewish church, come out of her, my people. He wasn't denying that there were true believers in that Jewish apostate church. What he was denying is that they should stay there. Okay, so we're going to look at a biblical theology of separation. Of course, the first objection that some people might have is that this is not calling people to leave a Jewish church. This is simply calling people to leave the city of Jerusalem so that they will not be killed during the three and a half years of war. If you follow the time clues of this book, you will see that that interpretation is absolutely impossible. We saw last week that Jerusalem had just fallen. There were no believers in Jerusalem to come out of her. In fact, they had left Jerusalem three and a half years earlier. And so Jerusalem fell in AD 70, that's verses 1 through 3. And once it fell, there was no city to leave. There was no temple to leave. None of the temple priests had survived. All of the leadership of the city and of the temple, the Sadducees, had been killed. And the rest of this chapter happens shortly after the destruction, but still within that year of AD 70. So this is an admonition to people who have just survived the total destruction of Jerusalem. So what is left for believers to come out of? If you follow the time sequence of this book carefully, there was only one answer. The answer is that God was calling believing Jews to leave the synagogue, rabbinic synagogue system of Tanaitic Judaism that was led by Chief Rabbi Akiva Ben-Joseph. And a remnant of Jews did indeed leave. In fact, they left by the droves in the years that followed. In chapter 14, I looked at the rabbinic system that survived the fall of Jerusalem. And by the way, they were successful in making another alliance with Rome. So they were backed up with Rome. Rabbi Akiva was a pretty remarkable man. He was a false prophet who called down fire from heaven in front of other people. He made statues speak. He did all kinds of remarkable miracles that we looked at. In fact, we saw that his miracles that he did in front of Titus, the general of the Roman armies who was also a co-emperor with his dad Vespasian, the miracles he did in front of Titus were so remarkable that Titus said, wow, whatever you need. He gave him free reign to establish a rabbinic synagogue system within Israel and protected him for the duration of the war. It was only the rest of Israel that he fought against. What is going on here? This call is a call to separate from the remnants of Talmudic Judaism that survived in the synagogues. There was no other organizational something for believers to leave. Okay, so that's what I want to nail down here. This was clearly a call for Jewish believers to leave the apostate Jewish church, a church that pretended to be faithful to God but was actually very compromised. And just as such words are fighting words in major mainline denominations today, They were fighting words back then. They elicited strong reaction and persecution from the Jews once again. And now that the Jews had the power of the Roman state behind them, at least these rabbinic Jews did, the persecution really had teeth in it. The Jewish Church of John's day was extremely offended that people were leaving the synagogues in droves and they were joining the apostolic churches in Israel. And so history records that there was fierce, fierce Jewish persecution of the church that persisted all the way up to AD 136, the end of the Bar Kokhba rebellion. Now, of course, this offense at the Bible's call to separation goes way back, long before AD 70. For example, you might remember in the book of Acts that the apostle Paul was accused by the rabbis for being a schismatic who was teaching new things and Paul defended himself and he said, no, you are the schismatics who have been teaching new things and you've rejected the Bible. Concerning himself, he said this, to this day I stand saying no other things than those which the prophets and Moses said would come. He said there was nothing he taught that he did not defend from the Old Testament, so he was the Biblicist, they were the ones who had abandoned the ancient faith. But long before Paul, Jesus also called people to leave the Jewish church. That's why he rebaptized them. And so did the prophet John the Baptizer. This is not a new doctrine. Nor was John the Baptist the first to call for separation from a compromised church. Ezekiel 37 and Zechariah 11 both use a remarkable image of two sticks that are broken apart. And then prophetically in the future, God's going to bind them back together again. But those two sticks represent two churches. It's a breaking off. of a remnant church from a large apostate church because even though this church that was the true church had some sins in it and had problems and different issues that needed to be dealt with, there was something about the apostate church that was far worse that absolutely necessitated a complete separation. So there's two sticks, and then the same passage says sometime in the future, God's going to bring reformation, and he's gonna bind those two sticks together by his grace. Now just one more example. In 2 Chronicles 30, Hezekiah sent runners throughout the land of northern Israel to tell people to leave that apostate church and to join the true church in the south, and it created great offense. If you just study through the Old Testament, look up the word remnant. you will find over and over again God pulls a remnant of his people out of a much larger apostate, unfaithful church. It's a common theme in the Old Testament. So the point is that there have been repeated reformations down through history, and the portion of the church that refused to reform was abandoned, completely abandoned. It became what the book of Revelation calls a synagogue of Satan. So this passage is only one out of many scriptures that call for separation. It would not have seemed odd at all to people that he was writing to who knew their Old Testament scriptures. Now verse four, let's take a look at the text. Verse four begins by pointing out that this voice represents God's will. And I heard another voice from heaven saying, and the fact that this voice from heaven speaks of my people, come out of her, my people, indicates it is God himself who is giving this directive through his angel. Okay, this doctrine of separation that we're gonna be looking at represents the will of God. Why is that important? Well, believers have a lot of pressure put on them when they leave these mainline churches. Back then, The synagogues claimed that they were being schismatic, that they were in sin by leaving the church, much like the Roman Catholic Church says the same today in the Eastern Orthodox Church. And liberal churches, don't be divisive, you can't be leaving. And so people back then really needed to know that this is the will of God. There was an enormous pressure placed upon them by their family and friends. Who knows, maybe some of these people had been members of that church for generations, going way back, and they're saying, how could you leave? You're betraying the heritage of your parents. John's response to them would be, no, you are the ones who have betrayed your heritage. You're the ones who've abandoned the faith, not us. And so this remnant of believers really needed to know that this was God's will. But not only does verse four indicate that this call to separate was within the will of God. God leaves believers no other option. He does not say, well, generally speaking, pull out, but some of you can remain in to make a reformation within that church. No, he does not give that option. Separation was a mandate. It was a command. The Greek is an imperative, which means there's no option. Failure to leave liberal churches today that deny the deity of Christ and that have promoted all kinds of homosexual marriage and all of those kinds of things. Failure to leave those denominations is rebellion against Almighty God. It is a sin. Failure to leave the Roman Catholic Church is a rebellion against God because God clearly says, come out of her, my people, so as not to participate in her sins and so as not to receive of her plagues. Now because this negative message runs so counter to modern post or postmodern calls to tolerance, I want to spend about five minutes, well don't time me, it might be more than five minutes, but just a few minutes on proving that this is not an isolated call to separation. This is something that has occurred over and over again in the scripture. I'm going to give a quick survey of some of the scriptures that these people should have already known, but like Lot and his wife of old, they were slow, so slow, way too slow to leave. First of all, take a look at 2 John, just three books forward. 2 John. And I'm gonna read 2 John 7 through 11, and there's a noun koinonia in the Greek that means fellowship, and there is a verbal form of that, koinonia, and so this is going to be looking at what kinds of koinonia are legitimate and which kinds are not. 2 John, beginning to read at verse seven. For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. Look to yourselves that we do not lose those things we work for, but that we may receive a full reward. Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you, does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house nor greet him for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds. I've heard people respond and saying, yeah, but Jesus hung around sinners. He was a friend of sinners. And I will point out to them that, you know, there's a sense in which Jesus was friend of sinners, but not in the sense that they are intending. And by the way, that is not a quote of the gospel, that is a quote of the Pharisees. Let me read the whole quote. Luke 7, verse 37, Pharisee said, look, a glutton, Jesus wasn't a glutton, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Okay, they were misrepresenting him. He was not the kind of friend to sinners that would put up with sin. He was telling them to repent of their sins as best friends will do because that sin is destroying them. So yes, there's a sense in which he was a friend of sinners. He was open to them, but Jesus was never covenanted with sinners. He did not fellowship with unbelief. Hebrews 7 verse 26 is quite clear. that Jesus, quote, was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. He was separate from sinners and he expects us to be in some sense as well. Now flip over to Ephesians 5 verse 11. This also speaks of fellowship with unbelief, and the word koinonia is again used. It's a very strong word, koinonia. Ephesians 5, look at verse 11. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them, and most translate that as reprove them. But either way, it shows that we have a responsibility to not passively ignore dangerous evils when they are present. John Ashbrook used this analogy. Suppose that you're driving down your street and come to a place where someone has removed a manhole cover. You narrowly avert disaster. You realize that had your front wheel dropped into that hole, you might have been killed. However, you have not discharged your responsibility as a citizen by avoiding the hole. You have a responsibility to stop and see to it that authorities are notified and a barricade erected to protect your neighbors. Likewise, as a Christian, you have a responsibility assigned by God to reprove the unfruitful works of darkness as displayed in apostate Christianity and other satanic religions. The spirit of today is, don't be negative. That is not a biblical admonition. Scripture commands us to reprove apostasy. Okay, turn over to 1 Corinthians 5. This is a passage that commands the church to purge apostasy out of the church, if at all possible. 1 Corinthians chapter five, beginning to read at verse one. It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles, that a man has his father's wife and you are puffed up and have not rather mourned that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you. Nowadays we have churches that approve far worse. Homosexuality, goddess worship. And not only do they approve of it, they celebrate this. They persecute those who do not approve of it. You may not realize this, but the PCUSA, the Presbyterian Church USA, and the Methodist, United Methodist Church, had joint worship service to an ancient pagan sex goddess. Not kidding. And they have approved homosexual pastors. There are numerous deviancies that have happened at the highest levels, been approved of, supported, defended at the highest levels. And when it becomes institutionally impossible to discipline, evil that God commands us to discipline, then the church itself should be disciplined by separation. That's why the reformers quit treating Rome, the Roman Catholic Church, as being a true church at all. They called that church a synagogue of Satan. Okay? When Trent pronounced anathemas against true doctrine, they became hardened in apostasy. Reformation or discipline became impossible. And by the way, even in the book of Revelation, we've already seen this, haven't we? We saw that when he spoke to the seven churches in Revelation 2 through 3, He told these churches that if they tolerated, if they continued to tolerate evil within their midst, that he himself would come and would fight against them. So if you're a member of a church that God is fighting against, you're in trouble. And he said he would even, he told one church, I'll pluck up your candlestick. That's another way of saying, I'm gonna remove your right to even be called a church. So just because they call themselves a church does not mean they are a church. God is the one who gets to determine that. Okay, next, flip over to 2 Corinthians and chapter six. This is a passage that quotes from Ezekiel 37 and Isaiah 52, both of which called for separation from compromise and the establishment of a new pure church. 2 Corinthians chapter six, I'll begin reading at verse 14. Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said, I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God and they shall be my people. Therefore, come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean and I will receive you. I will be a father to you and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty. So come out and be separate. Do not be unequally yoked. What does it mean to be yoked? Well, back in those days, they didn't have tractors like we have today. They would have a couple of cows that would have this wooden yoke that went across them, and it enabled them to use both of their efforts to push against that, which pulled a plow. Now, an unequal yoking would be putting a big ox together with a small donkey. That would not be an appropriate yoking that would go together. Well, applied to the church, being yoked together would mean that you're jointly trying to engage in ministry. spiritual plowing, so to speak, with people who are not even believers. And so this passage means believers and unbelievers should never be covenanted together. They should never be joined at the neck, never be a part of the same tabernacle, never call unbelievers, brothers or sisters, okay? You can buy things from them, you can sell things to them, you can engage in common cultural industry together, but you may not be covenanted with them in any venture. And by the way, the prohibition of covenanting with unbelievers applies way beyond the church. It applies to marriage. Scripture says you may not marry an unbeliever. Why? Because you're covenanting with that unbeliever. You're being unequally yoked. And it goes even beyond that to nations, says that a believing nation should never enter into covenant with an unbelieving nation. Back when we were a Christian nation, we really aren't anymore, but back when we were, we should never have gotten into the United Nations. Let me illustrate that from 2 Chronicles 19. When Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, who was the king of the faithful southern nation, joined Ahab, who was the king of Israel, the king of the compromised northern nation, he entered into a covenant with him to fight against Syria. Why did he do that? Well, he said, it's a good cause. I mean, Syria is a threat to both of us. They have attacked both of us. And so what could possibly be wrong with two nations joining together against a bully to put this bully down? Well, there are good reasons, but it should be enough for us that God says, don't do it. God was very upset with Jehoshaphat, and one part of his rebuke simply said, should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord? Therefore, the wrath of the Lord is upon you. Now, the last passage I want to use as background is 2 Chronicles 30. There was a tremendous revival under Hezekiah, but not everybody joined in the repentance, not everybody joined in the Reformation. Many defended the mainline church and they refused to come out. And 2 Chronicles 30 is Hezekiah's call to separate from an apostate church, and I'll start reading at verse six. Then the runners went throughout all Israel and Judah with the letters from the king and his leaders and spoke according to the commandment of the king. Children of Israel, return to the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. Then He will return to the remnant of you who have escaped from the hand of the kings of Assyria. And do not be like your fathers and your brethren who trespassed against the Lord God of their fathers, so that He gave them up to desolation, as you see. Now do not be stiff-necked as your fathers were, but yield yourselves to the Lord, and enter His sanctuary, which He has sanctified forever. And serve the Lord your God, that the fierceness of His wrath may turn away from you. For if you return to the Lord, your brethren and your children will be treated with compassion by those who led them captive, so that they may come back to this land. for the Lord your God is gracious and merciful and will not turn his face from you if you return to him. So the runners passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh as far as Zebulun, but they laughed at them and mocked them. Nevertheless, some from Asher, Manasseh and Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem. Also the hand of God was on Judah to give them singleness of heart to obey the command of the king and the leaders at the word of the Lord. Now that kind of separation that we've just gone through in these different passages is so foreign to postmodern evangelical church. They're so busy being nice and preserving their finances and preserving their programs and their status quo and loving one another. Well, quote unquote, because it's not the kind of love that God calls for, that they don't realize they have really entered under the wrath of God. Separation is probably considered by them to be one of the chief evils. And I've talked to pastors who just talk about, this is like, the unpardonable sin, you can get away with almost anything. But disunity and divisiveness, no, that's unforgivable. when in reality it is one of the virtues that God calls us to. So let's look at some of the reasons given by the angel for why Jewish Christians were absolutely mandated to separate from Judaism and its connected synagogue system. And I believe these are legitimate reasons today. The first reason is given in the phrase, my people in verse four, come out of her my people. The logic here is that God does not deny that there were true believers in the compromised Jewish church even after AD 70. He affirmed that there were true believers in the apostate Jewish church, but it didn't matter. That was not a good excuse for staying. Same is true today. I've met numerous people who stay in apostate denominations like the PCUSA, the ELCA, the UNC, the ABC, American Baptist Church, and other mainline denominations. And one of their reasons was, but look, there's so many believers left here. We've got to stay. We've got to join link arms with these other believers. And my response to them is, why are there still believers in that church? That is rebellion. That's sin. God has called them to leave. And some will say, well, my particular local church is evangelical, and it's still staying in the PCUSA. And I say, why is that church in rebellion against God when God has called even that church to leave. They are propping up the evil with portions of their tithes and offerings. And by the way, when you look at these local churches that claim to be uncompromising in the PCUSA, not true. It is mandated in the PCUSA. They have to have women elders, women pastors. They have to allow for these things. There's many compromises that they use. They don't even realize they're compromising. It's the frog in the kettle. Little by little, these compromises begin to become comfortable. Nothing short of calling it a sin will wake up some of these compromised believers. Are there true believers in the Roman Catholic Church? I would say yes. I've met some. They've listened to radio and TV, Protestant programs, and they believe the true gospel. But if they want to remain faithful to their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, then they should leave. At the Council of Trent, the Roman Catholic Church pronounced curses, anathemas, against the gospel of justification by faith alone. Anathemas against saying that the scriptures are sufficient, or the sufficiency of Christ, and denying that we need the prayers and the merits of the saints. Anathemas against the other five solos and a bunch of other Protestant doctrines. Those anathemas made them, at the highest level, made them apostate. Their heresy was entrenched at the highest level. So our confession, as I mentioned earlier, calls the Roman church a synagogue of Satan, denies that it is a true church of Jesus Christ. People like Doug Wilson, much as I love a lot of what he has said, is absolutely wrong when he says it's a true church, it just happens to have error, it's an errant church. But it is a true church, and he respects their baptism, he respects their officers. I say no, you cannot do that. You are not confessional in doing that, for sure you're not scriptural. The presence of true believers in a church does not legitimize the church It corrupts those believers. That's the way it goes. But the angel goes on to give a second reason. He says, so as not to participate in her sins and so as not to receive of her plagues. Now the word participate in is again that word koinonia. And it's better translated by the new King James as share. It has an idea of covenantal. There's more than one way that you can share, and actual participation in the sin is only one of the three meanings. So let me go through the three ways that we can share in sin by being a part of a denomination like that. First way is covenantal guilt. If you are a vowed member of a church, any church, you share in the rewards of that church. So that's a good thing. Even though you're maybe not doing everything that the church is doing, you share in all of the rewards of that church, but you also share in the disciplines that the Lord brings upon that church. Now, not all sin is disciplinable sin, but rebellion, clear-cut rebellion, deliberate rebellion is. But this covenantal connection to the church, of which you're a member, is one of the reasons I think you absolutely must take seriously the confession of sins that goes on before we come to the Lord's table. You might say, but that's not a sin I've committed this past week. Why would I confess that? The reason you confess it is because you are covenantally connected to the church, not just this church, but to the body of Christ. And because we have covenantal guilt, we must put that guilt under the blood of Christ. That's why we confess those sins. Now to see how this works, just read some of the prayers that Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, gave to the Lord. Those are remarkable prayers. And you look at the specific sins that they prayed, they were not guilty. It's crystal clear they were not guilty of those specific sins that they are passionately confessing to the Lord. But why do they confess them? Because they've got covenantal guilt. They're connected to the church of Jesus Christ. And it's so important that we take that seriously. It's a real thing. So that's the first way we can share, it's covenantal guilt. The second way we can have sin sharing is by failing to rebuke the sins of the church that we are connected to. Now even if the church does not repent, If you have brought that sin to their attention and say, this is really not right, at least you've gotten it off of your chest, right? But many people in apostate churches will not point out all of the sins of the church. If they do, they're gonna get kicked out. You know how the drill goes in those churches. The only unpardonable sin is what they call divisiveness, is pointing out some of these sins to others. Jay Gresham Machen and others were kicked out of the mainline Presbyterian Church simply because they would not participate in its evils. You either aggressively resist the heinous sins of abortion and homosexuality and goddess worship and as a result you end up getting kicked out or you act evangelical nice and begin to accept the sin as not being that serious and you begin to be comfortable with it. Over the past 30 years, I have watched friends become less and less concerned with sins that they were once very, very opposed to and this frog in the kettle syndrome has made them less and less worried to the point that they don't even think about it, they don't even mention it. But ignoring sin, is a sin of omission, okay? The third way of sin sharing is eventually to partake of the sin yourselves, the sin of commission. So there's covenantal guilt is the first way, there's sins of omission, failing to rebuke, and then there's sins of commission. The conservatives who stayed in liberal churches like the Peace USA had to compromise on numerous sins while pretending to oppose much more serious sins. Now, initially, conservatives in the PCUSA would vote against elders who denied the inerrancy of Scripture, but they got so much pushback, so much persecution, and were accused of being divisive over and over again that they let those slide, and they just focused on, well, does he believe that the Bible is absolutely correct on the gospel? And when feminism became entrenched, they used to vote against feminism, but when it became entrenched and anyone who opposed it was demonized, they accepted it grudgingly and they opposed homosexuality in the church. And when homosexuality became a part of the culture of the PCUSA, they finally compromised on that because they were being demonized so much that they allowed homosexuals, full practicing homosexuals, to be members of the church, to come to communion, and they would oppose the ordination of homosexuals. You see how this drift goes downhill. At every stage, they give the illusion of being reformers, when in reality, they are being deformed. It's the frog in the kettle syndrome. I went to lunch with a pastor a number of years ago who had a reputation of being an evangelical, and I thought, well, I'll encourage him. He was in the PCUSA. I'll encourage him. feel bad, you know, he's opposing homosexuality. Well, in the course of talking with him, I realized he's not even an evangelical. That's what everybody called him. He was a Barthian. But he said, oh no, we allow homosexuals to be members and come to the Lord's table. After all, we want them to hear the gospel. It's only the ordination of homosexuals that I am opposed to. So what he's doing here, is he's using the language of the gospel and all the time opposing the central meaning and purpose of the gospel, which is to save God's people from their sins. Those who stay in mainline denominations almost always end up becoming somewhat corrupted and their children completely apostatized. Now the next phrase in our text may not seem fair. But it says, and so as not to receive of her plagues. And you might think, well, why would true believers, who are not themselves corrupted personally, and God acknowledges that they are his people, that they are true believers, why would they be punished right along with the apostate church? And the answer is they're in the apostate church. They're covenanted. They've got covenantal guilt. When the chip goes down, it doesn't matter if you're a believer or an unbeliever, you're going to drown, right? You're going to go down. Now, yes, believers will get to heaven, but God says in time and in history they are going to receive his judgments. because of their compromises. And I have seen the horrible disciplines of the Lord fall upon numerous people in these mainline denominations because, why? They've lost their moorings, they lose their children, they waste years of their lives pouring their hearts into ministry in a church where God has guaranteed He's not going to bless their ministry. They're like Lot, who God called to leave Sodom, you know? They're like Lot, who lost everything, including his family. Why? Because he would not separate from apostasy. What a horrible feeling to look back at the end of your life and realize you have wasted everything in your life. Everything you did was propping up a tottering, corrupt denomination that God was offended at, you're ending up helping God's enemies. You don't want that to be the legacy of your life, that you spent a lifetime supporting an organization that God considers to be an enemy. If any of you move to other cities, do not join an apostate denomination, even if the local church is believing, Reformed. I don't care if they believe all of our doctrines, do not join an apostate denomination because God's warnings are you're going to enter into the same judgments that that denomination does. Verse six goes on to say, well, let me deal with another in verse five. For believers who have a hard time believing that God will actually judge their church, verse five gives another reason to come out. God will not overlook sinful compromises. For her sins have reached to heaven and God has remembered her, about her, her iniquities. God does not overlook what is happening. It may look like He's overlooking it because the churches maybe continue to prosper financially, they got lots of members, but God is not blessing. Satan has gained a stronghold there. The demons have free reign because they've got legal ground in that church, which means the demons are resisting every bit of ministry that you are doing. Verse six goes on to say that God will not overlook how His people have been treated by the apostate church. Render to her just as she rendered to you. Yes, pay her back double according to her deeds. In the cup that she mixed, mix double for her. So God follows his own law in judgment. There's automatically at least a 200% retribution to those who refuse to repent. Now, in the first century, Judaism did continue to persecute the true church from AD 70 to AD 136, at which time it was almost wiped off the face of the map. The point is God's patience only lasts so long. God sends people to rebuke, and if his rebukes are resisted or if his rebukers are persecuted, God will remember. And by the way, a great biography you ought to read is biography of J. Gresham Machen, a hero of the faith. And in that book, you will see what it was like to stand up against the evils in that denomination. He was kicked out. And many other people who just spoke up, who just refused to actually participate in evils themselves were disciplined. They were kicked out. And here's the problem that I see. You see these pastors and you see various members being persecuted by denomination and the rest of the people say, well, I'm gonna avoid the persecution. I'm gonna keep silent about my private beliefs. That's what was happening. They hoped that they would be ignored. They could stay in the denomination. Some stayed in there to keep their pensions. Others stayed in for other reasons. But this verse indicates that believers who stayed in the mainline church were guilty of every persecution that that church brought against God's saints. They were guilty, covenantally guilty. And if you don't think the mainline denominations persecute believers, you just need to read up on it a bit. There's enormous persecution against pastors within the denomination, retired pastors, but pastors outside the denomination as well. But that same verse shows yet another reason. Her apostate deeds render her fit for judgment, and yet here you are doing the exact opposite of God. and rewarding her, rewarding the church with tithes and offerings, teaching in Sunday school, keeping this apostate church afloat. Believers actually fight against God's disciplines when they stay in apostate denominations. It's a form of rebellion. They're working against God's hand. Verse seven gives another reason. She glorified herself, not God. to the extent that she glorified herself and lived luxuriously by so much give her torment and sorrow. Many of these mainline denominations are about keeping the church and the programs going. They don't ask what glorifies God. what God desires, and at the time of the Reformation, the clergy were particularly obnoxious in their self-promotion, their self-enrichment, their self-glorifying, and their love of luxury. Huss, Luther, and other reformers spared no words in showing how shamelessly these priests were selling and buying offices, were selling the gospel, were selling forgiveness and turning the God-centered gospel into a man-centered gospel, and it actually got much worse than that. It was vicious. The Roman Catholic Church actually tortured, you read up on the Inquisition, how many countless people were tortured and put to death simply for owning a Bible, or in England, for teaching their kids to say the Lord's Prayer. That was something that could get you tortured and put to death. This is why it is such a stench in my nostrils when I see evangelicals in Omaha and Lincoln who have repented of the Reformation, who have repented of separation, and they want to have some kind of unity with the Roman Catholic Church. Whether they stay in or stay out, they want to have some kind of unity. They ignore the murder of Protestants and they elevate this idea of unity into an idolatrous unity. That is not a biblical unity, it is an offense to God and the denial of the principles of separation that God mandates in these verses. Now, let me make an application to ourselves because I think this verse is a warning to us to not be glorifying ourselves in this local church here. We must not go down that road. And believe me, it's very easy to go down that road. We must not become man-centered. We must not have a personality-centered church. This church should not be about Phil Kaiser or any other elder. Okay, any church that fails to be God-centered that begins to rotate around a powerful personality is in danger of sliding down this road. God hates it when the church glorifies herself. And sadly, this verse describes many megachurches. The next part of verse seven says, because in her heart she says, I sit a queen. Chilton points out that this parallels the words of the Church of Laodicea, which had said, I have become rich and have become wealthy and have need of nothing. Church of Judaism did not need the king of the church, Jesus Christ. They ruled in terms of their own desires. They were ruling independently of Christ and his authority. Now, I won't go down this rabbit trail very much, but in biblical times, A queen ruling was a sign of apostasy. Queens did not, they were not supposed to rule. A queen ruling was a sign of apostasy. Well this queen had thrown off the authority of her husband and ruled and continued to rule long after he had divorced her. Next, she refused to recognize that she had killed her husband, Jesus Christ, and am not a widow. She didn't even realize or recognize or acknowledge the evil that she had done in crucifying Jesus. She did not accept Him as her Lord. So to covenant with that church, that corrupted church, was really to covenant with Christ's murderers. To covenant with Rome is to covenant with the murderers of Protestants. To covenant with liberal Protestant church is to covenant with homosexuals and abortionists. Next, she was in denial that she had done anything wrong. She was so absolutely certain that she would receive blessing from God. She says, and I will certainly not see sorrow. She was certain that Jesus would not judge her as he said that he would. And we see the same boldness in cults and liberal churches today. They're quite certain they will not be judged. And then they try to convince people, hey, if you leave, you're going to be judged. They turn everything upside down. Now, of course, they're defining love differently than God does and unity differently than God does, but verse eight declares their sense of certainty to be an absolutely foolish presumption. Therefore, her plagues will come in one day, death and sorrow and famine, and she will be burned up with fire because the Lord God who has judged her is strong. And I want you to notice that this is yet another future judgment. Too many commentaries, even preterist commentaries get this wrong. It uses two future tense verbs and compares them to a present tense judgment that is ongoing right now. So God is saying that just as he is right now finishing up his judgment in the land of Israel in 87 day, God will judge Judaism again in the future. Now Israel had already been through death and sorrow and famine in the previous three and a half years. That's not what he's talking about. as something further and future, that there is going to be a further death and sorrow and famine and burning with fire. I believe this is talking about the final blow that came in Bar Kokhba rebellion 60 years later when every synagogue in Israel was destroyed, the rabbis left and the land were destroyed, the ones who managed to escape were unable to feed themselves, every city in Israel was burned. See, following the Bar Kokhba rebellion, Jews were not even able to live there any longer. It was a major setback for that false church. Now, there is coming a day, and Revelation 20-22 talks about it, when all false religion will be eradicated from this world, and the true church will shine forth. They will be united. But I believe this is not referring to that. This is referring to only a temporary judgment of an apostate church, Judaism, that it would faith. Now, you could hold that you're going to find some exegetical difficulties. You could hold that this is the second half of the war, AD 70 through 74, But I don't really think it fits. I really think it's pointing forward to the one day in one day they were destroyed. That was the Battle of Bethar in 8136. So anyway, that's the meaning of the passage. God calls all true believers to separate from churches that have apostatized from the true faith. This does not mean separation on peripheral issues. This is separation on fundamental issues of the faith. And it's a pervasive doctrine in the Bible that I think is ignored by so many churches. Paul says, avoid them, Romans 16, 17. You don't have joint worship services, you don't have joint programs with them, no. Avoid them. From such withdraw yourself first Timothy 6 3 through 5 from such people turn away 2nd Timothy 3 verse 5 come out from among them and be separate 2nd Corinthians 6 14 4 through 18. Do not keep company with them 1st Corinthians 5 9 and 11. Brothers and sisters we live in an age where all lines of demarcation are being erased when truth is being muddied and when compromise masquerades as love. This passage is a clarion call to be different, to be separate, to be holy, to be faithful to our Lord. May we embrace this call to remain separate and may we encourage other people in Rome and in other false churches to leave. Amen. Father, we thank you for this passage. It's a hard passage, it's a rebuking passage, but I pray, Father, that it would be a passage that would govern our thinking, govern our lives, and that we could be used by you to rescue people from the judgments and the wrath that you have brought against these mainline apostate denominations. I pray that you would help us to remain faithful, to appreciate the imperfect and yet committed church that you have called us into, and Father, that we could be a blessing to other churches that are seeking to be committed as well. We pray all of this in Jesus' name, amen.