Today's message is coming from Isaiah, the 28th chapter, the first through the 11th verse. And it focuses on Ephraim, the tribe of Ephraim, which was not this tribe of Ephraim, but Ephraim is called sometimes, the whole 10 northern tribes is called Ephraim. That's Joseph's second son. Ephraim's name was meaning that the Lord had caused him to be fruitful. And we noticed that in the last days, in the millennial, that he said that Jacob will be a fruitful vine planted. He would be a fruitful bow that multiplies and grows. And that's what Ephraim was fruitful. And that's what the church is, is a fruitful bow that grows or whatever. But just like with that tribe that had become lost, they become lost because they, in their kingship, Jeroboam took over as king and as king. What Jeroboam did was, Jeroboam instituted golden calf worship and caused the people, so he was afraid for the people to go down to southern Israel, which was Judah, because they was a divided, nation at that time, the northern and the southern Israel. And Judah was the southern tribes and he set up golden calf worship. So Ephraim and Dan and Bathsheba, they had set up, Bethel, they'd set up golden calf worship. And the true priest of God migrated down to southern Judah and to enter Judah and parts of Judah, northern Judah and throughout Judah. But it was because of false worship, golden calf worship, and idolatry in and in. And I think we have to look at this. It's not literal drunkenness. I think the drunkenness was more or less figurative. And it was a spiritual drunkenness. even though it was manifested, a great deal of it was manifested in the physical, but the literal drunkenness of that was political and religiously, but we know in the last days that's the problem with Christianity, as many a false Christ and many an Antichrist rise, there's going to be false doctrine. And I think that's what the people were, it was spiritual drunkenness off of false doctrine. And we've studied this in a couple of different facets of drunkenness and Drinking because throughout the book throughout the Bible God has many different references to drinking of the cup and Drinking of that cup was religiously and in the book of Jeremiah in some of the other scriptures We see where Jeremiah? Said that he God told Jeremiah he was to be sent and to all the other nations and that All of the world the whole world was could drink of the cup of the Lord So this drinking of the cup of the Lord gave indeed This drinking of the cup of the Lord Was drinking in a false? Doctrine it was them drinking a partaking of the wrong spirit And they was drunk in a spiritual fashion with false doctrine and false teachings And so we'll get to that though, but in verse 1 through 11 says, woe to the city of Samaria, surrounded by her rich valley Samaria, the pride and delight of the drunkards of Israel. Woe to her fading beauty, the crowning glory of a nation, men of lying drunk in the streets. For the Lord will send a mighty army, which is the Assyrians he was talking about, but in this day and time, he's talking about the heathen or other forces or whatever, against you. He says, like a mighty hailstorm, he will burst upon you and dash you to the ground. The proud city of Samaria, yes, the joy and delight of the drunkards of Israel will be hurled to the ground and trampled beneath the enemy's feet. Once glorious, her fading beauty, surrounded by a fertile valley, will suddenly be gone, greedily snatched away as early as an early fig is hungrily snatched and gobbled up. Then at the last, the Lord Almighty Himself would be their crowning glory. The diadem of beauty to His people who are left. There's only going to be a remnant, a small amount of Israel left in the world. There'll be a small amount of believers in the true church that are left. There'll be a remnant left. But God would be the crowning glory to them instead of the crowning glory of Ephraim's pride of false religion. He says he will give a longing for justice to your judges and a courage to your soldiers who are battling to the last before your gates. But Jerusalem is now led by drunks, her priests and prophets real and stagger, making stupid errors and mistakes. Their tables are covered with vomit, filth is everywhere. Who does Isaiah think he is, the people say. They are meeting Isaiah with reproach because Isaiah was doing like the rest of the prophets did. Isaiah was preaching and teaching to them, the concepts and the statutes of God. He kept, it was, I keep telling you, redundancy. He kept saying the same thing over and over, you know. And God says this throughout the Bible that he rose up his prophets early, sending them to the people that they would hear his message. And the people was like, we're not children hearing the same little thing over and over. And they said, who does Isaiah think he is to people say, to speak to us like this? Are we little children, barely old enough to talk? He tells us everything over and over again. Line at a time and in such simple words, but they won't listen. The only language they can understand is punishment So God will punish them by sending Against them foreigners who speaks for strange gibberish only then will they listen to what God's say You remember yesterday? I was talking about God. It's not mocked and there was mocking the prophet here in essence mocking God for the way he was teaching them knowledge or whatever because you know many a time they'll say how many times pastor will say this the same little gibberish the same little thing over and over we're not stupid we could understand this stuff they in the amplifier it says they say to whom he teach knowledge and to whom he explain the message Those just weaned from milk, those just taken from the breast. For he says, precept upon precept, precept upon precept, rule upon rule, rule upon rule. here a little, there a little. Indeed, the Lord would teach these people in a more humiliating way instead of you learning it since you won't learn it that way, since you're stubborn and stiff-necked and turn your back on it. He says, by men with stammering lips and a foreign tongue, He who said to them, this is the place of quiet, give rest to the weary, and this is the resting place, yet they would not listen. So he's going to send in foreigners, the Assyrians. He's going to send in maybe China or Russia, some other nations or whatever, not speaking the same language. In other words, we're not on the same intellectual level. Understanding is going to be taught by violence or overthrow, like Islam or some other thing will come in to overthrow the thing. Maybe you'll learn that way. A child won't listen to you talking to them. You keep saying sit down and do that. After a while, you have to get that strap. You have to speak in the language of corporal punishment. You have to become physical. God was going to allow this was going to become physical to Ephraim. Ephraim was going to be moved out. It wasn't going to be no more ten tribes. There was going to be lost ten, the lost ten tribes when Assyria come in. Assyrians will come in as God's hand Against him because when we say God's hand against you we we normally When we talk about God's hand in his arm, but I'm not we're talking about Punishment not anything good if God lifts up his hand It says this is what it says in the Amplified and in the King James. It says listen listen carefully the Lord has a strong and mighty agent the Assyrian and Like the tempest of a hailstorm, a disaster storm, like the tempest of a mighty overflowing Waters he has cast it down to the earth with his hangings, you know And that's what I say you use your hands against someone God tells you that's a humiliating insult. He says if a man Slap you another cheek you turn the other cheek to him because that's a humiliation and a backward slap would have been the ultimate humiliation and So if he says, if you hit a smite on one cheek, turn him the other cheek. Because God's in this now, you've done something, raised a hand here. And God tells you about laying hands on people, about the hand. The hand of God is wicked at men. So when we're talking about God's hand, we're talking about chastisement and punishment. And so we notice that When Jeremiah and the rest of them used the cup, when they say you must drink of the cup, the cup is used as a metaphor for trial, for suffering, and for the punishment of God, drinking of the cup. In the book of Matthew, in the 20th chapter, in the 23rd verse, and they was talking to Jesus, and they was asked him to sit on his right hand and his left hand. Jesus said unto him you you couldn't get wasn't qualified to do this and he says would and he said unto him you Will you are you able to drink the cup that I am that I'm gonna drink and they say yeah We are able to drink it and he said to him in verse 23 You shall drink indeed of my cup and be baptized with the baptism that I'm baptized with but to sit on my right hand on the sit on my left hand is not mine to give and but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my father. In the Amplified version, it reads a little bit different from the King James, and it puts us in italicis, that he says to them, you shall drink of my cup of suffering, but to sit on my right hand and my left hand is not mine to give. We must follow that example of drinking the cup. Everybody has to drink of the cup. We have to drink of the cup. And that's why he says, you got to drink of my blood and eat of my body. And that's what we do during the Lord's Supper. We drink of the cup. He said, if you drink not, you know, you don't have any part with me and we don't take any part of the Lord's Supper. And he says, You can't drink out of both cups, the cup of the devil and the cup of the Lord. That's an impossibility to drink from both cups. The Lord won't allow it. Because to drink out of Satan's cup, that means you're not following God. You will partake of a different suffering. There's going to be punishment in that cup if you drink of that cup. He says, if we, as the elect of God, believe in Christ crucified and all that it entails, and that's what we believe in, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, according to 1 Corinthians, first chapter, the 23rd verse. And that's what Paul was telling the Corinthians. He says, but we preach Christ crucified. uh... the message of the gospel to the jews which is a stumbling block date they didn't want to suffer in my side and we didn't want a crucifying savior that was a stumbling block to them and and it provokes their opposition to christ they don't like jesus they hadn't accepted jesus you know it's willing to the jews rejected him and said no caesar is our king we don't have a king that's not our king they rejected jesus a suffering messiah And it's also to the Gentiles, foolishness is just utter nonsense. The preaching of the cross, the preaching of crucified Savior, that's foolishness to them or whatever. Says then we must recognize the need for suffering in trials. There's a reason because we are drinking of the cup, the suffering in the trials. And it says to drink of the cup that God has prepared for each of us, just as he did for our Savior. We have to do just like he was doing. We have to be willing to do as Christ did. We have to walk as he did, because that's why he came down here as an example of a man. That's why he came as a man. As a lot of people say, well, he was God. Well, he laid aside his deity, so he wasn't God. They called him the God man, but no, he overcame as a man. In other words, he had faith and trusted and believed in God the same way we have to have faith and trust and a belief in God. That's what he was talking. He was talking that we had to walk by faith and live as he lived. The Apostle Peter encourages us that if we partake in Christ's suffering It is will be well worth the effort when he comes back if we partake of his suffering According to first Peter 4 and 12 through 13. It says Beloved do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal which is taking place to test you That is to test the quality of your faith. Everybody's faith is will be tried and That's what this is, is a cup of trial, a tribulation, as though something strange or unusual were happening to you. But insofar as you are sharing Christ's suffering, keep on rejoicing so that when his glory, filled with the radiance and splendor, is revealed, you may rejoice with great joy then also that you suffered for Christ's sake and suffered accordingly as Christ suffered. And he told us, in this world, we shall suffer persecution. We shall suffer. If we partake of that, he said, in this world, brothers, sisters, and mothers, and persecutions too. So we will inherit homes and other stuff, but we will inherit much affliction and persecution from others. We should also realize, though, that in comparison to what is required of Christ, our cup of burden will pale in magnitude. You know, we didn't have to undergo beating and slashing the way He had to do at the cross, you know. So, you know, people showed the passion of Christ or whatever, and they put a lot of pain and suffering in it, but he didn't even put that in our mind that we won't undergo that magnitude of suffering in which he did. Because our faith probably would fail, just like at that time he prayed that Peter's faith wouldn't completely fail. And so for a man to go through that, he says, our cup of burden will pale in magnitude, like I said, according to what Christ had to endure and go through. We will only be drinking from the cup he had to empty. He had to empty the cup. You remember he says, for my yoke is easy in the book of Matthew, and my burden is light. So that's the cup we have to drink. He had drunken all of the drinks out of the cup. He is drinking it all. You remember he says, Father, if it be thy will, if it must come to pass this way, he'll do it. I'll talk about that in a second. Romans 12 and 1, he says, therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies, dedicating all of yourself, set apart as a living sacrifice, holy and well-pleasing to God, which is your rational act of worship. That's our reasonable service, is to present ourselves as a living sacrifice. Remember, Paul said he was being poured out as a drink offering. And the apostles gave their lives for the cause of Christ. And we may give our lives or whatever, but it wouldn't be to the magnitude in which Christ suffered. So we will have to bear our burdens and take up our cross and follow after him. But he assures us that his burden is easy. His yoke is easy and his burden is light. While these two verses should not be taken to mean that I will burn. will be undemanding. You know, I'm not saying that it's going to be easy in the sense of people saying, now, it's easy being a Christian. Well, it's easy being a false Christian, a false professor. Christianity is not easy. I'm not saying that it won't be undemanding when I say it's burden is easy and it's yoke is easy and it's burden is light. We should always keep our personal suffering in perspective by remaining aware appreciating of the staggering effort required for our Creator and Savior to make the sacrifices He made. He laid aside all that He was, deity. He laid down being the master of the whole universe. He laid that aside and He suffered at the hands of men to be called names, ridiculed, mocked, spit upon, and tortured and unjustly murdered. He was, by the determined counsel of God, he was murdered at the hands of men. Matthew 26 and 39, he was in the garden. You remember after Peter had cut off Malachi's servant's ear. And after going a little farther in the garden of Gethsemane, he knew what he was facing, the horror of that cross. He fell face down and prayed, saying, My Father, if it is possible, that is, if it's consistent with your will, then see, that's what I was saying the other day. We have to be consistent with the Word of God. If something doesn't line up with the word of God. We can't do it. It wasn't consistent with his will that he evade the cross. That's why he told Peter, Satan, thou not savoriest the things that be of God, when he said it shall not be so, master, when he was trying to get him to avoid the cross. That wasn't consistent with God's will. God's will was that that was his mission to come and die on the cross. So we have to work within God's will, and a lot of us try to get around God's will, and that's what we live for, to do the will of God. He says, let this cup pass from me, but yet not as I will, but as your will. Not my will be done, but your will be done. So this is the way, this is the consistent way, this is the way it happens in my life. So we have to give our lives, we have to lay down our lives as a living sacrifice. So whatever God's designed for our life, we go through it, just as Jesus Christ did, willingly. Matthew, Mark, and Luke record Christ praying to the Father and asking about the cup being removed. He mentions rebuking Peter's assault, saying to Peter, put up your sword into the sheep. Shall I not drink the cup which my father had given me? That's in John 18, chapter 11, verse, when he told Peter to put up his sheep, his sword, that he was going to have the, shall he not drink the cup the father had given him? Don't try for a different result, and you serve God's will. The image of drinking from a cup, I told you, was a metaphor. It is for his submission to God's will. He submitted himself to the will of God. We have to submit ourselves ultimately to the will of God. Adam didn't submit himself to the will of God. He didn't obey God. He disobeyed God. God told him not to eat of the fruit of the tree. No matter what came about, he shouldn't have ever disobeyed God. That's what our lives is about after we are born again, regenerated in repentance, we receive from God His grace and His Holy Spirit, which gives us the power to obey Him and to walk in grace and truth. That grace and truth releases us from the bondage of death. It gives us eternal life and it gives us the power to overcome. While the cup itself stands for enormous burden his submission would be required and according to Luke the 22nd chapter 42nd through the 44th verse it says say Father if you are willing remove this cup of divine wrath from me. Remember I told you the cup was symbolic of divine punishment Ephraim was drink of the divine punishment. That was what he was drinking from the cup. All nations have to drink from the cup. But he says, yet not my will, but always your will be done. Nine angels appeared to him from heaven, strengthening him. Because like I say, all of us in the church, that's why we have one another. And he says, forsake not the assembling together of yourselves. We're here to encourage and exhort one another and strengthen one another. two or three make a stronger bond than one. And it gives you encouragement, it gives you fellowship, and to know that, he says in Peter, what I just read, that we're not, we don't think it's strange that this is something we're suffering all alone. Others in Christ are suffering also. Those that are not suffering, that are not going through this, they're not true Christians, they're not true workers in God's harvest field. Now, as an angel appeared to him and strengthened him, and being in agony, deeply distressed and anguished, almost to the point of death, listen how in anguish and how stressful it was. He says, he prayed more intently, he prayed more harder, he prayed more earnest, and his sweat became like drops of blood falling down on the ground. because he knew what that cross entailed, hanging up on that cross, dying that agonizing death. We won't have to go there. It's not to be that demanding, even though the apostles suffered horrific deaths or whatever. To a sinless person, this was more torturous. In other words, because he was so pure, Ultimately, the punishment was just that much more horrific. To the period, anything that's hard seems to be just that much harder because you hadn't endured or been through those things. And see, a lot of times if we've been in sin or used to drink or used to do a lot of things or whatever, were dying or deaf from drinking or something else, we've experienced some horrible things. And that's why we come out of the life we once lived, because it was so horrible. And God showed us the circumstances of living that way and offered us a better and newer way. Jesus Christ is a better way, a new way. If we die in itself, if we judge ourselves, if we go through and follow after Christ, if we take up our cross and die daily, that daily dying, that daily death, we'd be growing in faith. So to die daily is not, how can I say this? The punishment is not as stern if it came all of a sudden and you wasn't used to a practice of being prepared for that. That's why everything we live, each day or whatever that we walk in God's word, we get stronger or whatever, because each day is a preparation for the next thing to come. That's if we're dying daily, that's why we can't avoid the punishments. Despite desiring that some other way could be found to accomplish the payment for mankind's sin, Jesus bowed his father's wheel in the mat and gave himself up to the arrested troops. You remember, he said, let these go. If I'm the one you came after, let these others go. He was telling Peter, say not that I could pray to the Father and be given seven legions of angels. You know, so he was turning himself over. He was voluntarily submitting to what God had in store for him. John, the first chapter of John, when we speak of the Word and the Word being made flesh and the Word was with God, the 14th chapter. 1st through the 18th verse says, and the word which was Christ became flesh and lived among us. We actually saw his glory, glory as belongs to the one and only begotten Son of the Father, the Son who is truly unique, the only one of his kind, who is full of grace and truth, absolutely free of deception, purity. That's why when he was in the transformation when he was transformed, the purity, the whiteness, the holiness that they see. And they beheld that glory. They beheld the glory of the Son of God. They beheld all these things. John testified repeatedly about him. John the Baptist testified about him and has cried out, testifying officially for the record with of validity and relevant that this was he of whom I said, he who comes after me is higher in rank than I am and has priority over me and he existed before me. He said that several different days when Jesus came, he said, behold, this is the Lamb of God. He pointed Jesus out. This is the Lamb of God. This is the one I told you about who is greater than I am, whose shoelaces I'm not worthy to tie. This is he. So he confirmed this as a witness, and the Spirit is a witness. The waters, everything's a witness to Jesus Christ. Everything did in fulfillment of the scriptures. For out of His fullness, the superabundance of His grace and truth, that's the fullness of God, the superabundance of grace and truth that's within Him, we have all received grace upon grace. So He can superfluously give us grace upon grace because It's an unlimited amount of supply he has to supply for us. So we receive grace upon grace, and that's why he says, we yield ourselves unto God. Resist the devil and he'll flee. For God gives us greater grace. He gives us more to be able to resist the things that are coming upon us and are coming upon earth. Spiritual blessing upon spiritual blessing. favor upon favor, and gift heaped upon gift. Christ liberally gives this, and all we do is have to ask or walk therein. He equips us. All we have to do is walk and abide in Him, and He's gonna equip us for what we're going through. For the law was given through Moses, but grace, the unearned, undeserved favor of God, But grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God, His essence or His divine nature at any time. And the one and only begotten God, that is the unique Son who is in the intimate presence of the Father, He has explained Him and interpreted and revealed the awesome wonder of the Father to us. That's why He says, if you've seen Me, you've seen the Father. That's how the Father is. It's replicated in me. The Father is replicated in me. He do nothing apart from the Father. He was consistent for that. So our consistency has to start to be consistent with Jesus Christ. We have to walk as he walked. That's why it points out several places soberly that we have to be sober In sound mind and sound judgments, making right decisions, we can't take of any beverage or anything that would influence or would inhibit our decision. If we're going to be drunk, we have to be drunk with the Spirit of Christ. Be drunk with the Spirit. In other words, full of the Spirit of God. That's what should intoxicate us or move us in the Spirit of God. That's why on the day of Pentecost, when they say, these men, you remember they say, these men are full of new wine. He said, no, not at this hour in the morning. They're not full of new wine. This what you hear, them speaking in tongues or whatever, that was the spirit upon them. We should strive to be full of the spirit of God. Jesus Christ was sent as the forerunner, according to Hebrews 2 and 10. It's an archegos. In other words, someone that goes before. You know, trailblazers and pilgrims, you have somebody to go before to cut a path, cut a trail. The archegos, one who goes before to live among men in order to reveal his father, the living God, according to Matthew 11, 27, John 14, 7 through 11, 17, 6 through 7. Now, I didn't search through those and put those verses in here. I don't think I did. I can go back and find those verses. But the prodigious work necessitated that Christ be willing to drink the cup and suffer many burdens The greatest being his arrest, persecution, crucifixion, and death at the hands of his own creation. To allow his own creation to do this to him was the greatest of all. Just think of what power you have if you created something and then you allow it to take your life. humiliate you, persecute you, crucify you, and you die at their hands. You trust again the Father that he's gonna wake you up. His complete trust and faith was in God. He died, he actually died. A lot of people say swoon or this, but he actually died on the cross because he knew God wouldn't let his soul suffer corruption or rot in hell that he would raise him from the dead. He believed God. Matthew 11 and 27 says, all things are delivered unto me of my father and no man knoweth the son but the father neither knoweth any man father save the son and to whomsoever the son will reveal him so that's what he came down he only showed the father to some people some people didn't see the father because they didn't believe jesus' words and that's why religion that don't have jesus won't identify or be able to see the father don't really know anything about god they talk about Yahweh and Jehovah You can't, you don't have a vehicle to get to him. You can't shield yourself so that you can see him. Only through the revelation of Jesus Christ, only through the blood of Jesus Christ can you realize and see the Father. Only the pure at heart can see God. John 14 chapter 7-11 verse says, If you had known me you should have known my father also and from henceforth you know him and have seen him Philip said unto him Lord show us the father and it suffices us Jesus said unto him have I been so long time with you and yet has thou not known me Philip? He that had seen me had seen the father and he and how sayest thou then show us the father Believest thou not that I am in the father and the father in me The words that I speak unto you are not of myself, but the Father dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me, or else believe me for the very works sakes. That's why we are to maintain good works. and do those things that represent God. That's why he was so hard on David and issued such a stringent punishment on David for killing Uriah and doing this with Bathsheba, committing adultery with Bathsheba, because he caused the name of God to be blasphemous. As children of God, we shouldn't do anything that reflects upon God's name badly. We should walk as Christ, as his sons and daughters, We should be in his image and likeness with Jesus Christ. You can't find any sin or anything wrong he ever did. And that's what we're to do, to walk as he so walked, to live as he so lived. John the 17th chapter, the sixth of the seven verses, I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world. Thine they were, thou gavest them me, and they have kept thine word. Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee." So by his actions, his words, and his accountability, they know that this was of God. They knew. And if we do the works, if we do this, we'll know that this is the will of God, that the doctrine is not our doctrine, it's not some strange doctrine, that it does come from God. As our forerunner and example to all men, it was incumbent upon Christ to submit to the will of God and to do it with a perfect attitude of faithful humility. Just as he said he loves a cheerful giver, he didn't go through it resenting it. He didn't do the work of God. in a half-hearted way, just like when God killed Nadab and Abiyu, Aaron's sons, because they offered up strange fire. They had been drinking. Sometime we will get off or do the wrong things. Alcohol is inhibitor. So we have to be fully conscious that everything that we do reflects upon God, that we are sons of God and that our life is a reflection of who He is. So we have to know whose we are and who we are. That's the fear and reverence of God. His incomparable level of submission allowed Him to become our Savior, a type of which ultimately is required of everyone to enter the kingdom of God. You heard that. What he did, you remember I said we should present our bodies as a living sacrifice. What he did, we have to do also. We have to do the same. Hebrews 11 and 6 says, but without faith, and that's what he had, faith. He had faith unmeasurable, immeasurable. He had that faith that was full of faith, that was faithful. You remember I said he laid down his life knowing that God would raise him from the dead. We have to have that faith. Without faith it is impossible to walk with God or to please God. For whoever comes near to God must necessarily believe that God exists and that he rewards those who earnestly and diligently seek him. You must have faith and actually believe this. So I say, we actually believe this. This is something, yeah, somebody told us this, but we believe it. It's become our nature. It becomes who we are, what we are. James 4, 6 says, but he gives us more and more grace. How does he do that? Through the power of the Holy Spirit to defy sin. Sin no longer have any bondage over us. He give us the power to overcome sin. That's why he's consistently telling us to be overcomers. We don't have to continue in sin. We put to death our members, we mortify our bodies, that we wouldn't obey sin in its lust thereof. We are and live an obedient life that reflects both our faith and our gratitude for our salvation. That's a sin to be ungrateful. We're so grateful to show our gratitude 24-7, 365 days, we'll live for Him. We're so grateful for what He's done for us. Therefore it says, God is opposed to the proud and hearty, and you remember I told you we were talking about the crown of pride of Ephraim. Their pride, and through drunkenness and high-mindedness and heartiness, they got away from God and God resisted them. Ephraim had become, if you look at Hosea, it says, Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him alone. He had embraced that which was false that was around him. But continue God continually gives grace to the humble those who turn away from self-righteousness He continues to give those grace. He continues to give us grace Are you drinking of the Master's Cup can I see that are you drinking of the Master's Cup? Revelation 17 and 4 says the woman was dressed in purple and scarlet and and adorned with gold, precious stones and pearls. And she was holding in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and the filth of a sexual immorality. This woman that we're talking about in Revelations, you remember God was calling us out of Babylon, that great Babylon, that great harlot that was riding the beast that sits upon the beast. I'll start at the first verse. Chapter 17 it says and there came one of the seven angels would head which had the seven vows and Talk with me saying unto me come hither. I will show thee up Unto thee the judgment of the great whore that set it up on many waters with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication and the inhabitants of the earth have made drunk with the wine of our fornication and So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness, and I saw a woman sit up on a scarlet-colored beast full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a great golden cup in her hand full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornications. And up on her forehead was a name written, Mystery Babylon, the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the moths of Jesus. And when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration. Now she had killed a lot of God's people. She had destroyed them. This woman had made everyone in the earth drunk. And that's why he tells us, come out of Babylon, drink not of her cup, drink not of that what she has. That's a dangerous cup she has. The phrase drinking of the cup eventually symbolized sharing the consequences of what's in the cup. Remember I said drinking of the cup was a metaphor, but it also, if you drink of the cup, you're sharing the results of what was in the cup. It also came to mean accepting what the king dealt out. So many people that sold themselves out for the world, for Babylon, for the world system, for the beast world system. Politically, the other day I was looking at it. How many of those Republicans sold themselves out for what happened on January 6th? It tore our nation apart. It tore democracy apart. But following one man, one system, the Babylonian system, that was against the nation. That made a statement. That was a mark. That put a mark upon them that wouldn't change. You can't forget, move on from that. That's indeletable. That's done. That's drinking of that cup. That destroyed the nation. The whole world drinks of Babylon's cup, full of the wine of her fornications and abominations. Since drinking the cup means accepting whatever is appointed for one to experience, both good and bad, joyful or sorrowful, all who drink of Babylon's cup will share in her future. You've accepted the consequences of drinking it. You've accepted the mark of the beast now. You've accepted that your character is fixed and fitted in. In the Bible are numerous references to this cup of God's wrath and how Babylon and other nations will drink from it, symbolizing the divine punishments being inflicted. And that's according to Revelation 14 and 10. Revelation 14 and 10, it says, for example, speaking of drinking of the wine of God's wrath, it is poured out full of strength into the cup of indignation. I didn't put these others down, but I'll go over them and we'll just end with these others since I didn't put them down. I just kind of thumbed through the Bible and found them as we go here. Revelations, I said, 14 and 10 was the first one. And it says, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God. which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation, and he shall be tormented with fine brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. Revelation 16 and 19 says, and the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell, and great Babylon came into remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of wine of fierceness of his wrath. All of those is Babylon drinking from that cup. Drinking for what's in her cup. So you could partake of what's in that cup? materialism worldliness capitalism Psalms 116 says upon the wicked and he shall rain snares fires and brimstones and a horrible tempest This shall be the portion of their cup This torment this divine punishment. That's gonna be the portion of the cup that they are drinking Remember, as I told you, I don't know if I'm going to include it in this series or not, that he sent Jeremiah, he sent all the prophets to cause them to drink of that cup, and we see the wine or the drink of that cup is false doctrine, is false religion, is false teaching. That's what the world is drunken on. That's why I told you it was spiritual in nature. Isaiah 51 and 17. awake awake stand up old jerusalem which is drunk at the hand of the lord the cup of israel he says jerusalem in other words the church didn't drunk of this cup of his fear and remember we had studied in verse two in chapter twenty seven where he says his fear is seldom his his fear is not with them so it was only the remnant that he was talking to that The fury wasn't with against them in the church, but here we see Isaiah telling some in Jerusalem that you have drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury Thou has drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling and wrung them out There's none to guide her among the sons whom she had brought forth. Neither is there any that taketh her by the hand of all the sons that she has brought up. Nobody's to save her. None of her offspring can save her. They're all drunken. They all have drunken up this cup. And it goes on and on. Drinking of that cup goes on and on. Those who God is calling out of Babylon are asked to drink of another cup. There is another cup, he says, that that's the cup of salvation. The Psalm is right, I will take the cup of salvation. And that's in Psalms 116 and 13. He says, I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. That cup, if you drink of that cup, this cup has four more positive ramifications for us than curses boiling within God's cup of indignation. The cup of salvation contains all the blessings of God, especially those of eternal life and his reward in the kingdom. Now, as we do the second part of this, I might not start this other teaching, the drunkenness, because it goes on to explain Ephraim's drunkenness. It goes on to explain drunkenness. And let's just save that for another time, and we'll let y'all out early today. And we'll start with drunkenness. And we're talking about spiritual drunkenness, but you can see it literally, but also figuratively. And I tell you, things happen in the physical as a result, a shadow of an image of what's going on. That's what I tell you, the Old Testament was a shadow of the New Testament's an image, it's a touch. See, that went before, but the reality is the spiritual. That which comes last, the spiritual comes last. That's what's coming last. That's the reality of it. So the physical