Comfort of Babylon or the Comfort of God 1986

From Matthew chapter 6, verse 24, and the first part of 25. No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and manna.

Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life. Do not be anxious about your life. Well, why are we anxious about our life in the first place? Obviously because life in this world is extremely uncertain.

We have no guarantee that we won't wake up tomorrow sick, or that there won't be a war before the end of 1986, or that all our loved ones will still be with us this Christmas. Everything in this world is uncertain. So there are two ways you deal with this uncertainty.

One, you have enough money so that you can buy your way out of whatever crisis comes along. Two, you have enough faith so that you are convinced that God is with you. You know that God is with you no matter what you have to go through.

So you either look to manna, money, or you look to God. You serve manna, or you serve God. So what we're really talking about here are two forms of comfort.

Comfort is simply being free of anxiety. There's the comfort of Babylon, and there's the comfort of God. The comfort of Babylon is manna, that is, money and the things which money can buy.

And hence, all the idols in Babylon are made of gold, because in Babylon the ultimate reality is gold. Remember the time Moses is up on Mount Sinai getting the commandments, and he stays up there too long. And the Israelites are getting nervous and worried and afraid and anxious.

So they turn to Aaron, the number two man, and they say, Come on, make us a God we can see. Make us a God who will give us some kind of comfort. Never mind the fact that the unseen God of Israel had already brought them out of Egypt, taken them through the Red Sea, fed them with manna, given them water out of the rock.

So Aaron says, Okay, give me your gold. And preachers have been doing it ever since. Give me your gold.

And he takes this gold and he makes the golden calf. Because the comfort of Babylon, the world system, still run by Satan, is manna. Money, power, numbers.

Babylon teaches that if you have enough manna at your disposal, you will be safe and you will be fulfilled. Then we have the other kind of comfort, the comfort of God, which is really this very fragile commodity called faith. Faith, trust in God.

Trust that no matter what happens, God will guide us, provide for us, take care of us, sustain us. Moses comes down from the mount, finally, and he finds the Israelites dancing around this golden calf with most of their clothes gone. And he's enraged! He takes this golden calf and he burns it with fire, grinds it to powder, scatters the powder over their drinking water and makes them swallow it.

And after that, and from that point on, the Israelites are commanded to strip themselves of all their gold ornaments as a sign that if they're going to make it to the promised land, it's not going to be by gold, it's going to be by faith in God. The comfort of God is the way of faith, clear-cut. And so, reading on in this passage that I was reading, Jesus says, Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life.

What you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on, is not life more than food and the body more than clothing. Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet your Heavenly Father feeds them.

Are you not of more value than they? Which of you, by being anxious, can add one cubit to his span of life? Why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat or what shall we drink or how are we going to be clothed? For the Gentiles seek all these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well. Notice Jesus is not telling us that we shouldn't touch money, we should never have any money, or we shouldn't handle money.

We're going to have money, whether we like it or not. We're going to have to handle money and manage money. Some of us are going to have businesses, and some of us are going to draw paychecks, big checks, little checks.

Some of us are going to draw ABC checks, general assistance checks, social security checks, pension checks. You're going to get a check. If you don't have any check, come and see us, we'll work something out.

Okay, we'll line up in that corner for that. Where's the treasurer? You'll get a check. See, and it's, you know, you're going to have money, that's his promise, but it's extremely important what you do with it, how you handle it, big or little.

If you have not been found faithful, says Jesus, in the unrighteous mammon, which is money, who will entrust to you the true riches? And as you handle money, you have to be extremely careful that you don't start serving money, that you're really serving God, because you cannot follow Jesus and serve mammon. You cannot follow Jesus and look to money for your security, your comfort. What happened there? No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God and mammon. Now what's happening here, and I believe in the Church of God, the Church of Jesus Christ, all over the earth, the body of Christ, regardless of the brains, all over the place, is that we are being dealt with as individuals and as congregations in this area. And the Spirit of God is saying, through the things that are happening in our lives and through what we're hearing from God, make up your mind which master you're going to serve.

And we respond by our actions, not just by our words. And there is something in all of us, a tendency in all of us to say by our actions, well listen, I really believe I can do it. I believe I can serve both.

And we get all kinds of encouragement from American Christendom, just as they got all kinds of encouragement from Judaism and Israel in those days. To think that we can serve both. But when you try to serve God and mammon at the same time, you will always end up serving mammon.

Solomon began his reign serving only God. He said, just give me wisdom, that's all I want. Wisdom so I can rule your people, O Lord.

He got wisdom. Pretty soon came riches and power too. And before too long, Solomon began serving God and mammon.

And by the time he gets to the end of his reign, at the end of his life, he's serving only mammon. And he destroys his life and in fact destroys Israel. It was all ready to fall apart and then when his son took over the kingdom it didn't last.

It split. It fell apart. So you know what's going on in the events of our lives individually and corporately is that we are being told, if we'll have ears to hear, that we can pursue the comfort of God or we can pursue the comfort of Babylon, but we cannot pursue both.

Somehow in the midst of our daily lives, our work, the earning of money, the handling of money and all the things we all have to do, we have to decide what we're going to pursue. And as we make this choice, it's essential to see two clear-cut facts. One, that the comfort of Babylon is alive.

It is no comfort at all. And that the comfort of God, fragile and weak, is, it appears in this world, is the only comfort there is, the only comfort that lasts, the only comfort that works. The comfort of Babylon is alive.

I spent some time the other summer with a man who more than 30 years ago became a very good friend. About 30 years ago at that time, from that time, a couple years ago. 30 years before that, this man heard a call from God.

And he responded to that call by selling his house and quitting his job. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying everybody has to sell their house and quit their job when they hear a call from God.

But for this man, that's what he did. He felt that God was telling him to sell his house, quit his job, and go to another part of Canada for his training in discipleship. But things didn't seem to work the way he thought they might.

He began to have reservations about it, and pretty soon he backed away from it. So he took the money that he got from selling his house and he built himself a bigger house. Got his old job back with a raise, no doubt.

30 years passed. The man is now in his late 60s. He's retired.

He has a condo on a lovely lake on the edge of town. He's able to afford to go to Florida for a while in the wintertime and travel around. He and his wife are in relatively good health.

But very obvious and very clear is the fact that this man has no confidence. Nor will he until he responds to the call of God that's been eating at his soul for 30 years and plunges in and seeks the kingdom first, trusting that somehow things will work out. I seriously doubt whether anybody in this room is going to be given, even the youngest here, 30 years to figure out that the comfort of Babylon is alive.

Figure it out now. Don't waste your life. So we are being told by the Spirit of God himself that the only true comfort there is is the comfort of God.

That is the way of faith. No other way. So we read in John chapter 14, Jesus is speaking to the disciples, to us.

John 14, 18, he says, I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me.

And because I live, you will live also. I will be your comfort. I will take the place money once took in your life.

And if you get under the yoke with me and walk with me and learn from me, you will have the comfort of God in four specific ways. One, if you will turn away from serving Mammon and will serve me, you will have the comfort of my light, says the Lord. Again, John chapter 8, Jesus spoke to them saying, I am the light of the world.

He who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. The light of life is the light that comes into our hearts and exposes the sin that's been eating at our souls. So that as this light comes in, I can't lie to myself anymore.

I have to admit what's going on in here. Lord, I'm an egotist. Lord, I want to make everything go my way.

I'm unclean. I'm full of self-pity. As I name before God, confess with my very mouth, as well as my heart, these things that are inside me, as the light exposes them, I experience tremendous relief.

And that relief is the comfort of God. If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, that is, while we cover it up, we can be very religious and walk in darkness. Pretend all kinds of junk and walk in darkness.

We lie and do not live according to the truth. But if we walk in the light, if we come out with it, confess it, admit it, name it before Him as He is in the light, then we have fellowship with one another. Can't have it any other way.

And the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from all unrighteousness. Which brings us to the second point. Jesus says to us, if you will turn away from serving mammon, I'll help you, and will serve only me, you will have the comfort of my blood.

If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. Now, I know that in the world, and really in mainline churchianity, it just seems strange to even mention the blood of Jesus. But it's the only substance in the universe that can wash us clean.

Nothing else. And to be clean, to be washed, to be able to stand before a holy God and know Him with no barrier in between is unspeakable comfort. Babylon is still trying to cure itself of its sickness.

And everything it tries fails. It's getting sicker and sicker and sicker. Individually and corporately, the world is getting ill.

Look all around and look within. Why is it sick? Because the sickness is guilt before a holy God, which must be judged. It can't just be rehabilitated.

It has to be judged. Now, either that guilt that you and I carry too is judged by the blood. The blood takes the judgment.

Or we take the judgment. If we take the judgment, we sink. If the blood takes the judgment, we live.

And we have comfort. Peace that money absolutely cannot buy. If you, says the Lord, will turn away from serving manna and will serve Me only, you will have the comfort of a cross to carry, a purpose to live for and to die for.

In Luke 9, verse 23, He said to them all, If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me. When you carry your cross, this is a sign that you are no longer serving yourself, you are serving God. And as you serve God, as you give your life back to Him, day by day and hour by hour, as we present ourselves as a living sacrifice all the time in our doing, in our living, we experience comfort, tremendous comfort.

It's no longer, what is in it for me? Is it doing something for me? Are my needs being met? What am I getting out of it? But now it becomes, Lo, I come to do your will, O God, in the volume of the book it is written of me. And Lord Jesus, just as you laid down your life for me, now I give myself back and I want to lay down my life in whatever way you say for your sheep. That's the cross that you and I carry.

You know, the evangelicalism that talks about the cross of Jesus taking away our sins and talks nothing about the cross that you and I carry is cheating us. You don't keep the effect of the cross of Calvary if you don't pick up yours and go to it. Finally, if you will turn away from serving mammon and will serve me, you will have the comfort of my spirit, says the Lord.

I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. I will pray the Father and he will give you another comforter to be with you forever.

My spirit will guide you. My spirit will empower you. My spirit will teach you to pray.

My spirit will show you things to come. My spirit will open the scriptures to you. My spirit will lead you through this world as the best friend you ever had.

My spirit will take you through the barrier of death into the next world. My spirit will raise you from the dead and present you before the Father with me. No one, no one can serve two masters.

For either he will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life.

More clearly than ever in the past, for our blessing and for God's glory, we are being shown that we must choose. We are being forced to choose between God and mammon. Even now, we are being forced to choose between God and mammon, if it's God.

If we choose to submit in obedience to the Lamb of God who stands in our midst right now and to walk by faith in Him, not in money, but in Him, we will have freedom from anxiety, which is what comfort is, and we will bear proof beyond anything we could ever dream. Let's just take some time in silence and let the Lord's Spirit speak to us in that silence.