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Pennsylvania Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Eric Walsh

Binge Watching Babylon

We are gonna have, so I want, I need to ask you guys to begin to be in a prayerful mindset.

These, the sermon I'm gonna do now, I'll call it more of a sermonar, is heavy information, but it is end time Christian living information.

So I'm asking for the Holy Spirit as we get into this.

Let's read our scripture reading and then we'll pray and I want you to just pray with me and for me as we give this talk.

Ecclesiastes 7 and verse 5 says, it is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools.

It is better to hear, and I don't see the slides up there.

Let me tell me if I'm doing something wrong.

It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools.

Let me let them get this set up while we, well let's pray while he does that.

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to study your Word.

Lord, we are living not only in the last days, but these last days are perilous.

We ask now, Lord, as we go through this message and this lesson, we are asking for an extra outpouring of your Holy Spirit, that he would lead us into truth.

And I know the Lord the devil doesn't want this message given, but right now in the name of Jesus and by the power of his blood, we rebuke Satan.

We ask now Lord that you bind his demons, cast all of them far from this place.

Remove the distractions from our hearts and minds Lord that we would hear a word from you this is our prayer in Jesus is precious and holy name Amen all right let me see if we get this there we go All right.

So, our talk is entitled Binge Watching Babylon.

And I'm going to talk for a second and see if they can get the slides up.

We are aware of the time in which we live.

Right now the media is dominating most of our lives.

1 of the ways that it's dominating is new.

Those of us who grew up in the 70s, 80s, 90s, even the 2000s did not grow up with Instagram and What else is there?

Facebook and Twitter, which is now something else, TikTok.

And so a lot of the evils that our kids are exposed to today, it's a lot easier for them to get to.

What that means is that your home can be turned into Sodom and Gomorrah.

And that can happen without anyone ringing the doorbell.

1 of the things I loved about Blue Mountain Academy while Jene was here, even though I know the kids may not have liked it at first is that they did not have access to their cell phones.

That break from the pressure of the social media world I believe helps to enhance spiritual growth.

Genesis chapter 19 verse 23 speaks to the time just after Abraham had been visited by the pre-incarnate Christ.

He pleaded for the cities, fire and brimstone ultimately after the 2 angels are accosted and they they grab you know they have to they have to Convince Lot and his family to get out and they have a hard time doing it.

Genesis 19 23 says the sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar.

Remember he did not want to go just out to nowhere where he was supposed to go.

The Bible says in verse 24, once Lot was safe, it says, then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.

And he overthrew those cities and all the plain and all the inhabitants of the cities and that which grew upon the ground.

The cities were destroyed and I've had the privilege just when I was when I was much younger to be able to go to Israel, get college credit, spend 2 months in Israel studying Jewish history and I'll never forget when they took us to the Dead Sea and my And my Jewish professor pointed to a pillar of salt and he said, that is Jebel Ustam.

And I was like, well, how do you know that particular 1 is?

But I said, I'll just agree with him because here's what the Bible says in verse 24 But his wife whose wife No name given lots wife look back from behind him and she became what a Pillar of salt now, this is a tough passage of scripture.

There's a lot of people who do not like this story.

It is 1 of the stories people try and refute.

Ironically, if you study the science, archaeologically and scientifically, there is great evidence for this story.

Something happened around the area of the Dead Sea.

In fact, I've seen documentaries where people have gone down and pressurized vehicles because of the way the Dead Sea is set up, that nothing really can go under, everything floats, and found man-made looking structures underneath.

They have found evidence of burn and scar on both sides of the Dead Sea that the ground and even people were burned.

There is actually good evidence for this.

In fact scientifically when you think about it if you've ever taken organic chemistry when heat, fire, brimstone, sulfur, which is sulfuric acid, and organic material come together.

1 of the side effects, or 1 of the byproducts, I should say, is salt.

The story makes sense in a lot of different ways.

There's a lot of ways people try and describe it.

What I want to focus on is where she was looking.

She stayed behind and what the story is telling you is that although she was physically out and able to escape Where was her heart?

And where does her where did her eyes focus?

Back to where her heart was You will only tend to look where you left your heart You'll tend to keep your eyes on what's most important to you And as I'll say again later on by beholding we become 1 Satan wants a flywheel.

He wants you looking at what you ought not be so you only perpetually continue to devolve into what God never meant for you to be.

And if your heart's not in the right place, you'll be more caught up in looking back at Sodom than looking up at Christ.

Genesis 19, 27 says, and Abraham got up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord.

And he looked towards Sodom and Gomorrah and toward the land of the plain and behold and lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a what?

Now, look at what Jesus, so some people you know people don't like people want, it's interesting people want you to preach a very soft and fluffy Jesus But when you read the words of Jesus, he speaks about the stuff folk don't want us to speak about.

You know, let me tell you, it'd be easy to get up here and tell you a few jokes.

I tell them all the time just how funny I am.

But there is nothing redemptive about me being a stand-up comic when God has called me to speak the truth of the gospel.

And it feels good if you're an audience and you're entertained in church.

But I want to warn you, you are not in a time when entertainment is what the house of God needs.

I'm so glad I went to Oakwood University when I went, when men like E.E.

Brooks and Elder Sham, these were the regular folk preaching.

I would go to church and I'm telling you, on the way back to Cunningham Hall my freshman year, in the dorm, I would literally be tiptoeing and limping because this in the sermon they'd stepped all over my toes and called me to live differently than I had been living.

Look at what Jesus says Luke 17 28 Likewise also it was in the days of Lot.

They did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded.

But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and did what?

Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.

These aren't my words, whose words are these?

Verse 31, in that day he which shall be upon the housetop and his stuff in the house let him not come down to take it away and he that is in the field let him likewise not return back then you know the shortest verse Jesus about Jesus is the verse in Luke where it just says Jesus wept.

When I was in Pathfinders, I figured out there was another short verse.

So when it's my turn to say a verse, it's only 3 words.

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Binge Watching Babylon

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