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Eugene Prewitt

Her Sins Have Reached to Heaven

But I want you to pay attention the entire time.

Turn with me in your Bibles to Revelation 18.

Revelation 18, and we're going to re-read verse 5.

This morning what I'm speaking about is God's memory and our memory, Especially God's memory in relation to sin.

The idea that there are some sins that God forgets, and there are some sins that God remembers, and we would rather have sins that He forgets.

And we're going to learn something about which sins he remembers, and we want to avoid those in particular.

Revelation 8, verse 5, For her sins, she is Babylon the great, for her sins have reached unto heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities." Our first point is that iniquities that are done by Babylon are iniquities that are remembered or forgotten.

And more than that, Babylon's iniquities, her sins, have gone all the way to heaven.

Of course, Babylon hasn't gone to heaven, but her sins, in some respect, have made their way up there.

That's a strange idea to many people that sins somehow make their way to heaven.

Turn with me in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 18.

In what sense is it so that Babylon's sins have made their way to heaven?

Genesis chapter Genesis chapter 18, and we're going to look at verse 20.

This is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, And God is as a friend speaking to his friend Abraham.

Genesis 18 verse 20, And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it." This conversation is before God speaks to Abraham.

But what's He going to do before He executes Sodom and Gomorrah?

And I hope that when you read that verse, in your mind it makes you think some, like, doesn't God already know what's happening down there?

I will go down and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me.

And if not, I will know." I want to suggest an idea to you, and that is that angels carry news to heaven.

The Father knows what's going on, but does it grieve the angels when they see terrible things happening here?

It makes them sometimes righteously indignant.

And when they see terrible things happen, they carry that news to heaven.

But the Bible teaches through these 2 verses, is God's judgment dependent on the information of the angels?

Nevertheless, the cry of the iniquities of Sodom made their way to heaven, God made his way to earth and destroyed that city, and we learn in the New Testament that the cry going up, God coming down, the city being destroyed was all a picture to teach us something.

That in our day a cry would go up, Jesus would come down, and great Babylon would be destroyed, and we wouldn't want our sins to go up.

Turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 18.

Matthew chapter 18, and we're going to look at verses 31 through 35.

There is a sense in which it's true that every sin is recorded in heaven, but the verses that I was studying this morning really aren't about that sense.

They're not about the fact that every little sin that everyone commits is in heaven, but there are sins the Bible speaks of as being particularly heinous, particularly terrible, and those sins make their way there.

And Matthew 18 describes 1 of those stories.

So when his fellow servants saw what was done, these are fellow servants of the man who owed 10000 talents, the man who was forgiven 10000 talents because he asked, The man who then went to his servant to owe him much less, who was very unkind to his servant.

And now, verse 31 said, so when his fellow servant saw...

That term fellow servant is so interesting to the student of the book of Revelation.

It's used a few times in the book of Revelation.

Do you know who our fellow servants are in the book of Revelation?

Angels introduce themselves in chapter 19 and chapter 22 as fellow servants.

That is, we serve God, they serve God, so they call themselves fellow servants.

We're doing the same kind of work for the same God.

And here, when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were, what does it say?

They came and told unto their Lord all that was done.

Then his Lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because you desired me.

At least in this parable can we say this man truly had been forgiven.

Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servants even as I had pity on thee and His Lord was wroth and delivered him to the tormentors till he should pay all that was due unto him So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you." Listen carefully.

If you from your hearts forgive not everyone his brother there trespasses.

Is there a difference between forgiving from the heart and forgiving in a formal way?

I remember when I was little that my mother would require me sometimes to make up with my brother.

At a certain age I didn't be required to kiss him and to say I'm sorry.

All which thing, I don't know enough about raising children to know how it all affected me, but I know a lot of times it weren't very sincere on my part.

If I could just say my next point simply, Angels are going to take a report to heaven about a particular type of sin.

It's the unmercifulness of those who have been forgiven.

The unmercifulness of those, the lack of pity on the part of those who have asked God for pity, the lack of mercy on the part of those who have asked God for mercy, it is a type of behavior that grieves them.

It appears from the end of this story that grieves the Father in heaven.

There's something I'm teaching this morning, and I could have taught it without saying it, but I want to say it.

We're going to be using the Bible the entire 29 minutes, because I really don't have any burden to teach you anything that's not in here.

And I really have a burden that when we're done, that the ideas you have are ideas that you gathered from this book, so that they are true ideas.

Chapter 2 and verse 13, "...for he shall have judgment without mercy that hath showed no mercy, and mercy rejoices against judgment." The verse is particularly interesting to me speaking about Babylon.

Because what Jesus says in Revelation is that those who receive Babylon's cup are going to receive a cup from Jesus of wrath that is unmixed with mercy.

And When I read that the sins of Babylon have reached their way to heaven, I understand something from my study this morning.

Babylon, claiming the mercy of God, has been unkind to her fellow servants.

That is, Babylon, we know from other studies, is a professedly Christian body.

He says that those who are Jews, they claim to be Jews, but they really are the synagogue of Satan.

We can learn from that that Satan's church on earth is a professedly Christian church, claiming to be spiritual Jews, but really are the church of Satan.

So if Menden had a church of Lucifer, that would be a despicable thing, but it wouldn't be the church of Satan.

I mean, it would call itself that, but according to Revelation, Satan's real organized body on earth is a professedly Christian church that is not going to be showing mercy to other professed Christians.

Just how ironic it would be if we from our own hearts were not forgiving others.

There's a story, and if you take notes you can write down where it's at, because I think I'm just going to tell it to you for time's sake.

It's 2 Chronicles chapter 28 verses 9 to 15, and I don't mind if you turn there, we're just not going to read the whole thing.

In 2 Chronicles chapter 28, Judah, which is the lesser of the wicked bodies of Judah and Israel, that is when they split, which 1 went worse?

Israel went straight into idolatry and Judah took a curvy route to get to the same place.

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Her Sins Have Reached to Heaven

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