Are you a “Babylistian,” living in carnal security with one and a half feet in the world and a pinky toe in the church? Christian calls us to go all the way with God and reveal our freedom in Him in a revival that will shake the underworld. 

<p>Are you a “Babylistian,” living in carnal security with one and a half feet in the world and a pinky toe in the church? Christian calls us to go all the way with God and reveal our freedom in Him in a revival that will shake the underworld. </p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Shepherd's Call Ministry

Christian Berdahl

Six Days in Babylon

Welcome to the Shepherd's Call with Christian Berdahl, his wife Kobi, and 2 sons Tyler and Micah.

Shepherd's Call Ministries, calling to the hearts of God's people through sacred music, powerful messages, and Christian media production.

Hello and Welcome to the April Message of the Month.

This message is very special to me because the principles shared in it have made an incredible impact on my spiritual walk, so we will share more of our personal testimony relating to this message during the mission report.

It is my prayer that as you listen, God's blessings will be with you, and that the Holy Spirit will shed light on God's Word that your relationship with Him will grow stronger.

Now here's Tyler with our opening prayer.

Dear Heavenly Father, help Daddy's sermon to touch people's hearts and help it to touch our hearts, my heart and Mommy's heart and Micah's heart and even Daddy's.

Give us the bread of life and the water of life.

What a blessing, friends, to have children who are learning how to pray, as they see their mommy and daddy who are learning how to pray themselves.

You know, I want that, that bread of life that Tyler spoke of.

I want that, that river of life, the water of life.

I long to see God's throne and out of it coming that pure river of water.

But friends, I'm afraid that if we don't change our lives, if we don't allow God to do something in our hearts, it's not going to happen for us.

We're not going to see the throne of God.

I have my Bible open to Revelation 18, and we'll start in verse 1.

Revelation 18 and verse 1, And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and the cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

Verse 4 And I heard another voice from heaven saying, come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

My dear friend, I have a question for you.

Some might answer a false system of worship.

And true enough, we've been taught the wonderful truth that Babylon is a false system of confusing doctrines and worship.

Today, many Christians believe that Babylon is something out there, something that other Christians or other religions are engaged in, especially Sabbath keepers.

Sabbath keepers believe that they are keeping the correct day of worship.

They believe that they have, quote, come out of her a false system of worship, that they're free and that Babylon is not a personal issue in their life.

Could it be that the devil has used what we know about spiritual Babylon to lull us into a false sense of spiritual security?

Could there be problems in our own camp that we're overlooking while we rest in the thought that we are not part of Babylon?

I know some of you are probably getting a little nervous right now, wondering, where is he going with this?

Friends, let me clearly state, I believe with all of my heart that the church is NOT Babylon.

The Bible and inspired writings are very clear about this.

As I travel around the world, I see the spirit of Babylon in God's people.

The spiritual life, the spiritual growth has been blunted by the Babylonian world around them and in them they have partaken of her sins.

And I believe that our opening verse can be applied to us on a much deeper spiritual level friends.

I believe Babylon is more than just a false system of worship.

True It is that, but I believe it's more than that.

I believe it's a way of life, a way of thinking that God wants to bring us out of.

Second Corinthians 6.17 says, Wherefore, come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you." So, could it be that we as God's professed people could be living our lives like Babylonians for 6 days a week and worshipping God on only 1?

In other words, with our mouths we say we are Christians and we love Jesus, but with our lives we say we are Babylonians and we love the world.

We might know it, but we don't possess it.

Frankly, it's this group of Christians that hinder God's cause the most, because to the worldly, unconverted person looking on, they see no difference between themselves and the professed followers of Christ.

First Peter 2.9 says, But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood and holy nation, a peculiar people, that means to be a set-aside people, God's own special people, that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light.

God has called us out of the darkness of the world and call us into the light of the true Christian life that we can have.

And when God calls us, when we respond, there's to be a new life that is hid in Jesus.

We should be peculiar, different, set aside.

As we grow in grace, there will be a difference in everything, friends, in what we eat, what we drink, what we watch, what we do, what we wear, what we say, how we think, how we love, and on and on and on.

New motives will develop, new ambitions, new words, new thoughts, new desires, a new character, and the old will fall away.

This happens through a vital connection with Jesus, which can only happen by beholding Him, not Babylon, by spending time with Him in prayer, not Babylon, spending time in His Word, not Babylon's words, fellowshipping with His people, not Babylonian people, and witnessing to others.

But When we take His name in vain, friends, by living a life that's no different than the world's, no different than Babylon's, then we're like the lukewarm water that the Bible refers to in Revelation 3, 15, and 16.

Quote, I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot.

I would thou wert cold or hot, so then because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth." In other words, God would rather us be real Christians or be real Babylonians, rather than to confuse the issue by being a Babylonian Christian, or a term that I've come up with, a Babilistian.

I know, you're probably chuckling a little bit, but Babilistian means really to have 1 foot in the world and 1 in the church, And unfortunately, I think some of us have 1 and a half feet in the world and a pinky toe in the church.

I see many people who are in a place of carnal security thinking that Babylon is something out there.

It's only a false system of worship, and they're not engaged in that.

And the devil sits back and laughs as he puffs up his proud chest and says, they love me.

They worship me because they love the things of me and they engage in my things, but they say they love God.

Nope, even the Bible says you shall know them by their fruits, the way they live their life.

So the devil lulls us back to sleep in our Babylonian ways.

In our first message, Don't take the city with you, we talked about some of the traps that the devil has laid to keep us from having that close walk with God, to love the world more than we love God, and each of the subjects that we talked about, and a list of others that we didn't, are some of the means by which the devil has infected us with Babylon.

And I see this disease all around, friends.

The spirit of Babylon has infiltrated our lives so deep that we can't even discern what is that good and acceptable will of God anymore.

Many times we use other Christians, our spouses, or our friends, or pastors, or the church, or even the world as a gauge by which we determine if it's okay to engage in a certain activity.

We don't seek God and pray about it using His standards as the gauge.

We do what we want to, when we want to, with whomever we want to, whether it's good for us physically, emotionally, or spiritually.

And I Suppose if you're not a Christian, well that's fine, do what you want, when you want, with whomever you want.

But as a Christian, we chose to be a follower of Christ.

We stepped into a position of privilege and responsibility.

I'd like to take you back to the presidency of the United States a number of years ago.

I can remember when a certain president didn't live up to his office.

He was caught in adultery with a young lady.

Why was this such a scandal, when unfortunately this kind of thing happens all over the world every day?

It was a scandal because the action was not becoming of the station in life, the office, the position he was holding.

He was an ambassador of America, and frankly, we Americans became the laughingstock of the world.

Those in the public eye need to live higher than the rest of society.

Even in the world, we expect people in positions of responsibility to act responsibly.

Even more so, friends, as Christians, we have the privilege and the responsibility to live quote, higher than the worldly person, not to engage in the things that are not becoming of an ambassador of heaven.

We, by the way that we live our lives, can rightly represent God or not.

We can be Babylonians, Babilistians, or we can be Christians.

Even some of our pastors aren't living up to their ordinations, friends.

Christianity Today conducted a poll of 1, 500 pastors in America.

54% of them, more than half, 54% of the pastors, the ones that should hold themselves higher, right, revealed that they had looked at internet pornography within the last year.

30%, 3 out of 10 said that they had looked at pornography in the last month.

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Six Days in Babylon

Transcript

Description

Sponsor

Recorded

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SPARK: How to Start a Fire for the Lord in Your Church

SPARK: How to Start a Fire for the Lord in Your Church- Part 2

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Raymond Holmes: Studies in 1 John

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37m

ISIS Crisis & Last Day Events

ISIS Crisis & Last Day Events- Part 3

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Remodeling Your Life- God's Transforming Power

4- Danger to Safety

28m

NEWSTART and the End Time Role

46m

Is the Wound Healed?: Assurance in Chaos

56m

Ellen White and New Believers

36m

Plenary

Members in Action

1h 58m

Sound Doctrine