THE DESTRUCTION OF BABYLON
(continued)
“And
the voice of harpers, and musicians, and pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and
no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall
be found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee; and
the light of a candle shall shine no more
at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for
thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all
nations deceived” (Rev. 18:22-23).
Two
thousand years ago the firstborn Son of God declared, “For all the prophets and
the law prophesied until John” (Mat.
11:13). God spoke to an age through the
law and the prophets who gave the word of God to Israel
until John the Baptist came on the scene preaching repentance and the kingdom of God. This means that the prophets and the law
revealed God’s will for that age and were in effect until John showed up in the
wilderness and began his ministry. The
Lord ended the previous age by removing His blessing, presence, and authority
from that previous order, and then spoke a new order into existence
purely by His word. And by a similar
unrecognized word of authority, Father shall conclude this age of the perfection of
the bride of the Lamb, and the formation of
His body of sons, and inaugurate the new age of the manifestation of the sons of God on earth (Rom. 8:18-30). When the Lord changed the order two thousand
years ago, did He send a mighty cataclysmic upheaval and judgment to instantly eliminate the Old Covenant
priesthood, laws, rituals, sacrifices, feast days, synagogues, temple, and
religious forms? Did He quickly move to
completely wipe them out and abolish it all from the face of the earth? No — not at all! Remnants of the old Jewish order remain in
the earth to this day as an abiding and unimpeachable testimony to the
blindness and emptiness of unanointed, uninspired, unspiritual religion! God removed every vestige and particle of His
presence, unction, power, activity, and glory from that passing order and there
is no spiritual or religious death more stark, barren, grim,
empty, and desolate in any religious system of earth today than in Judaism! Ichabod
— the glory has departed!
When
Father changes the order in this day, replacing the old church order with His
manifest sons, kings and priests after the Order of Melchizedek, will He then immediately eliminate and obliterate off
the face of the earth the old Catholic order, the Baptist order, the Methodist
order, the Lutheran order, the Episcopalian order, the Presbyterian order, the
Mennonite order, the Pentecostal order, the Charismatic order, the Word of
Faith order, and all the other church orders of man? Not by any means! They will perish in due time, sinking into
the sea of oblivion, but first He will simply remove what is left of His
blessing, presence, anointing, working, and authority from that order! It will be just as the heavenly
messenger announced to John: “Rejoice over her (Babylon), ye heaven, and ye holy apostles and
prophets; for God hath avenged you on her…and the voice of harpers and musicians
(spiritual praise and worship), and the voice of pipers (prophecy and
prophets), and trumpeters (announcers of new truths and purposes in God), SHALL
BE HEARD NO MORE AT ALL IN THEE; and no craftsman (spiritual ministry), of what
ever craft (gifting, ministry) he be, SHALL BE FOUND ANY MORE IN THEE; and the sound of a millstone (grinding flour
for bread — the living word of God) SHALL BE HEARD NO MORE AT ALL IN THEE; and
the light of a candle (the little light
left in Babylon) SHALL SHINE NO MORE AT ALL IN THEE; and the voice of the
Bridegroom (Christ the Head) and of the bride (the true church, God’s remnant)
SHALL BE HEARD NO MORE AT ALL IN THEE…” What a word that is!
It
simply means that there is no longer any anointing, no spirit of wisdom and revelation from God, no life-flow, no living
reality present in Babylon. Who can deny it? Jesus said, “No branch can bear fruit by
itself; it must remain in the vine” (Jn. 15:4).
It reminds me of the story I heard of a young woman who sat down to speak
with the receptionist in the bank lobby, and with an innocent, eager smile she
said, “I’d like to get some of those little papers with my name on them that I
can use instead of money.” The
receptionist eventually figured out that the “little papers” this customer
wanted were checks. The customer had no
concept of how a checking account worked: she didn’t realize a check was drawn
on a bank account, against money that was in
the account. She thought it was
enough just to have “those little papers.” In Jesus’ parable about the vine and the
branches there’s something just as absurd as this naïve request from a bank
customer. Jesus pictures a vine on which
each branch exists to produce fruit. But
some branches decide they want to be independent of the vine. So they stop accepting the nourishment from
the vine, and some of them even cut off their attachment with the vine
completely and head out on their own.
The absurdity is that we can’t head out on our own! Just as we need money in a bank account in
order to write a valid check, so also we need the Christ-life raised up within
us as a steady supply of resources in order to bear the fruit of divine
life. We are branches — Christ is our
vine! Only in the union of our soul with Christ in our spirit can we bear kingdom
fruit!
That’s
just the problem — Babylon
is a dead stick — a branch separated from the vine! Ah, a dead branch still looks like a branch,
retains the form and appearance of a branch, can still actually claim to be a branch, but there is no life and no
fruit. It maintains a structure void of
any life-flow, a structure of void and death.
Babylon
is the custodian of structures of spiritual desolation and death! What appears outwardly to be a branch of
Christ is just the dry stick of empty forms, dead works, lifeless rituals, uninspired
theology, and carnal organization and programs of man!
There
is an ancient story of a sentry standing day after day at his post with no
apparent reason for his being there. One
day, a passerby asked him why he was standing in that particular place. “I don’t know,” the sentry replied, “I’m just
following orders.” The passerby then
went to the captain of the guard and asked him why the sentry was posted in
that place. “I don’t know,” the captain replied,
“We’re just following orders.” This
prompted the captain of the guard to pose the question to higher
authority. “Why do we post a sentry at
that particular spot?” he asked the king.
But the king didn’t know. So he
summoned his wise
men and asked them the question. The answer
came back that one hundred years before, Catherine the Great had planted a
rosebush and had ordered a sentry placed there to protect it. The rosebush had been dead for eighty years,
but the sentry still stood guard! Can you
not see the mystery?
Oh,
yes, Babylon is
standing guard over static creeds, ancient traditions, empty forms, sterile
sacraments, spiritless worship, unfructuous works, uninspired preaching and
teaching, and carnal, man-made organization of the church systems of man. When the church was birthed on the day of
Pentecost men and women were gloriously filled with the Holy Ghost! The ascended and glorified Christ shed forth
His gifts upon the church, and the manifestation of the Spirit was given to
every man to profit withal. God gave
some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. These were ministry-gifts raised up by the
power of the indwelling
Christ! They went forth everywhere,
preaching the word, and God worked with them, confirming the word with signs
following. Oh! There was a mighty river of life that flowed
from the throne of God and it flowed and flowed and flowed, bringing LIFE
everywhere it went! But over the
centuries men trusted more and more in the flesh, and less and less in the
Spirit. Gradually, theology took the
place of the living word of God.
Sacraments substituted for the supernatural power of God. Prayer books supplanted intercession and praying
in the Spirit. Form, ritual, and
tradition replaced the ministry of the Spirit.
What is tradition? It is keeping on doing something by rote that God did by His Spirit in an earlier move! Little by little the life dissipated, the
anointing lifted, the power subsided, and the glory departed. BUT THE SENTRY STILL STOOD GUARD! The rosebush was dead, the branch was
withered, nothing left but an empty shell of form, but the bishops, pastors,
ministers, ecclesiastics, teachers, deacons, and church officials of all kinds
continued to stand in their places guarding the dead branch of Babylonish religion! And they stand, still! You
can see this evil without me having to make any application. Just go to any church service almost anywhere! You will run headlong into this evil of form.
We have our three songs, pastoral
prayer, announcements, special music, testimonies and/or communion, receive the
offering, have the sermon, sing another song, go out and shake the preacher’s
hand. And all of this is watched over
by the sentry who still stands where the
rosebush stood in that long-ago…
Someone
has said that reading through the book of Psalms is like driving on a divided
highway through some lovely section of
the countryside. We pass through new and
beautiful scenery with a spectacular landscape on each side. One of the unique scenes of the book of
Psalms is found in Psalm 137. It deals
with a particular portion of the history of the Lord’s people belonging to the
southern kingdom
of Judah. It is an historical Psalm — which is very
unusual. The history of the children of Israel as recorded in the Old Testament books
does not cover the history of God’s people during the seventy years they were
in captivity in Babylon. There is a record of them being carried away
into Babylon, and then a record of them coming
out of Babylon and returning to Zion, but there is no
record of the seventy years of captivity.
Ezekiel was in Babylon,
but he was prophesying to the captives there, not writing a journal of their
condition. Also, Daniel was in Babylon during that
period, but he was in the court, dealing with governmental matters and
prophesying to the Gentile rulers.
He leaves us no record of the
activities or state of the many thousands of captives there. The seventy years of Babylonian captivity are a period of almost
absolute silence. It is a vacuum. It is a void so far as information about the
people of Israel dwelling in
Babylon. This fact gives great emphasis to Psalm 137
because it serves as a bridge over this vast chasm of silence. This Psalm enables us to look through the
keyhole, as it were, and gives us a bird’s-eye view of the captivity of God’s
people in Babylon. This is what we are permitted to do
here. We don’t see very much, but we see
enough and it speaks powerfully to us today about the spiritual captivity of
the Lord’s people in Mystery Babylon the Great!
The
Psalm begins with these melancholy words, “By
the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea,
we wept, when we remembered Zion”
(Ps. 137:1). By the rivers of Babylon! “By the rivers of Babylon”
was a place where they were captive, where they had lost their freedom, their
joy, and their power, where they performed slave labor, a place where they
suffered — “by the rivers of Babylon.” They had no business being there! God had
placed them in His most favored land with profound and abundant blessings
beyond description, kissed by His presence and glory manifested in their midst,
with deliverance
from all their enemies. God had promised
to cover them with His mantle as long as they were true to Him and stood as His
witnesses in the midst of the earth. But
they were not true to Him, they ceased
to walk in His Spirit, they forsook His ways, they broke His commandments, they
followed after other lovers, fornicating with the gods of the heathen, and
worshipping idols. And now, as the
judgment upon their many sins, they are here — “by the rivers of Babylon.”
The
rivers of Babylon
are, of course, the canals. It is now
quite certain historically that these captives are in fact the very people who
dug those canals leading off the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers! Babylon was in
modern day Iraq,
a hot, dry, dusty plain. Those canals
threaded through that desolate terrain to irrigate the land, turning it into a
green, flourishing section. These are
the people who from sunup to sundown wearily dug through that dry desert
land. “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down.” What a somber, heart-rending scene that
is! What a picture of deep
dejection! What a portrait of
heartbreaking despair! What a
representation of desperation! “There we
sat down.” What else could they do? Ah, another thing. “Yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.”
This
is no Psalm of praise. This is a Psalm
of deep indigo,
as blue as you can possibly get. What a contrast
between Jerusalem and Babylon!
Jerusalem yonder in the everlasting
hills, Jerusalem the city of God, Jerusalem beautiful for
situation, the joy of the whole earth! Babylon, down on a blazing
hot plain. What a contrast! And they are homesick, acutely aware of their
great and terrible loss, wretchedness and torment flaming in their souls. They are there because their city has been
destroyed. They are there because their
sins weakened the strong walls of their defense — the righteousness and power
of God — and the Babylonians,
a people stronger than they in their defenseless state, had invaded their city,
carried them away captive, herded them like animals, and put them in slave
labor camps “by the rivers of Babylon.”
Now they are homesick. “We wept,
when we remembered Zion.”
The
sad narration continues. “We hanged our harps upon the willows in the
midst thereof. For there they that
carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required
of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion” (Ps. 137:2-3). The citizens of Babylon
had heard about the singing of Israel. It was world famous, and not without
cause. When the news spread about the
Jewish captives being brought into the canal country of Babylon, that they were being located there
in slave labor camps, this became both a curiosity and an excitement on the
part of the Babylonians, because the people
wanted to hear them sing. You see, Israel
was world famous for its music! In Jerusalem there was a
temple to the one true and living God.
When visitors came to Jerusalem
from the many nations of the world, they found a people who were not
worshipping images and idols of many gods, but a people serving a living God
who spoke audibly and manifested His visible glory in their midst; and by the
spirit of praise and worship the people were singing praises unto Him. They had never seen or heard anything like it!
It
was more than hymns written by men and intoned by trained choirs — it was indeed singing in the
spirit and by the spirit — it was prophetic singing, indeed, the very song of the Lord! This joyful and heavenly sound was first
heard in Israel
at the time of the dedication of Solomon’s temple. When all the work that Solomon did in
building the house of the Lord was finished, he then summoned the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes to Jerusalem to bring up the ark of the covenant of the Lord
out of the city of David
where it had been kept. The priests and
the Levites brought up the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place in the
temple, in the Holy of holies, under the wings of the cherubim. When the ark was positioned in its place and
the priests had come out of the Most Holy Place,
then the elders, the priests, the Levites, and thousands of the people of Israel
were assembled at the glorious temple.
The Levites stood arrayed in fine linen, having cymbals, harps, and
lyres — and an hundred and twenty priests took up their trumpets. Then we read,
“And when the trumpeters and
singers were joined in unison, making
one sound (tone, harmony) to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord, and
when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and other
instruments for song and praised the Lord, saying, For He is good, for His
mercy and loving-kindness endure forever, then THE HOUSE OF THE LORD WAS FILLED
WITH A CLOUD, SO THAT THE PRIESTS COULD NOT MINISTER BECAUSE OF THE CLOUD, FOR
THE GLORY OF THE LORD FILLED THE HOUSE OF GOD” (II Chron. 5:13-14).
Ah,
my beloved, I have witnessed and been a glad participator in scenes like the
one described above, and I am sure that many who read these lines have been
there. Having been raised as a child in
the Pentecostal Church, singing the old “I’ll Fly Away”
songs of Pentecost, which was all we knew — what indescribable
glory, what awe, what reverence, what heavenly wonder and rapture flooded my
soul when the glory of God came into my
house as God sent down the torrents of His presence and power into my soul
when He first moved many years ago to do a new thing in the earth. I shall never be able to forget the glory as heaven
came down, as the musicians, the ministers, and all the congregation were
instantly imbued with the celestial music of heavenly choirs, all joining their
voices in unison, making one sound, one tone, one harmonic, rhythmic, divine flow of
prophetic singing — no song that we had ever heard or learned, but HIS
SONG, THE SONG OF THE LORD! George
Hawtin once described the wonder of it when he wrote of his own experience when
the glory came into their class room while he and his students waited on God
that glorious 15th of February, 1948. He wrote, “How we sang the songs of deliverance! How the praises of God echoed down the
corridors of the soul and re-echoed among the battlements of heaven! Music of heavenly choirs of earth went
sweeping up the sky sweeps while angels stood at heaven’s gates and swept their
harps of gold. Day after day, month after month
the celestial wonder continued, heaven came down our souls to greet and glory
crowned the mercy seat.”
When
this glory came to Israel
the news of it spread throughout the world.
People came for thousands of miles to witness the wonder and to drink at
the ever-flowing fountain of life and glory.
The Queen of Sheba
came from the ends of the earth when she heard of it. She thought the report couldn’t be true. It wasn’t just the wealth of Solomon’s kingdom that drew her — it was the glory!
During Israel’s
feast seasons the people from throughout the land would gather
in Jerusalem
and they would sing the songs of the Lord, many of which, in time, became the
Psalms. David arranged a choir and an
orchestra with hundreds of musicians. It
is estimated that there were times when one hundred thousand people gathered in and around
that temple, singing the praises of God!
To hear and behold such a divine and transcendental expression was a
sensational experience. But now that
glorious temple was
burned, Jerusalem lay in rubble, and the people
were doing slave labor in Babylon. Before the captivity many travelers had come
to Babylon saying something like this: “I was in
Jerusalem
during a feast these people had. They
were from all over the world. They gathered around their temple over one hundred
thousand strong. When that sacrifice was
burned, and the smoke ascended, the spirit of their God came upon them and out
from the throats of those people rose a psalm that lifted me off the ground
into the heavens! I have never heard anything
like it!”
When
the people of Israel
assembled according to the command of the Lord and sang the high praises of
God, the world heard about it. God
intended the world to hear about it! Now
that they were captives in Babylon,
the Babylonians said, “We’re going out there to
hear some of that heavenly music!”
But when they got out there, the Babylonians saw the harps
hanging on the willow trees. They saw
these people sitting in deep dejection — instead of singing they were weeping. They have no heart for singing. They have quit singing now. They will not have a choir there. There won’t be any worship service
there. They are wailing instead of
singing. They have put their harps upon
the willows; they won’t be needing them any more. And with a sneer they said to them, “Sing us
a song of Zion.
We’ve been hearing about you. We thought you people could sing with the
harmony of the gods! Come on, let’s hear
it!” Listen to the response of the
captives — “How shall we sing the Lord’s
song in a strange land?” (Ps.
137:4). With a sob in their soul, they
said, “We’ve lost our song. You command
us to sing a song of Zion. Our Zion
is back yonder in the ashes and rubble and ruin. We can’t sing the songs of Zion
by the rivers of Babylon. We can’t sing anywhere but back there. OUR GOD IS IN ZION.
But we are not in Zion! How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange
land — where Yahweh does not dwell!”
Oh,
yes, my beloved, Babylon
is a strange land! I am at home in Zion.
The Lord dwelleth in Zion, it is His
resting place, and upon Zion
the glory rests. I can tell you today
that Babylon is
a strange land. Its culture is not the
culture of the kingdom
of God! Its music is not the song of the Lord! Its
language is not the language of the Spirit!
Its creeds and commandments are not the living word and truth of God! Its vestments are not the robe of righteousness
nor the garment of salvation! Its blood-line
is not the life of God! Its
organizations and institutions are not the divine order of God! Its methods are not the ways of the Lord! Its food is not the bread that cometh down
from heaven! So long have I dwelt in Zion that when I walk into
one of the meetings of the Babylonian church
system, my first thought is, “My God, can it be possible that people are still
preaching, performing, and worshipping like
this?” I have crossed a national
boundary. I have entered another
“country.” I am in a strange land! Babylon
is a strange land of captivity where the flow of God’s spirit and God’s life is
bound in the chains of tradition,
ritual, program, and carnality. The
captives in Babylon
were perfectly right in refusing to sing!
To begin with, they couldn’t sing.
Neither did God ask them to sing where they were. They were to sing the songs of Zion in Zion. Personally, I do not enjoy the music of Babylon. I cannot bring myself to listen to
“Christian” radio stations, nor do I watch “Christian” television. I can no longer sing the songs of Babylon, nor can I sing
the song of the Lord in a strange land!
When
the voice of harpers and musicians (spiritual praise and worship), and of
pipers (prophecy and prophets), and trumpeters (anouncers of new truths and
purposes in God), shall be heard no more at all in Babylon,
her day of judgment shall have arrived.
For a season they will continue on with their meetings, fellowships,
activities, programs, ceremonies, rituals, crusades, and religious works. For a season, until the time appointed of the
Father, all will continue to function but without
Father’s authority or the precious anointing and working of His Spirit. Thank God!
There is a remnant, a chosen company, a firstfruit, a people with a
purpose, called to be sons of God, who
have now been awakened to this new day and are entering into its purposes by the leading of the Spirit of God. These have already received and obeyed the
call to come out of the Babylon system, because
a new and greater manifestation of the kingdom of God
is at hand. We are standing in an hour
that parallels the day when John the Baptist appeared by the Jordan, and a voice from heaven is
now heard, proclaiming, “These are my beloved
sons in whom I am well pleased.” God
is about to manifest these sons to the world and creation! What a day this is!
This
call to come out of Babylon,
this call to be separated unto the Lord and unto Him alone, that God may be a Father to us and that we may be His sons, has come from the SPIRIT
HIMSELF, confirmed by many thousands of saints in all parts of the earth, in
practically every nation under heaven!
It is not a matter of doctrine, not a matter of the interpretation of
scripture, to endeavor to prove from holy writ that this is the time for
God’s sons to be manifested and for the kingdom of God
to come in great power and glory. Just
as it was with Jesus when the Spirit led Him to the Jordan to be baptized by John, to
be announced in His sonship by the voice from heaven, then to be led into the
wilderness to be tested in His sonship by the adversary, and then returning in
the power of the Spirit into Galilee
where His sonship ministry began and there went out a fame of Him throughout
all the region round about — just as it was with Jesus it is a matter of
HEARING FROM GOD! Let it be thoroughly
known — those who reject this vision reject the voice of the Lord from the
heavens!
Now
God has called us to “come out of her,” to depart from all our religious backgrounds,
to repent of our doctrines, creeds, and beliefs; to repent of our
denominationalism and our non-denominational denominationalism; to repent of our
carnal religious methods, our dead works, and all the baggage we have brought
with us into this kingdom walk, from the systems of man. Only as we repent, and follow the Lamb up Zion’s mount, becoming invested with a new mind, a new spirit, a new vision, a
new purpose, and a new reality, can we enter into this new and higher and more
glorious dimension of the kingdom
of God
revealed through sons.
As
the sons of God come forth out of their wilderness of separation and testing in the power of the Spirit, as there
goes out a fame of them throughout all the nations, as the glory of the Lord
arises and covers the earth as the waters cover the sea, the whole system of
Babylon will collapse and go up in flames!
Do you think for one moment, dear one, that if God does not completely remove
His blessing from Babylon,
the people of God will ever leave her?
No way! But every blessing and
moving of God within her will die. In
that blessed day God will have His man, His manchild, His corporate man, His
new creation man, His one new perfect man, His man in the image of God, His
many-membered son, His man in the measure of the stature of the FULLNESS OF
CHRIST, full of faith and the Holy Ghost, full of incorruptible life, full of
heavenly light, full of infinite love, and full of divine, omnipotent power —
and upon HIM shall the glory be seen!
Aren’t you glad!
“Arise,
shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon
thee. For, behold, darkness shall cover
the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and
His glory shall be SEEN UPON THEE. And
the nations shall come to THY LIGHT, and kings to the brightness of THY RISING”
(Isa. 60:1-3).
…FOR BY THY SORCERIES…
“And
the light of a candle shall shine no
more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride
shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of
the earth; for by thy sorceries were
all nations deceived” (Rev. 18:23).
It
is significant to note that in all the previous 65 books of the Bible the words
“sorcerer,” “sorcery,” and “sorceries” are translated from words denoting
magic, witchcraft, or wizardry which were arts as ancient and established in
human civilization as have been the true workings of God. As far back as the time of Moses and the kingdom of Egypt
we see the experts in the magic arts were able to keep up with the supernatural
workings of the Lord before the Pharaoh — rather convincingly up to a
point. Of course, as with all
counterfeits, they inevitably are exposed sooner or later. Though some are outright frauds, fakes, and phonies,
with others their power is often very real — divination through the assistance
of evil spirits, black magic, enchantment, witchcraft.
Only in the book of Revelation does the
reference to magic arts or sorcery take on an entirely new meaning! The word used
throughout the book of Revelation is an altogether different Greek word than is
used anywhere else in scripture. In
Revelation 21:8 it is pharmakeus and
in Revelation 22:15 it becomes pharmakos. Then in Revelation 9:21 and here in our text the word is pharmakeia.
Obviously the prefix “pharma”
reveals that the meaning of the word has something to do with drugs, as in the
words “pharmaceutical,” “pharmacy,” and “pharmacist.” No other place in scripture, but in the book
of Revelation, is the idea of “sorcery” associated with drugs! The three Greek words listed above are simply
different forms of the same word denoting drugs
and druggists. It identifies deadly poisons and those
who either make or sell those deadly poisons.
That is just what the words mean, nothing else. In the Greek language a Pharmacist is,
therefore, a Sorcerer, a maker or a dealer, a vendor or a user of deadly
poisons sometimes administered as medicines.
Legal or illegal, in many cases they destroy the brain and other vital
organs and systems, madden the user, and weaken and ruin the spirits, souls,
and bodies of the countless millions who use them. If you doubt that practically all drugs are
dangerous, deadly poisons that are, even at best, destructive to human life,
just listen to the plethora of warnings and side effects at the end of most
pharmaceutical ads on television!
Oftentimes more seconds are spent on the warnings and side effects of
the drug than on the actual promotional and beneficent content of the ad! That
is the actual meaning of the words “Sorcerers” and “sorceries” in the book of
Revelation. As a matter of scholarship
it cannot be contested.
The
purpose of this message is not to attack drugs, medicines, or pharmacists. Let us keep our minds in the Spirit! Again I
remind every reader of these lines that the Revelation is a spiritual book, and its realities are spiritual realities! No one knew better than the beloved John
what, in its spiritual meaning, “drugs” signifies! The message is clear — it signifies the doctrines and teachings of religious Babylon
which dull the spiritual senses of the
Lord’s people and are destructive to true spiritual life, giving them a false
hope, a mis-directed goal, and causing them to live by religious superstitions,
myths, traditions, legends, and folklore.
Doctrines about the power of the devil, financial prosperity, the
rapture, so-called end-time events, the antichrist, the great tribulation, a
mansion over the hilltop, along with holidays, rituals, ceremonies, sacraments,
and a hundred more delusions drug God’s people into a spiritually
hallucinogenic state. They live
in a false, starry-eyed fairy-world of soulical imaginations which they suppose
to be spiritual realities!
Pleasure! Fun! Thrills!
Excitement! are the result of a cunning spirit that saturates the church
systems as they run after the “high” of soulical programs, concerts, fleshly
manifestations, emotionally stirring singing, entertaining preaching — the same
as any drug user in the world. God says
that all nations are deceived by the “sorceries” or the “spiritual drugging” of
Mystery Babylon!
The
people are drugged to sleep by the word of Babylon simply because the true word and the true ministries of God ARE FOUND AND HEARD NO MORE AT ALL IN HER! They have nothing of life to offer, no
reality to meet your deepest need, so they give you a drugged word to induce either a deep spiritual stupor or a
fleshly, emotional high which keeps you ignorant of the real, eternal
values. You are so drugged out of your
mind that you’re not aware of the lack, of what’s missing. It’s a numbing effect, you’re in a hypnotic
trance, an illusory world of imagination, unreality, and make-believe, as they
“soothsay” you, casting over you their spell, bringing you under their control
so that you listen to their voice and blindly obey.
There
are not many people who are sufficiently awake to believe it, but at this very
moment hundreds of millions of church goers of every sect and creed are walking
and talking and acting under the delusions of Babylon’s drugs. They are filled with false doctrines, false
hopes, false expectations, false understandings, false interpretations, false
forms of worship, and though they
profess to be Christians, they would not know the real Christ if they met Him
on the street. They are so “high” on
their mixed potion that they giddily imagine that they are going to be caught
up in the sky where they will sit on a cloud with Jesus eating pork chops, or
some such foolishness, at the marriage
supper of the Lamb, while the inhabitants of earth suffer the excruciating
pangs of “great tribulation” under the rule of a superman dictator called “the
Antichrist.”
When
I read fairy tales like that I recall what one brother wrote some time
ago. He was ministering in a meeting in California
and one morning they had a session in which he answered questions from the
congregation on the subject of Bible prophecy.
He said, “We had one man there who gave me literature, which evidently
he wrote, saying that John F. Kennedy is the Antichrist, and even though John
F. Kennedy was supposed to be dead, he is alive; and he said that he had been
to the island of Scorpus
in the Grecian sea, and he had seen John F. Kennedy still alive, and that he is
the Antichrist. And as we began to talk
there, I just let him talk a bit. He
said, ‘In the tribulation period, the Antichrist will take his image and put it
in the Temple.’ I said, ‘That’s interesting. Where do you find that?’ He said, ‘It’s over here in the book of
Revelation.’ Now these folks were
sitting around listening, and I just decided to push it as far as I could, and
I said again, ‘Where do you find this?’
He said, ‘It’s right here in the book of Revelation.’ So I said, ‘Well, you find it. We’ll go ahead and talk. You find it, and let me know where it is.’ So he began to go through the book of
Revelation, on and on. After a while I
looked over and said, ‘Did you find that yet?’ And he didn’t say anything; he
just kept on looking and looking. I
said, ‘All I want to know is where it says an image will be set up in the Temple in Jerusalem
during the Tribulation period.’ He never found it. But you know, he was not a man who would humble
himself and say, ‘I’m wrong.’ This is
bad about anybody. I want to tell you,
friends, in my life I have always been willing to say, ‘I’m wrong,’ and I have
had to say it a lot of times about prophecy as I have learned some new things
that God has shown me. But the book of
Revelation doesn’t say that any Antichrist, or Beast, or anybody, will put an
image inside of a Temple in Jerusalem!”
— end quote. Such fairy tales are
preached from the pulpits of thousands of churches with great earnestness and
conviction, with sober faces and an air of great Bible knowledge, and yet how
pitiful is such an understanding! You
really do have to be “high” on something to create such inaccurate, distorted
and convoluted theories of supposed truth!
Ah,
Babylon, and
the multitudes who are deceived by your sorceries, your psychotic
hallucinations are so intense that you actually believe that the vast majority
of earth’s billions of human souls will be lost to the all-loving and
omnipotent God — finally, irrevocably, and eternally — and not only will they
be separated from God and heaven forever and ever, but they will be given over
to the most sadistic, inhuman, ungodly
tortures that could be devised by the vilest fiends — a thousand times worse
than anything inflicted on man by Adolph Hitler or any other tyrant of human
history. To add to the stupidity of
these drug-induced, mind-altering distortions of reality, you conceive that
these billions of men and women for whom Christ died go to a red-hot, sizzling,
burning hell the moment they die, where they will twist and scream and
blaspheme in agony and torment
throughout an endless eternity, without compassion, mercy, or reprieve. Who can deny the great truth the Holy Spirit
has so clearly revealed to all who have eyes to see and ears to hear: “For by thy sorceries (doctrines which dull the senses and drug God’s people
into a hallucinogenic state) were all nations deceived!” Oh, yes! The so-called “fundamentalist” and “orthodox”
churches are constantly warning and harping about the “cults.” But I have no hesitation in saying that
denominational Christianity is itself the leading cult of our day as it spews forth an unceasing stream
of the most absurd and hideous and offensive distortions of God’s nature,
character, plan, and purpose — proclaiming as God’s truth the most heretical and spurious teachings extant!
The
same beloved John who heard the heavenly voice on Patmos
proclaiming the great truth of which I now write also left us this solemn
warning, “Little children, keep yourselves from IDOLS (that is, false gods, or
false ideas and representations of the true God)” (I Jn. 5:21). Does the church worship idols — false
representations of God? I fear we
do! We say God is all-wise, all-knowing,
and all-powerful, and then turn around and deny
it. We say that God “so loved the
world” and that Jesus is “the Saviour of the world” and then turn around and
say that only a few will be saved
while God sends the vast majority to suffer the excruciating pains of eternal fire
and brimstone — without His feeling or showing any concern for their suffering,
and without mercy! We say that God is
all-powerful, and then turn around and say that God has “provided” salvation
for all men, that God is “trying” to save the world, that God is “pleading”
with men to repent, but the devil who blinds and possesses men’s souls is so
much more powerful than God that he will carry captive with him into eternal
damnation countless billions of men for whom Christ died!
I don’t know what kind of Kool-Aid the people who preach such things are
drinking, but methinks there is no doubt that it has been spiked with some of Babylon’s hallucinogenic drugs!
Also,
folk who claim that they are true to the Bible say that God the Creator and God
the Redeemer are the very same God, but they deny it in their attitude toward
the question of the salvation of all men.
As Dr. Hurley has written, “They have an infinite Creator, but a very
little Redeemer. Their Christ is a
comparatively helpless and puny Saviour who is going to lose most of those for
whom He died. He can pay the price for
the sins of the whole world, but the stubborn will of man makes it all
ineffective. Man’s will is mightier than
God’s will! Thus, God is infinite to create, powerless to redeem! But either God is all-powerful, or He is
not. Either God’s will is sovereign, or
it is not. Either God is all-wise, or He
is not. Either God is all-loving, or He
is not. Either God’s grace is infinite,
or it is not. Isn’t it time for the church of Christ
to decide one way or the other, and then make her theology fit her expressed
faith?” — end quote.
THE BLOOD OF PROPHETS AND SAINTS
“And
in her was found the blood of prophets,
and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth” (Rev. 18:24).
In
today’s terminology the statement in the passage above could be framed thus,
“In her was found the very life-blood of prophets, and of
saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth” Spiritually, what Babylon requires of every man and woman she
controls is every ounce of life-force you have!
She will demand your time, she will pilfer your money, she will exploit
your talent, she will harness your anointing, she will capitalize on your
giftings, she will control your ministry, she will dominate every step of your
walk in God. She will use the life-flow of
the prophets, and of the saints, and of all whom she “slays,” that is, takes their life, to enrich, enhance,
and embellish her stature before men!
George
Hawtin expressed this same significant truth when he wrote, “For over twenty
years I have earnestly sought to show God’s people that the modern church
system, whether Protestant or Catholic, which daily becomes more closely allied
with the world, the flesh and the devil, is MYSTERY BABYLON. She is drunken with the blood of the saints. She
saps and sucks their life away! While
she grows richer in silver and gold, plush seats and lavish buildings, she robs
the saints of their progress in God. She
denies and contradicts all true revelation and so shuts out the transforming
light of God’s glory. Her preachers
preach and prophesy, but tell their people nothing they have not heard a
thousand times as they rehash the philosophies of bygone years. They have taken away the key of knowledge. They enter
not in and those who would enter they hinder.
It is the bright shining of the face of Christ that brings the knowledge
of the glory of God. I write these
things because I know it is not possible for any Christian to proceed to the
realm of the more excellent glory while he remains associated with the harlots
of Babylon. ‘Give
not your strength to women,’ was the exhortation of the wise
man of Israel. It should not be difficult in the least to
grasp the spiritual application of that statement, because the women here
referred to are the ecclesiastical harlots of our generation, the entire church
system, mystery Babylon
the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth.”
The
harlot thrives on power. The more people
she gets under her power, the more people she hooks on her drugs, the more
people she hypnotizes with her enchantments, the stronger she gets. Her sole motive is to survive. She is like the imaginary blood-sucking
vampire that continues to devour the life-blood of the saints in order to
survive and thrive. She must continue to
exert her authority over people, over precious saints, even over prophets and
other gifted ones, exploiting their gifts so that people can flow in, yield up
their time, talents, money, yea, their very lives. Thus she gets people all involved,
wrapped up, committed, and enslaved in her program.
There
is also, of course, a more literal sense in which “the blood of all that were
slain upon the earth” is found in this evil harlot, for she has truly martyred
millions of believers through long centuries who spurned her affections and
rejected her pernicious doctrines and ways.
Even to this day in some countries she martyrs them still, some by death
and others by excommunication and disgrace. I am not wrong, but speak forth words of truth
and soberness, when I tell you that the church system of the twenty-first
century, even as in times past, is part of the world system and is one of the
kingdoms of this world. She is part of the great image that shall
shortly be smitten by the omnipotent force of the little stone (manifest sons
of God) cut from the mountain (of God’s great kingdom and authority) without
hands. Thus with violence shall Babylon be thrown down to
come to its end. Never will it exist again. But the little stone — O glorious stone of
God’s omnipotent power and righteous government! — shall become a great
mountain and fill the whole earth.
“And the kingdom, the dominion, and the
greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High; their
kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom and all dominions shall serve and obey
them. This was the end of the
matter” (Dan. 7:27-28, Goodspeed).
To
be continued… J. PRESTON EBY
