Saying you have a relationship with God because you read the Bible is like me saying I have a relationship with my fiancé because I read Messages to Young Lovers. The Bible was never meant to be a substitute for personal experience and personal thought, logic and exploration. There is only so much you can learn from a book before you must actually embark on a personal journey in discovery with your personal God.
At some point, all those things I have read about relationships must be put aside to allow for a real relationship with a real person, Morgan. The rules, the dos and donts and the ideals all of a sudden don't make a relationship, I must allow for new revelations and ideals to shape my thinking as Morgan begins to slowly change the way I see relationships. I remember my first relationship, I had read all the ideal books, Ellen White, I Kissed Dating Good Bye, etc etc, I knew exactly how it was supposed to go. Imagine my shock when I realized my relationship was failing. The rules and the ideals all of a sudden meant very little. Where was the room for adaptation and growth? It failed because I did not allow for personal experience and individual needs.
It is the same way with God. For so long I read the ideals and the rules, I expected God to be a certain way and do certain things. One day though, I realized I had not allowed for experience. I read other people's experiences found in the Bible and other Christian writers, I knew everything I needed to know, but suddenly, tragically, I watched my knowledge of God disintegrate under me and the relationship I thought I had was not enough. You see it is not enough to know and study and read. There is no substitute for personal experience. You must search for yourself, learn for yourself, and discover for yourself. The Bible cannot do that for you, nor can all the Christian writers in the world. Can your own mind and logic and experience discover truth, or have you surrendered your relationship with God to the theories and ideals of other men? Do you personally know God or do you only read stories about him?
Saturday, July 26, 2014
Saturday, July 19, 2014
Babylon Who?
Chapter 15
Babylon Who?
The mark of the beast, the dragon, Babylon, the harlot on
the beast, what do they mean? For centuries Christians have struggled with these
questions as they seek to piece together the meaning of prophecy. Many have
been the theories and predictions that have come from the study of Daniel and
Revelation. It has become a muddled mess with every denomination having their
own separate interpretation. Are any of them correct, or are they all false? I
am not going to cover all of prophecy in this chapter, I only wish to convey a
truth essential for these times we live in today. I am going to tell you for
certain who Babylon is and how you can avoid the mark of the beast and know for
certain that your salvation is secure and that you are following the
truth.
I want to start by looking at Babylon in history. There is a
reason why the bible latched on to this great nation as a symbol of the kingdom
of Satan. Babylon is situated in the Middle East in what used to be the land of
Mesopotamia the site where the first civilization is recorded for history. It
was here that the tower of babble was built and from here that, according to
the Bible, all languages of the earth were created and all nations began to
form. It is also the location of the very First Nation to misrepresent the
character of God to the entire world after the flood.
Let’s go way back, to the very beginning of the Bible, to
some of the first stories ever told. The flood. The world was destroyed by a
flood. As mankind began to multiply on the earth, they began to so distort the
character of God that his true character and love were totally lost sight of,
and the world was in danger of losing the knowledge of the one true God. If not
for the flood, it is likely that you and I would never have the opportunity to
know truth. In the entire world, only 7 people were left who knew and
understood the love and character of God and even they did not understand or
know who God truly was. God was seeking to win the Heart of man, but man was
ignoring the voice of God calling. The only man who listened was Noah, and He
was saved from the natural disaster that followed. God did not cause the flood
because He hated humanity, the flood was a natural occurrence and God has
allowed this natural flow of reality to reveal His true character to all things
living. It is love that drives God to allow free will, it is up to us whether
we will listen or not. How many more would have been saved if they had
developed a relationship with God?
So after the flood, Noah and his sons, and their wives
settled in the land of Shinar, otherwise known as Mesopotamia and later
Babylon. It was an extremely fertile land with the river Euphrates on one side
of the valley and the river Tigerus on the other. It was the land of promise,
the land God intended for his people. It had everything they needed, and God
sought to reveal to humanity his love and care for them in supplying every need.
God could not have done more for these people. God was seeking to reveal his
character of love to all living. But there arose a king in Babylon.
The Bible explains it like this,
"And the whole earth was of one language,
and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that
they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And
they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly.
And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. And they said, Go
to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we
be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."[1]
And so the nation of Babylon was founded. So how did this
city go from being just a settlement of people, to this infamous institution of
the kingdom of the enemy?
You see, the main problem with babel was not that mankind
was gathering in one place, or that they were building a tower. There is
nothing wrong with those things. God did not just decide he didn't like it and
confused their language just to make life difficult. The Babylonians error was
that they misunderstood the character of a loving God. This is the error that
Satan fell in to when He was in heaven. Satan saw God as arbitrary, though
he had no reason to believe as he did, Satan twisted the character of God. This
is something that God cannot allow; the twisting of who He is destroys
existence itself, because the character of God is directly related to reality,
for reality and existence is the revelation of God.
The Babylonians saw God as vindictive, destroying the earth
arbitrarily with no purpose in mind, only because he was vengeful because of
the failure of mankind. So they sought to one-up God. They built a tower to
protect themselves against Him. They saw God as a force to be feared and
respected, and that man should do whatever is in their power to protect
themselves from this unpredictable God, and to find a way to control Him in
some way. They sought to harness the wild beast that they saw as God and use
Him to their own advantages, recognizing that they may fail and have to protect
themselves against their own failure.
This is why Babylon became the representation of the false
kingdom, antagonistic to God's kingdom. It was not chosen arbitrarily, or
because Babylon was just terribly wicked. It was chosen because Babylon was the
first kingdom to misrepresent the character of God, and it started a trend that
would last till the end of time.
You see, there is no single one Babylon in the world today.
Babylon is not that ancient city, it is not solely Rome, it is not that other
denomination, it is not the heathens in Africa, it is not the United States,
and it is not some Alain invasion. Babylon is any institution that misrepresents
the character of God and causes others to misunderstand God as well. It is
any institution given authority over man that misleads humanity into believing
God is what He is not.
God used Babylon many times throughout history, and many of
those times are recorded in the Bible. He used Babylon to wake Israel up to
their need of God. Under Nebuchadnezzar all the land controlled by Babylon was
instructed to worship the God of Heaven, and under Cyrus, Babylon gave
Jerusalem back to the Israelites and instructed them to rebuild the temple of
the Most High God. Not only did Cyrus instruct them to build the temple, but he
also gave them the money to do it. In fact, God said this of Cyrus,
"He is my shepherd, and shall
perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to
the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid."[2]
Then God goes on for another
chapter or two speaking of the blessings he will pour out on Cyrus. You see, it
is not the city of Babylon that is so bad; it is the beliefs that mimic that
original Babylon, the one that thought to protect themselves from a wrathful
God, these beliefs are those that give a nation, or an institution, the right
to be called Babylon
The next Kingdom to be called
Babylon was the Kingdom of Medo-Persia which was then conquered by Greece.
Greece carried this false representation of God to its highest point. As we
studied earlier, the Greeks believed that God was an obstacle to existence. God
needed to be appeased and then set aside so that humanity could continue to
exist. They sought to control God by their works and actions, thinking that God
was one of wrath, anger, and justice. At the slightest failure, he would strike
down the inhabitants of earth. This is Babylon. Even though Greece is a long
way from Babylon, it was considered the kingdom of the enemy, not because of
its position, but because if its beliefs. Then came the kingdom of Rome.
This procession of kingdoms can be confirmed in
history and was also prophesied by Daniel in Daniel chapter 2 and also in
Revelation 13. The prophet Daniel saw that there would be a procession of
kingdoms all taking the place of Babylon. Rome, represented in the dream that
King Nebuchadnezzar had as Iron that breaks in pieces and shatters all, was the
second to last kingdom to take over this position as the antagonist to the
people of God. Rome adopted the ideas and philosophy of the Greeks. Not only
did they adopt the beliefs but they led the entire world into this belief as
well. Hellenism was forcibly spread over the entire empire, which encompassed
the entire Mediterranean.
Rome eventually fell. That kingdom did not last, and Europe
split into multiple kingdoms as prophesied by Daniel and represented in the
kings dream by the feet and 10 toes made of iron and clay. Rome split into 10
factions that became the 10 kingdoms. Never again would the world be united
under one empire.
"And
whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves
with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is
not mixed with clay."[3]
Europe has never been united. In fact it has suffered tragic
war after tragic war as different leaders tried to unite Europe under one
empire and failed. Napoleon, Stalin, Hitler and many more world leaders,
all grasped for greatness, and a united Europe, but all failed. Millions upon
millions of people lost their lives in the quest for greatness, to reforge that
which was lost, but none succeeded.
Revelation continues this story as it describes ten of these
kingdoms making up the divided kingdom of Rome. Revelation 13 describes a great
beast rising up out of the sea, in other words, a Kingdom that would arise out
of many people, as represented often in the Bible by the sea. This beast had 10
horns. In Revelation 17 John reveals what those horns represent. They also
represent the 10 kingdoms of Europe. Going back to Daniel, He had almost the
exact same dream as John did 2,000 years later! In Daniel 7 Daniel describes 4
beasts representing the kingdoms that would arise after Babylon.
The dream progresses just as Nebuchadnezzar's dream had with
one kingdom arising after another. But then we come to the fourth kingdom, a
beast arising out if the sea, having 10 horns. Something happens though that
John in Revelation does not mention. A little horn arises, and as it takes
power it uproots 3 kingdoms. So did this happen in history?
We find it in the history of the Christian church itself, a
place you would not expect to find Babylon. For a long time, Christians were
persecuted for what they believed. Hated by the Jews because they followed
Jesus who taught contrary to the doctors of the law, and hated by the Romans
because their religion was seen as a destroyer of the piece. Christians were
not a legally recognized religion by the Roman government, and so they were
looked at as a superstitious lot, that upset the rocky piece between the Jewish
nation and the Roman Empire. This was all to change however.
Constantine, the emperor of Rome, was riding into Battle one
day, when He saw high in the sky a Cross, and a voice spoke to him and said,
“In this sign, conquer.” From this point on, Christianity began to gain
prominence, and peace came to the church for the first time since its birth,
Christianity was finally recognized by the public as a legitimate religion.
This wasn’t necessarily a good thing however. As the church gained power, they
began to compromise the teachings of Jesus. It was harmless at first. Declaring
that it was ok to worship on Sunday. Sunday was the day that the pagans
worshiped the sun, hence the name. It wasn’t out of an evil plot that the church
did this, they did it seeking unity and peace. After all, it was just a day,
and if they wanted to spend all of Sunday worshiping Jesus, why was it any
different than worshiping on Saturday, the day of Saturn?
It did not stop there however. The church gained more and
more power. Constantine gave the seat of authority to the Christian church, and
made them essentially more powerful than the entire Roman Empire. This changed Christianity. Politics started
to plague the church, and power hungry leaders sought the highest point of
rule. In order to gain popularity with the population at large, the statues of
the gods were incorporated into the worship of Jesus. They were just given
different names. Zeus became Peter, which now sits in the very heart of Christianity
in Rome, kissed by hundreds of thousands of visitors every year. Slowly, the
focus of worship, was taken off a loving God, and placed on many “demi” Gods if
you will. Peter, Mary, Jesus, what difference did it make? The character of God
was forgotten.
In this rise to power, something very interesting happened,
the church uprooted 3 kingdoms in their grab for power. The Heruli,
Vandals, and Ostrogoths were eliminated
by the year 538 AD. After this, the world fell into the dark ages, kingdoms
fell and arose, but Rome remained. The church ruled over the people with an
iron fist. They sought to hold God captive and use him to control the
population. God was taught to be an angry, vindictive, and merciless God,
sending his wrath down on all who failed Him. Good or bad, people burned in
purgatory until God felt that they had been tortured enough to enter heaven.
The Church, that once had so much light, destroyed the character of God, and
misled millions of people.
And so the church became the
next institution to represent Babylon. It is not only the Roman Catholic
Church, however that is Babylon today. Many look at the church expecting it to
be at the forefront of the persecution of God’s people because it bares the
characteristics of Babylon, but this is faulty logic. The church you currently
are in could just as easily be a part of Babylon, you in your personal belief,
or lack there of, could be a part of that system. Babylon is not just a single
institution, or kingdom, or church. Babylon is anyone that grossly
misrepresents the character of Jesus to others. The Catholic Church’s one main
fault is that they have made salvation something that can be bought and sold,
not only that, but they have made God out to be a tyrant. But is this any
different than most Christian churches today? Most Baptist churches teach that
God burns people in hell forever and ever. Even the most conservative on the
subject, Seventh-Day Adventists, teach that God, in His wrath, destroys the
wicked in the end because of His anger at their wickedness. That kind of
thinking is Babylon. Any gross misrepresentation of the character of God is
antichrist.
So what about 666, the mark
of the beast, and all of that stuff you may ask. It is true that the pope wears
a hat that is inscribed with the roman numerals 666, but this should not throw
people off too much. I think it is awesome that God would reveal to us so
clearly what He dislikes most, but the number should not be our focus, nor
should it be our focus that it happens to come from the catholic church. The
number stands for the name of the pope, as the Vicar of Christ. One who stands
in the place of God.
This is what is so wrong
about the number. It represents a complete misunderstanding of who God is. If
we think that a mere human being can stand in the place of Jesus Christ, than
we have a gross misunderstanding of the greatness and vastness of God. We have
a view of God just like the Greeks, and the Romans, and the Babylonians, and
all who proceeded us before, it is the view that god is an elevated human,
existent inside of reality and held captive by its physical laws. What a sad
deception.
The mark of the beast is
not a physical mark that you will receive. I remember once I was helping out at
an evangelistic series my church was hosting in the city hall. At opening night
we gave each person a card with a barcode on it so that we could record their
attendance and give out prizes at the end for those who had attended the most.
It was a simple tactic to keep people coming back. There were several people
who looked at me with distrusting eyes and told me they did not want my mark.
It took me a little bit to realize what they were saying. They thought that a
simple card could give them the mark of the beast and cause them to be forever
lost for attending an Adventist meeting.
The mark of the beast is
not like that at all. The mark of the beast is anyone who thinks in His heart
as Babylon thinks, who sees God as nothing more than a Roman God. This person
shows they have accepted the thinking of the beast power and have received his
“mark” in their mind. They truly believe God to be not much greater than human.
Then there is the person
who receives this mark in their hand. It is that person who not only thinks,
but acts as though God is not infinite. Their actions show that the power of
God has not taken root in their life and they have not beheld the character of
a God who is Love. Having the mark of the beast is simply thinking as Babylon
has always thought, and not only Babylon but the whole world. You see it has
always only been a small remnant of people that understood the character of
God, a small group of people against the population of the world. It has long
been a struggle for God to reveal himself to all of creation.
Jesus warned,
“For there shall arise false Christs, and
false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch, that if it
were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.”[4]
If
God’s own elect people could be deceived in the end, how strong a deception do
you think this is going to be? Many Christians, especially those members of my
own denomination, claim that they would never be deceived by false Christ’s
claiming to be God. They claim they know what the deception is and so will not
be deceived, but that is the problem, if we know what the deception is, it
isn’t much a deception is it? One of the founders of the Seventh-Day Adventist
church wrote the following:
“It
is a solemn statement that I make to the church that not one in twenty whose
names are registered upon the church books are prepared to close their earthly
history, and would be as verily without God and without hope in the world as
the common sinner.”[5]
If that
was the state of the church then, when it was a brand new faith with less than
eighty thousand members, you can only imagine what the state of the church is
now. I am tempted to claim myself that not one in a hundred will choose to be
saved. We also look to the future, thinking the great deception is soon to come
on the world, without realizing that the great deception has already taken root
in the hearts of almost all mankind. It is the deception of the character of
God.
I want to plead with you, as
God did in Revelation,
“Come
out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye
receive not of her plagues.”[6]
Please,
if you choose to believe in God, and understand that He is the creator of
everything, and holds existence in His hand, then come out of false ideas of
God. Put away the delusions that have crowded His Character. Get to know God
for who He is. Learn what it is to love and align your life with the flow of
existence. None will be lost who is truly seeking to understand the character
of God, but plenty will be lost who decide they already know and do not need
anything else. I do not ask you to leave your church, and join mine, I do not
ask you to leave mine and join another, I only ask that in your faith, you
reject the mentality and traditional thoughts of Babylon. Accept the truth that
God is Love. Do you remember the opening of this book as we expanded our
knowledge of who and what God is? God is more, and His existence is Love.
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