1 8/13/2008 1:14 PM Babylon - A Mystery Revealed Part 3 Sam Soleyn America is not Babylon. Now I know that that idea that America is Babylon has been floating around and people have been flirting with it in religious circles, but America is not Babylon. This is what it says about Babylon in Revelation 17, it says, The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth. And it goes on in chapter 18 to speak about Babylon the great is fallen is fallen. In Revelation 17 the title that is on her forehead is: MYSTERY BABYLON THE GREAT. Now we've been talking about this for two other programs. Babylon is a single city and the woman here is not typified by a nation but by a city. America is a nation, many cities, it's not a single city. So if people are trying to find their way through Scripture, you shouldn't mix and match the symbols. Indeed, Babylon is not America because Babylon is something else. What we have seen in our study of the woman of Revelation 17 is that she makes her way through history, from ancient history to modern times. America has not been a phenomenon of the ancient world, Babylon is a phenomenon of the ancient world but in the Revelation she's updated again and again. So she begins, and our first experience with Babylon, with the spirit of Babylon, is Cains murder of Abel; Cain being a type of Babylon, Abel being a type of the New Jerusalem. She moves through history and this woman takes up a name, her name is Jezebel, in the Old Testament. And in the New Testament, in Revelation 3, she is seen committing adultery with the saints, in Revelation 17 shes seen as committing adultery with the kings of the earth. So we understand by this that adultery is an attempt to relate to someone in order to get what they have in exchange for what the harlot has to give. The harlot has to give the 'idea' of holiness, the 'idea' of godliness; but in exchange it wants your loyalty and it wants your submission. That's the spirit of religion. Jesus speaking about it, challenges the Jews in the book of Matthew the 23th chapter and He says to them, That upon you might come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to Zacharia son of Berekiah, whom you slew between the temple and the altar. Matthew 23 verse 35. And He tells His disciples that the pharisees will put them out of the synagogues. Here He says, Jesus speaking to the scribes and the pharisees who are the essence of religious thinkers and religious practitioners in His day, He says, You snakes, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the condemnation of hell, therefore I am sending you prophets and wise men, some of them you will kill and crucify, others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on the earth from the blood of righteous Abel to Zacharia son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. I tell you the truth, all this will come upon this generation. And then He says, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem you who kill the prophets, and so on.
2 8/13/2008 1:14 PM Throughout history, beginning with Cain and Abel, there has been the spirit of religion always opposing the saints, always oppressing them on the one hand; or alternatively always trying to seduce them into abandoning their relationship to God and becoming corrupt and perverse. Because this, you see, is probably the most enduring scheme of Satan to extend his time. You know of course that there is war going on between God and Satan and this war has been going on for quite some time. Indeed, from Scripture it would appear that this war was going on BEFORE the world was created, before the universe was created. And indeed it appears in part to explain why the world was created. Satan had o fronted the Most High in his attempt to be like God, indeed he wanted to dethrone God and to take the place of God. Well, on the earth, Satan continues his war against God by waging war against the interests of God in the earth. God has always had a holy seed, a remnant, throughout all the history of mankind and what Satan has been doing forever, from the time of Abel on, it's seen especially in Christ; Satan has been trying to corrupt and to make perverse the nature of holiness and righteousness in the people of God. It's been his standard procedure all throughout history. The question is why, why is this so? The answer is, if Satan manages to succeed in removing holiness and righteousness from the earth, then God either has to have a new creation, starting over from scratch, or He has to abandon the idea of having His own children, having His seed, His inheritance. And somehow, to Satan, this proves that he's right. If holiness and righteousness disappears from the created world, Satan would appear in himself to be right, he would at least believe that he was right. It's really quite like this: If an enemy is not able to succeed against you, who is he likely to attack? Well, consider what happened in recent times, when enemies of America, abroad, attacked. Why did they not attack American military interests? They have tried at times to do so, but the military is prepared, that's why America is strong. So knowing that attacking American military installations is likely to produce a fair amount of very costly response; the attempt was to attack American interests, where the population is unguarded because it typically has no reason to be on it's guard. And the idea is common in a number of other sets and scenarios. If you have an enemy who is not able to succeed against you, who will he attack? He'll attack your children, he'll attack those of your interest who are vulnerable to him. Well it's the same way with Satan and with God. Satan has no success against God, every time he has gone up against God, he has been met with the superior force of angelic might that stand ready to prosecute the interests of God and of Christ. So he takes full advantage of the one area of God's vulnerability; God is vulnerable in only one area: His love for human beings. And the fact that He has given human beings free will and yet remains a God who loves them, makes Him vulnerable to the attack through them, through His people, which Jesus considers it an attack against His own person. Now when I say He's vulnerable, I don't mean He can be overcome; I do mean though that this is an area in which Satan sees the interest of Christ as being available to him. So he's always attacked the holy seed, he's always attacked the holy remnant; from Abel to Christ. And then after Christ and with the closing of the New Testament, he has not been silent. He used the Roman empire to absolutely crush the budding church, with the intent, actually, of destroying it. God caused it to survive as He always does, but the attack was a very real one. So this is the method of Satan's going forward in the earth. False religion does two things: It will out and out kill Christians, just openly kill Christians. Have you ever wondered why as peaceful as Christians are..here, I'm not talking about religion mascarading as Christianity, but the true believers. They are people of peace. Their Leader, the One who is their model, the One after whose nature and type they are born again, does not wage war with a sword but gives up his own life. By the way, this is not something you could say for any other religious group and particularly not Islam. The history of Islam, from it's founder Muhammad up through and including recent times, is a history of bloodshed and warfare. The
3 8/13/2008 1:14 PM events that are happening now are not inconsistent in the least with the history of Islam, including Islams founder Muhammad who is known for holy war and the killing of people who did not agree with him. But Christianity, true faith in the LORD Jesus Christ, is not like that. The counterfeit is exactly like that, however. So it will stop at nothing to kill whoever stands in it's way. But it has a dual plank, it has another approach to Christians and that approach is to seduce them, to draw them in. And so Scripture refers to the woman as an adulteress; she offers favors in exchange for their purity and their holiness. What are these favors that are called adulteress favors? Well the reason they're adulteress and the favors themselves are, is that they actually serve the interest of another god, not the LORD. Why do we think God spoke to Israel and said, Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.? Why does Paul say, Though we or an angel from heaven should preach to you any other gospel than that which you have received, let him be accursed.? Why does he refer to, gods who are no God,? The answer is that religion is based in the worship of Satan. Now when you hear 'worship of Satan' the norm is to think of coffins of witches and the practice of the occult; that's just the overt worship of Satan. But the normal, regular worship of Satan is to receive from him, from his hand, from his mind, our ideas about God. Now there will come a day when these two, the Virgin (the righteous Bride) and the harlot; they've grown together all the way through history, they're the parallel trends through history. There'll come a day when they both come fully to the surface and they're seen and there is no other vision. There's the vision of the Bride, there's the vision of the harlot and people belong to the one or they belong to the other; the saints will see it with that degree of clarity even if the world does not. In that day, God, when He makes it so plain, will make it plain in order to fulfill this call, Come out of her My people, come out of her. Why does God call His people out of this harlot? This is from Revelation 18:4, Then I heard another voice from heaven say, 'Come out of her, My people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues; for her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes. Do you remember that she was drinking the blood of the saints out of a cup, Give back to her what she has given; pay her back double for what she has done. Mix her a double portion from her own cup. Give her as much torture and grief as the glory and luxury she gave herself. In her heart she boasts, 'I sit as queen, I am not a widow; I will never mourn'. Therefore in one day her plagues will overtake her: death, mourning and famine. She'll be consumed by fire, for mighty is the LORD God who judges her. So when the judgment of this false religious system comes, and it will come... we've been sounding this warning now for how long? And so many have just turned a shoulder to it. Because all of these religious systems manage to do one thing and one thing only: to entrap the saints, to entrap the people of God in them. Promising them that by their continued faithfulness to these religious systems, that they will be guaranteed access to God and access to heaven. This whole system of clergy and laity promises the people of God an avenue to God, other than and in lieu of, the LORD Jesus Christ. Whether we're talking about such a bizarre system as one that says, Well you know, Jesus is busy and He can't be bothered with you because you're a pion. Well we offer you two other opportunities, you don't have to go through Jesus. In fact, you can't go through Jesus to the Father because He's too busy. Now who best to talk to, if you want Jesus to do something for you, than His mother? Imagine that, imagine a religion based upon the worship of Mary, based upon the idea that Jesus is too busy for you to take time for you but you know, His mother, shes just standing around waiting to talk to you. What utter rubbish. You know, you have to understand that if you believe this you're part of the system of harlotry. False religion is not just the Roman catholic church, it's every religious group; whether the
4 8/13/2008 1:14 PM independent charismatic church that says, Here are the rules, you obey these rules and you'll have access to God. Come to church every Sunday, be here every time the doors are open, give to everything that we tell you to give to, obey the pastor. It's the same catholic system, it's just that there are more popes; everyones a pope in his own system. Now the day is coming when all of God's people, who have been trapped by these beliefs, the belief that you can't hear God, you cannot go to God by yourself, you cannot talk to God by yourself, who do you think you are. All of that sounds terribly pious and holy but it's rubbish. Jesus sent you the Holy Spirit to confirm your sonship and to lead you into the truth. That's why He calls Him, The Spirit of truth. But instead you've been given every mans opinion; whether it's in your Sunday school quarterly, or your book of common prayers; whether it's in the cataclysm, or in the latest sermon idea of the preacher. There has been a culture of establishing a gap between God and the people, which gap is to be filled by religion. In exchange for which, religion gets a hold of the people and the money. You look at some of these religious institutions and the amounts of money that they pour into building buildings. Some of the greatest art collections are in these religious organizations. Some of the treasures of human creation, some of the most fabulous pieces of art, of jewelry, are in religion. For so long, the subject of great art was religion. No wonder the merchants of the earth love religion, because it's all about the external adornments, the external ways that you present yourself to God. It needs a whole world to support it's external acutriments by which it says in effect, If you are like us, look at what you can have. Some of the ones most guilty of this, oddly enough, are those who teach the message of faith. The premise for the pursuit of wealth is, The world will see how much money we have, how much wealth has come to us and they'll be jealous, they'll want in on it. What incredible rubbish, but such is the nature of religion. And if you believe it, it will get it's hooks in you. There'll come a day when those who have been hearing God, who've grown confident in the fact that they're hearing God, will see in fact, when you feel the frustration that you feel in these churches under these doctrines, whether we're talking about Independent Charismatic churches or Roman catholic, or episcopalian, or what have you. If you are a true believer, if you're one in whom the Spirit of God lives; when you go into these things, your spirit is already confined. And you go, and you keep going sometimes hoping that maybe somehow what God is showing you will break through, but it never happens. And the reason is: it can't happen. And the only reason you should remain in any of these things is because God hasn't told you yet to get out. But there is a day coming when He will tell everyone to get out, and He will say, Come out of her My people. Now He's already told some to get out and they're lingering, partly because they don't know what else to do. When He tells you to get out, get out, He's not going to show you what else to do until you obey as much as He's told you. You will not die in the desert, the largest number of people out here are people who have left these things. But He will not bargain with you, if He's told you to get out, get out; then He will order your next steps. But if He hasn't told you to get out, don't. But, the day is coming when He will tell you to get out. You know why? Because there's a day coming when He will judge it. This harlot has said that it is Christ, it is the true representation of Christ. And others have said, we have said, that the true representation of Christ is what the Spirit of God produces. So in the world you have two doctrines, two people; one's claiming to be the Bride, and the other is the Bride. Who is what, how will you know? God says there is coming a day when by fire He will try every mans works to see what sort
5 8/13/2008 1:14 PM it is. Gold, silver, or precious stones; wood, hay, or stubble. But before He destroys Babylon, before He destroys this harlot, this spirit of religion that tells you that it is the truth but it is not. That captures you, if you're a saint, in it, promising you a way to God but it can't deliver and doesn't. Not last Sunday, not next Sunday, not in 100 years, not in a 100 years to come because it cannot give you what it doesn't have. It's about time you stopped believing that it's ever going to able to. It's false, it can never become the truth. The only thing that can happen is the people of God in it can come out of it. What's going to happen in the end, is all of religious thought is going to come together. And you, the saints, will be the target that it will seek to murder. So the LORD will say to you, Come out of it My children. When you are brought out of it, it will fall, Babylon will fall. The kings will no longer have anyone calling them gods or legitimizing their unrighteous rule; the merchants will no longer have anyone buying their goods, all of the externals that support religion. What would happen if we took religion out of things? Just consider the economic impact of Christmas and all of what is religious about Christmas. What would happen? Catastrophe. And ahead of the storm, the LORD is going to call His people out Babylon, Come out of her. If you've heard that call, come out now and He tell you what else to do. I'm Sam Soleyn, God bless you. I'll see you next time. Bye bye.