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WHO IS BABYLON?
Babylon is fallen, but who, or what is Babylon?
Revelation 17 represents Babylon by the symbol of a woman seated on a scarlet colored beast. Here we already see that Babylon cannot represent the whole fallen world. If it did, what does the beast represent upon which the woman is seated? The same chapter represents the unlawful connection of Babylon with the kings of the earth, and that she has made the inhabitants of the earth drunken. Babylon is also represented as that great city that reigns over the kings of the earth. So Babylon is distinct from the kings of the earth, and therefore does not include all the wicked of the earth.
When Babylon is destroyed, being thrown down as a millstone is cast into the mighty deep, and utterly burned with fire, the kings and the merchants, the sailors, etc, are still around and mourn and lament. So the destruction of Babylon is not the destruction of those wicked men who lived in iniquity with her.
Now we say Babylon is Roman Catholicism. She sits on seven hills and rules over kings so there there is strong support for this. But is this conclusive? We see that there are also "daughters" which constitute Babylon.
A woman is the symbol of a church. The pure woman of Revelation 12 symbolizes Christ's bride- His people— His church. A harlot is the symbol of an unfaithful bride or church. The harlot and her daughters therefore would not be limited to a single ecclesiastical body; but many. Babylon has made all the nations drunk with her wine; it can therefore symbolize nothing less than the universal worldly church.
The fact that the people of God are in the midst of Babylon even near the end of time, before the plagues fall— for Rev. 18 says "come out of her MY people that you receive not her plagues" proves that she is a professedly religious body.
What constitutes the fall of Babylon?
The fall of Babylon according to Revelation 18 is her acceptance of the wrong spirits. She becomes the hold of every foul spirit. Her rejection of truth grieves the Holy Spirit and leaves her open to the deceptive spirits.
Her fall also includes her unlawful union with the kings of the earth. As well as the wine with which she has intoxicated the nations of the earth. The wine represents false doctrines.
Now how does this fit into 1844?
During the preaching of the 1st angel's message the Christians were all in the various churches. Obviously if they were called out of Babylon, it was not a call out of one specific church. Yet these Protestant churches were at the beginning of the call not spoken of as fallen. The message was a message from heaven to awaken the Christian churches from their drift into worldly conformity, their unscriptural hope of a blessed earthly millennium, and adherence to other papal errors which they had not thrown off at the Reformation. If all the churches had accepted the message and moved forward, America would have been changed totally. The power of the Holy spirit to change lives and bring people into that transformed new life of obedience to God's commandments would have been tremendous.
During the first angel's message, believing people searched their hearts and sought after the Lord for an ever closer relationship— they realized what it meant to prepare themselves to see their God. It became their whole life. The churches involved had to make a decision, they either had to support this movement or turn away. For those who heard the message and had members who embraced it, there was no middle ground. The main body of the churches turned against the message. The believers were pushed out. They left the churches.
Now some say these churches only rejected the date. No, there was much more to it than that! They rejected everything Miller and his followers had discovered. Including the concepts of the second coming, the millennium, and the importance of uplifting of standards. They set themselves in opposition and have continued in opposition.
They set themselves in opposition to the prophetic understanding of the day/year principles which eventually lead to the rejection of the historic methods of interpreting prophecies. This of course, totally obliterates the main issues in Revelation as to who and what the great coming deceptions will be. They rejected the judgment message and as a result rejected the Sabbath, and as a result of rejecting the Sabbath, they had to get rid of the ten commandments. This lead to an elaborate counter structure to prove to the world that God's commandments did not fit into the plan of salvation, and the Sabbath was just a Jewish ceremony.
This of course completely obliterates the whole issue of the testing and trials in the last days when God's people will be identified as they who keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus.
Roman Catholicism had fallen years earlier. The Reformation was a call to come out of Rome. The Protestant churches were the daughters of the harlot, they had determined they would not follow in their mother's footsteps, but gradually they are being pulled into the same lifestyle as their mother.
When they rejected the 1st angels message, they set themselves on the slippery road to becoming like their mother. They rejected the advancing light and upheld the wine of many papal and other false doctrines, and are even now thinking and trying to commit fornication with the kings of the earth. In 1844 the people were called to come out and advance rather than slid back. They were to come out and be distinctive.
Revelation 18 repeats the call to come out— the call continues until the plagues come. There is no doubt that God has many dear saints united with the various bodies of professed Christians. These will yet hear the call given in Rev. 18:4
Retreated back to Babylon on state of Death Doctrine
This second urgent cry to come out of Babylon informs us that she has become the hold of foul spirits. The immortality of the soul is almost a universally accepted doctrine in the Protestant churches. The concept of soul sleep was known to the Reformers. They were made aware that upon the false theory of man's immortal soul was built the whole Roman doctrine of purgatory and hell, as well as praying to saints and Mary. It was stated that this false concept of the soul was derived, not from the Bible, but from the Neoplatonism of Augustine. Petrus Pomponatus in his work, "On the Immortality of the Soul", said the soul was not immortal, and therefore had no conscious existence after the death of the body, but was in unconscious "sleep" until the resurrection. Pomponatus' teaching gained wide currency and was brought back by scholars such as Karlstadt and Westerburg to Germany. Luther himself declared, while defending himself against the papal bull of 1520, "The immortality of the soul was only a papal opinion to make it possible for them to hold fast to human dreams and doctrines of devils." He frequently referred to the "sleep" of the dead in his sermons and commentaries. But later referred less and less to it. Tyndale declared that: "in putting them (souls of the dead) in heaven, hell and purgatory you destroy the arguments wherewith Christ and Paul proves the resurrection"
Michael Sattler was an Anabaptist leader taken to trial by the Catholic authorities. Among other charges against which he defended himself, was the charge that he denied Mary and the saints because of his belief that the dead were in unconscious sleep until the resurrection. Sattler was brutally executed with three others.
Yet now, the protestant churches almost unanimously declare the dead do not really die. Leaving them wide open for spiritualistic manifestations.
Retreated back to Babylon on Sabbath Understanding
The same is true for the Sabbath. History reveals the gradual change from the Sabbath to Sunday. The Roman Catholic Church claimed the change to be the sign of her authority over the laws of God. Then we see the first angel gave the call to return to the Worship of our Creator God. The saints are those who keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus. Therefore the trademark of Babylon is in opposition to this call! The trademark is Sunday!
Yet the Sabbath was also introduced to the reformers. Oswald Glait in the 1520's pointed out that the true Sabbath was the seventh and not the first day of the week. Sabbath keeping groups sprang up in Moravia, Bohemia and Austria. The Seventh-day Baptists are descendants of these groups. Yet when the Sabbath truth came in it's full blaze of evidence shortly after 1844 the protestant churches refused it. They have since established a massive counter reaction against the Sabbath, even to claiming God did away with His moral ten commandment law in order to maintain their position against God's holy Sabbath day. Once again the Protestant churches have refused to cut their ties to the wine of Babylon and have adopted and are vigorously defending the sign which the papacy claims shows it has authority over God's laws, in direct opposition of the angel's clear call to worship the Creator God upon the day commanded.
COME OUT MY PEOPLE
The duty of the people of God is plainly expressed, "Come Out of her, my people, that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues." Her sins have reached unto heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities; she has united herself to the kings of earth and confided in the arm of flesh, and not in Jehovah. In the name of assurance of salvation, she has smoothed down the threatenings of God against the result of rebelling against His commandments. Worldly pursuits, pleasures and pride fill the heart where the Holy Spirit is to reign.
To leave Babylon it is not enough to separate from the denominations which sustain her errors. It is necessary to renounce these errors by receiving the truth of God, and it is necessary, also, to renounce the sins of Babylon by true repentance. Protestants do not have to be part of Babylon if they had only continued in receiving the truths as they were revealed.
The biggest problem of Babylon is the unconverted state of many of its members. With the lose of baptism— (another doctrine that was rediscovered by the Anabaptists and strongly opposed, with persecution, by the mainline Protestants)— the whole concept that a person dies to the old way of life and rises in newness of life in Christ Jesus, is lost. The putting away of the old sinful lifestyle and habits, the burying them in the watery grave, dying with Christ, and arising to a totally new life committed fully and completely to Christ is essential to true Christianity.
How does a church commit fornication?
The church commits fornication with the kings of the earth. In other words the church turns to political powers for her strength. Protestant America will form an image or replica to the beast. How did the original beast operate?
When the early church departed from truth and began to incorporate pagan teachings, they lost the power of the true Holy Spirit who convicts people of sin, and converts them, and teaches them to walk in the ways of the Lord. But once this heavenly power to transform lives was pushed aside with false teachings and admission of unconverted multitudes into the church, corruption resulted. Then the church turned to political powers to force the multitudes to obey the laws the church decreed.
And what do we see in America right now? We see a real movement under the Christian New Right to make America a "Christian" nation, to bring "Judeo-Christian" values back to America. Just as when the church first linked with the state, American Christianity today is full of all manner of corruption, false doctrines, and unbiblical traditions. Most Christians cannot be identified from the worldling.
The rise of the New Right and the sudden thrust of Christians into the politcal arena indicates a church that has lost the power of God's Spirit. Unable to "control the consciences" of the people, it seeks the "support of the secular power" instead.
The church forms her unlawful union with the kings of the earth, the political powers, so she may profit by their revenues, and that she may use this power to persecute those who do not accept her dogmas.
Babylon will be the great kingdom of false worship which overspreads the earth in the last days. But God will vindicate His faithful, who keep the commandments and have the faith of Jesus. Babylon will come to a sudden and awful end, but those in whose hearts, God's kingdom is established will go to the eternal kingdom of God.
WHO IS BABYLON?
Babylon is fallen, but who, or what is Babylon?
Revelation 17 represents Babylon by the symbol of a woman seated on a scarlet colored beast. Here we already see that Babylon cannot represent the whole fallen world. If it did, what does the beast represent upon which the woman is seated? The same chapter represents the unlawful connection of Babylon with the kings of the earth, and that she has made the inhabitants of the earth drunken. Babylon is also represented as that great city that reigns over the kings of the earth. So Babylon is distinct from the kings of the earth, and therefore does not include all the wicked of the earth.
When Babylon is destroyed, being thrown down as a millstone is cast into the mighty deep, and utterly burned with fire, the kings and the merchants, the sailors, etc, are still around and mourn and lament. So the destruction of Babylon is not the destruction of those wicked men who lived in iniquity with her.
Now we say Babylon is Roman Catholicism. She sits on seven hills and rules over kings so there there is strong support for this. But is this conclusive? We see that there are also "daughters" which constitute Babylon.
A woman is the symbol of a church. The pure woman of Revelation 12 symbolizes Christ's bride- His people— His church. A harlot is the symbol of an unfaithful bride or church. The harlot and her daughters therefore would not be limited to a single ecclesiastical body; but many. Babylon has made all the nations drunk with her wine; it can therefore symbolize nothing less than the universal worldly church.
The fact that the people of God are in the midst of Babylon even near the end of time, before the plagues fall— for Rev. 18 says "come out of her MY people that you receive not her plagues" proves that she is a professedly religious body.
What constitutes the fall of Babylon?
The fall of Babylon according to Revelation 18 is her acceptance of the wrong spirits. She becomes the hold of every foul spirit. Her rejection of truth grieves the Holy Spirit and leaves her open to the deceptive spirits.
Her fall also includes her unlawful union with the kings of the earth. As well as the wine with which she has intoxicated the nations of the earth. The wine represents false doctrines.
Now how does this fit into 1844?
During the preaching of the 1st angel's message the Christians were all in the various churches. Obviously if they were called out of Babylon, it was not a call out of one specific church. Yet these Protestant churches were at the beginning of the call not spoken of as fallen. The message was a message from heaven to awaken the Christian churches from their drift into worldly conformity, their unscriptural hope of a blessed earthly millennium, and adherence to other papal errors which they had not thrown off at the Reformation. If all the churches had accepted the message and moved forward, America would have been changed totally. The power of the Holy spirit to change lives and bring people into that transformed new life of obedience to God's commandments would have been tremendous.
During the first angel's message, believing people searched their hearts and sought after the Lord for an ever closer relationship— they realized what it meant to prepare themselves to see their God. It became their whole life. The churches involved had to make a decision, they either had to support this movement or turn away. For those who heard the message and had members who embraced it, there was no middle ground. The main body of the churches turned against the message. The believers were pushed out. They left the churches.
Now some say these churches only rejected the date. No, there was much more to it than that! They rejected everything Miller and his followers had discovered. Including the concepts of the second coming, the millennium, and the importance of uplifting of standards. They set themselves in opposition and have continued in opposition.
They set themselves in opposition to the prophetic understanding of the day/year principles which eventually lead to the rejection of the historic methods of interpreting prophecies. This of course, totally obliterates the main issues in Revelation as to who and what the great coming deceptions will be. They rejected the judgment message and as a result rejected the Sabbath, and as a result of rejecting the Sabbath, they had to get rid of the ten commandments. This lead to an elaborate counter structure to prove to the world that God's commandments did not fit into the plan of salvation, and the Sabbath was just a Jewish ceremony.
This of course completely obliterates the whole issue of the testing and trials in the last days when God's people will be identified as they who keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus.
Roman Catholicism had fallen years earlier. The Reformation was a call to come out of Rome. The Protestant churches were the daughters of the harlot, they had determined they would not follow in their mother's footsteps, but gradually they are being pulled into the same lifestyle as their mother.
When they rejected the 1st angels message, they set themselves on the slippery road to becoming like their mother. They rejected the advancing light and upheld the wine of many papal and other false doctrines, and are even now thinking and trying to commit fornication with the kings of the earth. In 1844 the people were called to come out and advance rather than slid back. They were to come out and be distinctive.
Revelation 18 repeats the call to come out— the call continues until the plagues come. There is no doubt that God has many dear saints united with the various bodies of professed Christians. These will yet hear the call given in Rev. 18:4
Retreated back to Babylon on state of Death Doctrine
This second urgent cry to come out of Babylon informs us that she has become the hold of foul spirits. The immortality of the soul is almost a universally accepted doctrine in the Protestant churches. The concept of soul sleep was known to the Reformers. They were made aware that upon the false theory of man's immortal soul was built the whole Roman doctrine of purgatory and hell, as well as praying to saints and Mary. It was stated that this false concept of the soul was derived, not from the Bible, but from the Neoplatonism of Augustine. Petrus Pomponatus in his work, "On the Immortality of the Soul", said the soul was not immortal, and therefore had no conscious existence after the death of the body, but was in unconscious "sleep" until the resurrection. Pomponatus' teaching gained wide currency and was brought back by scholars such as Karlstadt and Westerburg to Germany. Luther himself declared, while defending himself against the papal bull of 1520, "The immortality of the soul was only a papal opinion to make it possible for them to hold fast to human dreams and doctrines of devils." He frequently referred to the "sleep" of the dead in his sermons and commentaries. But later referred less and less to it. Tyndale declared that: "in putting them (souls of the dead) in heaven, hell and purgatory you destroy the arguments wherewith Christ and Paul proves the resurrection"
Michael Sattler was an Anabaptist leader taken to trial by the Catholic authorities. Among other charges against which he defended himself, was the charge that he denied Mary and the saints because of his belief that the dead were in unconscious sleep until the resurrection. Sattler was brutally executed with three others.
Yet now, the protestant churches almost unanimously declare the dead do not really die. Leaving them wide open for spiritualistic manifestations.
Retreated back to Babylon on Sabbath Understanding
The same is true for the Sabbath. History reveals the gradual change from the Sabbath to Sunday. The Roman Catholic Church claimed the change to be the sign of her authority over the laws of God. Then we see the first angel gave the call to return to the Worship of our Creator God. The saints are those who keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus. Therefore the trademark of Babylon is in opposition to this call! The trademark is Sunday!
Yet the Sabbath was also introduced to the reformers. Oswald Glait in the 1520's pointed out that the true Sabbath was the seventh and not the first day of the week. Sabbath keeping groups sprang up in Moravia, Bohemia and Austria. The Seventh-day Baptists are descendants of these groups. Yet when the Sabbath truth came in it's full blaze of evidence shortly after 1844 the protestant churches refused it. They have since established a massive counter reaction against the Sabbath, even to claiming God did away with His moral ten commandment law in order to maintain their position against God's holy Sabbath day. Once again the Protestant churches have refused to cut their ties to the wine of Babylon and have adopted and are vigorously defending the sign which the papacy claims shows it has authority over God's laws, in direct opposition of the angel's clear call to worship the Creator God upon the day commanded.
COME OUT MY PEOPLE
The duty of the people of God is plainly expressed, "Come Out of her, my people, that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues." Her sins have reached unto heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities; she has united herself to the kings of earth and confided in the arm of flesh, and not in Jehovah. In the name of assurance of salvation, she has smoothed down the threatenings of God against the result of rebelling against His commandments. Worldly pursuits, pleasures and pride fill the heart where the Holy Spirit is to reign.
To leave Babylon it is not enough to separate from the denominations which sustain her errors. It is necessary to renounce these errors by receiving the truth of God, and it is necessary, also, to renounce the sins of Babylon by true repentance. Protestants do not have to be part of Babylon if they had only continued in receiving the truths as they were revealed.
The biggest problem of Babylon is the unconverted state of many of its members. With the lose of baptism— (another doctrine that was rediscovered by the Anabaptists and strongly opposed, with persecution, by the mainline Protestants)— the whole concept that a person dies to the old way of life and rises in newness of life in Christ Jesus, is lost. The putting away of the old sinful lifestyle and habits, the burying them in the watery grave, dying with Christ, and arising to a totally new life committed fully and completely to Christ is essential to true Christianity.
How does a church commit fornication?
The church commits fornication with the kings of the earth. In other words the church turns to political powers for her strength. Protestant America will form an image or replica to the beast. How did the original beast operate?
When the early church departed from truth and began to incorporate pagan teachings, they lost the power of the true Holy Spirit who convicts people of sin, and converts them, and teaches them to walk in the ways of the Lord. But once this heavenly power to transform lives was pushed aside with false teachings and admission of unconverted multitudes into the church, corruption resulted. Then the church turned to political powers to force the multitudes to obey the laws the church decreed.
And what do we see in America right now? We see a real movement under the Christian New Right to make America a "Christian" nation, to bring "Judeo-Christian" values back to America. Just as when the church first linked with the state, American Christianity today is full of all manner of corruption, false doctrines, and unbiblical traditions. Most Christians cannot be identified from the worldling.
The rise of the New Right and the sudden thrust of Christians into the politcal arena indicates a church that has lost the power of God's Spirit. Unable to "control the consciences" of the people, it seeks the "support of the secular power" instead.
The church forms her unlawful union with the kings of the earth, the political powers, so she may profit by their revenues, and that she may use this power to persecute those who do not accept her dogmas.
Babylon will be the great kingdom of false worship which overspreads the earth in the last days. But God will vindicate His faithful, who keep the commandments and have the faith of Jesus. Babylon will come to a sudden and awful end, but those in whose hearts, God's kingdom is established will go to the eternal kingdom of God.