I haven’t been posting much lately because I’ve been working on a new book. The most popular video on our Youtube channel is the one on Nicolaitans, so I decided to write a book explaining more about them. Here’s an excerpt from the manuscript.
The Pharisees. There’s a good chance that Nicolaitans are the Gentile version of the Pharisees. Jesus says He hates the works of the Nicolaitans, and He wasn’t too fond of the works of the Pharisees either. It’s apparent that we can put them in the same group.
When we look at the example of the Pharisees we have to ask ourselves, “Why does Jesus have such a problem with them? Weren’t they teaching the ‘old testament,’ and wasn’t Jesus going to eliminate it, according to the teachings of the modern church?” The fact that He didn’t could be termed an argument from silence, which isn’t a good way to support a position. On the other hand if Jesus was going to change the Covenant that would surely be a huge issue and would have ended up the centerpiece of the controversy. It would also have given the Jewish leaders an excellent justification for the crucifixion.
I’m just saying that, in view of the standard church idea that Jesus loved everybody and the Pharisees could’ve been merely mistaken, it seems odd that He was so wrathful towards them. This is one of the many logical inconsistencies that modern Nicolaitans have generated with their extra-biblical doctrines. If the Pharisees were teachers of the Old Testament, and the Old Testament was being eliminated by Jesus, then why get so mad at them? Wouldn’t Jesus just tell them that you don’t have to do that now because I came to start a new thing?
The fact is Jesus was angry with the Pharisees because they seated themselves in Moses’ seat and did NOT teach the Old Testament (Matthew 23:1-3). They were teaching their interpretations and traditions which had covered over or eliminated much of what Jesus gave at Mt. Sinai. They were “preaching but not practicing” (Matthew 23:3-4), tying up heavy burdens and not lifting a finger to help move them, doing deeds to be seen by others, and shutting the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces while not entering themselves. They twisted the “living oracles” as Stephen called the Law and the Prophets into something that caused people to despair of ever being able to touch God. The Nicolaitans fall into this group of people also. Jesus hates them because they are teaching the same types of things as the Pharisees, albeit in different ways perhaps. Any teaching that causes people to detour from God’s living oracles is hated by Jesus.
One very large fault in the Pharisees illuminated for us by Jesus is that they were hypocrites, meaning that by and large they taught one thing but lived life differently than their teaching. They were play actors. On the outside they looked holy but on the inside they were rotten. In their public teachings they centered on Torah but in their lives they didn’t practice it. They accepted deferential treatment, the best seats at corporate gatherings, dressed differently so they would be recognized, and loved to be called “rabbi” meaning “master.” This is one of the reasons I think Nicolaitans might very well have been (and are) the Gentile version of the Pharisees. They earned God’s wrath because they assigned themselves to speak for God and didn’t follow through in their personal lives.
Hypocrites are variously defined in the Word as “men of falsehood,” “dissemblers” and “vain persons” (Psalm 26:4 ESV and AV), “godless” (Job 36:13, Proverbs 11:9 and others, ESV), “evil doer” (Isaiah 9:17 ESV and AV), and “profane mockers” in Psalm 35:16 ESV. Not a great group in which to be included. Jesus had a lot to say about hypocrites recorded for us in various places, and He also quoted Isaiah 29:13 in Mark 7:6 ESV. “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” We can see that there is not much difference between the doctrines of all false teachers. Just a difference in looks, methods or approach.
More is coming soon, I hope. The book will be about a hundred pages in 6 x 9 format. We will dive deep into the methods, philosophies and dogma of the modern Nicolaitans. We will also explore the damage they’ve cause to the maturity, fruit of the Spirit and abundant life of the believer.
It took a while, but an Audiobook version of our book Whole Bible Christianity is now available. It’s about 15 and a half hours, narrated by Bruce. You can get it free if you sign up for a trial membership at Audible.com. You get a free audiobook when you first sign up for the service. After the first month it costs $15.00 per month but you get one free book per month too.
If you click this link to view the print version, then click on the Free with your Audible Trial button and stay with Audible for two months, not only do you get two free audiobooks (for $15.00 the second month) but we get a $50.00 bonus! You can exchange any audiobook you decide is not for you, and your credit for one free book rolls over to the next month if you don’t use it. Even if you cancel membership after a while you can keep all your audiobooks.
What a great deal! Whole Bible Christianity, Blessings Pressed Down and Overflowing audiobook for free, a bonus to us, and you get more free audiobooks.
There’s also the print version of the book, and Kindle version for a pretty low cost. The Kindle and audiobook versions do not have the Scripture Index with almost 1,500 entries from every book in the Bible, and the audiobook doesn’t have the footnotes, but still you can listen on the way to work and back or read on a Kindle at your leisure. Get all three and get it all.
We’ve now produced an audiobook for Whole Bible Christianity. It is available on Audible, Amazon and iTunes. I narrated it myself and it sounds very good. I did the narration because I don’t think anyone else could’ve really given the project the right tone except the guy who wrote it. It’s about 16 hours long but I don’t know what the pricing will be. Just check with Amazon under Whole Bible Christianity when you want a complete reference for Whole Bible Christianity to listen to in your car or while you are trying to go to sleep!
Many, many times I hear about contradictions in the Bible. Supposedly there are hundreds of them. This contradiction argument has become a common standard attack by people who don’t believe in God and don’t want to believe in God. The statement is made as if the list of contradictions by itself is reason not to trust the Bible or believe in God. And I have one thing to say about it: There are no contradictions in the Bible.
If you look up the word “contradiction” in the dictionary, you’ll get something like the following from the online Merriam Webster.
Act or an instance of contradicting.
A proposition, statement, or phrase that asserts or implies both the truth and falsity of something.
A statement or phrase whose parts contradict each other; a contradiction in terms.
A logical incongruity.
A situation in which inherent factors, actions, or propositions are inconsistent or contrary to one another.
As you can see, a contradiction is a statement that has both a truth and a falsehood. This would be something like “the sun rises in the east and rises in the west.” One is true, the other is false. They can’t both be true. There are three main categories of Bible contradictions claimed by unbelievers. One can be classified as text or copyist errors. A second is due to perception, and a third is in simple refusal to accept.
A large portion of the contradictions that are alleged to occur in most Bible denier’s lists are not contradictions at all. They are, at most, copying mistakes or grammar differences or other minor variations in the text. After all, the Bible was written down over a period of about 2,000 years by dozens of authors in many different styles. There’s bound to be a few blips here and there.
An example of this is the difference between 1 Kings 4:26 (Solomon had 40,000 stalls for horses) and 2 Chronicles 9:25 (4,000 stalls for horses). To a thinking person, this is obviously a minor discrepancy due to a copyist error. Or there might be another explanation. But there is no teaching affected by this error. It is not a contradiction, it is a text mistake. There might be a contradiction if you expect the text to be completely letter perfect. In this case though, the contradiction is in the expectation of perfection. Most of the items on unbeliever checklists consist of these types of contradictions that are not really contradictions. I can say without qualification that there is not a single teaching or meaningful statement anywhere in the remarkable document from God that is a true contradiction.
The second category of so-called contradictions is in the difference between what the Bible says and what people perceive or think it says. For instance, a favorite contradiction is manufactured between a God of Love and the facts that He destroyed people in the flood or used Israel to wipe out a tribe or people group. The perception is that a loving God would not destroy people. The perception is wrong on several levels.
For the flood example, God didn’t destroy man for about 1,600 years. He gave them time to change their ways. Not only did they not change their ways but got to where “every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” The antediluvians were just rotten to the core and made themselves unredeemable. They willingly turned into trash; so God cleansed the corruption from the earth. A similar principle was in effect when Israel was commanded to “take out the trash.” The tribes or nations that were removed had gotten so bad they even burned their kids in fires to appease their gods. Plus they wouldn’t repent though God in His grace gave them ample opportunity. People descended into abhorrent behavior and God took care of the problem. Unbelievers who claim a better sense of love or justice than is shown in the Bible are sitting in judgment on God’s actions and His Word with a perception of prejudice and deliberate misunderstanding.
The third category of contradictions is from simply rejecting what God says and who He is. This attitude is really the driving force behind alleging some contradictions. First they reject God and then they hunt around looking for confirmation of their rejection. They magnify tiny manuscript differences either real or perceived into huge roadblocks to belief. They mock and criticize because they decided to hate God before they ever start looking for a contradiction. Unbelievers reject God as master and Lord, so naturally contradictions proceed from their rejection. Make no mistake: so-called contradictions in the Bible are only contradictions in the heads of the deniers and unbelievers.
Some unbelievers gleefully point out the contradictions between the behavior or teachings of people/organizations and the Bible. They are correct. There are a lot of contradictions between people who say they follow the Bible and the Bible. However, this does not disprove the Bible, or give me any problems with the Bible text. There have always been pretenders throughout history. Behavior shows what is believed in the heart.
Now let’s take a look at what I think are the real contradictions in the rejection of the Bible and God. At the top of my list is the contradiction between atheists who say they have love greater than God’s and yet reject the God who is the source of love. They claim to love (when it suits them) but then turn around and hate God. This is a classic example of a contradiction that should go under the dictionary definition. Look up atheist in the dictionary and it should say, “See contradiction.”
Second on my list of unbeliever contradictions is between their rejection of God and the miracle of creation. I look at any part of creation and see a complex system that could not have sprung up out of nothing. There had to be a Creator, and not only a creator but a wise and all-knowing one to boot. Everything, though marred by entropy resulting from sin, is marvelously intricate and interdependent. There is no way a thinking person could miss it. Yet the unbelievers and atheists come up with all sorts of contradictory theories to explain.
Speaking of contradictory theories, the third contradiction on the God-hating hit parade is evolution. There is not a single bit of evidence for it anywhere. Unbelievers claim to be rational, thinking people, but evolution is the epitome of the opposite. Circular reasoning, science denying and flat-out lies are the order of the day for this contradiction. Built on hoaxes and sustained by government spending and regulation, evolution destroys morality and vilifies the life and hope that only God offers. It mocks God, pedals death as a good thing, and steals credit that belongs only to the Author of Life.
A fourth contradiction is the claim that the unbeliever has morality without needing to embrace God. Yet all of their alleged morality comes from God. He is the one who establishes morality. There is not a single instance of an unbeliever morality code that doesn’t steal from God. His Law was first; all others are weak copies at best. His ultimate example of morality was in the giving of His only begotten Son to save us from our sinful condition.
Jesus mirrors everything about God, especially in His cooperation with the Father in the sacrifice He made. Along with the sovereignty of God this is what the unbelievers are rejecting. It boggles the mind that anyone would refuse the gift of grace, love and mercy wrapped up in the torturous death of the Son of God, the effects of which are freely offered to hate-filled people. But reject it they do.
Talk about contradictions. Atheists and other unbelievers are selling nothing; everything came from nothing and will return to nothing. There is no hope in their religion, and it is a religion despite their denials. Their god or idol is themselves. They have no means of changing what they are and they stay lost in hate. Hate is not a feeling but the refusal to do what is good and right and truly loving. You cannot love and reject the God of love.
Hedonism or narcissism is what the unbelievers are really selling. Then, in the contradiction of all contradictions, they expect us to buy what they are selling. Believers are supposed to ditch the cleansing of God’s Word and the life and hope for a better future for one of nothingness where you are your own inadequate god. Get real.
The rock band Queen had a song I liked called “One Vision.” It’s got a nice sentiment involving one voice, one heart, one vision, one race and so on. They express the desire of a lot of people that either we are presently “one” and just need to realize it for paradise on earth to be established, or that we need to become “one” so people can make a paradise. “If we could just realize that we are all one then all the problems would be solved” to summarize. It’s a nice thought, and I long for it too. It’s going to happen hopefully soon.
Trouble is it’s not going to happen the way most people envision.
This sentiment is not a new one. About 4,500 years ago the people of the earth had one language and a large group settled in the land of Shinar. This group decided to build a city and a tower with its top in the heavens to make a name. They wanted to stay “one” and avoid being “dispersed over the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11). Their desire was to take the oneness of all the people of the time and presumably make a paradise on earth. Sound familiar?
In Genesis 11 we read that “The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built.” He was impressed, from our perspective. “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing they propose to do will now be impossible for them.” This might be puzzling to some. Why would God have a problem with unity?
The implication was (and is) they wanted to be one without God. He knows this is impossible, because our natures, without Him, tend towards destruction. He is the source of light, life and love and anyone that wants to be apart from that cannot establish it. He is love; anything less is hate. The very idea of existence without the Source is repugnant to Him. He knows it means death. All that nice sentiment and wishful thinking from musicians, movie stars and politicians will not work without God. God knows it and gives us the choice – if you really want it come to Him.
God said, “Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand on another’s speech.” So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city (Genesis 11:7-8).
The tower the ancients built we now call the Tower of Babel. All talk of oneness without the presence of God is just so much babble. It’s not just words either. It’s also the way we think. For all the talk of unity and oneness we remain scattered because our thoughts drive us away from each other. Without God to gather us together on His principles and character we will never be able to have one flesh, one bone or one true religion. Oneness will continue to elude us as long as we exclude the author of all things pure and clear. There’s no way we will experience love and oneness and paradise without the person who connects us all together in goodness and holiness.
Jesus the Christ was killed as the ultimate expression both of God’s love and human hate. We had the chance at paradise, brotherhood and all those nice things in the songs. We blew it at the Tower, and we blew it at the cross. We’re going to blow it again if we don’t accept Him, His ways, and His Spirit. He’s coming again to establish paradise. Paradise is in, around and through Him and His love. Reject the Christ and you reject all hope of oneness. There is no other way to build it. Believe God and follow what He says. Dedicate ourselves to build His kingdom or keep trying in vain to rebuild our own tower. We’ve got one more chance. The time is now.
So I was catching up on the news this morning and ran across an article titled 50 Christian Statues Defaced and Decapitated in Germany (Heatstreet by way of The Drudge Report 12/15/16). My first reaction was “Huh? Christian statues?” My next reaction was, “This is supposed to be bad news?”
Vandalism is not good, but why do we have “Christian” statues? I mean, there are statues, and then there are “Christian” things, but not Christian statues. God specifically tells believers not to have statues. So you would think we wouldn’t have “Christian” statues in the first place, or the destruction of them would be good news.
I hate to say it because of all the wrong things about Islam, but this is one of the very few things that Muslims have right. They really detest images such as statues or idols. This they borrow from the Law of Moses, and you would think the real “Christian” thing would be to do the same. Most Muslims stick to their laws, however twisted, way better than “Christians” ever thought to do themselves with their Law. But Christianity has become so watered down that God’s Word is just a distant echo in many of the sound rooms of church.
If we were as loyal and zealous about our true God as Muslims are about their false one the world would be a much different and better place. Our young people would be trained up to know the Word of God instead of the words of American Idol. If we stuck to the Christian law (actually the Law of Christ, Moses or God) then we wouldn’t have any such thing as “Christian” statues, we wouldn’t be losing kids to the strictures of Islam, and we wouldn’t be losing families to adultery and divorce. Among the many things that are wrong about Islam, they’ve got a point about the mushy “Christians.”
There is a Look Inside feature, you can flip between the front and back cover, and it is only $19.50. If you would prefer, we will have the entire text on a web page when we update our website so you can read it online.
The book has about 800 direct quotes from the Word, around 1,500 entries in the Scripture Index, and is about 340 pages. One of the many uses of the book is as a handbook for whole Bible Christians everywhere who need a reference to help counter attacks against a whole Bible lifestyle. Chapter 7 deals with a bunch of the objections to following God’s living oracles, and chapter 8 has a list of blessings from doing what Jesus says.
Let us know what you think, and make sure to post a review on Amazon if you would be so kind.
The congregation at Thyatira in Revelation 2:19 seems to be doing everything right according to Jesus.
“I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first.” (Revelation 2:19, ESV)
There was apparently nothing to fault in their faith and service. However, the one glaring problem was that they tolerated a woman called Jezebel.
But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.(Revelation 2:20, ESV)
There might’ve been an actual woman whose actual name was Jezebel. More probably, it was a woman like Jezebel. Jesus was most likely calling her out by her actions, which were in keeping with the original Jezebel. Queen Jezebel was the wife of Ahab king of Israel, daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians. The Sidonians were one of the nations left by God to test Israel (Judges 3), but Israel failed time and again by marrying the daughters of these nations, following after their gods instead of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Jezebel’s claim to fame was in using the usual tools of her Canaanite people to recruit followers for Baal notably sexual immorality (sex outside of marriage as God designed it, divorce, homosexuality, sex with animals, sex with close relatives, prostitution, and so on). Elijah had a famous battle with her priests and prophets (1 Kings 18) and wiped them out.
This woman in Thyatira was using similar methods to move people away from the worship of God alone. An interesting part of the charges by Jesus against Thyatira was that Jezebel allowed or encouraged “eating food offered to idols.” How could this be a bad thing when all the “ceremonial” laws were eliminated (according to the modern church)? The answer is obviously that all of the Laws were in fact still in effect.
So Thyatira was doing everything right, except they tolerated Jezebel’s teaching that sexual immorality was okay. Anybody see where we are doing the same thing today? The church wants to be “tolerant” of sexual immorality by “loving” homosexuals and transgenders and God knows what else. Love has been redefined to allow sexual immorality. The church is teaching that we should tolerate it. They allow unrepentant sexually immoral persons into their congregations. The more things change the more they remain the same.
The congregation at Thyatira is no longer with us. The followers of Jezebel were given time to repent, but apparently did not. Jezebel was thrown onto a sickbed, and those who committed adultery with her were thrown into great tribulation and were killed. It seems obvious to me that Jesus was not really talking to just that particular congregation at that particular time. He was talking to all of those who claim His name (“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the congregations” Revelation 2:7; 2:11; 2:29; 3:6; 3:13; 3:22). If we have ears, and hear, we will repent of the same things that others were told to abandon. We shouldn’t be embracing these unrepentant sexually immoral people. We shouldn’t be tolerating the woman Jezebel in our midst. Cast her out, disavow her teachings, cast her children out of our congregations and hold fast what we have until He comes. Otherwise we will suffer the fate Jesus warned would come upon all those who tolerate those same teachings. Amen. Even so come Lord Jesus.
I’m sorry. Every time I think about this subject, or read about someone who has positively identified The Beast, I crack up. Or at least chuckle a little. The reason it’s so humorous is that the methods used for identification, and the results of the methods, are mostly based on personal feelings. Or perhaps what I call newspaper exegesis (interpreting by newspaper headlines). I haven’t seen a result yet that comes from an understanding of the Bible. The best method of identification is right there in black and white. Or black, white and red. Or whatever fruity colors are used in your version.
The Beast is the coming ruler spoken of in the Bible who will sway nearly the whole world to follow his lead. As a token of appreciation, he will cause all who do so to receive a mark on the hand or forehead, without which no one can buy or sell. His helper is the false prophet, one who looks like a lamb and is called the anti-Christ or ‘instead of’ Christ. This helper of The Beast is the one who causes all to receive the mark. These two will be backed by the serpent or dragon, also called the deceiver and Satan. This unholy trinity will unite much of the population in a rebellion against God and His Christ. They will not succeed, but while they have their run there will be much death, destruction and wrath poured out from God. The wrath part is why I think this is still future, though others think it has already happened.
The Beast has been identified as Hitler, or rulers/kings like him. Some have pegged President Obama as The Beast. This is funny to me because as bad as Obama is he isn’t a pimple on the butt of The Beast. Various other leaders from time to time have been sometimes hysterically identified as the Beast. At one time people in the Calvary Chapel denomination along with many others were all excited about a computer in Belgium (early ’80’s) that was called the beast (at the time it could have numbered every person on the planet). Lately some are pointing to a smooth-talking atheist in Greece that has got them worried.
The problem with identifying The Beast comes in when people look right past the obvious. Especially the church. We will look everywhere except in the mirror. We are so blinded by men’s teachings, traditions and philosophies that we don’t recognize an important fact:
The Beast will be just as acceptable to the church as to the general populace.
Yes I know. That will be a shocking statement to those who think that the “church” is taken away in a rapture before all the really bad stuff starts, like a fairy tale princess in a flying pumpkin coach. However, the rapture without question is appended to the resurrection, and that resurrection clearly doesn’t happen till the end of the Tribulation. See our video Whole Bible Prophecy: The Rapture for more explanation on this.
So “the church” will be here during the tribulation. That’s the first boo boo in the whole identification process. There will be many who don’t even realize it at first, and many who will be upset when they find out they’ve been lied to by their leaders.
Some people point to the absence of ‘the church’ in Revelation 4 through about 19 as proof that the church is gone. But here’s a fun fact for you: there is no church in the Bible. At all. It exists only in translations. The ekklesia (the Greek word translated by the English word ‘church’) is simply an assembly or congregation, and is found throughout history in the Word. A group of people. Ekklesia is used of Israel in the Septuagint translation, but isn’t translated as ‘church.’ It is just translated as congregation or assembly. So technically ‘the assembly’ is much different than ‘the church’ and includes all believers everywhere and everywhen. This explains the absence of ‘the church’ in Revelation. Especially the modern church. It was never there in the first place.
The typical church-goer can’t (or will not later) properly identify The Beast because they are not grounded on the Word, do not read it except for a few favorite verses, and refuse to do what it says. Instead they have crafted for themselves a seeker-friendly social gospel that only vaguely resembles anything biblical, with a hippie flower-child Jesus letting everyone behave as they choose. We have leaders telling us that hell doesn’t exist, parts of God’s Word are old and irrelevant, men’s traditions are the new covenant, and sexual immorality is really okay. If this doesn’t sound like “tolerating that woman Jezebel” or allowing the teaching of Balaam and the Nicolaitans (Revelation 1-3) I don’t know what does. The church has watered down the message of God for themselves so much that it isn’t even recognizable as God’s. By and large they have removed the whole nutrition of His Law from the message, and are therefore not grounded on the Rock.
For these reasons and a few others I believe The Beast will look a lot like a mega-church pastor, and teach many of the same things. He will be so very acceptable to the majority of the church because He will look and act just like they do. The church looks the same as the world, acts the same, and believes the same except for a little different Jesus flavoring. The Beast will bridge the (very small) gap between the world and the church very easily.
That might sound hard to some of you. But truth is only hard to the hard-hearted.
It is written that The Beast has blasphemous names on its heads and is given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words (Rev. 13). If you do a comprehensive word study you will find out that blasphemy is, at the bottom, either attributing evil to God’s works or attributing the works of God to evil (Satan, the Beast, or the anti-Christ get the credit instead of God). I think this means The Beast will claim that he is the author of works that are God’s, and will blame God for evil he and his two buddies do and the evil that is in the world in general. Right will be wrong and wrong will be painted as right.
The lack of grounding in the Bible for the majority of self-named Christians will contribute to the acceptance of The Beast. The blasphemy practiced by the Church (calling God’s Law irrelevant for instance) along with sexual immorality (adultery, divorce, fornication, homosexuality) and watered-down teaching from the Balaams, Jezebels and Nicolaitans among us will combine to allow easy acceptance by stone-hearted people.
11 Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, 12 in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2 Thessalonians 2:11-12 ESV).
Hey. I’m not saying this. I’m getting it right from the Bible. Read the letters to the seven churches in Revelation 1-3 if you don’t believe me. The people described in negative terms there have always been around and always a part of the so-called church. The door that Jesus is standing at and knocking is the door of the church. It’s just that in modern times a greater percentage of wolves in sheep’s clothing are present and the corruption is more prevalent than in the past. See our video The Whole Picture: Who Put the Church in Charge? at http://youtu.be/3dkxJTQCriI for more on this.
A part of identifying The Beast is helped by figuring out who is spoken of in Revelation 17. There we see a woman riding on The Beast who has a name of mystery on her forehead that is “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.” She looks pretty, dressed in purple and scarlet (the colors of ruling or royalty), with jewelry to match, but her main claim to fame is sexual immorality and murder of God’s people. She is seated on many waters picturing peoples, multitudes, nations and languages, so this woman is everywhere on earth. She is riding The Beast but he and the kings who give him allegiance (the horns) hate her and destroy her.
The Catholic Church has been identified as mystery religion Babylon, but that is too limited. Catholicism has only been around for about 1,800 years, and has not covered the planet that thoroughly during those centuries. This mystery religion has been around at least since the time of the tower of Babel (Hebrew meaning gate of the deity; Babylon is Greek for the same city/kingdom), which is where we see the record of the first idolatrous behavior (although there was probably much before the flood too). I think it is more likely that this woman is all religion that leads away from God with idolatry, sexual immorality and blasphemy. This includes all paganism, all idolatry, all witchcraft and voodoo and the like. It can even include the church (otherwise Jesus would not be warning the seven churches of the teachings of Balaam, Jezebel, and the Nicolaitans). Idolatry is cheating on God, with or without a statue. The modern church is certainly cheating on God, which will put them right in the same chariot with Babylon on the Beast. The Beast tolerates the false religion for a while, but he wants the first place of worship so he destroys Babylon because she’s in the way. It’s like that movie The Highlander. There can be only one. The Catholic Church certainly is pagan and idolatrous, and part of the mystery religion Babylon, but does not carry the whole burden by itself. There are many other churches and synagogues that are joined to her in immorality.
So identifying The Beast is kind of an exercise in futility for the church. You can’t very well find his hiding place when you’re looking everywhere but in the church building. Inside, this guy will indeed be a ravenous beast, but on the outside he will appear as a fluffy little sheep. He won’t appear to be the big bad wolf that most people are expecting. He will speak beguiling words; words that are close to God’s but just a little bit off at first. Just like the words of most church leaders and followers of today. He will say things that sound good and appeal to our self-seeking pride, and because the average Christian will not be grounded in the Word of God they will be willing to accept him and his instead-of-Christ prophet even to receiving the mark. They will “believe in him” so much they will gladly do whatever he says. They will be enamored of his teachings on sexual immorality, tolerance and unconditional love because these teachings will mirror their own. He will be able to quote the Bible better than most Christians, albeit with his own twisted slant and matching almost word for word the text of many sermons. He will mix science with sorcery and probably claim to be the next evolutionary step for all mankind. The image fashioned by the anti-Christ could very likely be a clone who will speak as the serpent did in the Garden, offering a path to be “like God.”
Believers will need to be filled with the whole of the Word, have patient endurance, reject the teachings of Jezebel and her ilk, and hear what the Spirit says to the congregations that make up the Body. Start tuning your eyes and ears to see Him and listen for His instructions by taking in all of His Words and doing them. Now. While there’s still time. Repent, go through the open door, buy from Him gold refined by fire and white garments to cover the shame of nakedness along with some salve to anoint your eyes. Be zealous and repent.
Hosea 6:7–10 (ESV)
7 But like Adam they transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with me. 8 Grand Junction is a city of evildoers, tracked with blood. 9 As robbers lie in wait for a man, so the pastors band together; they murder on the way to Denver; they commit villainy. 10 In the house of the United States I have seen a horrible thing; Ephraim’s whoredom is there; the United States is defiled.
Sounds a little different when we make it personal, doesn’t it? Grand Junction is where I live; interstate 70 runs through it to Denver. Okay, pastors don’t really band together to murder. Yet. But the similarities are there.
You could probably do this yourself with your own town and country. Because while it may not be an exact match, the whoredom of Ephraim is all over.
You’ll maybe say, “But we don’t have idols!” And I’ll say, “Are you sure?” Idolatry is not just a statue. It is really self-will. Self-seeking. A statue is just one expression of self-will. There are many others, such as movie or music stars, your job, your house, your church, or your position in the community. There are lots of expressions of self-will, and not all of them include a statue.
Idolatry is anything short of complete devotion to God. That’s why He hammered it so much in the first two-thirds of the Bible. A little bit of cheating, and next thing you know we have the whoredom of Ephraim with the judgment of God coming soon. Adam and Eve were idolatrous; they didn’t have a statue either, but they made decisions based on what THEY thought was good or right, and not what God said was right. We do this every day in almost every way. A statue is wrong because it represents the start of going our own way. Self-seeking my not utilize a statue, but it is still idolatry.
Churches have been leading the way into self-seeking idolatry for a long time. Every time someone preaches that “we can’t do the law,” or “Jesus fulfilled the law so we don’t have to follow it” we have another step toward the whoredom of Ephraim and the judgment that will surely follow. Every step away from His Word is a step further into idolatry, whether we use a statue or not. Sitting in judgment on God’s Word is, as surely as Adam and Eve kicked themselves out of the Garden, the crooked path to whoredom.
Try making other passages more personal by inserting your name or your church’s name or the name of your own town here and there. We’re pretty much doing the same things, after all. It might help us to realize that a journey that takes us a thousand miles away from God starts with a simple step of self-seeking. Just because there is no idol in the house doesn’t mean that we aren’t just as idolatrous as ancient Israel.
Happily for us, He is merciful in His warnings. We are being warned in no uncertain terms. Beast attacks, disease, earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, drought, wars and rumors of wars are on the increase. He is telling us to repent and return to Him. Everyone wants to make the Bible more personal when it comes to blessings. Shouldn’t we personalize the warnings too?
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