"Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.” Rev 2:20
“... Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters ”Rev 17.1
“... for he hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand.” Rev 19:2 (KJB, all)
The above scriptures are not speaking about a literal female person, even though an actual Jezebel did exist in Israel’s history. But she had long since passed from the scene when John, the beloved, penned these words. The very symbolic book of the Revelation is talking about a type of spirit--or attitude, that rises up in our soul to some degree. The potential is there whether expressed blatantly or hidden quietly behind a smokescreen with some other name on it, often camouflaged in ignorance. But it begins--always, in the human soul. This isn’t an “out there is the enemy” story. It’s about the house of prostitution that our soul sets up when we don’t get our spiritual needs met.
A Jezebel spirit personifies a lewd, seductive female. It symbolizes idol worship, and the power to manipulate. It also is a horrible example of what our own souls can come to--as relating to worship, in this context. A picture is painted for our spiritual understanding of happenings in the invisible. This spirit was dominating (sitting upon) masses of people (many waters). But it was judged and thrown down as Rev 19.2 states. This spiritual depiction of literal judgment on a defiled worship system happened in John’s day, in 70 A.D. by a Roman army. And there is a literal fulfillment building now for our day, because she has risen with a new name, sitting on her throne of many nations, manipulating and intimidating. This whore of religion will be dethroned, once and for all, as another “hidden” army is building outside the gates of the city.
The religious system in 70 A.D. was the Mosaic order, established and approved of by God until the Messiah came. But the Messiah came to replace her (the system), and still she kept right on working, taking money and killing animals for a departed God. Like zombies, her priests walked out lifeless rituals. She wouldn’t go quietly in the night, so was taken violently in the day when God sent his left handed adjustment through Titus and his army. The destruction was total in that temple worship and her city. The old way had ended, for God had sent his son to fulfill it.
Jesus spoke of this event in Matthew 24, and his prophesy was of an impending event that took place about 40 years later. All followers of Jesus were warned and fled before Titus came and shut off the city. This happening is spoken of in Rev 19:2. God’s passion in shutting down that manipulative religious system is evident in many Revelation scriptures: 14:8, 16:19, 17:5, 18:2, 18:10, 18:21. "Come out of her" came from the mouth of Jeremiah during the literal Babylonian captivity. Babylon was the power of the world in her day, but a pagan nation. As captives, the Israelites were allowed to live among their captors, and they became "one" with heathen ways.
Hundreds of years later, God speaks the same warning through John in Rev 18:4, referencing the spiritual Babylon. “Come out of her, my people”. What were they to come out of? A mind set, a religious stupor over their lives. They couldn’t see the purpose of worship anymore. They lost their "view" of God and became drugged with ritual. That same sluggishness and deception hovers over our world today. Then and now, even though the flock follows the leaders leading them astray--because they trust them, the judgment (correction) first comes to the religious hierarchy, for they are responsible for the damage done to God’s people!
The Mosaic system during Jesus’ time had become a religious Babylon. A whore--not priests to God--was running the temple practices and that hierarchy had no love for the people of God. They enjoyed the privilege alloted them from living in a protected Roman territory, “in bed with” the Roman government to do and be as pompous as they wanted to be. They were kings in their own world, standing over the people as gods. They used the law as a weapon of condemnation to keep the population controlled, inferior, and distanced from the truth of the scriptures. Jesus told his followers, concerning the priesthood of that day: “So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.” (Matt 23:3-4, NIV)
The only true anger that Jesus expressed in his life was to the the religious hierarchy. He overturned the money-changers’ tables, called them snakes, told them they were of their father--the devil. And this was God talking!! The wantonness in their souls even then was setting him up to be delivered to death. This is what religion does to people: it kills the King of Righteousness by denying him his place on the throne of their hearts.
The Jewish people were like we all are. Even though they had been the chosen of God, they were humans and had no special features that superceded their own carnal natures. Their ultimate rebellion toward God was just a manifestation of a loose soul condition that had been operating from the beginning. In that first special race of men in Eden, when the soul (Eve) was placed--by God--outside of the spirit (Adam), she decided to do her own thing. The spirit was weak and didn’t try to stop her. He went along , denying his own access to the Tree of Life (God). She wanted to be like God, or “be her own god”. The alternate tree (playing God*) enticed her, and when she ate of it (believed the lies), dropped her into the deluded state of self-life, living independently of the Creator. And she’s been whoring around ever since. She loves another--whomever is handy, denying the validity of her husband (her spirit), and is an adulteress. This is what spiritual adultery is: giving ourselves to a replacement of the true God.
Unbridled religious thinking can manifest into a group mentality where there is a corporate oneness. When we see this “free to be what we choose” attitude in society, it can look like a family of hippies (free love). Hippies usually lived in group settings, were promiscuous, didn’t bathe (much), didn’t earn their livings--traditionally, because they had no discipline, so they begged for food. They also didn’t bring their children up with moral values, because they didn’t have any. They used drugs to add a false sense of peace to their existence. The hippie movement was a cult. They "worshiped" their lifestyle, but were basically peaceful and harmless. Their weakness, however, was in their mindlessness, and not valuing themselves as separate units.
I knew a few “part-time” hippies who worked and supported themselves. They weren’t total converts, but they enjoyed the look and alternate perspective that the movement offered. That can be the difference between walking our own path looking for truth, and becoming persuaded (and trapped) that what the group believes in is correct. One flower child looks innocent, but bundle them up in a group with a power hungry leader and they become brainwashed robots. Remember Charles Manson? (a deranged leader who directed his hippie followers to murder)
Of course, all religions don’t look or act like hippies, but I used this example to show how our soul creates a world and a god that she can believe in and deal with. We must find something to believe in because the Creator has buried Himself in our DNA. There lies our desire for Eden. We must return to him, and all of us are presently in some phase of that return journey. But while we are distracted, whatever or whomever we put on the altar of our heart is our god.
The religious nature is in all of us whether we go to church or don’t go to church. A spirit of religion (satan) hides in the soul, and if we are not led of the Spirit of God, we will be led by another. An uncontrolled ego is open to being bought, altered, drugged, and persuaded. She also will live with abuse and bullying (fear of eternal damnation, or being “left behind”). Because of this state of affairs, all religions are on a crash course with God. All religion will be swallowed up in Truth, and Christians are being purged also, for religion has overtaken the truths that they first received.
Thanks to Constantine, we have Christianity. It is factually based on the true Son of God, Jesus, so Christians do have an allegiance--of some kind--to Jesus. This is not an attack on those people. But besides “the name" of Jesus being in the picture, nothing else is flowing in truth. Nothing. His picture or a cross or statue of him is all that remains, and those are relics. The definition of “relic” is: the surviving memorial of something past. His picture is not him, a cross or a statue are not him. Communion is also a memory of him. All kinds of dead notions and doctrines have replaced Him. Services are led by people who have gone to school to get degrees. Reverend so and so, Dr. so and so. All kinds of “ranked” clergy have taken over, standing in the place of Christ (anti-Christ). This Nicolaitan doctrine is HATED by God! (Rev 2:6) Heaven help the person who believes they are the Holy Spirit’s assistant, helping God run his kingdom.
Since Constantine got Catholicism going and turned true following of Jesus Christ into a dead form, another spiritual Babylon was expressed. She “worships” God her way, using men to control the structure and order, maintaining power over those who come to seek God. She has, hypothetically, taken the temple veil that was ripped when Jesus died, sewed it up, and shoved it back in place. Constantine couldn’t see that God had removed His authority from man and no longer required worship in form. He had not experienced conversion from within (the Holy Spirit), but the emperor got his new state church going anyway.
Not to be upstaged, Martin Luther appeared with his spotlight of errors in the doctrines of the Catholic Church. (I mean the Roman Catholic Church, because the government controlled it.) Consequently, followers of Luther became the Lutheran Church, another sect of dead religion. What starts as life ends in death when the latest insight camps out in dogma. And on it went with the Baptists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Church of God, Church of Christ, Assemblies of God, etc., etc. and the madness continues. HOWEVER, all contain sincere, beautiful people, deceived in their understanding of where God is and how he rules. His ruling and reigning is inside of us, and NEVER through a religious hierarchy--of any kind. How many pastors are listed in the epistles as being the head of the local church? Yet nominal Christianity is over-run with them. A true pastor/shepherd--a gift to the Church (people, not a building) has had souls put on his/her heart, and it never involves a paycheck. Christ is an idol in the Christian religion. Harlots are running that business "for him". That’s why she is today’s Babylon. “... Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great, which made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries." (Rev 14:8, NIV)
Babylon’s fate is a great shaking of individual lives leading to the fall of the whole establishment. Just like the temple destruction in 70 A.D., our current false system of worship--under the guise of Jesus Christ--is cracking and shaking. Other religions will also feel these quakings, for our world will be affected. The vast majority of people do not know the depth of corruption woven into our governments and societies by perverted religious minds. But God knows, and he has been and will continue to shine light on them, and--like exposed cockroaches--their end has come. In secret, monsters of society have been nabbed by enforcers of the law--themselves not knowing of their divine missions. Other disclosures are not so secret.
Men and women “of God” are having their hearts and personal lives laid out in the open for all the world to see. Lovers of pleasure, money mongers, manipulators of all sorts have been and will be exposed. And it’s not just in Catholicism, although she leads the procession of visible harlots. She is an extremely organized business, and all approaches to God are in ritual, with icons--memories--of Christ everywhere for they don’t “know" him. Sexual predators hide out in a dead priesthood wearing robes to cover their shame, because they have none otherwise. The fact that any person in any religious institution could have no remorse about dastardly deeds, is proof that they have never met the Savior. He brings true repentance to those he dwells in. This volunteer, man-taught squad of priests were never called of God, because God calls his people out of religion, not into it.“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’”. (Rev 18:4, NIV)
However, all denominations harbor carnality. Priests, bishops, pastors--whatever--are “working” the harlot system, getting paid for services rendered, reverancing their place in it. They need a flock to play god over. Unfortunately, people who are joined to the system are agreeing with spiritual fornication; they are "one" with (sleeping with) a harlot system. Carnal teachings of scripture--especially Revelation, teaches that the world is the one in hot water. But the world didn’t follow Christ and abandon him with form and idol worship. And calling the leadership a whore may be strong language, but those words were given to John (by God), and many translations use that word.
All true seekers of God, beware! Religion will not take you to the throne, but only to the feet of the mortals in charge. We are to serve God and not man. No man can stand between Father and his child anymore, as long as the access is Jesus. No man can represent Jesus anymore because he became the Holy Spirit, thwarting all intentions of the men in the long robes to represent him. They are thieves and liars, all of them!
The sad (and dead) agenda of organized Christian assemblies concern things we can get in our social and personal lives without "going to church". It is all body and soul stuff. Entertainment, behavior modification, investing your money wiser, learning how to do this, that and the other, and giving money and time--lots of it. Some churches love the worship services so much that its the main attraction. The worship service becomes the thing worshiped. It is loud, it is fun, it is exciting and worthy of a national talent show. I’ve heard it all about “making a joyful noise to the Lord”, and I would never disagree with that, but making a joyful noise to the Lord isn’t about soul pep rallies. Singing and praising God is not spiritual if a person’s life isn’t changed in the experience. I’m talking beyond the soulish zeal of being "pumped up" from loud, emotional singing and dancing. It makes us feel good, but does it glorify God or our singing abilities? Is God entertained by our theatrics?
More importantly, the next day and the day after that, are we motivated to seek God? Do we think of God more? Do we give him our private attention to get direction? Are we more forgiving and compassionate? Or, are our lives a "merry-go-round" experience of just more of the same? We must evaluate the consequences of our worship styles to observe and judge the fruit-bearing or lack, thereof. This is a most important mission! Jesus said that private "closet" time was the way to seek fellowship with our Father. Seeking Him in spirit and truth is a solitary requirement. All the group "worship" in the world means nothing if we do not give God our personal attention on a regular basis (daily)!
Having church is an activity, but being the Church is being who we are when we gather with two or more in his name. He compliments our union with his presence between or among us, bearing witness of himself! And I’m not talking about getting high from a song service. Gathering should be for encouragement and understanding, learning to walk with God, face obstacles, and discern trials. This is almost impossible to do in a large group, because of the soul’s desire to get her foot in the door. While some people will be hesitant to share God so openly, others will be tempted to share their opinion. Opinion is soul. Paul admonished the Corinthians to have the women remain silent when they gathered (1 Corin 14:34). He was a spiritual man with a spiritual revelation, and not one referring to natural gender. Keep the soul out of gatherings in Christ! We must understand! The soul is our life, the spirit is God's life. The two merge when soul submits to spirit and lets the spirit speak.
All gathered have equal access to the leading of the Holy Spirit and can have much to add of their individual expression. I have heard of this working successfully where all shared together in a circle facing each other, with no one raised above another in a pulpit. But this concept is foreign because "going to church" has become a controlled ritual with hectic schedules and pre-planned programs. There is no place for the spirit of God to move. The faithful sitting in pews are just the audience. A favorite pastor or speaker dominates. Financial needs ruin the mood. Bigger buildings are needed so thousands can gather to hear one speaker. This is not The Church of Christ! Being the Church isn’t about stages, pulpits or buildings made with hands, and we can fellowship anywhere, in God’s order: Individually, God leads through the Holy Spirit, as His plans are unfolded for each man’s life. Corporately, he rules the kingdoms of this world through his chosen elect--an administrative spiritual body of kings and priests, with Jesus leading as the Holy Spirit. These wear no robes and do not sit in the high seats of any buildings, for they are no longer affiliated with any religious order.
Father’s ruling order has a mission to reveal the true meaning of worship, to reveal the true habitation of God. These also, like Jesus did, face a dead religious system whose advocates--themselves deceived, will be offended and hateful to anything or anyone trying to end their reign of power and control. This system, like the Mosaic system, will not go quietly in the night, but its fate is the same. Spiritual Babylon is being judged. Christianity is a great religious system ran by a whore (harlot soul condition) who has manipulated many people. The enlivened Body of Christ (God's mature children) is revealing this truth even now. They are living and walking with Jesus (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) abiding in them, expressing the New Day! God is pleased to live with us--in us. And it was His idea, for He first loved us! The truths spoken here will make all free.
No more church attendance--as we have known it, for when you have found that the Creator resides within you, what could add to that experience? It's not debatable! No more outward rules and regulations, and dancing to the beat of religion's dead agendas. Freedom to love and accept others without condemnation, knowing Father will handle the transformation of each man. Having total assurance and peace that all things work together for good. Living the reality that whenever or where-ever two (or more) enlivened ones are gathered together, HE is in our midst; living stones are touching to express the spiritual Temple of Christ Jesus. This is Church!
Robed theocrats will need to learn the walk of salvation. Televangelists will have to step down, for a higher voice is speaking. Pastors will need to be pastored. Doomsday prognosticators will be put to shame, because God tripped them up. Jesus will not be returning in the sky because he is no longer the man, Jesus of Nazareth. The world isn’t going to end in 2012. The anti-christ was never a person, but an attitude. The false prophet was just the voice of religion sounding through the unconverted soul. The dragon was defeated in the wilderness. The beast nature has been conquered. No one is going to hell because we are being delivered out of it. Heaven is on earth. Babylon is a bubble bursting--even now. The whore of Christianity is being exposed, disconnected and silenced!
*the tree of the knowledge of good and evil : “.. a tree to be desired to make one wise,”... Gen 3:6
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This book is now concluded. It may not be altered or sold, but I encourage all to share it because the truth will make us free!
Appreciation: Many thanks to my friend and sister in Christ, Karen Lanter, for her continual encouragement and foresight throughout as I put these words together. Being led of the Holy Spirit, she devoted much of her time helping me see my way to the finish line.
