Babylon

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Whitewashing Babylon

At the time of the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001, I belonged to an online discussion group frequented by believers who had followed the Holy Spirit’s call to come out of man’s religious system unto Jesus who is outside the camp of men (Hebrews 13:12-14, Revelation 3:20, et al). Several members were a great encouragement to me as I sought to untangle from tradition and rule-bound religion to embrace my freedom in the Spirit. Sadly, following the attack on the WTC the faith of many became a prideful amalgam of politics and religion, often expressed with lust for vengeance. My spirit was sickened by the abrupt and toxic turn from fellowship of the Spirit to fellowship rooted in the bastard child Christian Nationalism that emerged in virulent form immediately after that tragic event.

The experience caused me to reflect on my political views, some of which were shaped through my former employer: Boeing. My support of several Department of Defense projects was brief and peripheral since I worked mostly in the space and computing divisions. Nevertheless, my income was subsidized by the military industrial complex whose influence was inescapable in the work place. That is, until the day the Lord called me to resign and devote myself to the work He had for me. In the years that followed, the Lord gave me an eyeful of the world by holding it up to His Word which proved life changing for me. Where once I would say with confidence “I’m a Presbyterian and a Conservative”, there is no apt description of what Jesus has made me, unless it’s to say “I’m a follower of The Way” (Acts 9:2, et al).

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my Coming Out story

Have you ever heard a brother claim that God called them out of man’s institutional church to follow Jesus alone? If you’re like most believers, you probably thought they lost their mind or shipwrecked their faith. It’s not an unreasonable conclusion for someone who thinks Jesus Church and man’s institutional church are one in the same.

But what if they’re not?

Then I heard another voice from heaven say: “COME OUT of her (religious Babylon), My people, so that you will not share in her sins or contract any of her plagues.” (Rev. 18:4 BSB)

Wait a
minute …
that’s not
the Son …

Throughout the years I’ve asked many questions about things I noticed in man’s institutional church that left me disconcerted. I can’t recall any of them being answered to my satisfaction, rather I was encouraged to focus my attention on all the “good things” churches claim to do. It’s an experience not unlike The Truman Show, when after witnessing an on-set blunder, Truman obediently accepted the frantic explanation and remained trapped in a role he didn’t know he was playing while hemmed in by a cast of handlers and pretenders.

In the real world, how often did I pretend not to see on-set blunders in order to get along in a sick church with serious problems? Where being lumped was my reward for pointing them out? In Truman’s case, it wasn’t until he met the lover of his soul who dared crash the scene that He wanted to escape his prison to find her. As unwitting players in man’s institutional church theater, can we imagine that the Holy Spirit might crash the scene of our phony idyllic Christian production and upend everything we think we know?

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The Sons are FREE Prologue

Concerning Jesus and organized religion who rejected Him, it is written:

So we must go to Him outside the camp and endure the insults He endured. (Hebrews 13 verse 13)

When the Holy Spirit first called us to “flee Babylon”, I remember asking “who or what is Babylon?” It was nearly 2 years before we understood enough of what the Lord had shown us to hear and obey His call to leave man’s Laodicean church and to join Him outside the camp where He was waiting for us .

The ensuing years were humbling and wonderful as Jesus taught us through the Holy Spirit, corrected and freed us from the manipulative and errant doctrines of men, and led us into home-based fellowship with a few believers. When we retired, the Lord called us to move back to the Pacific Northwest where He led us to attend a small country church. We had visited them 6 months earlier while staying with my father and found the people to be warm and friendly and we looked forward to their fellowship.

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