Kingdom of God & Babylon
You can not serve both
So much of modern ministry is designed to bring people in to feed the system at the expense of Spiritual growth. This system creates loyal Clones to replicate the mannerisms and actions of leaders who are Clones of some previous leader before them. In this system, we end up judging our “growth” according to how we fit the presented Christian model. This is often why Baptists do not consider Charimatics to be real Christians. The same idea could be applied to any other two dissimilar Christian groups.
Consider this quote from the former VP of Morningstar Ministries who is now waking up to what is going on.
{FYI, by placing Steve’s quote here, I am not endorsing his past actions. I am only exposing his current thinking.}
The Kingdom of God, however, gives birth to a royal baby that must learn its place in the Kingdom while falling in love with the Father. This baby's growth is meant to emulate the King of Kings, not pre-existing human concepts of Christianity. This is the way of the Kingdom, not the way of the Body.
For generations, we have been taught that the “church” is God’s authority on earth and that all believers must submit to its rules and ways. This is a problem, a big one. As the late John Wimber once said, “The church is not the Kingdom; the church is a byproduct of the Kingdom.” As a result, we end up submitting to the byproduct, making it an idol and not the author.
What is the Kingdom of God?
On one hand, when this question is asked, the first thought that comes racing through my mind is, “I can’t believe after 2000 years, we are still debating things like this!” This is most likely because the kingdom of darkness has done an excellent job of making these waters murky over the centuries, resulting in many flawed mental images.
This has been done over time as darkness has altered social thinking as well as added redefined words and concepts. Let me give you a historical example from my book, My Fathers House.
“In 1597 AD, a pagan king compiled together a series of teachings on the demonic world calling the book, “Daemonologie.” It covered many dark subjects including the classification of demons, witches, sorcery, werewolves, necromancy (the use of human body parts like brains and eyes) and much, much more. “for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret.” (Ephesians 5:12 NASB).
The fruit of this book, although written with the idea of exposing darkness, actually has helped to encourage the growth and spread of darkness over the centuries. Shakespeare apparently used it in the creation of his play, ‘Macbeth’. In more recent times many claim it inspired the creation of the board game Dungeons and Dragons as well.
Then in 1611 AD, this same pagan king, King James ordered the assembly of the Bible. When he did, he ordered the scholars to substitute the word ‘church’ in the place of ‘assembly.’ The very nature of the word, ‘church’ automatically draws the reader's attention to the building. Whereas the term ‘assembly’ draws the reader’s thinking to the people. This simple change helped to mentally and quietly draw the peoples’ thinking away from each other to a closer connection to the institution. Nearly every translation since that time has included the word ‘church.’”
Many people today consider the KJB to be the only true scripture. These people do not want to hear that their “hero” who wrote this was also a Bi-sexual that kept a small “harem” of young boys in the castle for his personal pleasure, and the British people often referred to him as “Queen James.” Is this the type of spiritual well you really want to drink from?
The lasting impact of the word “church,” as compared to the biblical word “Assembly,” has helped this broken religious system maintain a darkened human authority over the land for generations. This is because the word church is not only not biblical, but it could be argued that it is actually demonic in nature. Here is another quote from my book.
“The word ‘church’ pre-existed long before Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. The word, ‘church’ is an offshoot of the word “Circe or circle” and is a direct connection to the name of a Greek goddess by the name of “Circe.” Circe was the daughter of Hecate, the goddess of sorcery. And by extension, Circe was known for her magic as an enchantress or seductress.
The Ancient Greek images of her display her as a seductive woman clothed in purple with a goblet of wine in her hands. This is the same image we see John used in the book of Revelation.
“Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying, “Come here, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed acts of immorality, and those who dwell on the earth were made drunk with the wine of her immorality.” And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness; and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns. The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and of the unclean things of her immorality, and on her forehead a name was written, a mystery,
“BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS
AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus...” Revelation 17:1-6 NASB.”
If our broken religious system has its roots in the mother of harlots, Circe. Then this could possibly explain some of the reasons why so many religious leaders have fallen into sexual sin. “…Acts of immorality…”Rev 17:2 is normal for this demon, and so it would also be with all who are in union with her.
Could these ‘acts of immorality’ we are now seeing be the "spiritual evidence” that our headship was secretly shifted under this demon long ago?
If we, as some believe, are now in the last days before Jesus returns, then the call in scripture to leave Babylon is now being announced. Assemblies and believers are slowly starting to wake up, departing from anything human and controlling, like the 501C3 tax system and dysfunctional denominational oversight.
Many are just walking away, not for a lack of faith, but to preserve their faith in Jesus. Is this not also evidence of the call to leave?
Deconstruction and Rebuilding
The reality is our faith in God is a personal thing, and every part of truth must sink deeply into our soul to sprout roots. So it is that in every generation, each person needs to ask these kinds of questions like “What is the Kingdom of God?” After that comes the next question, “What is my role in it?”
You can not accurately answer the second without answering the first. For some of us, it takes a lifetime to figure out how to join in the adventure Jesus has before us, but do we have a lifetime left? We really do need to take the time to deconstruct the things we have learned in the system. There are many concepts in the system that are distortions of biblical reality. We have also allowed false teaching to override simple biblical wisdom. The best example of this is how we evaluate spiritual leaders. We evaluate by externals, not internals. We accept their words as verification of integrity and spiritual life. This is because we have not been taught how to judge according to Jesus' words. If we had, many of the pretenders in the pulpits would be flipping burgers and not preaching in the pulpits.
The Kingdom focuses on internal issues, while the corporate religious system focuses on external things. As a brand-new Christian, you are presented with a laundry list of things to do. Church membership, prayer, tithing, Bible study, devotionals, a growing list of dos and don’ts. Jesus is preached to you when you walk in the door, and then the Messiah is traded out for the Pastor you must now follow.
The way of the Kingdom causes the new believer to interact with the assembly as we all pursue a greater relationship. Jesus is not presented in an abstract form or concept. But as a real person who is now a part of you in every way.
This small shift in thinking is enormous if you allow yourself to really think about it. And it is the reason so many of the historical shelters in Europe were diligently sought out by people in hiding. It is also the reason the Catholic army, under the orders of the Pope, worked so hard to stamp them out at any cost. They were crushed because they promoted true life and growth in Christ. That is why the demonic world offered you a system to work in. Because it knows that in this hamster wheel, we will never grow deeply.
The Kingdom is life-impacting and transformative. Once it takes root and is allowed to really flourish, then life changes. This is why deconstruction from the system should be a priority for so many of us now.
Next week, “When Things Were Simple.”