What Constitutes Babylon?
What constitutes Babylon? How does a church become Babylon? Are all churches Babylon, except one? And if so, what is that one? These are a few of the questions I’d like inspiration to answer this morning, and there are very clear answers, it’s just that people have to accept the answers and not depend upon their own feelings and judgment, which is difficult to do sometimes, especially if they are members of a church that fits the description of what constitutes Babylon, or perhaps come from a family that have been members of this type of church for multiple generations.
I’d like to begin by reading a few verses in Ezekiel 9 where men with slaughtering weapons in their hands were commissioned to go through the midst God’s Old Testament church and do away with all who were unfaithful to the Lord, because there is a dual application here.
Ezekiel 9:4-6, “And the LORD said unto him (the man clothed in linen), Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark (or God’s seal); and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house.”
Commenting on these verses, Testimonies for the Church, volume 5, page 211 says, “Here we see that the church—the Lord’s sanctuary—was the first to feel the stroke of the wrath of God. The ancient men, those to whom God had given great light and who had stood as guardians of the spiritual interests of the people, had betrayed their trust. . . (They said God) is too merciful to visit His people in judgment. . . These dumb dogs that would not bark are the (first) ones who feel the just vengeance of an offended God.”
And then in the 1888 Materials, page 1303 she applies it to the last days when something similar is going to happen to God’s professed church. She writes, “We are amid the perils of the last days, the time will soon come when the prophecy of Ezekiel 9 will be fulfilled; that prophecy should be carefully studied, for it will be fulfilled to the very letter.”
Friends, I am under no illusion this morning that some of the things I’m going to expose today will upset some people. That’s not my intention, but when I see things and hear things from people who ought to know better, I must raise my voice, and if I don’t, I will become like one of those dumb dogs that will not bark when they see an intruder breaking into the house, and in this case it’s the church.
The other question I’d like to attempt to answer is, why, when the leadership of a church knows that they are on the wrong path, why do they continue down that path rather than make a U-turn and get on the right path? Are they just too proud and stubborn to admit that they’re traveling on the road to perdition, or have they gotten so entangled with the world that they find it too difficult to undo the mess they’ve gotten themselves into?
First of all, let’s tackle the meaning of the term “Babylon” as it’s given in the Bible, and then we’ll allow the Spirit of Prophecy to define it. The term Babylon is found 294 times in the Bible, mostly in the book of Jeremiah. When most people think of “Babylon,” they rightly think of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 where God confused the language of the people so they couldn’t communicate with one another, and through their frustration they gave up on the idea of building a tower whose top would reach to heaven in order to escape being drowned like what happened previously to all the people except Noah and his family. In other words, the antediluvians didn’t believe what God said when He told them that He would never again destroy the earth by water. And so, number one, Babylon is associated with doubt and unbelief, and whenever a person begins to doubt and disbelieve what God says, they’re going to get all confused. In fact, when you do a word study, you’ll find that the term Babylon means confusion by mixing. In other words, when you try mixing truth and error together it always brings confusion.
And so, according to Revelation chapters 14 and 18, we see that Babylon becomes a real issue in the last days just before Jesus comes, and people have to be called out of the confusion that comes as a result of mixing truth with error if they’re going to be prepared to meet the Lord in the air.
Now, when you read Revelation 14:8; 18:3, God likens “Babylon” to an unfaithful woman, or a harlot, and not only that, but the mother of harlots, as she is portrayed in Revelation 17:5, and I think it’s significant that Ellen White referred to the Seventh-Day Adventist church as such in Testimonies for the Church, volume 8, page 250 when she quoted Isaiah 1:21 by saying, “how is the faithful city (or the church) become an harlot. . . a place whence the divine presence and glory have departed!” And because of the church’s backsliding back in 1904, she called for a reformation to take place. And it’s interesting also that in Signs of the Times, February 19, 1894, she says, “It is a backsliding church that lessens the distance between itself and the Papacy.” Keep that in mind.
It’s important to understand that a woman in Bible prophecy represents a church, a corrupt woman a false church, and a pure woman a true church, and Babylon is obviously a false church, or a false system of worship, and how did it get that way? Again, by mixing truth and error together. The church of Rome did it by borrowing from paganism and incorporating its false teachings into the Christian religion, and by lowering the standards in order to bring large numbers into the church, kind of like what Adventism has been guilty of over the past 35 years through its church planting campaign with its celebratory atmosphere, its rock music, and its new theology teaching.
I would say that all churches have at least some truth, and perhaps some have mostly truth, which makes it even more difficult to cut through their various doctrines to discover where the mixture of truth and error lies. Then there are other churches that have blatant error that is easily detected if one knows their Bible. But let me ask you this, are there many truths, or is there just one truth? Maybe that question needs to be narrowed down a bit. Let me put it another way; there are many different subjects, aren’t there? but there is only one truth for every subject, correct? And so, when you think of all subjects collectively, there can be only one truth.
Now, if there is only one truth on any given subject, then there must be the opportunity for there to be one true church, does that make sense? Truth is never relative or flexible, but always absolute! For instance, Jesus said, “I am the way the truth and the life.” Does that mean that there’s some other name by which we can be saved? No, Jesus is it! He is the truth!
Let me ask you another question: can a church denomination be represented as a true church if it has 95% truth? No, if it’s Christ’s church it must have 100% truth, because there is no confusion of ideas in Him! There might be people in the various churches that constitute Babylon who are true Christians, because they’re living up to all the truth they understand, but that doesn’t make their church the church of Christ, does it? No, it has to be all or nothing! So, if there is only one truth and Christ’s church will teach that one truth, then there must be only one true church.
But here’s the point, according to Revelation 18:4, God must have many people in the confused churches of Babylon, otherwise there wouldn’t be a call-out message to give, and if that call is not accepted and acted upon by an individual when they hear it, then there’s a problem that can only end in eternal loss.
In John 18:37 Jesus said, “Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.” And in John 10:27 He said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they (what? they) follow me.” So if a true hearted Christian is in a church and they discover that it’s teaching a mixture of truth and error, then they must leave that church in order to follow Jesus, because He will not continue to abide in the heart of that Christian if he decides to stay once he learns the truth. Are you with me so far?
Now here’s another point we don’t want to forget. Christ’s church does not necessarily have to be any particular denomination here on earth, because “from the beginning, faithful souls have constituted the church on earth.” (Acts of the Apostles, page 11) In other words, if a person has accepted Christ as Lord and Saviour and they’re being obedient to His commandments as far as they understand, then they are a member of Christ’s church, regardless of the denomination they belong to. Does God have people who are true Christians in the Baptist church, and the Methodist church, and the Catholic church and so on? Yes, absolutely, but that doesn’t make their denomination the church of Christ, does it?
In Luke 10:20 Jesus told His disciples that they should “rejoice, because your names are written (where?) in heaven,” and not because their names are written on some church roll down here. And Revelation 20:15 says, “whosoever was not found written in the book of life, (that’s in heaven) was cast into the lake of fire.” So if you’re not a member of the body of Christ by having your name registered in heaven, where are you going to end up? You’re going to be cast into the lake of fire, because that’s where Babylon is going to end up. And so, everyone is going to be in one or the other of these two groups, because there’s not a third option, never has been! This is why Upward Look, page 315 says, “God has a church. (just one) It is not the great cathedral (not the lavishly adorned building), neither is it the national establishment (has nothing to do with a government sponsored church), neither is it the various denominations (including SDA! What is it then?); it is the people who love God and keep His commandments. ‘“Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them”’ (Matthew 18:20). Where Christ is even among the humble few, this is Christ’s church, for the presence of the High and Holy One who inhabiteth eternity can alone constitute a church.” Remember what Jesus said about the Jewish church in Matthew 23:38? He said, “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate,” desolate of God’s presence, and that’s why that church is no longer His church. In other words, if God isn’t there, it doesn’t belong to Him.
So, when Ellen White referred to the Seventh-day Adventist denomination as a harlot and that God’s glory had departed, what did she mean? She meant it was an unfaithful church that cheated on her husband, who is Christ, and it wasn’t God’s church, at least at that point. So we’re not talking about individuals here, but a corporate body.
In 1 Timothy 3:15 the apostle Paul says, “the church of the living God (is) the pillar and ground of the truth.” And again, that’s not to say that a denomination can’t be a part of God’s church, but if it is, it has to teach the truth, otherwise it has to be Babylon, because there’s no middle ground.
Bible Commentary, volume 7, page 949 says, “Those who keep God’s commandments, those who live not by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, compose the church of the living God.” So, if we are not being obedient to every word as it comes to our attention, then we are not a part of Christ’s church and our names will not be retained in heaven, and that’s nothing to rejoice about.
Now let’s see what the messenger of the Lord says constitutes Babylon. I’ve found a half dozen or so quotes that are very clear on this topic, and if any of them fit the church you’re attending, or that you are a member of, you should first do what you can to correct the situation, and if a course correction isn’t forth coming, then you must consider that a call out message, otherwise you will be supporting Babylon the Great.
The first statement is in The Great Controversy, page 381 where it says, “The term “Babylon” is derived from “Babel,” and signifies confusion. It is employed in Scripture to designate the various forms of false or apostate religion.”
So, we must ask ourselves the question: is my church teaching false doctrine, or do they know what the truth is, but are no longer following it? Which is the definition of apostasy. Either way, it’s Babylon! And if we find that either one these two scenarios is the case, or perhaps both, then it’s a vile woman and we must leave her. In 1 Corinthians 6:15-18 the apostle Paul makes it clear that when one is joined to an harlot, or a vile woman, or an apostate church, they become one body with her, and his admonition is to “flee fornication” or suffer the punishment that she has coming.
Not long ago I heard Mark Finley say, and I’ve heard the same thing from many others over the years, that there is apostasy in the church, but the church is not in apostasy. If that statement were true, then that has always been the case, because it only takes one member that is rejecting the truth to make his statement true. But what if the top leaders have rejected truth and it has trickled down to the teachers in the institutions, to the ministers that come out of the seminary, and finally to the laity sitting in the pews? Wouldn’t that mean much more than apostasy in the church?
But you say, “Sister White said we’re not to call the church Babylon,” and that’s true, and she herself didn’t as long as they were living and proclaiming the truth, but when things went off the rails she did it several times without using the dreaded seven letter word, and as we continue to read several statements, you will see that that’s exactly what she said.
Back in 1893 Sister White wrote to a Brother Stanton who had put out a pamphlet titled “The Loud Cry,” which called the church Babylon and made a call for people to come out of her, and Sister White told him that he was like a man who “has run before he was sent.” In other words, his message was premature at that point, because she told him, “at the present time” the church could not be Babylon “while the deep movings of the Spirit of God were made manifest among the people, and souls were being converted, and hard hearts broken.” She also questioned him by saying, “Has God no living church? He has a church, (she said) but it is the church militant,” that is, it’s a church that’s fighting and warring against sin, not telling people they’re saved in it. But then there were other times when she herself said that the church was in the Laodicean state and the presence of God was not in her midst, and that the church had “become the habitation of devils and the hold of ever foul spirit and the cage of every unclean and hateful bird” which is what the apostle John said Babylon is.
So, what do we make of all this? Here’s how we make sense of it, and it’s very simple. When the church was following the truth, her council was not to call the church Babylon or to describe it as such, but when the church was in a backslidden condition and not following the truth, she defined it as Babylon several times, and we’ll see that as we go along. So, it all depended upon the condition of the church at different times as to whether it constituted Babylon or not. Can a church be Babylon at one point and not be Babylon at another point? Evidently. If God can forgive an individual when they confess and repent, why can’t He do it for the whole church? So today we have to look at things in context and to what’s going on in the church to determine what condition it’s in “at the present time.” Otherwise, we make Sister White contradict herself when we say that the church cannot be Babylon when she described it that way herself more than once, and I hope that’s clear.
In Manuscript Releases, volume 21, page 380 Sister White said the church was in danger of becoming a sister to fallen Babylon, and at other times she said the church was in the Laodicean state and the presence of God was not in her midst, and that it had become, “the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and the cage of every unclean and hateful bird.” In the late 1880s and early 1900s she also wrote several times that the General Conference was no longer the voice of God to the people, and why did she say that? It was because they had started a new movement away from the truth. And so, when she said not to call the church Babylon it was because they were doing and teaching what was right at the time, but when the opposite was true, she didn’t hesitate to call it what it was.
The second statement of what constitutes Babylon is from The Great Controversy, page 383 where it says, “the fall of Babylon must apply to religious bodies that were once pure and have become corrupt.”
So again, we must ask, has my church sacrificed the truth and the approval of God by forming an alliance with the world, or was it once pure in its teachings and practices, but now has become corrupt by accepting falsehood?
Wouldn’t you agree that there’s a big difference between pure and corrupt? The word “pure” means “unmixed with any other matter,” which is the opposite of Babylon. The word “corrupt” means “to change from good to bad, to alter from the original, or to become tainted or rotten.” Now tell me, how much does it take to make that which is pure, corrupt? 10%? 20%? 50%? Or just 1% or less? Would you be willing to drink a glass of pure water that has been tainted with just 1% fentanyl? Or even ¼% since it only takes two-milligram, or about the amount of 5 grains of salt, to kill the average adult? Of course you wouldn’t. But how about 5 grains of error mixed with truth? Would that be enough to kill someone spiritually? And would you be willing to sit under the tutelage of a minister that is teaching error, even a small amount? And yet many are knowingly doing that today thinking it’s not going to affect them. Those who think that way need to read Early Writings, pages 124, 125 where it says that God will not keep us from being deceived if we knowingly go to meetings where error is being taught.
As the doctrines of the Seventh-day Adventist Church developed over a period of about 70 years, which would be the time of Ellen White’s ministry, would you agree that some doctrines have changed since 1915 when the prophet died? How about the human nature of Christ? Both the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy are very clear on this point, that Jesus took upon Him, not just human nature, but He took our fallen human sinful nature. For the sake of time, I’ll read just one statement and one Bible verse, but if you need more you can go to my website and listen to the sermon titled “The Human Nature of Christ” parts 1 & 2.
Signs of the Times, July 30, 1902, says, “Clad in the vestments of humanity, the Son of God came down to the level of those he wished to save. In Him was no guile or sinfulness; He was ever pure and undefiled; yet He took upon him our sinful nature.”
And get this, we don’t need to know how that happened, we just need to have enough faith to believe what God plainly says. We’re not going to understand some things till we get to heaven, and even then, we’re told the incarnation of Christ is a mystery we’ll be studying for all eternity.
And the Scripture, I would point you to is Romans 8:3 where Paul writes, “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” What kind of flesh? Sinful flesh!
Every time you come across the word “flesh” in the Bible, when it’s talking about human flesh, it means “carnal” or “fleshly,” which means “unregenerate,” or sinful. And Romans 8:7 says, “the carnal mind is enmity against God.” Think of it, Jesus was willing to become sin for us in order to save us! Why do you think, when Jesus hung upon the cross, that He cried out to His Father and said, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” 2 Corinthian 5:21 says, “For he made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” Praise the Lord friends! Praise the Lord!
Jesus suffered the penalty that we deserve; He felt what every lost sinner will feel when they realize they’re eternally lost, and it broke His heart! That’s why He died so soon and the two thieves didn’t. And people that should know better say that the human nature of Christ is a moot issue and that we shouldn’t be concerned about it; that we shouldn’t allow it to divide us. Give me a break. The type of human nature that Jesus partook of is everything to us. That’s why Selected Messages, book 1, page 244 says, “The humanity of the Son of God is everything to us. It is the golden chain that binds our souls to Christ, and through Christ to God. This is to be our study.” Do you wonder why I get upset when those in leadership positions say it’s a subject that shouldn’t divide us, or that’s it’s not that important? It’s everything to us! And if we don’t call it out, shame on us.
And what about the Catholic version of the Trinity that the church has now included in their 28 fundamental beliefs? And remember, “It is a backsliding church that lessens the distance between itself and the Papacy.” Did you know that the word “trinity” is nowhere to be found in the Bible or the Spirit of Prophecy, not once? If you want more information about this, listen to my sermon titled “Trinity or Trio.”
Do these things mean that there’s apostasy in the church? Or that the church is in apostasy? I trust you have enough intelligence to draw your own conclusion. And remember this too, if the humanity of Christ is everything to us, that means it’s the heart of the gospel, and a proper understanding is a life and death issue.
Testimonies for the Church, volume 9, page 29 says, “If every soldier of Christ had done his duty, if every watchman on the walls of Zion had given the trumpet a certain sound, the world might ere this have heard the message of warning. But the work is years behind. While men have slept, Satan has stolen a march upon us.” That was written 116 years ago, what would she says today? I know what she would say. She would say, “Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”
Did you know that saved in sin is the omega apostasy teaching we were warned would come to Adventism? Ellen White said Doctor Kellogg, in his book “Living Temple,” was the one who introduced this false doctrine as the alpha apostasy when he taught his pantheistic theory that God lives “in the flower, in the leaf, in the sinner.” But Sister White said, “God does not abide in the heart of the sinner, it is the enemy who abides there.” You can read that in Sermons and Talks, page 343. And this is the same lie the serpent told Eve in the Garden; you can disobey God and “ye shall not surely die.” In other words, the devil said, “Eve, you don’t have to listen to God and do what He says, and it will not change your relationship to Him. You have an immortal soul, and no matter what you do, you will not forfeit life.”
But here’s the truth, when we partake of the divine nature by accepting Jesus into our lives, we are given a heart to obey, then obedience, or living without yielding to sin, becomes a choice, because before that we had no choice. If all we have is a fallen nature, we can’t keep from yielding to sin, because there’s a heart problem. But the Christian has two natures, the one we’re all born with, which is fallen, and a second we’re born again with, which is unfallen. And so, it becomes a choice as to which one we’re going to follow, that’s our part!
In God’s Amazing Grace, page 319 it says, “Man can accomplish nothing without God, and God has arranged His plans so as to accomplish nothing in the restoration of the human race without the cooperation of the human with the divine. The part man is required to sustain is immeasurably small, yet in the plan of God it is just that part that is needed to make the work a success.” And what is our small part? It is choosing to follow the conviction that comes from the Holy Spirit working upon the heart. Are we going to yield to the promptings of the divine nature and obey or are we going to yield to the fallen nature and disobey, it’s just that simple! That’s how we work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. Yes, through the fallen nature we will always be tempted, but what does it say in 1 Corinthians 10:13? “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you (or allow you) to be tempted above that ye are able (to resist); but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it,” or keep from yielding to it.
In Review and Herald, December 24, 1889, it says, “Every day that you remain in sin (or we could say, every day that you choose to remain in sin), you are in Satan’s ranks; and should you sicken and die without repentance, you would be lost.” Now that’s pretty plain, isn’t it? Friends, there is no such thing as salvation in sin, period! And there is no such thing as choosing to yield to temptation and still maintain a saving relationship with God, none!
Did you know also that this idea of salvation in sin is what the great controversy between Christ and Satan is all about? Let me read it to you from The Great Controversy, page 582, “From the very beginning of the great controversy in heaven it has been Satan’s purpose to overthrow the law of God. (And what do you suppose is one of the most effective ways he can do that, especially among those who claim to be keeping those commandments? He does it by promising them that they are still in a saving relationship with God while they do it; that disobedience does not separate their soul from God; that God is too loving to break that relationship with one of His children; that God really doesn’t mean what He says when He said, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.”) It was to accomplish this (the overthrow of the law) that he entered upon his rebellion against the Creator, and though he was cast out of heaven (did God love the angels that fell as much as He loves us? Of course He did, but they were cast out nonetheless) and though he was cast out of heaven he has continued the same warfare upon the earth. (And with whom did it start down here? It started with Eve and it metastasized to Adam) To deceive men, and thus lead them to transgress God’s law, is the object (or the target or main goal) which he has steadfastly pursued. (In other words, nothing has deterred him from this one object, why? Because nothing else has worked so well. If Satan can convince people that they are saved while transgressing the law, then he knows that they will be lost. That’s how Satan tries to seek revenge for being cast out. He hates Christ, and he knows the best way to hurt Him is to cause those for whom He died, to be lost). . . . The last great conflict between truth and error (that’s where we are right now) is but the final struggle of the long-standing controversy concerning the law of God. . . . a battle between, . . . the religion of the Bible and the religion of fable and tradition.” And friends, that’s what’s going on within Adventism today, and Satan is succeeding marvelously.
The third statement about what constitutes Babylon is from Patriarchs and Prophets, Page 124, “So long as human wisdom is exalted above His Holy Word, there will be divisions and dissension. (And as a result) The existing confusion. . . is fitly represented by the term “Babylon,” which prophecy applies to the world-loving churches of the last days.”
So, two things here, is the Seventh-day Adventist church of today divided because of internal dissention, and has it become a world-loving church? Are you aware of the division that has been taking place in many of the church conferences lately? And it’s nothing new but has become much more pronounced over the last few years and months. Division and dissension has been going on at least since the 1950s with denominational leaders capitulating to the evangelicals, which resulted in publishing the book “Questions on Doctrine,” and later on with the signing of the BEM document, and the church’s involvement in the ecumenical movement, and B.B. Beach giving the pope a gold medal, and Neal Wilson throwing the SOP in the historical trash heap, and suing over the name issue, and we could go on and on. More recently there has been an acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community, and women’s ordination, and the Director of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty calling people religious terrorists for proclaiming the three angels’ messages with absolutely no backlash from other General Conference leaders, or from supporting ministries like Amazing Facts, Amazing Discoveries, The Voice of Prophecy, and a host of others. And what about the debacle in the Michigan conference with the defrocking of Conrad Vine, Ron Kelly, and other ministers resigning their positions because of the tyrannical conference leaders’ unwillingness to back down over the fact that these men are telling the truth. And then there are the vaccine mandates that the church has forced upon its members if they don’t want to lose their jobs and being in league with the United Nations climate change agenda, and ADRA working with the government to help illegal aliens come into the country, and supporting abortion, and on and on it goes.
Friends, in order to have a “consultative statis” with the United Nations, which the Seventh-day Adventist church has, you have to agree with its charter. Dr. Nelu Burcea, PhD, which stands for “piled high and deep,” is the liaison, or the one who cooperates and communicates with the UN on behalf of the church, and who answers directly to guess who? Ganoune Diop, who is Director of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty: you know, the one who said if you give the third angel’s message, you’re a religious terrorist.
What are some of the points of the UN charter that the Seventh-day Adventist church has surrendered to? The UN has a climate change ideology put in place by the papacy, it promotes globalism, it holds antichristian views, it supports gay activism and many other things that are not in harmony with God’s word. Are you ok with these things? And wouldn’t a church that has united with the world on these various points be a part of Babylon? Whatever happened to just proclaiming the three angels’ messages as we’ve been told? Because that’s what we were raised up to do, and surely none of the things I just mentioned in the UN charter are fulfilling that mission, it’s only degrading them.
Ephesians 5:11 says we are to “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them,” and to unite on these worldly points is to become one flesh with them. That’s the principle the Holy Spirit inspired the apostle Paul to write down in 1 Corinthians 6:16.
The fourth statement of what constitutes Babylon is from Testimonies to Ministers, page 117 which says, “The churches, represented by Babylon, are represented as having fallen from their spiritual state to become a persecuting power against those who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”
Has the Seventh-day Adventist church become a “persecuting power against those who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ?” Didn’t the General Conference use tithe money to pay a Catholic lawyer to sue pastors Raphael Perez, Walter McGill and Lucan Chartier for wanting to have the freedom to call themselves Seventh-day Adventists? And weren’t the last two fined and sent to prison for a time? Didn’t the church use the government court system to prosecute and persecute these men who were commandment keepers and had the testimony of Jesus Christ, or the Spirit of Prophecy, on their side according to Selected Messages, book 3, page 299? Yes, this is all true. Does that mean then that a church that would do such a thing is Babylon? According to what we just read, yes it does.
According to the reference I just gave in Selected Messages, it says, “These men (the leaders that would prosecute commandment keeper like I just mentioned, have) cast aside the counsel God has given, and do the very things he has bidden them not to do. They show that they have chosen the world as their judge, (which makes them a “world-loving church” and therefore connected to Babylon?) and in heaven their names are registered as one with unbelievers. Christ is crucified afresh, and put to open shame. Let these men know that God does not hear their prayers. They insult his holy name, and he will leave them to the buffetings of Satan until they shall see their folly and seek the Lord by confession of their sin.”
This is the condition of the church and its leaders today, because there has been no confession and no repentance, nor will there be in the future, because we’re told in Selected Messages, book 1, page 205 that “nothing would be allowed to stand in the way of the new movement” that they have become a part of, and we’re seeing the fulfillment of this prophecy right before our eyes today. So don’t be looking for the leadership to confess and repent and step back on the platform of truth that there might be a spiritual revival and the outpouring of the latter rain, like many independent ministries are hoping and praying for, because, and I hate to tell you this, but it’s not going to happen, else Ellen White’s a false prophet.
And another reason it’s not going to happen is because the church is connected, officially, to organizations like the United Nations, the ecumenical movement, and through its various assets, to governments around the world. Most church members aren’t aware of this, but the church has made concessions in different parts of the world in order to legally hold property and to be able to hold meetings. Concessions like not speaking out against the false doctrines of other churches, or proselytizing, better known as “sheep stealing,” which completely neuters the three angels’ messages, and if they were to try to go backward now after all these years of capitulation, they would lose those assets; they would be confiscated for breach of promises made.
The fifth statement about what constitutes Babylon is from Selected Messages, book 2, page 68 where it says, “The whole chapter (that’s Revelation 18) shows that Babylon that has fallen is the churches who will not receive the messages of warning the Lord has given in the first, second, and third angels’ messages. They refused the truth and accepted a lie. (And we’ll talk more about that lie in a minute) They refused the messages of truth. . . . The wine of Babylon is the exalting of the false and spurious sabbath above the Sabbath which the Lord Jehovah hath blessed and sanctified for the use of man, also [it is] the immortality of the soul. These kindred heresies, (or these false teachings that are related to one another in some way) and the rejection of the truth, convert the church into Babylon.”
Well, there’s a lot in this statement, isn’t there? But the question we must ask ourselves is this, is my church refusing to give the warning found in the three angels’ messages? Has it refused the truth and accepted “a lie?” Is it exalting Sunday? Does it teach that the soul is immortal? Has it rejected the truth? These are all kindred lies that lead to the same conclusion, and if the answer is yes to any one of these various things, and not necessarily all of them, then that church has been converted into Babylon.
Now, is the truth really that simple? It really is friends, and God tells us that we should take Him at His word, which means to believe what He says without questioning or seeking further proof. Years ago, I remember as a much younger person sitting through a series of evangelistic meetings and the preacher drilled the following statement into our heads so as never to forget it, and the phrase was this: “God says what He means, and He means what He says.” And I have never forgotten that.
Now, what if the Seventh-day Adventist church is guilty of any of these things, would it then become Babylon? When is the last time you heard a message from the denominational leaders exposing the papacy as the man of sin, the son of perdition, and that wicked as it says in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-8? It’s probably been a long time, hasn’t it? If ever! But we have heard Neil Wilson as far back as 1975 testify under oath “that there was a period in the life of the Seventh-day Adventist Church when the denomination took a distinctly anti-Roman Catholic viewpoint, . . . that attitude on the church’s part was nothing more than a manifestation of widespread anti-popery among conservative Protestant denominations in the early part of this century and the latter part of the last, and which has now been consigned to the historical trash heap so far as the Seventh-day Adventist Church is concerned.” EEOC vs PPPA and GC, Civil Case #74-2025 CBR (1975).
We also know, as I said before, that the Director of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty at the General Conference level as recently as last year says that the Catholic church has changed, and has called people religious terrorists for preaching the three angels’ messages, and with no backlash from his fellow conference leaders.
We know too that in 1982 church leaders signed the BEM document, which stands for Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, produced by none other than the World Council of Churches, which means that the Seventh-day Adventist church has joined the ecumenical movement and will no longer preach the three distinctive messages of Revelation 14:6-12, because in that signing they have agreed not to try to make converts from other churches.
Now, the quote we read earlier from Selected Messages, book 1, page 68 you’ll remember, said, “The wine of Babylon is the exalting of the false and spurious sabbath above the Sabbath which the Lord Jehovah hath blessed and sanctified for the use of man, also [it is] the immortality of the soul. These kindred heresies (what does kindred mean? It means that which is related to or similar to), and the rejection of the truth, convert the church into Babylon.” The one in this list I want to zero in on is “the immortality of the soul.” Is the big fat lie of salvation in sin a kindred heresy to the immortality of the soul? It sure is! “How’s that Brother Jones?”
In The Great Controversy, page 533 it says, “The only one who promised Adam life in disobedience was the great deceiver. (“life in disobedience” sounds like Salvation in sin to me, doesn’t it to you?) And the declaration of the serpent to Eve in Eden—“Ye shall not surely die”—was the first sermon ever preached upon the immortality of the soul.” So, we see very clearly here that “life in disobedience,” or salvation in sin, or once saved always saved, or the new theology being taught within Adventism, or the omega apostasy, and the immortality of the soul are all kindred heresies, are they not? And we just read that any church that teaches such things is Babylon.
Dear people, wake up! Seventh-day Adventist conference ministers, wake up! Independent ministry leaders, wake up and start calling a spade a spade! The Seventh-day Adventist church fits all of the definitions of what constitutes Babylon except one, and that is “the exalting of the false and spurious sabbath above the Sabbath which the Lord Jehovah hath blessed and sanctified for the use of man,” which has not yet taken place, because it’s the last shoe to drop.
Back in the early 1900s the phrase “the last shoe to drop” was commonly used by those living in New York City apartments. During that time, many people lived in multi-story buildings with thin walls and floors, and as a result, it was common to hear your neighbors walking around upstairs at night. When someone would take off one shoe and drop it on the floor, you could expect them to do the same with their other shoe soon afterward, and this created an atmosphere of waiting for something inevitable to happen. Over time, this phrase became more widely used outside of its original context and came to represent any situation where there is a sense of impending doom or uncertainty, and that’s about to happen with Sunday. One shoe has already dropped as it were, all we’re waiting for now is that second shoe to go thud on the floor. And in this next statement is your proof that it will be the Seventh-day Adventist Church that will drop the last shoe very soon now.
In Review and Herald March 18, 1884, it says, “The Lord has a controversy with his professed people in these last days. (Who would that be if not Seventh-day Adventists? She didn’t use the Review and Herald to admonish and warn the Baptists or the other churches) In this controversy men in responsible positions (conference leaders, and ministers) will take a course directly opposite to that pursued by Nehemiah. (Nehemiah you’ll remember was a Sabbath reformer, but these Seventh-day Adventist ministers will do the opposite, lightly regard the Sabbath and eventually exalt Sunday) They will not only ignore and despise the Sabbath themselves, but they will try to keep it from others by burying it beneath the rubbish of custom and tradition. (Just like all Sunday preachers have been doing all along) In churches (Adventist churches) and in large gatherings in the open air, (camp meetings) ministers (Adventist ministers) will urge upon the people the necessity of keeping the first day of the week. (You see, Sunday keeping ministers have been urging Sunday for hundreds of years, so it’s not them being referred to in the last days, but to former Sabbath keepers) There are calamities on sea and land: and these calamities will increase, one disaster following close upon another; and the little band of conscientious Sabbath-keepers (not the 23 million church members of today, but a “little band” will be pointed out by these apostate Adventists ministers) as the ones who are bringing the wrath of God upon the world by their disregard of Sunday.”
Now, we don’t know exactly what kind of crisis is going to arise for this last point to become reality. Will it be war with Iran, or Israel, or Russia, or China? Possibly. There are a lot of different theories out there, but we just can’t say for sure, but we do know that the enforcement of Sunday is all that’s left to be fulfilled. And please don’t think that it’s going to be any particular administration in the White House that’s going to bring in a Sunday law, because the demand for it is going to come from the bottom up. In other words, the people in general, are going to demand it from their legislators, and it isn’t going to make any difference whether they are Democrat or Republican. Read it in The Great Controversy, page 592. Could it be the current administration? Yes, it’s looking more and more like it could be, but we are not given that exact information. So, we must be careful not to allow current events alone to be our criteria. Some of the pioneers of our faith did that and they were wrong. So, we should let that be a lesson to us. The important thing is for us to be one with Christ, and then we’ll be prepared as far as possible, for what is soon to break upon this world as an overwhelming surprise.
Again, all the definitions of what constituted Babylon have already happened within Adventism except for urging upon the people the necessity of keeping the first day of the week, and according to Selected Messages, book 1, pages 204, 205 the Sabbath and the God who created it would be lightly regarded just before the structure is swept away, and that is already in the process. And let me remind you of what else it says in this statement, which I already touched upon. It says, “nothing would be allowed to stand in the way of this new movement.” What does that mean? It means that this prophecy about former Sabbath keepers urging Sunday will also come to pass just like all the other 12 or so points in this statement that have already come to pass.
Now, earlier I said we would talk more about people accepting the “lie” that was mentioned in Selected Messages, book 2, page 68 where it says, the churches of Babylon, “refused the truth and accepted a lie.” What lie do you suppose that is? Any lie, or a specific lie? Friends, it’s the same lie we talked about earlier. It’s the lie that teaches that you can have eternal “life in disobedience,” that you can have a saving relationship with Jesus even while you have ongoing sin in the life, the same object the devil pursued after he was cast out of heaven and continues to this day. It’s the same lie the serpent told Eve, and the same one the apostle Paul warned about would come in 2 Thessalonians 2:7-12 just before Jesus returns.
Let’s read these verses so we know what lie Paul refers to here. “For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth (meaning to “withhold”) will let (two supplied words by the translators that could be left out or replaced with “will do so”), until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked (the papacy) be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should (do what?) believe a lie: (a better translation here would be “the lie,” which makes more sense, because the next verse qualifies it by pointing out what “the lie” is) That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had (what?) pleasure in unrighteousness.” (Or pleasure in sin, because 1 John 5:17 says “all unrighteousness is sin.”)
Now, in the Greek the word “pleasure” means “to think well of, that is, approve.” So what is Paul saying here? He’s saying that “the lie” is that people would be deceived by the idea that God thinks well of them, or approves of them even while they’re having “pleasure in unrighteousness.” That’s the big fat lie! That’s the same lie the devil has carried down through the ages, and the one he still fools people with today, even Seventh-day Adventists.
In Manuscript 1, February 24, 1915, just eleven days after she broke her hip and about 5 months before her death, Ellen White called her nurse to her side and said the following, “I tell you now, that when I am laid to rest, great changes will take place. (Context being changes in the church) I do not know when I shall be taken; and I desire to warn all against the devices of the devil. I want the people (church people) to know that I warned them fully before my death. I do not know especially what changes will take place; but they should watch every conceivable sin that Satan will try to immortalize.”
To immortalize sin is to cause it to exist forever; that’s what Satan wants. In other words, he wants to perpetuate sin until the end of time. And what device or deception do you suppose he will use in order to try to immortalize it? He will use the omega apostasy that Sister White said, “will be of a most startling nature,” (Selected Messages, book 1, page 197) and Isn’t startling to think that Seventh-day Adventists, of all people, should be fooled by this lie since their main teaching has been all about the importance of keeping God’s commandments, especially number four, but they will be fooled, and even now many are being fooled by this lie of the devil.
The word omega is the last letter in the Greek alphabet, meaning it will be the last deception within Adventism. And the Alpha, or the first letter, represents the beginning of the last deception, and as I mentioned, it started when Doctor Kellogg introduced his pantheistic theory that God lives in everything, even in the sinner, better known today as salvation in sin. But what did Ellen say in Sermon and talks, page 343? She said, “The Word declares that He abides only in the hearts of those who love Him and do righteousness. God does not abide in the heart of the sinner; it is the enemy who abides there.”
I’d like to close by reading one last quote from Review and Herald, April 1, 1902, because there’s much talk today about perfection of character and living without sin, and victory over sin, and I would say that the majority of church members no longer believe that it’s possible, and they don’t believe it because church leadership doesn’t believe it and it has trickled down to the pews. But here’s what God says in simple terms, listen carefully, “Christ has made every provision for the sanctification of His Church. (or the perfecting of the saint we could say) He has made abundant provision for every soul to have such grace and strength that he will be more than a conqueror in the warfare against sin. The Saviour is wounded afresh and put to open shame when His people pay no heed to His word. He came to this world and lived a sinless life, that in His power His people might also live lives of sinlessness. He desires them by practicing the principles of truth to show to the world that God’s grace has power to sanctify the heart.”
“Sinlessness” is simply living without yielding to sin; by overcoming sin in sinful flesh just like Paul said Jesus did in Romans 8:3. Every Christian who has partaken of the divine nature has been given the power to resist sin. Praise the Lord! It’s not in us to live a life of sinlessness, because without Christ we can do nothing, but Paul also said, “I can do all things through Christ that strengthen me.” (Even live a sinless life) And so, if we take hold of the strong for strength, we will form a righteous character and Jesus will come. So, what is He waiting for? Christ’s Object Lessons, page 69 says, “Christ is waiting with longing desire for the manifestation of Himself in His church. When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, (or when we all come to the point of “sinlessness”) then He will come to claim them as His own.” May we all be one of those people.