FALSE RELIGION DESTROYED, PART 1

Rev. 17:1-5 (NASB)
David Bruce Linn, Pastor-Teacher
2 April, 2000
All Rights Reserved

There are really only two religions in all of world history. The first is the worship of the One True God. This religion, when it is genuine, is all about him. Its practitioners lose themselves, not in a mindless trance or thoughtless activity, but in his person. As Paul the Apostle wrote: "...And He died for all, that they who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf" (2 Cor. 5:15).

The only other religion is the one which, having many distracting manifestations, is really all about the worshiper. How do we know this? Sin entered the universe through Lucifer, who was the highest created angel. He was more glorious than any other created being, but that was not enough for him. He wanted to be like God, as explained in Isaiah 14:14: "'I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.'" It was this same being who tempted mankind to sin against God in the same way. The fallen Lucifer came to the woman in the garden of God in the form of a serpent with this exact temptation: "'For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil'" (Gen. 3:5). And in the the last days, the sinful desire for self-worship found in all fallen angels and human beings will culminate in the futile self-glorification of Antichrist and the Great Dragon (Lucifer) when "the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God" (2 Thess. 2:3b-4) From beginning to end, the impulse of false worship has been all about the self.

This means that even though the Greeks and Romans spoke of worshiping "gods," it was really all about them. Animists "worship" the "gods" of the river, storm, and mountain, but only to get what they themselves want. Islam speaks of Allah as all powerful and conducts daily prayer ceremonies, but the earthly social and political power of the worshipers is a key goal of their practice. Buddhists deny the idea of a singular god, and practice religion strictly for the achievement of earthly benefits. And so it is throughout all world religions. The worship of Ra, Isis, Cybele, the Lady of Guadeloupe, Marduk, Enki-Du, and every named and unnamed god has been and always will be focused on the goals and benefit of the worshiper. Self-orientation is the mark of every false religion.

This raises a piercing question: What do we make of self-professed believers in Christ who live only for themselves? How can there be a Christianity where the practitioners have not been "crucified with Christ," like the apostle Paul (Col. 2:20)? What should we think of evangelical Christians whose main goal in life is to achieve political power, fame, or wealth? Who is being served when Christians gather to sing, "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, sweetest name I know" and then indulge in pornography, adultery, gossip, drug abuse, and greed? Which religion is being practiced when professing Christians quit church after church in search of an elusive religious feeling which pleases them? What of "believers" who practice shunning of other Christians based upon doctrinal distinctives they treat as their private possession?

God alone knows the eternal destiny of such people, but they are clearly practicing the "other religion," not Christianity. They reveal no fear of the God who demands sole, utter, and exclusive worship of himself: "You shall have no other gods before me." That is why we should expect large numbers--perhaps the majority--of professing Christians to take the mark of the Beast. Their religion was never about God anyway, but was really about themselves. They spent their lives looking for a better religious deal for themselves, and Antichrist will provide their final "better" deal: "Worship me, and I'll let you live."

In this study we shall examine the final form of the religion of self. It is expressed prophetically to John the apostle as one aspect of the "whore of Babylon," who has religious, commercial, artistic, and political aspects as shown in Revelation chapters seventeen and eighteen. While most of the world's practice of false religion flies under non-Christian banners, I will direct our attention to ways in which such worship creeps into Christianity.

John the apostle was given a vision of a woman, "MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH," who represents the false religion of the ages. As we see her characteristics in Revelation 17:1-5, we shall identify mortal spiritual dangers against which the true church must stand with all her might. The first spiritual danger is that

1. THE GREAT HARLOT SEEKS TO UNITE THE WORLD UNDER HER.
   
   "And one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying, 'Come here, I shall show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters...'" (Rev. 17:1).
   
   Verse 15 explains the meaning of the many waters: "And he said to me, 'The waters which you saw where the harlot sits, are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues.'" She aspires to be the greatest one-world religion by uniting diverse peoples and religious persuasions. She will appeal to unity, and will be eager to sign accords and concordats with religious groups which differ outwardly, but which share a common underlying self-orientation.
   
   In order to achieve this, truth itself must be slain, since there are such great differences between existing religions. The influence of post-modernity, which allows the hearer to assign whatever meaning he wishes, will advance her cause greatly. Watch for the cause of world spiritual unity to be advanced dramatically in the years to come. We have already seen absurd documents signed between irreconcilably different religious groups in recent years. The new age movement also lays claim to be the underlying truth which unites all religions. It's three key teachings are a prescription for one-world religion: "All is one. We are one. We are god." The puzzle pieces of the Great Harlot's world religion are already being cut, ready to be assembled in the last days. The second spiritual danger is that
   
   
2. THE GREAT HARLOT INVITES YOUR SPIRITUAL ALLEGIANCE.
   
   "...With whom the kings of the earth committed acts of immorality..." (Rev. 17:2a).
   
   Both the kings of the earth and regular people will buy into her in order to elevate the self. The deal is very simple: "Buy into me, and you'll get what you want. Forget the exclusive demands of that patriarchal, warlike God of the Bible who wants you to lose your life in order to gain it. Just sign on with me and you will have nothing but gain."
   
   So-called communism (actually totalitarian socialism) has offered this deal to millions in the last century: "Just sign away your freedom, and we will take care of you for life, and give you all the alcohol, prostitutes, and abortions you want." A common denominator in the former communist countries was the expulsion of God. The god of communism was "the people." Does this sound familiar? On the spiritual level, communism and democracy have a great deal in common. The sovereignty of God is replaced with the sovereignty of the people. Fortunately, America is not a pure democracy, and this has saved her from an even more rapid slide into wholesale idolatry.
   
   Wise Christians will always be scanning the spiritual horizon and their own hearts for signs of anything seeking to replace allegiance to God with another allegiance. In fact, it does not matter what the substitute is, as long as it supplants the true God. In America we see many such substitutes afoot: psychology as religion; power as god; wealth as deity; sex as divine; and the granddaddy which underlies them all: self-worship. Thirdly,
   
   
3. THE GREAT HARLOT PROVIDES AN INTOXICATING RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE.
   
   "...And those who dwell on the earth were made drunk with the wine of her immorality" (Rev. 17:2b).
   
   The western world is currently intoxicated with the throwing off of what are considered to be the confining moral and spiritual guidelines of the past. And what could be more intoxicating than becoming a god yourself? That is what people mean when they say: "I don't accept any one religion--I take bits and pieces from them all." If that is true, then those with such an approach have taken the godlike prerogative of defining the universe. Those who are shameless about such self-deification even have a term for it, calling it "godding."
   
   Since the shameless ones are not likely to hear or read this message, my question is to break open an unthinkable subject: are there ways in which evangelical Christians are becoming intoxicated with godding? Of course! Any believer who goes to church and refuses to submit in a Biblical way to the God-ordained leadership is godding. Christian intellectuals who think sophisticated thoughts which deny the authority of the Bible are godding. Church-growth-drunken leaders who redefine the gospel, the pastorate, and the church in ways God never intended are godding. Christian artists who sing nice Christian songs but live immorally are godding. Christians who break their covenant with the body of Christ over matters of personal preference are godding.
   
   Author Sheldon Vanauken made piercing comments in a collection of essays entitled Under the Mercy about Christian friends who had divorced their Christian spouses simply because they began to like someone else. He heard them defending their actions by saying "It seemed so good, so right. That's when we knew we had to get the divorces. We belonged together." Obviously, this is a description of an enraptured feeling state completely disconnected from Biblical truth. Vanauken explained that "the sacred approval they felt could not possibly have come from [God], whose disapproval of divorce is explicit in Scripture. It is Eros, the pagan god of lovers, who confers this sanction upon the worshipers at his altar." And like the worship of all pagan gods, it is all really about the self.
   
   The Great Harlot offers an addicting enchantment of self-deification which is difficult to reverse. After you've been god to yourself, it is hard to go back to being a mere human. The fourth spiritual danger is that
   
   
4. THE GREAT HARLOT CONNECTS THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION AND POLITICS.
   
   "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" (Rev. 17:3).
   
   The fact that the woman rides this "red beast" transparently means that false religion uses political power to promote its goals, and the political powers also use false religion to promote their goals. In the last days the one-world religion will work in harmony with the rule of Antichrist.
   
   Throughout the centuries the Great Harlot of false religion has had an incestuous relationship with the political powers. While riding upon the political power base, she nevertheless influences the functioning of that political system, even to the point of vetting leaders and anointing kings. As revealed in Scripture, the greater anoints the lesser (e.g. Samuel anointed Saul), so her approval of political leaders is a claim that her spiritual kingdom is superior to the earthly rule of kings.
   
   Perhaps you have heard the disturbing statistic that more money is given in America to para-church ministries than churches. A possible reason for this recently dawned on me. Some of these organizations, while not explicitly political, nevertheless have enough social influence to change the outcome of elections and to influence state and federal legislation. There is every reason to believe that some of the deep-pocket donations these organizations receive is connected to their political influence. This is a dangerous game, similar to recreational drug abuse. After you've grown accustomed to the drug high of political clout, will you be able to stop? "Oh yeah, I can quit any time I want." Perhaps not, and in the meantime, what will happen to the ministry goals which have become skewed by political contamination? Fifthly,
   
   
5. THE GREAT HARLOT SEDUCES HER FOLLOWERS INTO FOUL ABOMINATIONS
   
   "And 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..." (Rev. 17:4).
   
   The harlot does not try to reason people into false religion, but seduces them. She appeals to their fleshly desires, the desire for illicit satisfactions, the temptation to chuck all for enchanting feelings. How else do we explain the pagan practices of gluttonous feasting, temple prostitution, flesh piercing, and the like? The Great Whore offers such satisfactions to all comers who need only make a brief stop by her statue to deny the One True God and give allegiance to her. She will make it not only immensely attractive, but also easy to obtain her fleshly benefits and enter into spiritual bondage.
   
   A mark of the seduced is their newfound comfort with blasphemies (cf. :3). What used to be like a splash of boiling water to tender skin is no longer a problem. The toleration of things which God calls abominations becomes easy. Thus beneath the temple of a pagan goddess in the land of Israel is found countless skeletal remains of infants. On the high slopes of the Andes are found the mummified bodies of children sacrificed to the gods of the mountains. In America are found the shattered children whose families were sacrificed to the gods of success, sexual pleasure, and absolute personal autonomy. Beware the seduction of the Great Harlot! A sixth spiritual danger is that
   
   
6. THE GREAT HARLOT GIVES BIRTH TO NEW IDOLATRIES.
   
   "...And upon her forehead a name was written, a mystery, "BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH" (Rev. 17:5).
   
   This mother of harlots spawns new idolatries. She never rests. Just when you think you have dealt conclusively with all idolatry in your life she will offer you one at a point of weakness you have never identified. As a result, no Christian can afford to lower his vigilance for the evidences of incipient idolatry in his own heart. Like a cancer, it must be killed or cut out immediately: "...For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live" (Rom. 8:13).
   
   
7. CONCLUSION
   
   What does God do with saved people who have permitted themselves to practice false religion in some manner? God will test the deeds of our lives by fire, and the deeds done for ourselves will go up in smoke: "If any man's work is burned up, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as through fire" (1 Cor. 3:15). But how do you know you are saved if you talk Christianity but live the "other religion?" Paul wrote to the Corinthians who said they were Christians but lived for themselves: "Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you-- unless indeed you fail the test?" (2 Cor. 13:5) What is the test? Living for Christ, not themselves.
   
   The religion of self is an intoxicating poison like crack cocaine which gives a tremendous rush in the short term but leaves you suffering. It is soul-poison. The exclusive worship of Jesus Christ is the only wholesome medicine for the soul: "'Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it. For what will a man be profited, if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his soul?'" (Matt. 16:24-26a)