Reprint: September 29, 2023

Greetings and Blessings to all of you.

 

Hopefully, I'll get to the subject today of the supposed re-created city of Babylon, as well as some things that are happening politically and economically that have caused people to turn their attention towards a physical city of Babylon rather than seeing and understanding the Babylon that has been the real bane of the body of Christ.

 

Meanwhile, let's see how far I can get in completing the illustrations used thus far in sharing this prophetic picture.

 

The Bridegroom has called for a bride who will be dressed in the garments of purity – whose existence exemplifies faithfulness to him. Let me use a verse of scripture here that I've translated from the Greek text so as to render it more faithfully to the intent of what Holy Spirit is communicating to the Bride of Christ today.

 

II Timothy 2:15 reads like this: "Be instantly responsive to the Lord, making yourself available to Him in the midst of the crucible, a tried and tested laborer, who has no fear of being examined -- one who, by virtue of God's testing and the time spent in the crucible with Him, knows the proven word of truth."

 

Three words stand out in the Greek text which clarify this command: spoudason (be instantly responsive), dokimon (approved), and parasteesai (to make oneself available for examination). Let me explain.

 

The KJV translates this verse, "Study to show thyself approved....." Somehow the KJV translators derived "study" out of spoudason. I'm not sure how they got there, but this Greek word comes from its root, spoudé, which means "speed." By implication, it means, "eagerness, earnestness, haste." Spoudason, therefore, means "to use speed, to be prompt, to exert serious effort," and by extension, to "be instantly responsive."

 

Now we come to the word which creates the picture of the purified Bride, the Bride dressed in white, the Bride who has "made herself ready." That is the word, dokimon.

 

Coined (pardon the pun) by numismatists, the word, dokimon, comes from the use of the crucible -- the container into which raw ore containing gold (or other precious metals) is poured. The ore is heated until the gold separates from the quartz or the rock material in which it resides. The gold goes to the bottom, the impurities float to the top where they are scooped off and discarded. The crucible is again subjected to intense fire and heat. Again the precious metal begins to bubble and more impurities are floated to the top where they can be seen, scooped off, and discarded.

 

This process is repeated time and time again until the gold that remains in the crucible has no more impurities to yield up. Finally, while the gold is still in its molten state, it is poured out into a mold where it cools and solidifies. The refiner takes his stamp and places a hallmark on the ingot of gold. That hallmark indicates that the gold is now "approved" as being 99.999% pure.

 

The word, dokimon, used in the context of Paul's command in his letter to Timothy, describes an assay process, a testing process by which the individual becomes a living Word, a tried Word, a tested Word, a Word which has no flaws or errors contaminating it, a Word which is a living, breathing rhema of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself!

 

Finally, we have the word, parasteesai. This word comes from its root, paristémi, which means, "to present, to proffer, to bring before and make available [for examination or trial], to substantiate."

 

Now, having seen the use of these key words in II Timothy 2:15, let's take another look at Paul's instruction: "Be instantly responsive to the Lord, making yourself available to Him in the midst of the crucible, a tried and tested laborer, who has no fear of being examined -- one who, by virtue of God's testing and the time spent in the crucible with Him, knows the proven word of truth."

 

I remind you of the fact that the number of the Bride of Christ is 17. She first has the number 8 engraved in her DNA. That's the redemptive work that Jesus did at the Cross. That's the cutting off of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. That's the restoration of creative nature of the Lord as the foundation of our existence. And now we come to the "rest of the story" (as Paul Harvey used to say): the number 9!

 

You'll recall the previous series we did on "A New Onoma" in which we talked about the character and nature of the Seven Spirits of God. You'll remember that the very first of the Seven Spirits of God is "The Spirit of Judgment and Burning." (See Isaiah 4:4)

 

"Judgment and Burning" are integral to the crucible. This is where the work of Holy Spirit begins in our lives. Everything that is of the flesh must be burned out. Everything that represents the contamination of the world must be boiled out and scooped off. Everything that creates the spots of sin with the lies of Satan must be exposed and taken away. "Judgment" in this case is that which takes place when we "present ourselves for examination" so that the Word in us can be tried and tested, and tested again.

 

Let's see.....how was it that David put it?

 

"Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest." (Psalm 51:1-4)

 

David wasn't running from God, he was "presenting himself" before the Lord so that the impurities of sin could be cleansed and washed away thoroughly. THAT is the character of the number 9, the number of Holy Spirit, the part of the number of the Bride in which the finishing preparations and working of the very character and nature of the Lord are so wrought in us that His purity shines out of us and through us with such transparency that the only thing the world (and our brothers and sisters in the body of Christ) sees is Jesus Christ Himself manifested!

 

And NOW you know why the counterfeit bride -- the spirit of Jezebel -- is so obvious. There is nothing transparent about that spirit. Everything it does is to subvert, to cloud over, to hide and to darken everything about "her" nature and character so that her lord, the King of Babylon, can function with anonymity and deception.

 

The reason why John describes the church system as “the great whore” is because the system sells God’s people into whoredoms. These are people who are innocently enticed into adultery with the Lord by making their pastors or church leaders THE authority and voice of the Lord.

 

They are trapped into believing that the Bible is the Word of God instead of coming to know the Word Himself, Jesus Christ. People get to know the Bible and can quote it backwards and forwards, but they don't know the Word! They become faithful to doctrines, to organizations, to certain leaders, to individuals – all under the guise that “this is for the Lord!” – while Jesus Christ, the true Bridegroom, gets shuttled into a religious background.

 

Genuine relationship with Him gets lost in the maze of prayers, scriptures, good works, tithing, and a myriad of other things. There are many, well-meaning Christians who have a love-relationship with the Bible, with their church, with their pastor or elder – and never really get to know the Lord, spending intimate time with Him.

 

Yet Jesus Christ, the Bridegroom, still calls a people who are stuck in Babylon. "And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, 'Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For Her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled, fill to her double.

 

“How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her." (Revelation 18:4-8)

 

Approximately twenty years ago, the Lord gave me a very unique dream. In this dream, Della and I were in London, along with Earle and Marcia. We heard sirens blaring, and could see a column of smoke rising a short distance away. We went to a nearby building which was very tall (it seemed to be a hotel or office complex of some kind). Entering the building, we took an elevator to a 10th or 12th floor level, entered one of the rooms, and walked across to a balcony with a sliding glass door.

 

Looking out, we could plainly see smoke arising from an old, stone church cathedral. The firemen were busily spraying the building down with water. There were many automobiles parked on the street and in a nearby lot, and it appeared that church services were in progress.

 

I commented to Della, Earle and Marcia on the fact that people were not coming out of the building even though flames were rising from the roof. The firemen continued their deluge of water over the building until it appeared that the fire was out. Finally, they shut the water off, coiled up their hoses, returned them to their fire trucks, jumped in and drove away.

 

No sooner were they driving off down the street than I saw heat waves rising from the stone roof of the cathedral. It appeared as though it was about to buckle. As we continued to watch, the heat waves grew more intense until it became apparent that the roof was flexing because of immense pressures building up inside.

 

I turned again to Della, Earle and Marcia, and said, "The fire is not out. That building is about to explode. I don't understand why people aren't getting out of there."

 

Suddenly, the great front doors of the cathedral burst open, and approximately two dozen people came out on a dead run. They had scarcely cleared the doors when the roof suddenly buckled, snapped, imploded, and caved in on the remaining people. It appeared that perhaps anywhere from 500 to 1,000 people were still inside.

 

When I saw the roof collapse on the people, a sick feeling swept over me, and I said aloud, "I don't understand why the people just remained inside. Surely they knew that the building was going to go up in flames!"

 

The Lord spoke to me audibly and said, "You are seeing the state of the Church today. I have sent my apostles. I have sent my prophets and my evangelists whom you have seen as the firemen. Yet, they would not listen. They chose to believe the lie that they were safe in the Church.

 

The few whom you have seen escape the destruction are those few who, at the last possible moment, realized that those whom I sent were speaking My Word -- that the warning to get out of the trappings of the Church and its structure, was a warning coming from Me."

 

I awoke from the dream realizing that the Lord has been warning those people who are in the Church System. And even yet, today, at this last possible moment, the warning is going forth by the Spirit of the Lord. "Come out of her, My People! Come out of Babylon!"

 

There really isn't enough time or space left in this Coffee Break to get very far along in showing the fallacy of the idea that the Babylon of John's writing in Revelation is the old city re-created, but let me lay a quick foundation, and then we'll pick it up next week.

 

For a long time, both before and after 911, both the Clinton administration and the Bush administration were aware of Saddam Hussein's buildup of, and use of, a massive WMD program. Though there was no solid body of evidence that would lead one to conclude that Saddam had a direct hand in the events of 911, there certainly was a body of growing evidence to support the fact that he posed a "clear and present danger" (to use the DOD's terminology) to America, and that he was actively funding terrorists whose goal and stated objective was the destruction of America. The Bush administration made the tactical decision to go after Saddam Hussein as part of a two-pronged attack against the Al Qaeda network in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

 

Saddam became aware of Bush's intention of going after him and his WMD program and began moving his chemical, biological and partially-developed nuclear weapons out of Iraq and -- with Bashar al Assad's cooperation -- into the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon.

 

With Bush's "Shock and Awe" campaign, Allied troops were quickly in control of the country and soldiers began digging in and preparing for a ground war in Baghdad. Here's where the fun began. As the troops began cutting trenches into the streets of the city, they discovered and cut through some of the richest veins of gold known to man. The streets of Baghdad literally were streets of gold, despite the fact that the Iraqis were completely oblivious.

It didn't take long to realize how Saddam was able to come up with so much gold to gild his palaces, and how he could undertake a campaign to rebuild sections of Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon.

 

And that's a good stopping place for today. Next week, we'll talk about a plan to tap that wealth and create an economic Babylon spreading all over the globe.

 

Blessings on you!