Voice of the Kingfisher speaks out …from a different perspective
by Elinor Montgomery
Babylon and the Institutional Church
April 09, 2011
For over half a century, I was a member of the institutional church – the United Church of Canada, to be exact. Looking back over the years, I realize that the purpose of that church was to turn me into a religious person. To the contrary, the intent of the Bible is to set man free with the truth from his captivity to religion, which will kill him. Jesus described it as the process of being washed clean by the Word.
In all those years of attending the United Church, I was never told about my need for salvation. Where and how did the deception begin?
If we open our Bibles to Genesis, we will discover that Satan very definitely existed from the very beginning of Creation. The first thing he did was deceive the woman with a message that she would not die, even though God had spoken the truth to her about the danger lurking in the forbidden tree, the fruit of which she ate in direct disobedience to God. At that moment she accepted the first belief system of the devil, which became the foundation for all religions. It is what is known as Babylon the Great, mother of all harlots, as was Eve, who became the mother of all living.
My earliest memories of church carefully disguised, yet conveyed, the same message of Satan, which he uses to come against the truth of God. I was led to believe that if I were good enough, and were kind enough to everyone and cared enough for the poor, by carrying out good works for them, then I, as a kind of mini-Mother Teresa, would make it to heaven some day by nature of my goodness.
If one were good enough, according to the Roman Catholic religious church system, one could even attain the status of ‘sainthood’ for achievement in good works, rather like one receiving an honorary doctorate in good works. Of course, these works would require the consideration and approval of a panel of priestly religious judges, before the title of ‘Saint’ could be handed out, for religious practices and religious duties performed.
How totally deceptive and apostate all of this is! In all my church-going years, I never was taught an ounce of truth about my goodness versus my evil nature that I inherited at birth, which puts me in the category of a human being greatly in need of salvation. Little did I know I needed a redeemer, as did Mother Teresa and the Virgin Mary, because of the death sentence for sin, which we all have inherited.
One cannot refute the fact that one is going to die. We, as human beings, are born of corruption because of our original parents who believed the same lies of religion that took them out of truth to cross over to the dark side of evil, where there is no light of creation. I am the bad fruit of a corrupted marriage bed of man with God. Satan became the third person in the bed. The human deliberately chose to be a harlot to God and joined forces with Satan in religion, or a belief system that runs contrary to the truth of God.
Jesus was the Light and the truth of Creation. He came into this world to claim us back from His adversary, the devil, who had stolen His marriage partner by means of lies and deception. This deception brought into existence the concept of liberalism or freedom from the truth of God, and life apart from His truth. Jesus came into the world to take away our sin in the only possible way, whereby He took our death sentence for us. If we should choose to accept His gift in gratitude and repentance for our sin, then in a court of Law under God, it would be possible to once again become free agents from our captivity to death in the coming New World Order of an eternal, earthly kingdom.
However, there is a wilderness test to be passed for those given a second option for life. It will determine whether or not we, like Adam and Eve, will make the choice for death instead of life for ourselves, in view of all we have learned from the events of history as directed by God. If we choose life, then we are bought by Jesus and belong to Him as His church and His servants for the purpose of spreading the gospel of truth so others will live and not be deceived.
It becomes very evident who rules over the religious institutions of Christianity, which came out of the Babylonian Empire of Rome to take the church captive to the religious empire of Rome. It, in fact, is part of the empire over which Satan rules, known as the Babylonian System, and referred to in the Bible as Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and the abomination of the earth. Could all these great cathedrals of Europe, the little, white, clapboard and the big, red, brick churches of America actually be a part of that mother of harlots called Babylon? The answer is, most decidedly, “Yes!”
This is why we now see Christianity being phased out, for it will ultimately drop Jesus completely in order to become part of a united worldwide religion, something, toward which Satan has been pushing ever onward from the moment man sinned in the Garden. He has been doing battle with God who provided the Way back to the Garden kingdom, closed on the east side to keep religion out. The day is coming when the Land will be filled with the Lord’s people who have been born again of the Spirit of life.
It is a narrow Way out of the encroaching seawaters of dark spirits back to the Spirit of life, breathed into man but lost in the Garden. It would remain lost to him until Jesus would die, be resurrected and returned to the Father after accomplishing His task of redemption so His beloved mankind can live. Satan, throughout the centuries, has been luring men from the narrow Way to the broad road of destruction as he presses against man with his lures, which appear attractive at that moment, but prove to be deadly and painful once the bait has been taken.
How blinded we are by those lies, which appeal to the pride of who we are, unaware of our immense need for the Lord God’s direction and protection! Academia, for all its pride of self, really is blind and without understanding. The religious men are fools who bypass the cross to depend on their religious goodness to take them to heaven. The institutional church is nothing but a form of cultism, which is described in the dictionary as being a form of religion.
At this time, when we remember with grateful hearts the death and resurrection of Jesus, the God-Man who loved us enough to take our pain of death so that we might be saved, what are we doing about His sacrifice for us? Are we joining in with the rabbit-inspired, Easter-egg hunt, along with the pagans, or are we telling the world about the incredible gift of salvation, which only one Man was able to offer? Is the institutional church not really His adversary in this, concerning the matter of salvation, locking people into a religious tomb rather than setting the captives free by telling the truth about such practices and about Him?
Of course, Jesus is going to empower His bride, the true church returned to her apostolic foundation, never to be found on a Roman, Babylonian base; for He declared it from the beginning that the gates of hell would not prevail against her. Truth is her only battle sword, and when she uses it, she has Jesus holding it with her. He is the Son of truth, of the God of truth, who brings victory over the enemy for His people Israel, in no other way but by truth.
As He brought Israel out of Egypt into the testing of the wilderness and then, in a purified state, delivered her to the Promised Land, He actually returned man to the Garden again on the same parcel of land between the evil waters of the sea on one side and the River Euphrates on the other. In the same way He will deliver His true church from the wilderness of this world in religion to the kingdom right here on earth, once it is rid of all spiritual religious waters, the source for the adversarial attacks of Satan.
Never for a minute believe the lie of all lies that there is no Satan. Jesus went straight from His baptism to the wilderness, where He defeated Satan’s lures, something at which Adam failed. Unlike Adam, His blood was never tainted by sin, which allowed Him to fulfill the role of the perfect sacrificial Lamb, sacrificed for His bride of mankind.
At this time of the year, let us lift thankful hearts in gratitude to the Lord and not turn away from the cross to diminish His incredible gift with rabbits and eggs. Come out of her, His people, lest you receive of the plagues and the sin of that great harlot, Babylon, about to go down with the seawaters, as they subside and the Euphrates dries up.