Flee Babylon?

[Autumn]

This a big question for me. for me and not neccesarily for anyone else, it seems to be the big question for me these days.

For me this means to flee any cult like institution, be it church or politics or anything in its form.

It is very personal to me alone. I do not talk about this normally. But this seems like a good place to discuss ii.

What does it mean to Flee babylon?
I met an Israeli who fled Isreal recently. I mentioned fleeing babylon to her and she seemed to get it.

I've asked another and another if it means fleeing organized religon. Those I was able to ask were not entrenched in organized religon.

I'm not trying to be controversial. I really do not know what it means to flee babylon. And I'm not asking anyone else. I will no doubt eventually find my answer or not.

I have found that there is cults everywhere, in church and out of church. The format seems to be the same, "us vs them" mentality. For so long I was entrenched in any kind of us vs them because blaming someone else feels so rightous and good. But now I know better. We are all us , whethor we know it or not, that is the conclusion I've come to recently. mabe I do not agree with some of us, and mabe I do not want to associate with some of us.

Is this growing up in a mature manner? pondering aloud. No need to respond. It is a time saver. Not to have to respond. I thank you if you read this and think about it. If anyone has an opinion, I would be grateful.

I do not trust anyone~ anymore. I know we can share experiences and walk in the same steps...sometimes. Mabe I'm nuts. But I do care and I do wonder about this kind of thing. If you have time and are interested, am curious about your thots on this subject. If not, no worries. It is'nt that important. I just know that what I learned in church was not the truth as I look and question as I am today...sure hope this makes sense to somebody. Autumn

[mstar]

Hi Autumn (what a nice name),


"What does it mean to Flee Babylon?"

I am not a Bible scholar, but I think if it is used in its context from Rev., it would mean to flee the "Mystery Religions" that have many different regional permeations.

I agree with what you are saying, (if I am understanding) that most cults and those organizations that call themselves churches, but are, in fact, cults, have "proof text" "Flee Babylon" into an "us against them" mentality . . .

"We are the good guys, God's people, . . .you are not, you are evil and of the world ie. "Babylon".

and that's not so very nice, is it.

[Joseph]

Hi Autumn,

I know that when it comes to God, there is no gray area. God is good, all the time and everything else is bad, somethings are only a little bad (gray area) but it is not of God. A persons heart is the same way, you can tell where someone is at by observing their day to day life, their actions towards others and how they handle a given situation. We know that all of mankind has fallen short of the Glory of God, nobody's perfect, but by observing, we can distinguish who is trying and who isn't. I believe that I shouldn't be afraid to associate with anyone (Jesus did), I've got the goods! I have Jesus in me, and as long as I continually walk with Jesus, nobody can hurt me. It's a lose lose situation for anyone who is evil that comes in contact with me, I will either affect him by my walk or they will leave frustrated because I will not turn to their ways. I understand about "not trusting", you don't have to trust anyone but Jesus, but Jesus asks us to reach out to everyone by living as an example of Him. Fear is a product of the devil, most Christians, me included, have experienced fear, especially in a spiritual abuse situation. Make no mistake about it, we did flee this bad situation at churches we've been in, the devil is working full time trying to bring our churches down, in our churches he works in the gray areas, that's why it takes so long for us to make a decision to leave these situations. I've noticed that just about everyone who flees these situations are pretty strong Christians, not willing to compromise, standing up for Jesus, that tells me that we are a threat to the devil, we're not gonna give in, so we get isolated and our commitment is tested, and that is when we need to take the authority that God has given us over the devil and rebuke him and all principalities and spirits out of our lives. I love what Jesus said in Luke 6:22,23

22Blessed are you when men hate you,
when they exclude you and insult you
and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.

23"Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their fathers treated the prophets.

He's pretty much telling us to expect it if you follow Him. You must be a strong Christian, you've sound like you've come a long way, keep going.
Joe

[Carmen]

For me fleeing Babylon means fleeing false doctrine, maybe even speaking out against it. Although I feel it is like trying to put out one fire when there are twenty others about. It is just a drop in the bucket, but a drop is better than nothing.

[SpinningHead]

I read not too long ago a book called:

The Truth Behind Left Behind
by Mark Hitchcock & Thomas Ice

I thought this to be an excellent book in simply discussing the left behind series. One part I thought particularly fascinating discussed Babylon and what the Bible says about it. To understand that Babylon represents the complete opposite of Jerusalem (God's city) is to bring clarity to your question. The book brings the reader through a study on the subject w/ lots of Bible verses/passages to compare and read through.

I think you're all right and you all seem to be alluding to the same basic idea: that which is opposite of God's city/plan for us (good, holy, rightous, loving, etc.) is "Babylon".

To see it layed out in this book is really good validation for all that you're thinking. And then you could absolutely know why you're right. :)

[whitey]

This a big question for me. for me and not neccesarily for anyone else, it seems to be the big question for me these days.

For me this means to flee any cult like institution, be it church or politics or anything in its form.

It is very personal to me alone. I do not talk about this normally. But this seems like a good place to discuss ii.

What does it mean to Flee babylon?
I met an Israeli who fled Isreal recently. I mentioned fleeing babylon to her and she seemed to get it.

I've asked another and another if it means fleeing organized religon. Those I was able to ask were not entrenched in organized religon.

I'm not trying to be controversial. I really do not know what it means to flee babylon. And I'm not asking anyone else. I will no doubt eventually find my answer or not.

I have found that there is cults everywhere, in church and out of church. The format seems to be the same, "us vs them" mentality. For so long I was entrenched in any kind of us vs them because blaming someone else feels so rightous and good. But now I know better. We are all us , whethor we know it or not, that is the conclusion I've come to recently. mabe I do not agree with some of us, and mabe I do not want to associate with some of us.

Is this growing up in a mature manner? pondering aloud. No need to respond. It is a time saver. Not to have to respond. I thank you if you read this and think about it. If anyone has an opinion, I would be grateful.

I do not trust anyone~ anymore. I know we can share experiences and walk in the same steps...sometimes. Mabe I'm nuts. But I do care and I do wonder about this kind of thing. If you have time and are interested, am curious about your thots on this subject. If not, no worries. It is'nt that important. I just know that what I learned in church was not the truth as I look and question as I am today...sure hope this makes sense to somebody. Autumn

It makes sense to me....

I have come to believe that Babylon is the whole world's operating system including political, social and religious. What we call our "christian" religions today are a culmination or development of "traditions" which attempt to claim authenticity from the Bible but are in direct conflict with it. The Babylon system of religion today is based upon the judeo-christian ethic and encompasses all mainstream religion and their splinters (cults and sects) back to the days that the universal church divided into catholic and protestant and thence backwards to when the universal church was created under military threat by the Priest of Jupiter and Emperor of Babylon for the purpose of reducing conflict and regularising trade in his domain.

This political and religious monolith in all its present day forms has nothing to do with the church of God. The church that is of God consists of those who are born of their Father from above by His Spirit. This is who you are and not something you have done. This church is not a house built with hands and it has no denomination name. The children of God are not of this world and the world will seek to destroy them because they are the inheritors of the Kingdom of their Father and it is their destiny to rule with God. The tenants sought to kill the heir of the owner of the vineyard so they could retain possession of the inheritance for ever. We are the joint heirs with Christ and so we too must be destroyed by this juggernaut. It is because of who you are that these things have been happening to you. You are hearing the voice of God to come out and be separated to Him.

I found a very interesting article on 21s Century Christianity. I tried to locate the original author who is named in the work, but the best I could find was that he worked as a Maths teacher at a private school in Houston until last year. I contacted the school but they did not know how to contact him. It is an insightful article for those able to think in depth and outside the religious square.

http://geocities.com/nuttingitout/century21.htm

[jane]

I am not a biblical historian, but was the tower of babel in babylon?

If that is the case, then the tower of babel was destroyed because man was trying to erect something greater than God's creation.....

kind of similar to the modern day church; man's attempt at greatness. . . . . .

jane