P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

SOME LIES ARE WHITE, OTHERS DEADLY

Every now and then it makes for an entertaining, but still painful, hour of television on a drama like Law and Order. Someone in a family — usually a child — is desperately ill. Their temperature hovers around 104. An infection is raging out of control. But . . . the parents don’t call the doctor. They don’t accept an antibiotic pill which could quickly stem the tide. They refuse the option of an operation or a blood transfusion. Instead they just have faith. They pray, while the crisis grows ever more imminent. And before the police can knock down the door and forcibly take the child from the praying parents, the child dies.

Which, of course, leads to the point of drama. Do the prosecutors press charges against the parents? “Reckless endangerment of a minor”? Or do a mother and father have a right to hold to the teachings of their chosen “religion,” trusting in faith instead of ambulances and neo-natal units? Even to the point of that slow drive to the cemetery, because it was “(quote) God’s will”?

Well, friend, the First Amendment intricacies of church and state and spiritual healings are the topic for another time. Today, as we get close to the end of our adventure through the prophecies of Revelation chapter 14, I really have just this one thing to say: Bible truth is something which does make a difference! It does matter what a Christian believes. Would you agree with that? Reading the Bible wrong — or not reading it at all — can be a fatal mistake.

In a Christianity Today editorial dating back to May of 1997, Dr. Dean Nelson, professor of journalism at Point Loma Nazarene College in San Diego, wrote about some people who very earnestly followed what they believed. They had what they were sure was The Truth. The title of his piece is “To Heaven on a UFO?”

“Heaven’s Gate followers believed they could reach paradise by leaving their bodies,” he writes, “and joining a UFO that followed the Hale-Bopp comet. They believed that God resided in one of their leaders.” And then he adds this chilling P.S. “Much of what they said in their videos and Web sites about community, love, and eternal life I had heard for years in evangelical churches — about death to self and ultimately about death itself.”

And we all know where the errors of Marshall Herff Applewhite led his cult followers. Those mistaken ideas – mixed in with some truth – killed those people. They believed a lie and it cost them their lives.
Well, how does this tie in with the warnings we’ve been studying together here in these Three Angels’ Messages of Revelation 14? The focus of these seven verses is worship — and the Heaven’s Gate cult members worshiped all right. They were more devoted to their religion than most of us are to ours. They made sacrifices for their faith that most of us would never consider.

It’s been our careful determination in studying here that the Babylon of the book of Revelation is itself a spiritual power. Remember that it forces the entire world to give it worship. It’s false worship, to be sure. It’s coerced worship. It’s persecution worship. You can’t buy or sell, we read, unless you get the “mark” of this beast in your forehead or in your hand . . . which might mean that you, A) actually believe in this Babylon, in your own mind. Or, B) you simply go along because it is a coercing, gun-at-your-head, economic-boycott kind of power.

So to all of the other biblical descriptions and clues, if you will, about Babylon, we must add this one more. Yes, it is spiritual. Yes, it is global. Yes, it is coercive. And . . . yes, it involves a departure from truth. People will still be sitting in the pews, and they’ll still be bowing down. They’ll be singing and praying. But, just like the devotees of Heaven’s Gate did, they will be embracing falsehood instead of truth.

So right here we have to ask the rhetorical question: Is truth important? Is it life-or-death? We’ve preached here on the Voice of Prophecy many, many times that the Bible tells us Jesus Christ is the only Son of God, and the only way to salvation. It’s the cross’s way or no way. Is that vital truth? Is it life-or-death? Absolutely, it is. Moving into the camp of “all roads lead to heaven” would be dangerous indeed. To be wrong on this issue would be a fatal error.

On the other hand, Christian denominations around the world do disagree on many points where, if you found out on the Sea of Glass, you were wrong about it . . . well, it wouldn’t matter too much. Speaking of Heaven’s Gate, these people decided that celibacy was a requirement of the faith. And we know what lengths they went to in following that doctrine. Other world churches teach it as well: that their priests have to be celibate. Now, friend, I don’t find that in the Word of God. I firmly believe that celibacy is an error — and perhaps one the devil has used to tempt and frustrate many people. However, you could be wrong about celibacy and still be saved in the Kingdom of God. St. Augustine once wrote about the many beliefs you or I might be wrong on:

“In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; and in all things, charity.”

But what about fatal error . . . the kind where you think some immortal soul inside of you can escape your body after you eat poisoned applesauce and ascend to the next level on a comet? Maybe you remember an Old Testament story where King Saul was worried about an upcoming battle against the Philistines. God didn’t seem to be answering him. His prayer life was zero. He was discouraged from chasing his enemy David all over Judea. And he made the terrible decision to go seek out the advice of a witch, a spirit medium. Have you heard of the Witch of Endor?

Now, it’s plain fact that God had absolutely forbidden His people from visiting witches. Witches were supposed to be executed. Dabbling in the occult, trying to “contact the dead,” was a million miles off limits for worshipers of the true God. The possibility for satanic interference, for Satan’s evil angels to impersonate a dead person, was just so great . . . and so God had drawn a huge line in the sand and said, “Don’t go there. Don’t even think of going there. Don’t touch that stuff.” But . . . Saul went. You can read about it in First Samuel 28.

It’s interesting to me that the NIV Bible scholars seize on this very real possibility of satanic deception here. Was it maybe evil spirits impersonating Samuel? Doesn’t the Word of God say in plain English, Ecclesiastes chapter 9, that: “The living know that they shall die, but the dead know not anything”? Wouldn’t that verse have protected King Saul from being deceived? Wouldn’t the truth in that verse have been protection for him? Sure it would. But he ignored the truths God had kindly made plain to him, and went into the dark room where the séance was being held. He listened to the voice of Lucifer. And exactly one day later, having forfeited the protection of God, he was dead.

So I ask again, friend: does it matter what we believe? Is truth important? Is it a big deal if we are in Babylon, worshiping a false organization, and allowing our minds to be fed a mix of truth and error? Very clearly the author of Revelation, John the beloved disciple, believed it was a big deal. Right at the end of the Third Angel’s Message, we find that Babylon is going to be destroyed by fire, by the wrath of God. Which means that those who stay in Babylon, who continue to cling to false worship and false Bible teachings, will be destroyed as well. Is it life and death? Yes it is. No wonder chapter 18 has the mighty warning:

“Come OUT of her, My people, before you’re caught by her charms. Come out of her before you begin to share in her sins and thus receive HER plagues!”

So what does this mean for us? I said before that we can make sure we’re not worshiping Babylon if we always worship, and only worship, God. But how can we make sure that we don’t embrace the deceptions of Babylon here in these final generations of time? How can you know that your friend Lonnie Melashenko — at least I very smoothly SAY I’m your friend, don’t I? — aren’t giving you 15 minutes of Babylon error right now? Could a radio ministry be a participant in Babylon?

I have a word of protection for you as we close . . . and this isn’t a radio word from a human being; it’s a divine word from the mouth of Jesus Christ Himself. Is all truth important? He said that it was. Does the Bible teach us all truth? He said that too. And listen to this amazing promise, words of gold for the year 2002, found in John chapter 16.

“When He, the Spirit of truth, has come,” Jesus says, referring, of course, to the Holy Spirit, “He will guide you into all truth.” And then this additional promise: “And He will tell you things to come.”

I really like how this new paraphrase called The Message puts it:
“But when the Friend comes, the Spirit of the Truth, He will take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is.”

Now friend, that is protection! Do you want protection from Babylon and its deadly applesauce mix of truth and error? The Holy Spirit IS that protection. He’ll tell us what is to come, and He’ll guide us into all the truth there is. That’s certainly enough to keep us safe.