End Time Babylon – Part 2

The corrupted heart

Habakkuk 2:12-14 "Woe to him who builds a town with bloodshed, Who establishes a city by iniquity! (13) Behold, is it not of the LORD of hosts That the peoples labor to feed the fire, And nations weary themselves in vain? (14) For the earth will be filled With the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, As the waters cover the sea.

To understand the Bible…to understand prophecy…to understand the end-times and all the intensity contained in Jesus’ plan for the end-times, you have to understand what God wants, and what man’s heart, left to its own devices, desires. This requires a deep understanding of Genesis. Genesis is the most important book…the foundation of the Bible. Genesis documents why God made us, how God made us to operate in creation, what satan desired, and how satan led man to darkness. This is why Genesis is probably the MOST attacked book of the Bible. Even many Christians have fallen for a symbolic interpretation of Genesis rather than a literal interpretation of Genesis. Genesis is NOT a symbolic book. You might not believe it…it might seem to require too much faith for a rational person to really believe…but God intends it to be taken literally. If you don’t believe me, read the last four chapters of Job, and then we can talk.

Job 38:1-4 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said: (2) "Who is this who darkens counsel By words without knowledge? (3) Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me. (4) "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding.

God’s entire identity as God of creation is rooted in His ownership of creation. God’s ownership of creation is rooted in His fabrication of creation out of nothing. God spoke everything into existence in six days. He is the sole owner. No one gave Him the materials, the time, or the ideas for creation. It is solely His. Everything exists by Him, through Him, and for Him.

2 Peter 3:3-5 knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, (4) and saying, "Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation." (5) For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water,

Peter here is saying that it is calling this truth of the ownership of creation into question…questioning the accuracy of the Genesis account… that the enemy uses to cast deception in order to gather those that will be “his” in the final battle…this begins in the “valley of Decision.” The decision will be to trust in a plan that doesn’t rely on God, or wait, through a time of INTENSE trouble, for God to show up:

Joel 3:14 Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision.

Calling into question the accuracy of Genesis is a huge part of this plan, because Genesis contains the truth of why God made man. This idea that somehow the earth is billions of years old…that Genesis is mostly symbolic…is rampant in the Church. “Intellectuals” are determined to marry science (which, BTW is not settled) and Genesis to get some sort of rational creation account. God, who split the sea and caused the bush to burn without being consumed, isn’t that worried about appearing rational. Rational is the last thing on His mind. God likes faith…food multiplying, leper cleansing, blind seeing, deaf hearing, lame walking…water walking…faith.

So WHY DID God make everything? It was for love. Love is the programming language all of creation was written in. In the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, there is a scene where Edmund’s guilt is brought forward by the accuser…the witch. The witch talks about the “deep magic” that Narnia was founded upon, and if that were violated, if Edmund were not punished with death…all of Narnia would be consumed in fire and water. Aslan roars back “Don’t tell me about the deep magic, I was there when it was written!”

The “deep magic” God wrote creation in is LOVE…Love REQUIRES free will. Without the choice to love back, love does not exist. God IS love. Everything He does is an expression of love. God’s love has chosen everyone, but He forces no one’s hand to choose Him back. This is why there had to be a choice to say “no” to love…to say yes to darkness…in God’ perfect Garden. That choice was to eat from…to take in…the knowledge of evil. Evil isn’t an equal and opposite force to good…no! It is the absence of good…it is the absence of God. That is what eating from the tree of the knowledge of good AND evil was! It was a choice to explore what life would look like absent God…absent good. That choice to try and live apart from the source of life is death. The cost …the wages…of sin…choosing darkness…is death. Mankind was full of the knowledge of Good, which is God, from the moment the Spirit was breathed into his nostrils. BUT, evil…darkness…to gaze upon what life would look like absent God…that required a choice to say “no” to love.

And that is EXACTLY what great grandpa Adam and great grandma Eve picked…to look on the other side…to gaze on darkness…to try life…just a little…apart from God, the only source of life.

This choice by Adam and Eve introduced a virus into the programming language that the heart of man was written in. This virus is throughout the human race. It executes a desire to attempt “the good life” apart from the source of life. It is entirely based upon the lie that life is possible apart from God. Life is impossible apart from God. Someday soon, that truth will be made permanent. Right now man is deceived by God’s very patience in making that truth real.

God is the life source of mankind, just like the sun is the life source of the trees. No sun = no tree. No God = no life. Yet satan continually compels the heart of man…entices him…to cast off God and seize “life”…this is a straight up lie DESIGNED to produce death. This is the exact disease…the virus…that is so strongly written on our hearts that it can even cause a REDEEMED man or woman…one who has chosen Jesus’ death as payment for their own sin…one who has been reconnected to the very source of life…to continue to hold God’s leadership at arms length!

Most western Christians, even though they are technically connected to the source of life through the indwelling Holy Spirit, continue to try to find how far into the darkness they can go and not lose that connection! They say to themselves “it is ok with God if I just watch a little of this”…”it is ok with God if I do this, He understands…He wants me to be ‘free’”…these are the things we tell ourselves while choosing just one more bite of death and slavery! All the while, the tether connecting us to God feels more and more like a collar and a leash, rather than a lifeline…which it is. It is because we are constantly trying to pull away from the only one who holds life:

John 6:67-68 Then Jesus said to the twelve, "Do you also want to go away?" (68) But Simon Peter answered Him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.

This reality…the virus that was introduced to the programming language of creation at the time of the fall…it requires a “complete reformat” of our hard drive.

Mankind is “triune”…made in God’s image with a spirit, a soul (mind, will, emotions), and a body. If the kingdom of God were one large computer system, God would be the CPU with the Holy Spirit the wiring and the RAM, and we would be the hard drives. God made man to, in partnership with God, perform amazing calculations that would develop creation forever..Creation 1.0, 2.0, 3.0…trillion.0…never ending…better and better…never ending, satisfying, meaningful, glorious work forever with the author of love. This is what life in the Garden was designed for.

When satan introduced the virus of sin into man’s hard drive, it killed the machine. If man was a hard drive, he would be wiring connecting the drive to the machine (spirit), the disk itself (soul), and the metallic chassis (body). Stay with me for a sec….

The virus caused a complete meltdown of the hardrive. The wiring was melted, the chassis ruined, and the disk corrupted. Getting “saved” by Jesus is entering into the whole process of renewal. First, you need to get reconnected…rewired… to the kingdom. This happens at salvation with the Holy Spirit taking up residence in your spirit. Wired back into the kingdom…justification, your place in the system is forever established as long as you choose to remain connected. But then, you need to begin reformatting the disk of your heart. This is called “sanctification” …choice by choice….day by day…sector by sector…allowing God, by the connection to Him of the Holy Spirit…to erase and re-write the “bad sectors” of your heart. You need a complete reformat, but love requires that you give God each sector voluntarily! If you only give Him 20% of your heart, He will only reformat 20% of your heart. Once the process is done, at the end of your life, you will only have 20% of your original capacity in the kingdom forever! Your new Chassis will reflect your final capacity:

1 Corinthians 15:40-42 There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. (41) There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory. (42) So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption.

You might look great here on earth. You might appear to be really active in running programs…even ones that look Christian…but the truth is happening in the secret place of your heart. No one but you and God can see the sectors you are giving Him to reformat. For many that “look” active in the kingdom, the virus is still running all sorts of deadly processes…but someday, when the virus is wiped off the face of the earth forever…only the good processes, and the sectors of your heart you allowed God to reformat, will remain. This will result in a complete “reordering” of greatness based on truth:

Luke 13:25-30 When once the Master of the house has risen up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock at the door, saying, 'Lord, Lord, open for us,' and He will answer and say to you, 'I do not know you, where you are from,' (26) then you will begin to say, 'We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets.' (27) But He will say, 'I tell you I do not know you, where you are from. Depart from Me, all you workers of iniquity.' (28) There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and yourselves thrust out. (29) They will come from the east and the west, from the north and the south, and sit down in the kingdom of God. (30) And indeed there are last who will be first, and there are first who will be last."

Greatness is choosing to give God as many of the sectors of your heart as possible in the time allowed! Most of the western Church is allowing God to reformat very little of their hard drive and using most of their capacity to continue running the virus-laden software of the world. Right now is the time for all-in reformatting!

Matthew 5:17-20 "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. (18) For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. (19) Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (20) For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

So, right now, the earth should be all-in on getting our hearts reformatted. We do this by living the sermon on the mount lifestyle. I summarize it like this: 1. Take a personal inventory of where your heart is compared to Jesus’ perfect example (blessed are the poor in spirit). 2. Mourn..cry out to God to help you change your heart to look more like Jesus in all the areas you are still corrupted (blessed are those who mourn. 3. Receive the incremental reformat…sector by sector…with humility (blessed are the meek). Then test the reformat by giving your money away as secretly and generously as you possibly can…till you feel the pain of it, pray secretly, fast secretly, resist offense, give your time generously, love your enemies, keep your vows..resist offense…rinse, repeat…this is the hard work of getting reformatted…this is greatness!