Human Trafficking in the Church — Part 23
Recognizing the Six Characteristics of the Religious Spirit of Babylon
They said, “Come, let us build a city for ourselves, and a tower whose top will reach into the heavens, and let us make a [famous] name for ourselves, so that we will not be scattered [into separate groups] and be dispersed over the surface of the entire earth [as the Lord instructed].”—Genesis 11:4 (AMP)
6. Not Being Scattered
God’s very first commandment to people was to “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28 NKJV).
People cannot “fill the earth” if they stay in one place and settle into a religious tradition that prioritizes attending meetings in the same large buildings week after week.
Jesus’ final command before His ascension echoed His very first command to mankind.
“Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”—Mark 16:15 (NKJV)
God never intended for His people to settle into a religious tradition that was focused mainly on meeting in the same large buildings week after week.
For most Christians in our day, the focus of our spiritual activity centers on weekly church meetings. Our spiritual lives often revolve around church meetings. These meetings are often our source of stability and spiritual grounding. We focus our spiritual energies on “getting fed” spiritually and “being blessed” in regular church meetings with our small circles of comfortable relationships.
We may do our best to conduct our lives within our “Christian bubbles” where we can safely raise our children and minimize contact with those who believe differently than we do so that their influence does not contaminate the sterile insulation of our Christian worlds that we have created for ourselves and our children.
We may need to rethink that paradigm because that did not characterize Jesus’ ministry at all. The ministry of Jesus looked very different from the lives of many Christians today.
Jesus spent so much time among people with needs who were outside of the religious circles that He was looked down upon by religious leaders as a “a glutton and a wine drinker, a friend of tax collectors and [especially wicked] sinners!” (Matthew 11:19 AMPC).
If you look at the significant events in Jesus’ ministry, almost all of them happened between meetings, when He was out among the people during the week.
His baptism happened at a river.
His miracle ministry began at a wedding reception.
His healing ministry did not begin in a religious meeting. Most of his healings took place as He was going from place to place during the week.
He never raised the dead in a religious meeting.
Most of Jesus’ teaching ministry happened *between *religious meetings as He spent time with people on a daily basis.
His greatest recorded sermon—the Sermon on the Mount—did not take place in a religious meeting. It seemed to happen almost spontaneously as the opportunity presented itself.
His great prophetic messages about the end times were not shared in religious meetings. (See Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21.)
He was not in a religious meeting when He fed the 5,000 or the 4,000.
He didn’t choose any of His twelve apostles during religious meetings, and none of them were chosen from the ranks of the religious leaders. None of the original twelve had even attended Bible school!
The famous Last Supper took place in the guest room of a man’s house.
The greatest events in the history of Christianity—Jesus’ death on the cross and His resurrection—did not take place in religious meetings.
One aspect of Jesus’ ministry that *did *begin in a religious meeting was His deliverance ministry (See Mark 1:23 and Luke 4:33). After all, if you’re going to cast out demons, you need to go where the demons are.
When Jesus did minister in religious institutions, He was often greeted with opposition, angry responses, and murder attempts.
Most of Jesus’ significant ministry encounters happened between religious meetings as He interacted with people on a daily basis.
When the time came for Jesus to send out His apprentice disciples to do the work of the ministry on their own, He did not send them into synagogues, or temples, or Bible schools, or any religious institutions of His time. Jesus sent His disciples out into the surrounding cities. He did not have them huddle together in large buildings and preach to each other, as we would do today. He sent them out among the people who had needs. (See Matthew 10 and Luke 9 and 10.)
The religious spirit of Babylon, however, inspires Christians to settle in one place and to turn their focus inward. Instead of sending laborers out into the spiritual harvest, emphasis focuses on regular church attendance, building up church programs, and strengthening the religious organization. When this happens, Christians are trained to be spectators rather than participants in ministry. They never learn how to effectively evangelize, or how to make disciples, or how to baptize someone as Jesus commanded all of us to do in His Great Commission. (See Matthew 28:19.)
What they learn instead is to stand and to sit in unison at the direction of the worship leader, priest, or other ministerial leaders. They also learn to sit quietly and listen respectfully to lectures that are delivered from the pulpits, and to applaud in an appropriate manner when the ministerial performer does or says something that is sufficiently inspiring.
One night, several years ago, I received a call from my pastor. He called to try to persuade me to come to the church meeting that night because the church was hosting a big-name guest speaker. But there was a problem. A strong storm had come through my city that night. Trees had been blown down, blocking some streets, and there was widespread flooding. Emergency crews were out in different locations trying to rescue people who had been caught in the floods. News channels were cautioning people not to venture out unless it was absolutely necessary. Dismissing these conditions, my pastor was urging me to make the trip across town to attend the meeting that night.
It was a bit disturbing to me to realize that my safety seemed to mean less to my pastor than making a good showing and providing an appreciative audience for this big-name guest speaker. I was being asked to perform the duties that I had been trained for as a well-behaved audience member, even if it put my own personal safety at risk. If people did not show up because of the storm, the church leadership would face the embarrassment of providing an insufficiently small audience for this ministerial performer who was used to speaking to much larger audiences. The church’s reputation was at stake.
Is this what “church” has become in this modern age?
It might benefit the modern Church to take a hard look at itself and its practices and ask some probing questions.
What are we doing? Did Jesus or any of His early disciples do what we are doing?
Why are we doing things this way week after week?
Why does our ministry look very different from the ministries that Jesus and the early apostles modeled for us? Why are we not seeing the same results in our ministry that they saw in theirs?
Have we lost sight of our true purpose?