One of professing Christendom’s most time-honored sayings is that man does not pull God down to his moral level so as to be one with Him (atonement), rather that God reaches down to man and pulls him up to His moral level. Truer words have never been spoken. However, those words are as far as man is willing to go with that truth. The church is all talk and no walk when it comes to being one with her Maker. As the Scriptures and church history show, the Institutional Church practices the exact opposite of what she preaches, all the while proclaiming that she is living the mantra she repeatedly voices.

The Counterfeit Church, characterized in Revelation 17:1-5 as Mystery Babylon, the Great Whore and her Harlot Daughters, lives in a spiritual pit where heathenism forms her spiritual foundation and the world is her ever-present companion. In that bad companions corrupt good intentions (1 Cor. 15:33) and a little leaven leavens the whole loaf (1 Cor. 5:6), the world-embracing church has become as deceived as the world she embraces (Rev. 12:9). So thorough is Satan’s hold on her that she reads the same books, watches the same t.v. programs and movies, wastes her time in the same self-absorbed pursuits, observes the same pagan customs, listens to the same music, etc. as the world around her, all the while proclaiming her exalted status. Assuming that she has been automatically sanctified upon completing the rituals described as the “salvation experience,” she claims to be able to live like that world with impunity, Jesus having made it all possible.

The whole of professing Christendom, like her ancient Laodicean counterpart (Rev. 3:17) lives in a spiritual abyss in total peace because she believes that she and the Lord occupy the same spiritual space–He is in the pit with her. He has seen the error of His ways, approved of her version of “the Christian walk” and has assured her that a mansion awaits in heaven provided she stays the course directed by whichever “church,” “faith,” “denomination,” etc. she has constructed for herself based on her unique version of the Bible. She is content in the fact that God, realizing that she is right, has allowed her to pull Him down into the pit where she makes and enforces all rules relative to religion. His job is that of enabler–He is her “minister of sin” (Gal. 2:17) Who allows her to do as she pleases, then covers her inevitable sins with the blood of His Son.

But if we can take God at His Word, which the Counterfeit Church refused to do, we know that He does not come down into the Pit (church), but rather “… stand(s) at the door (of the church) and knocks,” promising to be God to anyone who “… come(s) out of her (and) … touch(es) not the unclean thing” (Rev. 3:20/2 Cor. 6:17). God does indeed reach down into man’s religion where He will grasp the hand of anyone wanting to come out, pull him/her out of the miry clay and stand him/her on the Rock (Word-Jn. 1:1-4/Rev. 19:13) to stay. He will elevate the righteousness-seeker to His accepted character level–the only level that He will accept. However, God’s messenger who says this to the church and points to the Scriptures that back up that Truth is accused of falling from grace and summarily rejected. Being a heretic in league with the devil, the Truth-bearer is repudiated for having exposed Satan’s darkness for what it is–false light. Only rarely does a churchite chose to come to God’s light, leaving family and friends behind. Such a one, having put his/her hand to the plow, must not look back. To do so makes one unfit for the Kingdom of God (Lk. 9:62). Jesus came with the Sword of the Spirit–His Word–to separate saints from family and friends, sheep from goats, contenders from pretenders, diamonds from zirconium (Mat. 10:32-39). Having counted the cost, such a saint will admit that the cost–the cross one must bear (Mat. 10:38)–is great, but the reward will be so much greater. L.J.