The Two Trees Within by Ross Shultz - HTML preview

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Babylon, The Whore

I’m sitting here thinking, thinking how this subject can be approached, get the point across and at the same time not offend people to the place that they throw this book down, or just won’t look at a deeper truth that’s going on everywhere.

Babylon is the capital of the Babylonian empire, and no, I do not want to talk about the place located on the Euphrates river. It’s an empire, the world. You know, the whole world that is made by the hands and thoughts of man; that sacred place in our mind where every thought and imagination runs rampant, that runs wild to any distance that man can invent. Babylon is the reproduced fruit that came from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It has a bottomless-pit, an endless abyss of formulas, governments, rights and wrongs, religions, standards, and everything else that man can invent from his knowledge gathered at the tree in the Garden, the cravings of the empire that man has built unto himself, in other words the world that we live in.

It’s been going on for so long that all of us take it, this worlds’ ways, for granitite, as the best or right way to proceed, but it is not. The occupants of Babel were in one accord and working together to build a tower, an empire unto the heavens, (themselves), that would raise man to the top, as him being the empire and him being the leader of it. God destroyed the tower, babbled their language, and dispersed the people, to the far reaches of the earth, with their mind-set still in tack. And we began again to start this all over, doing the same thing, thinking we’re a little smarter, and will get it right this time. It wouldn’t work then and it sure as heck can’t, or won’t work now, but we keep trying and trying. It’s a state of mind more than it is a place, but never-the-less it is still the world as we know it without mans’ total relationship with God as can be provided by running to, and eating from the Tree of Life.

God has put blinders on our eyes, as we see through a glass darkly, we may be able to see a little bit, but not the Life that has been provided for us, that can only be seen without the sun-shine of this planet, that is when one shuts his eyes and looks through his heart to the true meaning of this abbreviated life.

So yes, we all, to some degree live in the Babylonian empire, not willing to accept that man has failed and now needs to turn around. But once again the tower will fall, be destroyed, and man then will be called into repentance, (to change his mind), and turn from mans’ ways and follow the pattern and example of Jesus Christ. 2nd Chron. 7:14 says: “if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I (God) will hear from Heaven, and will forgive their sin, (missing the mark), and heal their land.” By-the-way, ‘land’ is our own individual person, family, etc., you know, the place we live; our heart, mind, soul and strength. This is what God is saying to His people, you and me. We can live in this world and be not of it, its’ tragedies, hang-ups, kingdoms, rights and wrongs, ups and downs, manipulations, and all the games that it plays on those they want to control. We might have to live in it, but none has to be a part of it.

Revelations 14:8 says; “Babylon has fallenæbecause she has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.” Even though this event is really going to happen, I want to go a little deeper and see that it has already happened throughout this nation and others, as the mine-set of a people that see’s themselves as superior walk, live and judge their lives and the world by the knowledge all have attained through a dysfunctional world. I call it a dysfunctional world because it is, yes we can all struggle by if all the rules and regulation are obeyed, but no true peace or prosperity is ever achieved, and never will be achieved until one stops the bowing to the idols that man has built unto himself. Jesus said; “it is finished”. Again, we’re talking about His people turning away from mans’ ways and following our great emancipator, which is Himself, the Christ of God. “It is finished” is what happened when He gave up the Spirit, was resurrected, and began sitting at the right hand of the Father. There is nothing, and I truly mean nothing that man has to do, act or say that can warrant our approval to the Father. So unless Jesus lied, and He didn’t, it is of a truth, finished. But mankind won’t accept that, because to do so means that all the hierarchy has to lay down all their idols, their formulas, doctrines, large or small cathedrals, all the ways that they have created a god in their own image… This ain’t goin’ happen,

King Nebuchadnezzar, the ruler and lord of Babylon was a man that took on the disguise, and wanted the people to think he was doing the will of God, but was following his own lead. His ego was revealed when he took Jerusalem (the Holy place) into captivity. He had a form of godliness, but in no-wise followed God, only made a pretense of it. Look around, what do you think is happening today? Nebuchadnezzar would talk the talk when it was convenient, or when it made him look good to a few of his peers, but in no way was he leading the people in a Godly way. He built himself up to be an idol, worthy of being followed, with the façade of ways, and the burdens he put on the people, but failed, and failed miserably.

Hosea was asked to marry a woman that was a prostitute, a whore, named Gomer. No Lord he shouted out. If I do that, she’ll fool around with everyone in town, just like she always has, but God told him to marry her anyway, and she did. Not getting too deep into the story of Hosea and his wife, we can all read it to see what happened. Hosea’s wife went a whoring around, just like the bride of Christ is doing today. That is, following the doctrines and so-forth, worshipping the buildings, rules that each denomination creates, placing a king, (pastor), in charge, and summiting to one another instead of summiting to the Lord of our being, the only God worthy of our life. The story of Hosea is a parallel of Christ and his church, He being the Christ and we being Gomer, the bride. Many, many times in the Word of God, there are references made about Israel going a-whoring-around. Remember Israel is God’s chosen people, just like we are. The people that He brought through thick and thin, Egypt, the desert wilderness, Jericho, and so on, His bride, just like we are. No, God did not give up on them, not in the least bit, the them is us. The word Israel in scriptures can and should be paralleled, not really replaced but as equals to each other, with the word church. And we still have Nebuchadnezzar running the show, and I did mean that with the pun-intended. What’s going on today is the same showbeing thrown together by the leaders of these ‘things called churches’ as it was in the days Jesus walked this earth with the Scribes and Pharisees.

Why have the people of this world, and especially the people that call themselves by His name, allowed this trick of manipulation to be fed to us, and why have we bought it hook-line-and-bait? Did satan, the human knowledge of the mind, have this two thousand year plan to take over the world without firing a shot? Were we so hungry for the things of God that we bowed at the first pretty face that came alone saying he can now put God in a box and feed him to us?…..God said; “oh Israel, oh Israel how long am I to be with you that I have to keep you under my wing?” How long folks? How long are we going to continue to stand up for everything that seems right, that looks pretty, that smells good, that sounds good, that has bells and whistles on it, and not stand up for the Christ of the True Church that God has presented to His people? And this misrepresented ‘thing’ is not it. It doesn’t even come close, not even a little bit close to what Jesus was speaking of when talking with Peter about this Rock. With all the bitterness, strife, envy, back-biting, not to mention all the different denominations and sects with their many different ways and avenues to find God. No wonder there is so much confusion and disorder between them. We may love or like a few of our neighbors, but there is no connection with this to what God has set up for each and every person wanting to ‘ask, knock and seek’ to know the Truth, and Love his neighbor with a Love that passes all of our understanding.

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Whore; One that sells them self for gain or profit.. Pimp; One that advocates the selling of one self for gain .or profit.

 

When did it become acceptable in the eyes of God to sell our wares, our sermons, books, videos, take up a collection plate and pretend that one or two men were to run the show and the rest were to follow him through the power and schemes of their mind? We have gone a-whoring-around when we have placed anything or anyone in front of God, which includes the thoughts of the mind. When we worship this church in the stead of Christ that’s building His Church, we are whoring with idols. If anyone promotes this activity and calls others into it, that is called a pimp.

Israel, in the wilderness whined and murmured the whole way through it, to the place that God was letting all the ‘old man’ of them die before Israel could enter into the promised land. If God is always the same today, yesterday and tomorrow, why would He be different today with the way the people ‘that are called by His name’ conduct themselves as; business-as-usual? We’ve chased about every idol that man can invent such as Sunday-school, sanctuaries with their stain glass windows, fellowship halls, choirs with their upper seating, people singing hymns and songs for profit, people writing books for profit, and even the television guys will sell you the coveted brow cloth that they wipe their sweat off with. Do you think that cultures have gone too far running after the idols that man and his imagination can come up with, or is it time to stop the non-sense and face God?

The hardest people to reach with the Gospel is the religious people, especially those living in the so-called bible belt, because of their long lasting traditions and their closed mind attitudes that have been developed over the years. This ought not to be so, they, or we are the ones going around bragging that we have the only truth that needs to heard, and without reservation of what God can and is doing today in the lives of many. None of us have the whole Truth, not yet, but none that close their heart will have any of the Truth until our deserved God gets His due attention.

I’ve been in the ‘church’ for many years and do not want to have any resentment about it in any form or fashion, these were good years spent in an assembly learning what I could about the things of God. But all the time being involved in this “thing’, God was speaking to me about what is really going on, with all the prides and egos circling from the pulpit to the front porch. This may be a bold statement, but: I don’t see anything wrong with going to these assemblies, unless one wants to graduate out of kindergarten. As for me, I wouldn’t take anything for my experience there.

Yes, we have been held back by the teachings of the different denominations because of the burdens, (heavy weights), that are heaved on the newborn, ready and willing to seek God in every way they know how, go to ‘church’. No one person is to blame for all that’s been happening, nor can we narrow it down to a dozen or so, for we (mankind) missed the mark a long time ago when man put his hands on the congregated people. It wasn’t our job then and it’s not our job now, ‘lest God tells you so’.

I’ll let this go for now, but will talk about it in greater detail later on.

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I have mentioned earlier in this text that every man has a woman within and every woman has a man within. Again, I was and am speaking of the Spirit and soul of each individual person, the female certainly has the Adam, Spirit of God and the male certainly has the Eve, soul of the person. Both have a purpose, and especially when joined together in the marriage, ordained from the beginning. But for whatever reasons, and there are many, man and his soul, for the most part are still separated.

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So let’s take a brief look into Revelations, and we’ll begin in the fourteenth chapter, verse eight.

“And another angel followed, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, if anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or his hand, he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angel and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever, and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receives the mark of his name.” Verse 12: “Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. Then I heard a voice from heaven say to me. Write, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Yes, says the Spirit that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them.”

I stopped at verse thirteen but I hope all will read the rest. But let’s try to talk about these verses a little and see if we can make sense or glean from them.

The scriptures are pouring from heaven the everlasting Gospel to those that dwell on earth, to every nation, tongue, tribe, and people. A new message it seems will be poured upon all.

Babylon is, in general, the world as we know it, and is fallen. In other words, this system of government, religion and the way man conducts his internal affairs will crash down, therefore no longer will we, individually, operate with the business-as-usual attitude. So when babylon falls from the status that we have accepted it in our mind, it will have fallen indeed. Remember, we are not speaking about the geographic place on earth, but the degree that it has infiltrated our lives through the mind; our affairs, the way we think, the way that we have readily bought into or tolerated it with the attitude of not wanting to rock the boat. I’m here writing this for the sound reason of maybe planting a seed, and to rock the boat.

So look closely, in verse nine we can see that the beast and his image is the mind-set of babylon, and is received when ones’ brain, or could say his mind, and the work of his hands, embracing the same formula that Peter was trying to use at the mount of transfiguration, when he wanted to build three temples as a shrine of what took place. And those of us, and it is all of us to some degree, that have given our lives to the rites, rituals, formats, and daily and weekly religious rhetoric that never worked in the past, and certainly can’t work now. Yes we have gone whoring around, chasing other little gods, such as this ‘thing called church’ which most that attend ‘it’ have placed ‘it’ in the status of an idol, to be worshipped and adored. The true Church is an unmovable way of life that cannot be altered by anything or anyone. The Church is Gods’ people, not a place or a thing, seeking Him with whatever means they have, to find the relationship with Him that was intended from the beginning, walking with Him. So the wrath that is spoken of in the verse above is the tearing down of that mind-set that has enabled each one to buy into this deception that has attempted to feed man with the same seducing attitude fed to us in the Garden of Eden by the serpent in the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That is; that man has to put his thought and hands on it, therefore receiving the mark in his forehead (mind), and his hand.

Let’s just take a moment here to show something that has been taught to all about the wrath of God. Yes, God has a wrath and it is sent down on that which He wants destroyed, but since God is love and love conquers all, His wrath has to be a form of love, and it is.

When God sends His wrath, it is not sent upon the person or the people, but upon the plague, or whatever principality, that is in the high places of the mind. So looking at it this way, completely different than we’ve been taught, we can see the wrath of God is as a blessing. It is liken to a surgeon attacking a cancer, to take it away through a painful procedure to heal and help the patient. We are Gods’ patient.

The Sadducees and Pharisees didn’t come close to getting it right, and Jesus was born to rescue man from his own delusions, so what makes us think that this ‘thing’ isgetting it right,… it’s not. It doesn’t matter how many people have been doing it or how long it’s been done, the methods and towers that man has built unto himself will never save a single soul, only God can do that.

In verse ten we can see that no matter how small or how great, how rich or how poor, no matter whether we are free or a slave, all have taken of the mark of the beast, by receiving a mark on our forehand (the human efforts), or on our forehead (the thoughts, schemes and so forth to think one is smarter than God), and therefore the wrath of God is not a horrible act, but an action to resolve us of these ungodly thoughts and efforts man calls religion. It’s not that man is bad, he is not, but the delusion that he (we), bit into, thinking the serpent may be right when he said; “we will be like God”. So ever since then, man that didn’t run to the Tree of Life, kept running with the tree of knowledge, thinking he can still show himself approved by his thoughts and efforts. For those, verse eleven, that continue with this hypocrisy, and again we all do to some degree, are tormented, and we are, and can and will find no rest. The torment is that we can never fill that empty space in our heart that is reserved for God, no. not with the forms and idols that man has created, nor will we find that REST that was laid out for us in the Garden, that is still available today. The rest is an inner place inside each of us that longs to have that intimate relationship with the Father.

Verse twelve; but those that are patience and keep, hid in his heart, the commandment of love and faith will find or be given that REST that can only be through God. “Yes” said the Spirit, in verse thirteen, “that they may rest from their labors (efforts), and their involuntary works shall follow them.” Maybe another way of attempting to explain this is that man gets into his own way, becomes his own stumbling block.

Chapter seventeen, verse five;…”MYSTERY BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF ALL HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints…” Can we now see who it is that’s drunk? Even though babylon is government, and spread out in many different fashions throughout the world and so much of the world, this is narrowing in on babylon, this thing that we call church. For in truth, none other has persecuted the Children of God but the Sanhedrin and the structured ‘church’ of today. Both have made the sons of God stronger in their faith, maybe with a little help from the Romans. It is truly our enemies that challenge us , and therefore cause us to become stronger.

As Babylon falls, God shouts; chapter eighteen, verse four, “come out of her my people, lest you share in her sins (missing the mark), and lest you receive of her plagues.” Let’s keep reading a little more. For verses five, six, seven revealed that her sins have reached Heaven and in her glorified luxury it shall be measured back in torment and sorrows. She sits as a queen and says she is no widow nor does she have any sorrows. How arrogant can you get? She (the church), says in her harden heart that she is above all sorrows and troubles, is doing things right, is meeting the needs of the people, sits higher than the common man and is therefore untouchable… Nonsense, she thinks she sits as queen, but she sits as a whore, gathering in as many as would follow her with her pompous attitudes, and stain glass windows and all the bells and whistles she can come up with. Seducing as many as were entering her doors or even those that look in her direction.

“Am I therefore your enemy because I tell you the truth.” No I’m not. Many might think so, and many may think that they’ll do the world a favor by getting rid of me, but the Word of God shall carry on, with or without me as a voice. Yes the whore and the harlot is alive and well on planet earth for the time being, but it will not always be this way, for her throne as queen shall be tormented, and her sorrows shall be great.

Again, I am not an enemy to the christian world, not even a threat to it. If I was to speak a few of the truths about some of the other religions, they may feel it’s their right to attack me, But since, I was involved pretty deep, without regret, in this thing called ‘church’ for so many decades, and know the ends and outs of it, I am qualified to speak the truth as God gives it to me. If what I write about evokes or provokes any of you, or if anyone can imagine it doing so, to the point that they too would see it as a blessing to attack me, well, then that proves my point. No one involved in the institution of this ‘thing’ would want their idol spoken against, especially if it is their means of livelihood, and certainly doesn’t want anyone or anything to mess up their sand-box.

Please feel free to read any part of Revelations and see for yourself that the events spoken about is not necessarily speaking about things that are yet to come, but instead, are speaking about the now, the words of the great I AM.

…“Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. For her sins have reached heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities…Rev. 18:4-5.