Sonlight Devotional

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Scripture reading: Galatians 4:9-11

Let us talk about Babylon today. Modern Babylon, which I will compare point by point with the ancient Babylon, is hated of God. I cannot give you all the points, but I will give you some of them.

1. Confession. In Babylon, the Chaldic mysteries demanded that there be priests who were the keys to these mysteries. The Chaldic priests were supposed to take confessions from the people. This gave them a certain amount of power over the people, because they knew everybody’s business. They knew who killed who, or who did this or that. They held these secrets as a means of power to force men to obey them. The mysteries of Babylon, therefore, were held by the keepers, the priests.
   So it is in our modern church system. There are churches that demand a certain amount of confession from their adherents. The Catholic Church says that in order to get forgiveness from sins, you must confess your sins to the priest and the priest must absolve you from the sins. This is entirely contrary to the Word of God. 1 Timothy 2:5, “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” The office of priest was immediately abolished when Jesus Christ came as a “mediator.”
   James 5:16, “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” This scripture did not say you must confess to a priest. If you confess to the priest, then the priest would have to confess back to you. “Your faults” mean when you do wrong against another, you must confess your faults to that one. There is no license here for having a confessor, a priest, to which people must confess their faults.
2. In Chaldean rites, there was penance where people had to flagellate themselves, beat themselves over the back, and pay for their sins. Even now the Muslims beat themselves for the sins that they have committed. They must say, “It was my fault, it was my most grievous fault.” This practice is done also in the Catholic Church. Although some of us do not do this, secretly we believe that we have to pay somehow for our sins. God says that the Blood of Jesus Christ removes our sins far from us, “as the east is from the west,” and it will not come back to torment us. See Psalm 103:12. God takes away sin. Jesus Christ is the sin-bearer, and He takes away sin from those who repent of their sins.
3. Under the Chaldic mysteries, there were holy days. Anyone found doing anything on those days, working or otherwise, would be slain. The Christian faith should have no holy days, according to the Word of God. In other words, we become holy by the coming of the Holy Ghost into the person, the individual. No day is holy, but every day is supposed to be kept holy by living holy unto God. In the modern church system, they also have holy days. They say that Sunday is a holy day and that you must keep Sunday. In history, many were maimed, killed, slain, and burned at the stake by the zealous inquisitors because they did not keep Sunday. Sunday was forced upon people by the law of the church that they should keep that day as a holy day.
   Galatians 3 begins with, “O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?“ Galatians 4:9-11, “But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain.” If you should go into the churches today and tell them that the Bible says that Sunday is not a holy day, you would most likely be thrown out. Yes, “the law was (a) schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ.” After we have come to Christ, we do not go back under the “schoolmaster.” See Galatians 3:24 and 25.

Brethren, let us consider these things as we present ourselves before the Lord so that we would be found free of Babylon, which is hated of God, both in our minds and daily operations.

(Excerpt from The Book of Revelation, Volume 2, pages 155-157)

Thought for today: Remember, after we have come to Christ, we do not go back under the “schoolmaster.”