In the eyes of God, the believer always is more important than the institution. Today it sometimes appears that the institution is more important than the individual. This is not wise because the institutions will perish with the heavens and the earth, while the believer who becomes part of Christ will endure forever—ages without end.

The spirit of Babylon (man-directed Christianity) is prevailing—that which seeks to build a tower that reaches to Heaven. But Babylon will be thrown down and destroyed because it is the enemy of God.

It is the writer's opinion that Babylon (Revelation 18:2) is the religion that has been created in the name of the Lord Jesus, and the spirit of Babylon can be found in most if not all Christian organizations, to the best of our knowledge.

The moment we make Christianity something other than the bringing of spiritual interpretation and fulfillment to the forms and hopes of Judaism, the moment we understand the salvation of Jesus to be something other than the bringing of eternal life to the Jews and to the elect Gentiles, to be a religion that is in competition with the other religions of the world, in that moment we embrace the spirit of Babylon.

True Christianity is the bringing of Christ and His eternal Life to the Jews and also to the called Gentiles—nothing more nor less than this. Christianity is not, in God's eyes, a Gentile religion. Scriptural Judaism, including the eternal life and the Kingdom brought from Heaven by the Lord Jesus, is the only salvation given of God.

Notice the manner in which the Holy Spirit describes the coming of Christ:

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people, And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David; As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began: That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us; To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant; The oath which he sware to our father Abraham, That he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear, In holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life. (Luke 1:68-75)

Does the above sound to you like a Gentile religion with its organs, pews, and steeples?

A careful study of the above passage will reveal that Christianity has drifted far from its mooring. We have taken the dispensation of Divine grace, which has been given to enable the Jews and the elect Gentiles to serve God in holiness and righteousness, and have twisted it until it has become a Gentile religion in which men are not obligated to serve God in holiness and righteousness because they have been saved by "grace."

To be continued.