QUESTION 7 OF 12:
What are those Characteristics of Babylon Again?
Let's look again at those characteristics of Babylon which do apply to the SDA structure at this time:
1. Babylon: Babylon threw a celebration in bold defiance of God, during a most solemn time of judgment. The SDA church of all the various religious denominations, the only one having the judgment-hour message, is also the one that has been so bold as to lead out in the celebration abomination.
2. Babylon: Perverts and destroys God's sanctuary. SDA: says that atonement was completed at the cross; Ford theology, "new theology"; etc.
3. Babylon: teaches salvation in sin. SDA: Conference leadership says that sanctification (victory over sin) is not important for salvation (ISSUES: THE SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST CHURCH AND CERTAIN PRIVATE MINISTRIES, p 109); many pastors teach that victory over sin is not essential, or even possible.
4. Babylon: deceives with sorcery, or spiritualism. SDA: pastors are using NLP (hypnotism): another form of modern-day spiritualism as found in GC 557, 558: "It is true that spiritualism is now changing its form and, veiling some of its more objectionable features, is assuming a Christian guise... Love is dwelt upon as the chief attribute of God, but it is degraded to a weak sentimentalism, making little distinction between good and evil. God's justice, His denunciations of sin, the requirements of His holy law [victory over sin], are all kept out of sight."
5. Babylon: rejects the prophets of God. SDA: creates a church manual; establishes mammoth worldly educational and medical systems; builds a hierarchal structure; etc, etc, etc--all in open rebellion against the plain inspired statements of the last-day prophet.
6. Babylon: seeks worldly counsel and "wisdom". SDA: quotes from all sorts of worldly theologians (SAINTS VICTORY by William G. Johnsson, REVIEW editor, etc); pastors take Lab training from commandment breakers; pastors are sent to Fuller Theological Seminary (non-SDA institution) to be trained on techniques for so-called "evangelism" (actually, ecumenism).
7. Babylon: gives confusing messages. SDA: mixes truth with error; etc.
8. Babylon: rejects the Sabbath. SDA: holds Easter sunrise services, which is both Sunday worship and sun worship; rejects sanctification (ISSUES 109), which is a rejection of the Sabbath--regardless of what day you attend an assembly--because the Sabbath is the sign of sanctification (Ex 31:13; Ezek 20:12; DA 288).
9. Babylon: is friendly to Rome. SDA: gives gold medal to the pope; invites Catholic official to have prayer in General Conference session; tries to stop independents who put up billboards warning against the papacy, and even apologizes to Rome for the billboards; says that applying the first beast of Rev 13 to the papacy "smacks of narrowness and bigotry", and denies that 666 applies to the pope (SAINTS VICTORY); etc.
10. Babylon: is not friendly to the saints. SDA: attacks and disfellowships the true and faithful who are standing up against all the abominations and gross apostasy. Some may argue that the Conference hasn't gone so far as to openly execute God's people; but then again, neither have the other fallen churches at this time in history-not even the Roman Catholic one.
11. Babylon: has fallen from a once pure condition, through the love of and desire to imitate the world. SDA: though once quite pure, it has now allowed a flood of worldliness to come in-diet, dress, jewelry, music, watching movies, participating in acting, drama, dancing, celebration, etc.
12. Babylon: puts faith in a man-made structure, instead of the word of God. SDA: says to stay with the Conference structure, regardless of how corrupt it gets-claiming that it is the ship which is going through, the church which may appear as about to fall but doesn't, the church which should never be called Babylon, etc.
13. Babylon: commits spiritual fornication. This spiritual fornication applies to uniting either with the world (see #11), with the powers of civil government (Waco, Whitecoats, lawsuits, etc), or with the other apostate churches (ecumenical movement).
Bob De La Torre