When Jesus stood before Pilate as a man betrayed by his own people the Scripture records,
35 Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done?
36 Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.
37 Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.
38 Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all. (John 18:35-38 KJV)
Yet for 2000 years now many of Christ’s servants have been doing exactly this, fighting to build Christ’s kingdom on earth. True Christian apostles and prophets, however, have had and will have nothing to do with this. They, like Watchman Nee last century and Paul hundreds of years before him, consent to unjust imprisonment and martyrdom rather than attempt to build a carnal Christian kingdom on earth in the power of their flesh (although people who do try to build Christ’s kingdom on earth believe they do these works under the anointing of the Holy Spirit). Carnal Christian work to build Christ’s kingdom on earth has always resulted in an unholy alliance between church and state. Revelation’s picture of the harlot riding the beast portrays this perfectly.
At its most basic level the beast described in Scripture speaks of man himself. Scripture very clearly says, “This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.” Why does this call for wisdom? Isn’t the implication obvious? The number of the beast is the number of man. This means that A=B which, interpreted, means that the beast actually is man. This conclusion calls for wisdom because mankind does not want to admit that he, when he refuses to follow God and make God’s ways his ways, devolves to a mere brute, a simple beast. Only the mind with wisdom will admit this tragic fact, the fact that man himself is indeed the beast that rises from the sea and the earth. It is this beast, man himself, who currently wages war against the Harlot Babylon in his attempt to destroy religion in the earth.
The following psalm makes this clear.
Psalm 73
English Standard Version (ESV)
Book Three
God Is My Strength and Portion Forever
A Psalm of Asaph.
73 Truly God is good to Israel,
to those who are pure in heart.
2 But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
my steps had nearly slipped.
3 For I was envious of the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
4 For they have no pangs until death;
their bodies are fat and sleek.
5 They are not in trouble as others are;
they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
6 Therefore pride is their necklace;
violence covers them as a garment.
7 Their eyes swell out through fatness;
their hearts overflow with follies.
8 They scoff and speak with malice;
loftily they threaten oppression.
9 They set their mouths against the heavens,
and their tongue struts through the earth.
10 Therefore his people turn back to them,
and find no fault in them.[a]
11 And they say, “How can God know?
Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
12 Behold, these are the wicked;
always at ease, they increase in riches.
13 All in vain have I kept my heart clean
and washed my hands in innocence.
14 For all the day long I have been stricken
and rebuked every morning.
15 If I had said, “I will speak thus,”
I would have betrayed the generation of your children.
16 But when I thought how to understand this,
it seemed to me a wearisome task,
17 until I went into the sanctuary of God;
then I discerned their end.
18 Truly you set them in slippery places;
you make them fall to ruin.
19 How they are destroyed in a moment,
swept away utterly by terrors!
20 Like a dream when one awakes,
O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
21 When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,
22 I was brutish and ignorant;
I was like a beast toward you.
23 Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.
24 You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will receive me to glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength[b] of my heart and my portion forever.
27 For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;
you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
28 But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord God my refuge,
that I may tell of all your works.
As Jeremiah says,
7 Who would not fear thee, O King of nations? for to thee doth it appertain: forasmuch as among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is none like unto thee.
8 But they are altogether brutish and foolish: the stock is a doctrine of vanities. (Jeremiah 10:7-8 KJV)
And again,
10 But the Lord is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation.
11 Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens.
12 He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion.
13 When he uttereth his voice, there is a multitude of waters in the heavens, and he causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings with rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treasures.
14 Every man is brutish in his knowledge: every founder is confounded by the graven image: for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.
15 They are vanity, and the work of errors: in the time of their visitation they shall perish. (Jeremiah 10:10-15 KJV)
The Collector of Wisdom says, “I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts.“ (Ecclesiastes 3:18 ESV)
Let us, therefore, come out of her. Let us come out of Mystery Babylon, out of Babylon the Great, out of defiled and compromised religion. Let us refuse the mantle of patriot or any other group which fights to build a carnal, beastly kingdom of God on earth. If God’s kingdom were of this world now, then he would order us to fight to establish that kingdom. But he does not, and he will not, not until he clothes us with immortal robes of righteousness and bids us to return to earth to establish the truth and righteousness of a kingdom that can never be shaken.
11 Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is calledFaithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. 12 His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. 13 He is clothed in a robe dipped in[d] blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. 14 And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. 15 From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. 16 On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. (Revelation 19:11-16 ESV)
