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“We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: forsake her.”  Jer. 51:9

“And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her (Babylon – see verse 2), My people, that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues.”  Rev. 18:4

You will remember who originally built Babylon.  This can be found in Genesis 10:10 which says, “The beginning of Nimrod’s  kingdom was Babel. “  Notice that it is the very “beginning of his kingdom.” The name Nimrod means “he who is against God.”  The LXX (the Greek translation of the Old Testament translates it “against Jehovah).”  And the word Babel originally meant “the gate of the gods.” 

So then now we understand that Nimrod hated God and built a city and a tower that would be a gate for the gods to come through.  It wasn’t until after the judgment on Babel that the word came to mean “confusion.”

We can now see that Nimrod was a type and shadow of the antichrist; because his very name means “against Jehovah.”  Wow…his parents must have really hated God to name their own son “against Jehovah.”  Please bear with me, because I am taking all of this somewhere.  Before any house can be built, the ground has to be prepared first, and the foundation laid – otherwise the house cannot stand.

Knowledge is power.  Proverbs 19:2 says, “For the soul to be without knowledge, this is not good.”  Hosea 4:6 says, “My people perish for a lack of knowledge.”  E=MC² (Energy is the equivalent of Mass times the Speed of Light squared) is the mathematical equation theorized (and then proven true) by Albert Einstein.  This knowledge ended World War 2 in one day.  Because this is the equation that the Manhattan Project used to make the nuclear bombs that were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in Japan.  This equation was used to split the atom and therefore cause a chain reaction that had exponential effects.

Here is the point: knowledge is power.  The more knowledge someone has of spiritual things, the more effect he can have in the spirit.  But the theory has to be turned into a workable conclusion.  In other words the knowledge you have of the bible and of spiritual things has to be turned into action.  The theory of Nimrod is that he is against God, but now we have to see what the effect of this is.

In the last year, I feel that God had given me some insight into the self-life that I have never seen nor understood before.  I had the theory of it, but yet I lacked the application of it.  The Lord had to bring me to a very broken place in my life, in my walk with Him, and in my heart. A place of great breaking.  And then also the Lord dealt with me and showed some things to me about this issue.  “The cities of Babel and Nineveh, built by Nimrod (see vv.10-11), became the capitals of the nations of Babylon and Assyria, two strong figures of mankind in their opposing of God.” (Notes taken from the Recovery Version Bible).

Babylon deals with the self-life.  And my view (and I believe it to be God’s view as well) of the self-life: The self-life is very ugly, vomitus, repulsive, base, totally earthly, and it smells of fecal matter in His nostrils.  It is antichrist to its very core.  It is lawless, selfish, self-seeking, self-exalting, self-improving, and self-pleasing.  It will do anything to live, will lie any lie to get ahead, it will build towers (Gen. 11:4-5), cities, and even ministries without God.  It is Nimrodic in its spirit [Hebrew: “Rebel” or “Against God”], hates God, loves the world, loves sin, loves satan, and hates its neighbor.  It loves the praises of men, the accolades of men, and the honor of men.  It thumbs its nose at God, stands strong against His government, is a weasel in its very nature.  No wonder it can never be fixed, healed, repaired, redeemed, or restored.  The only thing it is good for is manure to be spread on the seeds of sin that the fruits of unrighteousness may grow and abound on the tree of iniquity. 

Jesus never said to deny the soul-life (God loves your soul and is going to redeem it, save it, and strengthen it), He said to deny the self-life.  The self-life is based in the will and must be broken and dealt with by God in the inner-court of your soul before you can understand what is really in the Holy of Holies.  Before the ark and its contents can be spiritually understood, the self-life at the altar of incense has to be understood first.  And may the Lord give you wisdom on these matters, for it took me many years and many tears to finally be touched in the hollow of my thigh.  It took many years to surrender fully to Him and deny the self-life.  One cannot deny something that he cannot see. 

The self-life, likened unto Babylon, cannot be healed.  It must be denied.  It is the one part of our spiritual/soulish make-up that has to be forsaken.  Come out of the self-life.  Sin is based here, it has its headquarters here.  The bible says, “The soul that sins, it shall die.”  Sin originates in the soul, and acquiesces to the spirit who in turn grants the flesh permission to carry it out.  Otherwise, how could the spirit and the flesh in 2 Cor. 7:1 be filthy?  For you will notice that the soul is not mentioned in that verse.  Why?  Because it is the soul that is causing the spirit and the flesh to become filthy.  Consider this verse in 3 John 2: “I pray above all things that you be prosperous (spiritually) and be in health (physically) EVEN AS your soul prospers (spiritually).”  Your spiritual health and your physical health are based upon one thing and one thing only: the health of your soul. 

And the soul is made up of three parts: mind, will, and emotions.  And the self-life is based in the will.  There are so many verses that can be mentioned here.  Just one will suffice I think to shed light: “Not My will, but Yours be done.”  Yes, Jesus had a will and He also had to deny it.  Otherwise He would never had prayed, “If at all possible, let this cup pass from Me.”  If this is the case with Jesus Himself who was perfect…how much more in our case does the will need to be dealt with.  Man’s self-life is such a strong part of him and is so integrated with the personality, that many cannot ever see it or even see its effects.  They are in darkness to the self-life, because it hides so deep in the will and it never wants to be found.  It tries to hide so as to not be seen, but its signature is everywhere.  The word of God brings it to the top just as the dross comes to the top of silver as the fire heats it up.  It can only be realized and exposed in the light (fire) of God’s word.

You will notice in the Revelation 18:4 verse that God is talking to His own people.  And also notice that Babylon is sinning and is going to receive plagues.  God warns us to forsake her.  Will you forsake her, or will you allow her to live on in your will and bear children unto you?  The more children one has, the more time it takes to deal with them.  To the degree that you invest yourself into Babylon will be the degree of difficulty you will find it to be coming out of her.  She must be forsaken (denied).  You must turn your back on the self-life and not allow it to live.  How does any living thing die?  By starving it to death.  Just don’t feed it.  Geronimo told a missionary after his salvation that he had two dogs living on the inside of him, and it was just a matter of which one he fed.

The Lord brought Abraham to this place (Gen. 17:1-5).  He brought Jacob to this place (Gen. 32:24-31).  He brought Isaiah to this place (Isaiah 6:5-7).  He brought Ezekiel to this place (Exe.47:1-5).  And He brought many others to this place, including myself.  And He wants to bring you to this same place of great breaking so that the self-life may be exposed and dealt with once and for all.  I will warn you though; it will be as though you are having open-heart surgery while you are awake with no anesthesia.  Because God wants you to see how vile and deceptive the will really is while He cuts it out.  And the reason He uses no anesthesia is because he wants you to remember the pain so that you may never return to Babylon again as long as you live.

Lastly you will notice in that Revelation 18:4 verse that there was a “voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her.”  Where is this voice located at now?  In His word.  He and His word are one.  If God Himself were standing in front of you in person, and He spoke to you, He would speak to you whatever is in His word.  You cannot separate God from His word. His word is the express image of who He is.  Therefore His word will shed light on each man’s condition and show him the way out of Babylon.  Babylon is a city that is built within our will and it has many streets and dwelling places and only God’s word can light the way out of this dark city.