52. A Golden Cup

[This lesson will not have a Zoom meeting audio.]

In our study of Revelation 17 and 18, I am interested in a narrow and critical portion of the text. Much of these two chapters is then just an embellishment of this critical thing.

– The great prostitute… those dwelling on the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her pornographic immorality. – She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with detestable things (in the cup which she has mixed) and the impurity of her pornographic immorality.

– She has become a dwelling place of demons, and a prison for every unclean spirit. – “Come out of her My people, so that you may not have fellowship with her sins and so that you may not receive of her striking blows.”

The Detestable Things. Then – …drunk from the blood of the devoted ones. And finally – Babylon will be cast down, the great city, and shall not be found anymore. [No one will be left in her.]

This lesson is about the detestable things found in that golden cup, a list of thirteen, for good measure. We are speaking of specific ideas held by Nicene Christian thinking. First, God’s people are INSIDE OF this way of thinking, that’s why God says, “Come out of her.” Second, the “gold” of the cup represents God. These wicked thoughts are held inside the “Christian” definition of God, and all drinking and drunkenness takes place only inside of His presence, for there is no other place.
 
The Carnal Mind. Third, these detestable ideas about God make people “drunk,” that is, puts them into a stupor, into what can be described as an inebriated state. Fourth, this way of thinking is “pornographically immoral,” that is, it puts a person into a “life” relationship of self with self, but in the presence of “what will they think about me.” Finally, the purpose of these ways of thinking is to engage in a fellowship with sin, and, in order to accomplish this fellowship, those whose minds are represented by this golden cup imprison unclean spirits as their slaves.

Thus we see that “a golden cup” is the carnal mind at war against God, a way of thinking held tightly by Christians.

Our Perspective. Before we start our list, let’s put everything into perspective. First, ALL Christians must come out from treating with God through these wicked ways of thinking. In fact, the story of my life is the story of God bringing me out from being drunk on these detestable things even in the presence of the Lamb. Second, ALL will come out from this place, and it will be empty. That’s what Paul means by “every knee will bow.” All will treat with God as God and not as if He is the devil.

Also, I have been alluding to this list since lesson 46. “Settling the Real Issue.” And thus God’s way out, repentance and the harvest, are a deliverance from these specific things, all of which are simply “fellowship with sin.”

We Sing a New Song. The most important thing, however, is that we know that this is our bride, that Church with whom we have fallen in love, who has always offered this golden cup to us.

Eve offered to Adam the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Israel offered to Moses a golden calf having brought them from Egypt. Jesus’ own, to whom He came, offered Him a Roman cross on which to die. The Church, whose deliverance we require of God, has always offered us this golden cup filled with a detestable mixture of Jesus and Satan, truth and lies, a partly evil God.

Most have made Adam’s choice, the law to control. We sing the song of Moses and the Song of the Lamb.

A List of Mixtures. Here is our list. Notice how confusion (Babylon) rules. Also, this list is not in any order. Each mixture produces an horrific confusion in its own right, and I end with awfulness.

1. A God who knows a mixture of good and evil.
2. A God of a mixed image, Satan and Jesus.
3. An impossible goal that is ultimate “disobedience.”
4. Salvation through Jesus – someday and faraway.
5. A Christian life of Christ and sin.
6. Repent of sin and self by exalting sin and self.
7. A conflict of wills, me against God, God against me.
8. The Church is His body, yet the Church is not His body.

Filled with Confusion.
9. Love one another, Jesus’ commandment – isn’t important and will never happen here.
10. The New Covenant sort of, but the old covenant rules.
11. Do not love the world – give allegiance to the world.
12. The Bible says – it doesn’t matter what the Bible says.
13. God forgives – God must be appeased.

Every single one of these mixtures created a deep personal awfulness inside of me for decades, yet in differing ways. Also, this list is just a sampling. One could add many more mixtures of confusion and other detestable things in the Nicene “definition of God.” Let’s expand on this present list.

“God Knows Good and Evil.” “The devil spoke the truth; God knows a mixture of evil and good.” – This definition is always the bottom line. And it requires that it is God who is the mixture, whereas the mind of the harlot is “pure,” that is, “I have it right,” or “I sit a queen,” the central drive of the fake self.

Every sensation of accusation against themselves, in all the crimes which they commit, humans turn that same accusation against God and find Him causing those crimes. The evil part of God is then dubbed His “holiness,” which contrasts with the good part of God called “love.” Whatever love might do through Jesus, by this definition, “holiness” turns the universe into good and evil forever.

Defining God. The carnal mind, that is, the way of thinking that is always at war against God (without a cause), comes into being entirely because of a false definition of God. The human mind is made carnal BY that false definition. This is the meaning of the “golden cup,” how God is known. Thus every detestable thing in that cup is brewed by the fundamental assertion that the devil spoke the truth, that God knows evil. Every other mixture comes of this first idea.

But again, it’s all a smoke screen, a fog thrown at God in order to buttress the fundamental definitions of self – “I am right!” AND – “I deserve better; God made me wrong.” – The Christian “struggle against sin” is a worship of self.

Satan and Jesus. Through my years as a Nicene Christian, I believed that Jesus shows us the Father, yes, but I “knew” that this was only in-part. I “knew” that there were aspects of God that were, in fact, quite different from what Jesus showed us. Jesus was not the only image through which God was known, for another image showed us an arrogant and distant God, holding us in disdain, far away from Himself. Even Jesus was known, in-part, through this other image, a superior and someday “Jesus,” a “Jesus above you.”

It was in October of 2011, when, by the revelation of God, I saw God through Jesus only, for the first time, and knew that other “image of God” to be Satan.

Hating Weakness. One of the more jarring disconnects that comes through seeing God through both Jesus and Satan is that the first is lowly of heart but the second image hates human weakness. “God hates my human weakness, therefore I must…” Thus, when we say that God Himself is meek and lowly of Heart, or that through Jesus, God shares our weakness with us, it “feels wrong” to all who see an arrogant God.

Yet this is part of the deceit of the human heart, for it is neither God nor Satan that hates human weakness, but the individual person who hates the way God made them. Thus people can feel “God loves me” and “God hates me,” almost at the same time – things I have heard preached.

Our Goal – the Temptation of Evil. The clear goal of the gospel is that we become just like the Lord Jesus Christ. This goal cannot be denied, and so it must be obfuscated, which Satan knew from the start. More than that, it is also clear that God created humans in His image and likeness. Humans are like God, that is, what God looks like when He appears inside of creation.

By claiming that “knowing good and evil” would now make humans “like” God, Satan successfully turned the goal of the Christian life into the very evil of rebellion against God. “You want to be like God because you want to be superior – evil! You will never be like Jesus until after you are dead.”

Adam’s Sin. Let’s be very precise about what Adam’s sin actually was. We understand that Adam was not deceived, but that he understood everything.

The first two wicked actions were part of each other and happened at the same time, even while Adam was observing the Tree of Life. – Adam refused to receive Jesus AND was unthankful for his weak human form. The second two wicked actions were also part of each other and happened at the same time, even while Adam was observing the stupidity of his wife. – Adam lusted for heavenly superiority, even while seizing word to control his wife, that is, God’s words under his own “power.”

Maintaining a Fake Self. That’s it! Yet both of these double-actions were a declaration shouted into the heavens and through the centuries – “I will NOT be like God.” And – “I will be like the devil.”

Then, we see the “mixture,” that the power of deception is not found in lies only, but rather, in allowing much truth to draw in true believers, and then mixing that truth with lies. – “This is how you must know God and salvation.” The result is that even those who are born again and filled with the Spirit now maintain the same wicked definition of “self” that Adam seized, calling it the very truth of the gospel and shuddering at the blasphemy of those who proclaim that they are just like Jesus now (that is, who eat of Life).

Someday and Faraway. Then, in order to sedate our precious brothers and sisters, the mother of prostitutes gives them to drink of a notion of a someday salvation – “in heaven,” and a Jesus who is faraway right now, a Jesus who is “superior.” “Jesus is perfect and you are not. Jesus hates your flesh, and you will ‘see’ Him only after you are dead. Die, sinner, die.”

This is the primary reason why Christians cannot see John 14:20, the Tree of Life. They are convinced that “salvation” is future only, having become Adam’s lust for “heavenly superiority.” Thus they continue in Adam’s hatred of their human flesh, calling their continued unthankfulness to be “the normal Christian life.”

Jesus Is “Dangerous.” Someone claimed that the present pope recently stated that “relationships with Jesus are dangerous and harmful,” and that “a personal, direct, immediate relationship with Jesus Christ” must be avoided at all costs. Whether these are actually the words of the pope or not, this sentiment defines how our fellow Christians view someone who claims that “Jesus Himself has come into union with me as I am. I know Jesus Sent into me.”

You are encouraged to shout with fervor about salvation someday, as if in a “drunken stupor,” but if you claim that you are saved today, that God shares your life and His Life together with you right now, you will be driven out.

Christ and Sin. Yet this is the power of mixture. A certain level of true relationship with Jesus is allowed and even glamorized. But this Jesus in the believer, often dulled as “Christ-not-Jesus,” is harnessed with His equal – SIN in the believer. Yet Christ can never equal sin, for those who see sin inside themselves must make that SIN to be bigger than Jesus.

As Augustine said, “God, You cannot fill me with all of Your fulness – because – I AM EVIL.” The fake story of self must maintain the fiction, “I am a sinner – I am my own source, my own god.” – “Jesus, I love You, but I love imagining myself a sinner more.”

A Pornographic Repentance. The “gospel repentance” then claimed by the harlot is truly pornographic immorality, a “seeing” relationship with self.

True repentance knows lostness momentarily and then looks to Jesus in a flash and is forever silent about “self.” Preachers of fake repentance persuade Christians to look at sin within themselves accompanied by a view of Jesus outside of themselves. This “outside” Jesus offers help that is not effective, therefore you must take control of yourself by word on the outside of you; that is, you must “obey.” This dishonest “obedience” then results in a “Christian life” of infatuation with a “sinful self” rather then with Jesus your life. – Truly a pornographic way of seeing.

A Rebellious “Grace.” The more I know the Father sharing life with me in the purity of His Gospel Words, the more abhorrent the definitions of Nicene Christianity become to me. For instance, here is one of the detestable mixtures found in that golden cup. – Grace means “unmerited favor.” That is, “a gift from God (faraway) that you don’t deserve.”

The thought “I don’t deserve this” takes your attention off of God and places it upon rebellion, “God, You should have made me better.” More than that, no thought of a living and dynamic relationship of LIFE shared with the Father Himself, knowing God, – GRACE – can now enter into such a mind, for it is drunk – on itself.

Will Against Will. We are at peace with God, having been reconciled. BUT – we are at war with God for we must “seek His will,” separate from the Lord Jesus, and “not our own,” something God claims no one ever does.

Human choice is entirely of God, and He flows with our own normal personal decisions. But the definitions of God’s “will” and the human will in Nicene thinking are found only inside the war of good versus evil. It is this false definition of “will against will,” then, that serves most strongly to prevent those who do not know God as a living Spirit-Word from ever surrendering to a Jesus who comes into union with us, a Christ living as me.

The Body and Love? Every Christian will say that the Church is the body of Christ, and every Christian will argue with vigor that the Church is NOT the body of Christ, that Jesus has His own body entirely separate from us, that Jesus does NOT walk this earth today. Ephesians 1:23 is cast as “truth” that is not presently true.

Then, in the same vein, every Christian will assert that we are commanded to love one another just as Jesus loves us. And they will argue with vigor that such a level of reciprocal love cannot exist on this earth and in this age. Incredibly, such a proof of Jesus faithful and True is deemed entirely irrelevant, something only for “heaven someday.”

An Old Covenant and the World. Here is where Nicene theology gets outwardly dangerous; here is the harlot “riding the back of the beast.”

The New Covenant is for a half-baked church on her way out of here, but the old covenant is God’s rule for today. This anti-Christ belief has brought our fellow Christians into union with the Pharisees as they murder Jesus once again.

And with one breath they will say, “Do not let the world press you into its mold,” but with the next they say, “Pledge your allegiance to the kingdoms of this world.” Never have we witnessed such a demonic effect of being pressed into the mold of this world as what happened on March 15, 2020 and the subsequent lining up for the “jab” in an utterly UNFOUNDED faith in the LIES of the talking false image.

Against the Lamb. It is these two outward responses to evil, then, that bring the Church today into the same place as Eve with the forbidden fruit and Israel with the golden calf. Taking the jab is just the beginning of a very slippery slope, but it has begun for them in the alteration of their human DNA and the preparation of their bodies for direct hookup with the world wide web, the path of artificial intelligence directly into their souls. Giving their strength to the murderous and hate-filled Pharisees of today is direct and open war against the Lamb.

Yet it is HERE that we give ourselves to God as a living sacrifice, requiring of Him Life and Grace for our brethren.

Word, Word, Who Has the Word? Every Christian will say that “the Bible is the word of God” which they adhere to faithfully. Yet when they are shown the ruling verses of the gospel, it doesn’t matter “what the Bible says,” for theology rules over the “Bible.” They will say, “obey,” yet they neither give thanks, nor put Jesus upon themselves, nor believe they have received every Word God speaks through, “Let it be to me.” They say, “the Bible says, the Bible says,” yet when you search carefully, you find no such things. They say, “He preaches contrary to the Bible,” yet they are the ones who reject the critical verses of Life and Grace.

No other mixture has personally caused me more agony than this.

The Crucifix. But I think the worst awfulness mixed in the prostitute’s golden cup is what she has done to the Sacrifice of Jesus. God sent Jesus to prove to us that He loves us, to win our hearts to Himself, and to connect us with God and God with us forever. – By this we have known Love. It is inside of the LIFE that is Jesus today that we live.

Yet Christianity has turned that picture of the outpoured Love of God into an image of death – the crucifix. And they have claimed that the whips and nails of the Romans are the picture to us of a God who hates us and who whipped Jesus instead of whipping and killing us.

Appeasement. Thus the mother of harlots that is Nicene Christianity worships and exalts death, a dead Messiah, and death that will someday take you to a faraway Jesus. All that God speaks you will understand AFTER you are DEAD! Thus God’s lust to hate is sated by an offering of human sacrifice, a demonic “God” who must be appeased or He will “burn you in hell forever.”

They look at the walk of the Atonement from afar, unable to see themselves carried inside of Jesus, carried by the Father, and they say, “See how much God ‘loves’ us by seeing how much He hates us.” No one could possibly ever follow such a “Jesus.”

What “Drunk” Means. When I think about the typical Christian response to each of the ten ruling verses of the Bible, I realize that the best terms to use to describe the state of mind out of which that response comes would be – drunk, tipsy, pissed, inebriated. There is a sense of delirium by which the life-filled words of power in those verses are easily dismissed. And the boasting in self that has been mixed with gospel truths, the “I am right,” can only be defined as drunkenness. “Being right” has no meaning and is found only inside of death. The only meaning is, “I know the Father through His Gospel Words Sent into me,” that is, Life.

A drunk cannot look God in the Eye regarding His Word.

A Prison of Demons. Our passage confirms what I have thought for some time, that demons are slaves imprisoned by their human masters. Certainly, they bite, for they feed on human misery, but angels are the victims of humans. Just as we have the authority either to receive or to refuse Jesus, so we have the authority either to receive or to refuse demons. The problem with demons is that Christians like to say, “This is the real me,” when it is NOT.

Demons anoint, in a grotesque similarity to the Spirit’s anointing, enabling a Christian to say of self, “I am right.” Nicene theology comes out from many carnal minds crafting “the truth” out from Bible words. The horrific mixture such minds create requires demon slaves.

A Fellowship with Sin. Consider the central command of Paul’s gospel, as it is found in typical incorrect translations. – But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts (Romans 13:14 – NKJV).

The mother of harlots convinces her victims to enter this verse at the “and,” and then to turn away from Jesus as life, putting on “Jesus” as “my obedience” and then focusing on the flesh, to fight against it, in actual disobedience to Paul. This is a powerful argument against what I teach, that we are to put sin upon ourselves and that it is contrary to Scripture to put Christ upon ourselves. Thus the “Christian life” becomes an unending FELLOWSHIP with sin.

With the Blood of the Devoted Ones. Few in the early church really knew Paul’s gospel and by the time John wrote, most of those were gone. Nonetheless, God has had His own devoted ones in every generation, people who have suffered inside the twisted mixtures of Nicene Christianity.

I think of the decades of torment I endured because I was told that I was in trouble with God, Nicene Calvinism. When I consider the frozen condition I was in from 1998 to 2001, I can say that the life was almost sucked out of me. I wrote in tears, “They lied to me, they lied to me, when they told me that You were far away from me, oh my Father, and it was never true.”

Receiving of Her Striking Blows. By the spring of 1990, when I embraced Calvinism with my intellect, the Word by which I live today was complete in embryo form inside of me. Thus, I was thrown into a “run” of desperation that I called a “gauntlet” in my autobiography. For ten years, until I repented of treating God with the evil definitions of Calvinism in the fall of 2000, my life is best described as being hit with endless “striking blows,” inflicted by self upon self, the reward of the harlot.

Nonetheless, the essence of rebellion against God inside my human frame had to be “chastised.” It is the same chastisement, whether received to LIFE or rejected in rebellion, thus turning the Love of God into a “plague.”

A Love Relationship with Death. I now know the bottom line between eating of the tree of right and wrong versus living inside of life. It is revealed when the Lord rebukes you through another. “I am right” is a love relationship with death. An argument of self-defense betrays that which is fake. Receiving that rebuke with joy inside of “I know the Father” is its opposite. It reveals one who dwells in Life.

God has proven beyond measure that I have no interest in being “right.” My only desire is to know the Father through knowing every Gospel Word Sent into me. If I rebuke you, God through me is calling you into LIFE.

Come Out Of Her, My People. “Come out of her My people” is a call to the marriage feast, to union with Christ, to All-Salvation now.

When I rebuke you, can you hear God calling you out? Is the prison of your own pornographic self-worship not dark and utterly bankrupt? Why would you ‘defend’ what is crucified and gone? Why would you not plead with me, “Daniel, show me the Father?”

Come out of her, come out of her. – Life is something entirely different, something you have NEVER known. The lights are turning on inside this room Jesus recently carried me into; a world of Life is now dawning to my eyes.

No One Left. Here is the final promise of the Gospel. – There is no one left in her. This is the same word that Jesus spoke, that the gates of hades cannot keep us out, but that we will cross that barrier, find our brethren, and bring them into Jesus.

Thus we see the great importance of the bowl of the sixth angel, that which dries up the river of death flowing into the prostitute. This is the power of God through us into all the heavens; it is the consequence of the River of Life having already taken its place. This also enables us to understand that we are NOT trying to convince individual people of anything. Rather, we are shutting off the whole damned thing.

Reading for Next Time. The next lesson is titled “We Marry the Bride.” This is a recounting of what John’s vision has become for us, a Love Story of Christ with the Church, through His ministry. Read Chapter 19:1-10 two or three times. Read it slowly, being sure to mark in your mind each phrase.

The marriage of the Lamb has come, and His bride has prepared herself. – Blessed are those summoned to the supper of the marriage of the Lamb. – This marriage is all who belong to Jesus in this hour having entered into the full knowledge of union with Christ. The supper is John 6, eat My flesh and drink My blood, eating and drinking together of all that is Christ.

Speak This Prayer Out Loud. “God, our Father, we are humbled inside of Your Presence that You have called us to follow Jesus, that You have become the Song of Moses and the Song of the Lamb inside of our hearts towards all our brethren. Such Love flowing through us is beyond our comprehension, yet we know that You are True.

“Yet in Your great wisdom, Father, You have allowed us to fellowship with the sins of such horrific ways of ‘knowing’ You and Your Salvation and to share in the afflictions of such wickedness, so that we do not ‘look down’ on our brethren in falseness, but that we might share Your compassion for them.

“Inside of the name of Jesus, inside of His faith and authority now in our eyes and mouths, we close off the river of death in the heavens that feeds Nicene thinking. Right now, thousands of pastors all over the world are awakening to a Gospel of LIFE, with no death in it. They see and rejoice in a Jesus and a Salvation that is all here now. They follow the Lamb wherever He goes. And right now, millions of Christians in every land on earth are being redeemed out from the press of this world. They see the Way opened before them, that they might run through the Blood all the way INTO LIFE.

“Father, we know that our ‘little’ call inside of You is greater than all the call of death. The River of Life is flowing from our bellies into your Church, even as we speak.”