The Message of the Mayas
Timely Lessons from a Forgotten Empire

by Michael Billings, August 3, 2006

Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him (Psalm 2:10-12).

On Friday, July 14, at the Vision Forum Ministries’ History of the World Mega-Conference, Doug Phillips delivered an address entitled, “A Terrifying Beauty: The Message of the Mayas.” In this lecture, Mr. Phillips told the story of an ancient nation whose scientific and aesthetic ability was remarkably advanced, yet who raised children for the most grotesque forms of human sacrifice. Seeking to offer lessons to modern civilization, Mr. Phillips drew numerous analogies and comparisons, warning that apart from a complete and utter dependence upon Christ and the restraining grace of God in culture, even “ordinary men” are capable of extraordinary atrocities. When speaking of these ancient people, he stated, “I believe that the message of their rise, their existence, their glory, and their utter comprehensive disappearance from the planet, is a message that God would bring to us today.”

Having personally traveled to the once great city of the Mayas, Chichén Itzá, and having studied Mayan culture in great depth, Mr. Phillips explained in his introduction that the story he hoped to reveal was that of a “people, phenomenally advanced; a beautiful people...who were some of the greatest technical geniuses that the world has ever known.” He spoke of the “aesthetical masterpieces all over their ruins, which remain even to this day.” He recounted in detail the fascinating intricacies of their amazingly accurate calendar, their astronomical achievements, and their codicils and ideograms.

Mr. Phillips then expounded upon the many staggering similarities between the Mayan civilization and other ancient civilizations around the globe. He discussed the parallels in their architectural structures, temple construction, and their hellish post-Babel religious practices. He also noted that astronomy and astrology were in almost all of these civilizations and served as the centerpiece for their religious faiths, providing a means whereby the priests could manipulate and control the people for their own purposes.

Mr. Phillips further revealed how each of the critical elements of biblical Christianity can be found in the perverted religion of the Mayas. Not the least of these was an ever-so prevalent blood redemption theme which dominated the Mayan faith and lifestyle. Perverted in the extreme, the atoning blood for mankind’s salvation was not found in the blood of the Lamb, but rather in the blood of the serpent, Kukulcan, and the serpent’s work in the lives and sacrifice of those who followed him.

This fear-driven, Satan-worshiping cult was obsessed with human sacrifice, which, among other atrocities, claimed the lives of untold thousands of children, all in the name of the dreaded Kukulcan. And thus, as Mr. Phillips explained, the Mayan people developed to a point where they became a nation without fathers in the historical sense of fatherhood. The children did not belong to their fathers, nor were they viewed as belonging to a loving God. Rather, they were under the domain and the property of the priests or educrats, who, when the time came, cut out the hearts of many of these innocent ones and threw their corpses into a “pool of death.”

“What does it take,” asked Mr. Phillips, “for a culture to reach such a point of depravity that the day to day life is marked and noted by a level of barbarism and cannibalism of such a degree of wickedness that one must imagine that the consciences have been seared to all obscurity?” What is the consequence of this lawless and idolatrous behavior? When you go to Chichén Itzá, you will not find any Mayans — it is a completely abandoned city full of haunting remnants of ancient artifacts. Mr. Phillips describes it as an untouched “part of the world that God has just left as a memorial and a testimony to evil,” so that every generation who will come after will know that this is the result of a nation who defies the One True God, who despises His law, and who causes their children to pass through the fire.^[1] Where did they go? Millions and millions of people simply vanished — their culture buried, their empire gone, and their leaders perished.

Mr. Phillips then, with powerful application, drew a bold line analogy to the United States declaring that, “in America we have long ago accepted the principle of the Mayas.” He further stated that “even cultures founded in godliness are capable of degenerating to such an extent that they promote as virtuous, unspeakable horrors.” America’s technologically advanced and scientifically brilliant culture does not equate to a righteous morality, much less decrease our potential for becoming the greatest butchers in all of history, as the story of the Mayas so vividly illustrates.

In the spirit of Habakkuk 2:12, Mr. Phillips boldly proclaimed, “We have rejected the God of our fathers, we have taken our children and have put them upon the altars of the abortuaries of America...we have embraced the Mayan philosophy and culture of death.” Margaret Sanger’s depraved and catastrophic ethic, which condones the vivisection of children so long as you have good justification for it, is now coming to full expression in this, the land of the free and home of the brave. “This justification,” Mr. Phillips explained, “has for a long time been propounded from the religious elites, the authors of evolution, the educrats, and the statists, who seek to direct the course of this civilization.” Thus, America’s presumptuous attempt to supplant the authority of God’s Law-Word, and autonomously “know”^[2] what is good and evil by doing “that which is right in their own eyes,”^[3] as did the Mayas, cannot bring salvation to our land, but only the eternal wrath of Divine judgment.

Yet Mr. Phillips did not leave the audience in a state of tragic depression, but instead brought renewed hope to all by imploring them to remember the story of Jonah. He reminded his audience how our gracious and merciful God withheld judgment from the city of Nineveh for over a century because of the humble, submissive repentance that was found in their hearts.

Stated Mr. Phillips: “God does not save nations because of majorities. He saves and blesses a nation because of dedicated minorities.” This dedicated remnant must regain its lost savor and learn to say with David, “O how I love thy law,”^[4] lest we go the way of the Mayas, the Assyrians, the Ninevites, and every other nation that has embraced perversion, child sacrifice, and idolatry, thereby leaving behind a legacy and reputation of nothing more than a byword in the mouth of the nations.[ r:5] And thus, to the extent that the church of Jesus Christ has exchanged the biblical philosophy of life for the Mayan philosophy of death, we must repent.

May we seek to build a culture of life that the Lord might have mercy and heal our land.

Thank you, Mr. Phillips, for one of the timeliest and most powerfully-impacting messages of the History of the World Mega-Conference.