Come Out of Babylon!

In case you didn’t know, you live in Babylon. The people of Babylon ‘live by many waters and are rich in treasures’ (Jeremiah 51:13). The earth is 70% water and is rich with all sorts of minerals. Babylon ‘reaches the sky and fortifies her lofty stronghold’ (v53). It is ‘a land of merchants’ (Ezekiel 16:29). Look around you, civilization is a reality and trade is booming. In case you didn’t know, Babylon, where you live, is governed by ‘the god of this world’ (2 Corinthians 4:4), and its systems are not informed by heavenly principles.

Just like Israel of old point to the coming Messiah, so does Babylon of old point to the coming judgement reserved for the world. ‘The Lord Almighty is mustering an army for war. They come from faraway lands, from the ends of the heavens- the Lord and the weapons of his wrath- to destroy the whole country’ (Isaiah 13:4-5). God says, ‘I will punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sins. I will put an end to the arrogance of the haughty and will humble the pride of the ruthless’ (v11). As the day of the Lord approaches, God continually issues warnings, like He did in days of old. God now warns;

‘Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues; for her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes’ ~ Revelation 18:4-5

Look around you, ‘the earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statues and broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore, a curse consumes the earth; its people must bear their guilt’ (Isaiah 24:5-6). Injustice, oppression of the poor and helpless, racism, corruption, extortion, child abuse, sexual immorality, sexual violence, idolatry, and passing of wicked laws is the order of the day in present-day Babylon. This is not shocking because in these last days, godlessness will prevail and ‘people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God– having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them’ (2 Timothy 3:1-5).

Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great! She has become a home for demons and a haunt for every evil spirit . . . For all the nations have drunk the maddening wine of her adulteries. The Kings of the earth commit adultery with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries’ ~ Revelation 18:2,3

Before the fall of Babylon, ‘rumours are heard in the land; one rumour comes this year, another the next, rumours of violence in the land and of ruler against ruler’ (Jeremiah 51:46). Jesus, speaking of the signs of the end of age says, ‘You will hear of wars and rumours of war, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains’ (Matthew 24:6-7). Before Babylon falls, God will make ‘her officials and wise men drunk, her governors, officers and warriors as well; they will sleep for ever and not awake’ (Jeremiah 51:57). Jesus equally predicts that, ‘false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect- if that were possible. See, I have told you ahead of time’ (Matthew 24:24-25). Look around you, many false preachers and prophets are all around us and leaders are making decisions as if drunk.

‘Flee from Babylon! Run for your lives! Do not be destroyed because of her sins. It is time for the Lord’s vengeance; he will pay her what she deserves’ (Jeremiah 51:6).  The only way one can flee from Babylon is by being separate. ‘Do not conform to any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is- his good, pleasing and perfect will’ (Romans 12:2). God urges, ‘Depart, depart, go out from there! Touch no unclean thing! Come out from it and be pure, you who carry the vessels of the Lord’ (Isaiah 52:11). God says to Israel of old who conformed to the other nations, ‘You not only walked in their ways, and copied their detestable practices, but in all your ways you soon became more depraved than they’ (Ezekiel 16:47). Similarly, God says to those who conform to this world, ‘How weak-willed you are, when you do all these things, acting like a brazen prostitute!’ (v30).

Those who do not conform to this world are marked out by the Lord. Prophet Ezekiel in a vision hears God say, ‘“Go throughout the City of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it.” As I listened, he said to the others, “Follow him through the city and kill, without showing pity or compassion. Slaughter old men, young men and maidens, women and children, but do not touch anyone who has the mark. Begin at my sanctuary.”’ (Ezekiel 9:3-6). Similarly, the Israelites at the time of their exodus from Egypt were spared because they had a mark on their doorpost when the angel of death passed over. In the same way, Spiritual Israelites will be spared if they have the Holy Spirit which is God’s ‘seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come’ (2 Corinthians 1:22). This Holy Spirit is only attained if one believes in the crucified and Risen Christ who says, ‘All that belongs to the father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from you what is mine and make it known to you’ (John 16:15). Jesus also adds, ‘My Kingdom is not of this world . . . My kingdom is from another place’ (18:v36), and so ‘friendship with the world is enmity with God’ (James 4:4).

‘Babylon must fall . . . just as the slain in all the earth have fallen because of Babylon’ (Jeremiah 51:49). Present Babylon must fall, just like Babylon of old had to fall because of its gods; ‘Bel bows down, Nebo stoops low . . . I am God, and there is no other; I am God there is no one like me’ (Isaiah 46:1,9). In the same way, present Babylon has to fall because the god of this world has to be destroyed so that, ‘at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father’ (Philippians 2:10-11).

‘Then a mighty angel picked up a boulder the size of a large millstone and threw it into the sea, and said: With such violence the great city of Babylon will be thrown down, never to be found again’ ~Revelation 18:21