“Babylon,” as a city, as a nation, as a religion, as a culture, as an economic system or even as a metaphor for the world of this age, must be “got out of,” “gone from,” “come out of” by God’s people.
Since the time God first began calling persons to serve His purposes, it seems clear that they were expected to separate themselves from the religious, cultural, and economical mainstream of the world. The same call to Abraham in the post-Flood civilization was issued to the Jews of post-Captivity era and it is the same call that will be issued up to the end of this age: “get out of,” “go out from,” “come out of” this world of confusion, deceit and sin…Babylon!
In Revelation 18, we can read about Babylon, a great city that dominates the world and offers luxurious living through all the comforts and merchandise that human beings could ask for. This city seems to be the representation and culmination of man’s six-millennium pursuit of peace and prosperity in every way.
“Babylon,” as a city, as a nation, as a religion, as a culture, as an economic system or even as a metaphor for the world of this age, must be “got out of,” “gone from,” “come out of” by God’s people. If we do not manage to leave, there is an inevitable physical and spiritual price to be paid, as we find uttered by a voice from heaven stating what we read in chapter 18 of Revelation and verse 4:
“And I heard another voice from heaven saying, ‘Come out of her, My people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. For her sins have been heaped up to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities…’”
From its inception to present day, this world (Hebrew tebel – population, inhabitants and Greek kosmos – order of life, arrangement of existence) is filled with continual and increasing sin that screams for God’s divine punishment. God wants His servants to be warned and “get out,” “go out,” “come out” of this world and its religion, cultural and economic system, typified by Babylon – which literally means an “overflowing, mixing, confused and confounded realm.”
Scripture relates three “getting outs,” “going outs,” “coming outs,” – separations – from Babylon: the first of which is an instruction to Abram.
Genesis 11: 28 tells us that the family of Abram originated in Ur of the Chaldeans, or the heart of Babylon (at the bottom of the Fertile Crescent and possibly once the northwest tip of the Persian Gulf). When God called him, he had moved to Haran at the top of the Fertile Crescent.
God wanted Abram to move completely out of the religious, cultural and economic realm of Babylon. Abram was responsive to God’s call to get out of the Babylonian religion, culture and economic systems. In Genesis chapter 12, verse 1, we read:
“Get out of your country, from your kindred and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing.
Verse 4
“So, Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.
Verse 7
“Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your descendants I will give this land’…”
Abram took his family and all he possessed from an environment that was familiar to him, where he was likely very prosperous and where he might have developed a nice comfort level (he had herds of livestock and servants) and moved to an area that was unfamiliar, less prosperous, with a less comfortable nomadic life.
God wanted Abram completely out of the “world” he had always known, which was heavily influenced by Chaldean (Babylonian) thinking in religion, culture and economics.
Practically speaking, Abram was told by God to completely depart or separate himself (and his immediate family) from the world of “babylonish” confusion. Much more can be inferred from his compliance with God’s call from Babylon to show how the world’s religious, cultural and economic systems affected him and his family even after he came out of Haran, and how he overcame that world.
Let’s rather summarize his motivation to give up everything he knew, everything he had, everything he was – Hebrews chapter 11, verses 8 to 10:
“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would afterward receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.
“By faith he sojourned in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he waited for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”
The city he wanted was of God, not the world. If you will, it was the new Jerusalem that is to come with the kingdom of God, not the old man-made sin-laden Babylon that has been the foundation of this world from the time of the Flood. Is that city and kingdom not worth “getting out,” “going out,” or “coming out” of this world’s city and kingdom?
Surely God does not expect us to leave our “world” and give up what is familiar and our prosperity and comforts of life, does He? Yes He does: different way, same principle, as we will see later when we revisit Revelation 18:4. But, interestingly enough, the world that Abram knew and the one we know is referred to in scripture as “Babylon,” and it is Babylon that we must completely (not partially) “go out of” “get out from,” or “come out of.”
The second “getting out,” “going out,” or “coming out” is found as we progress in history to the time when God began to work with Abraham’s great-great grandchildren, the children of Israel. Their turbulent history as a nation and divided nations lasted about 640 years from the time they left Egypt circa 1226 B.C. to the fall of Jerusalem circa 586 B.C. The dispersal of the Northern Kingdom’s ten tribes was to all areas of the Assyrian Empire and then the Southern Kingdom’s Jews, Benjaminites and Levites were transferred out of their land to the territories of the Babylonian Empire.
The city of Babylon in particular became the home of some of the most talented of those captive from the Southern Kingdom. And what a magnificent city 15 miles square and featured:
60 surrounding miles of 300-foot-high walls, 80 feet thick (35-foot foundations).
Deep moats and canals all around the inside perimeter of the city and heavily protected from invaders with brass gates and towers with barracks for soldiers.
The Euphrates River dividing the city in half, the source of one of the seven wonders of the ancient world – the Hanging Gardens.
These Hanging Gardens featured tiers of arches bearing 400 square foot platforms and top-covered with flowers, shrubs and trees watered from a reservoir filled hydraulically from the river below.
Arches beneath the Hanging Gardens where luxurious apartments were built for important officials.
The Processional Street from the north with brilliantly colorful high 20-foot-thick walls with glazed reliefs of lions and paved with stone slabs 3-foot square.
The great gold covered temple of Bel or Marduk with a golden image of this dragon god and a 25-ton golden table.
53 temples and 180 altars to Ishtar, Bel’s consort.
Making rounds in museums around the world is an exhibit dedicated to Mesopotamia (where Babylon was located anciently), which its curators bill as the birthplace of civilization, religion, language, art, etc. How right they are, but they should not be boasting about the greatness and glory of this past city and empire that God ultimately destroyed due to the wickedness and disobedience of her inhabitants.
If you and I were Jews living in Babylon at the height of its prestige and glory and we could enjoy the prosperity afforded by this city, why in the world would we want to leave the religious, cultural and economic grandeur of this lifestyle? God wanted these Jews to understand they had to forsake Babylon at some point and states this through his prophet in Jeremiah chapter 51, verse 45:
“My people, go out of the midst of her! And let everyone deliver himself from the fierce anger of the Lord. And lest your heart faint, and you fear for the rumor that will be heard in the land (a rumor will come one year, and after that, in another year a rumor will come, and violence in the land, Ruler against ruler).
Verse 50
“You who have escaped the sword [in the captivity], get away! Do not stand still! Remember the Lord afar off, and let Jerusalem come to your mind.”
Why would God have to tell these displaced Jews this through Jeremiah? Could it be that He knew just how comfortable they would get in their new surroundings during the seventy years of Babylonian dominance?
A couple of generations later only a few would remember the half-hearted worship of the true God that was occurring in Judah and only the very old would remember the lost culture that came with God’s commandments, statutes and judgments. Most would well remember the poverty and suffering of the pre-conquered Judean cities and wanted to forget through a more prosperous life in the city and empire of Babylon – even if it meant adopting the religious, cultural and economic ideologies of the Chaldeans.
Not many remembered or responded to Jeremiah’s warning, and we find that it took the complete destruction of Babylon (particularly the City) and the transition to the Medo-Persian Empire before Jews would remember Jerusalem and go out from Babylon. And even then, look at what we encounter in Ezra chapter 9, verse 1:
“When these things were done, the leaders came to me, saying, ‘The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, with respect to the abominations of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. For they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons, so that the holy seed is intermingled with the peoples of those lands. Indeed, the hand of the leaders and rulers has been foremost in this unfaithfulness.”
Some may read this and conclude this is a “racial purity” statement, but please consider the context: the abominations are the religious, cultural and economic ideas and practices of people from other nations which are diametrically opposite to and cannot be reconciled with God’s way of life. To marry into this situation would have made it impossible in that environment to “go out” from the world around them.
The fact is that birth Jews, Benjaminites and Levites had physically got out of Babylon, but they remained spiritually behind. Look at the state of some of the nobles who had enjoyed the good of Babylon during Nehemiah’s administration – chapter 13, verse 15:
“In those days I saw in Judah some people treading wine presses on the Sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and loading donkeys with wine, grapes, figs and all kinds of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. And I warned them about the day on which they were selling provisions. Men of Tyre dwelt there also, who brought in fish and all kinds of goods, and sold them on the Sabbath to the children of Judah and in Jerusalem.
“Then I contended with the nobles of Judah, and said to them, ‘What evil thing is this that you do, by which you profane the Sabbath day?’”
The economics of the world around them were deeply ingrained in their thinking. With such violations of the Sabbath and other of God’s laws, statutes and judgments continuing unaddressed and unstopped, these returning Jews had no chance of “going out” from among them or leaving the systems of the societies around them – all founded on systemic “Babylon.”
The Jews were told to depart from Babylon of “intermingling” and “mixing” confusion, but even those who did leave, brought the religious, cultural and economic ideas and practices of the world around them back to Jerusalem.
With God’s call there is an expectation of coming out and being separate from the “kosmos” around us and its arrangement of religious, cultural and economic life on this planet. This has to occur, not just physically with membership in the church of God, but spiritually by following the teachings and by living the example set for us by Jesus Christ. As the Jews were to “get out of,” “go out from” and “come out of” Babylon spiritually and entirely remove all its influence on their lives, so must we!
The third “getting out,” “going out,” or “coming out” from Babylon is yet to be carried out. Please return with me to Revelation, chapter 18, verse 1, where we see a lengthy lament for a woman called, “Babylon the Great” – from the Phillips translation of the New Testament:
“Later I saw another angel coming down from Heaven, armed with great authority. The earth shone with the splendor of his presence, and he cried in a mighty voice, ‘Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great! She has become a haunt of devils, a prison for every unclean spirit, and a cage for every foul and hateful bird.
“For all nations have drunk the wine of her passionate unfaithfulness and have fallen thereby. The kings of the earth have debauched themselves with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the extravagance of her dissipation.’
“’Then I heard another voice from Heaven, crying, “Come out from her, O My people, lest you become accomplices in her sins and must share her punishment.”’”
Remarkably, God’s people live right in the middle of this Babylon and have to be told to leave it or be considered accomplices in her sins and share in her punishment. You would think the people of God would know to get as far away from her as possible, but they need a warning. And why would that be?
Move back to Revelation 17 to look at something that impressed and astonished the apostle John. In paraphrasing the translation of the Greek words used in this chapter, we might be able to better understand more about the entity called “Babylon the Great”:
“Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and talked with me, saying to me, ‘Come and I will reveal the condemnation of the loud, fornicating, high-riding prostitute to you, who lives upon an abundance of fallen [rain] water, with whom the earthly sovereigns committed adultery through idolatrous practices driven by lust, and the earth’s residents were intoxicated to drunkenness with the potent alcoholic beverage of her unlawful acts of lust.”
What the apostle John is being shown is a prostitute of prostitutes that has seduced kings and rulers and has taught human beings throughout the earth and through all time to enjoy the pleasures of sin through an intoxication that comes with fulfilling lust, sexual and otherwise. All too many people have “got into bed” with this great whore and will suffer unspeakably for it.
Continuing in verse 4 of Revelation 17:
“The woman was wrapped in purple and crimson clothing, decked out in gold and valuable jewels and pearls, having in her hand a gilded drinking vessel full of reeking idolatrous detestations and foul impurities of her sex-related idolatry. And on the top of her face was written:
“‘AN UNSPOKEN SECRET IMPOSED BY RELIGIOUS MEMBERSHIP, HIGH AND MIGHTY MOTHER OF CONFOUNDING CONFUSION WHO BEARS CHILDREN THAT BECOME PROSTITUTES ASSOCIATED WITH IDOLATROUS PRACTICES, AND IS THE FEMALE ANCESTOR OF THE WHOLE WORLD’S IDOLATROUS DETESTATIONS THAT EMIT A DISGUSTING STENCH.’”
Look at what her fornication produces: more prostitutes who commit more abominations originating from her harlotry…on to verse 6:
“And I saw the woman, drinking to intoxication the blood shed by the sanctified ones and those with the witness record of Jesus. And when I saw her I was awed with exceeding admiration. But the angel said to me, ‘Why did you admire what you saw? I will tell you the hidden truth about the woman and of the dangerous venomous animal that transports her, which has the seven directing body parts and the ten goring implements.
“’The venomous animal that you saw had been in existence, and is not now remaining, and will spring upward from the depthless abyss and go meet its utter destruction. And those who dwell on the earth will be filled with admiration, whose names are not written in the Scroll of Life Accounts kept since the founding time of the world, when they see the beast that had existed, is not remaining, and yet is coming.’”
Please continue with me in verse 15 of Revelation 17:
“And he said to me, ‘The gathering lake which you saw, where the idolatrous prostitute rests, are populations of humans, classes of persons, foreign tribes, languages.’
Verse 18
“’And the woman that you saw is the large and strong population center which has power over the controllers of realms of the whole world.’”
To mortals, all of this might seem very enticing and appealing:
A religious system that tells us we are saved no matter what we do, or offers life after death in a blissful heaven, or has attractive elaborate celebrations.
A culture based on customs and traditions that urge wrong behaviors, encourages overindulgence and promises social acceptance from the masses.
An economy that provides luxurious living, offers exciting career, educational and travel opportunities and seemingly can give us anything we might desire.
Yes, we do have to be warned to “come out of her,” because to the extent we participate in her prosperity is the proportion we might take part in her destruction.
And apparently this Babylon has considerable cultural and economic sway to support its religious activities as we can surmise from the laments of those who prospered through her customs and trade found throughout Revelation 18.
All throughout history and especially in the end time, Babylon represents and wields considerable religious, cultural and economic power over the world or “kosmos” with all of its populations, classes, tribes and languages:
It did back in Abram’s time.
It did back in Jeremiah’s time.
It does in our time!
And our response as God’s people should be to “get out of,” “go out from,” “come out of” her – not only partially depart from or just physically leave or live in peaceful coexistence, but completely, spiritually and violently in abhorrence of her six-millennial power-base.
With His calling, God is training each one of us to reject all ungodliness and renounce all worldly desires and to live discreet, upright, devout lives in this present [evil] world. We are being urged, advised, encouraged and warned to “get out of,” “go out from” and “come out of” the kosmos established through the intermingling, mixing, confused confounded order of life represented through all time by Babylon.
God’s desire for us is to “get out of,” “go out from,” “come out of” this present evil world and not be recaptured or deceived or lured back into it. He expects His people to beware, be warned and be wise in heeding this important admonition.
