Exploring the different applications of the word “Babylon”, speculation about the end time Babylon, and how we are to come out of her today.
Audio only below. Audio with slides above.
Slide 2 And I saw another angel flying in midheaven with an eternal gospel to preach to those who live on the earth, and to every nation, tribe, language, and people; and he said with a loud voice, “Fear God and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come; worship Him who made the heaven and the earth, and sea and springs of waters.” And another angel, a second one, followed, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who has made all the nations drink of the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality.”(Rev 14:6-8)
When I got into the faith once delivered, there was no doubt the end time Babylon was the Roman Catholic Church. This was universally accepted as fitting the verses in the book of Revelation. We can be quite certain John wasn’t talking about literal Babylon in the book of Revelation. That was a real place in those days, in Persia, and Peter wrote to the believers there. These believers would be Jews who did not come back from the exile hundreds of years prior that the apostles went and preached Yeshua to. Babylon at that time was not powerful enough to do much except hope Rome didn’t decide to expand that far. There’s no way John was talking about contemporary Babylon in the book of Revelation.
For hundreds of years people have been convinced the Roman Catholic Church was the Babylon of Revelation because it fit, to a degree, if you were a protestant. It came out of the Roman empire and continues the pagan practices that Rome brought into Christianity to this day. It is still the largest Christian denomination, practicing pagan rituals in plain sight, but it’s a shadow of what it was before the reformation. In fact, it’s a shadow of what it was just 50 years ago. In the US, it doesn’t even enforce its own doctrines.
Scripture can have different levels of meaning beyond the literal. The word Babylon is a great example of this. After the flood, the people tried to make a tower so tall that Yahweh would not be able to drown everyone again. That’s a pretty interesting psyche there. You can have the tower to survive the flood, but what will you eat? Oh, and I’m sure the people building that tower all thought they would be allowed on it if it should ever rain again, not just their leaders. 😊 The world had one language at that time so Yahweh confused the languages and scattered the people to effectively set technology and cooperation back due to their actions. Then He called the place Babylon, which means confusion. He confused their languages. The word Babylon, from inception, had more than one meaning – a place, and confusion.
It has come to have more meanings. When there’s a system or government that thinks it is out of reach of the Most High, just like those at the tower of Babylon, you have Babylon. Another usage is the mixing of religious practices, which is technically called synctretism, and is biblically called harlotry, can also be associated with Babylon. The Persian Empire, headquartered in literal Babylon, purposely mixed up religious practices and cultures in order to dilute any individual culture and to assimilate everyone. When they took Jerusalem captive, their intention was to do this to the Jews. The Greeks tried the same thing after the return from Babylon. And the Romans tried the same exact thing in AD 70. In all these schemes, the evil invaders want to erase the faith of Yahweh from the earth and replace it with polytheism, idolatry, and even satanism. When Rome converted to Christianity, this is what the priests did. They blended in the pagan practices all over the world into Christianity which is why the statue of Apollo in Rome is called Peter, the birthday of Mithra is now called Christmas, the worship of the pagan goddess Diana aka Astarte is now called Easter, polytheism is now called the Trinity, and the worship of a woman and child is associated with Mary. These practices are also associated with Babylon because the word means confusion and these mixed up systems are a mess of confusion.
In Revelation, if John was talking about a literal place being Babylon in his day in the book of Revelation, it was very likely literal Rome. That was the city that ruled the known world and was the seat of all uncleanness. The world’s economy depended on Rome and when it fell, it absolutely did throw the world into economic chaos. No longer could ships sail their cargoes unimpeded pretty much wherever they wanted to go, if they just had that Roman flag on their masts.
Slide 3 “This is what Yahweh of armies, the Elohim of Israel, says to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: ‘Build houses and live in them; and plant gardens and eat their produce. ‘Take wives and father sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may give birth to sons and daughters; and grow in numbers there and do not decrease. ‘Seek the prosperity of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to YHVH in its behalf; for in its prosperity will be your prosperity.’” (Jer 29:4-7)
Here’s the part about praying for Babylon but it’s phrased as seeking the prosperity of the city where they were sent.
Jeremiah is being quite literal here. I’ve gone back in time to talk about the captivity in Babylon to show a point. Judea had been sacked, Jerusalem is in ruins, and the Jews were largely carried off to literal Babylon. They were carried off by their enemies and became exiles and even captives in a far off land. They could have looked at this predicament as an opportunity to launch a guerilla warfare campaign or resist some other way, but Yahweh, through Jeremiah, said “no, you’re there for a reason and you will come out in due time. Make lives for yourselves.” The Jews were allowed to retain their identity in Babylon, with some even becoming government officials. In fact, Yahweh used the power of the Babylonian government to restore and rebuild Judea through Nehemiah and Ezra. Their mission for the time in Babylon was to exist, procreate, and make lives for themselves. They were not to try and escape, make their own Torah compounds, or try to overthrow the government that took them captive, but to understand their predicament was part of a much large plan Yahweh had for them.
How do we apply this principle today? The Babylon in Revelation is something that we understand exists in the end of days. The context of Revelation pretty much requires this to be something future, even though it has past applications. We can spend a lot of time speculating on this, as many have done in the past. Today, it doesn’t look like mainstream Christianity in any form has the power to be something like this Babylon. The Roman Catholic Church is a shadow of its former self and its adherents completely ignore the tenets of their faith without consequence. Almost all the Catholic politicians who go on television with ashes on their forehead after Ash Wednesday are in favor of abortion, a reprehensible practice that is against Catholicism, and nothing happens to them. So we can know that the Catholic church is effectively neutered in the public square. This is in stark contrast to days of old when kings had to ask the Pope’s permission to invade countries and such. Articles have been written that we live in a post-Christian world because the rest of Christianity has sadly diminished in influence to the point of being just another lobbying group here in the US. In Europe it sounds even worse. This is sad and a topic for another day but it’s hard to imagine Babylon being a religious authority in a world that has shunned religion almost wholesale.
In my view, the end time Babylon system probably has something to do with government. In our system of government, the government is supposed to represent the people. The present national government does not. Our state governments often do represent the people and some states are pushing back hard against the debauchery. Our little congregation is a 501c3 so we cannot endorse specific candidates, but we absolutely can lobby for issues. Freedom of religion, assembly, education, against abortion, and other issues are founded in religious institutions. The right to an education is rooted in the ability for people to understand the bible, which is derived from our nation’s protestant Christian founding. The right to be born seems God-given and not even need defending. But our national government is almost completely out of control and constrained by pretty much nothing at this point. It’s corrupt and justice is not equally meted out. People have different rules based on their political affiliation and station in life, which is most ironic because this country was founded to crush such systems. Here, though, we still can have a voice and can still matter. We can unite with other Christians to support issues and traditional values, if we so choose. This is not a requirement by any means.
There’s another place the Babylonian system can be, or be part of, today. Corporations and the economy are rife with Babylonian, and even hedonistic, practices. Large companies and athletic organizations operate in almost instant concert to push satanic and abominable practices in our faces. This is apart from government and happening at breakneck speed. These companies are literally evangelizing for the Adversary now. Target’s recent abominable issue where they put children’s swimsuits in their stores for “trans kids” is just disgusting and the designer of this is an avowed Satanist. What happened with the LA Dodgers having trans men show up as nuns and be honored is disgusting and dismaying. The phrase “Sodom and Gomorrah” is actually trending on Twitter, which is quite remarkable when we realize how far removed we are from being the Christian nation we used to be. In this realm we have a voice because we can choose where to shop, but the choices to get stuff from minimally non-political companies are getting scarce.
When the Jews were carried off to literal Babylon, they knew it would be exactly 70 years until they were restored. The end-time Babylon is a rather global power that survives until the return of the Messiah. Is there some time marker for this? I think so.
Slide 4 For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery—so that you will not be wise in your own estimation—that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; (Rom 11:25)
This is kind of an obscure verse where Paul uses the phrase “the fullness of the gentiles”. Paul writes this to the congregation at Rome which comprised both those Jewish by birth and the gentiles who were grafted in. He’s writing to articulate a balance and this bit comes right after he says that gentile believers in Messiah are grafted in, we are part of the commonwealth of Israel through the blood of Yeshua. Paul goes on:
Slide 5 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. (Rom 12:2)
We who are grafted in have a mission to be in the world but not conformed to it. The hope for us today is that regular people are waking up because of the Babylonian debauchery that we are being soaked in. People have had it and maybe that’s the fullness of the gentiles, when people have had it to the point that they repent and return, or turn, to Yahweh and His Son. And we need to be here to help them as this happens. So let’s pray for as many as possible to wake up and depart from Babylon. Shalom.