Let us look at Babylon in its past history, and consider how that name was suited to express the special evil that was to grow up out of the corruption of Christianity. In Genesis 10 we have the first mention of Babel. And there we have it connected with a willful man, who had first shown his cunning with regard to brute beasts, and who soon began to turn against his fellows all the craft and experience he had acquired in a lower sphere. Nimrod is the first person with whom you have Babel associated. It is man concentrating power in himself. But in the next chapter (Gen. 11) we have another idea. It is not only one man exalting himself and others subjected to him by fraud or force, but a grand effort of men gathering themselves together to build something permanent and strong and high a tower that would reach toward heaven, and gain them a name upon earth. Here, then, we have the two thoughts that are always more or less connected with Babylon. It may take the form of an individual who exalts himself or of men combining for some notable enterprise; or it may be a mixture of both principles.
Now this you have further and still more plainly developed, when you come down to the history of the Jewish nation. God called them out as a people, and gave them special privileges and blessings. They fell into idolatry, the sin which sprang from Babylon as its great and primitive source; and Babylon becomes the chief means of judgment for the people of God, and the scene of Judah’s captivity. There again we behold Nebuchadnezzar, the golden head of the image, answering to Nimrod, and the great city that he built, which answers to the tower of Babel—the two ideas being united, as indeed they soon became at first; for Babel was the beginning Nimrod’s kingdom. The natural heart covets present exaltation for man on the earth, and this, too, clothed with a religious sanction, but with an idolatrous intent.
Now the Holy Ghost in the New Testament takes up the term “Babylon” and applies it to the corruption that was to issue in professing Christendom. When God saves souls, He does not allow them to choose their own path in the world; still less can He own their choosing their own path in the church. He who understands his place as belonging to God has his will broken. He is privileged to treat his nature as a dead and evil thing; not on the ground of a slave working for something and because he must, but in the liberty of a son of God—of one who has been blessed by God, and who has the interest of his Father at heart. But it is not his Father’s will that at the present time he should meddle with the world, or have the a place in it. According to God’s mind world is not good enough for the Christian, because it is practically under the power of the enemy. There is a time coming when the world will be put under the children of God, when they will judge the world. But this can never be until Satan is set aside, and Christ publicly exalted over the earth as well as in heaven. Meanwhile the saints have to wait in faith and patience. And this is the argument which the apostle urges in 1 Corinthians 6, why brethren in Christ should have nothing to do with the world’s judgments now. It was beneath their dignity as children of God to carry their differences there; it was vain to try to reform the world. Such a thought never entered the apostle’s mind. For faith, while it delights in the deliverance of poor sinners, looks at the world with God as already judged, and only waiting for the execution of the sentence at Christ’s coming.
But while the apostle exhorts to subjection to the powers that be, he never says, You, brethren, that have posts of honor in the earth, you are to continue there. This would have been to defeat the object of God, whose children are not of the world, even as Christ is not of the world. For God is not now undertaking to govern the world, Save in His secret providence of course. When the kingdom of this world as a fact becomes His, He begins by judging the corrupters of the earth, and more particularly every iniquity done under the name of Christ. This is not what God does now. He is rather testing the souls of His people in a place of temptation, where everything is contrary to His name. If they are faithful, they will suffer persecution; if unfaithful, they may be made much of by the world. They may have its ease and honor, but they assuredly will be used by Satan to keep all quiet; for nothing furnishes such a sanction to evil as a good man who joins the world and gives it countenance. Remember Lot. He was in the gate of Sodom, the place where justice was administered. His position there was as dishonoring to God as it was miserable to himself. He had to be forced out of it at last; but even before he was taken out of Sodom, the well-watered plains had lost their value in his eyes. Remember also Lot’s wife.
His righteous soul was vexed with their unlawful deeds, he himself was the object of their taunts. “This one fellow,” said they, “came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge.” They saw the incongruity of his position, as worldly men generally are quick to perceive the failure of the believer. Alas, it is easy to understand how a man may be godly in the main, and yet found in circumstances where a Christian ought not to be, and that so far, he is not a true witness for God. Whether I look at the individual Christian or at the church, I see that God’s object is to have a testimony to His own glory in the world; to have those who are for Him, not in the way of putting down the world, much less of seeking to get the honor and riches of the world; but willing for Christ’s sake to abandon what they liked best, because they look not at the things which are seen, but at the unseen and eternal. This is grace’s triumph, and so far as it is true of us, we are real witnesses for God. On the other hand, if we are seeking to gain or retain the world along with Christ, the principle of Babylon is begun.
In Revelation 18 the voice from heaven says: “Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues” (verse 4). The receiving of her plagues is not the divine motive for separation. Men would be anxious enough about that. But the great thing that God looks for from His people is this that they should not be partakers of her sins. I would put it to every Christian, How far is he in sympathy with God’s mind touching Babylon and its sins? How far does he feel the evil of it, and judge it?
Babylon does not seek heaven, but the earth not the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow, but to sit as a queen and to see no sorrow. Babylon is content with worldly exaltation. If you steer clear of this, Babylon has no attractions for you; and the present danger of every soul from Babylon is, the gradual caring for and allowance in Christians of what man values on the earth. Of late years there has been no little change in the thoughts of Christians as to the present enjoyment of prosperity and pleasure in this world. But there is amazing danger in it. For what is the great thought of it all? Man rising, progressing, exalting himself man showing what he can do, and how improve; and this is sought to be connected with the name and sanction of Christ! Alas! it is Babylon the great (verses 9-19). In her we see the end of the heart’s desire, along with Christ, to enjoy all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. I do not wonder at an unconverted man seeking to make the world pleasant; Cain did it, and there is such a thing now as going in the way of Cain. These are the people that handle all sorts of musical instruments, and the artificers in brass and iron. It is true that these things sprang up in a very early hour of the world, but still the Spirit of God does not tell us for nothing that they were in the family of Cain, not in the family of Seth.
(To be continued)
Should we to gain the world’s applause,
Or to escape its harmless frown,
Refuse to countenance Thy cause,
And make Thy people’s lot our own,
What shame would fill us in that day
When Thou Thy glory wilt display.