The possibility that the ‘city of Babylon’ refers to a geographical location is looking less and less likely, though. Babylon’s spiritual principle, which indeed translates itself into actual cities, cultures and civilisations—but which is really a spiritual force—is coming increasingly to the fore. God’s people must not have any fellowship with this. You can physically leave a certain city, country, culture or church, and still remain afflicted with the spirit of the place, the spirit of ‘Babylon’. You can withdraw to a monastery, as a monk or a nun, or go and live on an uninhabited island, but ‘Babylon’ can still dwell in your heart. Someone said: it is easier to get Israel out of Egypt than to get ‘Egypt’ out of Israel. This is why the Apostle Paul says: “Abstain from every form of evil.”1 “Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the Temple of God with idols? For we are the Temple of the living God; just as God said, “I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. “Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,” says the Lord. “And do not touch what is unclean; and I will welcome you.“ And I will be a Father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to Me,” says the Lord Almighty.2 Whoever knows Christ is saved from the ‘powers of darkness’,3 to serve Christ as Lord.4 As Christians we stand in the midst of the world, but we are not of the world.5
A prominent Protestant once said that it is in this ‘splendid isolation’ that our strength lies. A lot can be said against this, though. For example, salt, as Jesus calls us, cannot carry out its anti-decaying role if it does not come into contact with the meat or the fish to be preserved; and moreover there is not much point in having Christian organisations or Christian politics if they are not engaged with this world. Yet, a lot can be said for it as well. There is much to be said for isolation as it is so easy to be absorbed in the world’s ways. We may enjoy the world6 and make use of it, provided that we are indeed separate from it.7 Have no part in its sins, for they have become such a mountain that they are piled up to Heaven. God’s measuring rod says more and more: enough is enough. God has had enough. And the end will be swift and terrible. The world ‘is passing away’ but whoever does the will of God will live forever. The Church of God and the people of God will indeed experience ‘great tribulation’, but not God’s wrath. ‘Tribulation’ is what people can do to you; the wrath of God is what He can do to you, forever. “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”8 Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.9 Flee from sexual immorality.10 Flee from idolatry.11 Joseph fled from Potiphar’s wife.12 Everyone is personally responsible.13 God remembered ‘Babylon the Great’ when, after centuries of patience with mankind, He finally saw that man’s evil was great and decided to wipe out that human population by water from the face of the earth.14 The ‘piling up’ of the sins literally means by its root word ‘clenching together, sticking together’. Babel has become a mountain of sin stuck together just like the bricks were cemented together into a tower.15 This is how man’s unrighteousnesses stick together to become a towering mountain of unrighteousness. The last barriers are being broken through, the last ‘taboos’ removed. Everything has to be permitted. However, God will remember their wickedness and punish them for their sins.16
• Falling in love with God’s Law (Psalm 119) can only happen by a born-again heart. ‘Walking in the Spirit’ is only possible if you have received the ‘Spirit of God’ by becoming a ‘child of God’ through repentance, confessing of sins, change of heart and mind, surrender to God and Christ, being born- again, and walk your daily life with Him.
• Our ‘flesh’ cannot and does not want to keep God’s Law. You want nothing better than to follow His directions that will lead you to true ‘life’ by His Law that has come into your heart by His Spirit when you have become a true Christian. You love to do the perfect will of God.
Bible References:
1.1 Thessalonians 5:22 2.2 Corinthians 6:14–18 3.Colossians 1:13 4.Colossians 3:24 5.1 John 2:15–17; James 1:27, 4:4 6.Colossians 2:20–23 7.1 Corinthians 7:29–31 8.Matthew 10:28 9.Acts 2:40 10.1 Corinthians 6:18 11.1 Corinthians 10:14 12.Genesis 39:12 13.Ezekiel 33:1–20 14.Genesis 6:5–8 15.Genesis 11:1–9 16.Hosea 9:9
