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7. Another Voice From Heaven Calls God's People to Abandon Babylon (Revelation 18:4-5)
REVELATION 18:4-5
4 I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, that you have no participation in her sins, and that you don’t receive of her plagues, 5 for her sins have reached to the sky, and God has remembered her iniquities.
Flee From Babylon! (v 4): Amidst the threats of judgment over a depraved Babylon the prophet on the Island of Patmos heard the penetrating command of God: Flee from Babylon before her doom comes! (Revelation 18:4).
God commanded both His Old Testament as well as New Testament people to not get too comfortably settled down in this world, for “…the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.” (1 John 2:17) Our home is in heaven, not on this earth (Colossians 3:1-4; Hebrews 13:14).
God calls Israel His people (Exodus 19:5-6). All members of this people are to be holy, as God is holy (Leviticus 11:44; 19:2). This decree also applies to the church of Jesus Christ, called out from among the nations. Her members were once not a people, but have now become the people of God through the blood of Christ and His Spirit (1 Peter 2:9-10). The commands of Christ especially apply to the New Testament people: “Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful” (Luke 6:36), as well as “You shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).
For the sake of this calling the Lord commands us to hate and avoid every sin just as we would poison, to cut ourselves off from bad company, and, if need be, to flee from it, just as Joseph once had to flee temptation (Genesis 39:7-23). Abraham, too, had to depart from the depraved culture of Ur (Genesis 11:31 – 14:4). Lot received the urgent command of God to immediately abandon Sodom with his family because the destruction of this sinful city was exceedingly near. When his wife hesitated to give up the comfortable life the judgment of God came down and she became a pillar of salt (Genesis 19:12-26).
When the children of Jacob began to fell well and multiply in Egypt the Egyptians became fearful and enslaved them. The Lord commanded them, however, to leave the fertile land on the Nile, pass through the barren wilderness, and go to the land on the Jordan (Exodus 3:8, 17-18).
The angel's command in the vision of John was not directed at the Jewish people in the region of old Babylon on the Euphrates, since the once flourishing capital of the Chaldeans long lay destroyed and in ruin on a salty plain. The cry of the angel was much more directed at the Jews and Christians in Rome, who were not to trust in the wealth, power and culture of the Romans, with all their multitude of gods and temples. They were to trust only in the Lord, their God (Exodus 20:2-6). But how the Jews and Christians were to flee Rome is not stated in Revelations.
God's command to flee an adulterous environment also applies to Christians. Liberal churches and godless people amidst affluent atheistic environment all represent places where God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are no longer the center and foundation of faith and culture. Wherever a multi-cultural syncretism, a gospel contaminated with humanism, an erroneous faith in Mary, or an unbiblical feminism is praised, and where no fundamental change or repentance is in sight, the Christian should ask Jesus for grace and clear direction, when, where and to whom he should turn.
We should recognize that there is no perfect church on earth, just as every one of us is very deficient in himself. Each and every criticism of a pastor, church board of elders or bishop, should begin with us, for we need to recognize that our prayer and intercession for them has been insufficient. We ourselves share responsibility for the condition of our churches.
If someone does leave a church into which church should he then enter? All free churches and mission works succumb, in the same way, to the problems of the second, third and fourth generation. Everywhere Satan tries to stir God's people to an unholy pride, pious hypocrisy, and a stinking arrogance, which condemns others who think and dress differently. Jesus, on the other hand, ate with sinners and tax collectors and sat at table with the refuse of His people. His holiness manifested itself in His great love for the lost. How does it look with us?
We should not be too quick to pull out of our churches. Spiritually seen, the church is our mother. If our mother becomes sick we would do well to run to the very best of doctors, to Jesus, and continuously ask Him for healing and sanctification for our mother (church).
But where an un-Christian hardening crystallizes, and where over decades the resurrected Savior is not in the middle, then we should ask Jesus where we should turn. Otherwise we, our children and our children's children could waste away in spiritual malnourishment.
In the past centuries thousands of active Christians have emigrated from Europe to the USA, thousands have left Russia, Rumania and Palestine to go to other lands because they despaired of their authorities or their spiritless churches. Many of the immigrants established spiritually awake churches in their new homeland, which still, however, represented no paradise on earth. Every true proclamation of the gospel produces salvation for the one and hardening for the other. The word of God unbinds the repentant from internal bondage and, at the same time, binds unrepentant, self-sufficient egotists.
To leave or to enter, to flee or to remain, are not questions that a person should quickly and independently decide. Everyone would do well to ask Jesus for leading. Brothers and sisters in the Holy Spirit should be asked to help discern whether to go or to stay. Emotional haste is usually from the Devil. But where a woman, without especial need or reason, occupies a bishop's office, or where homosexual marriages are given church blessing, a quick decision becomes essential.
PRAYER: Heavenly Father, You bore the children of Jacob in Your great patience. You punished them justly and called them many times; but they crucified Your only Son. Forgive us if we did not preach the Jews, but were engaged wholly in superficial churches. Help us to flee Babylon’s adulterous environment, and bear responsibility in the living church. Amen.
QUESTION:
- What is meant by fleeing from the adulterous Babylon and bearing responsibility in the living church?