This is a 14 minute read.

Is it time?

Time to leave Babylon, I mean?

You’re probably wondering what the heck I’m talking about. Babylon isn’t a term you hear in everyday conversation. But once I explain what it is, you might find yourself contemplating how and when to leave Babylon right along with me.

And just to alleviate any concerns up front, I’m not talking about selling all of our possessions and living like a hermit in the woods, or leaving behind the world to focus on spiritual things like a pious monk. And I’m definitely not talking about stockpiling food and supplies like a doomsday prepper. Leaving Babylon refers to something much more practical, productive—and far more challenging—than any of those fear-based responses.

Over the next few blog posts, I will, at times, bend one of my guiding principles by focusing on the darkness rather than just the Giver of Light. I don’t do this casually, and I’ll take great care to filter everything through a desire to see Jesus more clearly. This temporary detour, while distasteful, will lead us back to the Unveiling of Jesus with a larger grid for beholding the majesty of His plan. Sometimes you have to identify and uproot the weeds before you can focus on expanding the garden.

So where to begin with Babylon? Should we go straight for the root? No, let’s start with a quick introduction to the fully mature plant first, and then we’ll work our way back to its origin:

After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illumined with his glory. And he cried out with a mighty voice, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird. For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed acts of immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality.”

I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues; for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.

Revelation 18:1-5

“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great…come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues.” Heavy words for sure, but what do they mean?

A Weed by Any Other Name?

Let’s start with the most obvious question: What is Babylon? Are we talking about the ancient Mesopotamian city that now lies in ruins in northern Iraq? Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Ancient Babylon was renowned for its wondrous hanging gardens, and for its most infamous ruler, King Nebuchadnezzar, who destroyed Solomon’s temple and the city of Jerusalem and deported the Jews into captivity in 587 B.C. While that ancient city is relevant to our discussion (and I’ll touch on its origin in the next post), it was destroyed long before the book of Revelation was written, so we need to look beyond the ancient physical Babylon to fully understand Revelation chapter 18.

Some commentators think that John’s prophecy of “Babylon the great” was a coded reference to ancient Rome during the time of the early Church. Others associate her with the city of Jerusalem before its destruction in 70 A.D. Some even speculate that the ancient city of Babylon will literally rise again at the end of the age.

These viewpoints (and a few others like them) could have merit on some level, but I see them as incomplete pieces to a larger puzzle. Perhaps there will be a physical city that embodies Babylon at the end of the age, but rather than prognosticating about events beyond our control, it is far more important for us to understand what Babylon represents and how it impacts us today. Babylon is more than a city. It is also a spiritual world power, and a philosophy, and a system. More than a system, Babylon is a system of systems—the mother of systems, if you will. More on that in a moment.

The history and nature of ancient Babylon (and, perhaps to a smaller degree, 1st century Rome and Jerusalem) do form a pattern that can help us understand the intention of the warning in Revelation 18, but don’t worry—there’s no need to unpack your encyclopedias. Instead, let’s just focus on a few key Bible verses to interpret the symbol of Babylon and her web of systems that seek to dominate our attention and energy.

Babylon the Great

The Book of Revelation devotes two full chapters to Babylon and her judgment. We won’t read all of it here, but beginning in chapter 17, she is introduced as a woman clothed in purple and scarlet, adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, with a gold cup in her hand full of abominations and the unclean things of her immorality. On her forehead was written a mystery, “Babylon the great, mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth.” As if that wasn’t cryptic enough, she was also riding on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names with seven heads and ten horns.

We’re going to skip over most of that imagery for now because it requires a whole lot of biblical and historical context to build out the meaning. I’ll take the time to unpack these prophetic symbols in my next book, Ballad of the Beloved: The Unveiling of Jesus Christ - Book 2. But in this blog series, we’ll keep it simple by drilling down on just a few specific highlights lowlights of her resume that tie back to the root system of Babylon and read like a greatest-hits list for the Kingdom of Darkness:

• The Kings of the earth committed acts of immorality with her. (Rev 17:2)

• She sits on waters that represent peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues. (Rev 17:15)

• She is called, “the great city, which rules over the kings of the earth.” (Rev 17:18)

• All the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her immorality. (Rev 18.3)

• She says in her heart, ‘I sit as a queen and I am not a widow, and will never see mourning.’ (Rev 18:7)

• After her judgment, the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, because no one buys their cargoes anymore. (Rev 18:11)

• Her merchants were the great men of the earth, because all the nations were deceived by her sorcery. (Rev 18:23)

• In her was found the blood of prophets and of saints and of all who have been slain on the earth.” (Rev 18:24)

That’s a lot of data without context, so allow me to synthesize it into a few general observations about Babylon’s essence. Some of what I’m about to say may seem like a leap in logic at first, but just go with it for now, because it will all dovetail together when I add more context later.

Here we see Babylon at the end of the age, after she has had millennia to perfect her lies, to build up her repertoire of distractions, and to grow her systems across nations and ethnic boundaries. All the world will be deceived by her “sorcery” and the allure of her sensuality. Like a harlot—or like the serpent’s lie in the garden (as we’ll see in a moment)—Babylon offers an empty promise of comfort, empowerment, and fulfillment, but her system only leads to slavery and eventual destruction.

The mention of harlotry and sensuality might lead one to believe that Babylon is all about sexual immorality, but she is much more than that. By the end of the age, she will be the gatekeeper of every world system. Government, religion, business, education, media, entertainment, and even family life will succumb to Babylon’s influence, having become drunken and defiled by her philosophy.

A select few in each industry will effectively use Babylon’s system to become great (her merchants were the great men of the earth) by convincing the rest of the world that they need what Babylon is selling. But the vast majority of the population who rely upon her will be enslaved and exhausted as they chase after what they didn’t need and will never achieve.

The Babylonian system is essentially a giant hamster wheel designed to distract and enslave rather than enlighten and empower. It seeks to aggrandize and enrich itself off humanity by creating the illusion of need, offering to fill that need, and then profiting off the sale.

The Original Lie

That’s all very abstract and high-concept, but before we can expose Babylon’s root and uncover the very practical ways that it impacts our lives, we first need to understand where it gets its power.

Babylon’s greatest tool is the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which it leverages to create demand for its goods. If that sounds like just another esoteric observation, stick with me a minute. If you get nothing else out of this series, my next point is the crux of the matter, with far reaching implications…

Think back to Genesis. God planted the Garden of Eden and placed Adam and Eve there to cultivate and keep it. Then He commanded them to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. In other words, they were to learn everything they could by interacting with the intrinsic beauty and harmony of God’s garden before using those lessons to recreate similar results throughout the rest of the untamed earth. This was God’s prescribed process for humanity to grow in both wisdom and knowledge over time as they collaborated with Him and His creation. Only through this process would they find true fulfillment of purpose.

Now try to imagine, if you can, what Adam and Eve might have felt after receiving this monumental commission. Before the fall they had no insecurities—they were naked and unashamed, after all—so I doubt that they felt inadequate to the task, though it’s possible they were well aware of the huge gap between who they were and who they would need to become to fulfill their commission. Either way, I imagine they fully trusted their Creator’s sufficiency. They had no reason not to. He had blessed them for the job, so they knew that somehow or another they would be successful.

Now enter the crafty serpent, insinuating that God’s intentions toward Adam and Eve were not entirely good. By questioning and twisting God’s words, the serpent was trying to open up in their mind an insurmountable divide between who God made them to be and who they were. He was basically suggesting that Adam and Eve didn’t have everything they needed to successfully fulfill their God-given purpose. In that regard, he was telling a partial truth that made his subsequent lies more compelling.

It was technically accurate in that moment that they didn’t have what they needed, but that was only because they hadn’t yet learned all of the wisdom and knowledge they were invited to gain through cooperation with God’s garden-expansion process. That half-truth was the serpent’s bait. If God was selfishly holding back something they needed, then maybe they were justified in reaching for a shortcut to obtain that knowledge. One that didn’t require the exercise of faith over time. You see, the hook of Satan’s lie was that the wisdom and knowledge that Adam and Eve needed to fulfill their purpose could be acquired without the risk of having to trust in God’s goodness and faithfulness to grow them day by day, one step at a time, as they moved forward with Him.

The lie went deeper still. By suggesting that God was withholding the provision necessary to accomplish their calling, the serpent was planting the insidious idea that God is a taskmaster and a thief who leverages our energy and resources to accomplish His work rather than a loving Father who empowers us by providing His resources.

Adam and Eve took the bait, foolishly grasping for that which the Father meant to provide in good time through healthy means. And they did gain knowledge by eating the forbidden fruit—or at least they gained the ability to perceive previously unimportant data that they were still ill-prepared to handle. What they did not gain was wisdom, because there is no shortcut to wisdom. In other words, they gained information without gaining God’s character. And knowledge without the divine character to wield it only leads to a spiraling descent into corruption and death. That’s why the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was forbidden in the first place.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the knowledge of good and evil. God has all knowledge, but He also has all wisdom. Because his essence is light (information) and love (motivation), He has the divine character necessary to use knowledge in life-giving, self-sacrificial ways. If Adam and Eve had followed God’s prescribed plan, they too would have gradually reflected more and more of His divine character as they learned all knowledge with His wisdom. Ultimately, ALL of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ, so the process was really meant to direct them back to the Source (see Colossians 2:3). Instead, they reached for an apparent shortcut and fell into Satan’s trap.

What does all of this have to do with Babylon? Babylon leverages and reinforces the same lies told in the garden. Each of us is created with a unique purpose that flows from the special mix of gifts that God designed into us before birth, and it is our calling—our birthright, if you will—to discover and refine those gifts as we interact with Christ through the challenges of life.

But Babylon creates compelling distractions to redirect our time and our focus away from our birthright in Christ. It presents hollow but mesmerizing carrots that keep us running on its hamster wheels. If we ever begin to realize that we don’t need Babylon’s carrots, it savagely reminds us that the entire world is its hamster wheel. It claims to hold all of the gears and levers and systems that people need to engage with in order to live in this world. To leave the wheel is a lonely, dangerous, foolhardy affair that only leads to poverty, or so it desperately wants us to believe.

Just like the forbidden fruit, Babylon’s lie is only effective when we believe that the Father is not eagerly waiting for us to engage with Him outside of the hamster wheel, with timely provisions that are imparted as we embrace the challenge.

When all else fails, Babylon tries to silence every voice that opposes its agenda, especially those who seek to reconcile humanity to the empowering love of the Father through the true gospel of Jesus Christ. After all, liberated humans connected to their God, pursuing their God-given birthright, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and demonstrating the sacrificial love of Christ, are the greatest threat to Babylon’s system. They are proof that contentment and ultimate fulfillment can be found outside of the hamster wheel.

What’s Next?

That’s a swell description of what Babylon wants to do in the abstract. But how does it accomplish this in reality? What do its systems look like in our daily lives, and how do we avoid its beguiling influence?

All in good time, my friend. In my next blog post, I’ll unpack the first biblical example of the Babylonian system in action. It may not look like you expect, but once you see how the system was birthed, the markers of its DNA become much easier to identify in today’s world. And once you know what to look for, we can start talking about uprooting those weeds in our own lives.

Go to Part 2: Exposing the Root to read the next post in my “Time to Leave Babylon” series.

Also, please use the comments section below to let me know what you think so far, or ask questions if you have them.

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