IS BABYLON FALLEN?

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 9, 1868

IS BABYLON FALLEN?

This question means simply this: Have the popular churches of the present day experienced a moral change for the worse, lowered the standard in spiritual things, and departed far away from God? If this is so, there is no use in attempting to disguise the fact; and if the expression, “Babylon is fallen,” is the one which the Holy Scriptures make use of to designate this fact, there is no consistency in our discarding that expression, while we admit the fact itself. But there are many who do this. First-day Adventists, generally, reject our application of the prophecy of Rev. xiv, 8, to these popular religious organizations, yet from time to time furnish the most unexceptionable testimony that the condition of these bodies is exactly such as we claim is set forth by the prophecy. Why object to the terms of the prophecy, while continually testifying to the truthfulness of the facts which it sets forth? From their leading journal we take the following extracts which are to the point. The first, entitled, “Lowering the Standard,” reads as follows:

“Forty years ago, a church with whose entire history we are acquainted, called to an account and reprimanded one of its leading members, for attending a shooting match the day before Thanksgiving. All such amusements at that time were by the evangelical Christians considered to be a folly. Games and dancing were forbidden by strict church laws. In those old times, if a donation was made to the minister, it opened with prayer, continued in prayer and song, and we are told of some instances where devotional exercises were kept up until midnight, and numerous persons converted.

These times are now very much altered. Donation parties, although beginning with prayer, too often end in gayety, and sometimes in the dance. Festivity is the order of the day and of the night. Ministers advocate games, balls, and sporting, and but a little while ago, the papers record the attendance, at a horse race, of a reverend gentleman, who vied with the noisy and drunken jockey, in his attempts to prove the speed of his horse.”

Another article is headed, “As I found It;” and the writer found it just about as we should expect he would find it in view of the prophecy. He says:

“Have had an opportunity for a few weeks of visiting the most popular places on this religious continent, and have been into the most popular religious circles, by invitation, on purpose to see which way this religious world is floating; and I am now better satisfied than ever before that the Devil rules the popular religious gatherings. If he wants a great time, and a popular one, he will have it baptized with some kind of religious ceremony.

“I was invited to attend a religious concert, when the Oratorio, Handel’s Messiah, was given in Washington. Some fifty passages of scripture concerning Christ and his reign on the earth were sung by some seventy-five singers; but what solemn mockery! It was to me God’s word acted out on the stage by thoughtless and gay people. It did really seem to me like mocking God and his word. I left, and another brother with me, perfectly satisfied Jesus was not recognized only in form and word, while the spirit of the world ruled the whole scene. We were caught with Bible bait in one of Satan’s box-traps, but others called it good, and told how many professors there were there, and how much scripture was sung; but it was all the form of godliness, and as far from Christianity, as fiddling and dancing the Lord’s prayer.”

“They tell me the religious services in the popular churches are about of the same kind in Washington. No wonder they are opposed to the Lord’s soon coming. Yet there are a few who love the blessed truth in that Sodom. We had a good time preaching to them in the City Council Hall three times on Sunday.

“Coming to this place, we had a free ticket to attend an old folks’ concert of sacred music, which I thought would be reviving to an old-fashioned man, and so it was while those old fashioned hymns were sung; but when the scene turned and the popular singing began, it was “death in the pot” for me. Thought I, the Devil manages every kind of a thing the world loves. This hall and the singers cost the man $180, for one evening. It costs ten times as much to worship Baal as it does to worship God.”

We claim that this change in the religious standing of the churches, is proof that the second message of Rev. xiv, has been fulfilled, that consequently we are having the third, and that the appearance of the Son of man on the great white cloud is an event now near at hand. Let us, as the apostle directs, turn away from these that have a form of godliness without the power, and be prepared for a joyful reception into the general assembly and church of the First-born, when they are brought home to the city of the living God.