THE FALL OF MODERN BABYLON.
By S.
Commenting on Lesson XI, Page 5.
GOD warns His people in the last days of the fall of a power or institution which He calls Babylon. That power is the mother of idolatry, and in the sense in which it is here used it has been in existence and been doing its wicked work from the earliest days of the Chaldees, and will continue it until the end of time. It has persisted through different dynasties, through different nations, but has always been the same God-dishonoring system. That system will not be allowed to stand forever. God has decreed the limit of its duration. “I saw another angel coming down out of heaven, having great authority; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried with a mighty voice, saying, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great.” Rev. 18:1, 2. A voice from heaven declares that the cause of the overthrow of Babylon is that “her sins have reached even unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.” “Therefore in one day shall her plagues come, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire; for strong is the Lord God who judged her.” Verses 5, 8. The execution of that decree (for it is a decree) closes the career of Babylon. But in the overthrow of Babylon there is the overthrow of everything that goes to make up Babylon—all the institutions, all the influences, all the men and women who have accepted its principles, all the nations that have forgotten God. In view of this it means everything to us to know whether we are standing on the side of Babylon or on the side of God. We can know this by knowing what Babylon means and what it stands for. Babylon means confusion. God called it that. It meant that and was called that because it sought to frustrate the way of God and substitute its own way. That has always brought confusion. It brought confusion in heaven and it could do no less here. Let us not forget these two characteristics of Babylon:— Opposition to God’s way.
Choosing its own way. God’s law and God’s way are one and the same. God’s law condemned idolatry. Babylon broke that law, and taught the world to bow down to wood and stone, to images of silver and gold; to worship the trees and winds, and pour out libations to the gods of the seas. God’s law established the Sabbatic institution and commanded its observance. Babylon has taught the world—and is still teaching it—to trample upon that institution and choose another to take its place. God indicated His way in this matter; Babylon chose her own way; and God, in His last warning message to this world, is calling men out of Babylon and back to His appointed way. “I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come forth, my people, out of her, that ye have no fellowship with her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.” Rev. 18:4. The law of God, then, is the great test to determine what is Babylon and who are of Babylon; for God condemns her because of her attitude toward His law. “Her sins,” He says, “have reached even unto heaven,” and He plainly declares that “sin is the transgression of the law.” As He condemns her for her opposition to His law, so will He condemn us if we allow ourselves to be deceived into taking that same attitude toward that law. They who obey God’s call to come forth from her will be those of whom it is said: “Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus” (Rev. 14:12); and of that same company it is also said: “Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.” Rev. 22:14. This company will not be overwhelmed in the overthrow of Babylon; for they have ranged themselves on the side of God and His law. There are only two classes, the saved and the lost, the followers of Christ and the followers of Babylon, and man’s attitude toward the law of God determines to which class he belongs. That is the test by which we prove ourselves loyal or disloyal, God’s friends or His enemies. Christ said: “Why call ye Me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” Christ spoke the law of Ten Commandments. God has only one truth for the world, only one Gospel, only one light, only one way, only one law. It is possible to be judged as keeping the law of God in spirit when we, through ignorance, have broken its letter. Many who have witnessed for God with their lives had broken the letter of the Fourth Commandment; but the sin of ignorance God passed over. They had never seen the light of that requirement. It is the attitude that God looks upon, the willingness of heart to do what He requires regardless of consequences; but he to whom that light has come has not that cloak to cover his failure. He must stand or fall according to the attitude he has assumed toward God’s law. Babylon falls because she opposed that law; but this is what the psalmist says of those who have not followed in her way: “Blessed are they that are perfect in the way, who walk in the law of Jehovah.” Ps. 119:1. S.