The Wine of Babylon by I. E. Kimball

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 11, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 23.

The Wine of Babylon

By I. E. Kimball

ZION AND BABYLON. NO. 7.

BY I. E. KIMBALL.

The Wine of Babylon.

The holy city—the church of God—has within her a fountain of waters of life flowing forth from the throne of God. And from every saint the living waters flow forth to others. John 7:38, etc. The church, therefore, holds forth to all the living waters, and points to this Fountain (Jer. 2:13), from which every one may draw to satiety. These waters, perfectly pure, in comparison to our own corrupted fountain, represent to us the pure life of God; and, indeed, the waters represent “the Spirit which they that believe on him [Christ] should receive,” according to the above text. But the word of God reveals to us that life; and when the word is made Spirit and life within us, then indeed the life is pure, and the water of life may flow forth from us. The words which are Spirit and life are therefore to renew and wash and cleanse us. Eph. 5:26; John 15:3. The waters of life are thus extended to the world in the pure life contained in the word of God; hence the waters are the word held forth.

But instead of passing this cup to the thirsty, instead of sending forth rivers in high places and streams in the deserts, the apostate church holds a glowing wine cup, pressing it to the lips of the people of earth, to stupefy and besot, causing to err in vision and stumble in judgment. As the waters of life are passed to the world by the true church through the word, so the corrupted word, the “statutes that are not good,” framed according to the lusts of the flesh, intoxicate the world, in that it makes it forgetful of truth, and to expect that which can never be realized. Thus the people become as dreamers, talking in sleep, or as drunkards, with no definite conceptions of anything but the present. “I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.” “Drunken but not with wine.”

Now, that the word which apostasy holds out to the world thus intoxicates, may be seen in that they say, “To-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant,”—the millennial day is forthcoming. Is not the Lord among us, none evil can come upon us; but the prophets have “prophesied both against many countries, and against great kingdoms, of war, and of evil, and of pestilence. The prophet which prophesieth of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known, that the Lord hath truly sent him.” Jer. 28:8, 9. This was said by the prophet, because the false prophet cry of “peace, peace” was raised, “and there is no peace, saith the Lord God.”

The earth is ever represented as falling off to a worse condition, like a drunkard who finally falls to rise not again. Thus will it be when the great day of God’s wrath utterly desolates the earth. Hence great Babylon is to be taken “unawares.” And they say, “Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord,” but “where is the God of judgment?” They do not know him. Partiality in the law (Mal. 2:8, 9), and the various errors which unite the world to the church, and give probation after death, and many such like things, make men “vain worshipers,” utterly dead to God, and insensible to his will. Such is the wine of Babylon with which she makes drunk her votaries, and comforts and kills her paramours.

But this wine is the result of her fornication. And fornication is the term applied to Christians who have been married to Christ by a covenant sealed by his blood, and by their most solemn vow (see Rom. 7:4; 2 Cor. 11:2); so that whoever becomes henceforth a friend and follower of the world is a woman departing from her husband. So says James to worldly Christians: “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?” James 4:4. In this way the whole Jewish church, both Israel and Judah, were set forth as adulterous women. “The righteous men they shall judge them after the manner of adulteresses, and after the manner of women that shed blood.” See Ezekiel 23. It will be noted that the two women—Samaria and Jerusalem—are represented as doting on the Assyrians, or Babylonians. So said the prophet: “The Babylonians come to her into the bed of love.” Thus “the house of Judah is like unto all the heathen.” Eze. 25:8. See also Ezekiel 16.

We see why the church is accused of fornication, simply because “I was an husband unto them,” and they were “as a wife that committeth adultery, who taketh strangers instead of her husband,” as “an imperious whorish woman; in that thou buildest thine eminent place in the head of every way, and makest thine high place in every street;” that is, she listened to the siren of Babylon, and followed Satan’s voice, and went to become his bride with sister Babylon, and cast off the precepts of God, that is, cast off God. Thus the lives of Israel and Babylon became one. Babylon’s wine cup results in a drunken, lascivious life. Her statutes were “not good,” and her judgments those by which they “should not live.” So Zion became “drunken but not with wine,” and Israel was declared to be “fallen.” Hosea 14:1; Amos 5:2.

It is surprising to what extent the old Babylonial wine is still poured out to the nations to-day, even by the professed church of Christ. What shall I say of the cry “peace, peace,” the teaching which promises salvation to the sinful, whose lives do not harmonize with God? Eze. 13:22; Mal. 2:17. Such are the doctrines of the “Age to come,” “Universalism,” “Unitarianism,” etc. Ritualism masks frightful deformities: The doctrine of inherent and natural immortality, which has been the bulwark of all heathenism from first to last; without it demonolatry and Spiritualism—but they are one and the same—and the horrible doctrines of eternal hell burning and purgatory, could not exist at all. Fornication with Babylon has transplanted these baneful plants out of their virgin soil into God’s vineyard. So are “the mysteries” and the holy days which have been transported from heathenism—particularly Sunday—disguised now as the holy Sabbath.

They are not held out in the word, they flow not from life’s fountain, but come from the Babylonian wine cup. Who should not dread that fatal wine cup and the Bacchanalian revels and sleep which follow? Let every one remember that whoso loveth or maketh a lie shall be damned, as the word affirms. Most of the errors now found in Protestantism—and I think I may safely say all—are simply the fables of heathenism lodged, and now firmly rooted, in the Catholic Church, and coming down to us from thence.

The most dangerous of all these doctrines is the doctrine now so agitated, of a union of religion and the state, which, as I have before shown, comes to us from Satan. It necessarily makes the Christian into a heathen and Turk, in that the conscience is forced, and a godlike authority exercised by man over man, by majorities over majorities, through the strong arm. It takes away the right of private judgment, and makes hypocrites but not Christians.

The commandments of men turn from the truth. To add or abate one jot from God’s word is dangerous. “Ye shall not add unto the words which I command you, neither shall ye diminish aught,” but live by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Who can imagine for a moment that God looks with unconcern, or even with lenient eye, upon disregard of one of his plain precepts? “Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself.” Disregard of one precept will bring a flaw into the character. “We would have healed Babylon.” And how?—Even as others,—“He sent his word and healed them.” So let the healing balm of truth be applied.