BABYLON is a subject of divine prophecy. Its origin, its connection with the people and work of God, its strong molding influence upon the world religiously, educationally, politically, demand, according to the principles of God's revelation, that large mention should be accorded that city and empire which began with Nimrod and Semiramis, the principles of which found birth in the heart of Lucifer. The successors of Babylon, for the same reasons, tho not always to the same extent applicable, find place in the great prophetic outlines of earth's history. Medo-Persia, Grecia, Rome, in both its imperial and divided form, in both its pagan and papal phases, are prophetic terms in prophetic exposition. Many other powers, some prominent, some obscure, find mention in prophecy, like Assyria, Egypt, Tyre, Midian, Moab, Ammon, Syria, Edom, Ethiopia.
Has the United States of America no place there? She is one of the greatest of nations; she possesses an empire that stretches from the regions of everlasting snows in the north to tropical climes in the south. She spans from ocean to ocean, a mighty continent, including within that zone everything which goes to make strong and opulent and mighty a nation and a State.
Her people largely sprang from the enterprising and ambitious of earth, and have by their inventive genius, patient energy, and indomitable pluck, in a land whose every sound spelled opportunity, conquered and populated a continent composed of an aggregation of commonwealths many of which are greater than some of the mighty nations of history.
The Home of Liberty
Its early settlers loved liberty, at least for themselves. Their love was born of their longings for freedom under the oppressors of their native lands, or was found in a larger freedom which some of the pioneers of the first three centuries had learned in the Gospel of Christ. These longed for liberty for all, as well as for themselves. Chief among these apostles of wider freedom was Roger Williams. From such as these came a nation the rising star of whose free government lighted the world, whose influence broke chains and fetters, and struck gleams of hope into the darkened hearts of the oppressed of all nations. Here were founded, in this wilderness of hope, churches without a pope and States without a king.
Is not such a land worthy of prophetic mention? Nay, MUST it not be a subject of divine prophecy? And, reader, it is, in a prophecy the particulars of which are so applicable and so exclusive as to stamp them with divine foresight. That prophecy is found in Rev. 13: 11-18, as follows:
[11] And I saw another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like unto a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. [12] And he excercised all the authority of the first beast in his sight. And he maketh the earth and them that dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose death-stroke was healed. [13] And he doeth great signs, that he should even make fire to come down out of heaven upon the earth in the sight of men. [14] And he deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by reason of the signs which it was given him to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast who hath the stroke of the sword and lived. [15]
And it was given unto him to give breath to it, even to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as should not worship the image of the beast should be killed. [16] And he causeth all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free and the bond, that there be given them a mark on their right hand, or upon their forehead; [17] and that no man should be able to buy or to sell, save he that hath the mark, even the name of the beast or the number of his name. [18] Here is wisdom. He that hath understanding, let him count the number of the beast; for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty and six.
Note the prophetic particulars and their specific application:
I. The Time
The two-horned beast is seen arising to power as the papal phase of the Roman beast goes into captivity, or receives its deadly wound. This occurred in 1793 to 1798, when the Spiritual Domination of the Papacy as head over the churches, and "true and effective corrector of heretics," granted by Justinian in 533 and largely conceded and generally submitted to by the powers of Europe for twelve centuries, was so weakened by the influence of the Reformation that the final blow was given it by the French Revolution. General Berthier, acting under orders of the French Directory, entered Rome and took Pius VI prisoner in 1798. Two years later he died in captivity. Since that time the power of Rome as a persecutor has been broken. It has not even been acknowledged as the one who has the right to define and punish heresy. In 1776 the United States, then the colonies of Great Britain, declared themselves free and independent. In 1789 the Constitution of the United States was adopted. Her wonderful career was just beginning at the time indicated in the prophecy. She was then coming up among the nations of the earth. No other nation of any import arose at that time.
II. The Territory
"Out of the earth" came America. The other nations of the world arose out of the great sea of organized, restless, warlike humanity. (See Dan. 7: 2, 3; Rev. 13: 1; 17: 15.) This two-horned beast arises "out of the earth" as a plant grows, from territory previously unoccupied by civilized powers. The prophecy fits the subject as the die fits the coin.
III. Its Professed Character
It had two horns like a lamb. Horns are a symbol of power and strength. They do not represent here division, as they sometimes do elsewhere. The designation "like unto a lamb" shows that character is particularly indicated. This is emphasized by an expression indicating an opposite character, "spake as a dragon." A lamb in the Revelation and in the Scriptures generally is a symbol of Christ. See Rev. 5: 6, where Christ is represented as a lamb with seven horns, denoting perfection of power and character. What, then, the prophecy means is this: that two characteristics peculiar alone to Christianity of all religions known to man, will be seen in this one government alone of all governments on the face of the earth. Surely such exclusive specifications are testing in the highest degree.
1. What two particulars of Christianity, therefore, which can be applied to civil government,7distinguish it from all other religions? The only reply is, The equality of man, and freedom to worship or not to worship — in other words, civil and religious liberty. It was a new chord in the song of the nations when the equality of man was proclaimed in Judea. Said Jesus:
"Neither be ye called masters: for ONE is your MASTER, even Christ;" "and ALL YE ARE BRETHREN." Matt. 23: 10, 8. The same distinctive teaching was echoed by the great apostle to the Gentiles:
God that made the world . . . hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth. Acts 17: 24-26.
The second great principle, the separation of Church and State, and the right of men to choose or refuse, was proclaimed by Christ and echoed by the apostles:
Render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and to God the things that are God's. Mark 12: 17.
If any man hear My words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. John 12: 47.
Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. 2 Cor. 5: 11.
Not that we have lordship over your faith, but are helpers of your joy: for in faith ye stand. 2 Cor. 1: 24.
Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock. 1 Peter 5: 3.
Thus explicitly Christianity stood for the equality of man, for the supreme individuality of the soul, and its responsibility alone to God. It knew no "lord bishops;" it knew no hierarchy of degrees. All were brethren; Christ alone was Master. To Cæsar belonged the things that Cæsar gave; to God belonged all the worship of the soul.
2. No government of earth ever knew these principles until the United Colonies of Great Britain and America embodied them in their great charter of freedom, the Declaration of Independence, and later in that great Bill of Rights, the Constitution. In the first of these documents we read:
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
The second declares, in Article 6:
No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
And in Article 1, Amendments, adopted at practically the same time:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.
Well did Bancroft, the great historian, record this wonderful fact. He says:
In the earliest States known to history, government and religion were one and indivisible. Each State had its special deity . . . No one thought of vindicating liberty of religion for the conscience of the individual till a voice in Judea, breaking day for the greatest epoch in the life of humanity by establishing for all mankind a pure, spiritual, and universal religion, enjoined to render to Cæsar only that which is Cæsar's. The rule was upheld during the infancy of the Gospel for all men. No sooner was the religion of freedom adopted by the chief of the Roman Empire, than it was shorn of its character of universality, and enthralled by an unholy connection with the unholy State; and so it continued till the new nation — the least defiled with the barren scoffings of the eighteenth century, the most sincere believer in Christianity of any people of that age, the chief heir of the Reformation in its purest form — when it came to establish a government for the United States, refused to treat faith as a matter to be regulated by a corporate body, or having a headship in a monarch or a State.
Vindicating the right of individuality even in religion, and in religion above all, the new nation dared to set the example of accepting in its relations to God the principle first divinely ordained in Judea. It left the management of temporal things to the temporal power; but the American Constitution, in harmony with the people of the several States, withheld from the Federal Government the power to invade the home of reason, the citadel of conscience, the sanctuary of the soul; and not from indifference, but that the infinite Spirit of eternal truth might move in its freedom and purity and power.—Bancroft's "History of the United States," volume 6, pages 443, 444.
These two specifications fit the prophetic symbol to America as the key the Yale lock for which it is made, as the die the coin. Christianity alone of all religions, America alone of all governments, have sent forth to the world these noble, beneficent principles, and everywhere they have brought life and lifting.
IV. A Later Development
The beast with the lamblike horns "spake as a dragon." The dragon is a symbol of the devil, the instigator of persecution. Rev. 12: 9-17. To speak like a dragon is to issue deceptive, persecuting laws, oppressive to conscience, inimical to liberty. So have wrought all Satan's agencies. Shall we see such laws in America? Some utterly repudiate the thought. But let us reason together a little. Let us look over the ground.
1. There is in this country a class of religionists who are not satisfied with the truly Christian idea of civil government separate from the State. Their conception is a modified form of the Dark Ages, not Roman Catholic in name, but Protestant. They seem to think that if GOOD men could manage a Church-and-State government, with THEIR church the legalized one, there would be no trouble. But it is a matter of history that the more conscientious a man is, if controlled by a wrong principle, the more wickedly operative the principle. These men have endeavored for decades to ingraft upon the Federal Government a recognition of God and the enforcement of a religious sabbath. This demand was utterly repudiated until 1892, when the principle was endorsed in connection with the World's Fair at Chicago. It was said in 1831 by the United States Congress, with reference to this very thing:
Extensive religious combinations to effect a political object are . . . always dangerous . . . If admitted, it may be justly apprehended that the future measures of the government will be strongly marked, if not eventually controlled, by the same influence. All religious despotism commences by combination and influence; and when that influence begins to operate upon the political institutions of a country, the civil power soon bends under it; and the catastrophe of other nations furnishes an awful warning of the consequence.
This Government is bending now under the influence, and even now a crisis is upon it in the Johnston Sunday Bill now before Congress.
2. Every State in the Union save one has some form of a Sunday law, either a relic of the Dark Ages, or else placed there by mistaken reformers who supposed that Christianity needed the support of civil law. The only consistent State is California, upon which tremendous pressure has been brought to bear, lo, these many years, and thus far in vain. May the Golden State still abide by the true Christian principle!
3. Many, sad it is, very many are under the influence of "higher criticism" and false science, repudiating the equality of man as stated in the Bible and the Declaration of Independence, repudiating the Constitution of the United States, repudiating the Bible itself. Thus they are left powerless to live religion themselves or to teach others the way. The alternative is left them, resorted to in all ages, to seek to enforce religious dogmas and morality by law. With them the traditionalists, the Roman Catholics, will join. Satan will swing the hosts of Spiritualists the same way, and under this great threefold influence religious dogmas will be enforced by law, and religion will become an affair of the State, which has always resulted in the persecution of dissenters.
4. The great Protestant church federation and the Roman Catholic federated societies are both avowedly working for the same thing — religious State control and sabbath enforced by law. What modern politician can stand against such forces, whatever his belief? The dragon-voice, reader, will be heard, you may be assured by culminating events, regardless of the prophecy, and the prophecy makes doubly sure. Some of us were made sure by the prophecy long before the evidences now manifest in these gathering forces.
V. An Image to the Beast
By the influences above named will be formed an image to the beast — a union of religion with the State; under the coming initiative and referendum, people who live on the earth will be asked to do this very thing. Of course they will not call it "beast worship," or an "image to the beast." In their deception they will believe it to be the height of wisdom, a mark of loyalty to God. All religious laws are thought to be the law of God by their framers and promoters. It has been truly said that no government ever persecuted except for infractions of the law of God.
Puffed up in their own wisdom by the wonderful achievements of the last generation, and led by Spiritualism or "psychic phenomena," as it is called, men stand ready to be deceived into the making of an image to the beast, as the prophecy indicates. Even thus the great world is led to its madness in war preparation. (See Rev. 16: 14.)
VI. The Worship and Mark
The worship and the mark of the beast must be that which distinguishes the worshipers of the beast from the worshipers of God, expressed in the differences of the laws of the rival powers. God's true worshipers will keep His commandments as He gave them and Christ lived them, as far as they know. The worshipers of the beast and the devotees of the mark will, directly contrary to God's Word, accept the law of apostasy.
The crucial difference between the two is regarding the Sabbath. So stand the moral code of God and the moral code of Rome today. All will come to see, as the Word declares, that God in His Book teaches the sacredness and obligation of the seventh day and no other. This is generally believed now.
The apostasy, away back to Babylonian sun-worship, observed the first day in honor of the sun. Rome under the Papacy adopted it as expedient, and holds it forth as the mark of her power to command men under sin, of which a dozen authoritative quotations might be given. Protestantism at first received that day as a matter of course, honestly, sincerely. She is facing it to-day as a man-made sabbath. Those who turn from the Word, will abide with the day when it is authorized by law, in direct opposition to God's commandments. Then it becomes the mark of the beast power.
VII. Penalties
Oppressive legal restraint, ostracism, confiscation of goods, and the death penalty will be visited upon dissenters. When religion becomes part of statute law, under stress of circumstances and times of crises, it of necessity becomes the most sacred, most important part of the code, and its infraction the highest crime. When government puts itself in the place of God,—the highest manifestation of assumption and blasphemy,—it consequently counts that it has the right to pronounce the severest penalties. In fact, there is one State in the Union to-day which could visit the death penalty upon the transgressor of the Sunday law if he were persistent and consistent to the extent that some magistrate might conclude that his stubbornness and contumacy had reached the stage of treason. Every item, particular, specification, feature of the prophecy is fulfilling, and will be filled up to the full in the United States of America.
The last verse of the chapter, containing the number 666, we will not take time here and now to explain. We will simply say that it has been by some applied to the papal form of the beast alone; by some it has been carried back to the entire Babylonian system. In three or more languages the numerical values of the letters are made to spell out the prophetic name of that system which has put itself in the place of God, the most dominant phase of which is the Papacy. Of that we may have more to say later.
In this brief exposition of Rev. 13: 11-18 we have made little more than the mere statement. To the well-informed much of this will be self-evident. Proof of past fulfilment and future probabilities might be multiplied twentyfold.
In the great unfurling of standards, reader, where will you be found? Under whose banner will you stand? With which army will you be found fighting? These are questions of eternal import. The Sabbath question is not a mere theological question; it is not a mere political question; it is a question in which centers the very fate of the world, of nations, of churches. It is important to decide aright.
[We will begin our study of chapter 14 next week.]
