BABYLON IS FALLEN

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 23, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 12.

BABYLON IS FALLEN.

IN Rev. 14:8 are these words: "And another, a second angel, followed, saying, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, that hath made all the nations to drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication."

It has been abundantly shown in this journal in the past that the term "Babylon" signifies confusion (Gen. 11:9), and in its prophetic sense fittingly applies to divided and distracted Christendom, with its numerous and contradictory creeds, its false and perverted standards, its departure from the Word of the living God.

Since the Reformation times, departing from the true principles of reform, this condition has grown more and more manifest. But it did not begin there. It began in the Christian era, when in the very church itself men arose speaking corrupt things to draw away disciples after themselves (Acts 20:29, 30); when the mystery of iniquity began to displace the mystery of godliness, the man of sin to reign instead of the Man of righteousness (2 Thess. 2:3-8). It culminated first in the Papacy and the Dark Ages.

Out of that division of fallen Babylon God called His people by the Reformation, but few indeed of the reformed churches got back to the pure Word of God alone as the standard; and the multitudinous creeds made Christendom Babylon still.

The first angel's message of Rev. 14:6, 7—"Fear God, and give Him glory; for the hour of His judgment is come: and worship Him that made the heaven and the earth and sea and fountains of waters"—was sent to the world in the great advent message of 1840-44 to heal Babylon. God loved her despite her errors and sins and human creeds. "We would have healed Babylon," He declares through the prophet Jeremiah (51:9); and He placed His Spirit upon men to preach again the healing message of the everlasting Gospel (Matt. 24:14; Rev. 14:6, 7). If the professed Protestant churches had heeded that message, it would have healed all division, all confusion. It would have brought them back to the one God, the one Saviour, the one Book, the one Gospel, the one Standard; and before these every human creed would go down in the dust. But the Babylonian churches would not accept the healing message, and the prophet mournfully adds, "But she is not healed: forsake her."

The physician may make perfect diagnosis of a case, he may prescribe the perfect remedy, but unless the afflicted one will follow the physician's instruction, she will surely die. The health of the daughter of Jerusalem has suffered from the miasmas of Babylon, and God sends the healing balm of Gilead to restore her. Why then is her health not recovered? The only reason is that the remedy has not been applied.

But when God's people reject the means which would restore unity, what is bound to follow?—A moral fall. And thus it has been in the great Protestant denominations, acknowledged by the best among them all worse than ever now, they are justifying the Babylonian condition, justifying creeds of men, yielding more and more to human leadership and man-worship, and through higher criticism and unbelief, cutting themselves off from the only means which would save them.

Yet there are honest hearts in this Babylon of creeds and practises. There are hearts longing for the old-time religion, the old-time power to make men honest, the old-time love of the Bible. God is calling to these. If you can not find His truth, His rest, His Word, His power, His Gospel, His law as exemplified in Christ Jesus, then heed His message: "Come forth, My people, out of her, that ye have no fellowship with her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues." Rev. 18:1-4.

It is God's purpose to save all He can. If we will choose or retain that which is contrary to His purpose and saving truth, we shall die. But if we will let all that is of man crumble in the dust, and choose God's way, we shall live.