GOD’S MESSAGE FOR THIS TIME
By M. C. Wilcox
NO. II. BABYLON—HER ORIGIN.
ABOUT forty-five centuries ago, according to common chronology—the time, more or less, matters not to our lesson—the inhabitants of earth were largely dwellers in western Asia, the dominant part in the wonderfully rich valley of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Previous to this there had come command to them from the King of Heaven to scatter abroad upon the earth, just washed from its sin by the Deluge, and in all the world carry the righteousness of God, the oneness of God’s plan, His power to save, and the glory of His name. But one company, disbelieving God, feeling His plan to be inadequate, thinking it needed human improvement, believing concentration and centralization to be the source of strength, the foundation of stability; and wishing, moreover, to exalt their own name and honor, called a council, and followed a leader to this effect: “Come, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name; lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” Selfishness, self-salvation, and utter perversion of God’s plan was within it all. It was let us, for us, to save us, and to keep us from doing the very thing that God told us to do. And they proceeded to build, and called the name of the city and tower, “Bab-il,” “the Gate of God” or “the Gate of Heaven;” and so they stamped it upon the bricks which they thoroughly burned and builded into the structure, and the children of men read it to-day. But God, seeing the folly, the selfishness, the utter ruin in it all, gave the city the name which it has ever since borne, “Babel,” or in the Greek, “Babylon,” meaning “confusion.” Mighty efforts men put forth around that great center to make that city what their bricks declared it would be; but it lies now buried in a great ruinous heap, attesting the truth of God’s pronouncement, confusion, which ever leads on to ruin and destruction. The record and the ruin stand a great lesson of the ages to selfishly blind, false-reasoning humanity, that the perversion of God’s ways leads to defeat and destruction; and the city and the name stand in the Sacred Record as a type and symbol of all human plans and schemes which pervert in any way God’s one plan of salvation. The Restoration of the Perfect Plan.
When the Son of God came in humanity, there was again restored to the world the perfect plan of God for the salvation of men. In human flesh the Son of God demonstrated the power of the Gospel by faith. He won the victory, complete, perfect, glorious, over all the power of the enemy and the devices and schemes of men. He came into the Babylon of Jewish sects, and re-established His church on the solid base of God’s righteousness and life by faith—the one body bound to the one Head, Jesus Christ our Lord. But not long did the church remain united and pure. Heathen subtleties, speculative philosophies, hoary traditions, corrupted the pure faith; and in the church arose men speaking perverse things, and drew away disciples after themselves. See Acts 20: 30; 2 Peter 2: 1-3; Gal. 4: 8-10; Rev. 2: 14, et al. The fine gold became basely alloyed, the white robe befouled with worldly grime. Worldliness and wealth brought popularity. The form of truth mingled with divisive error was crystallized into creeds, and state aid was asked to supplement the loss of spiritual power, consequent on crowding out Jesus Christ, and setting aside the Word of God for the perversions of men. This condition of things the Revelation designates as Babylon, confusion. It resulted in union of church and state under Constantine. It resulted in the Dark Ages. It resulted in the fearful, centuries-long massacre and holocaust of papal and Protestant-papal persecutions. Thank God, the Reformation, under men of God, broke Babylon’s power, and vindicated anew the power of the simple Gospel received by faith to regenerate men, and stay the corrupting influence in a decaying world. But it did not go deep enough. The dead hand of creed still held the masses, and formed an inviting avenue for the admission of the state; and the union followed; and Babylon—confusion—still exists in wider power than ever before, till the whole world is compassed by the influence of perverted, imperfect creeds and divisive tendencies. To heal these divisions in modern Babylon, to restore again the purity and power of the primitive church, God sends forth to this generation a special Gospel message, appropriate both positively and negatively for this time. In prohibition and injunction, in warning and precept, it comes to this generation, to this time, yet carrying with it the great power of God in the Gospel of the ages. “And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come; and worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.” Rev. 14: 6, 7. (See also Joel 2: 1; Zeph. 2: 1-3; and many other scriptures.) God’s work in heaven corresponds with God’s work on earth. When His earthly messengers are sent forth to the men of earth with His message, His10heavenly angels co-operate. In fact, each has his work to do; for it is not only earthly agencies which are enlisted against God’s work, but also angels of the devil. The great moral conflict of the ages is a battle also between unseen spiritual forces. The angel, therefore, stands for a great world-wide work. “The everlasting Gospel” is the glad tidings of the ages of God’s free grace in Jesus Christ, appropriated by faith. It saved Abel and Enoch and Noah and Abraham and Moses and Elijah, and all the good of all ages. But in this message that Gospel proclaims as present truth that the hour, the time, the period, of God’s judgment is come. In all the proclamations of the past there was predicted a “judgment to come,” in the last day. Acts 24: 25; John 12: 48. But this message predicts a judgment impending, a closing up of Christ’s work as priest, an examination for the benefit of His creatures of the names of all who have sought to serve God, that those who are accounted worthy may be raised out from among the dead, and made immortal. Luke 20: 35; 1 Cor. 15: 51-54. This time began at the close of the 2,300 days of Dan. 8: 14. (For a fuller discussion of the time of this message, see elsewhere in this issue.) In view of that judgment, “fear God, and give glory to Him.” The fear of God leads to obedience. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; a good understanding have all they that do His commandments.” “The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.” Surely, he gives no glory to God who is disobedient. A parallel text is, “Fear God, and keep His commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.” The fear of God brings purity of life and motive, and enduring character. “The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever.” The fear, the reverence, loving fear to offend God, is the basis of all true character. Without it the self-sufficiency of the human leads to the darkness of Egypt or the bottomless morasses of Babylon. How the wholesome fear of God would bring men together, whittle down to nothing their fine theories, dissipate their imaginations, and bring them to the feet of God and into the ranks of Jesus Christ! Giving God glory is not substituting tradition for His Word, nor human statute for His law. He declares, “My glory will I not give to another.” Giving glory to God is not making hollow and empty profession, but keeping His commandments, bearing fruit to His glory. Jesus declared, “Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be My disciples.” John 15: 8. By the shining light of good works of righteousness is God glorified. Matt. 5: 16; Phil. 1: 11. The fear of God leads to implicit obedience of all His commandments. When your case shall come to judgment, God’s law will be the rule of judgment. Eccl. 12: 13, 14; James 2: 12; Rom. 2: 12. The question will not be, Did you fear man? Did you honor man? Did you give glory to man? Even so men do now, till God and His claims are hidden and debased, and fallen man exalted only to fall forever. “Worship Him.” Worship who?—The Creator. The One who made the “heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters;” the Creator, Redeemer, and Preserver of all, and who gave us the Sabbath as the memorial and sign of His creative and redemptive power. Ps. 111: 4; Ex. 20: 8-11; Eze. 20: 12, 20. “Worship Him.” “How shall I worship?” Shall it be by great gifts? by ostentation? by display? by great churches? by libraries? by any gifts, whatsoever?—Nay, by none of these. Listen: “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to humble thyself to walk with thy God?” Micah 6: 8, margin. Listen again: “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to harken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.” Even so worship God; for the truest worship is service. Said the Master, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.” Matt. 4: 10. There is no other way save God’s way. Back to that way, back to the Bible, back to His Word in Christ Jesus, the message calls us. And if all in Babylon had yielded all things else,—the hoary tradition of the “fathers,” the creeds of dead hands, the ambitions of natural hearts, at whatever cost, it would have brought the power and strength and blessing and union and glory of Jesus Christ into His church, and all the divisions of God’s children in Babylon would have been healed. If you would prove it true, do it; for alone by faith is life union formed with Him. [The next article will show what must follow the rejection of the message.]