Seeing how God Hates Babylon and how He will Judge the Religious and Material Babylon

The final judgement on the nations around Israel in Jeremiah is God’s judgement on Babylon (see chs. 50-51); God hates Babylon, He will utterly destroy the material Babylon and the religious Babylon, and when Babylon the Great is fallen, there’s a universal Hallelujah!

As described in the Bible, the world consists of two main stages: first is the city of Enoch built by Cain in Gen. 4 and second the city of Babel in Gen. 10 built by Nimrod. The city of Enoch built by Can developed into a godless culture, which eventually lead to God’s judgement by the flood at Noah’s time.

The second stage of the world can be seen with the city of Babel in Gen. 10, which was built by Nimrod; this was called the kingdom of Babel.

It was the beginning of a human government, which began to be developed there, and from there it branched into three main lines: the line of Babylon (with idolatry and confusion), the line of Egypt (with livelihood and pleasure), and the line of Sodom (with sinfulness).

The whole world is these three main lines: idolatry and confusion (mixture that leads to confusion), livelihood and pleasure, and sinfulness.

These three lines will continue to develop in parallel until they become the great city, Babylon the Great, in Rev. 17-18; this city is the climax and conclusion of man’s opposition against God, and she will be judged by God with fire.

The first stage of the world, which started with Cain’s city, was judged by God with water at the time of Noah; the second stage of the world, which started with Babel, will be judged by God with fire at the end times.

So right now we live in the stage of Babylon, which is still being developed and is going on, and one day it will culminate into Babylon the great.

Concerning this city there’s a call made both in the Old and in the New Testament, Come out of her, My people!

God calls us and all men out of Babylon to not participate in her lawlessness; we need to get out of anything Babylonian and cooperate with the Lord to bring many out of Babylon and into the church life which will consummate in the New Jerusalem.

How Babylon developed from Babel: Man Rebels against God, Worships Idols, and Exalts Man’s Self

Babylon began from Babel (Gen. 10:8-10); at Babel Satan caused the human race to rebel against God, to worship idols, and to exalt man’s self (11:1-9).

Babel was the origin, the source, of man’s rebellion against God, man’s worship of idols, and human self-exaltation, all of which we can see in the world today as being appreciated, promoted, and highly developed.

In Gen. 10-11 Nimrod led the men at that time to build a tower to reach up to God; they rebelled against God, and this tower was full of idols and worship of idols.

Man wanted to show off how capable they were, building something that reaches up to the heavens; this was man’s self-exaltation.

This is the origin of Babylon – rebellion against God, worshipping idols, and exalting man’s self. Babel had its continuation in Babylon which, in God’s eyes, is the continuation of human government (Jer. 50:1; Dan. 2:32-34).

Human government began from Babel, where Nimrod built the city of Babel; then in Daniel 2 we see the dream of king Nebuchadnezzar, the great human image.

This dream is a revelation from God to reveal the totality of human government with its golden head (signifying Babylon, the Babylonian kingdom), the silver shoulders and breast (the Medo-Persian Empire), the abdomen and thighs of bronze (the Grecian Empire), and the legs of iron with the feet being part iron and part clay (the Roman Empire, and the feet signifying the mixing of autocracy and democracy).

The head of this image is the person of the image, the image itself; Babylon is the top part of this person, and it is this whole person – the whole human government from beginning to end is Babylon!

Whether it was the Medo-Persian empire, the Grecian Empire, or the Roman Empire, the whole thing is Babylon in God’s eyes.

Even more, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon was identified with Satan as Satan’s embodiment (see Isa. 14:4, 11-15); this portion in Isaiah speaks of Nebuchadnezzar as a type of Satan who rebelled against God and His throne.

Nebuchadnezzar in his time was a personification of Satan. Oh Lord Jesus!

Babylon came and destroyed God’s holy city and His holy temple, and they carried God’s holy people and the vessels of God’s temple into captivity (2 Chron. 36:17-20).

Babylon didn’t just keep God’s people in captivity; it destroyed the holy city and the holy temple, and it brought God’s people into captivity along with all the vessels of gold and silver, which were kept in the idols temple.

This shows that Babylon is a mixture of the holy things with the pagan things, the things of the worship of God and the worship of idols; this infuriates God to the uttermost, and God hates Babylon to the uttermost.

God hates Babylon even more than He hates Egypt, for Egypt was usurping God’s people and caused them to labor hard under Pharaoh’s tyranny, but Babylon brought God’s people into captivity and mixed up God’s things with the idolatrous things.

This is what we see today in the degraded and fallen Christianity, where God’s things are mixed with the pagan things, the word of God is mixed with man’s word, and things related to the worship of God are mixed with idolatrous things and things related to idols.

May the Lord shine on us and expose any aspect of Babylon that still has a grip on us; may we come out of anything Babylonian, and may we be delivered from anything related to rebellion against God, worship of idols, and self-exaltation.

Lord Jesus, expose what Babylon is and what kind of a grip it has on us. Expose anything of rebellion against God, worship of idols, and self-exaltation in us. Save us from mixing things related to God with pagan things, and bring us back to the pure revelation in the word of God. Amen, Lord, purify us; keep us in Your pure and unadulterated word, enjoying You in simplicity and purity to be Your pure and chaste bride. We want to come out of anything of Babylon and fully be in the church life which consummates in the New Jerusalem. We want to stay on the line of life, enjoying You, experiencing You, and being built up with the saints so that we may become Your corporate expression on earth!

Seeing how God Hates Babylon and how He will Judge the Religious and Material Babylon

In Rev. 17-18 we see the consummation, the climax, of Babylon; here we see that the restored Roman Empire is called, Babylon the Great, which has two aspects – religious and material.

Regarding the Roman Empire, we shouldn’t think that it is over, now that there’s no such entity on earth called, the Roman Empire.

The Roman Empire is still going on, and much of what we are living and doing today is carried on from the Roman Empire time.

The whole legal system, the social welfare, the roads, the water transport system, much of our architecture, all these are being carried on from the time of the old Roman Empire days.

And there will be a time when this Roman Empire will be revived, and Antichrist as the man of lawlessness will be manifested as the last Caesar, the ruler of the Roman Empire; he will be the man of sin, the man of lawlessness, to fight against Christ along with Satan as God’s enemy.

We are living in these last days, and we don’t know how much longer this age will last; we may actually witness these things with our own eyes.

When Israel was taken into captivity, they were under the political Babylon, the material Babylon, not the religious Babylon; however, Christians today are in the Babylonian religion, being captives of the religious Babylon.

In the Babylonian religion, the most striking thing is the worship of idols, which is especially true in Catholicism.

Rev. 17 is an unveiling of religious Babylon – the apostate Roman Catholic church; even many of the catholic people agree that this is what Babylon the Great signifies.

In the eyes of God, the Roman Catholic Church – which perpetuates much of Judaism and has assimilated much of paganism – is Babylon.

G. H. Pember has a book entitled, The Two Babylons, where he expounds on the material and religious Babylon; in it he tells us that Babel was the source of all the pagan religions everywhere, and from that source throughout the last six thousand years, religion has been developing.

After the time of Constantine, the Roman Emperor who tried to “reconcile” Christianity with paganism, the papal system came in (in the sixth century) and the Roman Catholic church incorporated both the Judaic rituals and much of the paganism.

In the Roman Catholic Church we can see the Judaic rituals such as the ceremonies, the incense, the gown, the robes, etc, and also many things of paganism – Christmas is pagan, Easter is pagan, the worship of “saints” is pagan.

We all need to realize what is the main reason that we don’t celebrate Christmas and we don’t practice Easter; this is not so that we would be different from the rest of the world but rather, because these have a pagan origin.

Christmas was initiated by Constantine the Great, who wanted to appease all people and win them for Christianity; so he adopted the birthday of the sun god, December 25, to be the day of the birth of Christ.

There is also the picture of “Madonna and her child”, which is altogether pagan – these can also be seen in idol temples in India and China.

No wonder that God’s heart is angry at Babylon, for there we see a mixture: there are good things there, the word of God is there, yet there are so many pagan practices and things assimilated in it.

The harlot in Rev. 17:1 is the apostate Roman Catholic Church; this church is the mother of all harlots, and she begot many harlot daughters, the many Christian denominations and free groups.

Because God hates the apostate church, at the beginning of the great tribulation God will cause Antichrist and his ten kings to destroy the Roman Catholic Church (Rev. 17:16-17); God will use Antichrist and the ten kings in Europe to first destroy the religious Babylon.

Then in Rev. 18 we see the unveiling of material Babylon, the city of Rome. In Rev. 17-18 the two aspects of Babylon – the religious aspect and the material aspect – are mixed together; the harlot in 17:16 denotes religious Babylon (signifying the Roman Catholic Church), and the woman in v. 18 denotes material Babylon (signifying the city of Rome).

God calls His people, all His seeking ones, to come out of her; since Babylon the Great is twofold, to come out of her means to come out of both religious Babylon and material Babylon (Rev. 18:4).

The religious Babylon is revealed as “Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of the Harlots and the Abominations of the Earth” (17:5).

There is a call for all of God’s people to come out of her and have nothing to do with her sin.

We pray and beseech the Lord, we implore Him and preach the gospel of the kingdom to all earth so that many dear brothers and sisters, many relatives and friends, who are still caught in the Roman Catholicism and all the denominations, would be called to come out of the Great Babylon!

And when God judges the religious Babylon, there is a universal Hallelujah rising up, for the most hateful and deceitful things in God’s eyes is dealt with!

Material Babylon, the city of Rome, will become hateful in the eyes of God because it has been the source of both devilish politics and devilish religion (Rev. 18:6-8, 20-24).

The Roman politics are devilish, dark, corrupt; just as it was on the day that Christ was on earth, so will the revived Roman Empire politics be at the end of this age.

And it is all in the city of Rome, with Vatican, housing the source of that apostate Roman Catholic Church. God will judge not just the religious Babylon but also the material Babylon, the city of Rome.

Praise the Lord, Christ as another Angel will shine over the earth to destroy Babylon the Great, the city of Rome, with His great authority (vv. 1-2). Amen!

Christ will come as another Angel shining forth, and this city will fall like a rock in the water; it will sink. We don’t know how this will happen, but the city of Rome will be fallen.

Until this takes place, however, we need to allow the Lord’s light to shine in us and among us to remove anything Babylonian in us, and we need to cooperate with the Lord to pray that many would come out of her, come out of Babylon the Great!

God commanded His Old Testament elect – the people of Israel – to depart from Babylon and separate themselves absolutely from Babylon (Isa. 52:11); we in the New Testament are told to come out of Babylon (Rev. 18:4).

May we make a thorough clearance of everything Babylonian and with today’s Babylon; we are here to follow our Christ, the Servant of Jehovah, and we want to do so in purity and simplicity according to His word.

May we forsake everything Babylonian, and may the Lord purify us from any mixture, confusion, darkness, religion, rebellion, and self-exaltation!

Lord, we listen to Your call to come out of her, out of the Great Babylon, to not participate in her sins and in her judgement! Amen, Lord, we come out of anything religious and material to You, to Your word, to follow You and enjoy You! We come out of anything of the worship of idols, rebellion against God, and human self-exaltation. We come out of anything of politics, anything of religion, and anything of mixture. Purify us of any Babylonian element, Lord, and bring us fully into Your pure, holy, bring New Jerusalem! We forsake anything of the mixture, religion, politics, and confusion, and we come to You to follow You! Amen, Lord, we want to have a thorough clearance of anything Babylonian and be fully brought out of Babylon the Great!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by James Lee for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Isaiah, msgs. 6-8, 24-26 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization Study of Jeremiah and Lamentations, week 9, God’s Judgment upon Egypt and Babylon.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – To Jerusalem we’ve come, / We are through with Babylon, / We have gathered to be one, / O glory be to God! / Of the teachings we’re bereft, / All opinions we have left, / Spirit from the soul is cleft, / In the local churches now. (Hymns #1251)
  – Oh, but brothers, sisters, listen to another mighty voice, / “Babylon is fallen, fallen”—what a reason to rejoice! / O how blest that coming out from her was our eternal choice— / The victory is won! (Hymns #1101)
  – I’ve come out from Babylon; / I’ll never go back anymore… / Since I found the local church, / I’ll never go back anymore. (Hymns #1127)