I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast
that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. The
woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and
pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the
impurities of her sexual immorality. And on her forehead was written a name of
mystery: ‘Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth's abominations’.
And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the
martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her, I marvelled greatly.
Revelation 17:3-6
The
second way that Babylon has influenced all of history is as the scarlet woman,
the city that has dominated the nations, is by enticing people away from spiritual
values by material extravagance.
As I
have been preparing these Reflections on Babylon, the vicar at All Souls
Clubhouse where I am based has been preaching through Revelation and yesterday
reached chapter 17-18. He likened the way Babylon manifests itself in every age
to Doctor Who. Doctor Who is the world’s longest running television science
fiction programme (later this year will be its 50th anniversary) and
many actors have portrayed the Doctor. The vicar said that when he was young,
the Doctor was played by Tom Baker; I’m older and remember most fondly Patrick
Troughton. Although the actors have looked very different and played him in
different ways, with different characteristics, he is always the Doctor –
always the same person. (This is a link to the sermon: 'Babylon' by Rev'd Mark Prentice).
So with
Babylon. It manifests itself in different ways at different times in history using
materialism, avarice, covetousness, greed, pride, false witness, slander,
idolatry, theft, adultery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries,
dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, lust, orgies, extravagance and similar
behaviour to attract and excite people and to draw them away from God and to compromise
their future in his Kingdom (see, for example, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 &
Galatians 5:19-21). It displays different characteristics: it may ride on the
back of capitalism or communism or some other political ideology but it is
always Babylon, the mother of prostitutes, exercising dominion over peoples and
nations.
Do I
think we are living in the last days. Could we be alive to see Babylon’s fall,
as illustrated in Revelation? We live in the last days because these, as far as
the New Testament writers were concerned, stretch from Jesus Christ’s ascension
until his return. James, in his epistles, criticises the Christian businessmen
for hoarding treasure in the last days (chapter 5:3) and so if it was the last
days then, it must be now. But as to whether we live in the very last days, I simply do not know –
although I would not be surprised if we were.
The
important point, however, is that Babylon manifest itself in every age and the
challenge of every generation is to flee it. God calls from heaven, ‘Come out
of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her
plagues; for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her
iniquities.’
But
just what does it mean to ‘come out’ of Babylon? Although this call was as
relevant to the first people to read Revelation nearly 2,000 years ago as it is
to us, how should we interpret it during these early years of the 21st
Century, however long remains before Christ’s return?
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Copyright © All Souls Clubhouse Community Centre & Church and Philip Evans
2013.
Scripture
quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright
© 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by
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