Exit Strategy

Then I heard another voice from heaven: Come out of her, My people, so that you do not share in her sins or receive any of her plagues. --Revelation 18:4

Earlier today, the Quiet Pot posted an excerpt that shows somebody is paying attention, and it got me thinking along these lines.

The verse quoted above is speaking in reference to the great whore of Babylon and the fall of Babylon. This Babylon is a universal archetype, which may, along with the Beast of Revelation and the Antichrist, point to some ultimate antitype and complete fulfillment. I think that is the case, because, though history is cyclical, it does not repeat infinitely. Rather, it spirals toward Teilhard de Chardin’s Omega point. I do not know if the Babylon of our time is that ultimate one – it likely will be for me.

Babylon seems to be related to Babel. Whether the tower named the place or the place named the tower matters little for they are associated in the Hebrew mind. It is a place of deviltry, of pandemonium where sense is lost and we no longer understand one another. Man rebelled at the Tower of Babel. Instead of seeking God, he sought to overrun heaven and overthrow God. And who would he place on the throne? Babylon then is a city, not of libertine morals but of a false religion, following false gods. When John speaks of adultery and fornication in the Apocalypse, he is referring primarily to turning away from a relationship with the true God and a worship or exultation of a false god.

Part of the Tower of Babel’s purpose was to unify all people. Like the tower and the assault on heaven, commerce can unify. Trade and the chance to enrich or increase wealth bring us together. We unite in worship of that god which Jesus called Mammon. In our day we have reaped what appeared to be significant material blessings from our affiliation with this system. I have given myself over to -- perhaps you could even say I have devoted myself to the accumulation of money and goods, to the status symbols and the counters of the Babylonian game. While I have been successful in only a very modest sense, it is obvious what my priorities have been.

Daniel saw the world system and the historic empires as an image with a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet of iron mixed with clay. Though this, according to Daniel’s interpretation, was a depiction of kingdoms arising on the historical time line, in the end, the Babylon system can always be said to have “feet of clay”. It is vulnerable, and it will fall.

Even if the current system is not the antitype, it will fall. Its weaknesses have been exposed. For one thing the image is upside-down. Gold, the heaviest, densest, most stable material is on top. Gold is identified with divinity – it should be the foundation. What Daniel shows us looks more like devolution or degeneration from the divine to the animalistic human (clay). This will be crushed by the kingdom of God and overthrow the entire inverted structure.

So, the voice from heaven calls God’s people to leave Babylon behind. Flee, not to Galt’s Gulch, but to the Rock.

“But those who trust in the LORD will renew their strength; they shall soar on wings like eagles; they shall run and not grow weary; they shall walk and not faint.” – Isaiah 40:31

Someone turned the King James Version of that into a chorus, and it remains one of my favorites. I wish I could let you hear it as I do in my head right now with a sweet and righteous woman singing in a rich, warm alto, just like she believed every word.

They that wait upon the Lord
shall renew their strength.
They shall mount up
with wings as eagles.
They shall run,
and not be weary.
They shall walk,
and not faint.

Teach me, Lord,
Teach me, Lord,
To wait.