Come out of our Babylonian cities

“And, behold, here cometh a chariot of men, with a couple of horsemen. And He answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods He hath broken unto the ground.” (Isa. 21:9).

 

“Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the LORD.” (Isa. 52:11).

 

“And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.

 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.” (Rev. 18:2-4).

 

“Babylon hath been a golden cup in the LORD’s hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad.

Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed: howl for her; take balm for her pain, if so be she may be healed.

We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: forsake her, and let us go every one into his own country: for her judgment reacheth unto heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies.

The LORD hath brought forth our righteousness: come, and let us declare in Zion the work of the LORD our God.” (Jer. 51:7-10).

 

The call to come out of Babylon has been an ancient one. The first was to Abram to leave Ur, a suburb of the original metropolis of Mesopotamia, at the center of the earth.

 

“And He said unto him, I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.” (Gen. 15:7).

 

The call to leave Babylon and all of its trappings has been a continuous call because humanity has continuously flocked to Babylon, and His people continuously backslide to it. What is Babylon? It is everywhere that idolatry concentrates—mainly the cities of the world. Babylon is where the Creator cannot be seen or heard or considered. It can be in any nation. It can be in any state. It can be in any city or family or religion or culture. It can be in every school and business.

 

Satan moves Babylon into every place where God has established His Law and His will upon a people who have accepted a covenant with Him. The devil lays claim to this whole world, but God never gave him that power. God never abdicated His sovereignty over Earth. so His work has ever been to reclaim every son and daughter of Adam, and to call them to Him. But they must leave their Babylonian toys and games, religion and love. They must come out empty, and God will receive them and fill them up again with pure things—the original constitution of Adam and Eve.

 

How quickly we lose the blessedness of faith! How quickly we return to the wretched life under Satan.

 

“O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?” (Gal. 3:1).

“I marvel that ye are so soon ermoved from Him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel.” (Gal. 1:6) The pull of sin is ever around us when we are in Babylon. In order to accept the offer of Jesus for our redemption, we must necessarily separate from those things which fight against our conversion and cleansing.

 

“Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.” (1Pet. 2:11).

 

“And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.” (Eph. 4:30).

  

“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.” (1Cor. 6:9-11).

 

Corinth was an affluent city. And with the love of money and ease always come wickedness and idolatry. It would have been asking too much for Paul to require the Corinthian believers to leave the city. But as long as the believers stayed there they and their children would be continually faced with the corrupting influences of “the great goddess Diana” (Acts 19:27). This is why Abram and the children of Israel had to leave their metropoles of Babylon and Egypt. Later on, the Corinthian Christians would need to leave for the Alps.

 

When the younger prophet (1 Kings 13:1) went from God-fearing Judah to pagan Israel, to begin a revival of primitive godliness, he was entering enemy territory. He had a dangerous mission to accomplish for the eternal sakes of King Jeroboam and the people who were quickly caving to the flesh-pleasing religion, which the king had brought with his administration. The unholy influences of the country where the prophet was going would war against the holiness of the prophet’s divinely inspired mind. His hold on God would be put to a constant test. He must keep constant vigilance in order to prevent his faith from being conquered and destroyed by Satan who claims to be the god of this world, and who, “as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” (1Pet. 5:8). For the sake of Christ’s mission to save His Israelite people and for his own sake, the young prophet must not be overcome by the pagan atmosphere, the carousing society, the grace-only religion, the threatening king who was so violent against anyone who would speak out against his new regime built upon a pagan platform. If the prophet were once overcome by the spirit driving the northern kingdom he would lose every help from the Spirit of Jehovah and Jehovah’s protective providences. He would fall from grace. All the powerful Spirit that Jehovah had given him would disappear; and then, surrounded by unholy influences, he would not be able to pray to Jehovah to have it back. And as surely as he got distracted by the unholy spirit of that country, and did not hold fast his crown from above, he was killed by a lion.

 

Likewise, Elijah must be sober and vigilant.

 

“Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are.” (Jas. 5:17). Therefore, after delivering his message he fled, as the Lord commanded, to a refuge east of Jerusalem across the Jordan. There he stayed surrounded by his Creator’s works of nature. There he could be ever mindful of the One who commissioned him to speak the message from the same spirit that was given to the prophet approximately 75 years before him. Hadn’t Elijah learned of that terrible judgment upon his former brother prophet? Wouldn’t he let its lesson keep him strong and faithful while giving a similar judgment from God?

 

“After delivering his inspired message, the courageous prophet was commanded by God to hide himself in the eastern wilderness by the brook Cherith. There God arranged providentially for ravens to deliver food to the isolated fugitive during the predicted years of famine.

As the land baked and cracked under the withering heat of the sun, every green plant died for lack of water. But Elijah was well supplied, morning and evening, by the miraculous ministry of the ravens. In addition to the bread and flesh brought by the birds, God provided plenty of refreshing water from the splashing brook that flowed nearby.

What a perfect picture of God’s power and willingness to care for the physical needs of His faithful servant! With pleasure we contemplate that scene of restful abundance. The prophet had no problems. Everywhere else the people were suffering from the terror of the drought, but God would not let His obedient child lack for anything. Without fail, the ravens flew in twice a day with their fare of food and the brook was always yielding its life-giving supply of water.” (Borrowed from http://www.amazingfacts.org/media-library/book/e/62/t/the-brook-dried-up.)

 

In nature is where we are safest from the wiles of Satan. John the Baptist could not have stood so strongly against his Imperial Ahab if he had not spent his life living away from civilization, like Elijah had in Tishbe of Gilead. Faithful to all that had been written in the unerring, holy scriptures, John was super-absorbent to the Spirit of the Creator speaking to his spirit through the natural world. The voice of Him who laid the foundation of the earth opened John’s mind to not only deep lessons of His ways, but kept John’s conscience ever sensitive against the worldly, wayward people of the Lord. Year by year the truth of God’s character settled increasingly deeply into his heart; and year after year the settling in of the truth gave John wisdom and peace surpassing the power of every temptation from Satan.

 

“John was to go forth as Jehovah’s messenger, to bring to men the light of God. He must give a new direction to their thoughts. He must impress them with the holiness of God’s requirements, and their need of His perfect righteousness. Such a messenger must be holy. He must be a temple for the indwelling Spirit of God. In order to fulfill his mission, he must have a sound physical constitution, and mental and spiritual strength. Therefore it would be necessary for him to control the appetites and passions. He must be able so to control all his powers that he could stand among men as unmoved by surrounding circumstances as the rocks and mountains of the wilderness. 

     In the time of John the Baptist, greed for riches, and the love of luxury and display had become widespread. Sensuous pleasures, feasting and drinking, were causing physical disease and degeneracy, benumbing the spiritual perceptions, and lessening the sensibility to sin. John was to stand as a reformer. By his abstemious life and plain dress he was to rebuke the excesses of his time….

     In the natural order of things, the son of Zacharias would have been educated for the priesthood. But the training of the rabbinical schools would have unfitted him for his work. God did not send him to the teachers of theology to learn how to interpret the Scriptures. He called him to the desert, that he might learn of nature and nature’s God. 

     It was a lonely region where he found his home, in the midst of barren hills, wild ravines, and rocky caves. But it was his choice to forgo the enjoyments and luxuries of life for the stern discipline of the wilderness. Here his surroundings were favorable to habits of simplicity and self-denial. Uninterrupted by the clamor of the world, he could here study the lessons of nature, of revelation, and of Providence. The words of the angel to Zacharias had been often repeated to John by his God-fearing parents. From childhood his mission had been kept before him, and he had accepted the holy trust. To him the solitude of the desert was a welcome escape from society in which suspicion, unbelief, and impurity had become well-nigh all-pervading. He distrusted his own power to withstand temptation, and shrank from constant contact with sin, lest he should lose the sense of its exceeding sinfulness.” Desire of Ages, p. 100-101.

 

We need to get out of today’s Babylons, as John did, and be strengthened by the angels to give the bold message of the Latter Rain. No one living in Babylon can cry out against Babylon. They are under the spell of Babylon. If you live in Babylon you become as weak-willed as Lot, who was afraid to follow God’s direction before its all-consuming judgment from heaven.

 

“As it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed…. Remember Lot’s wife.” (Luke 17:28-30,32).

 

Before the great and terrible day of the Lord, let us prepare to leave when the call comes.

“For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people.” (Isa. 60:2). “The wicked shall do wickedly.” (Dan. 12:10).

“At midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet Him.” (Matt. 25:6).

 

“Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee…. the LORD shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon thee.” (Isa. 60:1).

“Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried.” (Dan. 12:10).

“None of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.” (Dan. 12:10).

 

Jesus foresaw many fleeing from the “abomination of desolation” (Matt. 24:15). “In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back.” (Luke 17:31). But, these must be those who preached “the gospel of the kingdom…for a witness unto all nations.” (Verse 14). Every Adventist who did not give this last call were still in Babylon and must not have been among the 144,000 wise virgins who boosted this last call of mercy of Matthew 24:14.

 

More than a century ago (Ms 76, 1905 Manuscript Releases, vol. 19, p. 334) Jesus made the call to the Advent movement to leave the cities “ripe for destruction” Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 97. Those Adventists who join the call of the final Johns, “The Bridegroom is coming”, are the future 144,000, who have mourned to the Lord over the exceeding sinfulness of the abominations overspreading the earth. They have previously removed from the cities, and have applied themselves to the wisdom of the scriptures. But, all who heard the command to leave and did not obey it, became swamped in debt and hooked by the devil’s seductive counterfeit revival, and have no will or finances or time to make the move. They hear the call from the 144,000 that Jesus’ coming is truly soon; but, too late they awaken from their woeful emptiness of repentance and severe lack of spirituality.

 

Today it is still not too late, if people will act now. We are very soon to see the final moves by the first Beast of Revelation 13 (the papal power) from “the bottomless pit” (Rev. 11:7). Its Jesuits have all but already subjugated the second Beast of Revelation 13 (America), and will soon use America to subjugate the rest of the world for the papal power.

 

Are we preparing for the “storm [that] is coming, relentless in its fury”? “Are we prepared to meet it?” Testimonies for the church, vol. 8, p. 315.