Come out of Her, My People
REvelation 18:1-20
Main Idea: We who belong to Jesus are free from Babylon and commanded to break up with her.
I. What is Going on Here?
God is bringing judgment on Babylon.
Babylon is iconic as not just a place or an empire, but as a pattern of power opposed to God. As such, Babylon symbolizes political power used unjustly, economic exploitation, cultural arrogance, and moral corruption.
Revelation 18 predicts the utter and final fall of Babylon as a fiat accompli which occurs in history at the return of Jesus. (Revelation 19)
1. Why is Babylon judged? For her iniquities.
“Her sins are heaped high as heaven and God has remembered her iniquities.” (18:5)
She glorifies herself imagining she is entitled to the outlandish luxury she enjoys at other’s expense. So established is her mark on human history, she thinks she can never be dethroned. But her extensive network of seduction, commerce and might is nothing more than a "dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit” and beast. Her unequalled might amounts to nothing but smoke and debris before the Lord God almighty who has judged her.
2. How is Babylon judged? Suddenly and completely.
“Her plagues will come in a single day, death and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire.” (18:8)
Whereas the plagues of Egypt played out over weeks and months, the plagues Babylon faces will happen “in a single day,” more specifically, “in a single hour!” Even those drunk with the wine of her excesses will recognize it for what it is: JUDGMENT (18:10)
In the ancient world, as in our own, fire is representative of total loss. When a thing is “burned up,” it will never be repaired. It will never be seen again. The “smoke of her burning” is the only thing left to prove she was ever there.
3. What reaction does Babylon’s destruction produce? It depends on your relationship to her.
There is weeping and mourning among those who had become dependent upon her and entangled with her in her crimes. (18:9-19) This community is made up of:
“All nations (who) have drunk the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality,”
“The kings of the earth (who) have committed immorality with her,”
“The merchants of the earth (who) have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living.” (18:3)
II. What are We to Do?
Come out of her, my people
A death sentence has just been passed on “Babylon the great.” We are to decisively, determinedly, and definitively “break up with” Babylon, “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.” (18:1-5)
The text lists two reasons for this “break up”
1. We can neither resist her wiles nor escape her plagues if we stay.
Keep in mind that “all nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed immorality with her and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living.” (Rev 18:3) You are a fool to think that you shall resist or escape what these could not.
2. We do not belong to her.
We are GOD’S PEOPLE. We belong to Him because He loves us and has freed us from our sins by Jesus’ blood. The very Son of God was slain for us, and by His blood He ransomed a people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and Jesus has made us a kingdom and priests to God, and we shall reign on the earth. (Rev. 1:5-6; 5:9-10)
We may reside in the precincts of Babylon and live out our days under her dread shadow - just as John was in exile on Patmos and his readers lived out their lives under Rome’s heavy hand - but we no longer belong to her.
III. How are We Supposed to Do it?
While this specific passage only gives the high-level command, keep in mind that the entire Revelation was written to seven churches just like ours. These people in the churches were the “my people” to whom the voice from heaven was speaking directly.
1. Repent
The first step to breaking up with Babylon is brutal specificity and ruthless honesty about the sins she has lured you into with an eye to killing them! Repentance requires admitting the specific ways in which we are “drinking the wine of her sexual immorality” and forsaking it.
Repentance is not a generalized uncomfortable feeling about some vague shortcoming you may or may not have. It is a specific awareness of a pattern of behavior that is either luring you into bed with Babylon or proof that you are already in bed with Babylon.
2. Remember
The second step is to remember Whose you are and re-orient your identity to Jesus and to Jesus alone. It is this remembering that strengthened the suffering saints in Smyrna to “be faithful unto death” (Rev 2:10) and enabled the succeeding saints in Philadelphia to “hold fast what (they) have, so that no one may seize (their) crown.” (Rev 3:11)
3. Overcome
Those who “overcome” are those who “conquer.” This idea shows up in each of the letters to the seven churches. It refers to those now anchored in Christ who re-structure their lives to pursue holiness and love, purity and peace, righteousness and virtue. This kind of life is made possible because they hear and obey “what the Spirit says to the churches.” (Rev 2:7,11,17 26; 3:5,12,21)
4. Rejoice.
This is how we know we have “broken up with” Babylon. At one time in our lives, we were “drunk” at her party along with everyone else. For now, we are forced to live in the shadow of her tenement and endure the humiliations and persecutions she doles out to her former lovers. But we are looking for Jesus and we know how the story ends. God gives judgment for His people against her. She burns, we live. “Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets!” (Rev 18:20) THAT IS US!
