Babylonian Territory

Human society and institutions are part of Babylon’s domain, but God is summoning His children to separate from her. Scripture teaches the followers of Jesus to live as people who are distinct from the world. Not physically, but morally and spiritually separate from the “forms” and ideologies of the present evil age. They are to be “in the world but not of it.” Their mission is to call other men and women to “save themselves from this crooked generation” before Jesus arrives in glory and judges the world.

[Photo by Arvind Telkar on Unsplash]

Nevertheless, many voices in popular Christianity are exhorting believers to compromise with the world so they may infiltrate the surrounding culture and its institutions and change society’s ungodly character ever so gradually from within. This is the so-called “Seven Mountains Mandate” that many popular preachers and pastors claim God has given to the Church.

But no such “mandate” is found on the pages of the New Testament, and nowhere do we find Jesus or his apostles instructing his Assembly to take over the cultural and political centers of this age, reform an inherently sinful society, and otherwise fix the corrupt “forms” of this sinful world.

Moreover, according to Scripture, the present world order has been condemned already on Calvary, and consequently, its institutions and ideologies are even now in the process of “passing away.”

There is no biblical mandate for the Body of Christ to take control of society or the government. If anything, the attempt to do so inevitably results in the corruption of believers, and to this reality, Church History eloquently attests.

Ironically, many of today’s preachers and “prophets” who warn constantly about the “spirit of Jezebel” are, in fact, dancing to her seductive tune.

After all, what is wrong with eating a little “meat offered to idols” if doing so helps influence one of the “mountains of culture”? Do not Jezebel’s prophetic seductresses reassure us that this is how the “deeper things of God” work in the “spirit realm”? Too easily we forget the biblical warning: “A little leaven leavens the whole loaf!”

We will learn to our great detriment that Babylon and her apologists in the Church are instead teaching the “deeper things of Satan.” Those saints foolish enough to venture into the political “mountain” will discover just where “Satan’s throne” sits.

The Bible does refer to “seven mountains,” but it links them to Babylon, the “GREAT WHORE, the mother of harlots and the abominations of the earth.” This foul creature not only “sits on many waters” and the “scarlet-colored Beast,” but she also rules over the “seven mountains.” They are integral parts of her domain.

IN REVELATION

In the Book of Revelation, the “many waters” over which the “Whore” rules represent “peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues.” Moreover, the “scarlet-colored Beast” whom she “rides” is none other than the “Beast from the Sea,” Satan’s agent who is waging “war against the saints.”

Its red color connects this “Beast” with the “Dragon, the Ancient Serpent, the one who is called ‘Devil’ and ‘Satan’ and the DECEIVER OF THE WHOLE HABITABLE EARTH.” The “Great Whore of Babylon” sits quite comfortably on the whole sorry lot, executing the Devil’s dark agenda.

In Revelation, the “seven mountains” dominated by the “Great Whore” symbolize seven “kingdoms,” five of which had fallen by the time John received his vision, one existed in his day, and the seventh was yet to come. Each kingdom was an incarnation of the “Beast” that ascended from the “Sea” to “wage war” on God’s covenant people.

The seventh “mountain” is identified with the “Beast that was and is not, is himself also an eighth, and is of the seven; and he is going into perdition.” There is nothing positive here, nothing possibly worth fixing or reforming. This “mountain” is destined for annihilation, not reformation, and “Babylon” is riding it in its mad dash to the “Lake of Fire.”

AN UNHOLY CITY

This unholy city, “Babylon,” is stained red with the “lifeblood of prophets and of saints,” and all while drunk with the “blood of the martyrs” of Jesus, the results of the Dragon’s war on those who “have the testimony of Jesus.”

Her sins “reach even to heaven,” therefore, “in one day shall her plagues come, death, and mourning, and famine, and she shall be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judges her.” It makes no sense for followers of the holy “Lamb” to befriend and attempt to coax this satanic creature into changing her evil ways.

Instead of undertaking that dubious venture, Jesus summons His people with the UTMOST URGENCY to “come out of her, that you have no fellowship with her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues!!” Any disciple of his who plays with this Satanic fire will get burned!

As Paul wrote, the forms of this age “are passing away,” and disciples of Jesus must live accordingly. The present evil age is a rudderless ship that ran aground violently eons ago.

There can be no compromise with Satan. The saints cannot win the world by emulating its evil ways or infiltrating its corrupt institutions. Attempting to do so is a fool’s errand, a wasted exercise “working for the meat that perishes.”

This is not a call to abandon the world, but for disciples of the Nazarene to engage it using the biblical means, including gospel preaching, witness, faith, prayer, death to self, self-sacrificial service for others, and living “in the world but not of it.”

The Body of Christ is called to become a “light set on a hill” that shines brightly in this darkened world. We must be everything that the fallen world is not, and we must summon others to leave its darkness behind while time remains.

Alas, many popular preachers are teaching us to embrace this Babylonian world system that was condemned long ago on the Cross. The very idea is absurd. But, as the Apostle Paul continues to warn, in the last days, evil men will invade the Assembly, “becoming worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.”

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