Babylon

Babylon

As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth." (Genesis 11:2-4—NIV)

Shinar is Babylonia. This is the original Babylon.
The ambition to build a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens reveals the desire in the adamic personality to join with others in order to accomplish something of significance, the idea being that we can gain a name for ourselves. Also, we can achieve power that we would not have were we to be a single individual or a small group of people. By combining our efforts, our wisdom, and our talents we can establish a monument on the earth to our own glory.

However, God does not use the concerted efforts of people, their wisdom, or their talents to establish His Kingdom. God often works through intense interaction with one person, such as Moses, Elijah, John the Baptist, or the Apostle Paul.

God immediately recognized that if people of one language joined together they indeed could accomplish whatever they pleased.

The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them." (Genesis 11:6—NIV)

We of today would emphasize the good that could be done if people would stop fighting against each other and work together to produce things and situations that would benefit mankind. Thus it is almost impossible for us to perceive the potential evil in everyone speaking the same language and being able to bring about results not possible for warring nations to accomplish.

God saw the danger immediately and confused the ability of the people to communicate with each other. To the present hour we have wars because of the self-interest of nations—nations separated from one another because they speak different languages.

What is the problem with wanting to join together with other people to accomplish something?

First let us explain we are not saying it is wrong to work together with other people in order to accomplish a task. Rather we are speaking of our human tendency to ignore the Lord Jesus Christ and look to the combined strength and wisdom of human beings to bring to pass what we desire. We are speaking especially of using this method in trying "to do things for God."

The problem is that when God created the world in six days He fashioned not only the physical universe but also the destiny of mankind. In particular, God determined the destiny of each member of His elect, His Israel, His governing priesthood. God does not desire that we join with others to do what we think needs to be done, particularly in the work of establishing the Kingdom of God on the earth. Only God knows His plan for our life, and only God knows His plan for His Kingdom.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10—NIV)

Notice the foreknowledge and predestination in this verse.

According to the above, God planned from the beginning of the world specific good works for us to do. We cannot enter God's rest except as we set aside our own ambitions and fears and seek each day the plan of God for that particular period of time. This procedure is simply stated, but proves to be difficult in practice because of our self-will and rebellion against God. Eve fell because she was not willing to trust God for her betterment and joy.

God has been resting since the seventh day because all His works have been finished through to the new Jerusalem. To enter the finished work of God for one's life is to enter the rest of God. The coming of the Kingdom of God is the doing of God's will in the earth as it is in Heaven, not the will of well-intentioned man.

Each human being is moved on by a multitude of ambitions, fears, dreads, obligations, passions, and so forth. There are things we wish to possess, heights we desire to climb, relationships we crave to establish. We may not realize it but God has a specific plan for our life, a plan worked out in detail in His mind from the time He created the world.

Our whole duty in life is to find God's will for us and to perform it diligently. To do this is to enter the rest of God, for God is resting after having decided what good works we are to perform.
To enter God's rest is at once remarkably easy and incredibly difficult. It is remarkably easy because we can lay aside our worries and ambitions and flow with the flowings of the Godhead. It is incredibly difficult because each day a multitude of pressures urge us to follow our own desires. Have you found this to be true?

All we are expected to do in life is to look continually to the Lord Jesus for every action we take, and then do with all our might what is set before us. Sometimes we do not hear from the Lord and we just have to keep on doing what we are doing until we are certain God wants us to do something else. This is all there is to the rest of God; but because Satan is living in our land of promise, we have to follow the Spirit of God into battle in order to enter God's rest.

Satan deems it his business to deceive and confuse us so we do what he wants rather than what God desires. We have to labor to enter the rest of God.

Once we understand thoroughly that a personal mark has been set before us, and we are to be pressing toward that mark each day, then we can perceive immediately how people of one language joining together for the common good will frustrate God's plan for the individual. Instead of looking to God for what he should be doing he is working together with the group to perform the desires of the group.

If anyone chooses to do God's will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. (John 7:17—NIV)

God wants each one of us to come to Him as an individual, not as part of a group. God does not interact with groups but with individuals. It is God's plan that His Kingdom be composed of people who have come to know Him in a very personal way, who have become part of Him through the Lord Jesus Christ. Such people automatically are one with each other because they are integral parts of the one Christ. None of them looks to the other for recognition, power, or wisdom, except as God directs one to minister to the other. The members of the Body of Christ do not gain status, wisdom, or power by joining together but by living in iron righteousness, fiery holiness, and stern obedience to the Father.

Can you see now why God prevented the ancient people from proceeding with their plan to build the city? God caused them to be confused and scattered them over the face of the whole earth so they would look to Him rather than to each other. To look to the group instead of God is Babylon—confusion!

The spirit of Babylon is found in the world. It's name is Antichrist.
The spirit of Babylon is found in religion, including the Christian religion. Its name is Babylon the Great.

It seems so natural and "right" that people should join together to promote the Christian religion. However, this is not God's way. The result of such attempts at united effort, unless clearly and specifically put into effect by Jesus Christ, brings into existence the horror of Babylon the Great. When God's people neglect to seek the mind of Christ, and look to cooperation with others in order to build the Kingdom of God, we eventually create a cage of unclean spirits.

The Lord Jesus Christ stated He would build His own Church. For two thousand years we have denied Him His right to build His Church. Instead we have attempted to do this for Him. The result has been Babylon! Confusion! A thousand competing denominations!

Many churches understand that a true Christian is not worldly in appearance and behavior, and that God does not want us to continue in sin. This is good and right. But the greatest monster of all is self-will. Until God destroys the self-will from us by repeatedly sending tribulations and prisons to purify us of this monster, we always are going to bring forth Babylon as we seek to build the Kingdom of God.

Two chapters of the Book of Revelation are devoted to a discussion of Babylon the Great, revealing what an abominable institution it is. From the description, I believe Babylon the Great represents the Christian religion when it is guided and empowered by the will and ability of human beings instead of by close interaction with the living Jesus and by the Holy Spirit.

-Bro Thompson-