Are we slaves to a system like ancient Babylon, based on greed, designed to take instead of give? Let’s begin in Psalm 137.
How would we feel being taken captive as slaves to a foreign country as Israel was to Babylon?
Alongside Babylon’s streams, there we sat down, crying because we remembered Zion. We hung our lyres up in the trees there because that’s where our captors asked us to sing; our tormentors requested songs of joy: “Sing us a song about Zion!” they said. But how could we possibly sing the Lord’s song on foreign soil? (Ps 137:1-4 CEB)
Would they not want to forget their homeland? Does the world around us try to tempt us to forget our eternal homeland?
Jerusalem, if I forget you, let my right hand go limp. Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I don't think about you above all else. (Ps 137:5-6 CEV)
Do we meditate on God’s eternal kingdom often, encouraging us to persevere until God takes us home?
Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem, how they said, “Lay it bare, lay it bare, down to its foundations!” (Ps 137:7 ESV)
In a brutal expression of grief, did the captives wish justice upon Babylon?
Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is the one who pays you back what you have done to us. Happy is he who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rocks. (Ps 137:8-9 HCSB)
Does Babylon describe a sexually immoral system, a capitalist system of incredible business profits?
After these things, I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority, and the earth was made bright by his splendor. He cried out in a powerful voice, “Fallen! Babylon the Great has fallen! She has become a home for demons. She is a prison for every unclean spirit, a prison for every unclean bird, and a prison for every unclean and hated beast. For all the nations have drunk from the wine of her sexual immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality with her. The world’s businesses have become rich from her luxurious excesses.” (Rev 18:1-3 ISV)
Are we warned to come out of this sinful Babylonian system?
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. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double. How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her. (Rev 18:4-8 KJV)
Does this doomed Babylonian system traffic in merchandise and human lives?
And the kings of the earth, who committed sexual immorality and lived sensuously with her, will cry and lament over her when they see the smoke of her burning, standing at a distance because of the fear of her torment, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! For in one hour your judgment has come.’ “And the merchants of the earth cry and mourn over her, because no one buys their cargo anymore—cargo of gold and silver and precious stones and pearls and fine linen and purple and silk and scarlet, and every kind of citron wood and every article of ivory and every article made from precious wood and bronze and iron and marble, and cinnamon and amomum and incense and perfume and frankincense and wine and olive oil and fine flour and wheat and cattle and sheep, and cargo of horses and carriages and human beings and human lives. (Rev 18:9-13 LSB)
Are we slaves to a system like ancient Babylon, based on greed, designed to take instead of give? You decide!
