‘Day 304

“I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive any of her plagues; ⁵ for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her offenses. ⁶ Pay her back even as she has paid, and give back to her double according to her deeds; in the cup which she has mixed, mix twice as much for her.” REV 18:4,6 (NASB)

This is God’s last call! Like a final boarding call at an international airport. Just as Noah stood on the gangplank of the ark, after preaching for 120 years, begging the people one last time to come inside. The door of mercy was still open. When it closed and the rain began, there was time no longer for changing one’s mind.

The problem is that it is comfortable in Babylon, just like it was for the Jews. They had spent 70years in Babylon, they had nice homes and good jobs. Life was comfortable. Why should they leave? It wasn’t pleasant in Jerusalem. The city lay in ruins, there was no housing, and jobs were hard to find. To follow Ezra almost 1600kms and go back to those conditions didn’t make sense. V:3 had told us life is easy in spiritual Babylon.

It is easy to look at the residents of the end time spiritual Babylon and say, “What’s the matter with them? Why are they supporting Babylon with their presence? Don’t they see what she is doing?” But the reality is this; it is hard to recognise the corporate sins of an organisation when you are a part of it. Since groups of people tend to share the same blind spots, it is easier to see corporate sin from the outside rather than from the inside.
God’s End-time people will need a great deal of discernment to see clearly through the deceptive webs of Babylon when the End comes. To avoid getting sucked into Babylon’s deceptions (The dragon’s lies) we need to develop a prayerful knowledge of God’s word. And we will want to combine that study and prayer with a healthy dose of self-distrust, so that we can discover our personal blind spots as we approach the End.

When we see corporate abuse and exploitation, we need to speak out against it. But there comes a time when a society becomes too corrupt to listen. At such times God tells us to withdraw from that society before it self-destructs or is destroyed from the outside. There are echoes of Sodom and Lot in the call of Rev 18:4. When Sodom’s time for destruction came, Lot had to leave Sodom or be caught up in its destruction.
Today’s text shows that many connected with “Spiritual Babylon” are not doomed until the very end. God has His people in every place and in every denomination today. In a world with many shades of grey, discernment is needed to know right from wrong.