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GALACTIC NEWS FROM THREE ANGELS #13

TOWERS AND TYRANTS

I still remember watching on CNN and our local news when the first headlines began to come in. A dictator named Saddam Hussein had invaded the neighboring country of Kuwait. His Iraqi troops were justified, he said, in the invasion because Kuwait’s overproduction of oil was driving down prices and hurting HIS country. He had an $80 billion deficit from his recent war with Iran, and wanted to spike UP the OPEC prices. Plus, he claimed that Iraq had historical claims to Kuwait anyway. Before the rest of the world could blink he had established his own military government in Kuwait City, and “(quote) annexed” this tiny neighbor.

Well, you know, all of that was twelve years ago. Remember? August 2, 1990. And soon we had Operation Desert Storm, Stormin’ Norman Schwarzkopf, F-117 Stealth bombers, “This will not stand!,” and all the rest. Maybe you remember this statement by President George Bush:

Just two hours ago Allied air forces began an attack on military targets in Iraq and Kuwait. These attacks continue as I speak. Ground forces are not engaged. This conflict started August second, when the dictator of Iraq invaded a small and helpless neighbor. Kuwait, a member of the Arab League and a member of the United Nations, was crushed, its people brutalized. Fiveve months ago Saddam Hussein started this cruel war against Kuwait. Tonight the battle has been joined.

That brings back memories, doesn’t it? And we all rejoiced when this grab for power, this act of naked aggression, ended up failing. We have a reaction against forced submission, against a military strongman demanding allegiance by way of the sword, OR by way of the Soviet-made Scud missile.

We use this particular illustration for a couple of reasons . . . and not just for the twelve-year tie-in. Here in the Bible passage we’re studying together in this extended adventure, we begin to read about a spiritual kingdom called “Babylon.” And it’s a point of interest that ancient Babylon — you remember King Nebuchadnezzar and fiery furnaces and a Bible hero named Daniel — well, ancient Babylon was located in what is now the country of Iraq. And we might actually find some similarities between the power tactics of Mr. Hussein and the Babylons — both political and spiritual — of Bible times.

We’ve just finished, after about two weeks of digging, with the message of this first Angel of Revelation 14. You’ll remember that the angel proclaims the “everlasting gospel,” that he announces that judgment is about to begin. And . . . he also invites all of mankind to worship God as the Creator of the universe. That’s a crucial point to keep in mind as we proceed, friend: the Three Angels’ Messages are all about worship. Worshiping God right, or worshiping some other power in the wrong way.

But now here’s verse eight as we finally move to this second angel.

“A second angel followed and said, ‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great, which made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries.”

So right away we have the idea of a dominant power of some kind; notice that it’s called “Babylon the Great.” It’s a fallen power: now, does this mean that it’s been defeated — like Hussein eventually was — or that it’s spiritually fallen? We’ll find out, but it’s interesting to notice that the Bible describes Babylon as indulging in adultery. Some of you old-timers like me will remember how the King James puts it:

“She made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.”

Well, what do we have here? You and I are very interested in this, because, as we’ve already established, this is a message, a warning, for these last days. Whatever Babylon is, it’s a spiritual phenomenon that will happen in these final generations. We studied earlier how the prophecies of both Revelation and Daniel paint a panoramic picture of the great world empires: Babylon (the original), then Medo-Persia, then Greece, then Rome, then the spiritual darkness of the Middle Ages, and then some of these events at the close: THIS Revelation 14 Babylon, and the Judgment, etc.

Let’s be aware of one thing immediately. Notice that the Babylon here in Revelation 14:8, while it may be a spiritual entity, exerts political might. It throws its weight around among nations; did you catch that point? “She made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.” You almost get a picture — going back twelve years — of some power emerging which tries to force its neighbors to submit, gobbling up one and then another, and so on.

Can we move from the book of Revelation, which, of course, is clear at the end of the Bible — number 66 out of 66 books — and see what kind of pattern emerges in all of God’s Word regarding this kingdom called Babylon? Some of you, of course, already know that there’s a link between the ancient empire the Bible hero Daniel, and his three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, were taken to as prisoners, and the old Genesis city known simply as Babel. Babylon — Babel. See the similarity? And it’s no accident.

“In Babylonian,” writes one commentator, “the name Bab-ilu (Babel, or Babylon) meant ‘gate of the gods,’ but the Hebrews derogatorily associated it with balal, a word in their language meaning ‘to confuse.’”

You have to time-travel clear back to Genesis chapter 11 to read the story of the first Babylon — or actually, what we know as the Tower of Babel.
“As men moved eastward” — this is after the flood of Noah’s generation — “the found a plain in Shinar and settled there.”

Interestingly, this happens on the very same spot where Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon later came into existence. But not too many generations after the human race should have learned a very wet and watery lesson about being loyal to the God of heaven, people like mighty Nimrod kind of looked up at heaven and shook their fist at the God who lived there.

Now, just listen to verse four, which describes the architectural designs of these people, and I’ll give a little pop! to four words. Notice:

“Then they said, ‘Come, let US build OURSELVES a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that WE may make a name for OURSELVES and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.’”

So here was an anti-God, self-focused act of rebellion. “Let’s trust in self. Let’s work to protect self. Let’s work to exalt self.” In fact, they might well have said: “Hey, let’s just flat-out worship self.” That’s what it boiled down to. I say again, the word Babylon means: “Gateway to a god.” But not the God of heaven, Creator of the universe. No, their god was what these builders saw in the mirror every morning. The NIV text notes pick up on this attitude in their comment:

“The people’s plans were egotistical and proud.” Then they add this: “At Babel rebellious man undertook a united and godless effort to establish for himself, by a titanic human enterprise, a world renown by which HE would dominate God’s creation.”

So even here in the first pages of the Bible, still in early Genesis, we begin to notice the poisons of Babylon. First of all, self-worship. Or . . . worship of a human system, a human undertaking, a human achievement. Worship directed away from God, and toward man.

Secondly, we see in Babylon a move away from recognizing the authority of God because He’s the Creator. Remember how that first Angel in Revelation 14 said: “Worship Him who made the heavens and the earth and the seas and the fountains of waters”? Here in Babel, or this first Babylon, the attitude is 180? away from that. I appreciate the added commentary insight inserted into the Clear Word paraphrase by Dr. Jack Blanco. Here it is, beginning in verse 6:

“When [God] saw [the tower], He said, ‘This is only the beginning of what these people will attempt to do. They all speak the same language, and if they succeed in this, they’ll think that by working together they can do anything they set their minds to. We need to stop them lest they be lifted up with pride and forget who created them. Let’s confuse their language so that they’ll not be able to communicate with each other.’”

Well, you know the story. I guess this is one time where God WAS the Author of confusion. It took Him about two seconds, and all at once people were speaking Swiss and Swahili right next to each other there on the scaffolding. And this sorry little monument to human power and human domination stood deserted in the desert.

What does this mean for us, friend, in our closing minute? It’s simple, really. If you and I are tempted to think we can save ourselves, then Babylon is beckoning. If we look with pride at our own spiritual growth, and think we can qualify for heaven through our own goodness . . . that’s Babylon. If we begin to edge toward the concept that man got here by himself, and that the Creation Story belongs on the same shelf with Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, then we’ve begun to dwell in a 21st century tower of Babylon. That’s the warning and the invitation here: “Worship God . . . who made the heavens, and the earth, and the universe, and each one of us. Worship the God who keeps your heart beating in your chest on October 2, 2002.”