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BRIDGES TO BABYLON

There was a lively discussion when the document first began to rumble around on the Internet back in May of 1998. The official title was as follows: “Apostolic Letter Dies Domini of the Holy Father John Paul II to the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful of the Catholic Church on Keeping the Lord’s Day Holy.” And for something like 40 pages — and 87 sections — the leader makes an impassioned plea for his flock, “My esteemed Brothers in the Episcopate and the Priesthood, Dear Brothers and Sisters!,” to begin keeping Sunday again. Jay McNally, the executive director of a Detroit group, Call to Holiness, told reporters: “This appears to be THE strongest words the pope has issued. Period.”

You can imagine that in my own faith community, the Adventist Church — which has studied and proclaimed the importance of the Sabbath since our inception back in the mid-1800s — this was an incredible turn of events. And really, out of 87 points made by Pope John Paul II, good Seventh-day Adventist Christians were nodding their heads on a great many of his assertions. One of our top theologians, who has written about the eternal nature of the Sabbath for years, and who had done a doctoral dissertation on that very subject, wrote:

“The Pope’s reflections on the theological meaning of the Sabbath are most perceptive, and should thrill especially Sabbatarians.”

However, there’s a red flag which did go off as we all read the document . . . and it’s that red flag I’d like to share with you here on this Friday. In Section 64, the pope writes eloquently about how faithful Catholics through the centuries have faced the challenge of trying to keep Sunday when the state didn’t give them that 24-hour period off. In the fourth century, he points out, “Civil law of the Roman Empire [recognized] the weekly occurrence, determining that on ‘the day of the sun’ the judges, the people of the cities and the various trade corporations would not work.” But since that time, there have been many periods in history where the governmental power did not give all workers Sunday as a full-fledged day of rest. And of course, here in the year 2002, the entire world has gone to the mall, so to speak, seven days a week. Dust-covered Blue Laws are something we in the United States are almost embarrassed about.

Then in Section 66, the pope describes how the Church, in making her own laws, has tried to help the common man in his struggle to keep Sunday holy. But notice this, at the end of that section:

“In this matter, my predecessor Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Rerum Novarum spoke of Sunday rest as a worker’s right WHICH THE STATE MUST GUARANTEE.”

In other words, the Church has a right to look to Washington, D.C., and to Number Ten Downing Street, and to the Kremlin, and to the other governments of the world and say: “You’ve got to help us be good Christians. You MUST make Sunday a holiday for everyone — close the shops, lock up the factories, shut down the football stadiums — so that believers can truly enter into Sabbath rest.”

Then in Section 67, which follows immediately after, we find this challenge:

“Therefore, also in the particular circumstances of our own time, Christians will naturally strive to ensure that CIVIL LEGISLATION respects their duty to keep Sunday holy.”

And friend, right there, the cheering for this document dies down a little bit. Let me tell you why.

And as I do so, let me stay away from the obvious objection that arises here in the year 2002 from our pluralistic nation. I’m a Seventh-day Adventist. Should the government also shut down all the stores and ballparks on Saturday, and remove all temptation, so that people in my church family will find it easier to obey God? What about all of our Moslem neighbors — and Southern California has several million of them? Should Friday become a third day of rest, with our Senate and House “helping” all of us by closing the restaurants and gas stations on that day too? You see the point.

But really, that’s the tip of the iceberg regarding the concern we should all feel. There is a sense — and I say this carefully, looking into my own heart too — where anytime we look to the state to aid, or assist, or legislate, or require our worship . . . we have entered into what the book of Revelation describes as “Babylon.”

We’ve mentioned these last couple of days a mysterious fallen kingdom the second Angel of Revelation 14 announces as Babylon.

“Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great, which made all the nations of the earth drink the maddening wine of her adulteries.”

Now friend, it’s sure easy to look around and point a finger at some other group and give them a condemning label. We don’t want to do that here today. But I’d like to take you back from Revelation chapter 14 to the original Babylon of Daniel chapter three. Many of you remember the unforgettable story of how Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to bow down to the golden image King Nebuchadnezzar had set up on the Plain of Dura. Read it for yourself this weekend if you’ve forgotten the details; it’s a great, great story.

But please notice as you do so that the story isn’t just about worship . . . but especially about enforced worship. Worship where the State stepped in and told people, “You will bow down. We will help you bow down, and the motivation to help you is this fiery furnace over here.”

I said the other day that Babylon involves false worship. True enough. But it can also involve worship that otherwise would be good . . . IF the element of coercion, of force, is introduced. And the Word of God, I believe, tells us prophetically that in these last days, there will indeed be a rising up of a Babylon power. A power that seeks to enforce worship through the power of the governments of the world.

Shall we consider clues? Right here in this very verse of Scripture, Revelation 14:8, we hear the marching of boots. Listen:

“Fallen is Babylon the Great, which MADE all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries.”

Here is a religious power, this Babylon. But this Babylon phenomenon is actually able to require governments of the world to do her bidding. In fact, I’ve read suggestions by theologians that the word, “adulteries,” or “fornication,” as the King James puts it, might well refer to the fact that this church entity reaches out to the government to enforce her will. That would be fornication, wouldn’t it, an unholy alliance between church and state. There are those today, who decry the famous First Amendment wall of separation. I want to tell you — I don’t. That wall is our great protection. That wall is what keeps us out of Babylon.

Go back with me to chapter 13 for just a moment, and we find more traces of “Babylon” here too. The beast power described here makes war on God’s saints, we read. In verse eight:

“All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast — all whose names have not been written in the book of life.”

Then in verse 15, this chilling announcement:
“He was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that it could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed.”

And then right here is where the Bible tells about the dreaded “mark of the beast,” and the number 666, etc. Which, I fully confess, is a mysterious arena which continues to baffle the best Bible students in the world. If I gave you my own interpretations, I might be many miles off the track.

Friend, all I can humbly share with you is the broad principle here. The threat of Babylon has always existed where good people tried to make other people good too. It happened to Daniel’s three friends. “Bow down and pray or we’ll burn you up.” In a 1999 U.S. News & World Report article, Jeffery Sheler quotes from New Testament scholar N. T. Wright about a violent faction known as the Shammaite Pharisees:

“While for modern Christians, zeal is ‘something you do on your knees, or in evangelism, or in works of charity, for the first-century Shammaites, “zeal” was something you did with a knife.’”

The same thing happened in the Dark Ages. Maybe you happened to read, not too many months ago, a great cover article in Newsweek by Kenneth Woodward entitled “2000 Years of Jesus: Holy Wars to Helping Hands — How Christianity Shaped the World.” And he takes us through the long list of horrors where religious people took hold of the sword of force. “The legacy of medieval ‘Christendom’ had its darker side,” he writes:

“Acting on the premise that error has no rights, the church created the Inquisition. . . . a monument to religious intolerance and a reminder of what can happen when church AND state share total authority.”

Well, friend, Christians can and do repent of past tragedies. And we thank God for that. But when the Bible prophetically tells us about the future rise of the spirit of Babylon again, all of us should be vigilant in wanting to protect the flame of liberty, freedom of conscience, that should burn in the heart of every person.

And my invitation to you is this: hold onto this principle of freely offered worship to God the Creator. That’s what this is all about. God invites us, “Worship Me. But worship Me freely!” Listen, coerced worship where the governments of the world “help” us keep the Sabbath, “help” make us holy . . . that kind of worship is unacceptable to God. It always has been, and it always will be.

The words, “Come unto Me,” are never a threat — but always an invitation.