Read Revelation 18:1–8
In today’s section, we look at the destruction of Babylon from yet another angle. Two different angels are the narrators. The second angel has a teaching to follow, and that is the part we will focus on here.
In verses 6–8, the second voice calls for payback and then some. It says Babylon should receive twice as much as she doled out (v. 6). It also says that her defeat will come swiftly because of how much she “glorified herself,” going so far as to call herself a queen who is exempt from loss and impervious to suffering (vs. 7–8). That attitude is one of pride to the highest degree. The problem with Babylon is not just her mistreatment of others and thinking too highly of herself. The problem is her turning away from the Lord. That is why the first words out of the second angel’s mouth implore God’s people to separate themselves from her. For John and readers of the Old Testament, this type of message is familiar. Jeremiah 50:8 represents so much of the message of the prophets when it says, “Escape from Babylon; depart from the Chaldeans’ land. Be like the rams that lead the flock.” Over and over again, the prophets warned the people that if they walked away from the Lord, the Lord would bring judgment, just as the angel promises here in Revelation.
What can we learn from this? Some people might say this passage means we should sequester ourselves from
all nonbelievers and only go to “Christian” places. But that does not seem to be the point that John is making
or that the angel was intending. The message, instead, is that the people of God should not be like Babylon. We can live next to Babylon, have Babylon as a coworker, perhaps even see Babylon at our family reunions, but we should look different. Elsewhere, John himself expressed his desire that we would be people “not of the world” yet still living in it (John 17:15–16). The goal is to be renewed more every day, continually perfected in holiness. We should regularly ask ourselves whether we are becoming more like Jesus in the middle of our circumstances, or if we are isolating ourselves and hiding the light of Jesus from others who need it.
