1 After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory.

2 And he cried out in a mighty voice: “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a lair for demons and a haunt for every unclean spirit, every unclean bird, and every detestable beast.

3 For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury.”

4 And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues.

5 For her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.

— Revelation 18:1-5

Depart, depart, go out from there [Babylon]! Touch no unclean thing; come out from it, purify yourselves, you who carry the vessels of the LORD.

— Isaiah 52:11

Then you are to say, ‘In the same way Babylon will sink and never rise again, because of the disaster I will bring upon her.

— Jeremiah 51:64a

Thoughts on Today’s Reading

Grace, mercy and salvation from Christ to you.

This world’s charms seduce our natural desires and attempt to entrap us in sin’s snare. Possessions, position, and power seem to promise happiness. Careers consume us, and our possessions often own us. Certainly God provides for our needs, pleasure, and comfort. However, nothing this world offers compares to the eternal joy of knowing God. Only when we recognize who God is and what He values can we find true fulfillment in this life and for eternity.

In the Bible the term Babylon represents humanity’s death grip on comfort, wealth, and excessive consumption, which steal us from God, our Creator. As fallen people navigate a frenzied world, temporal, tangible pleasures can seem more real than a God we cannot touch or see. John in Revelation 18 records the downfall of Babylon, the world’s seductive strongholds, that lead to ruin and await God’s ultimate judgment. Earth’s evil system and all who ascribe to its selfish folly will fall and face the judgment of Almighty God, who will make all things holy and new. Let’s get out of Babylon as soon as possible.