4 Babylons – Enter Sandman

Lane Stadium is the home field for the Virginia Tech Hokies, the university from which I graduated. For every home game, when our team enters the field for the first time, “Enter Sandman,” by Metallica plays over the speakers. Everyone in the stadium begins jumping and singing. The intent is to energize our team to beat whoever our enemy, err opponent, is for the day.  

Maybe seeing life being lived in an arena/stadium is a useful metaphor to crystallize the importance of understanding Babylon? Your life, life in general, is lived out in the arena of creation. We live on the field of play. And, similar to a Virginia Tech football game, we are on a team competing against another team. How can any team, or person on a team, succeed without understanding their opponent, the rules, and the goal?  

Far from an individualized way of life where a person lives as one whose sins have been forgiven, Christianity is a team sport! I continually find people suffering, in part, because they do not understand the arena of their lives. And I find people struggling to live out a meaningful purpose of life mission, in part, because they do not understand the arena of their lives. 

Understanding Babylon is key to the arena. Awakening to Babylon will be an essential ingredient to rightly interpreting one’s life and being energized in one’s purpose.  

We have identified four Babylons: 

1. Babel, built by cursed Ham’s grandson Nimrod, is one name for the enemy’s army.  

2. The Old Babylonian Empire reigned from 1894-1595BC and is not recorded in Scripture.  

3. The Neo-Babylonian Empire which existed from 626-539BC. Nebuchadnezzar was the most famous king.  

4. Revelation Babylon which we will cover in our next OVERFLOW 

Because the Old Babylonian Empire is not covered in Scripture we have nothing to say about it. However, the Neo-Babylonian Empire is greatly covered in the Old Testament. For example, Babylon is mentioned 149 times in the book of Jeremiah alone. Isaiah, Daniel, Habakkuk, and others speak fluidly about the country as a primary enemy of the Judah.  

Remember that under King David, Israel was gathered together as one nation. Under Rehoboam, David’s grandson, Israel split into two kingdoms, Israel in the North and Judah in the South. The northern kingdom was sacked by Assyria in 722 BC. The Neo-Babylonian Empire displaced Assyria as the dominant world power and turned its attention to, among others, sacking Judah and Jerusalem.  

Consider this sample from Jeremiah, 

 “Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘Because you have not obeyed My words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, My servant, and will bring them against this land and against its inhabitants and against all these nations round about; and I will utterly destroy them and make them a horror and a hissing, and an everlasting desolation. Moreover, I will take from them the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp. This whole land will be a desolation and a horror, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. 

Jeremiah 25:8-11

Imagine you are a citizen of Judah. One day soldiers from the Babylonian army show up at your house, break down your door, and carry you and your family off to their land. I want you to see that what you are experiencing is a part of the conflict between Team Judah and Team Babylon. Regardless of how you feel about the war, you are a part of it and your life is affected by it.  

Can you imagine being carried off in exile, or even worse, being separated from your family members, and denying that a war is happening?  

Sadly, this is the plight of many of our brothers and sisters today. The carnage of war is all around us in family and personal destruction. Yet, so many of us ignore, or minimize the war! Many of us do not understand the arena in which we live.  

Whether we like it or not, we live in a real war.  

Because Babel established the first city-state in rebellion against God, Babylon becomes synonymous with the enemy. In the New Testament, the name Babylon fades in favor of “the world.” The world becomes a favored designation of Jesus and His disciples to describe the team opposed to Him and His work. Consider these passages: 

• John 17:14-16, “I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” 
• Romans 12:2, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” 

• 1 John 2:15-17, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.” 

Jesus, Paul, and John understood the world to be a collective group of individuals warring against the Kingdom of God. While there was not, at the time, a “king” of the world in the fashion of Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Scripture is clear that the king of the world is Satan himself. Hence, Jesus names Satan, “the ruler of this world” (John 16:11).  

At this juncture in our study of the 4 Babylons, I hope you are awakening to the reality of the war in the arena of your life. Your life, and the lives of your loved ones, are being heavily influenced by the war. An organized army of people and forces is aligned against Jesus and His people. An organized army, sometimes called Babylon, sometimes called the world, sometimes called other things, strategically works to blind you to the love and power of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  

You have incredible authority and power as an adopted child of our Father, a brother or sister of Jesus, and a temple of the Spirit of God. But that authority and power is only exercised in the context of war.  

Recently I was with a man who shared dreams and visions he had about demons in his living room. The images caused real impact on his, and his family’s, vitality. I reminded him of the his authority and position in the Lord Jesus Christ and his Holy Spirit anointing. He went home and, with his wife, engaged in warfare using 1 Peter 5:6-11. 

In addition to your authority, your life has tremendous meaning and purpose. You are a soldier in an eternal war. The goal of your enemy is to steal, kill, and destroy life. This war is about people. You can experience incredible wholeness and joy simply by engaging and loving people. Pursuing them. Listening to them. Caring for them. Praying for them. Training them.  

Try this. Call one person this week and ask them to coffee or a meal. When you are together just ask them about them. Ask them how they are doing, how their marriage is, and how their lives are going? Go deeper. Ask the Holy Spirit to give you questions to ask. Ask because you care. Watch how you feel by the end of the meal. Watch how they feel.  

This is the war.  

This is the arena. 

One person at a time. 

Two final things about the Neo-Babylonian Empire. First, notice that the LORD is the one who led them to attack Judah. So much more could be said about the specifics. For now, I want you to see that God is ridiculously bigger than Babylon. Similarly, God and His Kingdom are ridiculously bigger than the United States, China, Russia, Israel, Europe, Africa, and on and on. 

Second, no government leader is bigger than God. Nebuchanezzar was a vile leader of a cruel and merciless empire that destroyed millions of people and dozens of nations. Daniel 4 tells of his conversion to the faith. He is broken and humbled before the Most High God and says, “I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise, exalt and honor the King of heaven, for all His works are true and His ways are just, and He is able to humble those who walk in pride” (Daniel 4:37).  

Don’t stop praying for our leaders or for the vilest people in your family. 

Nebuchadnezzar encountered his Creator, broke, and experienced LIFE in the OVERFLOW! Life in the OVERFLOW is not just about you, it is about you in the Kingdom of God in the arena engaged in the fight against Babylon.