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The Kingdom of God is infinitely bigger than the United States, the United States government, and the United States military. In the Kingdom we are mildly “concerned” with who the President is, Biden, Trump, or some other candidate. Remember, no government and no military can stop what God our Father is doing to advance His Kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven.
None.
As we move headlong into the 2024 presidential election the political temperature in our country is going to heat up even more than 2020. We are truly living in unprecedented political times. And, yet, the Kingdom of God moves forward reaching people one person, one step, one issue at a time.
Please be careful how much attention and emotion you give to government and politics and how little attention you give to your own spiritual growth and front-line, Kingdom disciple-making.
Hopefully our work on the 4 Babylons is awakening you to the magnitude of your calling. I am just not sure if anyone can experience the fullness of their identity and purpose apart from a vibrant engagement in the Kingdom war. Remember, in Mark 1:15-16, Jesus declares His mission to re-establish our Father’s Kingdom on earth. In the Lord’s Prayer, He trains us to be daily kingdom focused by praying, “Let Your Kingdom come, Let Your will be done.”
FAR from life in Christ being limited to you having your sins forgiven so that you can live a nice, comfortable life, to be a Spirit-filled child of our Father in the name of Jesus is to lock arms with others and engage in front-line Kingdom war. Your role in the war is vital to the saving and restoring of people. Your own vitality and joy are also in the crosshairs of the enemy. So, we intentionally press in and seek to understand the war!
As we have seen, from Genesis 9 to Revelation 19, Babylon is synonymous with an organized city-state rebellion against our Father. Babylon is one name of our enemy’s team. As your high school or college alma mater has a rival school, Babylon is firmly set against Jesus and His disciples.
If you have not read/listened to the previous sessions on the first three Babylons, I encourage you to do so. As I have worked through our last Babylon found in the book of Revelation, I have seen that there are actually five Babylons! So, we expand our original list from four to the following:
- Babel – Genesis 9-11
- Old Babylonian Empire – no Scriptural writing
- Neo-Babylonian Empire – led by Nebuchadnezzar. Found in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and others.
- Babylon – Rome – Revelation 14-19
- Apocalyptic Babylon – Revelation 14-19
Babylon-Rome
The Apostle John wrote the book of Revelation in approximately AD90 while living on the island of Patmos underneath Roman rule. Rome was by far the dominant world power. 11 men had ascended to be Caesar of the Empire by the time of John’s writing. Twenty years earlier, in AD70, under Caesar Vespasian and his son, Titus, Rome sacked Jerusalem, destroying the temple.
This should sound eerily familiar. A little over 600 years before Rome destroyed the Temple, Babylon did the same thing under King Nebuchadnezzar. As Babylon ruled the known world in the 6th century BC, so too Rome ruled in the 1st century AD. As a student of the Old Testament, John saw the parallels.
Further, under Caesar Nero from 54-68AD, Christians endured widespread persecution. That Rome could be coded as Babylon in John’s Revelation makes sense.
So, when, in Revelation 14:8, John sees an angel and hears him say, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great,” his heart would have leapt. I imagine he gave some version of a 1st century fist pump! The yoke of Christian oppression, the dominant global geo-political power, was going to be toppled. The Kingdom was far bigger than Rome. And Rome could not stop what God was doing.
In one vision from Revelation 17:1-13, John is shown a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that has seven heads and ten horns. An angel interprets the vision in verses 9-12,
Here is the mind which has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits, and they are seven kings; five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; and when he comes, he must remain a little while. The beast which was and is not, is himself also an eighth and is one of the seven, and he goes to destruction. The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but they receive authority as kings with the beast for one hour.
Like visions in Daniel about then-current geo-political powers and kings, the heads and horns correspond to actual, historical Roman Caesars. The power of Rome will continue for a period beyond John and Domitian, the Caesar at the time Revelation was written. “One hour” means that their rule is limited. Sure enough, the once undefeatable Rome fell in 476AD.
In many ways, Babylon in the book of Revelation is the Roman Empire.
In other ways, it is something more.
Apocalyptic Babylon
Like the way in which the description of the fall of Nebuchadnezzar in Isaiah 14 goes beyond any earthly king and alludes to the fall of Satan himself, the Revelation description of Babylon goes beyond geo-political Rome. (If you haven’t read Isaiah 14:2-23 in a while, you should. Good stuff!) Another angel (angels are busy in Revelation!) appears with a doomsday message about Babylon in Revelation 18:2-3,
And he cried out with a mighty voice, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird. For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed acts of immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality.”
No geo-political entity can be a “prison of every unclean spirit.” The angel refers to Babylon-beyond-Babylon, a supernatural kingdom aligned against the Kingdom of God. This is Genesis 11 Babel. This is the organized army of Satan himself always working to unify the image-bearers of God to war against their Creator.
Notice that both kings and merchants are caught up in the enemy’s work. Government and business become tools of darkness in the Kingdom war. Revelation 18:9, 11 indicate the kings and merchants will weep when Babylon falls, for they will lose their power and wealth. Their allegiances will be exposed, and they will stand defeated before Jesus.
Apocalyptic Babylon re-enforces our understanding that Satan as ruler of this world leads mankind in organized rebellion against the love and faithfulness of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The war is much bigger than you. I am sure that your church is very nice and does great things. But the Kingdom of God is much bigger than your church…even bigger than your ministry.
What did Jesus do to engage in the Kingdom war? He embraced who His Father declared Him to be. Upon His baptism, after being filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus’s Father spoke to Him in Luke 3:22, “You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased.” As Son of His Father, Jesus’s joy-filled desire was to accomplish the will of His Father. His Father’s will was for Jesus to reach people – one at a time. Love people. Free people. Train people. Send people.
Jesus advanced His Father’s Kingdom by reaching people.
All five Babylons aggressively, seductively seek to keep people from the overflowing abundance of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Follow Jesus. Rest in who you have been made to be. Rightly understanding the unstoppable force of God’s Kingdom and your vital role on the team should result in a Holy Spirit given confidence and a profound sense of value for you.
Then, engage people. Pursue them. Love them. Listen to them. And train them in the OVERFLOW as you have been trained.
And, PLEASE, be careful of the vitriol of the 2024 presidential cycle. The Kingdom of God needs no president to win and needs no government’s permission to advance.
This is LIFE in the OVERFLOW!
