Leslie and I pose for a shot in one of the world’s great cities…Sydney, Australia.

Scripture

Babylon is fallen—that great city is fallen!

She will be completely consumed by fire, for the Lord God who judges her is mighty. And the kings of the world who committed adultery with her and enjoyed her great luxury will mourn for her as they see the smoke rising from her charred remains.

O Babylon, you great city! In a single moment God’s judgment came on you.

Then a mighty angel picked up a boulder the size of a huge millstone. He threw it into the ocean and shouted, “Just like this, the great city Babylon will be thrown down with violence and will never be found again.”

Come away from her, my people
Do not take part in her sins,
Or you will be punished with her. Revelation 18 selected verses

Observation

A city obliterated in one day.

A skyline reduced to smoke.

A mushroom cloud like a boulder thrown into the sea.

Are these snippets from a doomsday report on terrorism? No, they are summaries from the Bible. Tucked in the last pages of Revelation is a staggering prophecy about a city called “Babylon” that is destroyed in just one day and left in charred ashes. The merchants and rulers of the world mourn because they can no longer do trade with that great city.

Before 1945 this was unthinkable. Then came the atomic bomb.
Before 2001 it was unconceivable. Then came 9/11.
Today the thought of a nuclear terrorist strike on a US city is bouncing somewhere between probable and likely.

The chairman of the 9/11 Commission has stated he expects to see a nuclear attack on an American city in his lifetime. (60 Minutes, CBS News January 29, 2006).

Al-Qaeda spokesman Suleiman Abu Gheith has stated al-Qaeda’s objective: “to kill 4 million Americans—2 million of them children—and to exile twice as many and wound and cripple hundreds of thousands.” (Graham T. Allison, Council on Foreign Relations, April 20, 2007.)

In the 2004 Presidential debate, George Bush agreed with Al Gore when he said, “I agree with my opponent that the biggest threat facing this country is weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a terrorist network.” (Graham T. Allison, Council on Foreign Relations, April 20, 2007.)

One month after September 11 only a handful of US leaders knew that a 10 kiloton bomb stolen from Russia’s stockpile was in the hands of terrorists in New York City. No one was told lest total panic would ensue. (Time, February 2002).

But before the media started waking up to the potential, a strangely familiar scenario was first recorded in the Bible for believers. Why would God foreshadow the destruction of a major world city in one single day? For one reason: He wants us to consider and to know how we must live long before it happens.

Where is Babylon? Babylon was a city that only archaeologists know today. But the seeds of Babylon are growing in every skyline of any city in the world. The principles learned about establishing urban civilization were first trialed in Babylon and then exported to the world. So Babylon is more than a place it is a system. In the global economy Babylon is everywhere as world cities meld into a multinational sameness.

Why is God so angry with Babylon? Because that city has exported the sludge of immorality to the entire world. It has pursued extravagant luxury by stepping on many people in the process. That could be Hollywood, The Strip, the Boardwalk or Wall Street.

Application

How should Christians live in a world of terrorist threat not just against one person but an entire city? The answer is to live detached. John says,

Come away from her, my people
Do not take part in her sins,
Or you will be punished with her.

As we edge and lurch closer to the second coming Christians should distance themselves further and further from the social attitudes that obscure the glory of God like the lights of Vegas. We should own goods without being owned by them. We should treasure sexuality as a gift and not a right. We should keep tender instead of sporting an urban chic callous.

There is a message of hope in Revelation 18. A world city will not be destroyed until God says so. Such a profound act will not be meaningless it will bear a message from heaven. Should any of us see such terrible thing we will know that it bears a word from God himself. This future destruction is his timing and doing alone.

What lays in our lap today is our attitude about the attractions of Babylon. We should feel ourselves more detached from it as the days go by. Our lives must be simpler, humbler, and more tender to escape.

Prayer

Father, honestly I don’t want to think about this, but in reality it is irresponsible not to. Help me to live detached today so that I may not be tempted to look back. Amen.