Babylon’s Beginnings

“Come out of her, my people,

so that you will not share in her sins,

so that you will not receive any of her plagues;

for her sins are piled up to heaven,

and God has remembered her crimes.”

Revelation 18:4

She is Babylon.  Within two days, I heard two pastors talk about Babylon.  Now I know that Babylon is neither a woman nor a country, but a system – different than what God created.

Pastor described it as the difference between the blessing system and the build-it system.  Obviously, the blessing system is God’s system.  The build-it system is the Babylonian system.  The build-it system was created by Nimrod, a descendant of Cush.  The first centers of Nimrod’s kingdom were “Babylon, Erech, Akkad and Calneh, in Shinar” (Gen. 10:10).  As men moved into Shinar and settled there:

They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.”  They used bricks instead of stone, and tar for mortar.  Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth” (Gen. 11:1-4). 

The significance of them forsaking stones for bricks is that stones are made by God, while bricks are made by man.  They did all of this work to make a name for themselves.  Yet, in the blessing system ordained by God, we make a name for ourselves by being obedient to God.  The blessing system was inherent in the relationship between God and Abram, a descendent of Shem.  God told Abram:

Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and

go to the land I will show you.

I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you;

I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. . . .

So Abram left, as the Lord had told him . . .  (Gen. 12:1-2 & 4)

In the blessing system, if we honor God, He makes our name great.

But now the Lord declares:

“Far be it from me!

Those who honor me I will honor,

but those who despise me will be disdained.”

I Samuel 2:30