These verses are not for Babylon. They’re for you and I.
Some parts of Revelation speak prophetically of events. Other parts are lessons to the reader, and that is how this passage can be taken. Here in chapter 18 John records this angel in order to admonish us on the state of affairs in Babylon and to remind us of God’s reaction to them.
The end-game of ungodliness is a bad trip. One ends up in a mess with associates one would rather not have. Who really wants demons and unclean spirits around them? Who wants detestable beasts and birds? These may sound attractive at the beginning, but once they come they play for keeps.
In this section of Revelation 18 the event recorded is not something new for us to read. These things are already spoken of in this book. Here the angel reiterates them and sets the stage for what God will say in the next section.
God’s call to his people
John saw the angel descend with its spotlight of brightness on a degraded world. His light and the things he said illuminated what sin’s seeds had grown up into.
As that message finished and pealed away another voice took up where the angel left off. See the angel had said the things he did in order to prepare Christians for their own message. The declaration of the fallen Babylon is placed before the steady call of God to those whom he loves.
4 Then I heard another voice from heaven saying,
“Come out of her, my people,
lest you take part in her sins,
lest you share in her plagues;
5 for her sins are heaped high as heaven,
and God has remembered her iniquities. (Revelation 18:4-5–ESV)
What did John hear?
Come out! That was the message that John heard and that John wrote. The ways of Babylon have their inbuilt enticements as we said in the first section. God calls his people to leave those influences so they do not become entangled in them. God is not naive to the way that people work anymore than Satan is. That coupled to the free will of humanity necessitates a running away. Sin is strong and those desires are tough to dodge. God knows and says flee; Satan knows and tempts.
Think of Lot, his wife and two daughters. The angels went and escorted them out of Sodom, but they were not keen to go. Even after great convincing Lot’s wife was unable to really “come out” of the city. She looked back and that was the end of her.
Evil deeds corrupt good manners. God knows it and we know it, but we must respond to it. God will command, but we must heed.
The end of sin is piteous both now and forevermore. God seeing that, God knowing that urges and calls for his people to be separate, holy, different, distinct.
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