Round Table Discussion
How do we come out of Babylon practically today? Well first, let’s understand the biblical meaning of Babylon…
What is “Mystery Babylon” in the Bible (Rev 17-18)?
It is described as a metaphorical “city” in those scriptures – “Babylon is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth.” (Rev 17:18). A harlot who has enchanted “all the nations of the world” and has committed adultery with “all the Kings and great men of the earth” (Rev 18:3).
There is a tale of two Kingdoms all throughout scripture. The Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Babylon.
It started with the difference between Cain and Able (Gen 4). The first city that was “Babylonian” was where the “Tower of Babel” was built in the southern Mesopotamian area of Shinar where leaders like Nimrod wanted “to be like God” and reach the heavens with man’s tower (Gen 10-11). God scuttles man’s plans by confusing their languages, scattering them all throughout the earth.
Then we encounter King Nebuchadnezzar, who was shown by God a dream of a statue. This statue also represents the Kingdom of Babylon all through history. The gold head being Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom (ancient Iraq), the silver torso Medio/Persia and King Cyrus, the bronze belly the Greeks and Alexander the Great, the iron legs the Roman empire and its various Emperors, and finally the mixed feet and toes of iron and clay being a future Babylonian / Anti-Christ Kingdom. In that same dream we saw the Kingdom of Heaven which was described a rock hewn without hands (God) that grows into a huge mountain (Kingdom of God and its Christ) that smashed the statue – i.e., smashes Babylon.
Another name for the Kingdom of Babylon is the “Spirit of this World” (1 Cor 2:12) and the “Kingdoms of the Earth” that Satan used to tempt Christ in the wilderness taking him to the top of the mountain saying: “you can have all the kingdoms of the world, if you bow down and worship me” (Matt 4:7-8).
OK, so, if God is calling his people to “Come out of Babylon” in Revelation 18, what does that mean practically speaking in the 21st century? This is also echoed in Isaiah 52 (Israelites commanded to come out of Babylon after 70 years of slavery) as well as 2 Cor 6 where Paul showed the Corinthians that they were not to be “partnered with unbelievers”. They were to be consecrated, set apart, a Holy people before God and not partner with the world or the spirit of this age (2 Cor 4:4).
10 Practical Ways to Come out of “Babylon”
1. Employment. Who is your current employer and what do they stand for? Profitability and pop culture or Kingdom? Are you Daniel in Babylon, an Israelite who married a Babylonian (see Dimensions of Babylon below), or someone stuck in the middle?
2. Career vs. Calling. The world values career, money, success, saving for a rainy day/retirement, fame, fortune and notoriety. The Lord says “many are called, but few are chosen”. What is your ministry? What is your calling? How does your career line up with that?
3. Income. What are your sources of income? How are they derived? Are you trusting God or in your own abilities to make money? Does God help those who help themselves, or does God help those who help others?
4. Stock Investment. Do the companies you invest in have a Kingdom first motive or profit first motive? Are their stock prices driven by fear and greed, or generosity and blessing? Do those companies glorify God? What does God think of their business practices? Do those companies take advantage of people? Do they exploit the poor? Do they exploit their workers, suppliers, customers?
5. Debt Investment. Are the bonds you invest in adherent to scripture? Do they lend to the poor without interest? Do they lend to brothers and sisters without interest? Do they foreclose or cease assets without consideration of people’s circumstances? Do they leverage companies for greater profits (see pt 4. above)
6. Other types of investments and motives. FOMO? Fear of missing out on big gains? Gold rush? Crypto rush? My neighbor made a ton of money in the stock market and my money was just sitting around earning nothing? Levered real-estate? Slum-lord? Buy and flip?
7. Insurance. Modern insurance charges premiums, invests the proceeds and works claims down to a minimum in order to generate a profits for shareholders. Who is our assurance? What minimum insurance is required by law? Are we over insured? Do we fear financial loss?
8. Repentance of Financial Fear. Listening and acting on the voices that say: “How are you going to pay the bills?”, “How are you going to pay the mortgage?”, “Rent?”, “You need to move out of town because its too expensive to live here.”
9. Debt. Get out of financial institution / bank debt. Mortgages, Credit Cards, Student Loans, Car Loans. All of it. There is no “good debt” when it is owed to a financial institution, as they will not have compassion on you if you cannot repay. They will foreclose or seize any asset you have pledged. If you can’t pay it down, look for a biblical loan to replace it or sell your asset to pay off the debt. The government and the Fed have the power to “bail-in” the banks (such as in Cyprus). They can holding your feet to the fire to call the note in and . They can even commandeer the assets backing a note require immediate payment or liquidation under extraordinary circumstances (such as the S&L crisis in the 1990s).
10. Unlock the investment side of your balance sheet and budget for God’s purposes. Savings, investment, and retirement investment can be redeployed for God’s purposes. Beyond the tithe are offerings. Beyond that is your investments and savings. Are you willing to re-invest in God’s agenda? Lending as investing. The Storehouse Vision. Don’t just let God have say over 10% of your finances, but 100% of them. Invest locally. Invest in Kingdom.
BONUS
11. Look for opportunities to come off of government assistance (and on to God assistance). Why? Because it may not always be there. And some of those programs incentivize you to earn less rather than more (poverty mentality). Welfare. Food Stamps. Govt health insurance. Social Security. Child care. Etc. Key is being God dependent rather than man dependent or government dependent.
12. Don’t worry about your credit score (Matt 6:25). The credit scoring system is a slavery system designed to turn us into a number (a score), incentivizes more debt, and makes us the best slaves to repay that debt, no matter what life’s circumstances throw at us. It is one of many precursors and conditionings for taking the mark of the beast (can’t buy or sell without submission to a system – Rev 13:6).
Dimensions of Babylon
- Slavery
Does my job enslave me, but I feel afraid of losing the income?
Does my mortgage/rent enslave me to my job?
Is God calling me to do something else?
Am I a slave to something other than the Lord?
For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin
Romans 6:7
- Partnership
Am I partnered with practices God hates?
Partnered with someone/a company who worships other gods? Exalts money above God?
(marriage in the bible is interchangeable with partnership; foreign wives worshipped foreign gods)
Then Shekaniah said to Ezra, “We have been unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women from the peoples around us. But in spite of this, there is still hope for Israel. Now let us make a covenant before our God to send away all these women and their children, in accordance with the counsel of my lord and of those who fear the commands of our God.
Ezra 10:2-3
Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols?
2 Cor 6:14-16
Corporate Aspects to Coming out of Babylon:
- Employee – Am I beholden to my job? My salary? Is it my calling? Do I have freedom to be in Christ?
- Stock holder – Partnership with a company and its business practices (you share responsibility with that company before God)
- Bond holder – Lending at interest to leverage a company and its business practices (another form of partnership)
- Supplier / Vender – Am I beholden to my client? Can they pull my strings against my will because of this? How do they effect my financing? Cash-flow? Am I enabling any of my client’s exploitive business practices?
- Customer – Buy buying a company’s product or service am I enslaved or addicted to it? Is the product or service biblical sin? (stolen property, prostitution, corruption, stolen IP, organ harvesting) Does the company who made it exploit people, whereby I benefit from that exploitation? (child labor, slavery)
Further Strategies
If you exit from publicly traded stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs AND use the proceeds to pay down your mortgage, you are coming out of Babylon twice!
But Gregg, where do I invest my money then? In God’s Storehouse.
newbreed.co 