Note 8 — Chapter XV

There is a wide moral difference between Egypt and Babylon, which it is important to understand. Egypt was that out of which Israel came; Babylon was that into which they were afterwards carried. (Comp. Amos v. 25-27 with Acts vii. 42, 43.) Egypt expresses what man has made of the world; Babylon expresses what Satan has made, is making, or will make, of the professing church. Hence, we are not only surrounded with the circumstances of Egypt, but also by the moral principles of Babylon.

This renders our "days" what the Holy Ghost has termed "perilous" (χαλεποι—"difficult"). It demands a special energy of the Spirit of God, and complete subjection to the authority of the Word, to enable one to meet the combined influence of the realities of Egypt and the spirit and principles of Babylon. The former meet the natural desires of the heart; while the latter connect themselves with, and address themselves to, the religiousness of nature, which gives them a peculiar hold upon the heart. Man is a religious being, and peculiarly susceptible of the influences which arise from music, sculpture, painting, and pompous rites and ceremonies. When these things stand connected with the full supply of all his natural wants—yea, with all the ease and luxury of life, nothing but the mighty power of God's Word and Spirit can keep one true to Christ.

We should also remark that there is a vast difference between the destinies of Egypt and those of Babylon. The nineteenth of Isaiah sets before us the blessings that are in store for Egypt. It concludes thus: "And the Lord shall smite Egypt; He shall smite and heal it; and they shall return even to the Lord, and He shall be entreated of them, and shall heal them.... In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land; whom the Lord of Hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel Mine inheritance." (Ver. 22-25.)

Very different is the close of Babylon's history, whether viewed as a literal city or a spiritual system.—"I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water; and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of Hosts." (Isaiah xiv. 23.) "It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation." (Isaiah xiii. 20.) So much for Babylon literally; and looking at it from a mystic or spiritual point of view, we read its destiny in Rev. xviii. The entire chapter is a description of Babylon, and it concludes thus: "A strong angel took up a stone, like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, 'Thus, with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.'" (Ver. 21.)

With what immense solemnity should those words fall upon the ears of all who are in any wise connected with Babylon—that is to say, with the false, professing church,—"Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues"! (Rev. xviii. 5.) The "power" of the Holy Ghost will necessarily produce, or express itself in, a certain "form," and the enemy's aim has ever been to rob the professing church of the power, while he leads her to cling to and perpetuate the form—to stereotype the form when all the spirit and life has passed away. Thus he builds the spiritual Babylon. The stones of which this city is built are lifeless professors; and the slime or mortar which binds these stones together is "a form of godliness without the power."

Oh! my beloved reader, let us see to it that we fully, clearly, and influentially understand these things.