Daily Devotional

After the universal Flood (Genesis 6:1–9:19), there came together a group of people who decided to build “a city … and a tower whose top is in the heavens” (11:4) for the purpose of “[making] a name for [themselves].” But God impeded their plan by creating different languages among them (vv. 6–8). The unfinished city was thereafter named “Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth” (v. 9). It is interesting that these Babel builders had much the same idea as Lucifer: “I will ascend into heaven …; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds” (Isaiah 14:13, 14).

Hundreds of years later, by the seventh century BC, the pagan empire of Babylon, a derivative of Babel, had become the most powerful nation in the then-known world. Fascinatingly, in the same chapter of Isaiah, Lucifer is equated with “the king of Babylon” (v. 4). The Bible details ancient Babylon’s exploits against the people of God, from its destruction of Jerusalem and the holy temple (2 Chronicles 36:18–20; Daniel 1:1, 2) to its coerced idol worship (3:4–6).

It was a religiopolitical entity that stood as an adversary to God’s people. But while the ancient kingdom ultimately fell to the Medo-Persians in 539 BC, its name lived on and, aptly, came to be used as a biblical symbol of any and all counterfeit religions in controversy against God.

Are you beginning to connect the pieces? Would the first beast of Revelation 13 belong to symbolic or mystical Babylon? Would the false prophet? What other denominations and faiths would be categorized as Babylon? Some count as many as 4,000 different religions in existence today. Such a hodgepodge of theological beliefs can be defined as nothing other than “confusion,” the very definition of Babylon.

But with our God, we have nothing to fear. Regardless of the overwhelming forces of evil, regardless of the image of the beast and its end-time mark, today’s verse assures us that Babylon will not gain victory. It will fall. Instead, “God … gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57).

Lord of Hosts, please help me to discern if I am part of mystical Babylon—and save me from its destruction.

For Further Study: Isaiah 21:9; Jeremiah 51:29; 1 Peter 5:13