Daily Devotional

Jesus once told a parable contrasting those who obeyed Him and those who did not. Those who did Christ’s will were like “a wise man who built his house on the rock” (Matthew 7:24). The Bible says, “That Rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:4). In contrast, those who disregarded Christ’s words were “like a foolish man who built his house on the sand” (Matthew 7:26). When metaphorical storms, or literal trials, came, that house built on sand “fell. And great was its fall” (v. 27).

The phrase “Babylon is fallen, is fallen” has a double meaning. Mystical Babylon has also fallen away, or defected, from the truth, meaning that it has apostatized. For instance, in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, the Greek word apostasia is translated as “falling away.” It is precisely because Babylon has apostatized that it will also fall into destruction, just like any house not built upon the Word, Jesus Christ.

Perhaps the strongest image in today’s verse is “fornication.” The Greek word is porneias, which means “adultery.” Remember the 144,000, the “virgins,” from Revelation 14:4? Set in direct contrast to them is today’s unholy house, Babylon, the megachurch of unfaithful churches. She is an adulteress who has “offered [herself] to everyone who passed by, and multiplied [her] acts of harlotry” (Ezekiel 16:25).

Again, we see the effects of coercion, indicative of all associated with the dragon. This great harlot of Babylon “has made all nations drink” (emphasis added). In other words, she uses force. Notice yet again that this is universal coercion, just like that of the two beasts of Revelation 13.

Most pertinent is this Babylonian “wine.” Scripture symbolizes “wine” as “doctrine.” Solomon instructed, “It is not for kings to drink wine, nor for princes intoxicating drink; lest they drink and forget the law, and pervert the justice of all the afflicted” (Proverbs 31:4, 5). And “the priest and the prophet have erred through intoxicating drink …; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment” (Isaiah 28:7). A wine that makes one drunk, then, is false doctrine.

This benumbing, bewitching counterfeit faith is what awaits all those in mystical Babylon.

Rock of Ages, keep me purely in Your word of truth, that I might not be disoriented by Babylon’s seductive spirits.

For Further Study: Psalm 106:39; Hosea 1:2; Revelation 21:9–27