Babylon: City Of Occult

Way back in 1988, the media was filled with stories about Nancy Reagan, and the fact that she was getting information for her husband from Joan Quigley who was an astrologer. And according to those who are in astrology, that information caused a tremendous amount of interest throughout the country in the topic of astrology. Astrologists were on talk shows, and people began to buy books and to try to understand how they too might be able to plug into the wisdom of the stars in such a way that they might receive inside information on what decisions might be right for them personally.

The Encyclopedia of Astrology says that no one who has ever looked into astrology seriously has ever rejected it. Some rather awesome claims are being made by astrologers as to the kind of information they can give, saying that astrology can be applied to every single facet of life.

Well, today what we want to do is to look back to see the origins of astrology, and as I begin this series of messages on Great Cities of the Bible, the first city that we are going to speak about is Babylon. Cities are very interesting because on the one hand they become means by which unrighteousness can very quickly be transmitted from one person to another because of the proximity of those who live there. Cities also have great potential though for righteousness because you can witness to a number of people in a city. A city like Nineveh had a revival, and all of the people were revived together because of the proximity of the individuals living together, so it has its pluses and its minuses.

If ever there were a city that cried out for more time and more messages, it would be Babylon. As I was studying this I thought to myself that it’s too bad that I don’t do an entire series of messages just on Babylon alone. But today we’re going to cover an awful lot of material. What I’d like to do is to take you through five stages in the history of Babylon, and for each stage give you a word or a phrase. That in itself is simple enough. First of all, we have the beginning of Babylon, and the key word here is Babel. Take your Bible and turn to Genesis 10 if you are going to stick with me through this tour of the Scriptures today. In Genesis 10 we have a reference to a man by the name of Nimrod. It’s very interesting that in the Old Testament there was a curse that was placed upon the descendants of Ham, and that curse seems to have worked its way out in various civilizations. But notice that Nimrod was one of those who came from the line of Ham. And it says in verse 8 of chapter 10, “Cush fathered Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Therefore it is said, ‘Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the Lord.’ The beginning of his kingdom was Babel.”

I want you to notice in chapter 11 that there are three things that take place that show the rebellion of the people who were involved in Babel, which later became known as Babylon. Notice what the people did. God had told them in the ninth chapter that they were to spread out and to multiply in the earth, but it says in verse 2 of chapter 11, “And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. (This incidentally is Babylon. It’s about 60 miles from the present city of Baghdad.) And they said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.’ (The reason for that is because there are no natural rocks in the area. They had to bake bricks to do their building, and these bricks, by the way, have been sold throughout the centuries because the bricks have a lot of fame connected with them, and they were also burned and done very, very well.) And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.’”

Wherein is the rebellion of Babylon, which is legendary throughout the Scriptures? First of all, God says, “I want to spread you throughout the areas. I want you to multiply throughout the whole earth,” and they said, “Let us congregate together and let us hang in together, and let’s do something as a team.” There’s nothing wrong with that except that they disobeyed God. This was not a time to build a city.

Secondly, they said, “Let us build a staircase. Let us build a tower that reaches to heaven.” Archeologists call it a ziggurat. It was built in such a way that it had a staircase. Some people think that it was a round tower. Others perhaps think that it was flat in its construction. As it would go up step by step it was rectangular. At any rate, they built this with the hope of being able to reach the heavens to contact their gods whom they believed were the stars, and that they might have a better insight into the astrology in which they were already interested. And so they said, “Let us go up and let’s make a tower that reaches the heavens. We will be the bridge between heaven and earth, and we will be able to contact the powers that be.” And this was the beginning of astrology. Furthermore, they did this out of a sense of pride. They said, “Let us make a name for ourselves.”

Where is God in all of this? Well, the answer is He is nowhere to be found because Babylon was a city that was built in rebellion against the Almighty, and contrary to what He had specified. It’s interesting that scholars who have studied Babylon more carefully than I have say that there are at least 30 techniques that are used today in what we call the New Age Movement that were already found in Ancient Babylon. Astrology is the doorway to the occult, finding out through the stars the way in which people should live their lives and trying to draw conclusions regarding the configuration of the stars. All that had its origins in Babylon. And rebirthing and reincarnation and consulting the powers and channeling, and all of that occult activity already took place in the city of Babylon where much of it got its start. So much for the beginning of Babylon! The beginning of Babylon is the Tower of Babel.

Secondly, the development of the city! And here the key phrase is that Babylon became an enemy of Israel. Now there are various times, of course, in the history of Babylon, from the year 900 B.C. (and remember when you talk about B.C. you go from a large number to a smaller one) to 600 B.C. you have the time of Babylon’s glory, how Mirabi ruled for a good part of that time when he codified the laws. And there was advancement of civilization that took place in Babylon. And then, at least from the standpoint of the Bible, Babylon just drifts off the scene and we don’t hear much about it for nearly a thousand years. But when it crops up as the Neo Babylonian Empire, we find that there is a strong evil enemy of the nation Israel.

I want you to look in your Bibles and we will see that in 2 Kings 20, you have the story of how King Hezekiah allowed some representatives of Babylon to come and visit him when he was sick, and he showed them the treasures of the Temple of God, which had been built by Solomon. That was a big mistake.

It says in 2 Kings 20:12: “At that time the king of Babylon sent envoys with letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he heard that Hezekiah had been sick.” Now you have to understand that Babylon and Israel were sometimes cohorts against the enemy of Assyria, but notice it says in verse 13, “And Hezekiah welcomed them, and he showed them all his treasure house, the silver, the gold, the spices, the precious oil, his armory, all that was found in his storehouses. There was nothing in his house or in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them.” Verse 14: “Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah, and said to him, ‘What did these men say? And from where did they come to you?’ And Hezekiah said, ‘They have come from a far country, from Babylon.’ He said, ‘What have they seen in your house?’ And Hezekiah answered, ‘They have seen all that is in my house; there is nothing in my storehouses that I did not show them.’ Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, ‘Hear the word of the Lord: Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord.’”

We don’t have time to go into the history but King Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon came, and he had three sieges against Jerusalem, and against Israel, and finally in 586 B.C. he surrounded the city of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem was totally destroyed, and they took these precious vessels along with a host of other kinds of things that the Israelites had and they traipsed them all off to Babylon. And it was there also that they took thousands of people from the city of Jerusalem and the surrounding areas, and they carried them off to Babylon. And that in the Old Testament is known as the Babylonian Captivity. It’s when the area surrounding Jerusalem, the Tribe of Judah and Benjamin, were carried off to Babylon, and many of them lived there for 70 years. And after that they were brought back, and some of them rebuilt a small temple, and they were the Jews that were there when Jesus appeared on the earth 400 years or so later.

But I want you to notice that Babylon becomes now the enemy of Israel, desecrating the Temple, totally destroying what Solomon had built, and carrying off all of these precious things that were used in the Jewish worship. So the second stage is the development of the city. And I told you that the key phrase was the enemy of Israel.

There’s a third phase in the life of the city of Babylon, and that is the period of decline. And for this I want you to turn to the book of Daniel. Remember that Daniel was one of the people who was carried off to Babylon. And I want you to notice how the book of Daniel opens. It says: “In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand….”

I need to pause. Do you notice how the events that take place in the nations and among the nations are actually the will and the purposes of God? It was God, the Bible says, that gave Jehoiakim into the hand of the evil king, Nebuchadnezzar, as a discipline against his own people. But notice it says: “… with some of the vessels of the house of God. And he brought them to the land of Shinar (that is, Nebuchadnezzar did) to the house of his god, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his god.” Isn’t that interesting? Those are the very vessels that King Hezekiah had shown to the delegation that had come from Babylon, and he had shown them the whole area, and now these are carried off, and they are taken to Babylon.

Now I want you to notice what happened to King Nebuchadnezzar. This is a very interesting story, and it’s recorded for us in Daniel 4. What happened to this evil, vicious king? Well you may be surprised at this, but I expect to see him in heaven some day. God did a wonderful miracle. He was a very proud man, and Daniel came along and said, “Because of your pride you are actually going to be humbled, and you are going to eat grass with oxen, and you are going to be like an animal.” And God did that to him for seven years, and my word, was he a different man when that period of humiliation was over.

Notice in Daniel 4:29 it says: “At the end of twelve months (that is, after Daniel’s prediction) he was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, and the king answered and said, ‘Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?’” There was no humility there, and as he spoke he no doubt saw the beautiful hanging gardens, which the ancients called one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and which Saddam Hussein said he would like to have been able to rebuild. He also saw the beautiful Ishtar Gate, which was huge and glorious. In fact, he had taken the previous Ishtar Gate and buried it so that he could build a new one over it.

And would you believe that my eyes have seen that Ishtar Gate? In the 1800s some German archeologists uncovered it and they took it apart in pieces and they reconstructed it in a museum in Berlin. And I have seen it in the museum in Berlin. It is worth going to Berlin just to see the Ishtar Gate and the remnants of Ancient Babylon in one of the huge museums there.

He also saw the fact that he had reconstructed the Tower of Babel, so as he was walking along he said, “Is not this great Babylon which I have built?” and he was congratulating himself. Not a great deal of humility! You heard about the man who wrote the book Humility and How I Attained It. Have you heard of him? He also wrote a book entitled Ten Famous Men Who Met Me, I think. Well, this would be King Nebuchadnezzar. “Is not this the Babylon that I have built?”

But notice verse 31: “While the words were still in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, ‘O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: The kingdom has departed from you.’” And that’s when he was taken. And he ate grass with the oxen and lived like an animal. And at the end of the days (verse 34) he raised his eyes toward heaven, and his understanding returned. You know that that means that people who are proud are really insane.

His understanding returned and he knew who he was and who God was. He said, “I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation; all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What have you done?’” He said, “I learned who I was and who God was.

Verse 37: “Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all his works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to humble.” And what a personal testimony he gave. That was King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon who had besieged Jerusalem, of all things. God humbled him, and he apparently became a worshiper of the true and the living God.

Now listen carefully. Nebuchadnezzar had a son and then a grandson. And his grandson’s name was Belshazzar. In Daniel 5 it says: “King Belshazzar made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank wine in front of the thousand. Belshazzar, when he tasted the wine, commanded that the vessels of gold and of silver that Nebuchadnezzar, his father (actually his forefather – the Hebrew word can mean either, but we know that it is his forefather, his grandfather), had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem be brought, that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them. Then they brought in the golden vessels that had been taken out of the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines drank from them.”

What’s he doing? He’s desecrating these vessels. He’s saying, “So these used to be used in the worship of the Lord God Jehovah. We are going to use them now to worship our pagan gods. Come bring the vessels. Let’s show our rebellion. Let’s just do it!”

Well, in the middle of the feast there was some handwriting on the wall. Verse 5: “Immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace, opposite the lamp stand. And the king saw the hand as it wrote. Then the king's color changed, and his thoughts alarmed him; his limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together.”

Trouble in Babylon! What was the message? We have to skip all the intervening verses and hop to verse 24. “Then from his presence the hand was sent, and this writing was inscribed. (Daniel was interpreting it.) And this is the writing that was inscribed: Mene, Mene, Tekel, and Parsin. This is the interpretation of the matter: Mene, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; Tekel, you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting; Peres, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”

That’s it! That’s the end of Babylon! Here’s what happened, folks. What historians have uncovered is that the Medes and the Persians, under Darius, who also may be called Cyrus, diverted some of the water of the Euphrates River. Now the Euphrates River was going right through the city of Babylon. That’s why they always knew that they had lots of water, but because they had built a gate in such a way that the water could flow through the city, there was very little possibility that anyone could get into the city on that river. But what the Medes and the Persians did was they took that river and they diverted it enough so that the water level fell so that some solders would be able to crawl through the water and under the gate and come into the city. And soon the city gates were thrown open wide, and other soldiers outside came inside, and the city of Babylon collapsed and went to the Medes and the Persians.

After that, Babylon sort of once again drifts off the scene of history. Alexander the Great tried to rebuild it and did some things with it, but it never played a major role in the events of the world. But religiously, Babylon has always played a major role in the events of the world because, you see, after the time of the Medes and the Persians, some of the religion of Babylon went to Pergamum, and then from Pergamum it went to Rome, and it had a tremendous impact on the people of Rome, and unfortunately some of those same pagan ideas came into the Christian Church and into Christendom.

For example, one of the things that the people did in Babylon was they had a mother-child cult, and they used to pray to the queen of heaven. In Jeremiah 7 the prophet Jeremiah talks about those who are praying to the queen of heaven, in his day the religion of Babylon, and he points out that God is going to judge them because of the fact that they are praying to the queen of heaven. Interestingly, the same ideas, the same prayers and even the same title was transferred to Mary, and she was called the queen of heaven, and many of the same practices that were in Babylon began to seep into what we call Christendom today. Babylon has always been symbolic in the Bible of rebellion of man and occultism and pagan influence.

Now let’s go to a fourth stage in Babylon. We talked about the period of decline and the key word there was the Mede Persians come and they capture the city of Babylon. Now let’s talk about the present city of Babylon. I have in my study a book that was written by a man who has made many trips to Babylon, and we discovered as we read this book, and a number of other people here in the church have read it, that Saddam Hussein has tried to rebuild Babylon. Apparently there are temples that are being constructed (or at least were being constructed before the war). There was an attempt to rebuild the Hanging Gardens, and the Ishtar Gate. Many of the things that were in Ancient Babylon Saddam Hussein has tried to rebuild, perhaps not very successfully, but at least he has tried.

Why is it that Saddam Hussein minted money with his inscription on the coin along with that of Nebuchadnezzar on the very same side so that their profiles almost matched? It’s because Saddam Hussein wants to be known as the modern Nebuchadnezzar. Why is it that when festivals were held in the rebuilt city of Babylon several years ago they always had pictures not of Hussein but Nebuchadnezzar? It’s because, you see, what Saddam Hussein wanted to do is to become the modern day Nebuchadnezzar because, after all, it was Nebuchadnezzar that went and captured the city of Jerusalem and desecrated the Temple and tore down that temple and humiliated the Jewish people. So there’s no doubt that that’s exactly what he wanted to do.

Let me ask you another question. Why so much antagonism between the Iranians and the people of Iraq? Why this antagonism? Why this eight year war that didn’t go anywhere with all of the hatred that there is between those two groups? Of course, you must realize that the people of Iraq are not Arabs. They are Muslims but they are not Arabs. They are Ancient Persians. They are the Persians. And who was it that captured Babylon many years ago before Christ? It was Persia. And who are the Medes? The Medes, so far as we can discover, are the Kurds that we hear about on the news so much. So you have the Medes and the Persians, you see, and history in the Middle East sometimes stands still, and it is as if the ancient past is simply being relived where you have the Medes and the Persians. And you have a man who would like to be a modern day Nebuchadnezzar to capture the city of Jerusalem and to humiliate Israel. So that’s the present day Babylon.

But now we come to stage number five in Babylon’s history, and that is the future of Babylon. And if you are taking notes I would use the words glory and destruction. Now for many years as I thought about prophecy, I used to think that Babylon would not be rebuilt. Even though the Bible talks about a future Babylon, many of us used to say, “You know, we just don’t think that it’s be interpreted literally. Maybe the Bible refers to the religion of Babylon, the occultism, the astrology of Babylon, the New Age Movement, which basically has its roots in Babylon. Maybe that’s what the Bible is referring to.” Well, in recent days and weeks I’m not so sure. I don’t want to be dogmatic, but it may well be that Babylon is still going to be a city that is going to be a city of glory and tremendous power. Who knows what could happen as Iraq gets rebuilt?

Here are some reasons why Babylon may still be rebuilt. Turn to the book of Isaiah for just a moment. In chapter 13 Isaiah makes some predictions that many Bible scholars think have never yet been fulfilled. And I might say that we don’t have time in this message, but if we had time we’d also turn to Jeremiah 50 and 51, and we’d find many of the same kinds of predictions about Babylon.

Notice that Isaiah 13 is a lament against Babylon. God is judging Babylon, and He says in verse 4 that He is going to gather nations together against Babylon. “The sound of a tumult is on the mountains as of a great multitude! The sound of an uproar of kingdoms, of nations gathering together! (Notice nations gather together.) The Lord of hosts is mustering a host for battle. They come from a distant land, from the end of the heavens, the Lord and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land.” That has never happened. Babylon has never been destroyed by a series of nations that have come from a far country. It’s always been destroyed by nations that exist there in the Middle East and not from the farthest horizons, so it may well be that there’s a future day of destruction.

Notice in verse 11 it says, “On that day I will punish the world for its evil.” Verse 20 says that the destruction will be so complete it will never be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation, nor will the Arab pitch his tent there, nor will shepherds make their flocks lie down there. And throughout the centuries Arabs have pitched their tents there, and shepherds have made their flocks lie down there.

Could it be that there is going to be a rebuilding of Babylon and a future desolation? Now you have got to stay with me. Turn to the book of Revelation, chapter 17. “Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, ‘Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.’ And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness (elsewhere in Revelation it says the Plain of Shinar which is where Babylon was built), and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast (This beast is Antichrist and the countries of Europe that are under his thumb.) that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: ‘Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth's abominations.’”

In chapter 18 you’ll notice that Babylon falls. It says in verse 2-3: “And he called out with a mighty voice, ‘Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast. For all nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living.’”

Verse 10 (the middle of the verse): “Alas! Alas! You great city, you mighty city, Babylon! For in a single hour your judgment has come.”

If we had time I’d like to read both chapters, but we can’t. You can do that on your own.

In order to take all of these strands of what we’ve been talking about today I’d like to conclude with just a couple of observations, and then you can go home and think about what I have spoken about this morning. The first is that there is no doubt at all that in the end time there is going to be a revival of Babylonian religion. Astrology is the gateway to the occult. There are people today who are Christians who read horoscopes and they’ll actually look in the newspaper and read them, and then they’ll say, “But I’m just doing it for fun.” That is nothing but rebellion against the living God.

Why is God so angry at astrology? Why is it that in the book of Deuteronomy and elsewhere God says, “Have nothing to do with witchcraft?” Have nothing to do with astrology. Don’t go to fortune-tellers. Why is God so upset with those kinds of actions? It’s because people begin to look at the stars, they begin to look at crystal balls and they begin to look at Ouija boards. Instead of consulting God they consult occult powers. They run their lives by the stars rather than by the book, namely this Book, and rather than by dependence and seeking the mind and the wisdom of the living God. And God says that is rebellion. It is an abomination. It is sensuality, and it is evil. Perhaps I have been clear! Sometimes people accuse me of being too upfront. Well today I’m just being upfront.

Don’t ever seek special wisdom from any kind of an occult power. Don’t ever be involved in somehow thinking that you need some inside information that has not been given to you by God by His leadership in your life, and what you need is to consult someone who is plugged into some kind of special powers. Consult wise people who know the Word of God and who walk with God, but do not consult occultism. There’s going to be a tremendous revival of it that we are seeing with our own eyes before the end time.

Secondly, what could happen is this. Even if the rapture were to take place today, there’s at least seven years that take place between the rapture and the final Battle of Armageddon. But it may well be that there are even more than seven years in between those two events. Could it be that in the next couple of years what is going to happen is that the city of Babylon is going to be rebuilt and become a commercial center again for the whole world?

You say, “Well, for the whole world? I mean what’s going on there in the Middle East that would make it so important?” Well, folks, let’s just be honest. One little three-letter word spelled OIL! Do you realize that this woman is riding the beast, the Antichrist of all things? You say, “Well, why does she have him under her authority?” I’ll tell you why! Europe is more dependent upon Middle East oil even than we are, and whoever controls that black gold, whoever controls that oil, may well indeed control the Middle East and may indeed control the world. And so could it be that someday Babylon is going to be rebuilt with all of its occultism (and incidentally Saddam Hussein is deeply into occultism and constantly during the war was consulting his astrologers and his magicians)? Could it well be that this city is going to be rebuilt, and then during what we call the Battle of Armageddon, when we have that great confrontation that takes place in the land of Israel, there is going to be a battle in which Babylon is going to be destroyed – the actual literal city of Babylon? It could be. It could well be! As I say, years ago I used to take this symbolically, but I am not so sure any more. It could well be that it’s to be taken literally. Now I want you to know that God is always going to win in the end. God is always going to win!

There’s one more passage of Scripture that I want you to listen to. And after I have read it I’ll give you the reference. I want you to listen to what the prophet Isaiah said regarding Babylon and its astrologers and its occultism, which many people today are accepting wholesale, and using in their own lives, some of them even thinking that they can still be good Christians, and be involved in occult activity.

Notice what the Lord says regarding the way in which He is going to make all occultism look foolish. “In spite of your many sorceries, in spite of the great power of your spells, you will be destroyed. You felt secure in your wickedness, and you said, ‘No one sees me,’ but God says your wisdom and your knowledge have deluded you, for you have said in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one besides me.’ (By the way, Babylon is saying this, but you may be listening to this message and saying that too. You may have a heart of rebellion against God.) ‘But evil,’ the Lord says, ‘will come upon you which you shall not know how to charm away.’”

You know, God says, “Something’s going to happen, and no matter who you go to, no matter what astrologer you go to, no matter who your occultist is, no matter what medium you consult, you aren’t going to be able to charm this evil away. Disaster will fall upon you. It will come upon you suddenly.”

“You are weary by your many counsels. Let now the astrologers, those who prophesy by the stars, those who predict by the new moons, let them stand up and save you from what is going to come upon you. (God is laughing. “Go ahead and see if they can save you.”) Behold they have become like stubble. Fire burns them. They cannot deliver themselves from the power of the flame. There will be no coal found to be warmed by, nor a fire to sit before.” The last phrase of the verse says, “There is none to save you.”
I was reading from Isaiah 47.

Let me ask you a question today. What is it that you are depending upon to save you? Is it astrology? Is it your religion? Is it your own good works? I want you to know that God is going to make a mockery of all that.

Do you know that there is only one way to be saved? When Jesus died on the cross His death was a sacrifice for sinners so that those who cease trusting in themselves and transfer their trust only to Him, can be saved, can belong to the family of God, can be converted out of pagan religion, and who can live lives of fulfillment and integrity. Don’t you dare think that you can depend upon anything occult, or upon yourself! There is none to save you except God, the true Lord, the Savior.

Let’s pray together.

Our Father, today we pray that You might bless this rather quick tour through Your Word on the subject of Babylon. And we pray today that You might help us to understand that we should be free from all of those things that detract from Your Word and submission to Your will. We pray for those who perhaps are seeking wisdom through Ouija boards, astrology, a crystal ball, people seeing mediums, people involved in channeling – all these evil practices that are an abomination to You, the living and the true God. Lord, deliver us. Deliver our country. Deliver our city, and we pray that today many people will flee to You to be free. Meet us, Lord, today we pray at the deepest levels of experience in Jesus’ name, Amen.