I’ll begin this essay with two quotations from the book of Revelation:

“So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:

And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon The Great, The Mother Of Harlots And Abominations Of The Earth.” – Revelation 17:3-5 (KJV)

“And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.” – Revelation 18:4 (KJV)

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Introduction

The USA is becoming a more uncomfortable place for Christians every day. The moral corruption increases unabated, our institutions are beginning to crumble, and the Christian faith is increasingly under public attack. What are Christian families to do? Perhaps you have been told to trust in God and it will be all right, to stay true to your Christian witness, to pray more, to be sure to vote, or to try your best to be winsome to a culture that is increasingly hostile to you and your God. All of these advices are intended to keep you engaged in and connected to this Babylon in which we live. Could it be that we should instead be taking the command in Revelation 18 seriously and “coming out of her my people?” In this article, I will argue that once a culture has rejected God’s truth and turned instead to His enemy, it is our Christian duty to withdraw from that culture. I will further argue that there is ample evidence that America has crossed that line, as well as offer ideas regarding what “coming out of her” should look like.

The Call

I fear that many Christians read the Bible as a historical text recording a sequence of events from which they are separated by great chasms of time and culture. How can something that happened in the middle east thousands of years ago be relevant to us today? I recommend that we instead search scripture for themes and recurrent cycles that are as relevant today as they were in the past and will be in the future. Jesus often used scripture in this way during His ministry on earth. He compared His death on the cross to the lifting up of the bronze serpent during the Exodus (Numbers 21) to point out that men must look up to God for their salvation (John 3:14). He offered the Pharisees the “sign of Jonah” to signify that, like Jonah, He would descend to the bowels of the earth before ascending again (Matthew 12:38-40). And He warns his disciples that the days before His return will be “as in the days of Noah” to demonstrate how negligent people can be toward their spiritual condition, even in the face of imminent reckoning (Matthew 24:37-39).

One of the scriptural themes, often overlooked today, is that a people can fill of up the cup of wrath to the point where repentance is no longer possible and judgment is certain and impending. In such cases, the Lord calls His chosen ones to separate themselves before the judgment descends. Let me list just a few echoes of this theme from scripture:

1. Noah and the flood (Genesis 6-9): the world was destroyed by God via a flood, but Noah and his family were spared by fleeing into the ark that Noah had made by the command of the Lord.

2. Lot and Sodom (Genesis 19): the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by fire and brimstone, but Lot and his daughters escaped by fleeing to the mountains as directed by the Lord.

3. Rahab in Jericho (Joshua 6:22-25): Rahab was spared from the destruction God had meted out on her city by hiding by faith in her home along with her family.

4. The Kenites in the cities of Amalek (1 Samuel 15): the Kenites escaped the Lord’s war on Amalek by fleeing away from their cities.

5. Zedekiah and the siege of Jerusalem (Jeremiah 27): the king of Judah was told by God to come out of Jerusalem and surrender to the king of Babylon. He refused, to his own destruction and the destruction of his city (Jeremiah 39).

6. The second destruction of Jerusalem (Matthew 24:15-19): Jesus warned his disciples that they “must flee to the mountains” before the destruction of Jerusalem. Eusebius records that many Christians did flee to the mountains before the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Josephus records that the carnage was massive and the destruction of the city complete.

7. The great whore of Babylon (Revelation 18): the Lord’s people are commanded to come out of Babylon before the imminent destruction of that city by the hand of God.

Do you see that this theme runs the gamut from Genesis to Revelation? Scripture couldn’t be more clear: once a people have ‘crossed the line,’ the Lord’s people should get in the lifeboats. If they don’t, then they will perish along with the wicked. Has America reached that stage?

The line

From the beginning, God created us to acknowledge Him as our creator, to walk humbly with Him, to reflect His image, and to tend His creation (Genesis 1-2). But man rebelled and was driven from the presence of God (Genesis 3). Christ came to pay for our sins, to restore us to the relationship we had with God, and to return us to the calling He gave us before our fall. Thus, on sure sign of conversion (or not) is whether we are living according to the mandate in Genesis 1 and 2. Let us examine what our nation has done in the light of these first two chapters of scripture.

· “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). This is literally the first verse in the Bible. God clearly wanted us to know and acknowledge that it was He that created our world. Does our nation believe that our world was created, or rather that it is a product of an evolutionary process? Which is taught to our children in our public (and many private) schools?

· “Male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27). Has our culture treasured the distinctions between male and female and the respective roles for which God designed man and woman, or has it distorted them? Is the assignment of gender left to the creator, or have we made it the choice of the created?

· “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). Do we cleave to one another in marriage, remaining one flesh for life? Do we treat the marital bond as the sacred covenant it is?

· “Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate and keep it” (Genesis 2:15). Have we cared for the land in which our nation dwells or have we used it up and polluted it? Are the land, resources, and wildlife of the USA in better shape today than they were at the founding of our nation?

· “Be fruitful, and multiply” (Gensis 1:28). I note that much of our recent population growth is due to immigration, not reproduction. As of 2020, the average number of births per American woman is 1.64.

Can you find a single command in Genesis 1-2 that this nation is still following? Jesus said: “…this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world and men loved the darkness rather than the light, for their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). Consider the ubiquity of sexual immorality, drug and alcohol abuse, violence, deception, and greed in our nation. Do you think that our nation loves the light or the darkness? Do you think we have crossed the line?

If you agree with me that the line has been crossed, that the word of God has been rejected, then national repentance will not come and the judgment will be terrible. God’s word says that “for in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame” (Hebrews 6:4-6). It further says that “for if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire that will consume the adversaries.

Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severe punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, ‘vengeance is mine, I will repay.’ And again, ‘The Lord will judge His people.’ It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Hebrews 10:26-31).

The two paths

Having spent multiple decades in many churches of various denominations as I moved around the country, it is my firm conviction that most American churchgoers are following one of two paths. Those on the first path seek to live lives as indistinguishable from the mainstream culture as possible. They embrace the latest trends, technology, fashion, pastimes, and films. They are typically active on social media (as are their children). Their kids go to public schools. Their beliefs and those of their church have deviated from the scriptural teachings on gender, marriage, and the family. They cringe over portions of the Bible they consider unscientific, exclusive, or judgmental. They embrace any cause parading under the banner of social justice, and they emphasize the community outreach and charitable activities of their church. In short, they compromise with the culture as much as they can; they seek the approval of the whore of Babylon (Revelation 17:1-5).

Those on the second path wish to restore the primacy that Christianity once had in this nation. They want to make America great again. They talk a lot about ‘values,’ though these values are amorphous and vague. They hold exceedingly romantic notions about our nation’s past. Their beliefs are gleaned more from the political right (often echoed by their church) than they are from careful Bible study. They have largely abandoned outreach and are becoming increasingly insular. They deplore the LGBTQ community, BLM, and the ‘blue hair freaks.’ Those on this path rant about the Democratic party and blue states, and I fear that many are quietly wondering if their guns must accomplish what it seems their votes can’t. They want to retake Babylon. They want to dethrone the harlot and ride the beast themselves.

People on the first path are successively knuckling under to Satan. Those on the second path seek to take his place. Neither are heeding the Lord’s command. He didn’t say to fit in to Babylon or to retake it. He said to come out of it.

(To be concluded tomorrow, in Part 2.)