Spiritual Babylon is characterized by the accumulation of knowledge. The extremely rapid increase of knowledge in this present day is foretold in Daniel 12:4: "Conceal these words and seal up the book until the end of time; many will go back and forth and knowledge will increase."
The time in which we live has been classified as The Information Age. Knowledge mushrooms. Every new piece of knowledge multiplies what we learn. There seems to be no limit to the knowledge we can accumulate today. There seems to be no limit to what we humans can do with the knowledge we accumulate. Because of what we know, new thresholds in space are constantly crossed with each succeeding launch. Computers and computer programs are outdated by the time they hit the market. Major surgery is performed without intrusive incisions. High-tech wars can be won in a matter of days. Knowledge becomes more powerful than money.
We rely upon our own abilities to research, explore, examine, know, understand, and discover things. We have an insatiable appetite for more knowledge, to pull things up by the roots to see what they are made of. We have become a society of technomaniacs. We presume that we can solve our own problems with more knowledge.
Knowledge is one of our Babylons, one of our high places, and we are the god we worship. Knowledge that leads to self-idolatry is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Every year men and women graduate from seminaries by the thousands to fill pulpits around the world. There they will apply the higher-critical and near atheistic interpretations of the scriptures which they learned. They are spiritually bankrupted by such high-minded learning and are spiritually bankrupting their parishioners. Paul would have the same fear today that he had for the Corinthians: "But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ." 2 Cor. 11:3.
SECTARIANISM
After the people in the land of Shinar purposed in their hearts to build a city, a tower, and a name for themselves, the Lord came down and said, "Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." The place was called Babel because the Lord confused their language and moved them to all parts of the world. Gen. 11:2-9.
Because this Thing we call church is of the flesh and is an aspect of spiritual Babylon, it is under this same curse of confusion and sectarianism. It is founded on sectarianism, even thrives on it. It promotes the disunity of the body of Christ. Its very existence depends upon how each church system differs one from the other. This is easily seen in how their names billboard their differences.
Sectarianism says, "I am of Paul, I am of Apollos." Paul accused the Corinthian believers of being "fleshly" and "mere men" because of their sectarianism. There was jealousy and strife among them. They put their identity in personalities (Paul, Apollos, Cephas) rather than in the person of Jesus Christ. Apollos and Paul were both servants of the same Jesus. One planted; the other watered; but it was God who caused the growth. The one who plants and waters is nothing, but God is the One who matters because He causes the growth. When we understand that we are all fellow workers, God's field, God's building, then sectarianism will be edged out of the way. Disunity in the body turns into unity, oneness. There can only be one foundation, Jesus Christ. If what we have is sectarian and contributes to the disunity of the body, it has been built upon the wrong foundation. 1 Cor. 2.
Once we see this truth, we should have no need ever to name ourselves in order to identify what we are about. We are all about the Father's business, allowing the Holy Spirit who dwells in us to build us up as the temple of the Holy Spirit. "If any man defiles the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple you are." 1 Cor. 3:17. The more we separate ourselves within the body of Christ, the more we destroy the temple of the Holy Spirit.
RELIGION
Spiritual Babylon is characterized by religion. Even though masses of people seem to abhor religion of any kind, our sinful nature has a bent toward it because it is under the curse of condemnation and works. The first Adam was driven from the presence of God (condemnation) and told that he had to till the land and eat his bread in the sweat of his face (works). Gen. 3:19, 23. Because the fallen man of flesh and sin is under the curse, he feels shame and wants to do something to make himself feel okay. Pagan man made up gods and then made up rituals (religious things to do) to try to appease their gods. Some of them even fed infant children to these gods of their own making.
Even though many people may be truly redeemed of the Lord, they still bring their shame-based flesh tendencies over into the life of the church; they know of only one way to relate to God, that is, through religion. Religiously inclined people love religion. It does not matter from one end of the spectrum to the other how people choose to express themselves religiously. Religion is still religion.
They love the religious atmosphere of church because it gives them something to do to salve the guilt of condemnation. Many well-meaning Christians are unaware that they go to church and do religious things out of a false sense of duty. They go because it makes them feel good. Perhaps they have not fully comprehended that there is "now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Rom. 8:1.
Religion is foreign to God. He requires no religious thing of us. We are made spiritual beings by the presence and power of His Holy Spirit dwelling in us. His presence and power in us causes us to be and do what the Father requires of us. There is no way we can be righteous without it being His righteousness at work within us. That is why it is called grace. "For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we
are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them." Eph. 2:8-10. Religion stinks in the nostrils of God because it keeps us from having intimate relationships with Him. Our relationship is with our religion or with our church.
Flesh man deceives himself into thinking that if his religion makes him feel good, it must be good; therefore, he goes on doing his religious things. For such a one, church is often the religious thing he does. Yet, at the end of the day, after all is said and done, nothing is any different in him than it was before he engaged in that religious activity. He is just as empty on the inside as he was before. An abiding relationship with the Father through Jesus Christ is the only food that fills the soul to satisfaction.