SURVIVING BABYLON

 

Imagine if the Saviour and heavenly messengers appeared to you and greeted you like they greeted Daniel of old: “O Daniel, a man greatly beloved” (Daniel 9:23; 10:11,19). Why such an endearing greeting? Because Daniel’s righteousness was greater than the morally corroding influence of the city of Babylon in which he lived.

Daniel was only a youth when he was taken to Babylon during the first siege of Jerusalem in 605 B.C. He was trained there for service in King’s court. Because of his purity of faith which linked him closely to God, he rose to the status of incredible power becoming an Advisor to five kings and the Governor of all the Jews in Babylonia’s exile.

King Nebuchadnezzar was the beginning of Babylon’s greatness and glory. Using slaves from various areas of the empire, he inaugurated a massive building program to make Babylon the greatest city in the world.

From raising an artificial mountain and constructing hanging gardens with terraces, to walls surrounding the city that were so massive that one story houses were built on top of the walls on either side and even then there was space enough between the rows of houses that could permit four chariots to drive abreast (Samuel Fallows, ed., The Popular and Critical Bible Encyclopedia and Scriptural Dictionary, s.v. “Babylon”, pp 208-9; 204-5)

The grandeur of Babylon was incredibly impressive but with such opulence and wealth also came moral decay, wickedness and iniquity. Will Durant, a secular historian wrote that “even Alexander [the Great], who was not above dying of drinking was shocked by the morals of Babylon (Our Oriental Heritage, p 244).

Babylon became the antithesis of godliness. The very name of this city became the symbol for worldliness, spiritual wickedness and Satan’s kingdom. Scripturally it is known as: “the great whore” and “the mother of harlots and abominations (Rev 17:1; 5; D& C 133:14; 1:16; 1 Nephi 13:5-9; Babylonia and the Conquest of Judah, Old Testament Student Manual p 244).

We, of the last dispensation live in ‘spiritual Babylon’. Satan has increased his influence in great strides seeking to destroy us.

Joseph Smith prophesied that he saw in our day “men hunting the lives of their own sons, and brother murdering brother, women killing their own daughters, and daughters seeking the lives of their mothers….(History of the Church, 3:391). Are we there yet???

President Ezra Taft Benson said in 1979 that our generation “will be comparable in wickedness to the days of Noah…but there is a major difference this time. It is that God has saved for the final inning some of his strongest children, who will help bear off the Kingdom triumphantly. And that is where you come in, for you are the generation that must be prepared to meet your God…..

“We follow a perfect leader – not just one who tells us to do what He thinks we should do, but the only one who can say that we should be as He is in everything…..” (In His Steps, BYU Speeches, 4 March 1979)

May we rise to become like the ‘perfect leader’ we follow to survive our Babylon and to be of such righteous influence whilst in it that those around us will call us “servants of the living God”, even as King Darius called the beloved Daniel (Daniel 6:20). And may we who center ourselves on Christ receive His approbation and hear Him say to us, even as He said to Daniel of old: “thou art greatly beloved”……

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Daniel: Prophet of God, Companion of Kings)