Powerful Temptations, Pleasures, and Worldly Lusts
Babylon is a spiritual reality that intoxicates the world with beauty, splendor, and pleasure, and renders the church powerless. The only way the church can truly overcome Babylon’s temptations is by focusing on the gospel and prayer. The church must fight with the truth.
Babylon, meaning “to confuse,” refers to all that separates sinners from God and entices them to rebel. It manifests through worldly culture, philosophy, ideologies, and academic thought—outwardly glamorous and alluring but inwardly corrupt and evil. Babylon reveals one of Satan’s powerful attributes: when tribulation and persecution fail to topple God’s people, he tempts them through prosperity and pleasure.
Today, both Western Christianity and Korea live in an era of prosperity and well-being. We exist in a time when access to lewdness and violence is instant, when a mere touch connects us to endless indulgence through the internet and mobile devices. Sin is no longer hidden but paraded shamelessly under the guise of culture and art. It is a time when shame over sin has evaporated, and indulgence is boldly embraced.
The Bible portrays Babylon not merely as a place or system but as a personal entity embodying Satan’s attributes. Revelation 17:5 states, “She has a name written on her forehead: Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Prostitutes and of the Abominations of the Earth.” Babylon spreads across the world, seducing and confusing humanity, making every sinner a slave to pleasure. No sinner can escape this temptation by their own strength.
Money, fame, power, appearance, and pleasure appear as natural desires to humanity. Yet in God’s eyes, they are abhorrent, filthy, and miserable. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life may seem intrinsic to human nature, but they are deadly poisons sown by the Harlot of Babylon.
Babylon relentlessly tempts the Church, pulling believers away from the gospel. It begins subtly, rationalizing compromises. Without direct persecution, Babylon mixes the dazzling elements of the world into the Church, slowly eroding faith. It infiltrates worldly values and cultures into the Church, diluting the purity of the gospel.
When worldly pleasures and temptations seep into the Church, the answer is not new programs or methods. The Church must return to its essence and stand firmly upon the truth. Only the gospel and fervent prayer can overcome the Harlot of Babylon.
Babylon the Great and the lusts of the world are destined for destruction. Jesus Christ, who took on sinful flesh, died on the cross, and rose again, has already overcome the world. Babylon will never prevail. Satan and his kingdom will utterly fall forever.
The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.(1 John 2:17,NIV)
》Prayer Point
1. Let us face the miserable reality that we continually fall before the temptations of the world. Let us confess that the only power to overcome the world’s temptations is the gospel of the cross, where we died together with the Lord. Let us resolve to cut off the evil of sin, the world, and self-love, and to move forward every moment by faith as those who are dead to sin and the world.
May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.(Galatians 6:14,NIV)
》Scripture Prayer
(Revelation 18:2–4, 20–21,NIV) 2 With a mighty voice he shouted: “‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!’ She has become a dwelling for demons and a haunt for every impure spirit,
a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable animal.
3 For all the nations have drunk the maddening wine of her adulteries. The kings of the earth committed adultery with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries.”
4 Then I heard another voice from heaven say: “‘Come out of her, my people,’ so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues;
20 “Rejoice over her, you heavens! Rejoice, you people of God! Rejoice, apostles and prophets! For God has judged her with the judgment she imposed on you.”
21 Then a mighty angel picked up a boulder the size of a large millstone and threw it into the sea, and said: “With such violence the great city of Babylon will be thrown down, never to be found again.”
(1 John 2:15–16,NIV) 15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. 16 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.
》Pray that the Word may become the Conclusion.
1. The kingdom of God has come, and Babylon has fallen. Along with it, the wealth and all the splendor of the world have perished. Yet sinners remain intoxicated by the visible world, driven by the lusts of the flesh for pleasure, luxury, comfort, and ease. Let us pray that salvation may be granted to sinners who cannot and do not even seek to escape the temptations of the harlot. Let us pray that the eyes of the Church may be opened to see clearly that the true identity of the Harlot of Babylon is Satan, and that we would come out from her, not partaking in her sins, nor suffering the plagues she would receive.
2. The Bible clearly states that if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Let us repent that even the Christians have been drawn by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, falling into self-worship and failing to love God. Let us pray that the Church, standing firmly in the gospel of the cross, will love only God, overcome the temptations of Babylon with the truth, and, at every moment, pour out the life of Jesus Christ to transform the world.
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