Treasure Digest: The Pulls of Babylon
article by William (Skip) Miller
We in God's Church made a decision at some point not to live in Babylon.
In antiquity Judah was assaulted, defeated and taken captive. But after 70 years the Jews were allowed to return to Jerusalem and begin again the rites of the temple. Many returned, but more did not. They had found a home that worked for them. They stayed in Babylon by choice. Many remained observant, but probably some were enveloped and sucked right into that maelstrom of frenetic life in the Babylonian system. As Christians, the choice is still ours, but in my opinion, it is even harder to remain true to God's way of doing things today. Although ancient Babylon was worldly, wise and wealthy, modern Babylon operates by a steady stream of reverberating and unremitting requests for our attention. Even if you don't "shop till you drop," it is hard to avoid the materialistic impulse that is inherent in every ad that says, "You need this; you deserve this!" We must candidly admit that, were it not for God's Sabbath, we too—God's own people—would have no time for anything else except servicing our "labor saving" devices. We may possess more stuff than any people of the past ever imagined, but we have virtually no time at all. This fact would be simply ironic except that that loss of time (to reflect and pray and study) has been part of Satan's plan ever since the Eternal created the Sabbath. We all are free to choose how we spend the 24 hours that come to us each day. Many say that they must spend unseemly amounts of time at work or on the road or on the freeway so that they may enjoy a modicum of what others call the "good life." In fact, they are reaping exactly what they have sown. Choices were made before and the results could have been foreseen as the natural consequence of those choices. You can always do Bible study. You can always pray. But too often we don't because we have previously chosen amiss. Everything, both good and bad, in Satan's world can and will be used against us so that prayer and Bible study won't happen—unless we treasure them and give them the highest priority.
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