Several years ago, I read Cowan and Kuenster’s compelling yet depressing book To Sleep With the Angels: The Story of a Fire. It was about a horrific fire where a Catholic school burned, and 92 students and three teachers perished. The book investigated all the things that went wrong that day. For example, the Mother Superior was substituting in the Kindergarten room, unaware that the rest of the school was on fire. The problem was that only Mother Superior could call for an evacuation, so several teachers kept their students in their smoke-filled rooms waiting for Mother Superior’s permission to evacuate. Finally, after it was too late, the teachers decided to go ahead and evacuate even though they did not have her permission. 

As I read this book, I could not help but be amazed at a hierarchy system that would not allow the students and teachers to think and act for themselves, causing them to lose their lives! I thought that many in that type of hierarchical system will burn in the lake of fire simply because they trusted in the hierarchy instead of studying the Bible for themselves. 

The doctrine that God has committed to the church the right to control the conscience, and to define and punish heresy, is one of the most deeply rooted of papal errors.-Ellen White, The Great Controversy, Page 293. 

While reading about a Catholic School, I realized many wonderful Catholics are reading their Bibles and finding Bible truth. I recognize also that while spiritual Babylon is a specific system, it is also an attitude. It’s the attitude of those at the tower of Babel and later in Daniel 4. It is the Babylonian king who thought he was saved by his mighty power, when he said, “Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for a royal dwelling by my mighty power and the honor of my majesty?” Daniel 4:30 NKJV So I see all down through the ages, Babylon is an attitude, and that attitude can be found anywhere, including our hearts. So the call out of Babylon is more than just a call out of a papal system. It is a call out of a hierarchy-based mindset. That mindset goes back way before the papacy. It was in the church of Christ’s day, and that is why He had to call His disciples out of that mindset when He told them, 

“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them.  Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant.  And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave—  just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” Matthew 20:25-28 NKJV

This tells me the call out of Babylon in Revelation 18 may involve more than just a few doctrines on the Sabbath and the state of the Dead. I may be called out of a legalistic or authoritarian Babylonian mindset into a whole new way of thinking. 

After these things, I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory. And he cried mightily with a loud voice, saying, “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird! For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury.” Revelation 18:1-4 NKJV

The call out of Babylon is a call out of a false system of worship. This false worship is more than a false day of worship. It also worships a false god called “legalism,” better known as “our works.” It is also a calling out of a false hierarchical system that is based on humans assuming the prerogative of God to compel the conscience of those  “under them” to act and worship a certain way. And it is a calling out of complying with the direction of people in positions of power to do things that are against the principles of the Bible, which asks us to worship God alone, and allow Him to guide our conscience instead of man.

We are not just called out of false churches. No matter what church we attend, we need to come out of a false way of thinking into a new mindset. We are called out of the hierarchical system of not only the papal mindset but also the mindset of the Babylonians and the religious leaders in Christ’s day. We are called out of the mindset of becoming dictators into the mentality of servants serving God and others the way Christ served His Father and others. And we are called out of placing man in the place of God Himself. 

You may study this week’s Sabbath School Lesson here.