The Path to Pentecost Day 42

George Rochegrosse (1859-1938), The Death of Babylon, 1891

4 Then I heard another voice from heaven saying,
“Come out of her, my people,
lest you take part in her sins,
lest you share in her plagues;
5 for her sins are heaped high as heaven,
and God has remembered her iniquities.
6 Pay her back as she herself has paid back others,
and repay her double for her deeds;
mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed.
7 As she glorified herself and lived in luxury,
so give her a like measure of torment and mourning,
since in her heart she says,

‘I sit as a queen,
I am no widow,
and mourning I shall never see.’
8 For this reason her plagues will come in a single day,
death and mourning and famine,
and she will be burned up with fire;
for mighty is the Lord God who has judged her.”

9 And the kings of the earth, who committed sexual immorality and lived in luxury with her, will weep and wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning.”

“11 And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo anymore, 12 cargo of gold, silver, jewels, pearls, fine linen, purple cloth, silk, scarlet cloth, all kinds of scented wood, all kinds of articles of ivory, all kinds of articles of costly wood, bronze, iron and marble, 13 cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and slaves, that is, human souls.

Rev 18:4-8, 9 and 11-13

The Book of Revelation devotes two complete chapters on the fall of Babylon. This is a momentous moment in the evolution of consciousness. Babylon is earth consciousness. Not the consciousness of the earth, which we need so much right now, but a consciousness which creates the thinking that we are creatures of earth. We arise from atoms, molecules and cells and when our body decays back into cells, molecules and atoms, that is the complete sum of our life.

The sins of Babylon are those thoughts which buy into this consciousness so that we miss our real nature and our real purpose. We are citizens of the spiritual worlds. The angels of Revelation who proclaim the destruction of the old consciousness are messengers from the reality of Spirit who remind us of our real nature and our true origin.

The kings of the earth are ruling thoughts.  They are the ideas that should rule our lives. They should guard and care for the soul, and act as channels of the spirit, instead they bought into the lie of Babylon. The predominant thinking of our culture is self first. My own pleasure and gratification is more important to me than the welfare of others. We see this projected into our political world where leaders and rulers become preoccupied with keeping themselves in office, implementing aggressive agendas of power leading to war, and accumulating enormous wealth at the expense of the nation they lead.

The merchants are our transactional thoughts. These govern our relationships with others. When the merchant thoughts originate from Babylon, then we value our relationships according to what they bring us. Do they bring gold, silver and jewels - financial benefit? Do they bring fine linen, purple and scarlet cloth and all the other adornments that create superficial beauty? Do these thoughts engage us through the senses, the sense of taste - wine, oil, cinnamon and spice - the sense of smell, perfumes, and so on. These merchant thoughts connect us to earth consciousness by making us relate only to the elements of our senses.

The fall of Babylon makes us free beings. We are, for a moment aware of ourselves as free beings, suspended between heaven and earth. Babylon traffics in human slavery, which Revelation tells us are human souls. Our souls are now free. We have a choice in front of us. The spiritual worlds are silent while we make this choice. We can choose to return into slavery, or we can make the second choice that Revelation offers. If we take the second road, we can leave the old city, the city of earth consciousness behind, and we can enter into the new city, the city of the consciousness of Christ.

The image

George Rochegrosse (1859-1938), The Death of Babylon, 1891
George Rochegrosse (1859-1938), The Death of Babylon, 1891

The painting by the French artist George Rochegrosse, invites us into a world of opulence and decadence. Sensuality rules here. When sensuality rules, it really means that our senses rule us. We are trapped within the group spirit Revelation calls Babylon.

Since the Christ event however, we have been given something quite different. We have been given the spirit, the mind of Christ. This gives us the power to reflect on our actions and our thoughts. We have the power to separate from the rulership of the senses.

For today, let us watch when our senses urge us to make decisions. They may be good decisions, but we are not ruled by them. We can approve these decisions or reject them. We have the mind of Christ.

Now, St Paul says, we have the mind of Christ. This means that somehow or another something has broken through the shell, and once the shell is broken, like a crystal vase, you can never put it together again. The ones who have the mind of Christ are no longer subject to the group spirit of their particular race, culture, religion or whatever. Suddenly that man is no longer natural man anymore, he now has something of that Christ in him. There is a flow between that man and that particular spirit.   

Rev Mario Schoenmaker, The Book of Revelation, 1984 Lecture Series

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