Page 15 - The Road from Babylon to Zion

These are things that are not easily quantified and observable, but Babylon is living
life from a point of striving to be approved before God and man while Zion is resting
in the life of the Son. Zion is a people of faith.

Perhaps nowhere is this identity of Babylon seen more clearly than in the judgment
that was brought upon Judah and Jerusalem when they were given over into the
hands of ancient Babylon. The duration of Judah’s and Jerusalem’s captivity was
prophesied to be seventy years. This time period was arrived at based on the number
of years that they had failed to let the land know its sabbath rests.

Every seven years Israel was commanded to not till the land, nor plant, nor harvest.
They were to let the land enjoy a sabbath, an annual rest. They should have taken a
lesson from Cain. “Give it a rest Cain. God doesn’t want your sweat and your labor.
He wants your faith.” Even so, the people of Israel were commanded to demonstrate
the principle of rest and live by faith every seventh year. They were to trust God to
provide everything they needed. But man has a problem with faith. Man wants to
trust in his own works to carry him through.

Judah and Jerusalem had not given the land a rest in 490 years. This means the land
had missed seventy of its sabbaths. As a judgment against their lack of faith Yahweh
had the people carried away into captivity and for seventy years the land knew rest.
For seventy years there was no one to till and to plant and to harvest.

II Chronicles 36:20-21
Those who had escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon; and
they were servants to him and to his sons until the rule of the kingdom
of Persia, to fulfill the word of Yahweh by the mouth of Jeremiah, until
the land had enjoyed its sabbaths. All the days of its desolation it kept
sabbath until seventy years were complete.

This is the difference between Babylon and Zion. Babylon is a land of works where
man must accomplish every task and fulfill every mandate. Babylon knows nothing
of rest and faith. Oh yes, Babylon speaks very much about faith, but it is a faith that
is rooted in man’s ability. Babylon’s faith is founded upon man’s ability to envision
some end and to see it through. Babylon is built with blueprints, and planning
sessions, and organization, and fund drives, and pep rallies, and the sweat of untold
men and women. This is why when all is said and done and some project has come
to completion, the people of Babylon feel justified to stand and proclaim:

Daniel 4:30
"Is this not Babylon the great, which I myself have built... by the might
of my power...?”