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What Should Be Our Attitude Towards Babylon?

Thank you D____,

I think you are right. I have given several talks and I have written many times that the church is "the world" of scripture. Babylon is not what Paul is talking about when he is talking of "one who is called a brother" in 1 Corinthians 5:

1Co 5:11 But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.
The greater church of Paul's day was what is referred to as "the church in the wilderness:" It was the church out of which all of the apostles and the earliest new covenant Christians came. It was the "Babylon the Great" of its day. It was Judaism:
Act 7:38 This is he [Moses], that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him [Moses] in the mount Sinai, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us:
We do not attempt to either change or convert Babylon:

Gen 31:52 This heap be witness, and this pillar be witness, that I [Laban-Babylon] will not pass over this heap to thee, and that thou shalt not pass over this heap and this pillar unto me, for harm.
Gen 31:53 The God of Abraham, and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge betwixt us. And Jacob [typifying God's elect] sware by the fear of his father Isaac.
Am I saying that we are not to witness against Babylon's sins? Absolutely not! We must do so. That is what is in the 'little book' of Revelation 10 and of Ezekiel 2-3. It is all the "lamentation, mourning and woe" pronounced by God upon Babylon. We must witness to Babylon's deceits:
Gen 31:41 Thus have I been twenty years in thy house; I served thee fourteen years for thy two daughters, and six years for thy cattle: and thou hast changed my wages ten times.
Gen 31:7 And your father [Laban-Babylon] hath deceived me, and changed my wages ten times; but God suffered him not to hurt me.
It is only by the providence and grace of God that we are not still deceived by Babylon as the masses of "historical orthodox Christianity" are to this very day.

While we are to witness against Babylon we are not to:
Rev 17:16 (b) ...hate the whore, and... make her desolate and naked, and... eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.

As with all of the 'was' and 'will be' applications of scriptures we all have indeed "hated the whore," Babylon when we initially see what fools we were taken for. The 'will be' part of this verse is fulfilled for the same reason. But the 'is' fulfillment of this verse is looking back "behind us to see the voice speaking to us;" and getting past the feelings of resentment against all the things that must be experienced in Babylon in order to even see the need to "come out of her my people..."

Rev 1:10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,

Rev 1:12 And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks;
It is the ten horns on the beast who "make war with the lamb:"

Rev 17:11 And the beast [each of us] that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.
Rev 17:12 And the ten horns which thou sawest [on the beast-you, me, etc.] are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
Rev 17:13 These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.
Rev 17:14 These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called [out of the world], and chosen [out of the called], and faithful [unlike Judas, God's elect endure to the end].
It is those who have a 'was' or a 'will be' only Christ, who fail to see the "Is, Was and Will Be" Christ, who cannot look behind them to see all of this accomplished in themselves (ourselves) NOW. While yet in this clay tabernacle, those who comprise the 'was and will be' only Christians fail to experience and overcome the desire to get even with Babylon for all of her "deceiving me, and "changing my wages ten times." God's faithful-to-the-end elect overcome all of the sins of the churches mentioned in the first two chapters of Revelation. They repent of all of their failures and are able to "look behind them" to see what God has brought them through in all of "the sayings of the prophecies of this book."
Rev 1:3 Blessed [is] he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.
Few indeed are those who understand how "the time is at hand" can have an application now which has also been true for nearly two thousand years. But those who do understand, do not make a spectacle of Babylon except as it is still in them being burned out.

It is only "them are within;" it is only "one who is called a brother" but is living in spiritual fornication, who is to be "judged" and after two admonitions "rejected... and turned over to Satan for the destruction of his [spiritual] flesh" which God's elect are to judge at this time:
1Co 5:12 For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within?

1Co 5:3 For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed,
1Co 5:4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
1Co 5:5 To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
We are to judge those that are within, because if we do not, the simple Truth is:

1Co 5:6 (b)... a little leaven [false doctrines - the "leaven of the hypocritical Pharisees"] leaveneth the whole lump?
1Co 5:7 Purge out therefore the old leaven [false doctrines], that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
It is accentuating one verse of God's Word at the expense of many others, which has a divided carnal "historical orthodox Christian church" where it is today - in the death throes of the cancer of tolerance of every false doctrine the Adversary can dream up. Instead of "trying the spirits to see whether they be of God," all anyone ever quotes is "Judge not that ye be not judged." As one brother shouted at me "how can you tell people to judge and at the same time tell them to judge not?" It is another of many paradoxes of scripture which becomes perfectly clear when we see that there is always an inward, spiritual application which is invariably the exact opposite of the outward physical application: "He that loses his life [forfeits the pleasures of the flesh at this time] shall find it" [through physical death].

This is, of course, foolishness to the flesh:
1Co 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
I hope this all has helped you to see that while we are in covenant not to hurt Babylon or as you say "make a spectacle of her", we are yet to come out of Babylon and to witness against her deceits and false doctrines.

Mike