“The message of Revelation 14, announcing the fall of Babylon must apply to religious bodies that were once pure and have become corrupt. Since this message follows the warning of the judgment, it must be given in the last days; therefore it cannot refer to the Roman Church alone, for that church has been in a fallen condition for many centuries.” — Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy,p. 383.

 Daniel 3 — the story of the three Hebrews who had been ordered to “worship the gold image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up” (Dan. 3:5, NKJV) in ancient Babylon — stands as a symbol, a model, of what will happen when spiritual Babylon, in the last days, will enforce worship of a false “image,” as well (see Rev. 13:15; Rev. 14:9, 11; Rev. 16:2; Rev. 19:20; Rev. 20:4). How interesting that the commandment that the three Hebrews would have violated, the second commandment (Exod. 20:4, 5), was one of the two commandments that this power, depicted in another place as seeking “to change times and laws” (Dan. 7:25), had tampered with.

 What was the other commandment it tampered with? Of course, the fourth commandment, which, as we have seen and will see again, sits at the heart of the whole question of worship and will be central in the final crisis when we face the question of whether we will worship the One who “made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day” (Exod. 20:11, NKJV; see also Rev. 14:7), or the beast and his image.

 1. What relationship does the Tower of Babel have to modern spiritual Babylon? What are the similarities between the two?
 2. How do you harmonize two contrasting ideas? Jesus has given authority to His church, but it is dangerous to place our religious experience in the hands of any spiritual leader. What are the limits of church authority?
 3. How can we learn that idolatry, one of the sins of Babylon, isn’t just bowing down to statues? In what ways can even Protestants fall into idolatry?
 4. What are some other parallels you can find between Daniel 3 and the forced worship there, and what we have been warned about in the last days?