Reader, this is the work of reformation that God is now accomplishing in the world.  Babylon is spiritually fallen, and God is calling his people out.  In the well-known Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary, Rev. A.R.  Fausset, commenting on Rev. 18:4, has well said:  “Even in the Romish Church, God has a people; but they are in great danger; their only safety is in coming out of her at once.  So also in every apostate or world-conforming church, there are some of God’s visible and true church, who, if they would be safe, must come out.”

When literal Babylon was overthrown, the Jews escaped to their own land.  Likewise God’s people in spiritual Babylon are commanded to come out, and with songs of rejoicing they are to make their way to Mount Zion, and then lend all their efforts to the one work of restoring primitive truth, thus making Jerusalem “the joy of the whole earth.”  Like the Jews of old, “the ransomed of the Lord shall return and COME TO ZION with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads:  they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away” (Isa. 35:10).

The Psalmist informs us that in Babylon the Jews hung their harps on the willows and wept when they remembered Zion.  When their captors demanded of them the songs of Zion, they answered despairingly, “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” (Psa. 137:1-4).  Zion’s songs were songs of deliverance; hence the Jews could not sing them in captivity.  So also has it been in spiritual Babylon.  But when the ransomed of the Lord “return and come to Zion,” “songs and everlasting joy” break forth again.

The Revelator describes this glorious result after the period of the apostasy in these words:  “And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire:  and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.  And they sing the song of Moses [a song of deliverance] the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb [a song of redemption]” (Rev. 15:2, 3).  Those who have returned from Babylon have heavenly harps and can sing the songs of Zion.  Praise God!

  “From Babel confusion most gladly I fled,
  And came to the heights of fair Zion instead;
  I’m feasting this moment on heavenly bread;
    I’ll never go back, I’ll never go back.

  “The beast and his image, his mark, and his name,
  My love or allegiance no longer can claim,
  Though men may exalt them to honor and fame;
    I’ll never go back again.”