Riptide
Monday, May 16, 2011 at 10:04PM 
I was reading though Jim Powell’s April newsletter (current issue was free) and he made an interesting analogy about a riptide and investments. This same analogy applies to us leaving Babylon the Great. Wikipedia describes a riptide or rip current:
A rip current, commonly referred to by the misnomer rip tide, is a strong channel of water flowing seaward from near the shore, typically through the surf line. Typical flow is at 0.5 meters per second (1–2 feet per second), and can be as fast as 2.5 meters per second (8 feet per second).
I was caught in a riptide when I was in the 4th grade. It was a great time for me as we lived across the street from the Wind ‘n Sea Beach in La Jolla, California. I spent a lot of time at the beach. I was swimming and suddenly realized I had a problem. No matter how hard I swam I was making no progress toward the shore. I did not know what to do but keep swimming toward shore. I got more and more tired and finally began to make some headway. Eventually I reached the shore exhausted. It was exactly the wrong thing to do, as Wikipedia tells:
A swimmer caught in a rip current should not attempt to swim back to shore directly against the rip. This risks exhaustion and drowning. A rip does not pull a swimmer under water; it carries the swimmer away from the shore in a narrow channel of water. The rip is like a treadmill which the swimmer needs to step off. The swimmer should remain calm and swim parallel to the shore until he or she is outside of the current.
In later years I was caught again, but this time I knew to swim along parallel to the shore. Once out of the riptide I was able to swim to shore. In the same way as swimming directly against a riptide can lead to death by drowning, if you fight directly against Babylon the Great it will crush you. A common interpretation of Revelation 18 is that Babylon is a religious symbol. Martin Luther for example, saw it as the Catholic Church, emphasizing the great Whore that rode the Beast. But it is much more than a religious symbol. It is the epitome of everything that is wrong with our world.
Babylon the Great is too powerful to fight it directly. Instead you need to be subtle, do the equivalent of swimming parallel to the shore, do not fight it. Then gradually make your way back to the beach and safety.
For the next few posts I will discuss the various aspects of Babylon the Great and how it affects us—politically, economically, culturally, in entertainment, and yes, in religion.
Leaving Babylon 
Reader Comments (2)
Hmm.... Let's see if we agree.
In life the winner is most often HE WHO DOES NOT LOSE!
In fact, I can argue that in a world and a life that is dominated by the universal element of entropy, that NOT LOSING is indeed winning.
Eddie H. Nessul
Amboy, California