Babylon's alluring qualities include reliance on luxury and wealth. In Revelation it says that she lived luxuriously. These qualities are clearly delineated in Revelation 17 and 18. Reliance on luxury and wealth is inter-related with pride and satiety. When combined with other attitudinal factors these become the perfect matrix for producing Laodiceanism in the careless Christian. Satiety means to seek the fullness of everything. It is especially used in regard to seeking food to become full and then go beyond that. Satiety can apply to other things as well. The world is already largely caught up in these things but they are a temptation because they are the perfect matrix for producing Laodiceanism. A matrix is the environment in which something is developed.

Luxury forms part of the system of Babylon through reliance on wealth and the pursuit of satiety. Babylon avoided suffering through the pursuit of satiety as she chose to pursue luxurious pleasure. One of the attractions of Babylon is its luxury. Luxury and pride can lead to boastful self-sufficiency if it is not controlled. A person can allow this to become his high tower. The rich man's wealth is his strong city and as a high wall in his own conceit. Wherever there is idolatry, prostitution, self-glorification, self-sufficiency, pride, complacency, reliance on luxury and wealth, avoidance of suffering, and violence against life there is Babylon. It is not the luxury itself. It is what people allow the luxury, the wealth, to do to them. Babylon's sin includes the combination of economic well-being, pride, and avoidance of suffering. These conditions lead people to seek more and more because what they formerly did is not enough to excite them. They go deeper and deeper into perversion. The materials mentioned are luxury items such as gold, clothing, wine, spices, wood, ivory, pearl, and perfume. This environment is perfect for producing Laodiceanism. The Laodicean proclaims that he is rich and increased with goods and has need of nothing. There is the pride that precedes the fall and the sin occurs when he refuses to suffer and instead compromises in order to avoid it. The avoidance of suffering can be deadly.

Human nature tends to value the wrong things in life such as to eat, drink, and be merry. These things lack eternal worth. Because of this temptation, people's main anxiety concerns accumulating this world's luxuries. The rich man may even have been embarrassed by his inability to store his hoarded wealth, but he never considered using his riches for the benefit of others. A generous person, however, sees the needs of others first. People should sow goodness and generosity so they will reap the same.

The United States is of major concern to the world's nations because they witness America's profligate spending and realize that their economic futures are precariously linked to the American economic system. Americans cannot discipline themselves to go without, clinging to portable computers, high-speed internet, smart phones, movies, television, music downloads, pets, booze, coffee, and education. These indeed have become America's idols.