REVELATION #42 – Judgment Against Jerusalem

Last week we finished up on chapter 17 in which we discovered that the woman sitting on the scarlet beast full of blasphemous names (remember the beast is the one full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns Jerusalem rather than Rome (Rome is what you’ll hear in most commentaries). The reason is that most commentators misread Revelation 17:9 Here’s the mind which has wisdom, the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. They understand the verse to teach that the woman is sitting on seven mountains and since Rome was built upon seven hills, the woman must be Rome. But in a careful reading you notice that it’s the beast on which the woman sits; and the beast then sits on the seven hills. So the beast is Satan and the political entity that he runs. So we find that the woman then is Jerusalem. This makes sense because when we look at the Old Testament references, we see that God has promised that because of Jerusalem’s turning away from Him, He would bring judgment upon her.

We ended up with 17:18 The woman who you saw is the great city which reigns over the kings of the earth. We talked about the fact that Jerusalem reigns over the whole earth, the kings of the whole earth, in the sense that Jerusalem was in a covenantal arrangement with God. That God had made a covenant with Israel. He had said you will be My people and I will be your God. So the people of the world recognized that something special was going on in this arrangement between God and Jerusalem. As we get to Revelation 18 John’s vision continues:

John says: 18:1 After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illumined with his glory. (2) And he cried out with a mighty voice, saying, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! And she has become a swelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird. (3) For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality.”

As we read those words, who or what do you think is the “another angel” that John refers to? Is there anything familiar about this angel? He has great authority…. The earth was illumined with his glory. Does that sound familiar to anybody? It sounds like God, doesn’t it? If we turn back to Ezekiel 43:2…

C: We’re remembering also that when you see the world translated “angel” we forget that the word in its original language is messenger.

R: Yes, we have to remember that. One of the problems for us is that when we read something, like when we read the word angel, we tend to think of a being with wings or playing a harp sitting on a cloud. Most people, when you say angel, they think of someone who has died and has gone to heaven and gotten a golden crown and wings and a harp. A being who lays around on a cloud all day waiting for the cream cheese to come by to put on her bagel (I don’t know if you’ve seen that commercial on T.V.). We tend to think of angels as dead spirits gone to heaven. What are angels? They’re messengers of God. They’re ministering spirits (Hebrews). We will never be angels because we’re human. Angels are created beings, for the most part, because I think the angel being talked about in Revelation 18 is Christ, and Christ is certainly not a created being.

Q: What is the word, do you know off hand? Where it says that God created the angels, is that a different word?

A: No. Not to my knowledge. Normally in Scripture it’s messenger and it has to do not with the being, but with the function. Remember the pastors in the churches of Revelation are called angels. They are angellos, they are messengers. The manifestation that we see in the Old Testament (probably Jesus Christ in a pre-incarnation) is called the (in Hebrew) Malach, or messenger of YHWH, the angel of the Lord is how it’s translated in your English translations.

C: The words are interchanged. These beings, the angels that are created and part of which fell, are messengers. The word is interchanged.

R: Right. As I said it has more to do with their function rather than their being. A function of Satan and the fallen angels is that they’re messengers of lies.

            In Ezekiel 43:1 Then he led me to the gate, the gate facing toward the east; (2) and behold, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the way of the east. And His voice was like the sound of many waters; and the earth shone with His glory. Again you see this incredible shining, glory-phenomenon when God comes. The glory that was so great that Moses’ face shone with the reflected glory of God so that he had to put a veil over his face. People couldn’t stand to be around him because of the reflected light of the glory of God shining from him. Remember that Scripture says that no man can stand before that light. This was the Shekinah glory, the cloud phenomena that was there present before Israel for the forty years that they were in the desert. It was there, day and night. At night it gave them light and during the day there was a cloud part of it that overshadowed them and gave them comfort from the sun.

Q: I like word pictures so I would visualize then like a glare when you’re in a car? That glare?

A: Yes, only much more intense.

Q: I don’t want to get too much more into angels but do you believe and do you know if most commentators believe that these angels have literal wings and in which to cover themselves with?

A: No, to my knowledge…

Q: It says they have wings to cover themselves….

A: Those are not the angels, those are the seraphim, who are a different class of created beings. The seraphim were apparently kind of a super angel as it were, and they are right around God. Ezekiel says there were four, Isaiah says there were four, but they had six wings – two to cover their face, two to fly and two to cover their feet.

Q: Commentators always call them angels.

A: Well, commentators are wrong because the Bible never calls them angels, it calls them seraphim.

Q: So when you see angels in the Old Testament, with Lot or whatever, they appear as men. They wanted to engage in a relationship so they must have looked like men.

A: Well, not in every case. Remember Elijah. When the army had surrounded Elijah and his servant was concerned that they were going to be killed and Elijah prays and says open his eyes Lord, and God opened his eyes and he saw this angelic host surrounding them, protecting them. I’m talking off the top of my head here, but I don’t recall any place in the Old Testament where it really talks about angels appearing to men with wings. But the picture that you do see in the Old Testament is apparently this glory cloud was made up of angels, Chilton goes into that in detail. Part of the sound that you hear, remember Ezekiel talks about this rushing water, rushing wind sound, is apparently caused by the beating of the angels’ wings, the heavenly host. That’s speculation, the Bible doesn’t clearly say that. But, you do see this rushing wind sound whenever God comes in judgment. Remember I’ve talked about that before, that particularly in the garden of Eden I think the Bible is mistranslated at that point when it says after the fall, that Adam and Eve heard God walking in the garden in the wind of the day (in the Hebrew) but it’s translated the cool of the day, like a cool zephyr breeze blowing. I don’t think that’s what was going on at all. I think the reason that they were afraid and hid is because they heard this incredible shrieking, trumpet, rushing wind sound of God coming in judgment and they knew they were in big trouble. It’s like I remember when I was a kid having done something wrong and hearing my dad yell at me, and I knew I was in big trouble just by the sound. I think that’s what we see going on there.

            This angel then is probably Christ because he had great authority and the earth was illumined with his glory and you don’t see words like that when we’re talking about any other angel, other than the angel of the Lord, the pre-incarnate Christ or Christ in an angelic form. (2) And he cried out with a mighty voice, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! And she has become a swelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird. That verse, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, is probably a reference to Amos 5:1 Hear this word which I take up for you as a dirge, o house of Israel. (2) She has fallen, she will not rise again- the virgin Israel. She lies neglected on her land; There is not to raise her up. (3) For thus says the Lord God, “The city which goes forth a thousand strong will have a hundred left, and the one which goes forth a hundred strong will have ten left to the house of Israel.” And he goes on to talk about the judgment coming upon Israel. He says even though you built houses of well hewn stone you will not live in them… In all the streets they will say “Alas, alas and there will be wailing in all the plazas…” So this terrible destruction is prophesied against Israel, against Jerusalem and I think that’s what is being referred to here.

            Notice again, we’ve said this before, that God is now referring to Israel as Babylon (in Revelation). Can you imagine? Here is Israel, the bride of Christ, Jerusalem was the capital city of this nation that was called out by God, and now God Himself is referring to her as Babylon the great, because of her disobedience. What’s the message for us today in the church? Is there any correlation here? Does this have any relevance to us?

C: In a more technical sense I think I’ve heard more people refer to Israel as like the bride of Jehovah and the church as the bride of Christ.

R: That’s kind of a dispensational point of view because the church is one throughout the ages, so the bride of YHWH is the bride of Christ, because YHWH is Christ. So there’s no distinct difference between the Old Testament church, Israel who belonged to YHWH, and the New Testament church who belongs to Christ. When you look at Scripture, they’re all the same bride.

C: Looking here at Amos and the date they have here in my Bible is 792-740 BC so why should I believe that prophecy isn’t talking about similar things that Isaiah and Jeremiah are talking about that are going to come on Israel soon, rather than later as in Revelation.

R: Specifically it may be talking about something that was going to come upon Jerusalem soon. If I communicated that it was the same as that being spoken of in Revelation, I apologize because that’s not what I intended. All I’m saying is that the same words that Amos uses to condemn Israel for her apostasy are used in Revelation again of Israel for her apostasy. So you see that parallel and Christ; and I think this angel is Christ, is not calling Israel - the bride of Christ, his bride – the bride of God – he’s calling Israel, Babylon the great, because her sins were so incredibly bad.

Q: So you’re not saying that was the prophecy…

A: Of the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD? No. Just that the language is the same.

Q: Maybe I missed this, but how do you know this Babylon the great is Israel as opposed to being Babylon, that we know to be Babylon?

A: Back in 17:5, (v4) …the woman sitting on the scarlet beast… (5) and upon her forehead a name was written a mystery, “Babylon the great, the mother of harlots…” and we went through that; is Jerusalem.

C: You asked us a question! Apostate churches!

R: How do you mean apostate churches?

C: One’s that aren’t following God’s word!

R: Amen. How does this message in Revelation relate to us today? What is the church supposed to do? Follow the word of her husband. Submit to her husband. What does God do when she does not do that?

C: Let’s be specific. You take a church that starts out preaching the gospel as an institution, I don’t know if you want to say the Methodists’ did or whatever, maybe they preached an evangelical message we’ve seen blessings that follow, but many would say Wesley was a heretic for his Armenian views of man’s basic goodness, but let’s assume for the time being that they were legitimate Christian church when they started, and now they’re ordaining homosexuals, they’re full speed ahead endorsing abortion rights, murdering children….

R: Right. But not everybody in Israel was sinning either.

C: So this would be an example of a church…there are Presbyterian churches that have fallen away…so you’re saying that these would be apostate churches that need to heed this warning?

R: Yes, absolutely. What we see is this picture of God calling a people out to Himself and expecting them to do what He says. When they do not, bad things happen. The destruction of Jerusalem. I think that’s one reason we see the church so powerless in the world today, for the most part, particularly in America. Because the leaders in the church in America have fallen away from the message of God’s word and they’re preaching the message of man. They’re preaching homosexuality is OK, ordination of women is OK, whatever is OK. Denying the doctrine of the trinity, basically denying Christ in many cases. I think God continues to pour out His judgment upon the church. Why is it that we see the liberal churches are all in decline, and all the conservative churches are growing rapidly? Why is that? The truth shall prevail. I think clearly God is blessing those churches that are preaching the truth.

C: Mormonism is exploding in numbers. If I’m a skeptic, I sit here and say ‘well here’s a contradiction to your thesis.’

R: No, I’m not saying that there’re not other religions that are growing, I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying that in America, what we see is the liberal Christian churches are all in decline, that’s documented. The conservative Christian churches are all on the rise. Now, yes, Hinduism is growing throughout some parts of the world, Islam is one of the fastest growing religions in the United States, Mormonism is one of the fastest growing religions in the world. But, when you look at the Christian churches in America, you see this decline among the liberals.

C: I look around and I don’t see that

R: You don’t see that, that’s true. But if you read reports from men like George Barna who do this for a living, who go out and statistically count what’s going on in the churches, they’ve documented that the conservative churches are growing.

C: He’s probably thinking of what he would view of as a wishy-washy evangelical church with a compromising message. I’m thinking of these older Methodist churches, these older liberal Presbyterian churches, they are, you can see them dwindling.

C: Take a look at England for example. They have churches that were at the center of the reformation, these churches are now practically empty and they have an actual government body that’s looking at how to re-use the church in some other fashion so they don’t lose the architecture aspect. That’s again because they became very liberal and they declined.

            Going on we see that (2) …she has become a swelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird. Now here is the bride of Christ who God had said He would protect and care for and bless, and now she is the dwelling place of demons. Chilton goes into a little thing here, I don’t want to dwell on it a whole lot but he says “In contrast to the new Jerusalem in Revelation 21:27 when nothing unclean shall ever come into it, the harlot is a wilderness having been made desolate for her sins.” He points out that following ceremony on the highest holy day in Judaism, the Day of Atonement – Yom Kippur, a goat was driven into the wilderness, this was the scapegoat. Remember there were two goats, they were brought to the altar and the high priest, representing the people, laid his hand on the head of the goat (the scapegoat) and that goat then was sent into the wilderness, representing our sins being laid upon the goat, and then that goat is taken into the wilderness. The other goat was sacrificed. In regard to Christ, that tells us He bears our sin. Our sins were laid upon Him, Isaiah says. He bore the burden for our sins, He was sent out into the wilderness away from God, which is what the scapegoat symbology represents.

So here Chilton says, “the scapegoat was literally said to be sent to or for Azazel, which is mentioned in Leviticus and is the name for the goat demon who lived in the wilderness.” He goes through several places where this goat demon idea is mentioned in Scripture. So here we have a representation of the sin being sent out to the goat demon. But what Chilton is reminding us of is that Jerusalem, which had been God’s dwelling place, has now become the unclean dwelling place of demons. Because the leadership in Israel was not preaching a true message. Because they had turned away from God. Because they had formed an alliance with Rome and with all the other kings of the earth. Because instead of worship they were doing commerce at the temple. God says this is it. I’m done. You’re now Babylon the great. You are now going to be a wilderness rather than the dwelling place of God.

(3) For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality.” Jody was telling me before class that as he was reading that, he was thinking, how in the world is it that the kings of the earth become rich with the wealth of the sensuality of Jerusalem? You would think that this is talking about Rome. Because, when we think in terms of Jerusalem, we think of figs, oil, not much in the way of commerce. Let me read from Chilton on verse 3: “Israel’s abandonment and perversion of her calling as teacher priest to the nations is again stated to be the reason for her destruction. She has committed fornication with the nations, with the kings, with the merchants. Prostituting her gifts instead of leading the nations to the kingdom. Joining with them in the attempted overthrow of the king. The stress on the merchants is most likely related to the commercial activities around the temple. The corruption of temple commerce affected the liturgy of the nation. All of life flows from the religious center of culture. If the core is rotten, the fruit is worthless. This is why Jesus came into conflict with the temple moneychangers. Observing that many of the shops belonged to the family of the high priest, Ford cites Josephus’ characterization of the high priest Ananias as the great procurer of money. In particular, the court of the gentiles appears to have been the scene of a flourishing trade in animal sacrifice. Perhaps supported by the high priestly family. This would agree with the observation already made that Babylon is no ordinary prostitute, her punishment by fire indicates that she is of the priestly class.” Remember that we talked about the fact that the daughter of the priest who was engaged in adultery or fornication was taken out and burned, and it talks about the harlot will be burned with fire. So very likely what is going on here is that John is saying the judgement of Babylon the great has to do with a priestly function. God had commanded all males in Israel to come to the temple three times a year and worship. They were required to bring a sacrifice. That sacrifice had to be unblemished. Josephus and others writers tell us that what would happen is you would bring your sacrifice into the court of the gentiles, the outer court of the temple, and one of the Levites would say, ‘well, yes there’s a dark spot on the leg, we can’t take that one. He’s blemished. By the way, we’ve got some kosher ones over here which we’ll sell you. But, you’re money’s not any good here because we only accept the temple coin. But we’ll be glad to exchange your money for temple coin at the going rate.’ So they were getting him twice. Not only would you lose in the exchange rate, but then you had to buy their kosher animal at an inflated price. Then they would take your animal around the temple and put him in with the kosher ones. That’s what was going on in the temple. The priests were getting rich. I remember Annanias was one of the one’s before whom Christ appeared. Josephus’ characterization of the high priest Annanias was as the great procurer or money. He had forgotten what his function was, to be a representative of the people and to serve the people. He was using his position to gain great wealth.

C: You think of the Jim Bakkers and these other people with air conditioned dog houses. Nothing changes, does it?

R: Nothing changes. There’s nothing new under the sun. Man is man. But, the message for us is that God is very, very upset when we do things like that.

C: You look at Israel under Judges or under Kings and they were doing the same things they were doing in Jesus’ time. Over and over again.

Q: You’ve still got verse 11 which says “And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, because no one buys their merchandise any more.” The other question I have is that my translation says the wrath of her fornication, they committed fornication with her. Yours says immorality. Which is more accurate?

A: It depends on how you want to look at it. The word is porneaia, from which we get pornography. It means either like adultery or fornication, or it can mean something less, or it has the idea of just your thought life, immorality. So it has kind of a broad range of meaning. So either translation is OK. The point is still made that she was in an adulterous alliance with the kings of the earth. That she was not doing what God had commanded her to do, which is to be a testimony and a witness for Him.

Q: The point is to go to the point of proving that it’s Jerusalem though, if it’s talking specifically about fornication or adultery, it makes your point better.

A: Yes, but we tend to think of adultery and fornication in a particular way, as a sexual kind of thing. But God doesn’t. When you look at the Old Testament, He talks about Israel being an adulterous bride but He’s not talking in a sexual way, He’s talking spiritual. It’s turning away from submitting ourselves to God and submitting ourselves to other things.

Q: Wouldn’t that contribute to the idea that it is Israel or Jerusalem, because Rome isn’t God’s bride.

A: Yes, absolutely.

C: … or adultery it would clearly show that they’re married to God and they turned away and committed fornication with the kings of the earth.

R: Right. Exactly. If we think of Babylon the great as Rome, how is it that the kings of the earth have committed immorality with Rome? They’re not in a relationship to God. That’s what he’s saying. Israel is. Jerusalem is. So the fact that there was this alliance between Jerusalem and the kings of the earth meant that she was turning away from God and turning to these kings.

As far as the merchandise, let me read from Chilton regarding verses 11-17a: “The second largest group of mourners is comprised of the merchants of the land weeping because no one buys their cargoes anymore. The wealth of Jerusalem was a direct result of the blessings promised in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. God had made her a great commercial center but she had abused the gift.” When we think of Jerusalem, we think of this little city in Palestine. We don’t think of her as a great commercial city which she was during that period of time. Chilton says, “While there are similarities between the list of goods here and that in Ezekiel 27:12-24, which is a prophecy against Tyre, it is likely that the items primarily reflect the temple and the commerce surrounding it. Ford observes that foreign trade had a great influence on the holy city and the temple drew the largest share. The chief items were food supplies, precious metals, luxury goods and clothing materials. Josephus described the luxurious wealth of the temple’s façade. See for instance Luke 21:5. The first gate was 70 cubits high, (a cubit was a foot and a half. So this thing was 105 feet high) and 25 feet broad. It had no doors, displaying unhampered the vast expanse of heaven. The entire face was covered with gold.”

Q: What is this again?

A: The gate to the temple in Jerusalem.

Q: Literally?

A: Literally.

            “Through it the arch of the first hall was fully visible to an onlooker without in all its grandeur and the surroundings of the inner gate all gleaming with gold struck the beholders eye. The gate opening into the building as I said was completely overlaid with gold as was the whole wall surrounding it. Above it moreover were the golden grapevines from which hung grape clusters as tall as a man. In front of these hung a veil of equal length of Babylonian tapestry embroidered with blue, scarlet and purple and fine linen wrought with marvelous craftsmanship.” This is the veil that ripped when Christ was crucified. “The exterior of the sanctuary did not lack anything that could amaze either mind or eye. Overlaid on all sides with massive plates of gold, it reflected in the first rays of sun so fierce a flash, that those looking at it were forced to look away as from the very rays of the sun. To strangers as they approached it, it seemed in the distance like a mountain clad with snow for any part not covered with gold, was of purest white.”

            See, we tend to think of Jerusalem as it is today. A little backwater town that all these millions of people go to for some reason. Since we’ve never seen the temple and most of us have never even read anything about it, we don’t understand that it was the focal point of Judaism and it was this incredible place. You talk about a wonder of the world! Like it says, the gate was 105 feet high and almost 50 feet wide; covered completely with gold, and the walls on either side of it were covered with gold. The building had golden grapevines on the outside of the façade, with great clusters as tall as a man, all of gold. Jewels all over the outside. That’s why, when you look at Luke, the apostles said to Jesus, ‘Look at these buildings here! They’re marvelous!’

Q: They were in that kind of shape in Jesus’ day?

A: Yes.

Q: I thought it was torn, it was destroyed.

A: No. Josephus is describing the temple that was torn down in 70 AD.

Q: The original one was even more glorious?

A: Solomon’s temple was even more glorious. This is what was called Herod’s temple. It was built over a period of 70+ years.

C: It’s no wonder Jesus was so disgusted when he saw what was really going on.

R: Absolutely! And they were proud of the wrong thing. They were proud of the beauty of this building.

C: That wasn’t idolatry! [sarcasm]

R: That was not idolatry, you got it right! They had made an idol of the temple, rather than obedience to the God who dwelled in the temple, not in that particular time but in earlier times, and who had given them the ability to build the temple. They lost focus again.

C: They were thinking they were building the temple.

R: Yes, ‘look at all we’ve done.’

Q: Could it be that he may be referring back to the time of Solomon?

A: As far as what?

Q: As far as Israel really being the splendor of all the earth.

A: Yes, that’s what Chilton has said. Remember that God had promised in Leviticus and Deuteronomy it you obey Me, I will bless you far beyond what you can imagine. And he had done that in the temple of Solomon. Remember that Solomon’s kingdom extended basically from almost the Nile, all the way up around the Mediterranean all the way to what we call Baghdad, Iraq and Iran. That was all Solomon’s kingdom. Because he was obedient to God. Because of disobedience, of course, bad things happen.

 We’ll get more into it next week, but the merchandising thing, there was a great commerce going on with Jerusalem, and Chilton goes into that pretty good.