REVELATION #44 – Judgment Against Babylon

We’re still in chapter 18, talking about the judgment of Jerusalem who is, in Revelation, called Babylon the great. We saw that in verse 1 …another angel coming down from heaven… Again, I believe that’s Jesus Christ. He had great authority and the earth was illumined with his glory. We talked about that last week. We talked about the fact that John hears another voice from heaven in verse 4 saying “Come out of her my people…” and how the “her” must be Jerusalem because it wouldn’t make sense to tell the Christians to come out of Rome. Rome wasn’t specifically any more wicked than any other city and also if it’s Rome in general as the leader of the pagan world, then it wouldn’t make any sense because the voice would then be telling them to come out of the world. Then in verse 6 is says “Pay back to her (to Babylon the great) even as she has paid,…” and double the double is the way the Greek reads there. This is the idea of double punishment for sins. …according to her deeds; in the cup which she has mixed, mix twice as much for her. (v7) To the degree that she glorified herself and lived sensuously, to the same degree give her torment and mourning; for she says in her heart, ‘I sit as a queen and I am not a widow, and will never see mourning.’” What you see going on here is Jerusalem, who is supposed to be the bride of Christ, instead is saying “I’m the queen of heaven, I’m in charge, I’m higher than God.” She’s doing the same thing that Eve did in the garden when Eve saw the fruit and the serpent tempted her and said God knows that in the day that you eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will become like God. That’s the temptation. That when we sin, we’re ignoring what God is saying. We’re ignoring His commandments and doing what we think is right. So that’s what you see going on here with Jerusalem.

This is a quote from Isaiah 47:6-11 where God is condemning Babylon, the real Babylon, and saying the reason is that she lifts herself up, that she’s prideful. So again here you see this idea that Christ is comparing Jerusalem, who is supposed to be the bride of Christ, to Babylon, and calling her not only Babylon but Babylon the great. She’s even worse than the original Babylon.

(8) For this reason in one day her plagues will come, pestilence and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; We talked about the fact that the penalty for adultery in the Old Testament was stoning. But in the case of the daughter of a priest, the punishment was burning by fire because she had a special privilege. She had a special relationship with God since she was in the priestly family. So because of Jerusalem’s special relationship with God, she’s condemned to be judged by fire and burned up. We ended up last week with the fact that Josephus tells us that the city of Jerusalem was leveled by the Romans to the extent that if you walked there after the Romans left, you would not have known there was even a city there. Today we don’t see that. We see really old buildings and we think of Jerusalem as the eternal city. So all the buildings that we see there were built after 70 AD. Everything else was destroyed and leveled by the Romans.

(9) “And the kings of the earth, who committed acts of immorality and lived sensuously with her, will weep and lament over her when they see the smoke of her burning, standing at a distance because of the fear of her torment, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! For in one hour your judgment has come.’ (11) And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, because no one buys their cargoes any more; (12) cargoes of gold and silver and precious stones and pearls and fine linen and purple and silk and scarlet, and every kind of citron wood and every article of ivory and every article made from very costly wood and bronze and iron and marble, (13) and cinnamon and spice and incense and perfume and frankincense and wine and olive oil and fine flour and wheat and cattle and sheep, and cargoes of horses and chariots and slaves and human lives. (14) And the fruit you long for has gone from you, and all things that were luxurious and splendid have passed away from you and men will no longer find them. (15) The merchants of these things, who became rich from her, will stand at a distance because of the fear of her torment, weeping and mourning, (16) saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, she who was clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls; (17) for in one hour such great wealth has been laid waste!’ And every shipmaster and every passenger and sailor, and as many as make their living by the sea, stood at a distance, (18) and were crying out as they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, ‘What city is like the great city?’ (19) And they threw dust on their heads and were crying out, weeping and mourning, saying, ‘Woe, woe the great city, in which all who had ships at sea became rich by her wealth, for in one hour she has been laid waste!’ (20) Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, because God has judged your judgment against her.”

What we see here is three groups of people crying out “Woe, woe the great city.” That phrase is mentioned three times in verse 10, 16 and verse 19 by each one of these three groups. The first group in verse 9 are the kings of the earth. The second group in verse 11 are the merchants of the earth. Then in verse 17 …every shipmaster and every passenger and sailor, and as many as make their living by the sea,… So you see these three groups: the kings, the merchants and the sailors crying out over the judgment of Babylon the great, which I’m saying I believe is Jerusalem. Why would the kings of the earth and the merchants of the world and the sailors be so upset about the destruction of a little tiny town in Palestine? It was a major trade center. We don’t tend to think of it that way. We don’t tend to think of the commercial aspect of Jerusalem. We tend to think of it as a sleepy little town in Palestine where Christ was killed. It was right at the intersection of the major trade routes and God had promised in the Old Testament that if Jerusalem was obedient, that He would bless them materially, just as He promises us. If we are obedient to Him, He will bless us materially.

You see that when we look at Jerusalem in history, it was an incredibly rich trade city. Chilton quotes from another author Alfred Eidersheim who wrote a book called The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. He’s done a lot of research into Jerusalem at the time of Jesus. Chilton says: “In the midst of a lengthy passage describing Jerusalem’s extensive commerce, Eidersheim reports in these streets and lanes everything might be purchased, the production of Palestine or imported from foreign lands. Nay the rarest articles from the remotest parts exquisitely shaped, curiously designed in jeweled cups, rings and other workmanship of precious metals, glass, silks, fine linen, wool and stuffs, purple and costly hangings, essences, ointments and perfumes as precious as gold. Articles of food and drink from foreign lands. In short, what India, Persia, Arabia, Media, Egypt, Italy, Greece and even the far off lands of the Gentiles yielded might be had in these bazaars. Ancient Jewish writings enable us to identify no fewer than 118 different articles of import from foreign lands covering more than even modern luxury has devised.”

In other words, we tend to think of Jerusalem as this little dusty city in Palestine. But Jerusalem in the time of Christ was a major trade center which imported more than many cities today. You could find just about anything from the world in the city of Jerusalem. The merchants then, were making incredible profits through selling stuff in Jerusalem. Not only that, one of the other things that we find is that a lot of that trade was controlled by the priests in the temple. That’s why Jesus got so upset when He walked into the temple, if you remember, twice in the New Testament, and drove out the moneychangers with whips because their focus was on trade and not on the worship of God. So the merchants and the kings, because they were also involved in an alliance with the priests, were rightly upset when they saw their profits going away. They saw the city being destroyed and they realized that they’re not going to be able to do the trade anymore because the city was going to be destroyed.

So, the kings are upset because their alliance goes away. The merchants are upset because their profit goes away. What about the sailors? Why sailors? They’re involved in all the importing and exporting. Revelation 18:17 And every shipmaster and every passenger and sailor, and as many as make their living by the sea, stood at a distance, (18) and were crying out as they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, ‘What city is like the great city?’ Again you see illusions, and they’re not specific here, but you see illusions in the text to what was going on with the city of Jerusalem. When you look in the Old Testament, you see things like ‘What god is like our God?’ and here they’re saying ‘What city is like the great city?’ What might they be saying in that? They’re putting Jerusalem up on a pedestal. They’re putting Jerusalem up on a par with God. What god is like YHWH? What god is like our God? The pagans are saying ‘What city is like the great city?’ They’re putting that city right up there because remember this was the focus of their trade. This was the focus of their profit. So… (19) And they threw dust on their heads and were crying out, weeping and mourning, saying, ‘Woe, woe the great city, in which all who had ships at sea became rich by her wealth, for in one hour she has been laid waste!’ Again we need to be careful about looking at Scripture. When it says “one hour”, what does it mean? It means more like all at once. I don’t think it means in one specific hour. Remember that Titus and the Roman army laid siege around Jerusalem two years. They were there two years and all that time, they were trying to break down the walls of the city. They were throwing the rocks over the walls with the ballistas, they were killing people. Remember that inside Jerusalem there were three factions who were fighting among themselves because they couldn’t get out because of the Romans, and the food was going away. So the destruction doesn’t come in one hour, but it comes suddenly. We’ve talked before about the fact that the Christians understood the message of Christ in Matthew 24 “When you see the abomination of desolation standing before the temple, flee to the mountains.” The Christians saw that Roman army coming in and they fled. They dropped everything and ran to the mountains. The Jews went to Jerusalem. Remember there were some 2 million people trapped in Jerusalem, walled up by the Romans and unable to get out and unable to get food or anything in. They did have some food and they had plenty of water remember, but two years cooped up.

Q: So are we still in this thinking of figurative, not literal?

A: I think that it’s figurative in that the one hour is not a single 60 minute time slot as we think of.

Q: The merchants crying out and the people being sad that the city…

A: Again, I think it’s a situation where they saw their livelihood going away. Remember that Jerusalem is this tremendous trade center with a huge import/export business, and an alliance with the kings of the earth, and so they saw their livelihood going away.

Q: This is more literal there then than the plagues?

A: I think we need to be careful when we’re saying it’s more literal. Again, remember we talked before about the hailstones of 100 lbs. and how very likely it’s not talking about literal hailstones, it’s talking about rocks that the Romans were throwing with their ballistas. Remember that Josephus tells us they were about 100 lbs. weight and that the Romans painted them white initially. So when it says in Revelation when the hailstones came, men blasphemed God. Remember that Josephus records that when these hailstones were coming, the Jews could see them coming because they were white and they would cry ‘Here comes the son.’ Remember this was blasphemy because they understood the prophecy. Then the Romans of course stopped painting them white and they couldn’t see them any more, and they started doing great damage to the people. So yes, there’s some literal here and there’s some that’s symbolic. It’s symbolic in the fact that Jerusalem didn’t actually rule over the whole world, although this is saying that Babylon the great was pretty much the center of the whole world. We talked before about how probably that’s talking about the covenantal arrangement. That God was in covenant with Jerusalem. He had made His covenant with the people of Jerusalem, with the Jews, and that because of that covenant, God’s grace went out into the whole world. Just like the church. God is in covenant with the church. Because of that, the whole world receives grace. Just the very fact that there are Christians in the world, means that people receive grace because God is doing good for His people. So the wicked are not yet receiving the just reward of their wickedness because God is delaying because of His people.

Q: But what’s actually going on here is that John is having a vision. He’s not necessarily seeing these events taking place. He’s just hearing an angel speak of these events.

A: Yes. I think what’s going on here is that John is being told, remember this is a prophecy, John is hearing this prophecy and seeing the visions. A prophecy I believe of what was going to happen to Jerusalem in 70 AD. I think this was written probably about 63-64 AD and so it was a prophecy of something that was about to happen very quickly. Remember in chapter 1 he said ‘the time is at hand, the things which must shortly take place.’ Then in Revelation 22 he repeats that, ‘the time is at hand, the things which must shortly take place.’ So again, it was a letter of comfort to Jewish Christians who were about to be persecuted not only by the Jews, but by the Romans, and that God was saying ‘I’m still in control, and here’s what’s going to happen to those people, even though they’re going to persecute you for a little while.’ So I think that what John is seeing here is a prophecy about what would happen to Jerusalem in 70 AD.

Notice in verse 20: Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, because God has judged your judgment against her.” In the original language, in the Greek, it says God has judged your judgment against her. The New American Standard translates it God has pronounced judgment for you against her. But really it is, God has judged your judgment against her. Remember that the early Christians prayed for the destruction of Rome and they prayed for the destruction of the apostate church. We tend not to do that. In fact, some people read some of the imprecatory psalms and they get really upset. God is an old “meanie” here. But notice that the Bible is not shy about saying that God has judged your judgment against Jerusalem. In other words, he saying to the Christians who had been praying for the destruction of the apostate church, God is answering your prayers. So this is not a bad thing, this is a good thing. He’s saying God hears you, God understands and God will take action. That’s what John is seeing in this vision in this prophecy. The church rejoices when the ungodly are destroyed. In the church today, do you see people rejoicing when the ungodly are destroyed? No. Why not? We think it’s terrible. Why do we think it’s terrible when bad things happen to bad people? That’s a trick question! There’s a humanist kind of atmosphere in our culture particularly that says all men are good. Why do we have prisons? We think we can reform people. These poor people have been brought up incorrectly. They didn’t have an opportunity, they didn’t have the right teaching so we put them in prison and the idea is that if we can just give them the right opportunity, the right education, they will change because basically all men are good. That’s what the idea is. By the way, for those of you who don’t know, I was a police officer for about 3 years many years ago and my father was a state prison captain down in Florida. So I’m intimately familiar with what goes on in prisons and the attitude of those people involved in that system. I’m not speaking off the top of my head here.

What does the Bible say about men? They’re desperately wicked. Every thought is against God. It’s only when God changes our heart that we come to God. Should we then go out and say ‘You dirty rotten sinner you’re going to hell! I’m going to pray that God takes you’? No. We talked about that last week. What should we do?

C: Tell them God loves you and has a wonderful plan for them. (laughter)

R: That may or may not be true.

C: I find it interesting what Chilton says where he’s talking about the church must pray for our enemies defeat. I think it’s interesting here it’s a defeat that must be by conversion or destruction.

R: Bingo! Conversion is the key. Why do we treat sinful people in a loving way? Because Christ commanded us to. Number two because God may use us in our loving behavior toward them to change their heart and bring them into the kingdom. We don’t know who are going to be saved. You don’t know whether I’m going to be saved. I can stand up here and tell you I’m saved, but you can’t look into my heart. You don’t know what my heart really is and I don’t know what your heart is. I can look at your behavior – when you tell me you’re a Christian or I tell you I’m a Christian and I behave consistent with that profession, then that’s fine. But, I can’t look at anybody else’s heart. Therefore, I need to behave in a loving way toward everybody in the prayer and hope that God would change their heart and bring them into the kingdom. If He doesn’t, then I’m going to be praising the Lord with all the other saints for all those people that are in hell because they are being held for their own just reward, for their own sinfulness.

Q: What do you think it means then when Paul says love does not rejoice for unrighteousness? I’ll give you a quick example. When Clinton was impeached, I was tickled pink. I was giggling, I was ha ha ha, I was happy. Personally I enjoyed seeing him embarrassed. But then I thought about that verse and I thought here I am, so, what’s the application?

A: Well love does not rejoice in unrighteousness. Why? Why should we not rejoice in unrighteousness? It’s contrary to God. It’s against what God says to do. When we see unrighteousness in people, what it means is that those people don’t understand who God is and what their responsibility to Him is. So no, we don’t want to rejoice in unrighteousness.

Q: How did you feel when you read the paper or saw that Clinton had been impeached?

A: Very frankly, sad — because I realized that it was for naught. That he would not be convicted because we have partisan politicians. We don’t have men of principle. Glad on the one hand that some were able to stand up for it, sad on the other hand that it would come to naught. But the thing that we need to realize is that sin has consequences.

Q: Would you say that …(inaudible)  is rejoicing in unrighteousness?

A: I would say that’s a situation of sin has consequences.

Q: But for a Christian seeing that would think ha ha he got what he had coming. Thank you God for…

A: I don’t think we should be doing that. I really don’t. I really think because it has disastrous consequences on a lot of other people. When you think of the effects of that sin on Monica Lewinsky and her family, Linda Tripp and her family and all of the American people and just the government of the country was caught up in this thing for so many months and not doing the things that they should have been doing. No, I don’t think we should rejoice. I think we should be praying that God would change hearts. I think that we should be confronting people with their sin, etc.

C: Proverbs 24:17 Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles; (18) lest the Lord see it and it displeases Him and He turns away His wrath from him.

R: Yes. We need to understand that when David writes an imprecatory psalm, when David rejoices that the enemies are smashing the heads of the ungodly babies against the rocks, David is not taking pleasure in the death of pagan babies. What David is taking pleasure in is the fact that the ungodly will in the end receive their just reward. That’s where we ought to be. We get confused and there are churches that preach we ought to pray these imprecatory prayers against the ungodly people and in one sense that’s true. But we ought to be praying ‘Lord, change their hearts. Lord use me somehow. Let me be an instrument in your hand. Let me be used to bring somebody to Christ.’ Because that’s the way people get changed. It’s not through a prison system, it’s not through psychology, it’s not through some pop-psychology way of raising your kids. People don’t get changed that way. Man is man and the Bible says that every thought is hostile to God. Every action is against God. It’s only when God touches the heart that the person is changed. If I’m counseling with a family that has a problem with their kid, I say raise them biblically. Pray with them, read to them. Show them what God requires of them so that God would perhaps change their heart and in that, change their behavior. Trust me I know. I’ve raised four and one of them was a really bad behavior problem. He’s locked up in Camarillo State Hospital and will be there for the rest of his life, unless God has mercy upon him and changes his heart. That’s my prayer. My undergraduate degree is psychology because of trying to learn to deal with my son. So, none of those things work and the Bible tells us that. None of those things work, it’s only the Bible which is the rule of faith and life. It’s only the Bible that we should be looking to.

            (21) And a strong angel took up a stone like a great millstone and thew it into the sea, saying, “Thus will Babylon, the great city, be thrown down with violence, and will not be found any longer.” The literalist says ‘Aha! This has to be future because even if this were Jerusalem we were talking about, Jerusalem is there. Jerusalem is not destroyed completely. Babylon is not destroyed completely’

            (22) “And the sound of harpists and musicians and flute players and trumpeters will not be heard in you any longer; and no craftsman of any craft will be found in you any longer; and the sound of a mill will not be heard in you any longer;”

            They say, look, even if you grant that this is Jerusalem, Jerusalem’s is still there. So obviously this prophecy has not come to pass. Well, I think it has to do not with actual destruction but with the idea of covenant. We’re talking a covenantal arrangement and God is saying because you broke the covenant, I am removing my covenantal arrangement with you. So in that sense, the city does cease to exist. It is no longer God’s city. It is now a completely pagan city.

Q: Are there other examples in the Bible where God has made this claim against a city and yet they remain?

A: Yes. Jericho for instance. Jericho you remember was destroyed and God said would not be rebuilt except on the death of the first son. When it was rebuilt the man who rebuilt it did indeed lose his son. But it does talk about not ever being rebuilt. Of course, Jericho is rebuilt. Babylon. The Bible talks about Babylon being completely destroyed and a lot of this is from the judgment against Babylon. So the idea here is that God’s relationship has been broken. Particularly because we’re talking about Jerusalem here.

(24) “And in her (Babylon the great) was found the blood of prophets and of saints and of all who have been slain on the earth.” That looks back to Jesus’ words in Matthew 23:35 where He talks about in Jerusalem, they slew the prophets and…

Q: Back in verse 23 it says: and the light of a lamp will not shine in you any longer; and the voice of the bridegroom and bride will not be heard in you any longer;… That would have to apply to Israel.

A: Yes, it does apply to Israel. That’s my point, that this whole passage applies to Jerusalem particularly and that this is a covenantal thing. It’s not saying that the city is going to be leveled and will never be rebuilt. It’s saying that the city is going to be leveled, and God will not be there any more. They will not have this covenantal…

Q: What is the verse that they use to say that Israel will be rebuilt?

A: In Ezekiel. The prophecy of the new temple. Not realizing that the prophecy has to do with the church. We’re going to see that in the last couple of chapters here of Revelation.

C: Which by the way is problematic because the animal sacrifices are re-instituted in the passage in Ezekiel, so they have to rationalize that.

Q: The merchants, are they the police?

A: No, I think they’re merchants of the world from the context of the passage. But remember that Ananias was the chief priest at that time, the high priest, the same Ananias whom Jesus appeared before apparently, and that Josephus says that he was a thief. He was a money grabber. He instituted all these procedures in the temple simply to get money, and had all this stuff going on.