Revelation 18

¹ After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was made bright with his glory. ² And he called out with a mighty voice, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast. ³ For all nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living.” ⁴ Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues; ⁵ for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. ⁶ Pay her back as she herself has paid back others, and repay her double for her deeds; mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed. ⁷ As she glorified herself and lived in luxury, so give her a like measure of torment and mourning, since in her heart she says, ‘I sit as a queen, I am no widow, and mourning I shall never see.’ ⁸ For this reason her plagues will come in a single day, death and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; for mighty is the Lord God who has judged her.” ⁹ And the kings of the earth, who committed sexual immorality and lived in luxury with her, will weep and wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning. ¹⁰ They will stand far off, in fear of her torment, and say, “Alas! Alas! You great city, you mighty city, Babylon! For in a single hour your judgment has come.” ¹¹ And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo anymore, ¹² cargo of gold, silver, jewels, pearls, fine linen, purple cloth, silk, scarlet cloth, all kinds of scented wood, all kinds of articles of ivory, all kinds of articles of costly wood, bronze, iron and marble,¹³ cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and slaves, that is, human souls.¹⁴ “The fruit for which your soul longed has gone from you, and all your delicacies and your splendors are lost to you, never to be found again!” ¹⁵ The merchants of these wares, who gained wealth from her, will stand far off, in fear of her torment, weeping and mourning aloud, ¹⁶ “Alas, alas, for the great city that was clothed in fine linen, in purple and scarlet, adorned with gold, with jewels, and with pearls! ¹⁷ For in a single hour all this wealth has been laid waste.” And all shipmasters and seafaring men, sailors and all whose trade is on the sea, stood far off ¹⁸ and cried out as they saw the smoke of her burning, “What city was like the great city?” ¹⁹ And they threw dust on their heads as they wept and mourned, crying out, “Alas, alas, for the great city where all who had ships at sea grew rich by her wealth! For in a single hour she has been laid waste. ²⁰ Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, for God has given judgment for you against her!” ²¹ Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, “So will Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence, and will be found no more; ²² and the sound of harpists and musicians, of flute players and trumpeters, will be heard in you no more, and a craftsman of any craft will be found in you no more, and the sound of the mill will be heard in you no more, ²³ and the light of a lamp will shine in you no more, and the voice of bridegroom and bride will be heard in you no more, for your merchants were the great ones of the earth, and all nations were deceived by your sorcery. ²⁴ And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slain on earth.”

Last month Livia Gershon reported at Smithsonian Magazine on the archaeological findings of excavations at a site in the Jordan Valley that might possibly be ancient Sodom. The archaeologists say that the city, called today Tall el-Hammam, was “a Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley” that they believe was possibly destroyed “by an exploding comet or meteor.” Before this calamity, the city was impressive to say the least.

At the time of the disaster, around 1650 B.C.E., Tall el-Hammam was the largest of three major cities in the valley. It likely acted as the region’s political center, reports Ariella Marsden for the Jerusalem Post. Combined, the three metropolises boasted a population of around 50,000.

Tall el-Hammam’s mudbrick buildings stood up to five stories tall.

But it was the nature of the disaster that destroyed the city that has intrigued archaeologists and scientists. Listen:

Over the years, archaeologists examining the structures’ ruins have found evidence of a sudden high-temperature, destructive event—for instance, pottery pieces that were melted on the outside but untouched inside.

The new paper, published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, examined possible causes of the devastation based on the archaeological record. The researchers concluded that warfare, a fire, a volcanic eruption or an earthquake were unlikely culprits, as these events couldn’t have produced heat intense enough to cause the melting recorded at the scene. That left a space rock as the most likely cause.

Because experts failed to find a crater at the site, they attributed the damage to an airburst created when a meteor or comet traveled through the atmosphere at high speed. It would have exploded about 2.5 miles above the city in a blast 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb used at Hiroshima, writes study co-author Christopher R. Moore, an archaeologist at the University of South Carolina, for the Conversation.

“Air temperatures rapidly rose above 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit,” Moore explains. “Clothing and wood immediately burst into flames. Swords, spears, mudbricks and pottery began to melt. Almost immediately, the entire city was on fire.”

Seconds after the blast, a shockwave ripped through the city at a speed of roughly 740 miles per hour—faster than the worst tornado ever recorded. The cities’ buildings were reduced to foundations and rubble.

“None of the 8,000 people or any animals within the city survived,” Moore adds. “Their bodies were torn apart and their bones blasted into small fragments.”

Corroborating the idea that an airburst caused the destruction, the researchers found melted metals and unusual mineral fragments among the city’s ruins.

“[O]ne of the main discoveries is shocked quartz,” says James P. Kennett, an emeritus earth scientist at the University of California Santa Barbara, in a statement. “These are sand grains containing cracks that form only under very high pressure.”[1]

All of this is most interesting, of course, but, for Christians we read these kinds of archaeological theories and cannot help but smile, knowingly…not, of course, at the destruction of Sodom but rather at the verification of what the scriptures say. After all, here is how Genesis 19 described the destruction of Sodom:

²³ The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. ²⁴ Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven. ²⁵ And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. ²⁶ But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

We are not amazed to see the biblical accounts verified yet again. By the way, here is one more little paragraph from that Smithsonian Magazine piece:

The archaeologists also discovered high concentrations of salt in the “destruction layer” of the site, possibly from the blast’s impact on the Dead Sea or its shores. The explosion could have distributed the salt across a wide area, possibly creating high-salinity soil that prevented crops from growing and resulted in the abandonment of cities along the lower Jordan Valley for centuries.

And there it is: yet another reminder that promises of divine judgment are not to be trifled with or dismissed. We should keep this in mind when approaching Revelation 19, for it too speaks of judgment. This is a continuation of Revelation 18 and speaks further to the fall of Babylon. As I argued last week, for John and his original audience “Babylon” was almost certainly a coded reference to Rome and the Roman Empire. But I further argued that while Rome was a type of Babylon for them, so there have been numerous types throughout history, and none of these types mean that the real and ultimate final “Babylon” (whatever it ends up being) will not come onto the scene at the end of all things. It will…and its fate will be just as described in Revelation.

Divine judgment will be swift and thorough when it comes.

I want first to let us hear these words of judgment against Babylon. Let us note how swift and thorough God’s judgment is when it comes.

¹ After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was made bright with his glory. ² And he called out with a mighty voice, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast. ³ For all nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living.”

This description of fallen Babylon as a haunt for “demons…every unclean spirit…every unclean bird…every unclean and detestable beast” is striking. The devil is always seeking to make of the world a demonic parody of Eden just as the serpent, the antichrist, and the false prophet are a demonic parody of the Holy Trinity. Scott Duvall writes of this description of Babylon:

Rather than the honorable garden city that God envisions, Babylon has become the exact opposite: a desolate, demonic wasteland, completely devoid of image-of-God life.[2]

In verse 6, the description of devastating judgment continues:

⁶ Pay her back as she herself has paid back others, and repay her double for her deeds; mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed. ⁷ As she glorified herself and lived in luxury, so give her a like measure of torment and mourning, since in her heart she says, ‘I sit as a queen, I am no widow, and mourning I shall never see.’ ⁸ For this reason her plagues will come in a single day, death and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; for mighty is the Lord God who has judged her.” ⁹ And the kings of the earth, who committed sexual immorality and lived in luxury with her, will weep and wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning. ¹⁰ They will stand far off, in fear of her torment, and say, “Alas! Alas! You great city, you mighty city, Babylon! For in a single hour your judgment has come.” ¹¹ And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo anymore, ¹² cargo of gold, silver, jewels, pearls, fine linen, purple cloth, silk, scarlet cloth, all kinds of scented wood, all kinds of articles of ivory, all kinds of articles of costly wood, bronze, iron and marble,¹³ cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and slaves, that is, human souls. ¹⁴ “The fruit for which your soul longed has gone from you, and all your delicacies and your splendors are lost to you, never to be found again!” ¹⁵ The merchants of these wares, who gained wealth from her, will stand far off, in fear of her torment, weeping and mourning aloud, ¹⁶ “Alas, alas, for the great city that was clothed in fine linen, in purple and scarlet, adorned with gold, with jewels, and with pearls! ¹⁷ For in a single hour all this wealth has been laid waste.” And all shipmasters and seafaring men, sailors and all whose trade is on the sea, stood far off ¹⁸ and cried out as they saw the smoke of her burning, “What city was like the great city?” ¹⁹ And they threw dust on their heads as they wept and mourned, crying out, “Alas, alas, for the great city where all who had ships at sea grew rich by her wealth! For in a single hour she has been laid waste.

Certain features of these verses are telling and speak to the nature of divine judgment. For instance:

• Babylon is shown the same lack of mercy she showed others. (v.6)

• Her wealth and pomp come back upon her in the form of misery and woe. (v.7, 17)

• Her judgment is swift and brutal. (v.8)

• All who see her fall marvel, and those in league with her mourn. (v.9-19)

Such is the judgment of God when it comes! Our text continues:

²¹ Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, “So will Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence, and will be found no more; ²² and the sound of harpists and musicians, of flute players and trumpeters, will be heard in you no more, and a craftsman of any craft will be found in you no more, and the sound of the mill will be heard in you no more, ²³ and the light of a lamp will shine in you no more, and the voice of bridegroom and bride will be heard in you no more, for your merchants were the great ones of the earth, and all nations were deceived by your sorcery.

Note lastly that judgment ends with an eerie and devastating silence. The music stops. The party stops. Industry stops.

And why does this happen? We are reminded once again:

²⁴ And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slain on earth.”

Yes, eventually Babylon’s sins catch up with her. And hear me: eventually our sins do as well! Unless, that is, we flee to the only one who can forgive us and change our hearts!

The people of God must flee and rejoice.

We are aware of what happens to Babylon. But the question remains: what should the people of God who live in Babylon or her vicinity do? The answer is clear enough:

⁴ Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues; ⁵ for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.

This is reminiscent of Jeremiah 51:

⁴⁵ “Go out of the midst of her, my people! Let every one save his life from the fierce anger of the Lord!”

The command, again, is clear: we are to flee Babylon. In terms of the Great Prostitute at the end of all things who wars against the Lamb and His followers, the great power that will fall with the coming of Jesus, this is a literal commandment! Run! Come out of her! Do not worship the beast! Flee!

But this raises an interesting question for us today in terms of the church’s engagement with Babylon, with the fallen culture: What does it look like to “flee Babylon” while living in the fallen world before the second coming of Christ? Practically, how do we do this today?

I would like to begin to answer this by ruling out two mistakes:

• The mistake of withdrawal cloistering.

• The mistake of culture inundation and absorption.

By “withdrawal cloistering” I refer to an attempt to functionally leave the fallen world before (a) the Lord calls us home or (b) the Lord returns. As will be seen, I am not condemning appropriate separatism where engagement with the dominant culture threatens our integrity. Nor do wish to judge or condemn Christians who may take a more separatist posture than others (i.e., the Amish, monastic communities, etc.) so long as they do maintain some kind of effective witness in the world. What I am wanting to judge is hyper-separatism, the naïve assumption that we can somehow not be “in the world,” that somehow we will not have to navigate the challenges of cultural Babylon in our day. To this error I will simply remind us of the High Priestly Prayer in John 17, in which Jesus prayed:

¹⁴ I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. ¹⁵ I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.

Clearly Jesus does not desire for His followers to be utterly and completely unengaged with the world and even with Babylon. We must live in the world. To live in the fallen world is to have to navigate the challenge and presence and corrosive effects of Babylon.

The other extreme—the mistake of culture inundation and absorption—refers to a flippant immersion of oneself into the culture. I am talking about Christians who simply come to love Babylon, come to defend Babylon, and come to a place where they allow Babylon to shape their understanding of God and of truth. I am speaking of enculturated and domesticated Christians and churches. I am speaking of those who love the modern prophets of Babylon and her ways more than they do the prophets of God who say, “Thus says the Lord!” I am talking about the wholesale acceptance of the world’s views on marriage, sexuality, gender, family, life, truth, and God. I am talking about embracing the morals of Babylon while still claiming to fly the flag of Jesus. No, to “flee Babylon” today in terms of the church and the culture is to stand against Babylon’s attempts to tell the church that we are wrong to trust God’s Word and wrong to follow Jesus in these and other areas. We must not accept the ways of Babylon.

What then is the solution? How do we “flee Babylon” and yet live in the world? To this I would like to argue for the following:

• The church must become an outpost of the Kingdom of God in the world.

• Followers of Jesus must consistently congregate together as the gathered church and encourage, help, strengthen, assist, and challenge one another.

• We must then go out into the world equipped with hearts shaped by worship, minds shaped by God’s Word, intellects shaped by deep study, and courage bolstered by the promises of Jesus.

• We must regain the distinction between our citizenship (which is in the Kingdom: Ephesians 2:19, Philippians 3:20) and our residency (which is in the United States or wherever else you might live).

• We must regain the idea of the Christian as an ambassador (2 Corinthians 5:20, Ephesians 6:20).

• When dealing with Babylon, we must be clear in our identity, bold in our witness, uncompromising in our character, and unquestionable in our allegiances.

• Our posture toward Babylon must be brokenhearted as to her lostness, strategic as to our engagement, and separate as to our holiness.

We are followers of the Lamb, not citizens of Babylon! Babylon will fall! To cry out to her concerning the gospel is to engage with her, but to engage with Babylon rightly is to refuse to be pulled into her fallen ways while crying out to her!

Fire will fall upon Babylon, the fire of judgment.

But fire has already fallen upon the church, the fire of the Holy Spirit.

Let us go with tongues of flame and warn of the flames to come. Let us go while carrying our crosses and call all people to the cross! Let us weep over Babylon and call her to Jesus without ever compromising our commitment to Jesus while doing so!

 

[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/destruction-of-city-by-space-rock-may-have-inspired-biblical-story-of-sodom-180978734/

[2] Duvall, J. Scott. Revelation (Teach the Text Commentary Series) (p. 245). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.