Babylon Destroyed

INTRODUCTION

Revelation 17 ESV

Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.” And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.” And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her, I marveled greatly. But the angel said to me, “Why do you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman, and of the beast with seven heads and ten horns that carries her. The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to rise from the bottomless pit and go to destruction. And the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beast, because it was and is not and is to come. This calls for a mind with wisdom: the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated; they are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he does come he must remain only a little while. As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to destruction. And the ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have not yet received royal power, but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour, together with the beast. These are of one mind, and they hand over their power and authority to the beast. They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful.” And the angel said to me, “The waters that you saw, where the prostitute is seated, are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages. And the ten horns that you saw, they and the beast will hate the prostitute. They will make her desolate and naked, and devour her flesh and burn her up with fire, for God has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose by being of one mind and handing over their royal power to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled. And the woman that you saw is the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth.”

On August 24th, 410, the Visigoths sacked the city of Rome.

It had stood for eight centuries.

This was unthinkable.

This would be like a foreign power sacking Washington DC.

The early church father, Jerome, was so undone by the event that he cried out, “If Rome be lost, where shall we look for help?”

The pagans crowed about the weakness of the Christian God.

Rome had just adopted Christianity at the Empire’s religion (a far cry from where things are as Revelation is written)

The pagans ran around and said, “Look at what happens! As soon as there is allegiance to the Triune God, the whole empire crumbles!”

In the midst of this, one of the giants of the Christian faith rose up with a response.

When we think of church history, we often think of great preachers and theologians rising up out of Europe.

But Europe does not have the stronghold on theological influence.

The two greatest theologians in the first 500 years of the church came from Africa.

One was Athanasius of Egypt.

The other was the giant who rose up at Rome’s demise and spoke with authority.

Augustine of Hippo.

Augustine was an Algerian bishop who is probably the most influential thinker, philosopher and theologian of the first 1500 years of church history.

And in response to Rome’s fall, he wrote, The City of God.

The Roman Christian refugees in Africa lamented Rome’s fall because they wanted to go back there.

Augustine writes them to tell them they are focused on the wrong city.

They must turn their attention to the The City of God.

The City of Man is Rome. And every other city in the world.

The city of man is built on the love of self.

The City of God is heaven. It is the New Jerusalem to come.

And that city if built on the love of God.

And the full allegiance of every Christian must be to that city.

CONTEXT

The plea for the Christian to understand the difference between the city of God and the city of man in Augustine was not original.

It was an echo of what we see in Revelation 17 tonight.

As we arrive at Revelation 17, the 5th cycle has come to a close.

We have seen redemptive history from yet another perspective in the Bowl Judgments.

They gave us a close up of the end.

Now we come to the 6th cycle.

It will span Revelation 17-19 and show us the fate of two cities. Two women.

On one hand we have Babylon.

This city is a harlot. A whore if we use the terms of the King James

On the other hand, we have the New Jerusalem.

This city is a bride. God’s bride. Coming down out of heaven.

The city of God and the city of man.

Babylon and Jerusalem

And the question that hangs over the 6th Cycle is this:

Are you going to stay faithful to God or go with the world?

Are you a part of the New Jerusalem or Babylon?

Are you a member of the harlot or the bride?

When the Lord returns, will you be in His number or will you perish with the counterfeit trinity and the seductress that is the world and its idolatry and philosophies?

Just like with the seals, the trumpets, the epic battle between the Dragon and the Woman and the bowl judgments, God is helping us understand history.

He is helping us understand what we are seeing all around us

He is helping us understand how things will be in the end

DIFFICULT

But with all of that said, I want you to know that this is difficult stuff tonight.

Revelation 20 is hard because there are multiple views on the millenium and a couple of them are very appealing to me.

But I don’t think it is hard to explain. It is just hard to choose which is correct—at least for me.

Tonight is hard because we have multiple verses where interpreters throw their hands up and say, “We THINK it is this, but we aren’t sure.”

Tonight is hard because each word seems to have some sort of anchor in the Old Testament or in Revelation.

So stay engaged tonight. We will move fairly quickly through the verses and it would be easy to get lost in the weeds.

God is faithful and He will give us sharp minds and soft hearts for this.

We have three teaching points tonight. We are dividing this chapter up into three sections.

The city of man is IDENTIFIED (v. 1-6)

The city of man is STRENGTHENED (v. 6-14)

The city of man is DESTROYED (v. 15-18)

We start with the identity.

THE CITY OF MAN IS IDENTIFIED (v. 1-6)

ANGEL AND CONTRAST (v. 1)

We start with one of the angels from the Bowl Cycle showing John judgment

His words to John— “Come, I will show you the judgment of the Great Prostitute,” must be compared to the words of Revelation 21:9

Revelation 21:9 ESV

Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.”

An Angel from the bowl cycle calls on John to come and see in both cases, establishing the contrast between these two women:

The Harlot (ch. 17-18)

The Bride (ch. 19-beginning of 21)

GREAT PROSTITUTE (v. 1-2)

The angel will show John the “Great Prostitute.”

This is Babylon.

We first met her in chapter 14:

Revelation 14:8 ESV

Another angel, a second, followed, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who made all nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality.”

This is the same way the Prostitute is described in verses 1-2

In 17:5 she is called “Babylon the great, the mother of prostitutes”

You see in verse 2 that the kings of the earth are the clients of the Prostitute

You also see that the people who dwell on the earth are drunk on her sexual immorality

This is what the angel proclaimed back in chapter 14

And this term, “Sexual immorality,” is not a literal term but a figurative term for spiritual infidelity

The nations—the people on the earth that rebel against the Lord—they are spiritually unfaithful to their Creator

They worship the created instead of the Creator

In speaking of the world’s spiritual infidelity in terms of sexual immorality, the angel is speaking like the Old Testament prophets:

Jeremiah 2:19–20 ESV

Your evil will chastise you, and your apostasy will reprove you. Know and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord your God; the fear of me is not in you, declares the Lord God of hosts. “For long ago I broke your yoke and burst your bonds; but you said, ‘I will not serve.’ Yes, on every high hill and under every green tree you bowed down like a whore.

The strong language of the prophet here and the angel in Revelation 17 are reminders to us that the depraved idolatry of humanity is no small sin before the Lord.

It is spoken of beyond even the terms of a wife stepping out on her husband with a lover.

It is a wife stepping out on her husband to sell her body as a way to provide for herself apart from him and live opposed to his love.

In fact, we get an entire book of the Old Testament on this in Hosea.

Hosea 1:2 ESV

When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.”

We shouldn’t be surprised that God speaks of idolatry in these terms.

He chooses the sexual imagery, not just because we can understand it and it causes us to recoil, but because it tells us something about the nature of idolatry.

Give people long enough and their sinful idolatry will always express itself in some type of sexual sin or behavior.

Romans 1 tells us that this is how idolatry plays out in the human heart

MANY WATERS (v. 1)

The Great Prostitute sits on many waters.

We know what this means.

Revelation 17:15 ESV

And the angel said to me, “The waters that you saw, where the prostitute is seated, are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages.

The fact that the Prostitute sits on these waters shows us her dominion.

She has them under her spell.

She has them buying what she is selling.

She has them drinking from her chalice of idolatrous sexual immorality

WILDERNESS, WOMAN AND BEAST (v. 3-4)

In verse 3, you see John say that the Spirit carried him to a wilderness.

There is a woman there.

We saw a woman in the wilderness in chapter 12, but this is different.

That was the church, hunted by the Dragon.

This is the harlot, snuggled up to the Dragon’s Beast

In this case, the wilderness is meant to contrast with the high mountain that John is on as he sees the city of God in Revelation 21:10

Revelation 21:10 ESV

And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God,

With the wilderness as the backdrop for the vision, it is a clue to not be fooled by the beauty and riches and power of the woman who is on the beast

This is no paradise—this is an image in a barren wasteland

It is the first sign that any sort of attractiveness in this woman and her beast is completely fake

The woman is called the “mother of Prostitutes” in verse 5, meaning, this is the same Great Harlot from verses 1-2.

She is seated on a scarlet Beast that is full of blasphemous names and has seven heads and ten horns.

This is the same Beast from the sea in Revelation 13:1

Revelation 13:1 ESV

And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads.

He is red because he reflects the color of the Dragon whose image he bears

Revelation 12:3 ESV

And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems.

Remember—the Beast comes forth in the image of the Dragon, trying to counterfeit the Lord Jesus Christ, the image of the invisible God.

Jesus the Lamb saves His people.

The Beast persecutes Jesus’ people.

He promises safety and security to the world, but he is simply deceiving and doing the bidding of the Dragon

The Beast represents the Roman government—and any brutal government that would persecute the church during this time in between Jesus’ first and second coming

The Beast is the reminder that when the state starts beating on the church, we know that Satan is behind it

The seven heads shows the authority that the Beast has on the earth—it seems like it is total and complete

The ten horns demonstrate his power as ten is the number of completion for humanity and the horn was a symbol of power in the ancient world

The Great Prostitute sits on the beast in purple and scarlet (v. 4)

The purple is a sign of her riches, as purple dye was hard to come by and purple clothing was reserved for the wealthy and ruling classes

The scarlet is a sign of her field of work.

Right along with the gold and jewels and pearls, she is dressing the part. Listen to the words of Jeremiah as he describes Judah after being desolated as a result of her idolatrous immorality. He talks of her as a woman dressed like a prostitute:

Jeremiah 4:30 ESV

And you, O desolate one, what do you mean that you dress in scarlet, that you adorn yourself with ornaments of gold, that you enlarge your eyes with paint? In vain you beautify yourself. Your lovers despise you; they seek your life.

She has a golden cup, which adds to her allure and her appearance of extravagance, but in reality, it is only beautiful on the outside.

The inside is disgusting. It is full of the abominations and impurities of her idolatrous sexual immorality, just as the beast is full of blasphemous names.

Together they combine for a full transgression of God’s law.

At every point the Harlot and the Beast disgrace the name and commandments of the Creator.

She appears to be beautiful. She appears to be lovely. She appears to have riches.

But in truth, she is a prostitute.

She gives you pleasure temporarily, but she has no love to offer.

That is what a harlot does. That is all they are interested in.

At this point, it is worth stopping and establishing who woman is.

BABYLON THE GREAT (v. 5-6)

On her forehead is written a “name of mystery:” Babylon the Great

Mystery should not make us think that we cannot know something.

Biblically, a mystery tends to be something that was hidden and is now revealed.

Meaning, the title “Babylon the Great” should tell us something about the identity of the woman.

Her name is on her forehead just as the saints have the name of the Father and the Lamb on their foreheads and the people of the earth receive the mark of the beast on their forehead

What is on your forehead clearly says something about who you are. It speaks to your identity and what you represent.

So who is Babylon the Great?

The Dragon is Satan

The Beast is the Roman government

The False Prophet is the Roman Imperial cult

Who is Babylon?

Well we first meet Babel in Scripture in Genesis 11 when the people of the earth try and build a tower to heaven for their own name and they fail to heed to command to “Fill the earth and multiply.”

God scatters them

So right away, Babel is a symbol of rebellion

Then we meet Babylon again during the time of Exile.

God used their brutality as a tool of discipline in His hand

And in 586 BC, He permitted them to carry Judah off into Exile

But they were still guilty of opposing God and His people, despite being a part of God’s loving discipline

In fact, Nebuchadnezzar foolishly spoke of his Babylon as if HE and IT were more glorious than the Lord Himself and God punished him for it extensively:

Daniel 4:30 ESV

and the king answered and said, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?”

And now, just as it was in the beginning and middle of the Bible, Babylon is a symbol of opposition toward God at the end of the Bible.

It is not hard to figure out who Babylon is for the 1st century reader

It is the city of Rome and all the idolatrous culture and ideas and spew from it and all the people in that city who bow down to the Beast and listen to the False Prophet

When we get to verse 9, the woman is depicted on seven mountains and Rome was known as the city built on 7 hills.

Why might Rome, the city, be thought of as the “mother of prostitutes” and of “earth’s abominations?”

Because the city itself was disgusting.

From the outside it was regal. It was the most important city on earth.

The architecture. The political power. The culture. The philosophy.

But when you actually walked the streets you found that:

People had sex with children and it was accepted

Women were treated as nothing

If a woman was raped, her husband had the choice of raping her rapist and then he would kill the wife

She had no value in that culture

And the value of a man was often wrapped up in who he could take and what he could do to them

The ownership and domination of people is how power was measured

This was the great Rome in reality.

MORE THAN ROME

But Babylon is more than just Rome. She is every city that is lauded by man as a center for culture and commerce and human achievement.

New York, Paris, London, Tokyo

Go look under the hood of them all and you will find the underbelly of sin and little shame for it

And yet the philosophies that emerge from these places are heralded as the morality that the world must live by

Thus the world is drunk on the abominations and impurities that the whore keeps in her golden cup

And so just as the Beast represents the Roman Empire, but also any state government that would persecute the church during the church age, so Babylon represents the city of Rome and any other city of man that opposes God.

Babylon represents the entire rebellious network of humanity.

And where do we get together and show off that rebellion in mass form? Our cities.

That isn’t me saying we should hate cities and live in suburbs.

This is just the Bible explaining the reality of things to us.

The earthly [city] has made for herself, according to her heart's desire, false gods out of any sources at all, even out of human beings, that she might adore them with sacrifices.

Augustine

Great cities produce levels of influence in culture that are so strong that even the rulers of the earth are held in dominion by them.

Verse 18 tells us that is the case.

And so often, they also produce the compacted evil that represents the worst of humanity.

PAKISTAN AND AUGUSTINE

These things are still happening.

On June 6th, an Anglican sister in India, who was a professor at a university in Lahore—the 2nd largest city in Pakistan—was abducted, raped by 4 Muslim men and then they doused her body in acid.

The police reported it as being the fault of our sister in Christ.

They cooked up a story where she tried to have an affair with this man and blackmail him until he was pushed to the point of murder.

The Anglican church in Pakistan conducted their own investigation and turned over the truth.

Rome is Babylon.

Lahore is Babylon.

Wherever you find the brutal philosophies of man ruling people’s hearts and causing them to turn violently on the church, you will find Babylon.

By the way—Look up a picture of Lahore—she’s a beautiful city from the outside

Lots of fine clothing and gold cups

Inside, she is ruled by the brutal and depraved concepts and philosophies of men

She is drunk on the blood of the saints

She adores her false gods with sacrifices

THE CITY OF MAN IS STRENGTHENED(v. 6-14)

We long to see the “City of Man” judged. We long to see Babylon destroyed.

But not yet.

Before she is destroyed, she grows stronger.

MARVELING (v. 6-7)

John marvels at her greatly (v. 6)

He marvels at her temporary triumph and power

He marvels at how she brashly drinks the blood of God’s people as if this God, who has been shown to be powerful throughout Revelation, will do nothing about it

He marvels at the depths of her depravity

Don’t you ever just marvel at the world?

Don’t you ever just look at it and go, “Man—it is so crazy, it is mesmerizing.”

The angel speaks again in verse 7 and asks John why he marvels.

The angel is going to unpack this image of the woman and the beast.

He is going to expose her for what she is.

He will show her strength in verses 6-14, but he will also show the beginning of her demise in verses 15-17.

Now—let’s look at four of the hardest verses in Revelation.

THE BEAST WHO WAS, WHO IS NOT, AND WHO IS (v. 8)

The angel says that this beast, who the woman sits on, “was, and is not.”

And yet, it “is about to rise from the bottomless pit.”

Then again at the end of the verse, we have similar language.

The Beast “was and is not and is to come”

This language has caused a lot of Bible commentators to spill a lot of ink over the years.

Most of that ink has been spent trying to do math to see if somehow this is about Nero, in particular

I tend to think that this is much more general and that the angel is speaking of the Roman Empire as a whole—not a specific emperor

The Roman Empire, like other empires—went through periods of prosperity and adversity.

There are times it thrives.

There are times that it seems to sputter.

But it always seems to rise up again

There’s always another leader

Another economic boom

Another alliance

And life is breathed into the empire again

And this causes the people of the earth to marvel at the Beast

They marvel at how it can get weak and then resurrect

In this, you see again that the Beast is a counterfeit of Christ.

Christ died and rose again.

He defeated death and the empire of darkness that comes along with it, including its leader—Satan himself.

The beastly empires of the world can only mimic His power

They can’t recreate it

And yet, those that dwell on the earth, whose names are absent from the book of Life from the foundation of the world, they stand marveling at the beast.

It is the same Greek word in verse 6 and verse 8, but John’s marveling and the earth-dwellers’ marveling is different

One can’t look away, though he may want to

The earth-dwellers wouldn’t dare to look away because the Beast is their hope

MORE DIFFICULT VERSES (v. 9-11)

If verse 8 is trigonometry, verses 9-11 are calculus.

Revelation 17:9–11 ESV

This calls for a mind with wisdom: the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated; they are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he does come he must remain only a little while. As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to destruction.

Much like he did at the end of chapter 13, John calls on the reader to use wisdom because he is using numbers to make his point.

Revelation 13:18 ESV

This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.

This is time we have:

Seven heads which are seven mountains on which the woman is seated

Seven kings—five of whom have fallen

The sixth reigns now

The 7th hasn’t come, but when he does, he won’t be there for long

The 8th king is the Beast himself who belongs to the 7th

Let’s move on to verse 12...

I KID!

John says the 7 heads of the Beast are the 7 mountains the woman sits on.

Rome was built on 7 mountains.

Rome is Babylon—we established that.

The Beast is the Roman Empire—the state government

The business about the seven heads also being seven kings is where things really get tough.

Five kings have fallen.

One rules now.

But he will fall and there will be another who rules briefly.

The Beast is an 8th ruler, but he belongs to the 7th, yet all the heads are a part of him

This seems confusing

Add in the fact that:

The Beast “is not” and yet the Beast is still ruling through the 6th King

The Beast “is” and yet in a sense, he is not, because he is still to come in the 7th King

Once again, interpreters have spilt a lot of ink over this.

Many have taken the Roman Emperors from Julius Caesar to Nero to see if John is speaking of political leaders here.

However, the math doesn’t add up. You have to leave out emperors to make it work.

Others have tried to add up all the empires that caused God’s people suffering throughout the ages:

Assyria, Medes, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Old Rome, New Rome under Constantine, The Antichrist

But then you leave our Egypt. They seem like an important enemy.

If you add Egypt in before Assyria, it displaces Rome in the order.

Some have tried to add Assyria in and combine the Medes and Persians, but then you end up with Rome as the sixth and it is unclear how it would also be the 8th that belongs to the 7th.

Confused yet?

Me too. And that is why I don’t think John meant any of this.

Here is where I land.

I think it is best to be quite general about this.

It is just a rough sketch of human history.

Throughout history, awful, powerful, savage empires have risen up and opposed God people and principles

And that is what is being communicated.

Throughout Revelation, the church age has been communicated as a brief amount of time.

This time in which the church suffers as she witnesses is viewed as short.

“Forty-two months” or “1260 days” in 11:2-3

3.5 years later in chapter 11

1260 days in 12:6

A time, times and half a time in 12:14

Forty-two months in 13:5

Revelation 17:10 ESV

they are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he does come he must remain only a little while.

I think "a little while” is indicating to us that we are talking about the church age. This brief time of suffering a witness.

The Roman Empire, representing the sixth king, will fall soon. No empire of man lasts forever.

But don’t get too excited—the Beast has another head.

During the age of the church, there will always be oppressive governments seeking to stop the work we do.

And that would be the 7th King

The state that persecutes the church in the time between Rome and Jesus’ return

But it will only last for a little while

Then we have an 8th King emerging that belongs to the 7th.

It is described as the Beast that was and is not.

I take this to be a description of the final movement of the Final Antichrist

It is whatever horrible empire or nation-state that the Man of Lawlessness will lead

The beast that “was and is not” is the eighth and final, most terrible dominion of Antichrist toward the close of history.

William Hendricksen

I am going to move us along to verse 12, but before I do, I want to encourage us not to be dogmatic about these interpretations.

Classic Premillenialists

Dispensationalists

Amillenialists

Postmillenialists

They all find plenty of struggle and ambiguity in these verses

We could have gone deeper in exploring it tonight, but we don’t have the time

Just understand—the last thing we should be doing is throwing hands over Revelation 17:9-11...

TEN KINGS (v. 12-14)

After explaining the seven heads, the angel moves on to interpret the ten horns.

He says these are ten kings who have not yet received royal power.

They will receive it for one hour, together with the beast.

The ten kings remind us of the ten horns that represent ten kings in Daniel 7:7

Daniel 7:24 ESV

As for the ten horns, out of this kingdom ten kings shall arise, and another shall arise after them; he shall be different from the former ones, and shall put down three kings.

These kings probably refer to the nations around Rome

These are nations Rome would long to align with in order to consolidate power and expand the empire

The number ten is important because again, it refers to completion in the realm of humanity.

So these kings represent complete global power.

It is always the desire of totalitarian nation-state’s to take more power for themselves

This is no different

Really this is Babel all over again.

Instead of expanding up, the Beast looks to expand out by giving power to these kings.

The goal is world domination.

The arts. Industry. Education. Government.

Satan and his beasts are like Hungry Hippos gobbling up all they can get

And these kings are all too eager to hang their power and authority over to the beast if it means they get a little bit of power for a little bit of time (v. 12-13)

They are happy to join in on the cause of making war on the Lamb and by extension, His church.

It is a small price to pay in order to reign with the Beast and oppose God.

VICTORY IS INEVITABLE

Victory is not in question though.

The Beast carries Babylon in the wilderness.

Its head-kings and horn-kings all gather up for battle

They persecute the church and oppose the rule of Christ

The Dragon is behind all of it

But the Lamb will conquer them (. 14).

It is decreed as if it is done.

And what is implied is that those who are with the Lamb—the chosen and faithful ones who have been persecuted and murdered by the Dragon and Babylon and the Beasts—they will conquer with Him.

And that is the picture we get in Revelation 19:17-21

Revelation 19:17–21 ESV

Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and with a loud voice he called to all the birds that fly directly overhead, “Come, gather for the great supper of God, to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great.” And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him who was sitting on the horse and against his army. And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had done the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur. And the rest were slain by the sword that came from the mouth of him who was sitting on the horse, and all the birds were gorged with their flesh.

That is a terrible meal.

Birds too fat to fly from the flesh of God’s enemies

But it is preceded by a beautiful meal. A different end.

Revelation 19:9 ESV

And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”

It is the called and chosen and faithful, whose names are written in the book of Life, who will come to that table.

And you will know them in this world because they are the ones who suffer in the wilderness, refusing to go into the city of Babylon and snuggle up to her beastly ways.

And even before the end, understand that the Lamb conquers evil empires.

Do you think Hitler fell outside of God’s governance?

Do you think Napoleon and Caesar lost their thrones outside of the Lord’s will?

He has been raising up and taking down leaders all throughout history and He will do it for good in the end.

THE CITY OF MAN IS DESTROYED (v. 15-17)

Let’s keep reading in verses 15-17, where the destruction of Babylon really begins. Chapter 18 will explain it all in great detail, but we get the beginning of the end of the story at the end of chapter 17.

Verse 15 explains what we already know—Babylon—the evil world system of man, on full displays in her cities of grandeur throughout the world, holds dominion over the people who dwell on the earth.

They have fallen prey to her idolatrous ways.

They gone along with her.

Many wonder what has happened to the United States of America:

How have we gotten to this place where we don’t know what a man or a woman is?

How have we gotten to a place where if you suggest in an academic setting that a Divine Being created you, you will be laughed at, but if you have a theory about aliens being the origin of life, professors are all ears?

How have we gotten to a place where our concern for saving trees and glaciers (both of which I am okay with spending some money on) takes precedent over the opioid crisis in our nation which is killing our children?

How can we run around shouting about justice at award shows and yet our celebrities our silent about the trafficking of children?

The answer is Babylon.

Like the fallen empires before us, we got in bed with her.

We drank from her cup.

We imbibed her idolatrous liquor and now we are drowning in sexual immorality with no signs of a lifeboat.

But she will not remain forever.

Far from it.

In fact, the very kings that the Beast shared power with will turn on her.

They will strip her down to nothing and burn her with fire, carrying out the purposes of God’s judgment (v. 16-17).

This is referring to how humanity will destroy itself in the end.

Culture, economy, infrastructure

It will all be blown apart by our own hatred and violence. By the brutality of those in control.

You can see that part of God’s judgment on sinful humanity is to put it in the hearts of the kings and the Beast to destroy Babylon.

This is to fulfill God’s words.

God is ruling over humanity from the beginning to the end.

He will see every detail of His plan come to fruition

Even the actions of evil kings are not outside of His hand

He causes or allows all that comes to pass

Including the events of the end of history

And in His sovereign wisdom, He has planned for the woman riding the Beast to be destroyed by him in the end.

The woman’s dominion over the kings will be no more (v. 18)

And this is just the start of her destruction.

We will see the rest in ch. 18.

CONCLUSION

Seeing what becomes of Babylon—how she goes from powerful to pitiful—should be a warning to us to reject her.

Not to align with her as the Beast does.

Not to align with her as the kings of the earth do.

Not to align with her as those who dwell on the earth.

We must marvel in apprehensive disgust, not awesome wonder.

Revelation 17 should be a call for you to leave Babylon behind.

It should be a call for you to reject the philosophies and principles coming out of the great cities of the world

A call to recognize that you have no citizenship in Babylon’s walls

Philippians 3:20 ESV

But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,

Wait on your country and reject the world’s city.

She will meet her demise.

Your country is Zion. The Lamb stands on it.

This is not easy.

The world has made her choice.

She will sacrifice her time at the altar of her smart phone.

She will sacrifice her purity at the altar of pornography.

She will sacrifice her children at the altar of convenience.

She will sacrifice her gender on the altar modern sexual ethics.

She will sacrifice her work on the altar of power and promotion.

And she will sacrifice her heart on the altar of Babylon the whore.

Giving it over to the Beast she rides on and the Dragon he represents

What will be your choice?

Our brother Paul has told us what our choice must look like.

Romans 12:1–2 ESV

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Augustine called for something similar for those who reject the city of man as citizens of the city of God.

We heard Augustine speak of the city of man, which offers sacrifices to her idols.

The heavenly one, on the other hand, living like a wayfarer in this world, makes no false gods for herself. On the contrary, she herself is made by the true God that she may be herself a true sacrifice to Him.

Augustine

Augustine lived this way to the end—choosing to reject the city of man.

Even when his eyesight was too poor to read his Bible, he had his students paint lines from the Psalms on the walls and ceiling of his bedroom.

To the very end, he lived at a citizen of another city—refusing to let Babylon take him.

Put your whole life on the altar of worship

And may the incense that rises from it smell of worship.

Smell of a bride adorned for her wedding day

Not a prostitute prepared for destruction