Sermon Tone Analysis

Text: Revelation 18:1-24

Theme: Babylon the Great and the false religious system that supported it have fallen.

The Great Babylon and the false religion that prostituted itself in the Antichrist's service is about to be judged.

Date: 11/04/2018 File name: Resurrection36.wpd

ID Number:

“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great!”

This is the second time in Revelation we’ve heard angels make this announcement.

Now what on earth is this Babylon the Great — also called Mystery Babylon?

If you will remember, a few Sundays back, when I last preached on the Book of the Revelation, I dealt with Babylon then.

In Revelation chapter 17, Babylon is the Bible’s cryptic and descriptive name for a city, for the value system of an ungodly era, and for the kingdom of Antichrist.

It is called Babylon because its cultural norms, its worldview, and its philosophies root all the way back to the Book of Genesis.

In the opening chapters of the Book of Genesis we read about a man named Nimrod who built a tower, and it was called the Tower of Babel.

It was the first attempt at humanism — for man to establish an earthly kingdom, independent of God.

The leader of that ancient city-state was Nimrod.

His name means “rebel.”

Three times in the Book of Genesis he is called “a mighty one”.

And Nimrod, way back in the dawn of civilization, is a type — a picture of the coming Antichrist, who will rule over the last Babylon.

In chapter 18, we’re going to see the destruction of Babylon.

The question is weather-or-not the Babylon described here in Revelation is an actual city, or is this Babylon simply symbolic of a worldview?

Is it a city, or is it a system?

Or, is it both?

If you were here several weeks ago, you heard me say that it’s both.

Empires require types, and symbols and worldviews to maintain their authority and power structure.

But empires also need flesh-and-blood leaders, and seats of authority.

The kingdom of the Antichrist will be no different.

From where he will rule we simple don’t know.

Wherever his capitol will be there is one thing I am certain of, and it is this: that this Babylon the Great stands for a wicked, vile culture that will rule with cruel power.

Just as the ancient city of Babylon became an Old Testament symbol of everything evil, and in opposition to God, so the Antichrist’s capitol city will likewise be a symbol of everything evil, and that stands in opposition to God.

It is the antithesis of the Holy City, the New Jerusalem that will be the eternal home of believers.

The Great Babylon of the Revelation symbolizes the vileness and the wickedness of the Antichrist and his values as well as those who receive his mark and follow him.

We’ve already seen in Revelation chapter 17 the destruction of the religious system that supported Babylon (Revelation 17).

And now we’re going to see, in chapter 18, the destruction of commercial Babylon.

We’re going to see this system as it comes tumbling down.

I. THE REVELATION OF BABYLON’S DESTRUCTION

“After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illumined with his glory.”

(Revelation 18:1, NASB95)

1. the phrase after these things occurs at least nine times in Revelation

a. the phrase does not refer to chronological time, but rather to a change from one vision to another

b. in Revelation 17 John witnesses the destruction of the religious alliance that helped bring the Antichrist to power

1) the Great Harlot of that chapter represents false religion in service to the Antichrist and the False Prophet

2) the Antichrist — whoever he is — understands that you don’t rise to worldwide preeminence without at least paying lip-service to the religious beliefs of the people you hope to subjugate

ILLUS.

Some of you remember the gaff made by then candidate Obama when in early 2008 he displayed a profound misunderstanding of rural American values.

He derided small-town working-class residents as people who were bitter over their economic circumstances, and who, therefore, hang on to their “guns and religion” out of frustration.

What you might not remember is that it was Hillary Clinton, also a Democratic candidate who first pounced on his words and call him an elitist.

He had to quickly walk-back those words.

3) the point is that a politically savvy leader knows that you don’t disparage a person’s religious faith even if you have none yourself

c. the Antichrist will not make that mistake, but will effectively use a religion or all religions to ascend to power

1) but when he has secured his power and no longer needs the Great Harlot or her children he will turn on them

“And the ten horns which you saw, and the beast, these will hate the harlot and will make her desolate and naked, and will eat her flesh and will burn her up with fire.”

(Revelation 17:16, NASB95)

2. after that John sees an angel with great authority and splendor announces Babylon’s destruction

a. Babylon refers to a future capital of the entire world that will become the economic, the religious, and the cultural center of the world

1) and no, I don’t have a clue what great city that might be, but I do believe it will be one of the world’s great mega-metropolises

b. it will be the seat of the Antichrist who will rule the world with an alliance of ten nations represented by the ten horns of the seven-headed beast that John sees

“The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but they receive authority as kings with the beast for one hour.”

(Revelation 17:12, NASB95)

c. that great city and the alliance the Antichrist forms with ten powerful nations will symbolize the universal kingdom of darkness

3. Babylon and her allies have taken on God as their enemy, and now face the penalty of total economic collapse, and destruction

II.

THE REASONS FOR BABYLON’S DESTRUCTION

1. the bulk of the chapter describes the enormity of Babylon’s sin which is the justification for God’s condemnation and judgment upon a wicked, God-hating, Satan-loving world

“for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.”

(Revelation 18:5, ESV)

ILLUS We have seen similar judgmental events in Biblical history.

The world of Noah’s day gives us a foretaste of what the world will be like at the end of time in the closing days of the Great Tribulation.

“Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence.

12 And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.

13 And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them.

Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.”

(Genesis 6:11–13, ESV).

a. there comes a time when the sins of a nation, or a city, or a people reach to heaven, and cry aloud for God to act

1) on our side of Heaven, it can seem that God’s sword of vengeance slumbers long, and heaven seems silent and indifferent to earth’s corruptions, defamation of God’s name and His people, and crimes against His Elect

2. but God is not deaf nor blind, and Revelation 18 reminds us that when the times of the Gentiles has reached it’s culmination, He will act in righteous judgment

3. the chapter gives us the evidence that validates God’s judgment upon the Antichrist, his city, and the God-denying world he rules over

a. it is filled with immorality (18:3a)

b. it is materialistic to the core (18:3b)

c. its sins are as high as the heavens (18:5)

d. it is totally proud and arrogant (18:7)

e. it has deceived the nations and killed the saints (18:23c–24)

f. it has treated humans as property to be bought and sold (18:13b)

4. but a rebellious world’s crowning sin is her pride and presumption

“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.’” (Revelation 18:7, ESV)

a. while Christians around the world are denying themselves, the Antichrist’s followers are denying themselves nothing

ILLUS.

Think “Capitol City” of the nation of Panem in The Hunger Game book series.

If you’ve read the books or seen the movies you know that Capitol City is lavishly rich and technologically advanced, and rules the outlying provinces with an iron fist through an army euphemistically called “peacekeepers.

The city holds total political and economic dominance.

The pampered and hedonistic citizens of the Capitol City are generally preoccupied with extravagant fashion, parties, and mass entertainment.

b. this is a picture Babylon the Great at the end of days

1) a society built on luxury, on wantonness, on pride, on callousness to human life and personality is necessarily doomed

III.

THE REMOVAL OF GOD’S PEOPLE OUT OF BABYLON BEFORE ITS DESTRUCTION

“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;” (Revelation 18:4, ESV)

1. in the waning days of the Great Tribulation it’s hard to imagine that any believers have managed to survive the incessant onslaught of murderous pogroms against the Confessing Church

a. and yet some believers have survived ... as is the case throughout history

ILLUS.

In A.D. 303 the Roman Emperor Diocletion hounded Christians, even though his wife, Prisca, belonged to the faith.

Christians called it the Great Persecution because it was empire-wide.

Diocletion’s goal was the total eradication of Christianity.