For several days we've been studying the fall of the religious Babylon of the end times. Now we begin our look at the fall of the commercial and political Babylon of the last days.
"After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor." (Revelation 18:1) When John says "after this", he is speaking of the things he saw in Chapter 17. In Chapter 17 he saw the false religion of the end times represented by a gaudy harlot. He told us that, in time, the Antichrist and the kings of the world would turn against the false church and take her down. In Chapter 18 John will sees the fall of the commercial and political Babylon of the last days.
This beautiful angel, bathed in the glory of God, has a dire message for the economy and government of the Antichrist. "With a mighty voice he shouted: 'Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great! She has become a dwelling for demons and a haunt for every impure spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable animal. For all the nations have drunk the maddening wine of her adulteries. The kings of the earth have committed adultery with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries." (Revelation 18:2-3)
The words of this angel echo the words of the prophet Isaiah, who said when he foretold the fall of ancient Babylon: "Babylon, the jewel of kingdoms, the pride and glory of the Babylonians, will be overthrown by God like Sodom and Gomorrah. She will never be inhabited or lived in through all generations; there no nomads will pitch their tents, there no shepherds will rest their flocks. But desert creatures will lie there, jackals will fill their houses; there the owls will dwell, and there the wild goats will leap about. Hyenas will inhabit her strongholds, jackals her luxurious palaces. Her time is at hand, and her days will not be prolonged." (Isaiah 13:19-22) The words spoken against ancient Babylon came true. She lies in ruins today. She has never been rebuilt. The words spoken against the commercial and political Babylon of the end times will come true too.
The commerce and greed of the world have done much harm to the animal kingdom and to the ecosystem and the habitats, so it's ironic---and a form of poetic justice---that the animal kingdom takes over the ruins of the Babylon of the last days, just as it took over the ruins of ancient Babylon. Hyenas will birth their pups on expensive handmade rugs. Birds will roost in the rafters of palaces. Wild goats will leap and play in the deserted halls of government buildings. Owls will make their nests in the penthouse apartments of those who were top officials in the Antichrist's political system. Then, later in Revelation, the Lord will restore the earth and the animal kingdom to an Eden-like state where no creature ever preys on another, and this prophecy from the book of Isaiah comes true: "The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox." (Isaiah 11:6-7)
The angel says that the kings of the earth have committed adultery with the commercial and political system. These kings (meaning presidents, monarchs, dictators, and any other type of national leaders) cared more about money and power than about the living God or about the destinies of their eternal souls. They turned away from truth and light. They gave their allegiance to the man of sin, and whether or not all these national leaders believed he was some type of god, they believed he would help them achieve their goals. Because they preferred darkness to light, the Lord calls them adulterers in the same way He told Old Testament idolaters that they were adulterers. These kings are idolaters whether or not they bow to the Antichrist or to his image or to the religious system that will be in place during the Great Tribulation. They've bowed their knees to money, which has been a "god" to untold numbers of people throughout the ages.
In Chapter 17 we learned that a day is coming in which the kings of the earth will despise the religious system of the end times and will tear it down. They will rejoice at its fall. But they won't rejoice when the economy fails. As we continue on through Chapter 18, the Lord is going to hit them where it hurts most---in their pocketbooks. Those who bowed their knees to wealth and greed are going to be stunned to their core. They are going to wail in disbelief when the commercial system they've put their trust in comes crashing down. The stock market crash of 1929 will be nothing compared to the crash at the end of the Great Tribulation.
The Lord is giving the greedy idolaters of the world a final opportunity to turn to Him. When He takes away the booming economy in which they trust, the logical thing for them to do is to search for solid footing. When they're hurting, we would expect them to turn to the living God for answers and for comfort. But instead we will find that most of them do not, for the Lord will issue a call to those who belong to Him (who are in the minority) to escape the Antichrist's capital city before He destroys it. He will rescue them in the same way He rescued Noah and his family from the flood. He will rescue them in the same way He rescued Lot and his daughters from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Those who are true and faithful to Almighty God have always been in the minority, but He is always faithful to those who are faithful to Him. "The Lord knows how to to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment." (2 Peter 2:9)
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