Chapter 18
As identified yesterday, Mystery Babylon will be destroyed in the first half of the Tribulation once the ten kings and the beast of chapter 13 have used her to gain political and economic power. In short, the worldwide Apostate Church will be turned into a one-world religion, and Mystery Babylon will be destroyed.
This leaves Babylon the city, still standing as a representation of political and commercial power. God has dealt with the apostate church and the false religion of the woman riding the beast by getting the Antichrist and the ten kings to turn on her (Rev 17:16-17). This was God’s idea (Rev 17:17), but the job is only half done. Chapter 18 deals with the destruction of the rest of Babylon and the bloodthirsty greed of her empire.
Like the church at Laodicea, the wealth, political power and status that has been achieved provided a false sense of security which led to its sudden demise and destruction. This will be brought about in the lead up to Christ’s second coming.
There was no mourning at the fall of religious Babylon, but the fall of economic Babylon caused great mourning and sorrow (18:9-10). They are mourning because no one is buying or trading anymore (18:11). This highlights the actual god that humanity and the kings were worshipping. Even though the world religion is destroyed and they now worship the beast and his image, not ecclesiastical Babylon causes them to mourn. Still, when they lose their wealth generator and political power, a great sorrow fills their hearts.
In Genesis 11, we see a similar situation when the world was involved in universal worship by accessing the heavens through a Ziggurat. They were worshipping together and redirecting their worship away from God and towards themselves. In addition, they were also in universal commerce, all working together in one mind to achieve a common political and commercial reality in their civilisation (Gen 11:1-4). How it began will also be how it ends.
The universal worship of the beast and themselves are destroyed, and the political, commercial god of money and power is now also being brought down by the Almighty.
Babylon has long been an enemy of God. In the Garden of Eden, God provided perfect prosperity for everything that humanity needed or wanted. After the fall, humankind tasted poverty for the first time through the curse. This has led to millennia of human history being dedicated to labour, toil and sweat, which led to worshipping agricultural gods believed to increase wealth and bounty and fertility gods that require human sacrifice. Humans have always worshipped anything that will help them escape the curse of poverty, even sacrificing their children to Baal, Ashtoreth and Molech repeatedly in the Old Testament.
In Jesus’ day, He referred to the God of money, Mammon. He explicitly informed His followers, ‘You cannot serve God and mammon’ (Matt 6:24). He warned that it was impossible to dedicate your life to God and money. It is one or the other. That’s why when you build in the Kingdom of God, you build everlasting riches, but when you get caught up in consumerism and materialism, you end up worshipping creations instead of the creator. You worship the sun instead of the one who made the sun. You worship money instead of the One who brings blessing. Mamon is still the God of this world and makes slaves of all who worship it.
Toil and prosperity, labour and blessing, Babylon and Heaven, have all been in battle since the beginning. God in this chapter destroys the political, greedy, materialistic Babylon for all the damage it has done. Not only has Babylon killed the prophets and slain the people of God, (18:24), but it has also relentlessly controlled and enslaved the souls of humanity, including the selling of their bodies as one of their commodities listed in verse 13.
God is done with the corrupt, greedy system of control and economic slavery, and just like a millstone thrown into the sea, Babylon is brought down and not found anymore (18:21). What used to be the globalist epicentre of trade, political control, and commerce is now a silent ruin. Merchants and kings stand at a distance fearing the plagues from one of the bowl judgments upon her.
The city is destroyed in a day. Whether this is a literal city rebuilt in the plains of Shinar or a depiction of the world economic and political control installed by the globalist government remains somewhat unknown. Either could be accurate, but many favour a rebuilt Babylon in modern-day Iraq. Regardless, God’s judgment is so swift and severe that the whole system and city is utterly destroyed in one day.
The system and city that has warred with God, His people and His Kingdom are judged with one fatal blow from the Almighty, silencing her sorcery, debauchery, violence and blasphemy forever. Never again will Babylon deceive that nation. And, never again will the blood of the saints and prophets be spilled by that system. God has destroyed the destroyer of God’s people, and His triumph has replaced the suffering of His people.
Here’s what we can live from these verses:
- God Will Bring Justice to the Babylonian System. Babylon has always been at war with God and His people. There is a day, though, that God says, enough is enough; you will no longer spill the blood of the prophets and control the people of this world. Just like Babylon has enslaved and destroyed, God will destroy Babylon and set her captives free. Today, let us stand for justice where we see oppression and live Kingdom values that war against the Babylonian system.
- You Cannot Serve God and Mammon. We are free people who worship freely in the abundance of God’s Grace.
2 Cor 9:8 says
“And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.”
We don’t need to worship the sun god or the fertility gods to make us prosperous. We don’t need to rely on luck or good fortune. We serve the God of blessing and favour, and He has made all grace abound towards us that we, having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work. We never have to labour, toil and sweat in God’s Kingdom. Only when you are enslaved to mammon, the god of this world and the chief slave driver of Babylon, are you under the curse of poverty. Today, serve God and let us live free as stewards of the fullness of God’s Kingdom.
- Triumph is the Promise for Believers. No matter how much suffering a believer experiences. Triumph is always the promise. Our God turns mourning into dancing and sorrow into joy (Psalm 30:11), and the victory of the cross guarantees a returning King that is bringing triumph. Today, let us live in great anticipation that God has and will remove all enemies and any sorrow or mourning we may experience; let’s live in bold confidence that it will be turned into joy and dancing.
