high school women included that doesn't say anything about pansy men so just women and even with Sinclair Ferguson the knowledge of Christ Thursday January 27th at 7 p.m. at the home of Elise Maynard so we do want to take the opportunity to advertise this. I think it's a major event anytime Sinclair Ferguson comes to our church and we have the opportunity to hear him so please do be reminded of that. Well I believe we will go ahead and start is somebody can somebody turn you got oh we're on okay okay good well in that case we are at the end of chapter 17 of Revelation and ready to go on to 18 I hope that we can get quite a ways into 18 today maybe even finish it I know my hopes are usually unrealistic but we do have some things I think just to finish up on from chapter 17 but let me for our reading today read from chapter 18 okay I'll read at least the first 10 verses or so of chapter 18 and maybe we'll come back and read the rest of it later on and then we'll we'll read and then we'll pray so let's hear God's word chapter 18 after this I saw another angel coming down from heaven having great authority and the earth was made bright with his splendor and he called out with a mighty voice fallen fallen is Babylon the great it has become a dwelling place of demons a haunt of every foul spirit a haunt of every foul and hateful bird for all nations have drunk the wine of her impure passion and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her and the merchants of the earth have grown rich with the wealth of her wantonness 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 for her sins are heaped high as heaven and God has remembered her iniquities render to her as she herself has rendered and pay her double for her deeds mix of double draft in her for her in the cup she mixed as she glorified herself and played the wanton so give her a like measure of torment and mourning since in her heart she says a queen I sit I am no widow mourning I shall never see so shall her plagues come in a single day pestilence and mourning and famine and she shall be burned with fire for mighty is the Lord God who judges her and the kings of the earth who committed fornication and were wanton with her will weep and wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning they will stand far off in fear of the torment and say alas alas or whoa whoa thou great city thou mighty city babelon in one hour has thy judgment come let's pray Lord when we read these great words we are reminded of many of the great texts from your prophets of old who spoke of your coming judgment Lord we know that history has seen time after time how you have brought judgment upon the pride and hubris of humanity and yet O Lord how the world by and large has forgotten and we do not see your hand in history or in the world around us O Lord we pray that you would open our eyes allow us to see what's going on from the heavenly perspective help us to gain a better a more biblical a more godly perspective upon our world and on our lives and on the life of your church O Lord arm us against the wiles of the devil prepare us for his stratagem arm us against babelon and against the beast and false prophet so that we might stand in this evil day and give glory to the god of heaven and earth who saves his people by the blood of the lamb in his name we pray amen all right good morning once again and we are as I said a few months ago when we were less populated in here we are at the end of chapter 17 I read the beginning of chapter 18 because I do want to get into 18 but before we leave chapter 17 let's try to remind ourselves of what's been going on I know some of you maybe haven't been able to be here every week so chapter 17 introduces us to the third of the four major visions in Revelation and the the angel announces to John right at the beginning that he is going to show John the judgment of the great harlot and we pointed out at some point that this vision and the fourth vision are parallel in a number of ways the main way is that the third vision has to do with the judgment of the great harlot the fourth vision has to do with the arrival and the marriage of the bride of the lamb so you have this this great contrast between babelon who is portrayed as an unfaithful woman a harlot and you have new Jerusalem who is the bride of the lamb the pure bride of the lamb who is who is clothed in fine linen the fine linen are the righteous deeds of the saints so then John is taken to see the judgment of this this harlot babelon and at first he's not really shown the judgment itself but he's he's shown a picture of the woman seated upon a beast the beast has seven heads and ten horns this beast we have been introduced to before back in chapter 13 actually way back in chapter 11 we're told more about it in chapter 13 and now here in chapter 17 the beast carries the woman the woman has a name written on her babelon mystery babelon the great mother of harlots and of earth's abominations and she said to be drunk with a blood of the saints we then are introduced to not only the beast but to the beast seven heads and ten horns and there's an explanation given by the angel of what those seven heads are in the 10 horns we're told that the seven heads are what seven kings right also seven what seven seven mountains on which the woman is seated and seven kings and we're told that a very enigmatic sort of structure of the heads remember that five have fallen one is one is yet to come and when he comes you will remain one a short time and then it will be followed actually by an eight who is one of the seven a very mysterious and enigmatic then we're also told a little bit about the ten the ten horns they are said to be ten kings verse 12 who have not yet received royal power and when they do they will give over that power to the beast and we're told about the activities then of the beast and these ten kings they will be successful in one of their enterprises and unsuccessful in another can you name what what those are they will be successful how we're really told about two campaigns of the beast here the beast and the the ten kings either one of their campaigns
one is against Babylon right and is that a successful or an unsuccessful that's a successful campaign isn't it verses 15 through 17 verse 16 the ten horns in the beast will hate the harlot make her desolate and make it and devour her flesh and burn her up with fire for god has put it into their hearts carry out his purpose okay until the good words of god are fulfilled so these anti-Christian allies battle on in the beast eventually come to be at odds with each other and the beast wins okay but then we're also told about another campaign of the beast and the ten horns and that is a little bit earlier in the text and that is what they will war against the lamb and there they meet their doom right because they can't win against the lamb so the lamb lamb conquerors because he is king of kings and lord of lords okay that's that's the summary of the the plot the drama of chapter 17 and we we did talk quite a bit last time I think about a Babylon and just refresher members what did we say Babylon was what do we suggest in this class I know we went through a number of options what's that could be Babylon literal Babylon right the Old Testament city that some think may be resurrected Sunday okay that's one option any quote any city okay that's that's more or less the one that we settled on at least I'm suggesting and by any city I don't mean to rule out that it actually had a manifestation in first century Rome so that when John is writing it is in his day and to him and his his readers it is Rome and that you can see that many interpreters recognize that who say that but but they say that Rome is it for Babylon and that's why I think that they're wrong is in limiting it to first century Rome rather they're signs and we talked about we talked about this last year there's signs that Babylon extends beyond the first century so some some interpreters would call it any city that would be any city any civilization any culture or society that is materialistic highly materialistic highly sensualistic hedonistic and tends to live off the oppression of others particularly the oppression of Christians so this this could crop up throughout history in many forms and hats and that's the the way that I think we should look at it then the same thing with yeah that's Babylon and then what about the beast now we could talk about all the theories we we mentioned them I think we listed some of them at the end of last week the theories for who the beast is and again I want to get to the give the bottom line first because I know when you when we talk about all the various views we can get lost in the forest and missed the forest for the trees so at at the end of the day I think the beast is what's that a world power yeah more specifically a a status or a military power let's call it an anti-Christian state and once again many signs in the text point of the fact that in John's day it was again Rome or more specifically not the Roman culture which I would identify more with Babylon but the the Roman
military power the state what we think of as the state the military slash political represented by the emperors and so forth so in John's day it was this but again I don't think we can limit it to first century any first century manifestation but that we should see it throughout Christian history manifesting itself in various ways and and look for some final climactic manifestation of it now we sort of introduced this way of looking at the beast way back in chapter 13 and back then I noted that there was something in the text in chapter 17 that for me sort of confirms this this way of looking at it that is not limiting it either to a first century manifestation or not limiting it to a future representation that's which is the most popular view that you hear about today who is the beast who is the anti-Christ you always hear that sort of speculation but to see the beast as having various forms throughout history and what is that that thing in the text well in verses 7 through 12 or so you get the beast is described a little bit more further a little bit further and we're told that in verse 8 the beast that you saw was and is not and is to ascend from the bottom as pit and go to perdition and we're told that dwellers of the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life they will marvel because marvel to behold the beast because it was and is not and is to come okay it was is not and is to come right away we can see that this is sort of a parody on the description of God and Christ in Revelation because the father and Christ are said to be he who was and is and is to come right who was and is and is to come back in chapter 1 the beast was is not and is to come but we're also then told when we're when we're told about the heads of the beast and verses was certain verse 10 there are also seven kings five of whom have fallen one is and the other is not has not yet come and when he comes he must remain a little while
oh and then it goes on to say and has for the beast or as for the the the beast that was and is not it is an eight but it belongs to the seven and it goes to perdition so we're told that the beast was is not and is to come we're told that the heads five have fallen one is one is yet to come in other words we have this curious and paradoxical statement here that in the beast here's a beast who is and who isn't the beast is not in the time of John evidently when when John was receiving the vision vision the beast was not and yet he's told that one of the heads of the beast is right so you know figure that one out how can that be well I suggest you know a way to understand this is to is to understand that the beast itself is not always around in its most malevolent form it was and it is not and it is to come but it has various manifestations and various heads and one of its heads was there and when finally the the eighth head comes that is identified with the beast that is to come and it is that head and that form of the beast that were told goes to perdition or is destroyed that's going to be the end that's the climax that's the end of the beast and its heads does that make any sense I think that's I think that's suggested by the the curious language of saying both of the beast is not and yet one of its heads is at the time John is receiving the vision again that's that's hard to understand but I think that is suggested and another thing that that makes me think that we should not limit our understanding of the beast to something that happened in the first century or something that's going to happen right before the second coming of Christ we see the beast in its various manifestations throughout Christian history and it has has various heads yes but how does the beast relate to Satan well the beast would be motivated by backed by engineered by Satan yeah right I would not say that the beast is Satan but a form through which Satan works specifically a sort of totalitarian anti-Christian state form I would say that yeah I would say that the beast exists in some form and I think we can we've seen it in Indonesia here with a lot of Muslim attacks against Christians and the state there is not doing anything to stop it maybe by its lack of interest is encouraging it we've seen it in China we've we've seen it in Sudan where again you have a Muslim state as I understand it and the Muslims are slaughtering Christians I'm not saying that no Christians are fighting back or anything like that but there are there are places in a world where this is happening I think we always see the specter of it maybe looming even in our society but I suggest that when when we look around us it's not so much the beast that we see in our immediate environs it's more Babylon that we see around us because it seems to me our culture is much let at this point in history it's much less the beast than it is Babylon this hedonistic depraved materialistic centralistic seductive society culture that just that eats away at the church and that will will support the persecution of the church not that it's doing it directly but it sort of feeds on it in some way we're gonna we'll see and I think we see this at times in history how a materialistic wealthy centralistic culture derives benefit from the persecution of the church and in a sense sort of lives off of it she's drunk on the blood of the martyrs even though she may not be doing the actual persecution
Robert yeah right yeah Robert's getting into the more particularly how do we interpret these heads that's attracted a lot of attention you know from interpreters the seven heads five of fallen one is one is yet to come and then there's even an eight and he's he's pointed to one of the ways of looking at that one way that Robert hasn't mentioned is to look at them as Roman Emperor's and we could go into the various ways that people have tried to count up those Emperor's and get to a certain point in history when they think John was written or revelation was written and Robert's bringing up that there's another approach to the to the heads saying that they're not not Emperor's but kingdoms or realms that have been anti Christian anti against God's people throughout history and so some have gone back and said well look you could identify Egypt as maybe the first statist government persecutor of God's people then there would be a Syria that carried off the northern kingdom and captivity then Babylon that carried off the southern kingdom and then Medo-Persia that conquered Babylon Greece that took over after Medo-Persia and then what's after Greece Rome so five have fallen one is that would be Rome and then one is yet to come and then there's an eight so you could you could see how that would fit in John's day to see Rome as that sixth head
so Robert saying that what what do I think the value of that is I don't know I think it fits I think it fits in the end I don't think that we after we get to John's day that we can probably insist on a literal counting that they're only seven or eight that the eighth is going to be the climax whatever the climax is I think we'll say that's the eighth one Richard yeah yeah I think that right yeah that's a good point Richard brings up the the fact that if you if you look at Revelation as a sort of well in the several visions of the seven cycles of recapitulation a deepening or a more focused or just a different angle on the same things you can see that we get a general picture in chapter 13 of the beast and here we get a more specific detailed picture of the beast and that that rings true with what happens in Revelation we're often we're we're looking at the same thing from different angles or for more from a more detailed angle to make a certain point and so that's a 13 ties into chapter 17 yeah there are other approaches I'll just mention the the preterist of you tends to look the seven heads as the seven as seven emperors of Rome and tends to identify the sixth the one that's in power in John's day as Nero now you you can certainly do that in terms of how you count the emperors but I think there's a problem with that view in that the the preterist views wants to see the climax of Revelation in 8070 and the destruction of the of the temple but if you look at the seven heads Nero being the sixth the climax really doesn't come with Nero the six and not even with the seventh but with the eighth and that doesn't work out very well with 8070 first of all I think the climax has to have to do with the second coming of Christ and second of all if you follow if if Nero is the sixth head the eighth head is a fellow named Otto whom you've probably never heard of he was emperor for only a matter of months and it was before 8070 so I think there are problems with that view but the bottom line again I think is that Babylon Babylon is the hedonistic culture and the beast is the antichristian state and some at some point and maybe we've seen this in other ways throughout history but at some point it looks like it's the it's the antichristian state it's the power the military power that's eventually going to win out in a way over the hedonistic culture at some point it will turn against this this city whoever Babylon is at the end and Babylon will be defeated will go to ruin and I don't want to make any any more specific kind of predictions or prognostications other than that but I think you could maybe see this sort of tendency or you can see this principially working itself out I think of like the Vietnam war which I was happy not to have been involved in personally but maybe some of you were and I think of depictions of that war like in the film Apocalypse Now in which it seems to be a major point of that film was to say was to point out the difference between America's involvement in that war and our whole conception of it and the way the Vietcong understood it in America we were not ourselves so threatened by that that is that but the threat was not on our shores against our cities and our people and we lived a very comfortable lifestyle here and here we're we're young men being drafted taken out of that and thrown into this very messy war where the Vietcong were playing for keeps it was it was utterly they weren't playing around and that was symbolized by this fellow curts in the movie where he was it's just so diabolical and you know anything was there's nothing it was off limits for him if he'd gone over to the other side's mindset right and showed that the vast difference between the materialistic comfortable culture that we were in and how could we even compete with another culture that is bent on we don't care what it costs but what we're going to we're going to win we're going to kill you see that sort of I sort of see that as a mini picture of of what could be happening here the the the the materialistic culture is very comfortable and all it cares about is its own ease and comfort and pleasure and in the end that's not going to be a match for the the state that is is bent on destruction bent on dominance so for it well that's that may be a very limited example yes yeah we have a Vietcong that here let's see the question do we have ever applied this to America and look at the state of things in this one lot people think it's the client of our military and we're we're becoming soft and vulnerable well you know I think it's an obvious question that comes up from the book of Revelation not that the book of Revelation is necessarily talking about our American our day but I think the sort of the sort of grand picture that it paints should cause us to look at our own culture our own day and say yeah yeah is in our case is our country becoming so much like Babylon so hedonistic so concerned with our our comfort and welfare personal welfare that we're not any longer safe you know our you know our military and other aspects of our culture sure yes yeah yeah yeah yeah Curtis is asking should we then look for a primary a climactic manifestation of these entities and I think yeah I think we do have to if we believe in the uh yes I think there will be one but what I don't think what I don't think the main point of Revelation is I don't think it's there so that we put all our focus and all our eggs in the basket so to speak I'm trying to identify what that last manifestation is and therefore thinking well if this isn't it if I'm not living in those last days then I can sort of rest at ease now it's what I think this uh approach we've been taking what it does is it forces us not simply to look at the final stage the final scene of human history but it forces us to look at every scene and the one that we're living in and saying okay we may or may not be living in the last of the last of the last days but aren't these forces at work in our own day uh you know Paul wrote that uh wrote about the man of lawlessness in 2nd Thessalonians but he said the spirit of lawlessness is already at work and John wrote in 1st John about an antichrist but he said the spirit of antichrist is already at work so I think that's rather than trying to focus on identifying the final antichrist 666 and all that we should be looking around at at whatever wherever we are and whenever we're living and and see these forces at work now at the yeah yeah there is there is an emphasis on the consummation and so you know again we have we have interpretation that the focus on the past the what's happening in John's day and I think they often give us a lot of insight and we have interpretation the focus on the future but a lot of those tend to be completely on the future uh so I think you know we can't miss that revelation I think is about the the whole church age whenever we live so you know we should we should look around us all the time and look for these things uh and now you know we're given a very uh terrifying picture in this chapter and all most of what we're told here is about a captivating nature of Babylon and the the total domination by the beast and the ten kings whoever they are that come and align themselves with the beast towards the end we could talk more about who they might be but I less a specific question I think I'll just assume that those aren't are going to come in at at the last and uh support the beast and we're doing a very frightening picture but chapter 17 verse 14 gives us gives us an anchor of hope 17 14 says that these kings and the beast will make war on the lamb and the lamb will conquer for he is lord of lords and king of kings and that's what uh the christians then and the christians now need to hear through all this uh I love the way uh Luther puts it in in uh a mighty fortress a dust ask who that may be Christ Jesus it is he lords sabayoth his name from age to age the same name and he must win the battle right and he must win the battle I love the way it's put and he must win the battle no matter what how things look he must win the battle not only this not only of course does he win the battle and that's the main thing but we're even told and those with him and those with him are called and chosen and faithful um in the saints have the assurance that they are called by god chosen by him and that they will be faithful and that they're on the side of the victor they will overcome um i have uh from time to time uh gone back and encoded from some uh martyr accounts in the early church and uh one comes to mind now that i've I've referred to before there was uh a letter written after a great persecution in the cities of uh Vienna and and leone in france now modern day france and a letter was written after that persecution ended and uh we still have parts of that letter that are preserved for us and in that account we're told that after the crowd in the amphitheater had had witnessed a couple of brutal deaths of christians one was a 15 year old boy and uh one was a young woman who uh was uh just amazed everybody by her endurance uh the writer goes on to say not even thus was their madness and cruelty of the saints to the saint satisfied for incited by a wild beast wild and barbarous tribes could get could scarcely stop and their violence began in a new way on their bodies on the bodies for they had been for that they had been conquered did not shame them uh that they that they the pursuers have been conquered you know by the christians did not shame them because they had no human reason but rather inflamed their wrath as of a wild beast again we have this beast idea and the governor and the people showed the like unrighteous hatred against us that the scriptures might be fulfilled quote let him that is unlawful be unlawful still and he that is righteous be righteous still that quotation by the way it comes from the end of the book of revelation chapter 22 verse 11 uh let him that is unlawful be unlawful still let him that is righteous be righteous still which shows that the writer's mind is in the book of revelation uh later on well well from this quote you see that he's talking about a beastly force but i think he gets from the book of revelation then he goes on to say later uh mentions the beast later and and to for this and ask what i have to introduce it by saying that uh one of the problems that we're having in the church then was what do you do with people uh let's say they're brought before the governor and they deny that they're christians and uh they're let go eventually and then then they they repent or they say they repent and they want to come back into the church you know what do you do with that terrible problem or you can imagine that under the duress of torture and the threat of torture uh some christians will be weak and some some will actually not be christians and will gladly say i'm not a christian but then they want to come back in the church uh this was a this was a problem back then uh the writer
i know that they can come back at right right let the governor decide right um well in this uh in this letter that talks about the persecution it mentions the attitude of the martyrs themselves those who did confess and were put into confinement and then were brought out in the amphitheater for all sorts of tortures uh how did they respond to these people who had denied well it says for their greatest contest of these martyrs uh through the genuineness of their love was this that the beast should be choked into throwing up alive those whom he at first thought to have swallowed down for they did not boast over the fallen the fallen the ones who had denied at first they did not boast over the fallen but from their own abundance supplied with a mother's love those that needed and shedding many tears for them to the father they prayed for life and he gave it to them and they departed to god having in all things carried off the victory the victory is the victory over the beast in other words uh and you find this not a part of the letter some of those who had denied christ later on they've been put in confinement through the prayers of the martyrs who confessed and through their example uh these people who had denied some of them who were encouraged to confess and they're actually brought out in front of the governor again and uh there's gonna make a spectacle of these people who were who have denounced christ and they they didn't and uh so they too were taken and were martyred and the author sees this as the great triumph and knows how he put it the beast was forced to vomit up what he thought he'd swallowed just love that the way that's uh but i think that that really comes from the book of revelation seeing that the beast thought he had thought he had devoured them but that was forced to vomit them up uh peter was to say yeah very very good very good peter denied him and then and then repentant and came back yeah carlie
right right very very powerful uh carlie's bring up other examples such as uh sour anola and uh kranmer who uh when he was burned after after first what he he signed a statement was that it okay and then when he finally recanted from that uh and was burned placed his right hand out first right hmm yeah that's that's i mean isn't that encouraging to to learn about those if you're watching he's signed these days but yeah and that so it reminds me and the reason i brought this out was again that uh the the beast has been on the prow all the way through in various ways uh but we are with the one who is king of kings and lord of lords and his people are chosen are called chosen and faithful and they're with the victor
well that uh brings us to the beginning of chapter 18 chapter 17 uh introduced us to all these strange figures chapter 18 presumes the the fall of Babylon about Babylon has now been defeated destroyed and what we have in chapter 18 are a number of dirges laments and even some rejoicing about the fact of Babylon's fall the uh much of the language of chapter 18 uh is is obviously a throwback to a number of Old Testament passages which speak about the judgment of God's enemies if you we'll take the time you could go back to uh parts of Isaiah parts of Jeremiah which talk about Babylon Old Testament Babylon parts of Isaiah that talk about Edom parts of Zephaniah that talk about Nineveh and parts of Ezekiel that talk about Tyre all these Old Testament enemies that were judged by God and all that Babylon were judged by Babylon all the the judgments of these godless Old Testament powers the depictions of the judgments are combined in this picture of the destruction of Babylon it's a composite picture again we we hear in this chapter about the the sea merchants and Babylon's depicted as if it were a if it as if it were a seaport city where the Old Testament Babylon wasn't really but Tyre was another one of the enemies of God anyway the point is that all depictions are combined and Babylon is seen as sort of the conglomeration the combination of of all these evil empires I'm not going to go through uh each verse in particular what we have is an extended and I think rather poetic account when I say poetic I don't mean that it rhymes and things that there's a structure to it it's it's put in a sort of literary form and I think that you could even see seven of these and this erasure isn't working so hot is it
well if you look at at the first verses of 18 you have an angel announcing the doom of Babylon fallen fallen is Babylon the great has become the dwelling place of demons and so forth so you have you have first of all an angelic announcement of Babylon's doom that's verses one through three then you have a heavenly call to forsake Babylon that's addressed to God's people
verse four another voice from heaven says come out of her my people lest you take part in her sins lest you share in her plagues and her plagues shall come in a single day it's a it's a warning just like God told the people of Israel in the Old Testament come out of Babylon be free from her lest you partake in her sins and her plagues her judgments then you've got three laments if you look at if you compare these you've got first a lament of the that's supposed to be horing horing kings that is the kings who've committed fornication with Babylon they are depicted as when they see the the demise of Babylon and the smoke of her torment they are their awestruck by this and they weep verse nine the kings of the earth who committed fornication were want and with her will weep and whale over her when they see the smoke of her burning it will stand far off in fear of her torment and say alas alas or woe woe the great city now mighty city Babylon in one hour has thy judgment come they're stunned by this then you have a lament of the earth merchants the merchants of the earth who got rich off of Babylon's wealth and excess and interestingly they end up wailing in the same sort of way in verse 16 they stand off in fear of her torment weeping morning aloud alas alas for the great city that was clothed in fine linen in purple and scarlet bedecked with gold and jewels and with pearls in one hour all this wealth has been laid waste alas alas for the great city their lament is much the same as that of the horing kings then you have
lament of the sea merchants and you know all three of these are very similar of these the kings and then the two merchants groups of merchants the sea merchants in verse 19 throw dust on their heads and weep and mourn crying again alas alas for the great city same wording that's been used twice before where all who had ships at sea grew rich by her wealth in one hour she has been laid waste okay and after that you have what you could call a heavenly call to rejoice while the kings and the great ones the great merchants of the earth and let's face it you know the great merchants of the earth are are still the great many of the great men of the earth today they are lamenting at the fall of Babylon the source of their great wealth and comfort and pleasure but the saints are told to rejoice verse 20 rejoice over her oh heaven oh saints and apostles and prophets for God has given judgment for you against her what is disaster for the world is rejoicing for the saints that God has given the saints judgment against Babylon and then finally we have here
an angelic symbolic prophecy once again of Babylon's doom a symbolic prophetic announcement of Babylon's doom that's where in verse 21 a mighty angel takes up a stone like a great mill stone and throws it in the sea that's a picture that's depicting something isn't he's he's saying so shall battle on the great city be thrown down with violence and shall be found no more and then this this account this again almost poetic account of what shall no longer take place in Babylon the sound of harpers and minstrels and flute players and trumpeter shall be heard in the no more and a craftsman of any craft shall be found in the no more on and on listing the various aspects of life that Babylon had enjoyed that are no more because Babylon is is no more yet some of you have maybe noticed there's a sort of an inversion here where these elements seem to correspond in a way the top with the bottom one and the second one with the next to the last one and then the three in the middle are corresponding to each other that's just another what it could be see it could be it's just the way you choose to outline it a b c d and then c prime b prime a prime that's just you could call anything you wanted really but that that just points out I think that it is it's a picture because it's put in this sort of poetic form again I'm using poetic in a broader sense that it it's it's it's a it's a constructed it's like a picture it's like a picture it's like an artist's picture of something so that it's hard to say how much we should press the details in any any literal sort of way but what is communicated well what is communicated of course is that Babylon the great the great city the unthinkable has happened with Babylon unthinkable to the kings of the earth and to the merchants Babylon her her she's been judging one hour her judgments have come suddenly and she is she's deprived of her hold again anymore but at the same time heaven is called to rejoice because this is God's judgment on her we saw it in the chapter before it was the beast and the ten kings who brought about Babylon's fall but here we're told the reason behind it it's God's will it's God's judgment we're not just talking about blind mechanistic or human forces at work it was God's work to judge her any any questions about that aspect yes yeah yeah Rick that's a good good question it is Babylon a world's moral world system or could it be a specific play city or nation yeah and in its final manifestation I don't know I don't I think that's very hard to say it may be that it will it will show up in certain nations against certain other nations where Babylon is more or less expressed in certain nations and not in others and those those entities will finally be finally be defeated now again I don't know how literally to read this because it depicts it seems to depict life going on in the world after Babylon's destroy and yet when we get the chapter 19 it seems to indicate that when Babylon is destroyed that's it for the world that's it that's the end when Babylon goes that's the destruction of the harlot and right then we're we're told the bride is made ready for her marriage so again and the fact that this is this is artistic and poetic again guards us I think from reading too much literally into this this is a this is a a very moving and dramatic picture of Babylon's defeat yes yeah yeah I would agree it does seem to be more than any one nation in one one culture maybe you know in our day we think of I think of Western culture being more hedonistic than other what are you called cultures in the world but who knows in in John's day I think you had the interesting coalescence because it for him Babylon was Rome and the beast was Rome in different aspects there's the same you know one was her the aspect of her culture and now there was the aspect of her military and state so there you had sort of both in one and how that's going to be in the end I wouldn't want to speculate but okay here we have a speculator
that when is that that kind of going to happen so that something happens somewhere in the world and all of a sudden all the cards come cracking down and it just seems like the years ago they had all this thing like the world power big brother and all of us and that but it just seems like we're just developing more and more towards this concentration in the end both no fairly I mean the big thing I guess back in the 50s and 60s it's all from scratch and now there's all that coming together in addition to that could be could be yeah anything else Robert
the earth merchants of them next yeah how how are we I assume it's probably a significant amount of Christians who are who have made enormous money and you know all the lines of the beast that with a least sort of are we called in some ways not to purchase a tank so much in the good things of this world in regards to a beast and to be sort of rejoicing and being different than apart from it if Microsoft does go down we rejoice those I think it's very uncomfortable I think we should feel some discomfort about it in a one way how can we possibly disentangle ourselves from this completely I don't think we can and and still live where we live we can't completely disentangle ourselves all the stuff I mean if we knew the corruption in our own government if we knew that the you know what certain companies multinational or whatever companies we're doing you know we we'd be completely distressed well you know we we can't I don't see how how that's even possible to get out of all of our involvement there but should it make us as Christians business people or individual investors or whatever consumers should it make us wary of what we spend our money on yes absolutely and I don't know what that I don't know where the point comes you know with a point of change comes yeah and whose side are we on and when called upon to make a stand we know where we're going to stand okay well that's a good place to end sides we're over time now let's close quickly in prayer dear Lord we do thank you for this great book and we pray that you would continue to open our eyes to the world around us cause us to have an ever more biblical picture of it and grant us courage to stand in this day for for right and for your truth and to take the consequences where we must in Jesus name oh man