Revelation 18:1-24 Part 5
REVELATION 18:1-24 Part 5
1) After those I saw another messenger, one having great authority, come down from the heaven; and the land was emblazoned by His glory.
2) And He did cry out in a mighty sound, saying “she has fallen! Babylon the Great has fallen! She has become a dwelling place of demons and a haunt of every unclean spirit and a gathering of every unclean and detestable bird.
3) All the nations drank from the wine of the passion of her fornication; for the kings did fornicate with her, and the merchants of the earth became rich from the power of her wantonness.”
4) Then I heard another sound from the heaven, saying “come out of her My people that you not participate in her sins and receive her plagues;
5) for her sins are heaped up unto the heaven and God remembered her iniquities.
6) Repay her just as she meted out; and double double according to her works! Mingle her double in the cup that she mingled!
7) As much as she appeared glorious but waxed wanton, give her that much torment and mourning; for she says in her heart, ‘I am the sitting queen, I am not a widow, and I will never see mourning’.
8) Because of this, in one day her plagues will come: death and mourning and famine, and she will be utterly burned in fire; for mighty is the Lord God Who judged her.
9) When they look upon the smoke of her burning, the kings of the earth who fornicated and reveled with her will weep and lament over her,
10) having stood at a distance in awe of her torment, saying ‘woe, woe the great city’, Babylon the mighty city, for your judgment came in one hour.
11) And the merchants of the earth weep and sorrow over her because there is no longer anyone buying their cargo -
12) cargoes of gold and silver and precious stone and pearl and fine linen and purple and silk and crimson; and all kinds of scented wood, and every kind of ivory vessel, and every kind of costly wood, bronze, iron and marble articles;
13) cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense; wine, oil, fine flour, wheat; cattle and sheep; horses and chariots; and slaves…… human souls!
14) And the fruit of your soul’s lusts has gone away from you; all – the dainty and the bright – have gone away from you; and you will never find them again;
15) These merchants who had been enriched from her shall stand at a distance weeping and mourning at the awesomeness of her torment,
16) saying ‘woe, woe the great city’, arrayed with fine linen and purple and scarlet, adorned with gold and precious stone and pearls, for in one hour so much wealth is made desolate.
17) And every shipmaster and all sailing to the place and mariners and all who trade by sea did stand at a distance
18) and cry out when seeing the smoke of her burning, saying ‘any likeness of the great city?’
19) Weeping and mourning they cast dust upon their heads, saying ‘woe, woe the great city’ by which all that had ships in the sea did abound from her great worth, for in one hour she was made desolate.
20) Be gladdened over her heaven and holy ones and apostles and prophets! for from your lawsuit God did pass judgment on her.”
21) Then the one mighty messenger raised a stone as a great millstone and cast it into the sea, saying “so with violence Babylon the great city shall be cast and shall never again be found.
22) The sound of harpers and musicians and pipers and trumpeters shall never be heard in you again; and no craftsman of any craft shall ever be found in you again; and the sound of a millstone shall never be heard in you again;
23) and the light of a candle shall never shine in you again; and the voice of the bridegroom and the bride shall never be heard in you again; for your merchants were the princes of the earth, and by your enchantment all the nations of the earth were seduced.
24) And the blood of the prophets was found in her, and that of every one of the holy ones ever slain upon the land.”
So many times YAHVEH had turned away His anger and removed the chastening and affliction. But this people would always return to its whorish ways… all while being betrothed to YAHVEH – covenanted to YAHVEH.
One of God’s beautiful analogies has to do with the “cup”. Israel was conceived a glorious golden cup in His hand. But this people spent its entire existence mingling the wine of its fornication in that cup. And all the nations drank from that wine.
Another analogy in the mind of God (one that is associated with the cup filled with abominations) is that of “betrothal”. From the birth of the nation of Israel all the way to the end of The Revelation of Jesus Christ, this people was under “covenant”, which is “like” a betrothal. And Israel had “agreed” to YAHVEH’s covenant. However, she never was faithful… having “prostituted” herself with all the nations and their idols. She was like a bride-to-be, fornicating with anyone and everyone during the entire period of betrothal!
But you see, even in all of that, there was a promised seed! God had promised. The seed was one man born from this harlot – one from among all cursed and depraved mankind. And from those kept by God from among the descendants of Jacob (twelve thousand from each tribe of Jacob’s sons), there was a promised remnant whose sins and iniquities would be forgiven.
Therefore, because of His faithfulness to His promise, God’s elect of Jacob would be sought out and found and sent into the nations to bless the peoples and tongues and tribes of the Gentiles… as He had promised to Abraham!
So the temporal and spiritual reach of the covenant establishes and secures the unity and continuity of the one church of God composed of the people of God living both before and after the cross of The Christ. The seed of the woman is Jesus Christ and all Who are In Him from the beginning; all saved by grace through faith, which is a gift of God to those of the promise.
The signs of the covenant (both of which we participated in last Lord’s Day) confirm God’s faithfulness to His covenant promise. And they confirm the unity of Christ and His people. And they seal to us the fact that the covenant is true – from the beginning….
Even among the greater Babylon and the greater Sodom and the greater Egypt, there was a promised seed. In the midst of the whore of the world there was a promised seed – kept by YAHVEH as His Own.
And there’s the glory of God revealed in the Scripture! In the worst of the worst, all through His history God kept His Own! Even when all the nations were gathered against Him and His Anointed, He kept His Own for Himself. Even during the four great tyrant nations of history that were raised up in satanic fury against the seed, YAHVEH kept them. And all through the repeated sanctions against Israel for her continual prostitution with the nations, YAHVEH “remembered” His promise and birthed the seed from the belly of the whore… and called her the “Daughter of Zion”. That’s what the apostle Paul meant when he wrote to the Churches in Rome: “nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus”.
It’s the story of God’s history – written from the earliest chapters in Genesis. Even in the worst of conditions – a satanic enemy and the complete depravity of man and a chosen nation that won’t obey – God preserves and manifests His Own. That gives Him GLORY, you see? There isn’t anything that can separate us from Him. That “Seed” is the Christ and those “IN HIM” for whom His blood was shed.
Once again let’s look at YAHVEH’s promise – a promise that Israel always purposefully disregarded and interpreted for its own benefit. The prophetic Word says that God remembered His promise – and Israel’s eyes were closed to it; and her ears were stopped up (Isaiah six), (and it’s the reason that Jesus spoke to them in parables, you remember).
John wrote these words of God here in verse five of our text – that God remembered her iniquity. But God also remembered His promise to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob and his twelve sons – the seed of the woman Who would crush the head of the dragon and establish His Kingdom and preserve every last one of His Own and defeat death and overcome sin and the curse and raise up a people to Himself – all for the glory of The Father.
God did remember; and the clarity of the prophetic Word concerning these things is irrefutable.
As you may remember, here’s what God said through the prophet Isaiah at chapter sixty-five:
11) But you who forsake the LORD, who forget my holy mountain, who set a table for Fortune and fill cups of mixed wine for Destiny,
12) I will destine you to the sword, and all of you shall bow down to the slaughter, because, when I called, you did not answer; when I spoke, you did not listen, but you did what was evil in my eyes and chose what I did not delight in."
13) Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: "Behold, my servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry; behold, my servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty; behold, my servants shall rejoice, but you shall be put to shame;
14) behold, my servants shall sing for gladness of heart, but you shall cry out for pain of heart and shall wail for breaking of spirit.
15) You shall leave your name to my chosen for a curse, and the Lord GOD will put you to death, but his servants he will call by another name.
16) So that he who blesses himself in the land shall bless himself by the God of truth, and he who takes an oath in the land shall swear by the God of truth; because the former troubles will be forgotten and will be hidden from my eyes.
17) "For behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth, and then the former things shall no longer be remembered or come into mind.
One more time… judaists must purposefully re-interpret the prophets in order to maintain their status, and to hope for an end to their affliction, and to anticipate Israel’s return to world-wide prominence! Their eyes are blind, and the disregard of the text must be purposeful; for God was very specific in speaking to them through Isaiah, that He had a chosen people from among them who would be called by another name; and all the rest of them would meet a terminal end! And then His justice would be satisfied and all that came before would no longer be remembered.
In that lengthy passage from Ezekiel sixteen that we heard before, there is that wondrous description of the harlot of the world and her last-days-judgment by Almighty God. But at the end of the passage Ezekiel writes YAHVEH’s words concerning His promise to Jacob and his father Isaac and his grandfather Abraham. Listen to it:
58) You yourself must bear the consequences of your indecency and abominations" — (This is) YAHVEH’s declaration.
59) "For this is what YAHVEH says: I will deal with you according to what you have done, since you have despised the oath by breaking the covenant.
60) But I… I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will confirm an everlasting covenant with you.
61) Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when I receive your older and younger sisters. I will give them to you as daughters, but not because of your oath!
62) I will raise up My covenant with you, and you will know that I am YAHVEH,
63) so that when I make atonement for all you have done (when I Am satisfied), you will remember and be ashamed, and never open your mouth again because of your disgrace." [This is] the declaration (affirmation) of YAHVEH .
As verse six of our text says, God will double – and double again – payment for the works that she meted out with the kings and merchants of the world.
But in that time of God’s atonement, which includes the destruction of the harlot and the flood of wrath upon the Son Of God/Son of Man, He will remember His covenant promise to the house of Jacob. And the Daughter of Zion - the elect Israel – will be blessed with many daughters from her “sister” nations – those of Samaria and Sodom and Gomorrah and the Canaanites and from Syria – all of which the harlot disdained in pride, but all of which she surpassed in iniquity!
The harlot’s sin against God was SO heaped up into the heaven that, in comparison to it, the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was absolved! And the shame of it all will be remembered by the house of Jacob when God freely atones for her sin and even adds those sister nations to her in the new heavens and the new earth!
God remembered His covenant; and He made atonement to Himself for His people! And it would include – not only His elect from the tribes of Jacob, but many from all the nations and tribes and tongues of the earth.
Listen to it again from Isaiah sixty-six:
22) For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, says YAHVEH, so shall your seed and your name remain.
23) And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, says YAHVEH.
As the older Scripture is read through from Jacob onward, it becomes evident that each one of the tribes, from the beginning, exhibited its own corruption and rebellion. But, in the end, which one of them was the worst of the worst?
From which of Abraham’s great-grandsons arose King David, with Whom YAHVEH chose to covenant? From which of Abraham’s great grandsons was born the Seed of the woman?
Of course it was the tribe of Judah. And the area of the promised land that Judah’s tribe occupied encompassed the city of Jerusalem and the temple on the mount – the one location in all the created cosmos that was to resemble the tabernacle of God in the heaven!
As is evidenced here in Revelation eighteen, the Seed of the Woman was born amidst the worst of the worst – in Judah; and He was crucified in the city of God. He was born in Judah, of the tribe of Judah – the seed of Solomon – the seed of David (through Bathsheba) – the seed of Jesse – the seed of Boas (through Rahab) – the seed of Jacob – the seed of Isaac – the seed of Abraham – the seed of Japheth – the seed of Shem – the seed of Noah – the seed of Seth – the seed of Adam!
(I left out a lot of them); but Matthew lists forty-two generations from the promise to Abraham to the day the Seed was born of Mary. And it’s no wonder that Mary was thankful to God for remembering His promise to Abraham for a Seed!
For twenty-four hundred years God had kept a Seed for Himself from among cursed humanity. And He was born from the worst tribe of the twelve born of Jacob… for there was the city of God – the very heart of the harlot!
But God remembered His promise in the garden; and He remembered His promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and He remembered His promise to David. He kept a remnant of all twelve tribes for Himself – marking and sealing them; and here in verse five of our text He commands them to come out of the harlot before the day of YAHVEH.
And please understand that God did not keep them for Himself because they were good! All of our Lord’s forebears (ancestors) were depraved and corrupt! All of humanity was cursed and corrupt, and Israel was the worst of them all. And Judah was the worst of the twelve, for that’s where the glory of God was revealed the most!
God kept His promise and elected to save some from among the worst! So, you see, it was by grace that any were preserved throughout God’s history; and it was by grace that any were sought out by our Lord; it was by grace that any of them were found and marked and sealed in the risen body of Christ. And it was by grace that any from the tribes of Israel were scattered into the nations to bless the Gentiles (as promised to Abraham).
And of course it is by grace that the nations and peoples and tongues of the earth received the Spirit of the ascended Christ – all to the glory of God; for all mankind had broken the covenant made before the foundation of the creation – as had Adam. All were cursed and condemned, and deserving of the wrath of a just and righteous God.
But Almighty God desires His entire creation to reflect His glory; and it will; all because One Man – the seed of the woman – received the full wrath of God in our place. And therefore the descendants of Abraham will be as the stars in the heaven and the sands of the seashore.
However… as God is absolutely just in His gracious provision (according to His covenant), He is just and righteous in His retribution (as verses six and seven reveal); for Israel and its capitol city of the world has played the harlot with the kings and merchants of the world.
It was to be the one place in the midst of the peoples of the world where the glory of God shone in all its brightness. But in all of its perversions it was worse than Babylon – worse than Sodom – worse than Egypt – worse than Nineveh. She was the worst of all corrupt and cursed mankind! And YAHVEH remembered her iniquities (verse five).
And John then hears the thunderous sound of the Lord of Hosts as He proclaims in judgment: “Repay her just as she meted out; and double double according to her works! Mingle her double in the cup that she mingled” (verse six).
Ezekiel, at chapter twenty-one writes:
1) And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
2) Son of man, set your face toward Jerusalem, and let your speech flow towards the holy places, and prophesy against the land of Israel;
3) And say to the land of Israel: Thus says YAHVEH God: Behold I come against you, and I will draw forth my sword out of its sheath, and will cut off in you the just from the wicked.
4) And forasmuch as I will cut off in you the just from the wicked, therefore shall my sword go forth out of its sheath against all flesh from the south even to the north.
5) That all flesh may know that I YAHVEH have drawn my sword out of its sheath not to be turned back.
6) And you, son of man, mourn with the striking of your loins, and with bitterness sigh before them.
7) And when they shall say to you: Why do you mourn? You shall say: For that which I hear. Because it comes, and every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be made feeble, and every spirit shall faint, and water shall run down every leg. Behold it comes, and it shall be done, says YAHVEH.
8) And the word of YAHVEH came to me, saying:
9) Son of man, prophesy, and say: Thus says YAHVEH God: Say: The sword, the sword is sharpened, and polished!
10) It is sharpened to kill victims: it is polished that it may glitter. You remove the sceptre of my son, you have cut down every tree (i.e. to make idols).
11) And I have given it to be polished, that it may be handled. This sword is sharpened, and it is polished, that it may be in the hand of the slayer.
12) Cry, and howl, 0 son of man, for this sword is upon my people, it is upon all the princes of Israel, that are fled: they are delivered up to the sword with my people, strike therefore upon your thigh,
13) because it is proven: and that when it overthrows the scepter, then it shall not be, says YAHVEH God.
14) You therefore, O son of man, prophesy, and strike your hands together, and let the sword be doubled, and let the sword of the slain be doubled again. This is the sword of a great slaughter, that makes them stand amazed,
15) and languish in heart, and that multiplies ruins. In all their gates I have set the dread of the sharp sword, the sword that is furbished to glitter, that is made ready for slaughter.
16) Be sharpened; go to the right hand, or to the left, whichever way you have a mind to set your face.
17) And I will clap my hands together, and will satisfy my indignation: I YAHVEH have spoken.
For all her works that she has “meted out”; for all her works that she has dealt out; for all her favors that she has “dished out” to her lovers; for all her harlotry she has bestowed on the pagans and foreigners of the world; for all the blood she has shed on the land to idols, YAHVEH will repay her double double!
God had made her a golden cup in His hand – filled with all the blessings of His covenant. But she has “mingled” that cup with all her abominations.
Listen to it again from the beginning of chapter seventeen:
“And it bore me away in spirit into isolation. Then I saw a woman sitting upon a crimson beast full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns; and the woman was purple and crimson clothed, adorned in gold and precious stone and pearls, and having in her hand a gold cup full of abominable things and the unclean things of her fornications….”
And as John hears the words of God from the tabernacle, He says (verse seven) “mingle her double in the cup that she mingled”.
Israel and its shining city on the mount was about to drink that cup down to the dregs in repayment for her abominations.
But, you see, this is the “cup” our Lord referred to when He asked His disciples if they were able to drink the cup that He was about to drink; for He was about to be abandoned and struck in the awesome wrath of the Father for His elect people of the house of Jacob. He was pierced with the sharpened and polished sword of God; and out came the blood of atonement and the water for cleansing of iniquity.
For the ones promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the “Seed” was to drink that cup of repayment for all their cursed depravity. The One born of the worst-of-the-worst became the “cursed One” for them. And then He marked out the promised ones, and sealed them, and removed them in order that they not receive “double double” for all Israel’s abominations.
Then, in verse seven, John hears these words: “As much as she appeared glorious but waxed wanton, give her that much torment and mourning; for she says in her heart, ‘I am the sitting queen, I am not a widow, and I will never see mourning’.”
What the Lord of Hosts is referring to there is directly from the prophecy to Israel through Isaiah, chapter forty seven. Listen to it:
1) "Go down and sit in the dust, Virgin Daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, Daughter of Chaldea! For you will no longer be called pampered and spoiled.
2) Take millstones and grind meal; remove your veil, strip off [your] skirt, bare your thigh, wade through the streams.
3) Your nakedness will be uncovered, and your shame will be exposed. I will take vengeance; I will spare no one….
7) You said: “I will be queen forever”. You did not take these things to heart or think about their outcome.
8) "So now hear this, lover of luxury, who sits securely, who says to herself: “I am, and no one else; I will never be a widow or mourn the loss of children.”
9) These two things will happen to you suddenly, in one day: loss of children and widowhood. They will happen to you in their entirety, in spite of your many sorceries and the potency of your spells.
10) You were secure in your wickedness; you said: “No one sees me”. Your wisdom and knowledge have deluded you, for you said to yourself: “I am, and no one else.”
11) But disaster will happen to you; you will not know how to charm it away. And it will fall on you, and you will be unable to atone for it. Devastation that you don’t know will happen to you suddenly and unexpectedly.
12) So… take your stand with your spells and your many sorceries, which you have wearied yourself with from your youth. Perhaps you will be able to succeed; perhaps you will inspire terror!
13) You are worn out with your many consultations. So let them stand and save you – the astrologers, who observe the stars, who predict monthly what will happen to you.
14) Look, they are like stubble; fire burns them up. They cannot deliver themselves from the power of the flame. This is not a coal for warming themselves, or a fire to sit beside!
15) This is what they are to you – those who have wearied you and have traded with you from your youth – each wanders on his own way; no one can save you.
I am wealthy; I have need of nothing; I’m the queen of the world. All of the kings and merchants of the nations come to me! I am! I’ll never be widowed; and I’ll never mourn the loss of children. I am secure, and I have everything I want. And nobody sees me!
However, YAHVEH is I AM (Isaiah forty-three: “I, even I AM YAHVEH, and there is no savior beside Me”). And He does see her pride and hubris; and He sees her fornications; and He sees her idols and her astrologers and enchanters.
And as He said in Jeremiah sixteen: “and I will first doubly repay her iniquity and her sin, because she has polluted My land”. And again, in Jeremiah seventeen: “I will bring on her a day of disaster and crush her with twofold destruction.”
In the “day of YAHVEH” there will be multiple restitution (as reads the Law of God in Exodus chapters twenty one through twenty three.) It is the day of atonement in which the harlot will be repaid double – and double again, for her whoredoms. And as Josephus later wrote about the holocaust in 70AD: “there was left nothing to make those who came there believe it had ever been inhabited”.
On the other hand (as contrasted with that day), there will have already been made atonement for the sin and iniquity of The Father’s elect from the tribes of Jacob; for the wrath of God had been poured out upon the One Savior of the world. He received the full punishment (seven times restitution) for His Father’s elect people.
And we – the Gentiles – are the beneficiaries of that restitution; for those of us who have received faith as a gift are recipients of His promise – the promise made to Adam and to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And we are to be faithful to Him – to hold the testimony of Jesus and keep His Commandments.