Revelation 18 - Why Fall?

Last week, we explored the details of Revelation 17. John saw a vision of a beautifully adorned prostitute sitting on the back of a hideous, God-mocking beast. The prostitute is a symbol of Babylon. The world. All the seductions and persecutions Christians will face. The beast is also symbolic, though much more complex.

It had seven heads and ten horns. The heads represent mountains, which may have stood for ancient Rome, but perhaps more likely for political powers in general. Isaiah 2 describes world powers as mountains, with the mountain of God being the highest. Also, the heads of the beast represent kings. These are all the anti-Christian governments during the last days, including the final empire of anti-Christ. The horns also represented kings, but these are the anti-Christian forces that rule the various sectors of human life.

So, collectively, the beast symbolizes all anti-Christian governments and influences.

And Satan is behind it all. Empires rise and fall, but He is constant. Satan controls the evil nations and kingdoms of the world. That’s why, as Luke 4 says, he “showed [Jesus] all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will.”

But right at the end of chapter 17, the beast turns on the prostitute to destroy her. This is the world collapsing on itself. Anti-Christian governments and influences eventually turn on one another. Nations war against each other; each trying to prosper at the expense of another, and they destroy themselves.

Satan uses world powers and influential entities, and then tosses them aside in favor of the next, because none of these governments or influences can accomplish what Satan wants, which is the elimination of Christ and His gospel and His church. All anti-Christian ideas and efforts eventually self-destruct, and that destruction is Babylon falling.

Which brings us to chapter 18 – a closer look at why the world falls. It’s falling now.

Three angels bring three messages – three songs, actually – pronouncing the world’s guilt. But these songs also hold messages for the church, because the guilt the world bears teaches us about the guilt Christ bore for His people. And you can see three of those messages compared in the outline for you.  Why does the world fall while the redeemed are saved?

First, the world is the dwelling place of every kind of evil, but the redeemed are the dwelling place of the Spirit.

Second, the world is steeped in the guilt of their sins, but the redeemed are steeped in the love of the Father.

And finally, the world is stained with the blood of God's people, but the redeemed are washed in the blood of the Son.

These songs are a warning for non-believers and an encouragement for believers, because the redeemed in Christ still must battle against sin in this life. Look with me at these now.

These are messages from God, “from heaven.” See how the first angel describes the world. “She has become a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast.” “Unclean” is biblical language for being defiled by sin.

Now, how is someone defiled? In Mark 7, Jesus said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

Sin doesn’t consist only of actions or behavior. It includes thoughts and desires contrary to God’s holy character and His perfect moral law. Jesus further clarified this in Matthew 5, where He says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

A common error today is the belief that the thoughts and desires which come from deep within signify “the authentic self.” In other words, if you think or feel something – that must be who you are. Christians must know better. We have to learn to rightly interpret our thoughts and desires.

Are you ever shocked by a sinful thought or desire or urge that bubbles up from within you? You may have thought, “Where did that come from? I don’t want to think that; I don’t want to feel that.” In Romans 7, the apostle Paul expressed a similar desperation. He writes, “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” As long as we are in this body, we will fight sinful thoughts, desires, and behavior. Therefore, we must learn to live with and not be surprised by some darkness within us.

It’s common today for people to defend their sin by saying something like, “I’ve been this way since birth – since I was a young child. This is my true self.” I don’t doubt for a moment that from a young age, anyone – being a sinner – would have sinful thoughts and desires of all kinds. But if you allow those things to define “who you are,” your future will be like that of Babylon.
The world is the dwelling place of every kind of evil.

However, if you trust in Jesus, God tells you who we are. “In Christ,” you were predestined in love, you are set free from slavery to sin, and you have a righteousness that is not our own. Apart from Christ, believers are unclean like the world. But we are not like the world. Romans 8 says that if you are in Christ, “the Spirit of God dwells in you.” The world is the dwelling place of every kind of evil, but the redeemed are the dwelling place of the Spirit.

Do unclean thoughts and desires trouble you? Do unclean actions plague you over and over? Turn with humility to Christ and believe in Him and His righteousness imputed to you. He is our hope; He is our peace. He sends His Spirit to dwell in those who are born again.

This second angel continues the theme of the first but makes a startling statement in verse 4. “Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues.” John wrote something similar in 1 John 2. He told the churches, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires.”

The world is falling! Why does it fall? Notice verse 5. “For her sins are heaped high as heaven.” Christians were steeped in sins and still battle the sinful nature.

Why won’t the redeemed fall? Psalm 103 says, “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is [God’s] steadfast love toward those who fear him.”

Look at the rest of verse 5. Why else does the world fall? “God has remembered her iniquities.” Christians have iniquities. However, in Jeremiah 31, the Lord says this of the redeemed: “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

What does it mean that God “remembers their sin no more?” God doesn’t delete the information. He doesn’t wipe His own memory. But when God forgives sin, He isn’t tempted later to enforce a penalty or hold a grudge. He’s not like us. We can forgive and then later become angry when the memory pops up. God does not do that with those who are in Christ.

Something especially in focus with the second angel’s song is the luxurious life of the world. Babylon appears to have it all – but retribution is coming. For some, it comes soon; for others, it’s delayed. But notice verse 6. The angel says, “Pay her back as she herself has paid back others, and repay her double for her deeds; mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed.” The redeemed are assured that Christ took our payback. He drank the cup of God’s wrath for us. He received what we deserved. But the world must endure its own payback. They must absorb God’s wrath as compensation for their defilement and their deeds.

There are a few groups referred to in these songs. Kings, also merchants of the earth, as well as shipmasters and seafaring men. All of these groups dealt in and moved around great wealth in John’s day. Where wealth is possessed and enjoyed, there’s normally a feeling of security.

These songs reveal that worldly security is really no security at all because the world is headed for total economic collapse. There have been glimpses of this throughout history. Economic recessions and depressions, and each one is an opportunity to stop and say, “I need God.” Some will, some won’t. But when that great and final collapse happens, just before Jesus Christ returns, all the wealth acquired in the world will be of no good.

The world is steeped in riches and vainglory, steeped in success and outward beauty, steeped in worldly pleasures and benefits. But also, the world is steeped in guilt of their sins.

God’s people are different though. In 1 John 3, John wrote, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” The world is steeped in guilt of their sins, but the redeemed are steeped in the love of the Father. Are your money and possessions a help for you, or are they hope for you? Put your hope in God!

Now there’s one more angel who delivers not only a song, but also a stone. A great millstone. A millstone was a huge rock shaped to grind wheat and other grains. Verse 21 says this angel throws it into the sea and then pronounces Babylon’s judgment. How do we interpret this?

Well, the OT prophet Jeremiah helps us. Jeremiah 51 deals with the fall of ancient Babylon – an event before the life of Jesus Christ that pointed to the final fall of the world. Like so much of OT history, it pointed to these to come. It says, “Jeremiah wrote in a book all the disaster that should come upon Babylon, all these words that are written concerning Babylon.”

Then Jeremiah said to a servant of the king of Judah, “When you come to Babylon, see that you read all these words, and say, ‘O LORD, you have said concerning this place that you will cut it off, so that nothing shall dwell in it, neither man nor beast, and it shall be desolate forever.’

But now listen to what Jeremiah tells the servant to do. He says, “When you finish reading this book, tie a stone to it and cast it into the midst of the Euphrates [river], and say, ‘Thus shall Babylon sink, to rise no more, because of the disaster that I am bringing upon her.” Ancient Babylon was sunk, ultimately, by God, just as all worldly empires are.

And look at verse 24, a final indictment of the world. “In her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slain on earth.”Chapter 17 says this is “the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.” It apparently refers to all Christian martyrs throughout history. This further supports the interpretation that Revelation 18 shows the final defeat of the world, at which time Jesus will return in glory. God will avenge every one who died in Christ’s name. The world called them fools. But in the end, the foolishness of the world will be exposed.

The world is stained with the blood of God's people. Innocent blood only adds to their guilt. But you see, for the redeemed, it was innocent blood that took our guilt away. Acts 20 in the NT says Christ obtained His church “with his own blood.” And back in Revelation 7, which we looked at some time ago, John saw a vision of “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes.” And he says, “They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
The world is stained with the blood of God's people, but the redeemed are washed in the blood of the Son.

The world seemingly has it all. But the world has every kind of evil, the guilt of sins, and the stains of the saints’ blood. However, the world does not have the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. They do not have the triune God.

Do you have God? There’s only way for sinners to have God, and that is through faith in Jesus Christ. Believe on Him today. Why fall with the world, when you can stand with Christ?

Let’s bow in prayer.