Apocalypse: The Revelation of Jesus Christ
05/01/2005 - A Tale of Two Cities
Revelation 18:1-24, After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor. 2With a mighty voice he shouted: "Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great! She has become a home for demons and a haunt for every evil spirit, a haunt for every unclean and detestable bird."
If you'd like to follow along I'm reading from Revelation 18:3, For all the nations have drunk the maddening wine of her adulteries. The kings of the earth committed adultery with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries." 4Then I heard another voice from heaven say: "Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues; 5for her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes. 6Give back to her as she has given; pay her back double for what she has done. Mix her a double portion from her own cup. 7Give her as much torture and grief as the glory and luxury she gave herself. In her heart she boasts, 'I sit as queen; I am not a widow, and I will never mourn.' 8Therefore in one day her plagues will overtake her: death, mourning and famine. She will be consumed by fire, for mighty is the Lord God who judges her. 9"When the kings of the earth who committed adultery with her and shared her luxury see the smoke of her burning, they will weep and mourn over her. 10Terrified at her torment, they will stand far off and cry: "'Woe! Woe, O great city, O Babylon, city of power! In one hour your doom has come!' 11"The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no one buys their cargoes any more -- 12cargoes of gold, silver, precious stones and pearls; fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet cloth; every sort of citron wood, and articles of every kind made of ivory, costly wood, bronze, iron and marble; 13cargoes of cinnamon and spice, of incense, myrrh and frankincense, of wine and olive oil, of fine flour and wheat; cattle and sheep; horses and carriages; and bodies and souls of human beings. 14"They will say, 'The fruit you longed for is gone from you. All your riches and splendor have vanished, never to be recovered.' 15The merchants who sold these things and gained their wealth from her will stand far off, terrified at her torment. They will weep and mourn 16and cry out: "'Woe! Woe, O great city, dressed in fine linen, purple and scarlet, and glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls! 17In one hour such great wealth has been brought to ruin!' "Every sea captain, and all who travel by ship, the sailors, and all who earn their living from the sea, will stand far off. 18When they see the smoke of her burning, they will exclaim, 'Was there ever a city like this great city?' 19They will throw dust on their heads, and with weeping and mourning cry out: "'Woe! Woe, O great city, where all who had ships on the sea became rich through her wealth! In one hour she has been brought to ruin! 20Rejoice over her, O heaven! Rejoice, saints and apostles and prophets! God has judged her for the way she treated you.'" 21Then a mighty angel picked up a boulder the size of a large millstone and threw it into the sea, and said: "With such violence the great city of Babylon will be thrown down, never to be found again. 22The music of harpists and musicians, flute players and trumpeters, will never be heard in you again. No workman of any trade will ever be found in you again. The sound of a millstone will never be heard in you again. 23The light of a lamp will never shine in you again. The voice of bridegroom and bride will never be heard in you again. Your merchants were the world's great people. By your magic spell all the nations were led astray. 24In her was found the blood of prophets and of the saints, and of all who have been killed on the earth."
Revelation 19:1-3, After this I heard what sounded like the roar of a great multitude in heaven shouting: "Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, 2for true and just are his judgments. He has condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth by her adulteries. He has avenged on her the blood of his servants." 3And again they shouted: "Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up for ever and ever."
This morning we continue our series called Apocalypse: The Revelation of Jesus Christ with an implosion of Babylon the Great in a teaching I've called "A Tale of Two Cities."
In his classic book by that same name, Charles Dickens starts with this immortal paragraph, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way ...."
In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens contrasts London, England, and Paris, France, during the time of the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century. But those same words could well be used to describe a tale of two other cities found woven throughout the sixty-six books of the Bible, the most important cities on earth in God's mind, the twin cities of Jerusalem and Babylon.
Throughout the pages of Scripture the destiny of you and me and every human being is pictured in the descriptions of these two cities. We either have our home in Jerusalem or in Babylon. In his brilliant book The City of God, Augustine, called Jerusalem "the City of God" and Babylon "the City of Man." In the great cosmic conflict between God and Satan, good and evil, light and darkness, righteousness and rebellion, Jerusalem and Babylon are like the two opposite poles of a magnet.
Jerusalem is like the positive pole. It's the city that God selected to be his dwelling place, the location of God's temple, the capital of God's kingdom on earth, the city where God's Son, Jesus, died for the sins of the whole world.
The name Jerusalem means "city of peace." It first appears in Genesis 14 in a story where Abraham defeats a coalition of kings from the east and after the battle he worships God by giving a tenth of all his spoils to a man named Melchizedek, the king of Salem, later know as Jerusalem.
And in response, Melchizedek blesses Abraham with these words in Genesis 14:19-20, Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth. And blessed be God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand. From the start, Jerusalem is the place of blessing.
Babylon, on the other hand, is the place of rebellion. In Scripture, it's always portrayed as the enemy of God and of God's people. If Jerusalem is the positive magnetic pole, then Babylon is the negative. It represents all of humanity's attempts to overthrow God's power and authority.
Babylon first appears in Scripture in Genesis 11. There the city is called Babel and is located on the plain of Shinar between the great Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The name Babel means "confusion." And under the leadership of a man named Nimrod the people of Babel attempt to build a stairway to heaven. It was actually a tower called a ziggurat, which is a huge pyramid with steps on the outside.
Now God doesn't have anything against towers or skyscrapers or other tall buildings. But the attitude that produced the tower was offensive to him. It was a proud and rebellious spirit that resisted God's command to scatter and populate the earth. Instead, the people of Babel stayed together and said in their hearts, "We don't need to listen to God. We don't need to obey God. We don't need God. Instead, we can be our own gods. Let's not scatter. Let's unite ourselves together and show God how great we are."
And in Genesis 11:8-9 we read, So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world.
God was not happy with that spirit of pride and rebellion. First Peter 5:5 says, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. And so he put an end to their self-centered efforts and scattered them across the face of the earth and confused their languages, which up to that point had only been one. Babel, later called Babylon, represents humanity's first united effort to oppose God and is a symbol of rebellion throughout all history.
But Babylon is going down. It has to. It will be destroyed, imploded, swept away so that God can bring his New Jerusalem to this earth. And in Revelation 18 we see the final destruction of Babylon.
Last week we said that Babylon is a picture of everything in our world that is evil and that seduces us and draws us away from God. It's Satan's power structure that's all around us. Babylon is where we live. It's the poster child for entrenched worldly resistance against God. And before God's kingdom can come to this earth, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, every expression of that resistance must be removed, imploded, swept away. The system has to come down. There is no room from pride and rebellion in God's kingdom.
But there are many scholars who also believe that Babylon as a literal city must be destroyed. Charles Dyer in his book The Rise of Babylon writes, "The Babylon described in Revelation is not merely an idea, a religion, or an economic system. It is, above all, a physical city ... The city of rebellion where humanity first united against God will again be the scene of the crime at the end of the ages. God allows wickedness to come full circle and end at the very spot where it began."
Before the war with Iraq, Saddam Hussein was busy reconstructing Babylon. His stated goal was to reestablish Iraq as the cradle of civilization and restore Babylon to its former splendor. A recent governor of Babylon said, "The president has signed an open check to reconstruct the ancient city and revive the marvelous shape it had before the Persian aggression which destroyed it more than twenty centuries ago."
So Revelation 18 may be referring to both a spiritual and a literal Babylon that must be destroyed. The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah wrote about the final destruction of Babylon in Jeremiah 51:49, 53, "Babylon must fall because of Israel's slain, just as the slain in all the earth have fallen because of Babylon .... 53Even if Babylon reaches the sky and fortifies her lofty stronghold, I will send destroyers against her," declares the Lord.
Jeremiah 51:62-64, Then say, 'O LORD, you have said you will destroy this place, so that neither man nor animal will live in it; it will be desolate forever.' 63When you finish reading this scroll, tie a stone to it and throw it into the Euphrates. 64Then say, 'So will Babylon sink to rise no more because of the disaster I will bring upon her. And her people will fall.'" The words of Jeremiah end here.
While Babylon has been destroyed a number of times in it's history, the phrase "it will be desolate forever" lead some to believe that the destruction of Babylon described in Revelation 18 is still yet to come. If we look a bit more closely at this chapter we hear four voices that give us God's perspective on Babylon and the anti-God system it represents.
The first voice is the voice of condemnation. Look again at Revelation 18:2, With a mighty voice he shouted: "Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great! She has become a home for demons and a haunt for every evil spirit, a haunt for every unclean and detestable bird. 3For all the nations have drunk the maddening wine of her adulteries. The kings of the earth committed adultery with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries."
The second voice is the voice of separation. Look at verse 4, Then I heard another voice from heaven say: "Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues; 5for her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes.
The third voice is the voice of lamentation. Look at verse 9, "When the kings of the earth who committed adultery with her and shared her luxury see the smoke of her burning, they will weep and mourn over her. 10Terrified at her torment, they will stand far off and cry: "'Woe! Woe, O great city, O Babylon, city of power! In one hour your doom has come!'"
Look at verse 16, They will weep and mourn 16and cry out: "'Woe! Woe, O great city, dressed in fine linen, purple and scarlet, and glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls! 17In one hour such great wealth has been brought to ruin!'"
Look at verse 19,They will throw dust on their heads, and with weeping and mourning cry out: "'Woe! Woe, O great city, where all who had ships on the sea became rich through her wealth! In one hour she has been brought to ruin!"
This is the lament of the world over the destruction of Babylon. In one hour it's over. One hour, three times repeated. That's God's perspective on Babylon, three little words, "in one hour." In one hour all the treasure and all the pleasure that the world worships is gone.
About this Eugene Peterson writes, "Now it is gone. Salvation by checkbook is gone. God on demand is gone. My money is gone. Religion as feeling is gone. Self as God is gone."
Then finally there is the voice of celebration. Look at verse 20, Rejoice over her, O heaven! Rejoice, saints and apostles and prophets! God has judged her for the way she treated you.'" 21Then a mighty angel picked up a boulder the size of a large millstone and threw it into the sea, and said: "With such violence the great city of Babylon will be thrown down, never to be found again.
Sounds just like Jeremiah 51! Babylon will sink to rise no more. There is a celebration because at last justice is done. Like a great rock being thrown into the sea, Babylon will make a big splash but then she'll be gone forever and that triggers the hallelujah chorus of Revelation 19!
With the destruction of Babylon the way is now cleared for the best part of the apocalypse, the second coming of Jesus Christ and the establishment of his glorious kingdom.
Babylon is destined for devastation. Jerusalem is destined for deliverance. Babylon is "let us make a name for ourselves." Jerusalem is let God's name be glorified. Babylon is the great prostitute. Jerusalem is the bride, the wife of the Lamb, God says in Revelation 21:9. Babylon is dressed in purple and scarlet, glittering in gold, precious stones and pearls. Jerusalem shines with the glory of God and Revelation 21:11 says, her brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. Babylon rides upon a scarlet beast. According to Revelation 21:10, Jerusalem comes down out of heaven from God. Babylon is the place where everyone gets scattered. Jerusalem is where God's people get gathered together for eternity. That's good news. That's the tale of two cities.
And when God's final curtain falls on the world stage, only one of these two cities will remain, and she will remain forever. If you haven't already, please make sure that you'll be in the right one. Make your reservation today for the New Jerusalem by putting your faith in Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
The book of Revelation ends with this invitation in Revelation 22:17, The Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let those who hear say, "Come!" Let those who are thirsty come. And let all who wish take the free gift of the water of life.