“Babylon was a gold cup in the Lord’s hand; she made the whole earth drunk. The nations drank her wine; she made the whole earth drunk; therefore they have now gone mad. The Lord will take vengeance, vengeance for his temple. The Lord will carry out his purpose, his decree against the people of Babylon. You who live by many waters and are rich in treasures, your end has come, the time for you to be cut off.
– Jeremiah 51: 7, 11, 13
Revelation 17 & 18 – Continuation of Day of Atonement
Theme: God’s Vengeance
Chapters 17 and 18 continue with the theme of purification through God’s judgment, offering a more detailed look back at events that transpired in the judgment of Spiritual Babylon in Revelation 14. This judgment is the ultimate fulfillment of God’s judgment against historic Babylon. Both Babylons are mentioned in Scripture. The first, the city of Babylon, was the capital city of the Babylonian Empire. The other is Spiritual or Mystery Babylon mentioned as “fallen” in Revelation 14 and described here. She is the spiritual daughter of Babylon, manifested in each subsequent age and symbolized in Revelation 17 by Babylon the Great, the woman seated on the red Dragon. A quick look at history provides some context to understand the dynamic between the two.
During the rule of King Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC, the army of the Babylonian Empire conquered Jerusalem and took the city’s inhabitants back to Babylon. Even though God allowed the Babylonian captivity as a consequence of Judah’s disobedience, the Babylonians went beyond the boundaries of God’s justice and mistreated the Jews during their captivity. Jeremiah foretold the destruction that would come to Babylon for their abuse of God’s chosen people. The city of Babylon was conquered several times and eventually abandoned, fulfilling Jeremiah’s prophecy that Babylon would be destroyed and left forever desolate.
Some believe Jeremiah’s prophecies regarding Babylon have not yet been fulfilled. They claim restoration work on the ancient city of Babylon under Sadaam Hussein’s regime violates the prophecy that Babylon would not be rebuilt and inhabited again. A closer inspection of the records reveals that this restoration work only turned a small fragment of the city into an architectural park, commemorating a bygone age. It is still uninhabited, so Jeremiah’s prophecy regarding Babylon has in fact been fulfilled. Only the prophecies against Spiritual Babylon remain to be fulfilled. Some Old Testament prophecies about Babylon’s destruction have a dual fulfillment, applying both to the original city and to the daughter of Babylon (Spiritual Babylon) at the end of the age. However, the applicability of these prophecies can be pretty well sorted out in the description provided in Revelation 18.
Spiritual Babylon is more than a spiritual principle; it is the world system, a dark spiritual reality that undergirds the values of the world and stands in opposition to the ways of God. The world system is manifested in the selfish pursuit of wealth, power, and the desires of the flesh. It is accompanied by the worship of false gods, including Mammon, the love of the world’s riches denounced by Jesus (Lk: 16:11-13). The world system is actively supported by the Kingdom of Darkness, seeking to ensnare as many people as possible in order to turn them away from following God’s ways and to expand its own power.
In the New Testament, the world system is referred to simply as ‘the world’ (Gr. – kosmos). Scripture calls us to keep ourselves unspotted from the world (Jas. 1:27); to no longer walk according to the principles of the world (Eph 2:2); and to be in the world but not of the world, so that we might walk in unity of the spirit and come into completeness in Christ (Jn. 17:16-23). Every believer is called to overcome the world in order to do God’s will.
Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of the eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever. 1Jn. 2:15-17 NIV
Historical Sketch of the World System
Before its destruction in 70 AD, the temple was the main repository of an extensive library of ancient scrolls that shed light on history and Hebrew society. One of these is the Book of Enoch, which is an early account and sayings of Enoch, the seventh from Adam. It is one of the few books to survive the destruction of the temple. This is a highly informative work, because Enoch was a prophet, enjoying a close relationship with God and recording numerous first-hand revelations, not only about God’s ways and his creation, but end times prophecy as well. The epistle of Jude describes one of these, describing the Lord’s return with his saints. Several of Jesus’ sayings are nearly identical with those of Enoch.
According to the book of Enoch, angels called Watchers had been appointed by God to be guardians over mankind. Scripture mentions these Watchers in passing. They intermarried with women and produced a race of giants, referenced in the Genesis 6 account. The giants that resulted from this union are referred to in the Old Testament and in ancient Jewish writings as Nephilim, “fallen ones,” and Rapha, “fearful ones,” or “dead things.” According to legend, they were able to overpower the sons of men because of their great size and strength, establishing their rule over the earth.
“There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.” Gen. 6:4
Greek mythology agrees with the Enochian account of the giants, describing the wretched state of mankind early in earth’s history under their wicked rule: “…when the human race was created, [it] was early recognized as a regrettable failure, and kept in a state of wretchedness and total subservience. Force ruled everything. Reason and right were unknown. The Titans, sons of earth begotten by the gods, were a race of gigantic size and strength…” 19
Although some early church leaders like Tertullian strongly supported Enoch’s account of the Watchers, most did not, because of the belief that the human form was so polluted that angels could not possibly have sex with women. (The sex was probably more offensive than taking human form.) The book was therefore relegated to obscurity in the church for over fifteen centuries. Augustine and many others disapproved of the idea of angels having physical bodies. Calvin agreed and proposed an alternate interpretation of Gen. 6: 4, teaching that “the sons of God” did not mean fallen angelic beings, but represented men of the line of Seth who mated with “the daughters of men” – women from the line of Cain. Even today, Enoch is looked at with suspicion in the church.
Despite the weighty pronouncements through the centuries on the capabilities of angels, Scripture clearly contradicts the erroneous belief that they could not have bodies with the ability to perform physical functions. The two angels that ate lunch with Abraham and had to be physically protected by Lot in Sodom is one example of angels taking physical form. (Gen. 18 & 19) There is additional Scriptural evidence to support Enoch’s claims. Job 2: 1 refers to “the sons of God” coming before God’s throne with Satan among them, obviously a description of angels, not Adam’s righteous progeny. Daniel 4: 13-23 confirms the existence of the Watchers, lending additional credence to the book of Enoch. Job 26: 5 confirms Enoch’s description of God’s judgment of the giants after the Flood, noting: “Dead things (Rapha) are ‘formed’ (chu’l – writhing in pain) under the waters and [are] the inhabitants thereof.” (The Hebrew word “ra’pha’” is translated dead things; “ra’pha’ ra’pha’h” means giants.)
The existence of demons is attributed by some to the spirits of these dead giants, based on the reasoning that because they were born of human mothers they could be killed, yet because of their angelic fathers, Hades could not hold them. Undeterred by the Flood, the Dragon soon set about his work of taking over the earth again with the assistance of these demons. He raised up Nimrod (Gen. 10), who established a system of idolatrous worship in the cities of the Babylonian plain and instituted monarchies to replace the patriarchal rule God had established under Adam. However, the Dragon’s plan for once again uniting mankind, this time under Nimrod’s rule, was halted by the Lord.
After God thwarted the Dragon’s plan by confusing man’s speech at Babylon (Gen. 11), Nimrod remained in the Babylonian plain. Under his rule, the Dragon was able to turn the people of Mesopotamia away from the worship of God and into the practice of idolatry, worshiping created things instead of the Creator. Nimrod and his consort Semiramis started an occult, carnal religion run by a powerful priestly caste. This religion’s precepts were founded on freedom from the moral restrictions of God’s ways. Sexual license was accompanied by indulgence in material comforts and a luxurious lifestyle, made possible by the great wealth coming into Babylon through trade. The name Babylon meant “The Gate of God,” an indication that the Dragon was again working to become god of this world. Babylonian religious worship included temple prostitution and ritualized occult practices based on the worship of several gods. Some believe that Nimrod and Semiramis claimed divine status for themselves and their son. The dark spiritual power behind these ‘gods’ helped established Babylonian worship as a powerful astral religion that would continue through the ages.
In The Two Babylons, Alexander Hyslop states that Nimrod was deified as Marduk, while Semiramis became Ishtar, or Ashtoreth. The worship of Marduk included the blood sacrifice of children. The worship of Ashtoreth took place around Asherah poles and consisted of flagrant sexual immorality and self-mutilation. The son of Marduk and Ishtar became the god Dumuzu or Tammuz, with whom Ishtar consorted, reflecting the incest of Semiramis and her son. This relationship was manifested in future incarnations of these two gods. Ishtar became known variously as Ashtoreth, Astarte, the Queen of Heaven and Isis. Tammuz was known as Adonis to the Greeks and Osiris in Egypt. Their worship is condemned in Ezekiel 8 and Jeremiah 44.
The sexual immorality, materialism, and idol worship of the Babylonian world system were transmitted to Babylon’s trading partners and even her conquerors in the millennia following the Great Flood. Once the wealthiest and most powerful city in the world, Babylon later fell into decline and ruin when the Seleucid Greeks relocated their capital from Babylon to Syrian Antioch on the coast of the Mediterranean. To ensure the continuation of their religion, the Babylonian priesthood migrated west, establishing an occult library in Pergamum in the Roman province of Phyrigia in Asia Minor. This is probably why Jesus referred to Pergamum as “the city where Satan dwells.” (Rev. 2:13)
With the rise of the Romans as a world power late in the first millennium BC, Spiritual Babylon relocated even farther west, gravitating to the center of commerce and power in Rome. The symbolism and influence of Babylonian occult practices became increasingly evident in Roman society and religious practice. Babylonian values were adopted by the wealthy Roman upper class and to a lesser extent the middle class. Rome’s carnal lifestyle became known throughout the world as being even more corrupt than Babylon’s. The gradual infusion of Babylonian values, particularly the deification of the reigning monarch, was one of the factors that led to Roman emperor worship, replacing the previous tolerance of Roman polytheism toward all religions. This resulted in the persecution of Christians when they refused to offer the required pinch of incense and affirm, “Caesar is Lord.” Under the Dragon’s guiding influence, Rome was firmly established as the new Spiritual Babylon. At the close of his first Epistle, Peter confirms the city of Rome as Babylon.
Revelation 13 presented an account of the Dragon’s final, almost successful attempt to eliminate every last vestige of righteousness from the planet and establish absolute control over the earth. His belief is that if he can do this, he will be able to prevent Jesus from returning to establish the Kingdom of God. This is the reason for the coming persecution of Christians and invasion of Israel. Revelation 17 describes the spiritual background of the world system, founded on the Dragon’s plan to gain control the world and become its reigning god. The record of Babylon’s destruction here rather than in Revelation 14, when it actually occurred, follows the thematic ordering of the feasts. This chapter continues the theme of the purifying judgment of the Lord’s goat that started in chapters 15-16. However, instead of the blood of an innocent sacrifice providing atonement, the blood of the guilty is required for their sin because they refused to come under the atoning blood of Christ.
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Revelation 17
Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and talked with me, saying to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication.” So he carried me away in the Spirit into the wilderness. And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication. And on her forehead a name was written:
MYSTERY BABYLON THE GREAT,
THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF
THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I marveled with great amazement. But the angel said to me, “Why did you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns. The beast that you saw was, and is not, and will ascend out of the bottomless pit and go to perdition. And those who dwell on the earth will marvel, whose names are not written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world, when they see the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.
“Here is the mind which has wisdom: The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. There are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. And when he comes, he must continue a short time. The beast that was, and is not, is himself also the eighth, and is of the seven, and is going to perdition. The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority for one hour as kings with the beast. These are of one mind, and they will give their power and authority to the beast. These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful.”
Then he said to me, “The waters which you saw, where the harlot sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues. And the ten horns which you saw on the beast, these will hate the harlot, make her desolate and naked, eat her flesh and burn her with fire. For God has put it into their hearts to fulfill His purpose, to be of one mind, and to give their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled. And the woman whom you saw is that great city which reigns over the kings of the earth.” (KJV)
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Revelation 17 Commentary
v. 1-2 Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and talked with me, saying to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication.” Although God’s final judgments were recorded in chapter 16, John is now shown God’s judgment of the harlot, Babylon the Great. Revelation chapters 17 and 18 are therefore essentially a dramatic flashback, or detailed view of God’s judgments in the Revelation chronology.
v. 3-4 So he carried me away in the Spirit into the wilderness. And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication. John’s description of Spiritual Babylon as the woman contains several parallels to the ancient city of Babylon, recorded in Old Testament prophecies. Jeremiah 51 identifies Babylon as sitting on many waters and having abundant treasures; she was a golden cup in the Lord’s hand, intoxicating other nations with her wine.
The identity of the woman Babylon the Great can be understood in light of the scarlet beast she rides. Each head symbolizes the spiritual essence of seven different world kingdoms with the power of the Dragon behind it. It is difficult to draw a definitive line between the scarlet beast and the Dragon itself, except that the scarlet beast is defined in verse 7 as the visible manifestation of a previous world kingdom under the direct authority of the Dragon. The woman’s appearance and clothes declare her to be a prostitute, no longer following God’s ways. The royal purple and red of her robes symbolize worldly authority and position; the jewels and gold represent great wealth and luxury. She is thus the icon of the materialism and values of the world system. Babylon the Great also symbolizes the economic resources necessary for the world’s leading power to maintain its dominant position among other nations. The gold cup represents a vessel fit for sacred contents, but instead it is filled with spiritual abominations, the fruit of Babylon the Great’s idolatry and immorality.
The description of Babylon the Great as “sitting on many waters” is both a physical and symbolic attribute. Every world capital fulfilling the role of spiritual Babylon through history has been located on a waterway with access to the sea, ensuring it a dominant commercial position. Babylon’s position on many waters is also likely symbolic of the large number of people from many nations that flow to her shores, drawn by the opportunity of great wealth. This large immigrant class was a part of the operating dynamic of Babylon, as well as of every city that inherited her mantle and fulfilled the role of ‘daughter of Babylon’. The wilderness in which John finds the woman is symbolic of her dry spiritual state without God rather than a geographic location. Her spiritual desolation is confirmed by her alliance with the beast, whose blasphemy against God is one of his defining spiritual characteristics. Since the heads of the beast have physical manifestations as kingdoms, the woman also belongs to a physical location, the capital city of commerce in each of the kingdoms represented by the seven heads.
v. 5-6a And on her forehead a name was written: “MYSTERY BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. As a matter of social policy, Roman prostitutes were required to have their name tattooed on their foreheads. The wealthier ones spelled it out in jewelry. Although the woman’s name is Babylon, the word “mystery” before it indicates that this name has a deeper symbolic meaning. She is Spiritual Babylon, the occult (in the sense that its true spiritual source is hidden) world system that opposes the ways of God and persecutes the righteous.
Even though the composite beast and the harlot are separate entities in the last days (Rev. 17:16), persecution of the saints still takes place in Spiritual Babylon as it does in rest of the world under the rule of the beast. Since the two are no longer in the same location at the end of the age, two separate judgments are recorded. Vengeance on the kingdom of the beast for shedding the blood of the righteous was executed in Revelation 16. God’s judgment on the harlot Babylon the Great for the world’s persecution of the righteous through the ages is detailed in Revelation 18.
v. 6b-8 And when I saw her, I marveled with great amazement. But the angel said to me, “Why did you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns. The beast that you saw was, and is not, and will ascend out of the bottomless pit [Abyss] and go to perdition. And those who dwell on the earth will marvel, whose names are not written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world, when they see the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.” John is awestruck and perhaps confused by the appearance of this woman wearing rich clothing and expensive jewelry. Because the Dragon makes sin attractive to mankind, she is probably quite beautiful. John no doubt recalls the sign of the virgin of Revelation 12, adorned with a starry crown and being opposed by the red Dragon. In contrast, this woman is seated on the red Dragon, a spectacle of earthly glory and identified as a prostitute.
Those commentators who hold that the woman represents an apostate nation or church are at least partially correct. However, it is not just the church (with the exception of the faithful) that is found to be apostate at the end of the age. In reality, the whole world is also apostate, having fallen away from following God’s ways, living by the values of the world system. The symbolism of the woman and the Dragon is not limited to the church age, instead presenting events from the beginning of recorded history. In her earliest mention in Scripture, the woman currently seen on the beast appeared in Zechariah’s vision (Zech. 5), well before the advent of Christ. The angel identified her as the personification of wickedness and stated that she existed “throughout the earth.” He had her transported to Babylon in a large jar of the type used for commerce. This imagery provides a more comprehensive picture of the harlot as Babylon the Great. She symbolizes the idolatry of the apostate world system centered in Ancient Babylon after the Flood. Her apostasy is partly based on the ‘worship of Mammon’, the love of worldly riches that drives men to turn away from God and seek the power and wealth this short life has to offer.
The angel directs John’s attention from the woman to the Dragon, increasing our understanding of the nearly identical beast presented in Revelation 13. The angel makes it clear that the cause of the world’s amazement will not be the woman, with whom it is already familiar, but the beast that appears at the end of the age. Having existed in the past (it was, and is not), the beast will emerge from the Abyss at the end of the age to re-establish his previously destroyed kingdom. Because the bottomless pit, or Abyss, is the abode of wicked spiritual beings and never of human souls, the statement that: “the beast… will come out of the bottomless pit and go to perdition,” confirms the dark spiritual origin and nature of the beast. The phrase and go to perdition also identifies the beast itself as the Son of Perdition. (2Thess. 2:3) Those whose names are written in the book of life will not come under the spell of the beast, because they will recognize him and resist the temptation of believing his great deception.
v. 9-11 Here is the mind which has wisdom: The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. There are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. And when he comes, he must continue a short time. The beast that was, and is not, is himself also the eighth, and is of the seven, and is going to perdition.
The use of the phrase “a mind with wisdom” indicates that another riddle follows. The seven mountains are generally believed to identify the woman as Rome at the time John received his vision. Rome was famous for the seven hills on which it was built. However, the word used here is “mountains,” so there may well be a spiritual meaning in addition to the physical description of Rome. Mountains can signify the greatness (usually associated with righteousness) of a man, so this could also be a reference to the might of the seven empires symbolized by the seven heads, but lacking the usual implication of righteousness.
The early church adopted a somewhat narrow view of this passage. Jews and Christians of the first through third centuries believed that the great events overtaking them indicated the end of the world was upon them. They hoped and believed that Christ would return soon, possibly even at the end of the first century, to overthrow the Roman Empire and establish the Kingdom of God. The circulation of John’s Revelation scroll a few years prior to the turn of the century and the short history of the Christian experience led to the belief that the seven heads were all Roman emperors. However, there had been twelve emperors by the time the Revelation scroll was distributed, so specific ‘bad’ emperors were speculated on as fulfilling the seven heads. While the error of this practice is apparent today, similar speculations have been applied to Revelation through the centuries, which still continue. Our perspective continues to change with unfolding events. It is only the comparative recent emphasis on the feasts that enables their themes to be perceived in Revelation.
With the benefit of hindsight, the lengthy time frame of the church age affords a perspective that identifies the heads of the beast as seven great world kingdoms ruling through time, rather than specific emperors of the early church age. Only one of the beast’s heads, the sixth, symbolized the Roman Empire, including all of its emperors. John makes it clear that these seven heads will be followed by the rule of the beast itself, the eighth king and final world empire. This final king will come up from the Abyss, rule the world, and thereafter be imprisoned in the lake of fire. Since only fallen angels and demons have ever been sentenced to the Abyss, this eighth king is in essence a wicked spiritual being possessing the body of a man.
The angel’s riddle identifies the beast that comes out of the Abyss as one of the heads that previously ruled a world kingdom that existed prior to Rome: he “was, and is not.” In order to identify which of these seven kingdoms returns at the end of the age, one needs to discover the one whose ruler was consigned to the Abyss. The angel’s statement that this kingdom existed prior to John’s day eliminates both the sixth and seventh heads, which are generally held to be the Roman Empire and Hitler’s Third Reich, or ‘third Rome.’ This leaves only the first five heads as possible candidates. Obviously, four of these five kingdoms were ruled by men whose acts are contained in the historical record, while one was ruled by a spiritual being who will reappear at the end of the age as the Son of Perdition. To discover which one it was, the previous kingdoms must first be identified.
There is general agreement among expositors that the first five heads of the beast are Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, and Greece. But is this list correct? The last four of these kingdoms are listed in Daniel 7 as being either present or coming world kingdoms, symbolized by the lion whose wings were removed (Assyria’s symbol was the winged lion while Babylon is generally symbolized as a lion without wings), the bear (Persia), and the leopard (Greece). There is therefore no basis to eliminate any of these. Neither Scripture nor history gives an indication that any of these kingdoms was ruled by a demonic being. Because of the limited time frame included in Daniel’s prophecy, scholars must look elsewhere for the identity of the first kingdom.
Because Egypt predates all other kingdoms in the historical record save for the Old Babylonian kingdom, it is the logical choice to be the first head of the beast. In order to qualify for this distinction, however, Egypt had to have been ruled by a wicked spiritual being whose kingdom was destroyed. Since Egypt was actually ruled by numerous Pharaohs, it is difficult to pinpoint one ruler as representing Egypt, and no one Pharaoh is presented in the record as being a spiritual being, or even a truly evil ruler, though they all claimed a divine right to rule. With the resulting logical exclusion of Egypt as the first head of the beast, the only place left to examine is the age that precedes the historical record. There is in fact one world kingdom that predates the historical record and fulfills the requirements. Fortunately, its existence and a description of its ‘fatal wound’ are preserved in a few early non-historical accounts. A clue to its identity is can even be found in an obscure verse in Genesis 6.
The First World Kingdom
Prior to the written historical record, mankind was not the only race of intelligent beings on earth. The Dragon made his home here after his eviction from heaven. Earth was also home to the Watchers, the angels assigned by God to watch over the affairs of mankind. (These may be the first of the guardian angels of Christian theology.) These spiritual beings followed the Dragon’s example of rebellion, mating with women and producing a race of giants known as the Nephilim or Rapha that came to rule over the earth. This race of giants is immortalized in Greek mythology as the Titans. As the product of angelic beings and humans, they were quasi-human offspring animated by a satanic spiritual life force rather than a soul, and consequently deficient in such human traits as empathy and compassion.
The Book of Enoch describes the results of the Watchers’ disobedience. As the genetic union between fallen angels and mankind, the physical abilities of the giants far exceeded those of men, enabling them to establish rule over the earth. The giants dominated humanity, ruling by force and corrupting mankind with every manner of wickedness. By the middle of the second millennium after the Fall, the Watchers and their gigantic offspring had covered the earth with violence and corrupted the hearts of all but eight people. The Lord examined his creation and judged it totally corrupt: “The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.” Only Noah and his family were still walking in righteousness.
In order to preserve his redemption plan, the Lord caused a great flood of water to destroy the kingdom of the Nephilim, drowning the giants and everyone they had corrupted. God dealt with the Watchers by imprisoning them in the Abyss, reserving them for destruction at the end of the ages. (2Pet. 2:4) The death of the giants and imprisonment of the Watchers wiped out the first world kingdom and its angelic king, inflicting the “fatal wound” to the first head of the beast, described in Revelation 13 and 17. 19
“For God did not spare angels when they had sinned, but hurling them down to Tartarus consigned them to caves of darkness, keeping them in readiness for judgement. And He did not spare the ancient world, although He preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a deluge on the world of the ungodly.” 2Pet. 2 4-5 NTMS
The Greek word Tartarus, above, is retained in 2Pet. 2: 4 in the New Testament in Modern Speech. It is incorrectly rendered in most translations as hell or Hades, the abode of the dead. To the contrary, Tartarus is a place where wicked spirits (not humans) are imprisoned, and always bound in chains. Tartarus was believed by the Greeks to be below hell. The imprisonment of the dragon by a chain in the Abyss in Revelation 20 identifies the Abyss as Tartarus. This field of study is reflected in Greek mythology, which holds that the giants, or Titans, were also imprisoned in the place they called Tartarus. According to many theologians, the spirits of these giants are the demons that still pester the earth. The latter view is supported by the account of the Gerasene demoniac, when the demons begged Jesus not to be sent to the Abyss. (Lk. 8:31) It may be that some demons are held in the Abyss while others are allowed to afflict the earth.
Having once experienced human form, demonic spirits have tried for millennia to circumvent the spiritual-biological barrier God erected after the Flood. The practice of some forms of meditation and New Age channeling enable demonic spirits to interact with people in the physical realm, but in a limited way. Possession enables a demon to merge to some degree with an individual, but this involves having to contend with the soul of the individual for control of the will. This renders the possessed individual incapable of interacting in any meaningful way in human events, since the battle for the will causes a mental break with reality, ultimately resulting in insanity. The barrier between the spiritual and the biological realms has held through the ages. As we approach the end of the age, however, this boundary has come under attack by science.
In its quest to prove that the creation of human life is only a biological process that does not require God, science has made great advances over the past three decades. Scientists are now close to achieving their goal of replicating a human being. Recent breakthroughs have been made with advances in cloning and in the field of transgenics, the splicing of genes from one species into the DNA of another. Although amphibians had been successfully cloned in the 1950’s, human cloning and transgenics gained much attention in scientific research circles after the final mapping of the human genome and the first successful animal cloning experiments of the 1990’s. Early transgenic research projects included mixing the DNA of tomatoes and flounders, moths and potatoes, fish and cattle. Later efforts focused on splicing human DNA into animal embryos with the ostensible goal of being able to grow human body parts for transplantation.
More recent research has included attempts to clone early humans and to combine DNA obtained from viable teeth of Neanderthal skulls with modern human DNA to form a new species. There have been recent advances in transplanting animal DNA into human embryos with the aim of producing transhumans or transgenics, human chimeras that possess the heightened sensory abilities of the animal kingdom. This type of creation is explored in such science fiction TV shows as Painkiller Jane, X-Men, the 4400, Heroes, etc. Britain currently allows the creation of embryonic human chimeras with the stipulation that they be destroyed after two weeks. There is no oversight to ensure compliance.
The stated goal of a small, dedicated media-shy segment of the scientific community is to create a new race of superhuman beings. By 2006, the science of transgenics was the most funded research project of first world nations, with the US outspending all others. Major law schools in Europe and the US have even written proposed legislation to deal with the legal/moral implications, including the civil rights of new species.
The major implications of this type of research and experimentation are not legal or even moral, but spiritual, an area of little or no concern to the scientific community. Science is trespassing on God’s domain. Only God can create life and impart a soul to a physical body, so these manmade biological creations will have no God-given spiritual life force. Where does the soul come from when a clone of a living human being is created? Or when a trans-human being is engineered by combining human and animal DNA? A clone or chimera may be compared to a car without an engine, waiting for a new spiritual owner to come by and power it up. Unless God provides a soul, such a manmade creation will be open to possession by any spiritual being able to inhabit it, with no contest by a resident soul for the will, no battle over conscience and morality.
Due to the complexity of genetic engineering, there are far greater obstacles to human cloning than there are to cloning animals. Only a small fraction of attempts at animal cloning are reportedly successful. Even those that are successful have limited life spans. Yet at some point, humans will be cloned or transgenic humans created. Although no one has yet publicly admitted to such a breakthrough, private research centers have quietly confirmed they are working on the problem.
When science does create a viable transgenic human or clone, a doorway will have been opened between the spiritual and physical dimensions. When that crossover is made, the result will be a truly fearsome creation, a wicked spiritual being in a human or trans-human body. Lacking a God-given soul he will impose his supercharged, spiritually malevolent will on mankind. The fact that the Son of Perdition and the false prophet are the only ones thrown into the lake of fire at Jesus’ return may imply that when this spiritual-biological breakthrough does occur only two will be successful. Regardless of whether this occurs as such a scientific breakthrough or is merely a case of simple possession, the scarlet beast will have the experience of having ruled the earth before its kingdom was destroyed by the Flood. Having come back up out of the Abyss, its rule will be marked by deception and the demand for the absolute, universal submission that reigns in the Abyss.
Since wicked spirits rule by force and intimidation, the most evil spiritual beings would likely be the first ones to cross over from the spiritual to the biological world. The Son of Perdition may even be ‘the Destroyer’ Apollo, ruler of the Abyss and lord of war, mentioned in Revelation 9 as leader of the hordes of stinging locusts. The false prophet will also cross the spiritual-biological barrier. The rule of the Son of Perdition and his false prophet will reflect the same violence, corruption, and bloodshed that characterized the rule of the first world empire that was so violent God destroyed it in the Great Flood.
v. 12-13 The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority for one hour as kings with the beast. These are of one mind, and they will give their power and authority to the beast. The ten kings are accepted by most scholars as the ten toes of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of a great statue. (Dan. 2) Nebuchadnezzar’s rule, represented by the statue’s head of gold, was followed by that of the Medes and Persians, the two silver arms; the kingdom of the Greeks is symbolized by the bronze belly and loins; while the Romans are the two iron legs and feet. The ten toes are popularly believed to represent a restored ten-nation end times’ Roman Empire.
“Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible. This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay... And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise. And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay.” Daniel 2:31-33; 40-41
What is not often mentioned is that the statue’s two legs symbolize the geographic and cultural split that existed between the Italian Western and Byzantine Eastern halves of the Roman Empire. The comparatively long length of the legs does not indicate the restoration of a defunct kingdom as some claim for the Roman Empire, but the continuation of a divided one to the end of the age. This divided Roman legacy has in fact continued into modern times in the legal, cultural, economic and military cultures of western and eastern European nations, including Russia in the East and the former English colonies in the West. These modern Roman nations are still divided in some ways between East and West, reflecting the reality that existed from the division of the far-flung Roman Empire. A short history traces the this division through time and contextualizes the last days’ Roman legacy in the ten toes of Nebuchadnezzar’s statue.
Short History of a Long Empire
Constantine’s relocation of the capital from Rome to the city of Constantinople in AD 330 deepened and cemented the division that already existed within the empire from the time of the first two co-emperors, Octavian and Mark Antony. The political division between East and West later widened further along religious lines, with Christian Bishops in Rome and Constantinople split over issues of church doctrine and authority. Both capitals claimed to be the true representative of both Roman power and Christianity, with each viewing the other as apostate.
By the end of the sixth century, Rome had ceased to be the center of western secular power, although her popes and bishops retained ecclesiastical and even limited physical jurisdiction over a portion of Roman territory in Italy. In AD 800, Roman power in the West was reconstituted as a mere shadow of its former self on the conquests of Charlemagne the Great, and the Holy Roman Empire came into being. Although it existed more in name than reality after Charlemagne’s death, from this small start Europe developed as a loose confederation of independent kingdoms under the pope’s spiritual, and to some degree temporal authority. Modern Europe continues to embody this Roman legacy.
In the East, the Roman Empire continued for nearly a thousand years after the decline of Rome. As the bastion of both Roman civilization and Christianity from the fourth through the end of the fifteenth century, Constantinople was known as the Second Rome. Roman institutions were retained with minor alterations. As the second Rome, its ensign was the two-headed eagle, doubling the single eagle of Rome. The emperors of the Roman Empire in the East defended not only their own borders, but the eastern flank of Europe as well. Roman Constantinople stood as the bulwark of Christianity against the encroaching armies of Islam from the seventh century until the fall of this great city nearly a half century before Columbus discovered America.
Constantinople was not idle when it came to planting churches. The Russian Orthodox Church got its start when Vladimir I converted to Christianity at the close of the tenth century. Prince Vladimir decreed that all his subjects were to be baptized as well. When Constantinople fell to invading Turks in 1453, there was a mass exodus of Christians northward through southeastern Europe into the Christian safe haven of Russia. Just before the city was taken, the emperor’s niece Sophia was spirited off to the papal residence in Rome. From there, she was sent to Russia to marry Ivan the Great so the imperial Roman bloodline could continue without interruption. Ivan even had a new family tree drawn up that traced his family ancestry back to early Roman rulers, though its accuracy is open to question. Through this royal marriage and the mass migration of Christians from the south, Russia inherited the legacy not only of the Apostle Paul’s original Christian churches in Asia Minor, but also that of the Roman Empire in the East. Through Ivan’s marriage to Sophia, Russia had a valid claim as the direct inheritor of the Roman Empire. Ivan even took the title of Czar, the Russian equivalent of Caesar, and adopted the two-headed eagle of Constantinople as the symbol of the nascent Russian Empire.
Ivan’s claim to the legacy of the original Roman Empire was further enhanced when he moved his capital to the more centralized location of Moscow. Ironically, like Rome, Moscow is a city built on seven hills. In 1510, the Russian abbot Philotheus, famous for his holy life and the accuracy of his prophecies, declared that Moscow was indeed the “Third Rome,” and that there would never be another. Just as Europe was held together by the authority of the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church was the glue that unified the growing Russian empire. The two legs of Nebuchadnezzar’s great statue had in fact correctly prophesied the continuation of the Roman Empire in dual form, both East and West, into modern times.
A European Antichrist?
The popular end times’ scenario holds that the ten kings of verses 12 and 13 form a united ten-nation, western European, Restored, Roman Empire, from which the antichrist rises as an eleventh king. In order to gauge the validity of this belief in the light of the unbroken continuation of the two halves of the Roman Empire, it is necessary to examine each modifier in light of Scripture, history, modern politics & geography.
A united ten-nation empire? Popular end times’ theory proposes that Europe is the kingdom of the beast, ruled by ten European kings as well as an eleventh, the European antichrist. The ten kings are held to be either literal or symbolic. Some background on the evolution of this scenario helps assess its validity.
When the small European Common Market added new members to reach the magic total of 10 nations in the late 1970’s, popular Christian authors proclaimed that Europe was the ten-nation beast of Revelation. When the number of nations later increased to twelve, these same writers equivocated, stating that the number ten might be more symbolic than literal. With 27 nations in the EU as of 2007 and plans to possibly add more, the ten kings are growing more symbolic by the year.
When studying apocalyptic writing, one does not get to pick and choose whether a passage is to be interpreted literally or figuratively in order to fit preconceived theories. The ten kings are prefigured by the ten toes of Daniel 2; the ten horns of Daniel 7; and the ten horns of Revelation 12, 13, and 17. The repeated enumeration of this number, along with the specificity of three horns being uprooted from the ten leaves no option but to interpret the ten kings literally. However, since there are currently 27 nations in the EU, the ten horns would form only a minority faction in support of the beast, perhaps even a renegade one. The ten kings cannot comprise a united European kingdom.
A western European empire? Western history books have long taught that the Roman Empire continued only in western Europe, so when modern Revelation scholars settled on the location of the ten kings of Revelation, they claimed they would be from western Europe. For nearly twenty years, the EU consisted only of western European nations, since Eastern Europe was under Soviet domination. Eastern Europe and Russia were not considered possible candidates for inclusion in the ten horns because their Roman legacy continued to go virtually unacknowledged in the West.
When the ‘lost’ history of Constantinople as the second Rome and of Russia as the third Rome is taken into account, it can be seen that the two legs and ten toes of Nebuchadnezzar’s statue prophesy two separate halves of a shared Roman legacy, one in the East and the other in the West. As inheritors of the eastern leg of the Roman Empire, the Orthodox Christian countries of Eastern Europe and Russia have an equal, if not greater claim than Western Europe to being the modern inheritors of the Roman Empire. Considering the symbolism of Nebuchadnezzar’s statue, the ten kings of Revelation 17 would have to be drawn equally from both halves of Europe, not just from the western foot of the statue. The true extent of the inheritors of the Roman Empire actually extends much further.
A restored empire? This claim of restoration is not supported either by the symbolism of Nebuchadnezzar’s great statue or by history. Nebuchadnezzar’s statue does not portray a defunct Roman kingdom that is revived, but toes that are crumbling. Additionally, the long legs symbolize an unbroken continuation and evolution of this empire. There is no break between the hips and the toes of either leg. In its modern form, the Roman Empire evolved into the numerous nations of both East and West that exist today. This division was accentuated for seventy years by the “iron curtain” of the twentieth century between Europe and the Soviet Union. Since there was never a break in the history or culture of the legacy nations that currently comprise the two halves of the extended Roman Empire, there is no justification in looking for the creation of an end times’ “revived” or “restored” Roman Empire.
Over forty nations can currently claim a legacy of Roman law, culture, administration and military power, yet only ten of these will rule with the beast. Since there is no need to form a Revived Roman Empire, the ten toes of Daniel 2 can be fulfilled by any ten kings with Roman heritage, with no need to form a new ‘Roman’ political entity. Ten Roman legacy nations positioned around the earth, from the farthest reaches of the old Soviet Empire to the numerous colonies planted by England, France, Denmark, Portugal, Spain, etc., will be in a better position to enforce the beast’s global rule than ten nations grouped together in Western Europe. The ten kings may even rule over ten different regions of the earth instead of representing just nations.
The ten ‘Roman’ kings sought out by the beast and offered a share in global rule will be those with the strategic, military, and technological power to support his bid for global domination. They will likely be from nations with significant immigrant Muslim populations, so their governments can be more easily controlled, or blackmailed as the case may be. All it will take is for one nuclear device to be set off in Europe or the United States, and western nations will rethink their lack of support for Islam’s newly restored end times’ office of the supreme Caliphate. Another coordinated action that renews and extends the multinational European Muslim riots of 2005 to other continents as well, perhaps coupled with an oil embargo, might also assist ten Roman legacy nations in their decision to accede to the Mahdi’s demands of support.
A Roman Empire? The symbolism of Revelation 13 & 17 is clear that the composite beast is comprised of a three-nation bloc, the inheritors of the lion, bear, and leopard. Following Scriptural principles of interpretation, the horns become the power of the beast’s kingdom. These ten Roman legacy nations will support the beast, ruling the world from a military standpoint, but their power will be under submission to Islam and the Mahdi. This arrangement fulfills the symbolism of the ten toes on Nebuchadnezzar’s statue, as well as that of the ten horns on the composite beast, with no contradiction between the two prophetic images.
Due to the short time he has to rule, the Son of Perdition will not be able to remake every non-Islamic western nation into a formal Muslim state. However, he will not need to do so, since his immediate objective will be submission and worship. In his seminal work, The Prince, Machiavelli noted that throughout history the successful conqueror has let his conquered subjects retain their institutions in order to facilitate the transition to a new order. This same pattern was followed by the Muslims in their conquest of Persia. The institutions of the nations of the west will therefore retain their Roman appearance, but they will be submitted to Islamic values and tax authorities. If history is any guide, the Mahdi will first gain initial verbal submission from the leaders of the nations of the earth. Afterwards he will ensure that everyone is actually submitted to Islam, utilizing the millions of Muslim immigrants dispersed around the globe to facilitate this.
v. 14 These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful. As the might of the beast’s kingdom, the armies of the ten Roman legacy nations (or geopolitical areas) will join the fight in the war against Christ when he returns. They will believe that they are doing the world a service, gathering to fight the antichrist, the wicked ad Dajjal. When Jesus returns with his angels, he will lead them in a two-pronged attack to regain control of earth. They will destroy the combined military forces of the nations gathered against Jerusalem, and evict the spiritual squatters of this world – the Dragon, the two beasts, the wicked angels, and the demonic spirits that have taken rule over the nations. Although the physical battles will be the bloodiest, they will be the easiest to win. The spiritual war will be the more important and difficult one. After this great battle, Jesus will claim his inheritance, described in the title deed he took from the Father’s hand. He will establish the Kingdom of God on earth, and the saints will assist him in his millennial reign.
“And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.” Dan. 2: 44
v. 15-17 Then he said to me, “The waters which you saw, where the harlot sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues. And the ten horns which you saw on the beast, these will hate the harlot, make her desolate and naked, eat her flesh and burn her with fire. For God has put it into their hearts to fulfill His purpose, to be of one mind, and to give their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled.”
Although the woman rode atop the beast in John’s day, there are a couple of convincing arguments that these two will reside in different nations at the end of the age. First, if the ten kings destroyed the beast’s own commercial trading center, this would cripple his ability to wage war. Second, the beast’s kingdom rises quite rapidly from near obscurity, so some other nation must already be in control of world trade when he comes to power. The beast will naturally be opposed by Babylon the Great, who will want to retain her position of preeminence in world affairs. The only way the beast can attain global dominion will be to destroy the economic power, at the same time crippling the military prowess of the nation where the Babylon the Great dwells.
Since the early days of Babylon, control of world trade has historically gone hand in hand with power over other nations. The woman riding atop the beast in John’s day symbolizes the necessity of world trade being carried out ‘on the back of’ great political and military power. Conversely, no empire has been able to function as a military superpower without the economic support that comes from controlling a major portion of the world’s wealth through trade. It is only at the end of the ages that this close relationship will change, enabling the beast to destroy Babylon the Great without destroying his own ability to generate wealth and make war.
For the first time in history, the dominant power of the earth will not already have a great commercial trading empire when it comes to world power. The beast will instead control a resource far more valuable to the world than all the gold, jewels, and merchandise of world commerce. As head of an Islamic alliance of Middle Eastern nations, the beast will have an effective stranglehold on the global supply of oil, the majority of which passes through the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Iran. World leaders have long recognized that without the Middle East’s steady supply of oil, the world’s factories, transportation, and air-conditioned cities would grind to a halt. The leader who effectively wields power over the oil spigot also controls the levers of economic power on an international scale.
Because the beast will control this great treasure, once he eliminates Babylon the Great as a threat he will rise almost immediately to global rule. However, in order to engineer the destruction modern day Babylon, he will have to overcome her economic might, her technological and military superiority. The first means of achieving this will be to undermine the entire western economic system of finance and banking, a move that is already well underway. He will not be able to accomplish her economic and military downfall by himself, because the first-world nations have colluded to keep their technological power, especially their nuclear secrets, from being obtained by nations that do not share their Roman legacy. He will therefore only need to devise a way of convincing ten Roman first world nations to use their nuclear power to destroy the economic capital of the superpower they have already come to oppose on many levels, even while maintaining current military alliances. The most likely reason why these ten nations will attack modern Babylon the Great is that they will have embraced Islam to a significant degree, while the nation where spiritual and material Babylon dwells has not, due to its ability to assimilate numerous faiths. A little nuclear blackmail would help convince any nations that might be somewhat resistant to taking this course of action.
v. 18 And the woman whom you saw is that great city which reigns over the kings of the earth. This verse provides confirmation that Spiritual Babylon in John’s time was located in Rome, the capital of the Roman world empire. As previously mentioned, the early church saw Rome as the spiritual daughter of Babylon, the iniquitous physical and spiritual manifestation of the world system. The name Babylon was even used by first century Christians as a nickname for Rome. It is generally believed that the phrase, “she who is in Babylon” in 1Pet. 5:13, conveys a greeting from the church in Rome, coded in this manner to get past Roman censors.
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Revelation 18: Background
Although the end times’ identity of the beast can be determined from the composite symbolism of the lion, bear, and leopard, no such Scriptural symbolism exists to identify the woman on the beast at the end of the age. In John’s day she was Rome, but the spiritual nature of the daughter of Babylon ensures that she has the ability to reside in different nations and kingdoms – wherever the world’s values and wealth are concentrated in any given age. The great trading and population center of Rome now casts but a thin shadow of its former economic glory and debauchery. An examination of history is necessary to trace the rise of the great commercial empires since the fall of Rome in order to discover the final end times’ manifestation of Babylon the Great.
After the capital of the Roman Empire was relocated to Constantinople in the fourth century, Rome’s power began to wane. The decline of Rome’s influence in world affairs was matched by the growing economic and political influence of Constantinople until it finally became the dominant power in the Mediterranean. In Constantinople, the decadence of the upper class and the widespread immorality typified by public x-rated shows were exceeded only by the religious fanaticism of the lower classes, exhibited in riots between the warring factions over controversy caused by the filoque clause in the Nicene Creed. (Not a stellar period in the history of Christianity.) Starting in the seventh century, the might of Constantinople was increasingly challenged as Islam’s star ascended in the Near East. As Muslim armies spread their religion and social control over an extensive area, Muslim merchants developed a growing monopoly on trade. The power of Constantinople began to wane as she lost her southern territories and trading routes to Muslim expansion. Venice became the main trading center of Europe with its numerous Mediterranean ports providing access to goods transported from the East along Muslim trade routes.
Muslim armies were not satisfied with the gains they had made in Asia, Africa and Sicily. On the strength of prophecies that Islam would rule the world, Muslim Arab and Berber forces known as Moors invaded Spain, then France. Western Europe was preserved as a Christian continent only by the early 8th century defeat of the Muslim armies at Tours, just south of Paris. As the power and influence of Islam continued to spread, Muslim raiding and merchant ships built a far-flung trading empire that continued to grow for the next several centuries. Muslim invasions of Europe continued in the east under the Islamic flag of the Ottoman Empire, resulting in the conquest of most of the European Balkan peninsula as far north as Austria and even into Hungary by the late 1300’s. The nations of Europe, once again concerned for the survival of Christianity, paused in their internecine wars long enough to join forces to combat this Muslim pincer movement, stopping the Ottoman advance in Hungary before turning its attention to driving the Moors out of southern Europe.
The same year that the last of the Moors were driven from Spain, Queen Isabella sent Columbus across the Atlantic in an attempt to circumvent the Muslim controlled overland trade route in the East. During the sixteenth century, improvements in the science of navigation allowed Spain and Portugal to expand their exploration and conquest of the newly discovered Americas, with the result that great wealth began to flow into European coffers. Shortly thereafter, Spain and Italy retook much of the Mediterranean from the Turks, due to the advantage of their new larger galleons and more powerful ships’ cannon. Muslim power began to ebb as Europe once again became the center of wealth and power through trade through their colonies in the New World.
Several European seagoing nations amassed great fortunes over the next two centuries. Spain became a leading world power due to the riches she acquired exploiting South American populations. The Netherlands and Great Britain increased their own economic and military power as they too established colonies around the world and pirated Spanish treasure on the high seas. The royal courts and nobles of several European nations enjoyed immense wealth and luxury that came from looting the treasures of the New World. Over the next two centuries European wars lasting decades were fought for dominance of this new world trade. The dawn of the nineteenth century found Britain standing in the position of being the dominant colonial sea power, with nearly a quarter of the earth under her administration.
With the rise of the Industrial revolution in the nineteenth century, a new power began to make its influence known on the world stage, as first the economic, and the later military and naval might of the breakaway British colony of the United Sates expanded. In the early twentieth century, the Dragon made his seventh attempt to gain control of the world through the rise of Nazi Germany in the 1930’s. Under the leadership of a drug dependent and occult-obsessed Hitler, the Third Reich and her axis allies managed to gain control over the greater part of the world’s economic resources before being stopped by allied forces. US power continued to increase in the twentieth century as war ravaged the European continent. European coffers were drained as the United States profited from its early neutral status as arms and oil supplier before entering the Second World War.
The Rise of Spiritual Babylon in the New World
With the exchequers and treasuries of Europe drained at the end of WWII, the United States emerged as an economic powerhouse, supported by her many natural resources and increased manufacturing capacity. Her treasury was filled with the major part of the world’s gold, having provided resources to Asia and war matériel to her European allies before entering the war herself. This largess in turn enabled the US to help rebuild Europe at the conclusion of the war.
As nations turned their swords into plough shares, the United Nations was born in an attempt to prevent another world war. The site chosen for the new UN headquarters was New York City, which was in the process of catching up to London as the world’s leading center of trade. During the 1960’s and 1970’s, the US entered an age of economic and military expansion, enhanced by technological advances that occurred as an offshoot of the space race to the moon. The US economy continued to grow as cheap raw goods were imported from Central and South America to produce mid-and-high level manufactured goods and technology for local consumption and export.
As the US became increasingly involved in world affairs, a move towards global interdependence developed in the UN. Undeveloped third world nations perceived the great prosperity of the US and numerous advocacy groups sought a global redistribution of wealth. Meanwhile, the populations of countless nations dreamed of coming to American shores to seek better economic opportunity and freedom from oppressive societies. As the US jostled for position and advantage during the cold war, foreign policy settled on spreading monetary aid and establishing ‘stable governments’ around the globe. This had the effect of sharing some of the wealth while serving the nation’s own security interests.
With the breakup of the Soviet Union at the end of the cold war, the US became the world’s undisputed military and economic global superpower. Even as the US continued to prosper economically and cement its technological advantage, American society underwent profound changes during the last two decades of the twentieth century. Immigration patterns shifted for the first time to allow much larger quotas from non-European countries, starting with the Vietnamese boat refugees in the early 1980’s. Unforeseen results would ensue from this new trend, eventually changing the cultural and religious landscape of America.
Whereas immigration of the previous two centuries had primarily brought European Christians to US shores, this new wave brought completely foreign cultures, religions, and values to America, along with the worship of foreign gods. US society morphed from a “melting pot” of many cultures with a Christian ethos into a “tossed salad” of clearly defined immigrant groups that tried to maintain their separate cultural heritage, language, and religious beliefs. While assimilating into the American economy, the first generation of these disparate ethnic groups nonetheless retained their unique identities, while the second generation developed organized gangs to be able to compete for territory in urban environments. America’s cultural landscape was refashioned as these new ethnic groups demanded equal recognition and protection under the law. This resulted in a serious challenge to America’s Christian and European identity and heritage.
Additional factors contributed to the changing social landscape. Well-funded liberal groups achieved educational, legislative, and judicial changes that first relaxed, and then overturned strictly defined traditional Christian values and mores. Divorce and abortion had already become the law of the land due to the efforts of these groups, and feminism became a potent force, changing the workplace and cultural fabric of the nation. Next came the legalization and societal acceptance of previously illegal sexual behavior. Homosexuality and other deviant sexual practices were relabeled and transformed into legal, acceptable, “alternative lifestyles” with government support.
As these changes were taking place, along came the “me generation,” espousing an ethic of ‘shop till you drop’ and ‘party hearty,’ followed by the ‘yuppie’ financial whiz kids feeding off Wall Street and then Main Street, literally earning the right to own at least one luxury house, two imported cars, several TVs, computers, and cell phones, along with an array of credit cards to finance it all. America became a nation of consumers instead of producers as its manufacturing base was shipped overseas in an engineered move to redistribute its wealth across the globe. Instead of lending to other countries, the US became a debtor nation in order to finance her spending spree, importing her necessities as well as her luxuries from the factories and businesses she had built in third world nations. This development was followed by a building boom that saw middle and even lower class families living in homes that would be considered palaces in most of the world’s nations, all to stimulate the American economy that enabled the rest of the world to raise its standard of living. The influx of the world’s luxuries, toys, and treasures being shipped to America’s shores was matched only by the flow of illegal recreational drugs that went into the veins of the poor and miserable and up the noses of the wealthy.
By the end of the twentieth century, New York City had become the center of global commerce, and the US had become the engine of world economic growth. The US was also the world’s undisputed military superpower, supported by third and fourth generation scientific technological advances and the willingness to use military force where diplomacy and foreign aid were ineffective. Merchants around the world brought their cargoes to the shores of the United States, while immigrants, visitors, and illegal aliens streamed through ports of entry and across porous borders by tens of thousands, seeking America’s luxuries and liberalities.
Yet even as the US became the buyer of first and last resort for the world’s goods, she found herself with no lack of enemies at the beginning of the 21st century. Unreported by the western press, her former cold war adversaries made new treaties for mutual defense among themselves and with America’s new Muslim antagonists. Less than a decade into the new century, America had expanded militarily into the Middle East and the southern reaches of the former Soviet Empire to protect oil pipelines. These unprecedented actions angered Russia and her allies as well as most of the Muslim nations of the Middle East. The result has been a rearmed Russian nation and the re-emerging voice of Islamic jihad and renewal of the Middle-Ages clash of civilizations along ideological lines. Standing diametrically opposed to everything America and Europe stand for, the burgeoning international ranks of Islamic radicals have since vowed to achieve the West’s conversion or destruction. Equating American (and British) democracy with immorality and unwarranted military intrusions, radical Muslims view the US as the Great Satan, spreading its love affair with materialism, drug abuse, and immorality around the world.
The Coming Storm
Iran, her neighbors, and activist Muslim nations and organizations are both wary and scornful of America’s vaunted nuclear and military capabilities. Believing in the Qur’an’s promised world victory for Islam and its heavenly rewards for killing infidels, jihadists have shown a willingness to strike whenever they can. They have promised that 911 will not be the last large-scale terrorist operation against the United States. All asymmetric means of warfare have been actively considered, including chemical, biological and radiological attacks. In one of his many messages to America, Bin Laden promised a coming storm of ‘black rain’, likely a veiled reference to the thick black radioactive rain that fell from the skies after the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima.
Muslim power and daring is spreading across southern Asia, the Middle East and northern Africa as radical Islamic governments come to power and reestablish Shari’a law. It is only a matter of time before Iran attains the capability to produce its own nuclear warheads and the delivery system to launch them. It is working on both. When Iran, Syria, and southern Iraq finally agree to a power sharing relationship, the nuclear blackmail of Europe cannot be far behind. Eventually, this small but powerful Islamic powerbase will join with the ten kings of Revelation to strike a deathblow at Babylon the Great. As the final manifestation of the daughter of Babylon, New York City, the heart of America’s economic power, will fall victim to a coordinated nuclear strike. The reason for this is simple. In his first open letter to America, Bin Laden explained that in order to defeat a nation’s military, its economic base must first be destroyed. Since New York is the nation’s economic capital, his attacks have been focused there. Muslim jihadists will continue to plan and execute attacks against New York City until they have achieved their objective.
The importance of the port city of New York to the United States cannot be underestimated. It is the hub of the world’s central banking system, the capital of commerce and finance for the US as well as the western world. (At one time it was even the capital of the United States, with the District of Columbia later being chosen as a North-South political compromise.) New York is in some ways more representative of America than Washington D.C. An interconnected hub of several protected islands on the Atlantic coast, New York City literally sits “on many waters.” Like every previous manifestation of Babylon the Great, her great wealth has gone hand in hand with an abandonment of Godly values. Once a Christian nation, the US has publicly rejected her Godly heritage and prostituted herself to the god Mammon, trading her many blessings for self indulgence, wealth and luxury. Like Babylon, the US has transmitted the hedonistic and materialistic values of the world system to her trading partners throughout the earth. God will allow the destruction of New York City because the soul of America has turned away from him to pursue the ways of the world. When America is judged for her sins, New York will not be the only city to fall. The US will be brought low by her enemies to ensure she is unable to retaliate. Revelation 18 describes the destruction of New York City, resulting in the fall of the United States as a world power.
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Revelation 18
After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory. And he cried mightily with a loud voice, saying, “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird! For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury.”
And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. Render to her just as she rendered to you, and repay her double according to her works; in the cup which she has mixed, mix double for her. In the measure that she glorified herself and lived luxuriously, in the same measure give her torment and sorrow; for she says in her heart, “I sit as queen, and am no widow, and will not see sorrow.” Therefore her plagues will come in one day—death and mourning and famine. And she will be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judges her.
The kings of the earth who committed fornication and lived luxuriously with her will weep and lament for her, when they see the smoke of her burning, standing at a distance for fear of her torment, saying, “Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! For in one hour your judgment has come.”
And the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her, for no one buys their merchandise anymore: merchandise of gold and silver, precious stones and pearls, fine linen and purple, silk and scarlet, every kind of citron wood, every kind of object of ivory, every kind of object of most precious wood, bronze, iron, and marble; and cinnamon and incense, fragrant oil and frankincense, wine and oil, fine flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and bodies and souls of men. The fruit that your soul longed for has gone from you, and all the things which are rich and splendid have gone from you, and you shall find them no more at all. The merchants of these things, who became rich by her, will stand at a distance for fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, and saying, “Alas, alas, that great city that was clothed in fine linen, purple, and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls! For in one hour such great riches came to nothing.” Every shipmaster, all who travel by ship, sailors, and as many as trade on the sea, stood at a distance and cried out when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, “What is like this great city?”
They threw dust on their heads and cried out, weeping and wailing, and saying, “Alas, alas, that great city, in which all who had ships on the sea became rich by her wealth! For in one hour she is made desolate. Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you holy apostles and prophets, for God has avenged you on her!”
Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, “Thus with violence the great city Babylon shall be thrown down, and shall not be found anymore. The sound of harpists, musicians, flutists, and trumpeters shall not be heard in you anymore. No craftsman of any craft shall be found in you anymore, and the sound of a millstone shall not be heard in you anymore. The light of a lamp shall not shine in you anymore, and the voice of bridegroom and bride shall not be heard in you anymore. For your merchants were the great men of the earth, for by your sorcery all the nations were deceived. And in her was found the blood of prophets and saints, and of all who were slain on the earth.”
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Revelation 18 Commentary
v. 1-2a After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. With a mighty voice he shouted: “Fallen, fallen, is Babylon the Great!”(NIV) These are the same words used by the second angel to describe God’s judgment on Babylon in Revelation 14 as a present event. Its placement here after the last of God’s seven bowl judgments have fallen is a dramatic link, identifying this chapter as returning to that event in more detail.
v. 2b [She] has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird! The removal of Christian values from public life and societal acceptance of alternative religious practices such as New Age channeling, eastern meditation, and witchcraft have opened spiritual doors for every kind of demon to inhabit the land. Society has undergone profound changes as a result.
v. 3 For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury. Hollywood’s materialistic, hedonistic and violent view of American life is transmitted through her entertainment industry to nearly every nation on earth, where its siren song attracts those who live far less luxurious and exciting lives than movie stars or even the average American. The leaders of numerous third world nations impoverish their people in order to live like the rich and famous, while their economies become increasingly dependent on exporting goods back to the United States. As manufacturing plants in foreign countries continue to churn out goods for American consumers, the world’s merchants grow ever more wealthy from Babylon’s trade.
v. 4-7 And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. Render to her just as she rendered to you, and repay her double according to her works; in the cup which she has mixed, mix double for her. In the measure that she glorified herself and lived luxuriously, in the same measure give her torment and sorrow; for she says in her heart, ‘I sit as queen, and am no widow, and will not see sorrow.’”
Having been blessed by God for her faith in him, America has prospered, avoiding much of the suffering that has befallen the rest of the world. Save for a final attempt to recapture the colonies by the British, she remained relatively untouched by the aggression of others for 200 years, that is until the recent Muslim terror attacks on the twin towers complex. Yet America will come under God’s judgment for two reasons. First, as a Christian nation, the United States is apostate, having turned her back on the Lord to embrace materialism and immorality. God disciplines and judges his nations as well as his children. Second, the beast and Babylon the Great both come under God’s vengeance at the end of the age for the blood of the saints.
“Come out of Babylon” is both a figurative and a literal command. God’s people are always called to come out of the world system regardless of which country or in what era they live, and walk according to God’s ways. However, this command may also be interpreted as a literal one. Just as God made a way of escape for Christians by the warning signs preceding his judgment on Jerusalem, he calls his people out of harm’s way before the city of Spiritual Babylon is destroyed.
v. 8-10 Therefore her plagues will come in one day—death and mourning and famine. And she will be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judges her. The kings of the earth who committed fornication and lived luxuriously with her will weep and lament for her, when they see the smoke of her burning, standing at a distance for fear of her torment, saying, “Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! For in one hour your judgment has come.” God’s vengeance results in consummation by fire. The only way that the complete devastation described here can occur in such a short time (one hour) is with the use of nuclear weapons. The fire and intense radiation that results from a nuclear attack accounts for other nations and merchant ships standing “far off, terrified at her torment.”
v. 11-19 And the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her, for no one buys their merchandise anymore: merchandise of gold and silver, precious stones and pearls, fine linen and purple, silk and scarlet, every kind of citron wood, every kind of object of ivory, every kind of object of most precious wood, bronze, iron, and marble; and cinnamon and incense, fragrant oil and frankincense, wine and oil, fine flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and bodies and souls of men. The fruit that your soul longed for has gone from you, and all the things which are rich and splendid have gone from you, and you shall find them no more at all.
The merchants of these things, who became rich by her, will stand at a distance for fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, and saying, “Alas, alas, that great city that was clothed in fine linen, purple, and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls! For in one hour such great riches came to nothing.” Every shipmaster, all who travel by ship, sailors, and as many as trade on the sea, stood at a distance and cried out when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, “What is like this great city?” They threw dust on their heads and cried out, weeping and wailing, and saying, “Alas, alas, that great city, in which all who had ships on the sea became rich by her wealth! For in one hour she is made desolate.” Although US authorities have made special preparations to prevent a nuclear strike on New York City, they are candid about the impossibility of closing every avenue of attack. The destruction of the nerve center of her great wealth will bring America to her knees.
v. 20-23 Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you holy apostles and prophets, for God has avenged you on her! Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, “Thus with violence the great city Babylon shall be thrown down, and shall not be found anymore. The sound of harpists, musicians, flutists, and trumpeters shall not be heard in you anymore. No craftsman of any craft shall be found in you anymore, and the sound of a millstone shall not be heard in you anymore. The light of a lamp shall not shine in you anymore, and the voice of bridegroom and bride shall not be heard in you anymore. For your merchants were the great men of the earth, for by your sorcery all the nations were deceived.”
This is a general description of the emotional devastation that will result from Babylon the Great’s destruction. It has been pointed out that he word “sorcery” in verse 23 is a mistranslation of the Greek word pharmakeia. This word is strictly translated as “enchantment with drugs,” a charge that is not without basis in any major urban center across the United States. However, the intent of this verse appears to be that Spiritual Babylon presented such a desirable image of the ‘good life’ that the nations of the world became enchanted by it, and as a result, turned away from Godly values to pursue the false promises of wealth and happiness.
v. 24 And in her was found the blood of prophets and saints, and of all who were slain on the earth. Since Cain shed first blood on the earth, the righteous have prayed to God for justice, and God has heard their plea: “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.” (Gen. 4:10) The question of the martyrs under the altar in Revelation 6: “How long O Lord, until you avenge our blood?” symbolizes this universal cry.
Although God holds each generation responsible for the persecution of the righteous, vengeance does not fall until the end of the age. New York City, and thus the United States, is the final home of the world system that got its start in ancient Babylon and came of age in Rome. America will pay the price for the blood of all the righteous persecuted by Spiritual Babylon in every age, just as Israel paid the price in AD 70 for the blood of the righteous shed over the previous Millennia. Though some might think this unfair, America’s hands are as bloody as any nation on earth, her trash bins crying out with the blood of the unborn, served up as scientific experiments and beauty products. Babylon the Great, no less than the beast on which she has ridden through the millennia, will justifiably bear God’s vengeance at the end of the age.
Chapter Notes: Chapter 17
19. Prometheus Bound Aeschylus, Penguin Books, Baltimore MD, 1961 p. 8
Revelation 17 - 18
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