FALLEN IS BABYLON:
Christ Conquers
Revelation
Revelation 17-19
THE TEXT:
The text for the sermon today is Revelation 17-19, but for our reading we will begin in 18:1 and conclude in 19:3. Our text can be found on page 1038. These are the words of God:
18 After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was made bright with his glory. 2 And he called out with a mighty voice,
“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!
She has become a dwelling place for demons,
a haunt for every unclean spirit,
a haunt for every unclean bird,
a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast.
3 For all nations have drunk
the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality,
and the kings of the earth have committed immorality with her,
and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living.”
4 Then I heard another voice from heaven saying,
“Come out of her, my people,
lest you take part in her sins,
lest you share in her plagues;
5 for her sins are heaped high as heaven,
and God has remembered her iniquities.
6 Pay her back as she herself has paid back others,
and repay her double for her deeds;
mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed.
7 As she glorified herself and lived in luxury,
so give her a like measure of torment and mourning,
since in her heart she says,
‘I sit as a queen,
I am no widow,
and mourning I shall never see.’
8 For this reason her plagues will come in a single day,
death and mourning and famine,
and she will be burned up with fire;
for mighty is the Lord God who has judged her.”
9 And the kings of the earth, who committed sexual immorality and lived in luxury with her, will weep and wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning. 10 They will stand far off, in fear of her torment, and say,
“Alas! Alas! You great city,
you mighty city, Babylon!
For in a single hour your judgment has come.”
11 And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo anymore, 12 cargo of gold, silver, jewels, pearls, fine linen, purple cloth, silk, scarlet cloth, all kinds of scented wood, all kinds of articles of ivory, all kinds of articles of costly wood, bronze, iron and marble, 13 cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and slaves, that is, human souls.
14 “The fruit for which your soul longed
has gone from you,
and all your delicacies and your splendors
are lost to you,
never to be found again!”
15 The merchants of these wares, who gained wealth from her, will stand far off, in fear of her torment, weeping and mourning aloud,
16 “Alas, alas, for the great city
that was clothed in fine linen,
in purple and scarlet,
adorned with gold,
with jewels, and with pearls!
17 For in a single hour all this wealth has been laid waste.”
And all shipmasters and seafaring men, sailors and all whose trade is on the sea, stood far off 18 and cried out as they saw the smoke of her burning,
“What city was like the great city?”
19 And they threw dust on their heads as they wept and mourned, crying out,
“Alas, alas, for the great city
where all who had ships at sea
grew rich by her wealth!
For in a single hour she has been laid waste.
20 Rejoice over her, O heaven,
and you saints and apostles and prophets,
for God has given judgment for you against her!”
21 Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying,
“So will Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence,
and will be found no more;
22 and the sound of harpists and musicians, of flute players and trumpeters,
will be heard in you no more,
and a craftsman of any craft
will be found in you no more,
and the sound of the mill
will be heard in you no more,
23 and the light of a lamp
will shine in you no more,
and the voice of bridegroom and bride
will be heard in you no more,
for your merchants were the great ones of the earth,
and all nations were deceived by your sorcery.
24 And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints,
and of all who have been slain on earth.”
19 After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, crying out,
“Hallelujah!
Salvation and glory and power belong to our God,
2 for his judgments are true and just;
for he has judged the great prostitute
who corrupted the earth with her immorality,
and has avenged on her the blood of his servants.”
3 Once more they cried out,
“Hallelujah!
The smoke from her goes up forever and ever.”
GRAB THEIR ATTENTION
I’ve lived in and around Charlotte all my life. A few of you have been here longer than I have, but most of you are relatively new to the city. I can remember when Charlotte was a transition city. It was a place people moved to in order to move through on their way to bigger cities.
But that’s not the case anymore. Many of the largest cities in the U.S. are full, and therefore cities like Charlotte have not become destination cities. This means that Charlotte’s importance and influence in our nation has grown and will continue to grow in the decades ahead.
Now, the simple message of our text this morning is this: every city has a choice. It can honor God, glorify God, and in doing so, serve the people of the city, or the city can honor man, glorify man, and in doing so, the citizens of the city will suffer.
Here at the end of Revelation we see two cities: Babylon and the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21). One is a city focused on the glory of man, the other the glory of God. One has a corruptive and corrosive force; the other brings eternal healing and harmony. One sinks while the other only becomes more beautiful and enduring as time fades and eternity opens.
RAISE THE NEED, SIGNPOSTS, STATE THE DESTINATION
Here’s what this means for us. Nothing we do in this city is meaningless. No business deals we make, no clients we serve, no homes we build. All of it matters, because everything we do here is serving to make Charlotte more like one of these two cities; more like Babylon or more like the New Jerusalem.
As we think about the first city, Babylon, the text shows us three pictures:
- THE SIGNIFICANCE OF BABYLON
- THE SEDUCTION OF BABYLON
- THE SINKING OF BABYLON
- THE SIGNIFICANCE OF BABYLON
Cities are incredibly important in a culture because as the city goes, so goes the rest of the culture. Just watch what happens in any election. Elections tend to follow the trends of the city, not the other way around.
And this is because what a city does is gathers a bunch of people together: all kinds of people, talents, resources. And the city then magnifies and multiplies whatever that group of people are trying to accomplish.
In Revelation 17, here’s this massive city: Babylon, and it is pictured like a prostitute who is seated upon the waters, and we’re told that the waters are symbolic of the multitudes, and languages, and nations. In other words: the spirit of Babylon has influenced the entire world. In every age the cities of the world are consumed with this same influence.
We see this way back in Genesis 11 and the first prominent city in the Bible. Unironically, that city was named Babel. A massive group of people get together, and decide to establish a city for the purpose, they say, of making a name for themselves. We want to build a tower that reaches into the heavens and in so doing we’ll make a great name for ourselves.
You see? The city gathers a multitude, and whatever the people love, whatever they desire gets magnified a thousand-fold. And this is the spirit of Babylon from the very beginning. “Let us make a great name for ourselves.”
The same thing happened in Babylon. You get to Daniel 4 and what does Nebuchadnezzar say? “Is this not Babylon the Great, which I have built by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?” It’s the spirit of Babylon.
John’s original audience for Revelation would have read our text and said, “Oh. This is Rome. The pride of the ancient world. The glory of the Caesars.”
And the same thing happens today. Think of the great cities in our nation. They are all built in the spirit of Babylon. And most people come to those cities in the same spirit.
- New York City – it’s a mass of people all searching for what? Success. Money. The Big Apple.
- LA – Fame. Celebrity.
- Boston – Intellectual prestige. Harvard. MIT.
- C. – Power.
- Nashville – Music. Beauty. Art.
This is not to say that everyone in those places is there for the wrong reasons. But it is to say that cities are significant. They have immense power because they pull people and resources together, and every city has a choice to make. Will we pool these people and resources to glorify man? Are we just newer versions of the same old Babel?
You see, why do people come to Charlotte? Sometimes its family, but most often it’s in the spirit of Babylon. “I want to make a great name for myself.” Most people aren’t coming to Charlotte to honor God, or to serve others. They’re coming for themselves.
Babylon is significant because it has influenced every city from Babel to Charlotte. But let’s think for a moment of the seduction of Babylon.
- THE SEDUCTION OF BABYLON
Now, we don’t have time to explain every piece of this text, but let me walk you through this concept of seduction in several places.
First, at the beginning of chapter 17, Babylon is pictured as a prostitute. In other words, she’s seductive. In 17:2, the kings of the earth are in bed with her.
Second, in chapter 18, we’re told that Babylon is full of people who love her and mourn when she falls. This is what we read earlier. The city is full of government officials who wield power, merchants who trade and do business, people of commerce who buy and sell their luxury good. In other words, this is a city consumed with self-worship. The issue is not that they have nice things—it’s that this life, the power they wield, the goods they sell, that has become the sum total of their life, and now that it’s gone they are ruined.
Third, in 18:4 we read:
4 Then I heard another voice from heaven saying,
“Come out of her, my people,
lest you take part in her sins,
lest you share in her plagues;
In other words, the allure of Babylon, the seduction of Babylon is so strong that it even entices those who love God and they must be warned.
Now pay attention. What’s so bad about Babylon? And here it is, as simple as I can put it: Babylon is man-centered. She’s self-reliant. She’s self-sufficient. The problem is not that Babylon has nice things. The problem is that she does not realize she needs God. The good things she has have been elevated above God.
7 As she glorified herself and lived in luxury,
so give her a like measure of torment and mourning,
since in her heart she says,
‘I sit as a queen,
I am no widow,
and mourning I shall never see.’
What’s she saying? I can provide for myself. I don’t need to recognize God. Look how much I have. Do you know what this is? At the end of the day it’s self-salvation.
The same thing in the ancient city of Babylon. If you read about it you find that ancient Babylon contained the hanging gardens (one of the ancient wonders of the world), and the city was prosperous and grew proud. In Daniel 4, the King of Babylon summarizes the pride of that city:
At the end of twelve months [King Nebuchadnezzar] was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, 30 and the king answered and said, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?”
And that very moment the Scriptures tell us that he lost everything. He lost his city. His lost his throne. The judgment of God came down and he even lost his humanity. Because he exalted man rather than God he forgot was it was to be human.
Listen: God is not opposed to hard work. He is not opposed to wealth. God is actually rather wealthy. But he absolutely hates when any created thing replaces him. And he is saying to us that the seduction we face in a city like Charlotte is the seduction faced in every city in every age: to grow strong, wealthy, powerful, and to forget the Lord.
This is the same temptation the children of Israel faced going in to take possession of Canaan. Deuteronomy 6:10 warns:
10 “And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, 11 and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, 12 then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
You see, Revelation 17, 18, 19 is a passage that helps us not simply know and understand our own heart, it actually helps us know and understand our city, our nation.
Friends, we live in a nation that says, “I don’t need God. Look at all I have. Look at how prosperous I am. We can provide for ourselves. We can defend ourselves. There is nothing that we the people cannot accomplish.” And just like Nebuchadnezzar, because our nation, because our cities have drunk from the wine of Babylon; because we have relegated God, we are losing our grip even on our humanity. We don’t even know what a human being is any more.
The spirit of Babylon says, “Come to the great city, and you’ll find everything you need. Maximize your name. Maximize your portfolio. Maximize your talents.” That’s the seduction of Babylon.
- THE SINKING OF BABYLON
The fall of Babylon is as grim as it gets. We’re that in the end, Babylon is so utterly desolate that its only inhabitants are demons and unclean spirits. That’s because in the end, Babylon, along with Satan and the Beast are all thrown into the Lake of Fire.
I don’t know if you caught this earlier when I read the text, but Revelation 18 is essentially a record of all Babylon’s mourners. All of the people who had trusted in Babylon weep and wail because it means they are ruined. The kings, the merchants, the shimpasters and sailors, Revelation 18 is one long song of lament. They all cry out “Alas, Babylon.” They weep over the downfall of the pride of man the way a mother would weep for the death of a child.
But in the midst of all that weeping, the Saints are told to rejoice. It’s such a striking contrast. While the entire world wails, the Saints are to rejoice and sing.
Revelation 19 begins:
After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, crying out,
“Hallelujah!
Salvation and glory and power belong to our God,
2 for his judgments are true and just;
for he has judged the great prostitute
who corrupted the earth with her immorality,
and has avenged on her the blood of his servants.”
3 Once more they cried out,
“Hallelujah!
The smoke from her goes up forever and ever.”
Why are the saints told to rejoice? Why do they sing? It’s because one of the purpose of God is to built a perfect city, and that can never happen in this age.
It’s been tried before. I remember in 2017 visiting Boston for the first time and seeing the grave of John Winthrop. Winthrop was an English Puritan. He was a godly man who lead in the founding of the Massachusetts bay Colony. Before departing from England on March 21, 1630, Winthrop delivered a message entitled “A Model of Christian Charity,” in which he said their purpose for immigrating was to build a truly Christian city.
And listen, praise God for their attempts. Thank God they understood that God was watching them, and so was the world.
A century before them, John Calvin, didn’t simply reformed the worship of the church, he began to reform all of Geneva.
Abraham Kuyper, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands at the turn of the 20th Century taught that every square inch of the world belonged to Jesus. The city, the state, the church all of it.
Over and over again, Christians have worked to have influence in every city that God as placed them. Thank God for that. But none of them have ever, in this age, been able to establish the New Jerusalem. We’re waiting on the age to come.
This is why, when you get to Hebrews 11, we’re told that Abraham, who left his home, who founded a nation, who had the promises of God… yet he was “looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.”
In the final chapters of Genesis, we’re going to see the arrival of a new city. Bunyan called it the Celestial City. And we don’t have enough time to go into all of it… but the city that is to come do you know what it is? It’s Eden remade.
The Garden of Eden had a river that flowed through it. And the New Jerusalem has a river that runs through it. Eden had a tree of life, and there, in the New Jerusalem is the tree of life whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. In the first creation, God plants a garden. In the new creation, God founds a garden city.
And, listen, in the New Jerusalem, you find everything you thought you would find in Babylon.
You want pleasure? In the New Jerusalem you sit down to the marriage supper of the Lamb and feast in the kingdom of heaven.
You want wealth? The streets of New Jerusalem are paved with gold.
Do you want to see true power? At the center of the New Jerusalem is the throne of God.
Are you seeking health and healing? In that city there is no sickness or death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.
You want fame? You want to have a great named that is never forgotten? Friend, the only fame that lasts is the fame of being known by God.
How can all of that be yours? How can you receive eternal pleasure, wealth, power, health, and fame?
It’s because 2,000 years ago, the one who owned all of it, the Son of God, chose to lose all of it. 2,000 years ago, the Son of God, emptied himself of heaven’s glory, took up residence in Babylon, and at the cross he was utterly forsaken by God. Why? So that sinners like me and you could be welcomed into the God’s family, and take a seat at his table in the New Jerusalem.
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