Chapter 47 Babylon
Our understanding of who Babylon is, is essentially unchanged with possibly one exception, and that is that Babylon has still not completely filled her cup. The third Angel’s Message has still not completely and rightfully been proclaimed. This will occur when the 5th Trumpet has sounded, Satan is given free reign, and he has coerced both church and state to persecute God’s elect.
Let us have a close look at who Babylon is: We first read about Babel (Babylon and Babel is the same place.) in Genesis 10 and 11. In Genesis 10 it is mentioned as an aside in the genealogy of Ham. Nimrod was the leader of the united rebellion against God. In Genesis 11 God visits the great tower that man had erected in His defiance. He stops their building of the tower by confusing the language of man. When they could not communicate any longer, they dispersed throughout the Earth. Babel means confusion – here specifically the confusion of language. We see therefore that Babel is connected to pride, defiance of God and confusion of languages.
Babylon is first mentioned in the Bible during the conquests of Israel in the book of Joshua. Achan disobeyed the orders God gave through Joshua and in their conquest of Jericho took for himself, amongst others, a Babylonish garment from among the spoils of Jericho. For that he was stoned. At this point in time Babel had already become Babylon.
Babylon looms large in the Old Testament. In 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles we see its rise and its threat to Judah. We have the story of king Hezekiah who was on his death bed. He appeals to God for recovery since he had led Judah back to God. God informs him through the prophet Isaiah that he would heal him and add 15 years to his life. Isaiah says God will give him a sign of His promise: He could choose to let the time of day advance 40 minutes (15 degrees) or go back 40 minutes. Hezekiah chooses the more dramatic and requests the time to go back 40 minutes. He watches the sundial as the shadow recedes 40 minutes. The king of Babylon also observes this phenomenal event and hears the story of Hezekiah’s miraculous recovery. He sends a representation with gifts to Hezekiah, inquiring about the event. Hezekiah, instead of magnifying God, shows the envoy all the riches of the kings of Judah. Isaiah returns to Hezekiah, expressing God’s disappointment in him, saying that the king of Babylon will conquer Judah, and take all the accumulated riches of the kings of Judah to Babylon.
Babylon takes captives from Judah in phases and eventually ransacks Judah completely. God uses the enemies of Judah to carry out His will in punishing them. Babylon is a heathen nation, yet the presence of God’s people among them serve to teach the heathen, including their king Nebuchadnezzar, about Him. God shows the king the future of the world in a dream and Daniel interprets the dream. The three friends of Daniel defy the king when he demands that all should worship his great golden image. When the king tries to destroy them in a fiery furnace, God reveals Himself by saving these three worthies from the fire with the presence of His Son. The king acknowledges the God of the Hebrews and enforces worship of their God. God addresses the pride of the king by a dream that reveals that he will become insane for 7 years which comes true. After this the king acknowledges the greatness of the God of the Hebrews again.
When Belshazzar, the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar reigns, the kingdom of Babylon comes to an end. The Medes and the Persians conquer the city by cutting off the flow of the river Euphrates which flowed through the city. When the riverbed is laid dry, the soldiers enter the city by passing through the concourse of the river.
Babylon serves as a type of God’s enemies at the end of time. We see the type in coerced worship and the persecution of true worship. Even the drying up of the river Euphrates when Babylon falls serves as a type. The call of the second Angel’s Message also has a type in the prophecies of Isaiah concerning Babylon:
Isa 21:9 And, behold, here cometh a chariot of men, with a couple of horsemen. And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground.
The liberation of the Jews from Babylon, then under the Persian king Artaxerxes, serves as a type to the liberation of God’s elect at the end of time from the universal effort to destroy God’s people.
What and who does Babylon represent at the end of time as described in Revelation? “Babylon” occurs in Revelation six times, three of which are in chapter 18. The theme of Rev 18 is the demise and destruction of Babylon. The Babylon in Revelation is the name of an evil woman:
5 And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon The Great, The Mother Of Harlots And Abominations Of The Earth.
6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.
The whore of Rev 17 contrasts the pure woman of Rev 12. The pure woman represents God’s “church” through all the ages and in particular the 144 000 at the end of time (chapters 9 and 15). The whore then also represents a church, but not God’s pure church. This church is called a whore because she uses the prerogatives of God – worship – for her own benefits. Man is created with a need to worship God. An apostate church uses this need of man to enrich itself. The people that worship “God” by means of such a church are having “extramarital relations” in their worship. God rejects such worship, especially when people are not ignorant in their worship of a false god. Worship is a foundational concept in the book of Revelation, and a church that uses false worship to enrich itself is called a whore – Babylon.
Notice that Babylon is drunk with the blood of the saints. It is a church that persecutes God’s children. The great reformers of the 15th century, Luther and Calvin, recognised this church to be the original but apostate church – the Roman Catholic Church. During the dark ages, and especially during the era of the Inquisition, between 50 and 100 million of God’s elect were killed by this church. When this church holds political power, it coerces worship. It did this during the Dark Ages, and at the end of time it will do it again. The strong drive today to create a New World Order is to have all of mankind under one government so that worship will again be enforced by the political powers and the church. Once again people will be sentenced to death if they refuse to worship in the prescribed way, just like Nebuchadnezzar tried to do in ancient Babylon. Rev 17:18 indicates globalism in the New World Order:
18 And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.
Rev 11 also talks about a city, calling it Sodom and Egypt:
8 And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
This city is the same city as Babylon. What do we learn from it being named Sodom and Egypt? Sodom is notorious for being a place where illicit sexual relations were practiced, in particular man with man. (There is plenty of that amongst the clergy of Catholicism.) Like prostitution, sodomy represents false worship. Egypt in terms of God’s children represents slavery. Millions of people are slaves to false worship. Just like God called Israel out of Egypt, He calls His end-time children out of false worship:
Rev 18:4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
Babylon is in the process of falling, but has not fallen completely. Her complete fall will be during the New World Order where she will again have complete political power. She will then coerce worship and persecute those that do not obey her orders. When the nations see who she is and what her aims are, they will be disillusioned:
Rev 17:16 And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.
(See chapter 38 for a study on the 10 horns)
At the end of time God will destroy Babylon. Rev 18 has her destruction as its central theme. Her destruction will be immediate and final:
Rev 16:19 And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.
Rev 18:21 And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.
We must heed the warnings of the third Angel’s Message, and the call to come out of Babylon as is advised in the first part of Rev 18. We should not be partakers of her sins, lest we will be destroyed with her when she is destroyed. Pray God to help you make your worship pure and complete.
Our understanding of who Babylon is, is essentially unchanged with possibly one exception, and that is that Babylon has still not completely filled her cup. The third Angel’s Message has still not completely and rightfully been proclaimed. This will occur when the 5th Trumpet has sounded, Satan is given free reign, and he has coerced both church and state to persecute God’s elect.
Let us have a close look at who Babylon is: We first read about Babel (Babylon and Babel is the same place.) in Genesis 10 and 11. In Genesis 10 it is mentioned as an aside in the genealogy of Ham. Nimrod was the leader of the united rebellion against God. In Genesis 11 God visits the great tower that man had erected in His defiance. He stops their building of the tower by confusing the language of man. When they could not communicate any longer, they dispersed throughout the Earth. Babel means confusion – here specifically the confusion of language. We see therefore that Babel is connected to pride, defiance of God and confusion of languages.
Babylon is first mentioned in the Bible during the conquests of Israel in the book of Joshua. Achan disobeyed the orders God gave through Joshua and in their conquest of Jericho took for himself, amongst others, a Babylonish garment from among the spoils of Jericho. For that he was stoned. At this point in time Babel had already become Babylon.
Babylon looms large in the Old Testament. In 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles we see its rise and its threat to Judah. We have the story of king Hezekiah who was on his death bed. He appeals to God for recovery since he had led Judah back to God. God informs him through the prophet Isaiah that he would heal him and add 15 years to his life. Isaiah says God will give him a sign of His promise: He could choose to let the time of day advance 40 minutes (15 degrees) or go back 40 minutes. Hezekiah chooses the more dramatic and requests the time to go back 40 minutes. He watches the sundial as the shadow recedes 40 minutes. The king of Babylon also observes this phenomenal event and hears the story of Hezekiah’s miraculous recovery. He sends a representation with gifts to Hezekiah, inquiring about the event. Hezekiah, instead of magnifying God, shows the envoy all the riches of the kings of Judah. Isaiah returns to Hezekiah, expressing God’s disappointment in him, saying that the king of Babylon will conquer Judah, and take all the accumulated riches of the kings of Judah to Babylon.
Babylon takes captives from Judah in phases and eventually ransacks Judah completely. God uses the enemies of Judah to carry out His will in punishing them. Babylon is a heathen nation, yet the presence of God’s people among them serve to teach the heathen, including their king Nebuchadnezzar, about Him. God shows the king the future of the world in a dream and Daniel interprets the dream. The three friends of Daniel defy the king when he demands that all should worship his great golden image. When the king tries to destroy them in a fiery furnace, God reveals Himself by saving these three worthies from the fire with the presence of His Son. The king acknowledges the God of the Hebrews and enforces worship of their God. God addresses the pride of the king by a dream that reveals that he will become insane for 7 years which comes true. After this the king acknowledges the greatness of the God of the Hebrews again.
When Belshazzar, the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar reigns, the kingdom of Babylon comes to an end. The Medes and the Persians conquer the city by cutting off the flow of the river Euphrates which flowed through the city. When the riverbed is laid dry, the soldiers enter the city by passing through the concourse of the river.
Babylon serves as a type of God’s enemies at the end of time. We see the type in coerced worship and the persecution of true worship. Even the drying up of the river Euphrates when Babylon falls serves as a type. The call of the second Angel’s Message also has a type in the prophecies of Isaiah concerning Babylon:
Isa 21:9 And, behold, here cometh a chariot of men, with a couple of horsemen. And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground.
The liberation of the Jews from Babylon, then under the Persian king Artaxerxes, serves as a type to the liberation of God’s elect at the end of time from the universal effort to destroy God’s people.
What and who does Babylon represent at the end of time as described in Revelation? “Babylon” occurs in Revelation six times, three of which are in chapter 18. The theme of Rev 18 is the demise and destruction of Babylon. The Babylon in Revelation is the name of an evil woman:
5 And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon The Great, The Mother Of Harlots And Abominations Of The Earth.
6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.
The whore of Rev 17 contrasts the pure woman of Rev 12. The pure woman represents God’s “church” through all the ages and in particular the 144 000 at the end of time (chapters 9 and 15). The whore then also represents a church, but not God’s pure church. This church is called a whore because she uses the prerogatives of God – worship – for her own benefits. Man is created with a need to worship God. An apostate church uses this need of man to enrich itself. The people that worship “God” by means of such a church are having “extramarital relations” in their worship. God rejects such worship, especially when people are not ignorant in their worship of a false god. Worship is a foundational concept in the book of Revelation, and a church that uses false worship to enrich itself is called a whore – Babylon.
Notice that Babylon is drunk with the blood of the saints. It is a church that persecutes God’s children. The great reformers of the 15th century, Luther and Calvin, recognised this church to be the original but apostate church – the Roman Catholic Church. During the dark ages, and especially during the era of the Inquisition, between 50 and 100 million of God’s elect were killed by this church. When this church holds political power, it coerces worship. It did this during the Dark Ages, and at the end of time it will do it again. The strong drive today to create a New World Order is to have all of mankind under one government so that worship will again be enforced by the political powers and the church. Once again people will be sentenced to death if they refuse to worship in the prescribed way, just like Nebuchadnezzar tried to do in ancient Babylon. Rev 17:18 indicates globalism in the New World Order:
18 And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.
Rev 11 also talks about a city, calling it Sodom and Egypt:
8 And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
This city is the same city as Babylon. What do we learn from it being named Sodom and Egypt? Sodom is notorious for being a place where illicit sexual relations were practiced, in particular man with man. (There is plenty of that amongst the clergy of Catholicism.) Like prostitution, sodomy represents false worship. Egypt in terms of God’s children represents slavery. Millions of people are slaves to false worship. Just like God called Israel out of Egypt, He calls His end-time children out of false worship:
Rev 18:4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
Babylon is in the process of falling, but has not fallen completely. Her complete fall will be during the New World Order where she will again have complete political power. She will then coerce worship and persecute those that do not obey her orders. When the nations see who she is and what her aims are, they will be disillusioned:
Rev 17:16 And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.
(See chapter 38 for a study on the 10 horns)
At the end of time God will destroy Babylon. Rev 18 has her destruction as its central theme. Her destruction will be immediate and final:
Rev 16:19 And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.
Rev 18:21 And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.
We must heed the warnings of the third Angel’s Message, and the call to come out of Babylon as is advised in the first part of Rev 18. We should not be partakers of her sins, lest we will be destroyed with her when she is destroyed. Pray God to help you make your worship pure and complete.
Chapter 47 Babylon
Our understanding of who Babylon is, is essentially unchanged with possibly one exception, and that is that Babylon has still not completely filled her cup. The third Angel’s Message has still not completely and rightfully been proclaimed. This will occur when the 5th Trumpet has sounded, Satan is given free reign, and he has coerced both church and state to persecute God’s elect.
Let us have a close look at who Babylon is: We first read about Babel (Babylon and Babel is the same place.) in Genesis 10 and 11. In Genesis 10 it is mentioned as an aside in the genealogy of Ham. Nimrod was the leader of the united rebellion against God. In Genesis 11 God visits the great tower that man had erected in His defiance. He stops their building of the tower by confusing the language of man. When they could not communicate any longer, they dispersed throughout the Earth. Babel means confusion – here specifically the confusion of language. We see therefore that Babel is connected to pride, defiance of God and confusion of languages.
Babylon is first mentioned in the Bible during the conquests of Israel in the book of Joshua. Achan disobeyed the orders God gave through Joshua and in their conquest of Jericho took for himself, amongst others, a Babylonish garment from among the spoils of Jericho. For that he was stoned. At this point in time Babel had already become Babylon.
Babylon looms large in the Old Testament. In 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles we see its rise and its threat to Judah. We have the story of king Hezekiah who was on his death bed. He appeals to God for recovery since he had led Judah back to God. God informs him through the prophet Isaiah that he would heal him and add 15 years to his life. Isaiah says God will give him a sign of His promise: He could choose to let the time of day advance 40 minutes (15 degrees) or go back 40 minutes. Hezekiah chooses the more dramatic and requests the time to go back 40 minutes. He watches the sundial as the shadow recedes 40 minutes. The king of Babylon also observes this phenomenal event and hears the story of Hezekiah’s miraculous recovery. He sends a representation with gifts to Hezekiah, inquiring about the event. Hezekiah, instead of magnifying God, shows the envoy all the riches of the kings of Judah. Isaiah returns to Hezekiah, expressing God’s disappointment in him, saying that the king of Babylon will conquer Judah, and take all the accumulated riches of the kings of Judah to Babylon.
Babylon takes captives from Judah in phases and eventually ransacks Judah completely. God uses the enemies of Judah to carry out His will in punishing them. Babylon is a heathen nation, yet the presence of God’s people among them serve to teach the heathen, including their king Nebuchadnezzar, about Him. God shows the king the future of the world in a dream and Daniel interprets the dream. The three friends of Daniel defy the king when he demands that all should worship his great golden image. When the king tries to destroy them in a fiery furnace, God reveals Himself by saving these three worthies from the fire with the presence of His Son. The king acknowledges the God of the Hebrews and enforces worship of their God. God addresses the pride of the king by a dream that reveals that he will become insane for 7 years which comes true. After this the king acknowledges the greatness of the God of the Hebrews again.
When Belshazzar, the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar reigns, the kingdom of Babylon comes to an end. The Medes and the Persians conquer the city by cutting off the flow of the river Euphrates which flowed through the city. When the riverbed is laid dry, the soldiers enter the city by passing through the concourse of the river.
Babylon serves as a type of God’s enemies at the end of time. We see the type in coerced worship and the persecution of true worship. Even the drying up of the river Euphrates when Babylon falls serves as a type. The call of the second Angel’s Message also has a type in the prophecies of Isaiah concerning Babylon:
Isa 21:9 And, behold, here cometh a chariot of men, with a couple of horsemen. And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground.
The liberation of the Jews from Babylon, then under the Persian king Artaxerxes, serves as a type to the liberation of God’s elect at the end of time from the universal effort to destroy God’s people.
What and who does Babylon represent at the end of time as described in Revelation? “Babylon” occurs in Revelation six times, three of which are in chapter 18. The theme of Rev 18 is the demise and destruction of Babylon. The Babylon in Revelation is the name of an evil woman:
5 And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon The Great, The Mother Of Harlots And Abominations Of The Earth.
6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.
The whore of Rev 17 contrasts the pure woman of Rev 12. The pure woman represents God’s “church” through all the ages and in particular the 144 000 at the end of time (chapters 9 and 15). The whore then also represents a church, but not God’s pure church. This church is called a whore because she uses the prerogatives of God – worship – for her own benefits. Man is created with a need to worship God. An apostate church uses this need of man to enrich itself. The people that worship “God” by means of such a church are having “extramarital relations” in their worship. God rejects such worship, especially when people are not ignorant in their worship of a false god. Worship is a foundational concept in the book of Revelation, and a church that uses false worship to enrich itself is called a whore – Babylon.
Notice that Babylon is drunk with the blood of the saints. It is a church that persecutes God’s children. The great reformers of the 15th century, Luther and Calvin, recognised this church to be the original but apostate church – the Roman Catholic Church. During the dark ages, and especially during the era of the Inquisition, between 50 and 100 million of God’s elect were killed by this church. When this church holds political power, it coerces worship. It did this during the Dark Ages, and at the end of time it will do it again. The strong drive today to create a New World Order is to have all of mankind under one government so that worship will again be enforced by the political powers and the church. Once again people will be sentenced to death if they refuse to worship in the prescribed way, just like Nebuchadnezzar tried to do in ancient Babylon. Rev 17:18 indicates globalism in the New World Order:
18 And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.
Rev 11 also talks about a city, calling it Sodom and Egypt:
8 And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
This city is the same city as Babylon. What do we learn from it being named Sodom and Egypt? Sodom is notorious for being a place where illicit sexual relations were practiced, in particular man with man. (There is plenty of that amongst the clergy of Catholicism.) Like prostitution, sodomy represents false worship. Egypt in terms of God’s children represents slavery. Millions of people are slaves to false worship. Just like God called Israel out of Egypt, He calls His end-time children out of false worship:
Rev 18:4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
Babylon is in the process of falling, but has not fallen completely. Her complete fall will be during the New World Order where she will again have complete political power. She will then coerce worship and persecute those that do not obey her orders. When the nations see who she is and what her aims are, they will be disillusioned:
Rev 17:16 And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.
(See chapter 38 for a study on the 10 horns)
At the end of time God will destroy Babylon. Rev 18 has her destruction as its central theme. Her destruction will be immediate and final:
Rev 16:19 And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.
Rev 18:21 And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.
We must heed the warnings of the third Angel’s Message, and the call to come out of Babylon as is advised in the first part of Rev 18. We should not be partakers of her sins, lest we will be destroyed with her when she is destroyed. Pray God to help you make your worship pure and complete.
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