January 20, 2019 The Beginning and the End LXI. Fallen, Fallen Is Babylon the Great Revelation 18:1-24 Dr. William P. Seel Easley Presbyterian Church Easley, South Carolina It was the most shocking thing I think I have ever heard in a classroom. In retrospect, there is really nothing all that shocking about it it is, if anything, a rather obvious theological truth. Still, to hear it so bluntly spoken... What it was, was this: my second year of seminary, about a dozen of us in a theology class being taught by Dr. John Leith whom some of you remember, and who was one of the all-time great teachers of the Reformed Tradition. We were studying St. Augustine s great work, The City of God, which was Augustine s response to the sack of Rome by the Visigoths in August of 410 A.D. an event which shook the world, and marked the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire in the West. And thinking of that end of the Roman Empire, what Dr. Leith said to us that day was this: There will come a day when the United States of America will no longer exist. But, in that day, the Kingdom of God will still stand. In a nutshell, that is what John s vision of the Fall of Babylon is all about. Not the end of the United States, obviously but that the Roman Empire, that great domineering colossus standing over the whole of the known world in John s day, that one day the Roman Empire would be no more. But that, in that day, the Kingdom of God would still stand. It is a message of great hope and reassurance given to those seven small, struggling, fledgling churches to whom John is writing Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. 1 Those seven churches who were, in that present moment of John s vision, being actively persecuted by the Roman government, even being put to death by the Roman government, because of their faith in Jesus. To those seven churches of the martyrs, John s vision boldly, loudly, unquestionably declares that there will come a day when mighty Rome shall be no more. But, in that day, the Kingdom of God and all who remain faithful to that Kingdom in that day, they will still stand. Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!, declares John. But, wait a moment, you say John is speaking about Babylon, not Rome. Rome is nowhere mentioned. Well, you re right. But remember the situation of those seven churches, being actively persecuted by Rome. How would it help matters if they were to be found by the Romans in possession of a document opening declaring the destruction of the Roman Empire? A document written, no less, by a known trouble-maker already exiled by the Roman authorities to the Isle of Patmos? So, John s vision does not speak openly of the Roman Empire. Instead John uses an ancient enemy of God s people, the Babylonian Empire, as a stand-in for Rome. Babylon, who had ravaged the people of God and the holy city of Jerusalem back in 586 B.C., carrying off the best and brightest to serve the whims of the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar; and leaving the rest in the ruins of Jerusalem to die of starvation and disease. 2 But Babylon fell, and Babylon
2 fell at the hand of God, who anointed Cyrus of Persia to set his people free from their Babylonian captivity. 3 Which means there is a double intention in using Babylon as a stand-in for Rome first, because John s revelation will seem innocent to the Romans if found; and second, because the history of Babylon, which fell at God s command, only reinforces the message of God s power over the nations only reinforces that message that Rome, too, shall fall at God s command, in answer to Rome s persecution of the saints. There will come a time when Rome shall no longer be, says John s vision. But, in that day, the Kingdom of God will still stand. Remember what the Lord God did to Babylon, who persecuted the people of God in ancient times? There, take heart, O people of God, says John and his vision says the Lord God, who is the giver of John s vision. In the end, Jesus always wins. But there is more to it even than that this vision of the fall of Babylon/Rome. This vision is also telling of something even bigger, a message regarding the end of all evil and of the final and ultimate victory of our God. Do you remember that great seven-headed, ten-horned dragon from last week, from chapter 12 of John s Revelation? Well, you remember that in chapter 12, the Cosmic Christmas, we saw that great dragon who is the embodiment of all that is evil, wrong, and opposed to God we saw that dragon defeated in a heavenly battle and cast down to the earth. Rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! sings the heavenly choir. But remember how that song ended? But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows his time is short. 4 In other words, having been defeated in heaven, and with his ultimate end in sight, the dragon now furiously seeks to wreak havoc here on earth among the faithful people of God. Now, take that picture of the dragon, the embodiment of all that is evil, wrong, and opposed to God, let loose on the earth and now combine it with a second symbol, that of a great prostitute who now sits upon the dragon s back. That, actually, is how this vision of Babylon s fall begins, at the start of chapter 17, just before our passage. This great prostitute sitting on the back of the dragon. Now, if the dragon is the embodiment of all that is evil, wrong, and opposed to God, come down to earth to wreak havoc on the faithful people of God, then who is this woman sitting on his back? She symbolizes Babylon/Rome. More than that, she represents all of humankind who have given themselves over to the fallen ways of this dragon-battled world, as opposed to those who are found on the side of Christ and of His Kingdom. This woman represents Babylon/Rome in league with the great dragon and his ways. This woman represents the ways of the world which stand in opposition to the ways of God and of His Kingdom. And here is where John s vision starts to get personal for us. Here is where John s vision of Babylon s fall starts to challenge us and challenge us deeply. If you have your Bibles open, look with me at verses 2 and 3 in our chapter 18: 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. For all nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality,
3 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. That is what the woman/babylon/rome sitting astride the dragon of evil, wrong, and opposition to God represents she represents this world and its values in rebellion against God. This world and all therein who are in thrall of sin, death, and the devil. The world as it has been ever since the rebellion of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. All this sinful, fallen, tragic, evil world is symbolized in this woman who has consorted with the great dragon. But now look at verse 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. And therein lies the second great message in John s vision the one which is intended to make us squirm in our seats. If the first message is that there will come a time when Babylon/Rome/the woman/the dragon/this whole axis of all things opposed to God will be no more, and that in that day the Kingdom of our Christ shall still stand then this is the second message: Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues. There will come a day when Babylon/Rome/the woman/the dragon/the whole axis of all things opposed to God will be no more therefore, people of God, don t get caught up in their ways, don t get caught up in their values, don t get caught up in their lifestyle: Come out of her, my people. Come out of the ways of Babylon/Rome/the woman/the dragon/the whole axis of all things opposed to God and live instead, live now, by the ways of that Kingdom which shall not fall. Don t fall for the ways of this fallen world, which now is here but which one day will be no more instead live now by the way and the truth and the life which belongs to the One whose Kingdom shall stand forever! Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues. It is, at one and the same time, one of the simplest and yet most difficult of all the words in Scripture, as well as one of the most important. Simple in that it is easy to understand this world and its ways have no future, only the Kingdom of God has a future; so live for the Kingdom of God which endures forever and not for the world which ends and will be no more. Common sense, when you think about it. And yet it is one of the most difficult commands to obey, is it not? Be not conformed to the world, writes Paul to the Romans, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. 5 And again, to the Galatians: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sin to deliver us from the present evil age. 6 Peter describes Christians as being resident aliens those who may live in this world, but those whose true citizenship is in Heaven; and who, therefore, live in this world not according to its ways and values, but who live in this world according the ways and values of their true homeland, that Kingdom of Heaven. 7 And James, in his letter, is even more blunt: Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 8 And how often did our Lord and Savior Himself speak of this to us that we should seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness 9 ; that though we are in the world we should not be of the world 10. Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues. Are we doing this, people of God? Are we in the world but not of it? Resident aliens? Not conformed but transformed? Seeking first the Kingdom? For, says John, there will
4 come a day when this world, as we presently know it, will be no more. But, in that day, the Kingdom of our Christ will still stand. Which are we living for, right now, today? We must wrestle with this, brothers and sisters in Christ and do so daily, continually, in things both great and small. It would seem that the very least John s vision, Christ s command, requires of us is that we should at least acknowledge that there is a fundamental conflict between the ways of the world around us, which we so readily accept as normal; and the ways of Christ, which we still find so strange. Between the ways and values of an ordinary life in this world and the ways and values of the Kingdom life. And thus, that we are, in so far as we are able and by the help of the Holy Spirit, to strive to live in the ways of Christ and His Kingdom even should it bring us into conflict with the ways and values of the world around us. Tony Campolo tells of a corporate executive striding down Wall Street one day. He passes by a homeless man begging on a street corner. The homeless calls out to the executive, Change? Change? To which the executive, with a pained expression on his face, answers, I m trying! I m trying! 11 Are we at least trying? Come out of her, my people. There s another Tony Campolo story which is not so funny. He tells of reading a study in which parents in various nations were asked what they most wanted for their children. One group said, We want our children to be successful. Another national group said, We want our children to be happy. Campolo says that if anyone had asked his mother and father that question, they would have said, We just want our Tony to be a good boy! But how come, he wonders, no group gives the most important answer, the right answer, the Kingdom of God answer: We want our children to grow up to become like Jesus, to live a life pleasing to God and of service to others. 12 Come out of her, my people are we at least trying? For there will come a day when Rome/Babylon/the woman/the dragon/the whole axis of all things opposed to God/this world as we now know it will no longer exist. But, in that day, the Kingdom of our Christ will still stand and will stand forever. And also, in that day, where we have stood, where we now stand, will be revealed. It is John s message of comfort to the persecuted churches of Asia Minor in his own day, who are staying faithful to Christ even in the face of Roman hostility. But it is John s message of challenge to us and to our churches in this present and much more compromised and compromising day. To which Kingdom do we truly belong? I started out by telling about Dr. Leith s startling statement as we were studying St. Augustine and his City of God, his great answer to the sack of Rome in 410 A.D. So perhaps it is fitting that I should end by telling about something else Dr. Leith shared with us in that class one of the greatest passages in the whole of Augustine s great work: A household of human beings whose life is not based on faith is in pursuit of an earthly [happiness] based on the things belonging to this temporal life, and on its advantages, whereas a household of human beings whose life is based on faith looks forward to the blessings which are promised as eternal in the future, making use of earthly and temporal things like a pilgrim in a foreign land, [but]
5 who does not let himself be taken in by them or distracted from his course towards God. 13 Are living for some worldly vision of success, happiness, peace in this world as it is? Or are we living for that Kingdom which shall be forever, and for its definitions of success, happiness, and peace? Come out of her, my people, for Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! 1 See Revelation 2-3. 2 See II Kings 25, Lamentations. 3 See Isaiah 45, II Chronicles 36:22-23. 4 Revelation 12:12. 5 Romans 12:2. 6 Galatians 1:3-4. 7 I Peter 2:9-12. 8 James 4:4. 9 Matthew 6:33. 10 John 17:6-19. 11 Tony Campolo, Let Me Tell You a Story (Nashville: Word Publishing, 2000), p. 84. 12 Campolo, p. 88. 13 Augustine, The City of God, 19.17, quoted in John H. Leith, The Reformed Imperative: What the Church Has to Say That No One Else Can Say (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1988), p. 107.