Read with Me
Revelation 18:1-3 (HCSB)
After this I saw another angel with great authority coming down from heaven, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor. He cried in a mighty voice:
It has fallen,
Babylon the Great has fallen!
She has become a dwelling for demons,
a haunt for every unclean spirit,
a haunt for every unclean bird,
and a haunt for every unclean and despicable beast.
For all the nations have drunk
the wine of her sexual immorality,
which brings wrath.
The kings of the earth
have committed sexual immorality with her,
and the merchants of the earth
have grown wealthy from her excessive luxury.
Listen with Me
After seeing the horrifying sight of the great prostitute and the beast, John sees a herald angel descending in heavenly glory. In the Roman Empire, it was common for great victories to be announced throughout the cities of the empire by heralds who would cry out which city had fallen under the weight of Rome’s armies.
This angel announces not the fall of a city, but the fall of an empire from the pinnacle of glory to the depths of ruin. Babylon the Great was more than simply the empire. It was the system that opposed the Kingdom of God to the point that it persecuted God’s people. It was a system that was inspired by satan, and its mission was carried out by the emperors and their minions.
Even though the complete fall of the persecuting empire would take more than two hundred years, this herald’s announcement declared that it was a done deal in God’s sight. Because of that, the whole announcement is made in the present tense.
The fall of Babylon the Great at God’s hand would leave the whole empire a mere husk of what it had been in its glory days. When Constantine rose to power, he even moved the emperor’s residence away from Rome to the Asian city of Byzantium, leaving Rome to be attacked by the Visigoths in 410 and by the vandals in 455, as it slowly fell into ruin.
God’s judgment on Rome and His determination to cause its fall were based primarily on its persecution of God’s people. But as it fell into the moral degradation that had made that persecution seem like a good idea, Babylon the Great had dragged other nations into the same degradation, buying their goods and making them wealthy, but in exchange exporting to them deep immorality. Thus, it was doubly condemned, not only sinning greatly, but causing others in its sphere of influence to sin as well.
Pray with Me
Father, it is a fearsome thing to contemplate how such a mighty, seemingly impervious empire can be brought down into ashes. It is doubly fearsome today for Christians in America to contemplate. Even though the persecution of your people here by those in leadership is still at a low level, it now exists, something that wasn’t true when I was a child. And these days we as a nation are guilty of exporting some virulent forms of immorality in the form of pornography and abortion to other nations as well, often as a condition of sharing our wealth with them. The parallels are all too easy to see. Lord, help us as Your people to stand strong and stay faithful to You and to Your mission, no matter what. It is easy to see in these pages that the way for us to survive and even thrive during times of darkness is not to compromise or capitulate, but to shine and stay true. Thank you, Lord, for Your grace and power to do just that. Amen.