18:4,5 COME OUT OF HER MY PEOPLE
“And I heard another voice from heaven saying, ‘Come out of her, my people, that you do not partake of her sins, and and that you do not receive of her plagues. For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities” (Revelation 18:4,5).
This powerful plea will be the final call to repentance before the close of probation and the outpouring of the seven last plagues.[1] It is the same message given by the two witnesses in chapter 11, and the final manifestation of the message of the
Their coming out is the vindication of God, who created this world to be inhabited by holy people created in His image, who ultimately will sit with Him on His throne as co-regents of the universe.[2] Satan robbed mankind of their dominion and claimed the world as his own with the human race as his subjects. In His divine wisdom the Lord gave Satan thousands of years to prove his charges against God, but the overwhelming tide of evil and destruction has more than proven that Satan is a malevolent psychopath with a blatantly false ideology. He will throw everything he has at God's people with end-time Babylon, but it will not be enough—"They overcame hin by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death" (Revelation 12:11).
God's love shining through His people will have a magnetic attraction to people who are weary of the empty lies of Babylon. Although tragically many will refuse to heed the call and will be lost, a great multitude “which no one could number of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues” will respond to the "voice from heaven" and will "come out of her." They will stand victorious “before the throne and before the Lamb clothed with white robes… and they cry with a loud voice, saying, "Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb” (Revelation 7:9). Their victory is Babylon’s defeat, and now she comes crashing down.
Continue to next section: 18:6-8 LIVING IN LUXURY
[1] The close of probation is found in chapter 15. This call to repentance is out of the order of the chronological timeline because it is part of the elaboration on the fall of Babylon.
[2] Amazing as this may seem, the scriptures clearly teach that redeemed mankind will rule the universe together with Jesus Christ. See 19: Rulers of the Kingdom.