Welcome to a revelation of Jesus. In the last three videos, we have been studying the identity of the final version of Babylon. In video 60, we looked at Revelation 16:19, which introduces her fate: “Great Babylon was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath”.
In video 61, we focused on Revelation 17, which gives enough details to conclude that final Babylon is a union of church and state that arises during the great tribulation. In video 63, we saw that the church side of the union, symbolized by the great harlot, is based on a false doctrinal foundation and a rigid hierarchical leadership that the Roman Catholic church developed through the centuries of the Dark Ages. We also saw that the daughters of the harlot, that is, politically charged protestant churches, will bring what they believe to be a miraculous, direct channel of communication with God into the picture.
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But the religious harlot and her daughters are only half of the final Babylon. In video 62, we saw that there is a fundamental difference between the medieval version of Babylon, symbolized by the seven-headed beast rising from the sea in chapter 13, and final Babylon, symbolized by the harlot riding on the seven-headed scarlet beast. Medieval Babylon was so integrated that there was little difference between church and state; the royalty, merchants, and commoners were all baptized church members, and although most people had no concept of a personal relationship with Jesus, there was a homogenous Catholic identity.
The situation is much different with modern Babylon. The end-time union of church and state is a marriage of convenience, brought about by the emergency of the great tribulation. In the midst of chaos and destruction, people will be looking for a “higher power” to rescue them, and they will be desperately interested in religious miracle-workers who tell them what to do in order to be restored to their previous comfortable lifestyle.
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But looking around at our own society, the people who will comprise the final Babylon, it is obvious that the majority are not religious. Increasing numbers of Americans and Europeans no longer have a Christian identity. Christendom, in other words, a church-centric society, is dead, and in its place a new religion has arisen: consumerism. Some of the harshest criticism in the whole book of Revelation is reserved for the rich and luxurious lifestyle of modern Babylon. As in our review of the corruption within the church in the previous video, I find the following analysis painful to present; it forces me to confront my own culpability and hypocrisy. But present it I must because it is integral to Revelation chapter 18.
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The challenge to Christianity in the modern Western world does not come from other religions such as Buddhism, Islam, or even the New Age. A minority of spiritually minded people may be searching among the many religious subgroups that compete for attention, but a far more serious and insidious challenge to the gospel is consumerism.
It has become the pervasive milieu of our society, advanced by high-powered advertisers and marketers who have co-opted what religion has always offered. People seek identity, purpose, meaning, community, and security, and advertisers use subtle techniques to offer these to potential customers. They are even learning how to use the language and symbolism of the major religions in order to get people to buy their products by linking them to what people desire the most.
We have all seen, for example, advertisements that say nothing about the quality, features, price, or performance of the product; instead, they present images of people enjoying each other’s company as they eat, drink, or celebrate together. The subconscious underlying message is that we can belong to a community of cool, beautiful, supportive people when we buy the advertised product. Modern marketing has built an exceedingly powerful quasi-religion, propagated by a highly sophisticated media machine.
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Revelation 18 actually refers to consumerist Babylon’s power over people as a form of sorcery: “Your merchants were the magnates of the earth, and all nations were deceived by your sorcery” (Revelation 18:23). The Greek word pharmakeia is often used for magic and sorcery, but the primary meaning is “the administration of a drug or poison.” The use of this word highlights the hypnotic, addictive nature of consumer Babylon’s offerings.
With the ubiquity of sophisticated cell phones the evangelistic thrust of consumerism invades our every waking moment. The needs that used to be met by the church can now be satisfied by the little god in our pocket. Do we need to be informed, entertained, inspired, motivated, kept on track, or connected with our community? It is all right there. If we are lost, lonely, have an accident, or an emergency, help is but a click away. And of course, anything that we might want to own or consume can appear in an almost miraculously short period of time. But it all comes with a price. These “free” services funnel us into the consumer machine. Countless times every day, a carefully designed sound or image summons us to worship at the throne of a cleverly crafted ad campaign.
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Revelation 18 exposes the driving force of the final Babylon. Her extreme reaction, persecuting those who have supposedly brought on God’s wrath, is simply a cry of rage, as the wealthy see the possessions they have built their identity on slipping away. “Those who… lived luxuriously with Babylon will weep and lament for her… saying, Woe! Woe to you, great city, you mighty city of Babylon! In one hour your doom has come!… for in one hour all this great wealth has been brought to ruin!’ (Revelation 18:10,17). It is significant that they do not cry because they can no longer go to the Babylon church; their grief is because they have lost their things.
This becomes more evident as the lament for Babylon continues. We see that the religious trappings have been a façade. Those at the top, the businesses that profit from godless consumerism, will cry in distress because the wellspring of their wealth has dried up.
“And the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over Babylon, for no one buys their merchandise anymore… The merchants who became rich by her will stand at a distance for fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, and saying, ‘Woe!, Woe! That great city… For in one hour such great riches came to nothing” (Revelation 18:15-17).
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The rich and powerful have always used religion to keep their luxurious lifestyles going. Clear back in the medieval version of Babylon, the nobility sought the blessing of the church so that the common people would believe that objecting to the coercive and unjust status quo was tantamount to rebelling against God. The claim that God has established the present order of things has been used to justify slavery, exploitative colonialism, and imperialism in the name of manifest destiny. Even today, we see powerful and persuasive Christian leaders who use the prosperity gospel to enrich themselves while dangling the promise of wealth before their followers.
The heaping up of wealth through exploitation is particularly repulsive to God. The Holy Spirit inspired the apostles James and John to reveal that at the end of time it will become so grievous that God will have to intervene. “Come now, you rich… you have hoarded wealth in the last days. Indeed, the wages of the field workers, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the laborers have reached the Lord of heaven’s armies” (James 5:1-5).
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Revelation 18:6 seems to be a directive to the angelic armies of heaven to avenge the powerless who have been victimized. “Do to [Babylon] as she has done to others. Double her penalty for all her evil deeds… As she glorified herself and lived in luxury, so give her a like measure of torment and mourning” (Revelation 18:6,7).
The countries that are in the forefront of end-time Babylon, the United States and Europe, are the richest of any nations at any time in history, with much of the wealth coming as a result of grinding the poor of the world into wretched poverty. Revelation 18 delineates the luxury goods that Roman Babylon was buying at the time John wrote:
“Merchandise of gold and silver, precious stones and pearls, fine linen and purple, silk and scarlet, every kind of precious wood, objects of ivory, bronze, iron, and marble… horses and chariots, and the bodies and souls of men” (Revelation 18:12,13).
Most of these were expensive because they were hard to find and often dangerous to produce. For example, pearl divers often suffer from the excruciating “bends” as well as brain damage, paralysis, and crippling rheumatism. The merchants who beat the price down when they buy and jack it up when they sell are long gone when health catastrophes strike the poor producers.
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An updated list for today would include diamonds, cobalt, rare earth minerals, high-fashion garments, exotic gourmet foods, and a whole raft of other expensive products. Many of these are produced by the poorest of the poor in countries where there are few, if any, policies to protect them. The processes of production, such as mining, often destroy their land and water, leaving it unfit for subsistence farming after the mines are depleted, and the mining company has moved elsewhere.
Even the US Department of Labor admits, “From the devices that entertain us to the air conditioners that keep us cool to the smartphones that connect us, critical minerals fuel our daily lives, unseen but indispensable. Informal artisanal and small-scale mining supports tens of millions of families worldwide. However, these largely informal operations usually fly under the radar of government oversight, leaving workers vulnerable to exploitation, unfair pay, dangerous working conditions, child labor, and abuse”. (https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/supply-chain-research/from-mines-to-markets-exposing-labor-exploitation-in-critical-mineral-supply-chains)
This same scenario plays out in the overseas sweatshops where child labor is used to produce clothing that is so inexpensive that we can throw it away when it is dirty or we are tired of it. Much of the off-season food that we enjoy is grown by poorly paid farm workers with no medical or retirement benefits, who are exposed to dangerous machinery and agricultural chemicals that can leave them sick, disabled, or prematurely dead.
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The list of products that the merchants of Babylon have on offer leaves the most hideous for last: “The bodies and souls of men” (Revelation 18:13). While we may think of slavery as a thing of the past, there are an estimated 50 million enslaved people in the world. Even in the United States, where slavery has been illegal since the Civil War, there are somewhere between 400,000 and two million people in some form of slavery. The vast majority are in the illegal sex industry.
Most of these begin their dreadful career as children, having been kidnapped, lured by false promises, or trafficked from countries with horrendous crime, violence, and poverty. Kept in physical bondage by addictive drugs and threats of violence, their very souls are enslaved by a combination of exposure to perverse pornography, psychological manipulation, and abuse, and coercive demands for conscience-violating sexual performance. Although it is easy to blame the traffickers and pimps who facilitate this terrible industry, the greater guilt lies with the customers who cultivate their own insatiable appetite and are willing to fork out their money to satisfy themselves with no regard for the lives they are ruining.
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God has abundantly blessed the people of the traditionally Christian nations. The purpose of his blessing is so that His people can be a blessing to the rest of the world. But the wealthy from the Babylon nations have lived in luxury and hidden their eyes from the poor, pretending that leaving them to fend for themselves actually helps them learn personal responsibility. This selfish misrepresentation of God’s generous character by His professed followers is one of the major reasons that so many of the world’s people have rejected Christianity.
But the God of justice has taken notice. “The Lord will bring justice to the poor of the people; He will save the children of the needy, and will break in pieces the oppressor” (Psalms 72:4). In the words of Revelation 18, “Babylon glorified herself and lived in luxury… therefore 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” (Revelation 18:7,8).
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Babylon’s destruction is dramatic and final. “Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, “With such violence the great city Babylon will be thrown down, and will be found no more” (Revelation 18:21). At first glance, it seems like God is finally rewarding Babylon’s violence with violence of His own. But Jesus came to reveal a God of mercy, grace, love, and self-sacrifice. Even in the destruction of Babylon, we should be able to find these characteristics. Perhaps the key is in the metaphor of a great millstone thrown into the sea.
Jesus Himself used this metaphor. “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matthew 18:6,7). Jesus seems to be saying that, as bad as it would be to suffer a sudden and traumatic death, such as drowning in the sea, it would be better than experiencing the guilt of becoming a child abuser.
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Jesus said seven times that for people who have rejected Him, the judgment will be a time when “there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” In the presence of the holiness of God, the guilt of unforgiven sins will be overwhelming; so much so that the “kings of the earth and the magnates and the generals and the rich and the powerful” who have been in charge of Babylon will “hide themselves in the caves and in the rocks and say to the mountains and rocks, ‘fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne” (Rev. 6:15,16).
As we saw in video 58, these are the very ones who have been plotting to destroy those who refuse to accept the mark of the beast. The seven last plagues, which are agonizing but not fatal, will be a major obstacle to their plans. Despite this, the “kings” and their minions will continue to “make war with the Lamb” by persecuting His followers. But “the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful” (Revelation 17:14).
Thus, the metaphor of a millstone thrown into the sea seems to mean that God will give the Babylon persecutors the sudden death that they are crying out for, both to save the saints who are under threat, and to keep the unbelievers themselves from adding the murder of God’s faithful followers to their already overwhelming load of guilt.
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The destruction of Babylon is a time of celebration in the courts of heaven. “[John] heard a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, ‘Alleluia! Salvation and glory and honor and power belong to the Lord our God! For true and righteous are His judgments, because He has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication… And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sat on the throne, saying, ‘Amen! Alleluia!” (Revelation 19:1-4).
This massive outpouring of joy and praise is not just because God has defeated the last-days persecutors of His followers. Babylon is symbolic of the whole reign of sin. “By her sorcery all the nations were deceived. And in her was found the blood of prophets and saints, and of all who were slain on the earth” (Revelation 18:23,24). Clear back to the first murder of Abel by his brother Cain, the influence of Babylon was on display. It was the spirit of Babylon that filled the earth with violence, necessitating the great flood in the days of Noah. Babylon reached its pinnacle when the Jewish leaders colluded with the Romans to murder Jesus on the cross.
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This is because Satan, the prince of this world, is the actual king of Babylon. Isaiah 14, which tells the story of Lucifer, also tells the story of the fall of Babylon. “In the day the Lord gives you rest from your sorrow, and from your fear and the hard bondage in which you were made to serve, you will take up this parable against the king of Babylon and say, “How the oppressor has come to an end, the golden city has ceased. The Lord has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers… The whole earth is at rest and quiet; they break forth into shouts of joy… How you are fallen, O Lucifer, son of the morning, how you are cut down to the ground” (Isaiah 14:3-12)
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The destruction of Babylon will be complete and permanent. “A mighty angel… shouted, ‘The great city Babylon… will never be found again. The sound of musicians shall never be heard in you again. No craftsman of any craft shall be found in you anymore, and the sound of a millstone shall not be heard in you again. The light of a lamp shall not shine in you anymore, and the voice of bridegroom and bride shall never be heard in you again” (Revelation 18:21-23).
Sometimes, when a repressive, tyrannical regime is defeated, the people are afraid to celebrate, fearing that somehow their oppressors will regain power and return to torment them again. But God declares definitively that there will never again be another Babylon. “I will make a complete end of it. Affliction will not rise up again” (Nahum 1:9).
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