“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. Then I heard another voice from heaven: Come out of her, My people, so that you will not share in her sins or receive any of her plagues. For her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes. Pay her back the way she also paid, and double it according to her works. In the cup in which she mixed, mix a double portion for her. As much as she glorified herself and lived luxuriously, give her that much torment and grief, for she says in her heart, “I sit as a queen; I am not a widow, and I will never see grief.” For this reason her plagues will come in one day — death and grief and famine. She will be burned up with fire, because the Lord God who judges her is mighty.” (Revelation 18:1-8 HCSB)
God has given us good gifts and beneficial desires. Those things are attractive to us. The problem is that we have taken God’s good gifts and our desires and we’ve corrupted them.
What is tempting or alluring to you? By now, you probably know that I enjoy fishing. I love to stand knee-deep in a beautiful river and cast, and cast, and cast, and, hopefully, catch fish. Most of the locations where I go trout fishing have regulations on what you can use and what you can keep. Usually I am limited to artificial lures with restrictions on the size and quantity of fish. The reason some fishing regulations require artificial lures is to limit the number of fish you catch because live bait works better. These regulations are intended to protect the number and size of the breeding fish to preserve the overall health and quantity of fish in that river.
Speaking of lures, there are some things this world offers as lures that hold absolutely no power over me. But there are some things that really catch my attention and lure me in. How about you? What lures are you likely to bite on? I’m not tempted by alcohol, but put a donut in front of me and I bite, literally. But here’s the thing, it has to be a real donut and it has to be one I like. Put a fake, plastic donut in front of me and I’d look at you like you’re crazy. Put a two-day-old stale donut in front of me and I might throw it at you. Put a fresh apple fritter in front of me, and you’d better get out of the way.
We’ve spent the last several weeks talking about the scarlet harlot who sits on the back of the beast. She is referred to as Babylon the Great and is envisioned as a prostitute because she represents everything the world offers up as a substitute for the real thing. There’s no real love between a prostitute and her lover. It’s all pretend, fake, make-believe love. In fact, I don’t think you could even call them lovers. It isn’t a love relationship; it is a false feeling of pleasure built on a financial transaction. It’s an artificial lure and lots of people get hooked by it. It’s like putting super-realistic plastic food in front of a starving man, it might look good but it offers no sustenance, nutrition, fulfillment, or satisfaction.
This week, we begin to see the harlot’s judgment. An angel with “great authority” comes down from heaven, and the entire earth is “illuminated” by his splendor. The fact that the world is illuminated by the angel’s coming indicates that the judgment he brings should cause us to recognize the lies and lures of the harlot. The judgment of the harlot, Babylon, is given as an event that has not happened but will happen. God is saying, “Mark it down – this future event stands as a completed fact based on my command: ‘It has fallen, Babylon the Great has fallen!’”
The description of her judgment reads: “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.” Stop. Go back and read that description again. This is the description of a city that is believed to represent the best that the world has to offer. When the angel arrives and illuminates the earth, we are enabled to see her for what she really is: a haunt for everything unclean and nothing good or holy.
That, my friends, is exactly what we must see. We must be willing to see her lures for what they are — lies, distortions of the truth, fake fulfillments and false hopes. Why? Because we now hear another voice from heaven: “Come out of her, My people, so that you will not share in her sins or receive any of her plagues.” The voice is not identified, but it appears that it is most likely God since He refers to “My people.” We are cautioned not to share in her sins or we will receive her plagues. Some Christians take this command quite literally and choose to live their lives separated from the world and her enticements. I believe the key intent is to recognize her lies and not participate in them. To be able to live out the commands of our God and follow the example of our Lord, we must separate ourselves from the lies and the lures but not the people.
I feel the need to be more specific and more transparent here. John’s vision has been rather explicit in its use of sexual language and references regarding the harlot and her interactions with the kings of the earth and the wealth and excessive luxury the merchants have received from it. While that language has been intentional, I want you to recognize that this is not just about human love. Human love and all that it entails is really a way for us to understand and relate to God. Take the very best human love relationship you can imagine, then amplify it a million times and you might begin to touch just the edge of what God wants us to know and experience in Him. Take the best, most luxurious and satisfying meal you’ve ever eaten and then amplify it as far as you can imagine and you might begin to get an idea of what Jesus meant when He told us that He’s the bread of life.
What God wants you to really see in these images of Babylon’s judgment is what actually happens if you take her bait. I told you over the past two weeks that John’s reaction at seeing the scarlet harlot caught him off guard. I believe the angel was admonishing John when he said: “Why are you astonished? I will tell you the secret meaning of the woman and the beast…” I can’t lure a fish by putting something on my hook that looks like a rock. That’s not enticing to a fish. You’re smarter than a fish, and you aren’t enticed if the bait isn’t attractive. God has given us good gifts and beneficial desires. Those things are attractive to us. The problem is that we have taken God’s good gifts and the desires He’s given us and we’ve corrupted them. We misuse them, and we abuse them.
Until we see God as the satisfaction and fulfillment of our every need and desire, we will continue to hear and believe the lies and lures of the harlot. “Come out of her, My people, so that you will not share in her sins or receive any of her plagues.” When Jesus told Satan in the wilderness that “man must not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God,” He wasn’t just being super-spiritual. He was recognizing the lie and choosing to call it out. How do you expose a lie? With the truth. Be honest with yourself, you often believe the lies and take the bait. I know I do. But the only way to “come out of her” is to change the way we think. Because the way we think affects the choices we make and the way we act.
There’s a song sung by an artist called Peggy Lee titled “Is That All There Is?” In the song, Peggy sings about events in her life that left her asking “is that all there is?” Her father took her to a circus when she was 12, the greatest show on earth. She saw elephants, dancing bears, and a beautiful woman in pink tights who flew high above their heads. When it was over, she asked herself “is that all there is to a circus?” Later she met and fell in love with a boy. They’d take long walks by the river, sit and gaze in each other’s eyes for hours, and she thought they were “so much in love.” But then he left her, and she was all alone, she asked herself, “Is that all there is to love?”
Ask yourself, “is that all there is?” I think God intends for us to discover that He offers us so much more in life than what we’ve settled for. We just keep biting on the fake lure.
Now we get to see the results of the harlot’s choices: “for her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes.” The idea for this comes from Jeremiah 51:9: “We tried to heal Babylon, but she could not be healed. Abandon her! Let each of us go to his own land, for her judgment extends to the sky and reaches as far as the clouds.” The idea seems to be that her sins “stink to high heaven.” Like a large city whose garbage workers have gone on strike, the trash just keeps piling up and the stench gets worse and worse. God’s judgment is to give back to her the very things she did, but a double portion. Listen: “As much as she glorified herself and lived luxuriously, give her that much torment and grief, for she says in her heart, “I sit as a queen; I am not a widow, and I will never see grief.”
She thinks she’s above the repercussions of her choices. She’s a queen and will not suffer the loss of a husband or experience grief. Let me be honest with you here, I have been studying this passage and reading what others have written on it and until I started typing the words above, I hadn’t caught the irony nor the clarity in them. She’s a queen, not a widow and she will never see grief. She claims absolute sovereignty and rule over her own life and is subject to nobody else. She will never grieve what she has lost by refusing to submit herself to God—to His rule, His love, His words, His mercy, and all they could have brought to her life. To echo Peggy Lee’s words from above: “is that all there is?” She will never know the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, or self-control that God’s Spirit brings to life (see Gal. 5:22-23).
Consider this prophecy: “You said, ‘I will be the mistress forever.’ You did not take these things to heart or think about their outcome. “So now hear this, lover of luxury, who sits securely, who says to herself, ‘I exist, and there is no one else. I will never be a widow or know the loss of children.’ These two things will happen to you suddenly, in one day: loss of children and widowhood. They will happen to you in their entirety, in spite of your many sorceries and the potency of your spells. You were secure in your wickedness; you said, ‘No one sees me.’ Your wisdom and knowledge led you astray. You said to yourself, ‘I exist, and there is no one else.’ But disaster will happen to you; you will not know how to avert it. And it will fall on you, but you will be unable to ward it off. Devastation will happen to you suddenly and unexpectedly.” (Isaiah 47:7-11 HCSB)
Finally, because of the life choices the harlot or Babylon has made, and her absolute refusal to submit to the King of the universe, the plagues God has unleashed upon her “will come in one day – death, and grief, and famine. She will be burned up with fire, because the Lord God who judges her is mighty.” As I’ve clearly said throughout our Revelation study, God’s judgment on our sin is always intended to draw us into repentance, confession, forgiveness, and cleansing. God has been patient and long-suffering, not wanting any to perish — not even the harlot — but all to come to repentance (see 2 Pet. 3:9).
What about you? Will you stand in absolute defiance before God, denying His sovereignty, refusing His love, and rejecting the life He offers? To do so is to place yourself under the same wrathful judgment that the harlot faces. I beg you to recognize that this life and its pleasures and treasures are not “all there is.” God offers so much more. Don’t settle for a cheap, fake substitute. Don’t bite that lure. It’s a trap. If the things we enjoy in this life are good, just imagine what God has prepared for those who love Him, those who are called, chosen and faithful.
Leave a Reply