March 26 - The Fall of Babylon (pt. 1)

March 26 – The Fall of Babylon (pt. 1)
Revelation 18:1-3

After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor. With a mighty voice he shouted:
“Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!
She has become a home for demons
and a haunt for every evil spirit,
a haunt for every unclean and detestable bird.
For all the nations have drunk
the maddening wine of her adulteries.
The kings of the earth committed adultery with her,
and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries.”

We’ll meet the great angel first. We’ve seen a few of these in previous chapters. In Revelation 5:2, a mighty angel asked “Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?” In Revelation 7:2, the angel carried the seal of the living God and spoke to the four angels who had power to harm the land and sea. Further along in Revelation 18 (Rev. 18:21), a mighty angel flings an immense boulder into the sea.

The angel at the beginning of Revelation 18 illuminates the earth with his splendor. There is one other time that we see this occur. In Luke 2:9-11, the angel of the Lord appears, the glory of the Lord shines and then comes the announcement of the birth of Jesus, the Messiah … the Christ.

Habakkuk 2:14 tells us, “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord.”

The glory of the Lord is illuminated by the presence of these angels. We will see His glory when they are on the earth. Habakkuk’s prophecy will be fulfilled once again.

The first words out of this angel’s mouth are: “Fallen, Fallen is Babylon the great.”

We’ve seen these words before in Revelation 14:8. At that point, the angels tell John what is coming. Here in Rev. 18, the fulfillment of this lament occurs.

The opening description of Babylon is awful. “She has become a home for demons and a haunt for every evil spirit, a haunt for every unclean and detestable bird.”

Jeremiah prophesies in Jer. 50:39 regarding Babylon: “So desert creatures and hyenas will live there and there the owls will dwell. It will never again be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation.”

I love the sounds that birds make in the morning, but unclean and detestable birds such as crows and grackles make me shiver. Having a panicked bird in an enclosed space like my home or office panics me! I can’t stand to have them fluttering overhead. Would you believe I’ve never had the courage to watch Hitchcock’s “The Birds.”

All of this imagery flows together in my imagination of the desolate place the fallen Babylon will be. Isaiah also prophesies about the fallen Babylon in Isaiah 13:19-22. God will overthrow the city and it will be turned into a wasteland. He also tells us that desert creatures will lie there: jackals, hyenas, owls and wild goats.

Rev. 18:3 takes us back to yesterday’s lesson. The nations and kings have become drunk on the wine of the whore’s adulteries. The merchants of the earth grew rich from her excess. Babylon’s lessons are easy to learn, it will be awful if we are required to learn them over and over in our own lives before Jesus returns.