Come Out of Her, My People! Revelation 18:1-17
Tuesday, October 9, 2007 at 11:54AM 
The Twenty-Fifth in a Series of Sermons on the Book of Revelation
The harlot Babylon has seduced the kings of the earth with her wealth, power and beauty. John is now given a glimpse of the future, when Babylon the Great will come to her appointed end. Indeed while heaven celebrates Babylon’s fall into ruin, the nations will weep and mourn. For the kings of the earth have committed spiritual adultery with the harlot, and her destruction will bring them to ruin as well. But the declaration that God’s judgment is coming upon Babylon is also intended to serve as a warning to all of God’s people–flee from the evil city before it is too late.
We now turn our attention to Revelation chapter 18 and the account of the reaction from heaven and the earth to the news of the destruction of Babylon the Great. Recall that in Revelation 17–our text last time–Babylon the Great is depicted as the great prostitute and harlot who seduces the kings of the earth, who commit spiritual adultery with her, which is idolatry. The great city, as John calls the harlot, sits on many waters and rules over the kings of the earth, having seduced them with of the allure of her wealth and beauty. Because of her seductive ways, the nations, kings and people who serve her, also serve her master, the beast. John has depicted the harlot as a woman riding upon the beast, which, in apocalyptic symbolism, indicates that the harlot does the bidding of the beast and that the two of them–the beast and the harlot–have forged an unholy alliance.
As we have seen throughout the past few sermons in our on-going series on the Book of Revelation, the destruction of Babylon the Great occurs as a direct result of the seventh bowl judgment which God pours out upon the earth at the end of the age. The bowl judgments are the third and final cycle of judgment found in the Book of Revelation. They are connected to the time of end and are far more intense than all the other judgments, extending to all of the earth and to all of its inhabitants. When the bowl judgments have run their course, John says, God’s wrath is complete. And yet, God’s people are spared from his judgment because they are sealed with the name of Christ. But all those who worship the beast and his image, including those who have taken his mark so as to buy and sell, or to avoid persecution, will bear the full fury of God’s wrath.
We have seen how the sixth bowl judgment (the demonic deception and gathering together of the nations at Armageddon to wage war on the church) and the seventh bowl judgment (the destruction of Babylon) both occur at the time of the end, when Jesus Christ returns to judge the world, raise the dead and make all things new. This is, as we have been pointing out, a very powerful argument against all forms of premillennialism. Premillennialism holds that Jesus Christ returns to earth and then establishes his millennial kingdom, before judging the world when the thousand years are over. But throughout this book, John teaches that judgment day occurs when Christ comes back–not a thousand years later.
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Reader Comments (1)
Apostle John, in his day, feared for his life and had the perverted rulers of his day known he was writing about them, would have surely killed him. His symbols sound like the writings of a mad man and only the simple minded continue to cling to the mythology expressed by Johns writings. Our current culture is not far behind the days of John.
For those who are really looking for understanding, a book in print, "The Harlot and the Beast" now allows a reader to actually see through the eyes of Apostle John and to view what he was really talking about.The book, The Harlot and the Beast, can also be Googled and is considered the "little book" St. John said would appear in the days of the 7th trump (Rev.10).
Mistakenly, the purveyors of antiquated symbols distort the following warning of John: MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH (Rev.17.5). Babylon is not the mystery itself. Mystery is set off by a comma as is Babylon the Great. Babylon is John's symbol for society and the institutions that make up Society. Society is responsible for giving birth to Harlots and other abominations of the Earth. Harlot signifies something or someone who is a hypocrite pretending to be something it is not and uses this disguise to strip everyone of their innocience, and to even kill anyone who crosses her path. The Harlot is seen as one who rides a Beast that gives her, her power. The Beast is a symbol for a perverted Rule-of-Law that we live by today just as the Beast was in the days of John. The Harlot is a symbol used by John to represnt hypocricy and the Beast is used as a symbol for Bigotry.
This is the beginning of wisdom.