Mm. In Revelation 17, we saw the Antichrist gain power with a world religion. In chapter 18 he tries again with a different side of the same system. Today, on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah takes a closer look at the system known in Revelation as Babylon.
And why God will judge it so harshly. From Escape the Coming Night, here's David to introduce the collapse of the world market.
Well, there are many themes that run through the book of Revelation and the end time story. There's materialism, of course. There's the mark of the beast which you must have in order to buy and sell. The Antichrist, the false prophet and Satan set up a system which they control. If you don't believe in them, you are annihilated through starvation in other ways.
So there is Materialism and there is religion, and all of this mixed up together going forward in the end times. And today we're going to see how the world market collapses, how the merchants lose everything, how everything is destroyed. We have seen what happens to religion.
Now we're going to see what happens to the world market, the economic story in Revelation chapter 18. We'll get to it in just a moment. Let me remind you first of all that we are going to New England in October, the 4th through the 11th. We'll be sailing on Holland America's Zyderdam, and we'll have some great artists with us, and we'll be seeing some wonderful sights, and we hope you'll go with us. It'll be a fun time, and you'll be able to see some things maybe you've looked forward to seeing all of your life.
What we do know is the fellowship on these cruises is amazing, and you will enjoy so much your opportunity. Ask about it when you go to davidjeremiah.org, and we'll give you all the information you need. Right now, we want to begin this discussion. On this Friday edition of Turning Point, here is part one of the collapse of the world market. Yeah.
As we pointed out in the last message, Babylon is a central theme in the Word of God. In fact, when I told you about Hislop's book, that book details the importance of the study of Babylon in the Bible. Did you know that the term Babylon is mentioned more times in the Bible than any other city with the exception of Jerusalem? It is found over 260 times in the scripture. Babylon was the captor of God's people, the Jews.
Babylon was the house of the first great Gentile king, Nebuchadnezzar. Babylon was the place where for 70 years the Jews languished in captivity. You remember Psalm 137, where they talked about weeping by the rivers of Babylon? The spirit of Babylon is represented. In the sense that it speaks of man's attempt to function in the world apart from God.
When they built the Tower of Babel back in the book of Genesis, it was a statement. The statement they were making was: We don't need God to reach down to us, we can reach up to Him. We are going to build a tower, we're going to relate to God, we're going to do it in our own strength, with our own wisdom. We can make it without God. The Babylonian system is still with us, isn't it?
Everywhere we look, that spirit is evident. When we first see Babylon in the Old Testament prophets, it's in the book of Daniel. The concept in the city of Babylon was during the time of Nebuchadnezzar and his grandson Belshazzar that this was the greatest city that there ever was. It was a city that was dripping with pride and arrogance. In fact, In the fourth chapter of the book of Daniel, the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, is out taking an evening stroll in his palace.
And he looks around at what has happened, and he says, and this is a quote from the book of Daniel: Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of my kingdom by the might of my power and for the honor of my majesty? That is the epitome of the Babylonian doctrine. I did it myself. We call it today Humanism. Humanism is simply a new version of the old Babylonian doctrine that says you don't need God, you can do it yourself.
Now, you remember what happened to Nebuchadnezzar, don't you? And God taught him a lesson he never forgot. He made him crawl around on his hands and knees for seven years, acting like an animal, eating grass with the dew on his body, until finally he stood up and said, You know, the God in heaven does reign, and I'm not the most important person after all. God's final judgment on the city of Babylon is along the same line. God's final judgment on the city of Babylon has divided students of prophecy.
Some folks say, well, this chapter, this 18th chapter, this isn't talking about a real city. This is just sort of a way to capture the idea. This is not a real city, this is just the system.
Well, I don't know if we can come to a conclusion about that or not. There are people who say that there is going to be rebuilt. In the end times on the Persian Gulf, at the mouth of the Gulf, a city called Babylon, that it's going to be raised up out of the ground and it's going to become the center of everything that happens. We do know it's in the right place, don't we? It's in the center of all that's going on right now.
Some people believe that Babylon is literally going to be rebuilt, and I don't have a problem with that. I think that's quite possibly the meaning of this chapter. There are others who teach. That this is a reference to Babylon, and it's a reference to, rather than a literal city, a reference to a system of life and culture whose basic essential principle is alienation from God. If that's true, then the system's already in place, isn't it?
It's already developing, it's growing. There is not anything that I know of that's on the move in our world today. You can throw the New Age movement into it, you can throw all the humanistic stuff. It is all saying the same thing: hey, you can do it by yourself. That's Babylonian doctrine.
Now, if you take the system, it could be a great world city in America, it could be a great world city in England, it could be some great world city in Europe. This Babylon represents the social, cultural, political, commercial life of the end times, and this entire system is summarized in one great world city called Babylon.
So, when we read the chapter, the 18th chapter, we're talking about. Possibly a city, but reality is we're talking about the destruction of humanism, the destruction of the Babylonian doctrine.
Now, There's several things I want us to look at. We're going to have to survey this chapter. It's rather long. We're just going to look at some of the passages and try to make sense out of it if we can. Number one, I want you to notice the reasons for the judgment of Babylon.
The verses start, After these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power, and the earth was lightened with his glory, and he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen. John, who is writing the book of Revelation under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, now sees another angel. If you go back to the 17th chapter, there was an angel like this before, and this other angel comes down from heaven. The angel is so powerful, the scripture says he lightens up the whole world, the whole earth, and because of that, some people think the angel is Christ. This powerful angel pronounces judgment upon the city of Babylon.
For you see, the city of Babylon represents everything that is in opposition to God, and therefore the day of destruction has arrived.
Now, when you read your Bibles, you may think the angel stutters. Because he says Babylon is fallen, is fallen. Here's what it means. It fell ecclesiastically, and now it's going to fall commercially. When the angel says Babylon is fallen, is fallen, the angel is talking about the two-fold destruction of the city.
In fact, Seiss, who has written on the book of Revelation, believes that the repetition of the phrase is intended to describe two separate parts or stages of the fall, answering to the two aspects in the Babylonian economy, referring to Babylon as a religious entity and referring to Babylon now as an economic entity. And the Bible says Babylon is going to fall. The word for fallen is the Greek word epison, and it is a verb that describes an instantaneous action. The destruction of the city or of the system of Babylon will not take place over a long period of time. It's going to be done in a moment.
In fact, later on in the text, a number of times, we are told it'll happen in one hour. One hour, it's over.
Now, why is it going to be judged? Why is God going to pour out his judgment upon this city or this system? Reason number one: Babylon is judged because of her iniquity. Notice the fifth verse of the 18th chapter. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.
Okay. Watch carefully now. The word reached in the text is the Greek word kalao. It literally means to be glued together or welded together. The picture that is presented is graphic.
The sins of Babylon have been piled one on another as bricks in a building. This is an allusion to the tower of Babel, which began the wicked career of Babylon back in the book of Genesis.
Now, what God is saying is, just as you put those bricks on top of one another back in Genesis, I now have looked at your morality and your sins have been piled one on another until they have just reached into heaven. Your sins have reached heaven, and I've noticed.
Now, these phrases in this text tell us what sins have reached to heaven. Notice that there are three phrases that stand out in verse 2, which describe the awful character of the Babylonian city or the system. First of all, We are told in the second verse. that Babylon is fallen and is become the habitation of devils? The hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.
Now, physically, that happened when Babylon fell. It became the habitation of wild animals. But there's much more going on here than that. What is happening here is this: these phrases stand out. To describe a system that has been overrun by the occultic and satanic system of the beast.
The city is going to be the headquarters of depravity. The foul spirits of Satan will be striving to gain control over every man's mind. When the passage references birds, I believe it's a throwback to Matthew 13, where we're told a parable that the kingdom of heaven is like unto a grain of mustard, which a man took and sowed in his field, and when it is grown, it is the greatest among the herbs and becometh a tree, and the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof, and we are told that the birds are. Satanic, they're demons. They come and lodge in the tree or in the kingdom.
Here we are taught that the birds of the air, Satan's cohorts, would lodge in the branches of the church. And throughout the parables recorded in Matthew, the birds are used always symbolically of Satan.
So, when we read in this passage that the birds are in the Babylonian system, we're talking about the fact that it is a demon-controlled system.
Now, look at those phrases again: it's the habitation of the devils, it's the hold or the cave of every foul spirit. And it's the cage of every unclean and hateful bird. No wonder the system is judged. That tells you where humanism. And Babylonianism.
And I can do it myself, ism. is headed. It's headed toward self-deification. and ultimate demon possession.
Now there's one other phrase that tells us why iniquity came to God. Jump down to the last verse in the chapter and notice that in this city was the blood of prophets and of saints and of all that were slain upon the earth. In other words, the city had not only filled itself up with demon possession. And occultism, but it had also taken on the prophets and the saints, and it had been the cause of martyrdom among many of God's people. And so those blocks of sin have been built up, and God sees it, and He says, I'm going to judge Babylon.
Babylon is fallen, is fallen, it's going to die. Reason number two: Babylon is judged because of her influence. Notice in the third verse: For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.
Now, the city of Babylon, or the system of Babylon, epitomizes the life of a godless world, and in the end time, it's going to be the center of social, political, cultural, and commercial life on this globe. Many will be those who have fallen into the trap. of this system. Nations will fall into the trap of it. Kings will fall into the trap of it.
Merchants will fall into the trap of it. The whole system will take a stranglehold upon this world, and it will all be built around merchandising and materialism. and humanism. And out of the city of Babylon, or coming from the system of Babylon, the influence will just cover the world and cover the earth so that all nations will be drunk. With the wine of their fornication.
Literally, what it's talking about is that instead of the nations having a relationship with God, they have committed fornication with that which is anti-God, and they have come into an evil relationship with humanistic Babylonian teaching. Babylon is going to be judged because of her influence. I need to stop for just long enough to remind you. That the influence of materialism is present with us today. James warned about it way back in the construction of the New Testament.
He wrote, Go to now, ye rich. Weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered, and the rest of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. You have heaped treasure together for the last days.
Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth into the ears of the Lord of Sabbath. You have lived in pleasure on the earth and been wanton. You have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter. As I travel to preach in other places and in Bible conferences, one of the constant questions that I am asked, especially by other pastors, as we sit together around the table. Is what is the greatest problem you face in the church?
What is the least common denominator of that problem. And I suppose the symptoms should be evident to us. I don't know if we're usual or unusual, good, bad or indifferent when it comes to the way we support the ministries God has put before us. But you know what underlies all of the major problems of making the work of God go forward as it ought to? It is the problem of materialism.
We don't have time to serve God because we're working all these jobs to try to keep up with everything that's going on in our culture. We got to have the same things everybody else has, so we're working here and working there. We can't support God's work the way we ought to sacrificially because we're loaded down to the hilt with debt and we can't pay our bills, and therefore God is put down at the bottom of the list. We look at statistics and we wonder why it is that we can't. It's just one basic problem.
We have caught the disease of the Babylonian system long before it comes to fruition. and it's crept into the church. What is it that your friends live for in the neighborhood where you live? Those who aren't Christians. getting ahead, getting the next pay raise, moving into the next level, getting the next best car, trading up in their houses, wearing better clothes, finding a better vacation place, going to more exotic vacations, etc., etc.
That's what drives the world. It is underneath the entire sports empire who gets paid the most. What is the highest salary?
Somebody's getting paid more than I am. I shouldn't be paid any less than the person who and on and on it goes. That's what drives our culture. And what God is saying here in the 18th chapter is: one of these days, after the church is raptured out of here, and those of us who have caught a bit of the disease will be cured. After that happens.
That system is going to run its full ebb and tide until it is full-blown, and then in the tribulation period, God is going to bring it down just like that, and it'll be over. It'll be all over. Because the influence has been great. Let me give you a third reason why the system is destroyed. Babylon is judged because of her infidelity.
She has traded her God in heaven. For a god on earth, and she is now smug. in her pride. Notice the seventh verse of the 18th chapter. How much she hath glorified herself and lived deliciously.
So much torment and sorrow give her, for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. The system says, Hey, this is where it's at. We are not gonna have any problems. We got control of this life. In verse 7, we see that Babylon considers herself immortal and invincible.
She not only lives in iniquity, but she boasts of it. She is totally insensitive to the concept of a sovereign God, and she echoes the words of Satan, who himself boasted that he would be like the Most High God. She's captured the pride and arrogance that often we see now. Do you read any of the stuff that's out there today, the stuff that's coming at us at every level from the New Age movement? The New Age movement has described us in terms that could be written back into this chapter.
We are now God. We are in charge. We are able to determine our own destiny. And if you read the philosophers of the New Age movement, they are saying that it's just a matter of time until we can genetically control our own conditions and we can be totally in charge of this world. And death will be taken away, and sickness will be gone.
Man is the supreme God. Glory be to man. Notice what it says. She glorified herself. That's infidelity.
Who alone is worthy of glory? Only God. And whereas in the past the idols of this world have taken glory away from God, in our day and age, man has taken that glory to himself. and committed infidelity. Notice the fourth reason.
Babylon is destroyed fourthly because of her inhumanity.
Okay. As we come down to verses 12 and 13, We are told about 28 different items of merchandise.
Now, I want you to just look at these items. Gold and silver and precious stones come first. These are the earthly treasures which have first place in the hearts of men. That hasn't changed much, has it? Everything gets on the gold standard sooner or later.
Then come the things which are for show and personal adornment. You see those? Then come the choice articles of rare and precious wood, metal, and ivory. Then come the perfumes and the other luxuries which speak of sensuousness of modern living. Then come the more substantial commodities, including horses and chariots.
Please note before we go any further that none of the things on this list so far are necessities. They're all luxuries. None of them are staple necessities. The list sadly ends with a very interesting inclusion. And the end of verse 13, we read, and slaves.
And the souls of men.
Now, notice they're listed in the list of commodities which are owned by the system. The word slaves is the Greek word that is translated in most places by the word bodies.
So people own gold and silver and garments and precious stones and wood and vessels and bodies. And the souls of men.
People are put on the list of things that we own. Because you see, when commercialism and humanism and Babylonianism is allowed to reach its final stage, it is so dehumanizing that the human soul is of no value whatsoever. As long as the beast can advance his cause, one more body, one more slave, one more human soul will of be no value. In the final system of commerce that will characterize the world. of the tribulation period.
Man will be nothing more than a commodity. He will be viewed as something to own and something to sell. The world system championed by the Beast will dehumanize mankind, as any system will do without God. Every single one of these inhuman Philosophies Start. When man says God did not create life.
that God is not the Creator. of each one of us. That God is not the author and the source. of life as we know it. Once you say that man is an accident, That he came into being through the evolutionary process and he just.
has happened to Rise. It really doesn't matter whether he lives or dies. But if he is A creature of God. he is of inestimable worth.
So, we need to thank God for our creation of students and scholars who are championing the cause of making sure we don't forget how it happened and where we came from and how we got here. Because that's down underneath all of this. Amen. Yes, this goes deeper than you think. And we're finding out what the Bible says about it.
And we're going to have to put a bookmark in the middle of this message and pick it up again on Monday. But this is called The Collapse of the World Market. Hey, friends, don't forget during the month of July, our special resource is a brand new book that Sam O'Neill and I have just finished. It's my very first ever fiction book. It's called Vanished.
It's a good read. It will drive you to understand what is coming in the future and how it applies to what's going on today. It's kind of a page turner. It's a great story. And it's something you can share with your friends who do not know the Lord.
Who may not be interested in prophecy, but will be intrigued by a fiction story.
So, ask for your copy when you send your gift to Turning Point this month. This will be a book from me like no one you've ever gotten before, and I'm glad to share it with you and excited to have you read it. See you Monday. Our message today originated from Shadow Mountain Community Church and Dr. David Jeremiah, the senior pastor.
Turning Point is also on radio and TV this weekend. To learn where to find it, visit our website davidjeremiah.org slash radio. That's davidjeremiah.org slash radio or call 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of David's exciting new novel, Set in the End Times, Vanished. It's yours for a gift of any amount.
You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard, New International and New King James Versions, available in several handsome and resilient cover options. If this ministry is an encouragement to you, let us know by writing to TurningPoint, PO Box 3838, San Diego, California, 92163. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us Monday as we continue the series Escape the Coming Night on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.
