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Our Mission: Revelation 14:6-12
If I Were Told the Future - Lesson 77
The
Fall of Babylon
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Let's address a short prayer to God:
Our Lord,
The impressive and tragic events which we studied in our last lessons will bring about the
fall of Babylon.
Why will Babylon experience this sad fate? What are the circumstances that will surround
this fall?
May Your prophetic Word enlighten us on this subject, just as it has so far.
We ask You this in the precious name of Jesus Christ.
Amen.
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Revelation 17:1,2,5,18
Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and
talked with me, saying to me,
«Come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with
whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth were
made drunk with the wine of her fornication.» (...)
And on her forehead a name was written: «Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of
harlots and of the abominations of the earth.» (...)
The woman whom you saw is that great city which reigns over the kings of the earth.
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In our lesson «The Great
Harlot», we have seen that Babylon symbolizes a religious system that groups together
all the apostate churches.
In the last days, this system will receive full authority over all the nations.
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Revelation 17:6,13,14
And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints and with
the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. (...)
[The ten kings] are of one mind, and they will give their power and authority to the
beast.
These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of
lords and King of kings.
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The union of the harlot, the beast, and the ten kings (which
symbolize the nations of the earth) will form a religio-political coalition that will
attack God's people refusing to submit to its authority.
But this war against Jesus and His saints will end badly for the apostate coalition...
This will be the fall of Babylon, which is the subject of this lesson.
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Jeremiah 51:8,9
«Babylon has suddenly fallen and been destroyed. Wail for her!
Take balm for her pain; perhaps she may be healed.
- We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed. Forsake her, and let us go everyone
to his own country; for her judgment reaches to heaven and is lifted up to the skies.»
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First, let's see what leads God to pronounce such a severe
judgment against Babylon.
Let's note first that God was exceedingly patient towards Babylon, incessantly calling all
the apostate churches to come back to Him, to rediscover His will and obey it.
But Babylon always refused to listen to God.
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Daniel 5:18-23 : Literal Babylon, too, was rebellious before its fall.
«O king, the Most High God gave Nebuchadnezzar your father a
kingdom and majesty, glory and honor. (...)
But when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit was hardened in pride, he was deposed
from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him (...), till he knew that the Most
High God rules in the kingdom of men, and appoints over it whomever He chooses.
But you his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, although you knew all this. And
you have lifted yourself up against the Lord of heaven. They have brought the vessels of
His house before you, and you and your lords, your wives and your concubines, have drunk
wine from them.
And you have praised the gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, which
do not see or hear or know; and the God who holds your breath in His hand and owns all
your ways, you have not glorified.»
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Daniel 5:24-28,30,31
«Then the fingers of the hand were sent from [God], and this
writing was written. And this is the inscription that was written: "Mene, Mene,
Tekel, Upharsin."
This is the interpretation of each word.
"Mene": God has numbered your kingdom, and finished it; "Tekel": You
have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting; "Peres": Your kingdom has
been divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.» (...)
That very night Belshazzar, king of the Chaldeans, was slain. And Darius the Mede received
the kingdom.
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Seeing the unrepentance of literal Babylon, God brought about its fall.
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Revelation 2:18,20,21
And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write,
«(...) I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls
herself a prophetess, to teach and beguile My servants to commit sexual immorality and to
eat things sacrificed to idols.
And I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality, and she did not repent.»
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Spiritual Babylon, in turn, displays the same unrepentance.
In the «Letter to the Church of Thyatira»,
symbolizing the apostate Church in the Middle Ages, Jesus had already called the impure
woman, here named Jezebel, to repent of her immorality, but, even at that time, she
refused to repent.
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Revelation 2:22,23
Indeed I will cast her into a sickbed, and those who commit
adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds.
And I will kill her children with death. And all the churches shall know that I am He who
searches the minds and hearts.
And I will give to each one of you according to your works.
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God allowed many plagues to strike Europe during the Middle Ages,
in order to reason with the Church and «those who commit adultery with her».
Unfortunately, the Church preferred to sink more and more deeply into apostasy.
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Jeremiah 50:29,31,32
«Call together the archers against Babylon. All you who bend the
bow, encamp against it all around; let none of them escape.
Repay her according to her work; according to all she has done, do to her; for she has
been proud against the Lord, against the Holy One of Israel. (...)
Behold, I am against you, O you most proud!» says the Lord God of hosts; «for your day
has come, the time that I will punish you. The most proud shall stumble and fall, and no
one will raise him up.»
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The main cause of Babylon's unrepentance is her pride.
Having a very high opinion of herself, she is convinced of her infallibility, and does not
see at all the necessity of repenting and coming back to God.
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Revelation 18:7,8
In the measure that she glorified herself and lived luxuriously,
in the same measure give her torment and sorrow; for she says in her heart,
«I sit as queen, and am no widow, and will not see sorrow.»
Therefore her plagues will come in one day - death and mourning and famine. And she will
be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judges her.
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On the contrary, Babylon, by saying «I am no widow», shows that she really thinks she is God's bride, and also thinks that God approves of all she does, in spite of her abominations and impurity.
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Isaiah 47:1,8,10
Daughter of Babylon (...), hear this now, you who are given to
pleasures, who dwell securely, who say in your heart, «I am, and there is no one else
besides me; I shall not sit as a widow.» (...)
For you have trusted in your wickedness; you have said, «No one sees me»; your wisdom
and your knowledge have warped you; and you have said in your heart, «I am, and there is
no one else besides me.»
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Babylon carried her presumption to the point of believing that
her will prevails over God's will.
So she replaced the teachings and commandments of God with her own human concepts.
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Isaiah 14:4,13,14
You will take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and
say: (...)
«You have said in your heart: "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne
above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest
sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most
High."»
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In fact, Babylon's pride leads her to share the very same mad
ambition as that of Satan, as we have seen in the lesson «The Great Dragon and his Angels»: to take the place
of God Himself.
And this is no surprise since, by rejecting God's repeated calls to repentance, Babylon
has entirely given herself to Satan.
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Genesis 11:4
And they said, «Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.»
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Revelation 18:5
For [Babylon's] sins have reached to heaven.
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The first expression of Babylon's pride was seen at Babel, from
which she takes her name.
After the Flood, men wanted to prevent themselves from being struck by another similar
divine judgment.
Rejecting God's salvation, they chose to use human means, and to build a tower «whose top
is in the heavens», just like the sins of Babylon which «have reached to heaven».
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Genesis 11:8,9
So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all
the earth, and they ceased building the city.
Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all
the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
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The name «Babel» was linked with the Hebrew word «balal»,
meaning «confusion».
But, in Babylonian language, «Babel» meant «Gate of the Gods».
The famous expression «Extra ecclesiam non salus est», that is, «Out of the Church, no
salvation», proclaimed by modern Babylon, echoes this ancient claim of Babel, presenting
herself as the only door giving access to God.
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Revelation 18:2
Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a habitation of demons, a prison for every foul spirit!
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Because of her pride and her satanic ambition to take the place
of God, Babylon «has become a habitation of demons».
Even more, her false doctrine of the immortality of the soul, according to which a part of
man survives after death and can communicate with the living, left the door wide open to
all the deceiving wonders of spiritualism, the favorite weapon of Satan, as we have seen
in our lesson «The False Prophet».
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Genesis 3:4,5
The serpent said to the woman,
«You will not surely die.
For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like
God, knowing good and evil.»
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Nowadays, Babylon is made up of a multitude of religions and
movements which adopted as their credo the lies of Satan, the ancient serpent.
The assertion of the immortality of man, even if he disobeys God, and the promise of
becoming like gods, deceived our first parents, and, still today, efficiently deceives
millions of people.
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Revelation 18:2,3
Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a
habitation of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and
hated bird!
For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.
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The spread of the deceiving false doctrines of Babylon, like wine
which makes the nations drunk, is another reason for her fall.
In addition to all the lying spiritual movements, Babylon also groups together all the
humanist and materialistic trends which negate the usefulness, indeed even the existence
of God, and deem the Bible to be a collection of myths.
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Jeremiah 51:7,8
Babylon was a golden cup in the Lord's hand, that made all the
earth drunk.
The nations drank her wine; therefore the nations are deranged.
Babylon has suddenly fallen and been destroyed.
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By rejecting the Bible as the sole basis of their faith, millions
of people deprive themselves of the only source of truth which could help them unmask
Satan's wiles, and lead them on the path of salvation in Jesus Christ.
Preferring to believe tales which do not challenge nor bring into question their spiritual
condition, they thus drink Babylon's poisoned wine.
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Revelation 18:20,21,23,24
«Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you holy apostles and prophets,
for God has avenged you on her!»
Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea,
saying,
«Thus with violence the great city Babylon shall be thrown down, and shall not be found
anymore. (...)
For by your 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.»
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In addition to having led astray the nations by her «sorcery», Babylon is found guilty of having severely persecuted the people of God.
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Jeremiah 51:24
«I will repay Babylon and all the inhabitants of Chaldea for all the evil they have done in Zion in your sight», says the Lord.
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Daniel 7:21
The same horn was making war against the saints, and prevailing.
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As we have seen many times in our previous lessons, God's people are often the target of the persecutions of Babylon under the guise of the little horn - the papacy during the Middle Ages - and then, in the last days, under the guise of the great apostate religious coalition.
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Babylon was and will be, until her fall, a persecutor of God's people:
«Call together the archers against Babylon. (...) The children
of Israel were oppressed, along with the children of Judah; all who took them captive have
held them fast; they have refused to let them go. Their Redeemer is strong; the Lord of
hosts is His name. He will thoroughly plead their case, that He may give rest to the land,
and disquiet the inhabitants of Babylon.» (JEREMIAH 50:29,33,34)
«And on her forehead a name was written: "Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of
harlots and of the abominations of the earth." And I saw the woman, drunk with the
blood of the saints.» (REVELATION 17:5,6)
«"Let the violence done to me and my flesh be upon Babylon," the inhabitant of
Zion will say; "and my blood be upon the inhabitants of Chaldea!" Jerusalem will
say. (...) As Babylon has caused the slain of Israel to fall, so at Babylon the slain of
all the earth shall fall.» (JEREMIAH 51:35,49)
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Revelation 18:2,3
Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a
habitation of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and
hated bird!
For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of
the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become
rich through the abundance of her luxury.
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Finally, Babylon will fall because she did not hesitate to reject God and His Word of truth, preferring to adopt a lukewarm position which allowed her to conclude political alliances with the nations, and thus increase her prestige, authority, and material wealth.
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Revelation 17:16 (New International Version)
The beast and the ten horns you saw will hate the prostitute.
They will bring her to ruin and leave her naked; they will eat her flesh and burn her with
fire.
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Now that we know the reasons for Babylon's fall, let's see how
Babylon will fall.
When the seven last plagues (which we will study in the next section) are poured out on
the earth, the nations «drunk with the wine of her fornication» (Revelation 17:2) will
then understand that they have been deceived by Babylon.
All these nations will then turn against Babylon to destroy her.
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Revelation 17:1,16,17
Come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot. (...)
And the ten horns which you saw on the beast, these will hate the harlot, make her
desolate and naked, eat her flesh and burn her with fire.
For God has put it into their hearts to fulfill His purpose, to be of one mind, and to
give their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled.
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Therefore, quite ironically, God will use the rebellious nations to execute His judgment on Babylon, bringing about her final fall.
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Revelation 18:9,10
And the kings of the earth who committed fornication and lived
luxuriously with her will weep and lament for her, when they see the smoke of her burning,
standing at a distance for fear of her torment, saying,
«Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! For in one hour your judgment has
come.»
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Yet, Babylon's wealth and opulence will have been very profitable
to the nations.
This is why the kings of the earth weep when they see her ruin, although they themselves
have contributed to her destruction, in their fury at having being deceived.
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Ezekiel 27:33-35
You enriched the kings of the earth with your many luxury goods
and your merchandise.
But when you are broken by the seas in the depths of the waters, your merchandise and the
entire company will fall in your midst.
All the inhabitants of the isles will be astonished at you; their kings will be greatly
afraid, and their countenance will be troubled.
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But the kings of the earth don't weep only over the extraordinary
material loss caused by the fall of Babylon.
They are also filled with fear, knowing that, since they followed Babylon, the same fate
awaits them.
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Revelation 14:8-10
Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she has
made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. (...)
If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on
his hand, he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out
full strength into the cup of His indignation.
And he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone.
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These kings have good reason to be scared because, having drunk
of Babylon's wine, they will now have to drink the wine of the wrath of God.
They will thus have to suffer the seven last plagues, which we will soon study.
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Jeremiah 51:63,64
Now it shall be, when you have finished reading this book, that
you shall tie a stone to it and throw it out into the Euphrates. Then you shall say,
«Thus Babylon shall sink and not rise from the catastrophe that I will bring upon her.»
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Revelation 18:21
Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and
threw it into the sea, saying,
«Thus with violence the great city Babylon shall be thrown down, and shall not be found
anymore.»
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The fall of literal Babylon was symbolized by a stone thrown into
a river.
However, it is a millstone thrown into the sea that will confirm the fate of spiritual
Babylon: a total destruction.
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The final fate of Babylon will be a total and permanent destruction:
«And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the
Chaldeans' pride, will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It will never be
inhabited, nor will it be settled from generation to generation. (...) Her time is near to
come, and her days will not be prolonged.» (ISAIAH 13:19,20,22)
«Thus says the Lord: "Behold, I will raise up against Babylon, against those who
dwell in Leb Kamai, a destroying wind. And I will send winnowers to Babylon, who shall
winnow her and empty her land. For in the day of doom they shall be against her all
around."» (JEREMIAH 51:1,2)
«"For I will rise up against them," says the Lord of hosts, "and cut off
from Babylon the name and remnant, and offspring and posterity", says the Lord.
"I will also make it a possession for the porcupine, and marshes of muddy water; I
will sweep it with the broom of destruction."» (ISAIAH 14:22,23)
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Revelation 18:8,10
Therefore her plagues will come in one day - death and mourning
and famine. And she will be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who
judges her. (...)
Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! For in one hour your judgment has
come.
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Isaiah 47:1,11
Daughter of Babylon, (...) evil shall come upon you; you shall not know from where it arises. And trouble shall fall upon you; you will not be able to put it off. And desolation shall come upon you suddenly, which you shall not know.
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These two passages clearly show that Babylon's destruction will be sudden, unexpected, and completed in a very short time.
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Revelation 19:1,2
After these things I heard a loud voice of a great multitude in
heaven, saying,
«Alleluia! Salvation and glory and honor and power 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 He has avenged on her the blood of His
servants shed by her.»
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The last stage of the fall of Babylon will correspond with the
return of Jesus, as we will see in a future lesson on Armageddon.
This is why such a scene of rejoicing takes place in heaven.
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Jeremiah 50:2,6,8
Babylon is taken, Bel is shamed, Merodach is broken in pieces;
her idols are humiliated, her images are broken in pieces. (...)
My people have been lost sheep. Their shepherds have led them astray; they have turned
them away on the mountains. (...)
Move from the midst of Babylon, go out of the land of the Chaldeans; and be like the rams
before the flocks.
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As we have seen many times in our lessons, let's never forget
that sincere people are still within Babylon, like lost sheep, led astray by bad shepherds
- their spiritual leaders.
God entrusts us with the important mission of calling them to come out of Babylon, and to
bring other sheep with them, «like the rams before the flocks».
So it is now up to each one of us to accept this holy mission, and to accomplish it before
the return of our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ.
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Let's pray together:
Heavenly Father,
Your message is clear: «Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen! (...) Come out of her, my
people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. For her sins have
reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.» (Revelation 18:2,4,5)
Please grant us the latter rain, so that we may proclaim with power this message on Your
behalf, and encourage the sincere believers who are still within Babylon to take a stand
for You.
In Jesus Christ we pray.
Amen.
The test of Lesson 77 is waiting for you!