A Warning for the Worldly
Revelation 18:3-24
It was one of those days that you never forget—you know exactly where you were when you first heard the shocking news of unprecedented tragic world events.
It happened when President Kennedy was assassinated back on November 22, 1963. I was 10 years old in my fourth grade classroom when we turned on the TV for a Spanish Lesson, and Walter Cronkite announced the president was dead.
It happened again in 1986 when seven Astronauts, including school teacher Christa McCauliffe perished in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in Florida. I was a student walking across a parking lot at Dallas Theological Seminary.
And it happened again, of course, on September 11, 2001. I was on my way to have an early morning breakfast with a church member when I turned on the radio sometimes between 6 and 6:30 that morning. As the news came on, there was a special report. I think Peter Jennings was the announcer. And from what I gathered at the moment, an airliner had just flown into one of the World Trade Center Towers. I had trouble believing my ears and at first though of the infamous radio drama, War of the Worlds which had aired back in 1939. It was fashioned after an emergency news report on radio back then, and it sounded as though it were a real report. It reported on a supposed invasion of the United States by aliens, space-men, and it send hundreds of thousands of Americans into a panic, Americans who actually believed an alien invasion was occurring as the fictional news reports were broadcast as though they were true.
And it became even more incredible when I found out that it was the second plane to fly into a World Trade Center Tower. And almost immediately there were reports of a third airline which had crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, and it was only then that I realized this was really happening. That what was happening was not a fictional report, that what has happening was not an accident, but it the realization of what America had feared for more than a year—a deliberate terrorist attack on U.S. Territory using Airlines as terrorist to destroy some of the icons of American power and pride.
It was traumatizing, and when we weren’t at work, Americans were glued to the television for days as they saw the disaster unfold. The twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsing before their very eyes, 3,000 people, both at the Pentagon and in Pennyslvania and in New York perishing, smoking ruins, every airplane in the U.S. Airspace ordered out of the skies, stories of people jumping from a hundred stories high to their deaths to avoid fires, stories of courageous firemen dying as they sought to save those trapped in the skyscrapers, and the stock market closing down for a whole week, and also the rejoicing in Arab nations over the tragedy that had come upon their arch-nemesis, the supporter of Israel, the United States of America.
And a strange thing happened that day and the next. We began experiencing a measure of what pastors all over the nation began to experience—people clamoring for church services, people who wanted to seek God, and find security in Him, where they had lost their since of security in our nation, and in it’s supposed invulnerability to enemy and terrorist attack. For all anyone knew, this sort of thing could become a daily occurrence, and how many of us yet my lost friends and family or even our own lives in this assault upon America. And so we had a church service, and so there were many sermons on the topic of 9/11 and the government began to take steps to keep this from ever happening again. And it stopped happening on our soil at least. But we were shaken, our confidence in the U.S. was shaken, as the very symbols of economic and military power were damaged and destroyed before our very eyes.
And some of us realized that perhaps we had placed our trust, our confidence in some things, in a government, in an economy, in a system, which was not truly worthy of our confidence. That our confidence ultimately needed to be in something or someone much greater, in our Almighty God. And so for a few weeks, maybe a few months, we began to get our priorities straight until that false sense of security could set in once again.
What happened there and then, on 9/11, will happen again, according to Scripture, only on a much larger scale. It will happen just before the Second Coming of Christ. It will happen with regard to what will truly be the World Trade Center at the end of this age, and that world trade center will the rebuilt great city of Babylon in the end times. And it will cause the great men of planet to mourn, the kings and the nations, and the rich merchants will all mourn, because so much of what they will have and who they are will be tied up in the great economy that Babylon will produce for the world. And, like 9/11, all at once, all that Babylon stood for in terms of the riches and security, will be gone.
All this can be found in Revelation 18 which serves as a warning for the worldly. A warning to all who would dabble and become consumed by worldly living, a warning that in the end, worldly living will not pay. Only godliness will profit in the end.
The story actually begins in verses one and two of Revelation 18. We discussed these two verses last week. In Revelation 17, the great spiritual harlot, the one-world religion and apostate church is described. It is destroyed by the armies and will of the Antichrist and the 10 kings who rule with him at about the midpoint of the Tribulation when Antichrist himself will proclaim himself to God and demand the worship of the entire world population. Thus, the rivalry of the One World Religion will become unacceptable and the Great Harlot, the apostate Church, will be destroyed and replaced by the religion of the Antichrist.
And new vision brought by a new and very powerful angel reveals that a great judgment will also come on commercial, economic and political Babylon in the Tribulation. This judgment will come at the end of the Tribulation just before Christ returns and establishes his kingdom. And a careful reading of the chapter reveals it is God’s judgment against the worldliness and the worldly attitudes of mankind as he operates in this world independent of God. And it will shake the nations as they watch from a distance even as the 911 disaster shook us on those days in mid-September 2001. But the shaking will not result in a repentance, because by this time, late in the Tribulation, all men who are not already believers will have hardened their heart against the true God. And then the end will come, judgment will come upon those whose livelihoods and hopes were based upon what worldly living could offer them.
And today, what we find in Revelation 18:3-8 serves as warning to any of us who would dabble in worldly living. We need to know there’s no future in worldly living. We need to know with certainty that the attitudes and actions that accompany worldliness will pass away. And if we are married to those attitudes, we and all of our hopes and dreams will pass away as well.
Here’s an explanation as to why this great judgment will come upon Babylon and a description of it will look like: Verse 3: The angel is just announced “Fallen, Fallen is Babylon the Great.” Why? “For all the nations of the earth have drunk of the wine of the passion of her immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed acts of immorality with her and the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality.
And in this case, I think immorality and sensuality are words that can be taken both figuratively and literally. The nations of the earth have been influenced by Babylon, beginning as far back as the Tower of Babel, to love money and to love the fulfillment of their sinful and greedy and sexual lusts at the expense of their relationship to God. So once again, Babylon, in it’s commercial, economic and political wickedness, has been the source of another kind of idolatry which has led all the nations. This time the idolatry has to do with the love of money and the love of pleasure which has come before the love of God.
Verse 4. The literal, physical city of Babylon will have believers in it. It will have Jews who are about to believe in the Messiah in it. And here a warning comes, perhaps a warning that will be sounded on that day when Babylon breathes last. “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins or receive of her plagues; for her sins through history I believe, have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquitities. Pay her back even as she has paid, and give back to her, that grat City of Babylon, double according to her deeds; in the cupo which she has mixed, mix twice as much for her.” And she, Babylon, is worthy of such a judgment, I believe, not only because of her own sins, but the great corrupting influence her worldly sins have had upon the nations of the entire world since she became the author of worldly and ungodly behavior back in Genesis 11.
Verse 6, “To the degree that she glorified herself and lived sensuously, to the same degree give her torment and mourning; for she says in her heart, I sit as a queen and not a widow, and will never see mourning.” There’s great pride, a false security, that somehow in the midst of her great riches and wealth, she will never come to an end, that she will live on forever, but she has not taken into account the power of the Great and Holy God of the Heavens and the Earth, and though his system of justice grinds slowly, it grinds surely, and will bring her to her eternal end.
Do you see the kind of sins that characterize the great city Babylon at the end of the age: pride, sensuality, immorality, the love of pleasure and riches at the expense of all other things, including a relationship with God. Is it not what characterizes the whole world, and even our culture, and to a degree, perhaps even us, in this age? Is it not the reason that on the Lord’s Day, precious few are available to worship? Instead the parking lots of Wal Mart and Costco are full, as people apart from God seek their own pleasure, spend all their time on fulfilling their goals of personal peace and affluence without regard for the Holy God who is their ultimate provider. Is that not a form of idolatry?
It is the picture that goes with the definition of worldliness found in I John 2:15-17.
There the same Apostle John directed by the same Holy Spirit warns us, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” In other words, you cannot love the attitudes and the things of the world and still love the Father. They are antithetical, contradictory. For either you will come to love the one and not the other, or you will come to love the other and not the one. They are mutually exclusive affections.
So what does the world consist of—a set of values and goals that are totally in opposition to the character of Christ and our Holy Creator . . . values that put self first and pleasure and riches and lusts first before the Love of God and the Love of others. Verse 16: “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father but is from the world.
Exactly what is John talking about?
Well the lust of the flesh embodies all the base instincts of our natural bodies and our natural sinful nature. This includes the natural, uninhibited expresson and fulfillment of sexual desires in every and all kinds of immorality and sexual perversion. It includes our desire for intoxicating chemicals, alcohol and drugs and a total lack of regard for moral bearings. This is a characteristic of worldly living, livaing apart and in reject to the moral and sexual standards that God has given in order to direct toward godly living. It’s the attitude of the slogan, “If it feels good, do it” no matter how God regards it, no matter how selfish or damaging or damning it might be to the welfare of others.
And the lust of the eyes. It has do with the covetousness and materialism so evident in our world today. A covetousness that disregards the rights of others and thinks only of itself, and steals and lies and cheats to achieve its goal of riches. A materialism that worships the gifts of the creator rather than the Creator himself, and therefore comes as another form of idolatry, in which self is served before all others. It follows with slogan that the man or woman who dies with the most stuff, wins.
And then the boastful pride of life ought not be hard to explain. It’s when self takes credit for all that has been gained, where self looks down on others and seeks to be better than others, by having a bigger house, a trophy wife, the best cars money can buy, where the observation of Ecclesiastes 4:4 is fulfilled, where Solomon says “I hve seen that every labor and every skill which is done is the result of rivalry between a man and his neighbor. This too is vanity and striving after wind. It’s where life is entirely occupied by the matter of Keeping up with the Jones’s.
Are these the motives which control your life. “If it feels good do it?” “He who dies with the most toys, the most stuff wins.” And it’s a matter of “Keeping up with the Jones’s.”
You need to know, there’s no future in it. A life controlled by pride and lusts like these will not profit in the end. It will pass away, just as all ungodliness and those who practice it will pass away. It will pass even in the same fashion as we see the Great City Babylon passing away.
And as Babylon, people will watch in horror, probably on their TVs, like we did as we watched the World Trade Center collapse. And they will not weep for the people who die, as much as they weep for themselves and the end of the luxurious, immoral, greedy dreams of pleasure.
Verses 9-19 warn us to not put our hope our confidence in the world’s economic system. Rather, it needs to be in God. Don’t put your hope in a worldly economic system, but rather in God.
Now in this section, we see three different groups of people who will mourn the most at the burning and final of destruction of the great city--First, the Kings of the nations who were profiting from the wicked trades of Babylon. And then the we will see the Rich Merchants of the World, who will lose all their unrighteous mammon at the passing of the Financial Behemoth of the World, Babylon. And then finally the sailors, the transporters of the good produced in Babylon, will lose their income by virtue of the lack of the things made and sold from Babylon. All of them who practiced idolatry by loving the money and the things that Babylon produced instead of the God who produced all the things of Babylon.
Verse 9: First the kings of the earth. “And the kings of the earth who committed acts of immorality and lived sensuously with her, will weep and lament over her when they see the smoke of her burning, standing at a distance because of the fear of her torment, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city Babylon, the strong city! For in one hour your judgment has come.’”
And then the merchants chime in in verse 11: “And the merchants of the earth mourn over her, because no one buys their cargoes any more—cargoes of gold and silver and precious stones and pearls and the fine linen and purple and silk and scarlet and every kind of citron wood and every article of ivory and every article made from very costly wood and bronze and iron and marble and cinnamon and spice and incense and perfume and frankincense and wine and olive oil and fine flour and what and cattle and sheep and cargoes of horse and chariots, and just to show how exceedingly wicked the trade was, slaves and human lives.”
And I’m sure many of those slaves and human lives will be part of the sexual slave industry that Charles and Sarah have informed us about. After all, what matters is not the love God or the love of people, the love of every kind of lust fulfilled and every king vice which will imprison people in their sins and send them to Christless and fiery eternity.
All that sin, those great abominations will pass away, Babylon is told, and pass away for good. “The fruit you long for has gone from you, and all things that were luxurious and splendid have passed away from and men will no longer find them. the merchants of these things who became rich for from her will stand at a distance, perhaps from their TVs, because of the fear of her torment, weeping and mourning saying, “Woe, woe, the great city, she who was clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet, the colors of royalty, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls; for in one hour such great wealth has been laid waste!” And now the third party to the spoils which Babylon produced, the transporters of the goods, the shipmasters and the sailors mourn. And every shipmaster and every passenger and sailor and as many as make their living by the sea stood at a distance and were crying out as they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, ‘What city is like the great city?’ And they threw dust, the dust of mourning in their head, and were crying out weeping and mourning, saying, ‘Woe, Woe, the great city in which all who had ships at sea became rich by her wealth, for in one hour she has been laid waste.”
How quickly God can change things! In an hour worldliness has passed. And those who profited from worldliness will pass just that quickly, maybe even more quickly in God’s judgment.
Christian, know there’s no future in worldliness. No future in allowing your life to be controlled by attitudes like “he who dies with the most toys, wins.” “Or we’ve got to keep up with the Jones’s.” Nor is the future in “If it feels good do it,” no matter the consequence to others, no matter the consequence to your eternal soul.
Rather what profits will be godliness. Those who curb those worldly and fleshly lusts for the sake of loving God as He has loved them, and loving others as Jesus loves others. Who truly put what’s most important first and who put to death the deeds of the flesh and live like the new creatures Jesus intended them to be. The worldly, those who persecute the godly, will pass away, even in a single hour, like Babylon, the once great city, burned to ashes.
And symmetrically, with fairness, there will be those who rejoice when Babylon passes> There will be three groups as well, the saints, that is true believers in Christ, the apostles, s and the prophets. Ultimately, the Godly will win. The meek will inherit the earth, because Jesus our Strong God will see to it that we do.
So finally, expect a shocking end for those whose pleasure will come at the expense of the godly. Expect a 9/11 experience with them as the victims of their own sin and lack of fear of God. And those in heaven, who apparently know what’s happening on earth at the end, will be those who rejoice.
Verse 20: “Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, because God has pronounced judgment for you against her, that great city of Babylon. Then a strong angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, ‘So will Babylon, the great city, be thrown down with violence, and will not be found any longer.’”
An act, by the way, that is reminiscent of one that occurred about 600 years before Christ, an act ordered by Jeremiah, the prophet who was in Jerusalem. He ordered Seraiah his servant to take his prophecy of chapters 50 and 51 about the ultimate demise of Babylon, wrap it around a rock and then throw into the River Euphrates once Seriah got to Babylon as one of the exiles, a sign that this great city would ultimately meet it’s end, and sink in the river never to be retrieved again.
And never again will their be joy in the streets of Babylon. Verse 22: And the sound of harpists and musicians and flute-players and trumpeter will not be heard in you any longer, and no craftsman or any craft will be found in you any longer, and the sound of a mill will not be heard in you any longer; and the light of a lamp will not shine in you any longer; and the voice of the bridegroom and the bride will not be heard in you any longer, for your merchants were the great men of the earth, because all the nations moved into worldliness and following worldly desires by your sorcery—by the power of Satan which was behind your rebellion to God, and its spread into all the nations of the world.
And in her was found the blood of all the prophets and of saints and all who have been slain on the earth. She was the source of the worldly attitudes that rejected those who brought God’s Word. She deceived them into making money and pleasure and following idols over the true and holy Creator God whom Jesus has represented.
For as I John 2;17 says, “The world is passing away, and also its lusts, but the one who does the will of God lives forever.”
Do you love the world? Do you love the things of the world? Are you motivated by the lusts of the sinful nature, is it all what you can acquire in this world. Is it all about your ego and the boastful of pride—keeping up with the Jones’s. Well according to I John the love of the Father is not in you, and according to Revelation 18, Babylon’s fate, there is no future for you.
You want more than that? Then repent. Turn to God before it’s too late. Turn to God before the kind of destruction that characterized 9/11 comes upon. Realize your security cannot be in this world and the world’s system--because it will not last. It will pass away. The only possible future for you is that of turning to God, our eternal security, and the way you do that is by trusting the One who will return and establish His Kingdom on earth. And you trust Him when you trust that He died on the cross for your sins, and was raised and will come back one day to make you part of His eternal Kingdom.
Yes, His name Jesus. He is the Son of God, God in the flesh. He died on the cross for your sins and rose again to prove it. And He’ll come back to save you for his Kingdom if only you will believe. If only you will put your trust in Him as the one died for your sins and thus will forgive and bring you into you His Holy Kingdom.
If you’re unsure where you stand with Him this morning, but you know you lived by worldly values, then it’s time to make sure you’re right with Him. Forsake the lusts of the flesh, the lust of eyes, and the boastful pride of life and decide what’s most important for you is to love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. Trust in Jesus as Your Savior and your present and future King. Even pray with me toward that as we close this morning, and put your hope in Jesus not what with world offers.
Won’t you? Let’s pray.
