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Revelation 18:3: Excessive luxuries

‘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.’ NIV

I am struck by the words ‘’excessive luxuries’’ in verse 3b. We live at a time where there is a growing divide between rich and poor. The ranks of the super-rich are swelling, and the largest amount of the world’s wealth is concentrated in the hands of relatively few people. But such a system cannot last. It will sooner or later collapse beneath its own weight.

I am not saying that it is wrong to have wealth. But whatever we have is ours to steward. It is a sacred trust. Remember: ‘’From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked’’ (Luke 12:48). There is a way of living, a way of spending money, that is careless of the needs of others. From such worldliness may God keep us (or, indeed, deliver us).

Revelation 18:4-8: Love not the world.

⁴ Then I heard another voice from heaven say:

I seem to remember a quotation from someone which went some thing like this:           ‘The unexamined life is hardly worth living.’  That came into my mind this morning as I thought and prayed about the urgent call in verse 4:

‘’Come out of her, my people, so that you don’t become embroiled in her sins, and so that you don’t receive any of her plagues.’’ (Tom Wright’s translation). This echoes the summons of Isaiah 48:20, 52:11,20 & Jeremiah 51:45. It also reminds me of John’s words in in 1 John 2:15-17: ‘’Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.’’

 ‘The unexamined life is hardly worth living.’ We need to be able to take a step back, to be objective and discerning, so that we are not unthinkingly sucked into the ‘Babylonian’ lifestyle. We need eyes to see where worldliness might be encroaching, and the resolve to decisively turn away, with God’s help, from things which are liable to His judgment. As Tom Wright says, the whole system is hollow, riddled with deceit and lies, and heading for disaster.

One further thing to point out from these verses is that Babylon’s downfall is self-inflicted. Ultimately she brings the judgments on herself.

PRAYER: ‘The world is ever near me, around me and within; O Jesus draw thou nearer, and shield my soul from sin.’

Revelation 18:1-3: How are the mighty fallen?

After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority, and the earth was illuminated by his splendour. ² With a mighty voice he shouted:

‘We shall see John’s own vision of this ideal city at the end of the book. But for the moment we are shown its opposite: the city which tried, like Babel of old, to make itself The Place, the summit of human achievement, by its own efforts and to its own glory – and ends up shrinking to a shell, with the wild desert creeping back into its palaces, its temples, its fine streets and shops and courtyards. Creation will reclaim what arrogant humans had thought to construct. Babylon will become a place for demons, for unclean spirits, for birds and monsters of all the wrong kinds.  And this, John says, is good news – just as the destruction of Babel, and the confusion of tongues (Genesis 11) was good news. The angel who shouts out that Babylon has fallen (echoing Isaiah 21.9 and Jeremiah 51.8) is bringing the news that human arrogance and oppression, and the wanton luxury and vice to which they lead, will not have the last word. God will have the last word, and creation itself will hear this word as a word of freedom, a sigh of relief, a flood of glorious light (verse 1) let in upon a darkened dungeon.’ Tom Wright: ‘Revelation for Everyone’, p.159.

It is important for us to grasp that this all-pervasive world system, spoken of as ‘Babylon’, has limited time. It will fall.

Revelation 17:18: World domination.

¹⁸ The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth.’ NIV

One final thing to note from chapter 17 is that ‘Babylon’ – this demonic system – profoundly affects the political structures of the world. The rulers are ruled.

‘’We wrestle not against flesh and blood…’’ (Ephesians 6:12).

‘…the abiding and overriding lesson for the church, then and now, should…be clear. The brutal but seductive ‘civilisations’ and national empires, which ensnare the world by promising luxury and delivering slavery, gain their power from the monster, the System of Imperial Power. Some have called this ‘the domination system,’ a system which transcends geographical and historical limitations and reappears again and again in every century.’ Tom Wright: ‘Revelation for Everyone’, p.157.

Revelation 17:9-18: Self-destruction.

⁹ ‘This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits. ¹⁰ They are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; but when he does come, he must remain for only a little while. ¹¹ The beast who once was, and now is not, is an eighth king. He belongs to the seven and is going to his destruction.¹² ‘The ten horns you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but who for one hour will receive authority as kings along with the beast. ¹³ They have one purpose and will give their power and authority to the beast. ¹⁴ They will wage war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will triumph over them because he is Lord of lords and King of kings – and with him will be his called, chosen and faithful followers.’¹⁵ Then the angel said to me, ‘The waters you saw, where the prostitute sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations and languages. ¹⁶ 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. ¹⁷ For God has put it into their hearts to accomplish his purpose by agreeing to hand over to the beast their royal authority, until God’s words are fulfilled. ¹⁸ The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth.’ NIV

It’s been pointed out that when someone climbs a hill, he doesn’t then complain that he didn’t see contour lines all around it. He understands these are map symbols intended to convey a certain reality. It may be that the symbols we find here, in our passage, correspond to certain historical realities in John’s day. Or, it may be that one day we will open our newspapers and see what we read here coming to pass before our eyes. But surely there is a key point that shouts to us. It is that evil is ultimately under God’s control. If we witness evil dictators strutting on the world stage (or have to live through their rule), we should remember their time is short, and God is on the throne. Furthermore, evil will ultimately turn on itself and destroy itself. Christ, and His followers, will conquer, even though it be at great cost.

Revelation 17:9-14: Christus Victor.

⁹ ‘This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits. ¹⁰ They are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; but when he does come, he must remain for only a little while. ¹¹ The beast who once was, and now is not, is an eighth king. He belongs to the seven and is going to his destruction.¹² ‘The ten horns you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but who for one hour will receive authority as kings along with the beast. ¹³ They have one purpose and will give their power and authority to the beast. ¹⁴ They will wage war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will triumph over them because he is Lord of lords and King of kings – and with him will be his called, chosen and faithful followers.’ NIV

In all the comings and goings of kings and kingdoms, their risings and fallings, we need to remember that there is a ‘Grand Master’ moving the pieces on the chess board, and even the moves made against Him He will use to defeat the opposition. He is: ‘’Lord of lords and King of kings’’ (14). Though all hell may be let loose on earth, in the end Jesus wins.

I believe it was a theologian called Gustav Aulen who wrote a book entitled ‘Christus Victor.’ There may be many things in Revelation we find hard to understand, but surely we can see this? Jesus is victorious, and His people – His battered, persecuted, slain people – will share in His triumph.

Revelation 17:4: Glitzy.

⁴ The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. NIV

Superficially ‘Babylon’, the world system is attractive. So we may be deceived by the glamour. It’s possible to be seduced by the image. You may find that you very much want to drink from that ‘’golden cup’’, but you need to see that it’s filled with poison. The outward appearance and the inner reality are contradictory.

Tom Wright throws out a challenge:

‘This terrifying, multi-layered denunciation of the outwardly delightful and inwardly deceitful city ought to give pause for serious thought to all those of us who live within today’s glossy Western culture – and all others who look on and see our glitzy world from afar. Where are we in this picture?’ ‘Revelation for Everyone’, p.153.

PRAYER: Lord, I pray for eyes to see through.

Revelation 17:1-8:The collapse of the system.

One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, ‘Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute, who sits by many waters. ² With her the kings of the earth committed adultery, and the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries.’³ Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a desert. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. ⁴ The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. ⁵ The name written on her forehead was a mystery: babylon the greatthe mother of prostitutes and of the abominations of the earth.⁶ I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of God’s holy people, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus. When I saw her, I was greatly astonished. ⁷ Then the angel said to me: ‘Why are you astonished? I will explain to you the mystery of the woman and of the beast she rides, which has the seven heads and ten horns. ⁸ The beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and yet will come up out of the Abyss and go to its destruction. The inhabitants of the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the creation of the world will be astonished when they see the beast, because it once was, now is not, and yet will come. NIV

One day, ‘Babylon’ is going to fall.  In John’s day, Babylon represented Rome – outwardly impressive, but inwardly corrupt. However, Rome was but one expression of Babylon, which is that entire world system a system standing opposed to God. It takes on different forms in different centuries, in different lands and different regions. But it is always there as an all-pervading presence. Yet one day it won’t be.

This passage enables us to see its essentially demonic nature and empowerment (3, 7, 8; see chapter 13). Babylon ‘’rides’’ upon the beast.

This world is seductive, like a prostitute. The sexual imagery is potent. First of all, Rome was filled with its own moral decadence, and eventually, like all such empires, it collapsed under its own weight. Secondly, paganism and sexual immorality tend to go hand in hand. Thirdly, sex is one of the devil’s most potent weapons, and he uses it repeatedly to take people down. Fourthly, adultery, in the Bible, is a metaphor for spiritual infidelity, where people chase after other gods.

When we drink what the world offers, we are going to get disoriented, and we are liable to be seduced. The world may look attractive, but there is poison in her ‘’golden cup’’ (4).

This world is savage (6). We are reminded again that in a world like this – a world system that hates Jesus – it is fundamentally a dangerous thing to align with Him and bear witness to Him. The world will hate us for that. ‘’I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of God’s holy people, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus’’. (Tom Wright translation).

Babylon, and what she offers, is a pale, poor, perverted parody of reality. The backdrop to Revelation is a true, faithful ‘marriage’ relationship between the Lamb (Jesus) and His bride (the church). Indeed, this is the big picture story of the Bible: God offering to marry a people. The devil tries to seduce us with a gaudy, glitzy alternative that can never satisfy.

Revelation 16:17-21: A great fall.

¹⁷ The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and out of the temple came a loud voice from the throne, saying, ‘It is done!’ ¹⁸ Then there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since mankind has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake. ¹⁹ The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed. God remembered Babylon the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath. ²⁰ Every island fled away and the mountains could not be found. ²¹ From the sky huge hailstones, each weighing about forty kilograms fell on people. And they cursed God on account of the plague of hail, because the plague was so terrible. NIV UK

Like Humpty Dumpty, ‘Babylon’ is going to have a great fall, and the next two chapters will deal with this subject in great detail. In John’s day, people would probably have understood ‘Babylon’ to represent Rome. Rome has long gone of course, but the ungodly, indeed demonic, world system that was expressed in the Roman Empire, is still with us. But one day, it will all come crashing down.

Consider Tom Wright’s words:

‘John’s hearers would have no difficulty in getting the point. This is not the collapse of the physical earth. This is the only way to describe the collapse of the entire social and political system on the earth. Terrible things will happen in human society, for which the only fitting metaphor will be earthquakes and huge hailstones. God will allow the lie at the heart of pagan society, like a crack in the earth’s crust, finally to be exposed. The tectonic plates of different idolatrous human systems will move against one another one more time, and nothing will ever be the same again.’ ‘Revelation for Everyone’, p.148.