Shabbat shalom kol beit Yisrael and Mishpachah and welcome to Part LXIV (64) of our study of the Book of Revelation in which we examine the second part of chapter 18. We shall be taking quite a large chunk of text this week (verses 9 to 24) as much of the content is repeated for emphasis.

Hopefully by now you have a clear picture in your head as to what Babylon symbolises on all levels because having that resolved will make our task today much simpler. To remind you, and for the benefit of those who may have joined us for the first time today, spiritual Babylon is represented in its simplest form by all religious organisations who make void Torah and which speak against Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ). In other words, Babylon is the diametric opposite of what the Remnant of Yahweh's faithful people represent. All earthly governments and religious institutions throughout the world and over all æons of time have modelled their hierarchies and values after this Counterfeit Whore, the ever changing, ever fluctuating, ever shape-shifting harlot system of materialism, relativism, humanism, hedonism and paganism, each of which has installed their own religious 'priesthood' by replacing Yahweh and His Messiah with her own corrupt 'messiahs' and 'christs', be they politicians, scientists, popes or philosophers. That's Babylon, Babel or Bavel. To defeat it in our own lives we must therefore know exactly what it is. Know your enemy.

We are therefore commanded, as we saw last week, to "come out of her" (Rev.18:4). Practically, that means physically getting out of the daily leavening influences of the Babylonian system which progressively becomes more and more difficult the more electronically integrated with AI (Artificial Intelligence) that system becomes. Someone once described it as an 'open prison for the masses' where each city, divided up into '15 minute zones', physically becomes a 'prison-within-a-prison'. Spiritually leaving Babylon means turning to the true Elohim (God), Yahweh, our Heavenly Father by submitting to His Son Yah'shua (Jesus) and living the divinely ordained lifestyle of the saved by observing His Torah (Law/Commandments, teaching, doctrine) and walking in Christ according to the Image of Elohim (God). This we do in our homes and minimally, at the first level, in regularly assembling, as we are able, for fellowship, study and praise in house fellowships for the most part, on the sabbaths, new moons and annual festivals [1] with a view to eventually moving into off-grid firstborn communities independent of the Babylonian system altogether. We 'leave Babylon' in stages according to our ability and desire to do so. As the system gets more and more wicked and suffocating, the more urgent it becomes to leave it completely both spiritually and physically. It's very air is toxic but more than that it, and its inhabitants, are doomed.

One of saddest sights in my view is witnessing someone's home with all their precious possessions being burned to the ground. Two or three years ago, I forget how long exactly, one such home on the other side of the fjord here in Sweden was a victim of fire. Some of you may remember driving past it on the scenic route to town. It was still smouldering the day after the conflagration. Everything but the brick chimney stack was gone, totally incinerated, leaving a depressing black, charred landscape. I can only imagine the devastation the family that had only the day before occupied it must have felt. The acrid smell assaulted ones senses - a sour, bitter stench.

A year or two ago another building - this one much larger and virtually our neighbour, the home of various rehabilitating drug addicts - also burned down to the ground, this time the result of arson by a disgruntled former resident. I remember it lit up the night sky to the north-west with an eerie red colour as firefighters unsuccessfully tried to save it. Some of you may remember the pictures of it I posted online. Both buildings were beyond rescue. One, the home, remains a ruin (as far as I know) but the other has since been completely rebuilt. We had a couple of its residents over a few years ago for coffee and I still remember vividly one of them rudely asking which 'sect' we belonged to. (The word 'sect' is the preferred word for 'cult' in Europe, that's to say, for any church denomination that was not officially recognised by the state. Thus in Switzerland all churches that aren't Reformed or Catholic are called 'sects'). Knowing they were either trying to bait me or were simply being cockey, I returned the question and asked them which 'sect' they belonged to which took them aback somewhat as they belonged to what was then the Swedish State or Luthern Church. But I digress already, amusing though the anecdote may perhaps be for some of you.

My sister-in-law, and the aunt of many of you here, went through the nightmarish experience of having her home catch fire and be destroyed along with all her possessions. She still bears the scars from that ordeal when she went into the flames to rescue a sleeping baby. Fire can be a terrifying element so little wonder it is used as a picture both of purification, judgment and destruction in Scripture. Babylon, as we shall see, ends not in one day but in one hour when Yahweh sends fire to bring it to an ignominious end.

Most people have seen burning buildings, or at least the aftermath of a fire. One ugly eye-sore still remains in our local town, presumably because the owner can't afford to rebuild it because he didn't have insurance or for some other reason. We too need insurance - spiritual insurance - because all generations, and the last generation in particular, is going to go through a fire storm. My point in telling you stories of these tragic fires is to prime you for today's text that describes something similar albeit on a massive, global, if not cosmic, scale. So let's first of all read through today's segment and then resume our opening theme:

"9 The kings ('rulers [and leaders]' - NLT, Amp.V; 'sovereigns' - ISRV) of the earth who committed fornication ('adultery' - NIV; 'whoredom' - AENT); 'acts of immorality' - NASB; 'immorality [idolatry]' - Amp.V; 'immoral acts' - NLT; '[went/committed] whoring' - Amp.V, JNT; 'debauched' - JBP) (Rev.14:8; 17:2,4) and lived ('wallowed' - NEB) luxuriously ('luxuriated' - Amp.V; 'wanton luxury' - Barclay; 'sensuously' - NASB; 'riotously' - ISRV; 'and were arrogant' - HRV; 'lustful' - AENT; 'shared her luxury' - KNT) with her will weep and lament ('wail' - HRV; 'sob and wail' - JNT; 'mourn and bewail' - AENT) for her (Jer.51:8), when they see the smoke of her burning ('conflagration' - NEB, Barclay, Amp.V; 'fire' - KNT; 'charred remains' - NLT) (Ezek.26:16-17) (Rev.14:11; 19:3), 10 standing at a ['safe' - JB] distance ('far off' - KNT) for fear ('horror' - NEB) of her torment ('agony' - JB; 'tortures' - KNT), saying, 'Alas, alas ('Woe, woe' - NASB; 'Woe and alas' - Amp.V; 'Tragic, tragic, is the fate of' - Barclay; 'Woe, woe, woe' - HRV; 'mourn, mourn for' - JB; 'Oh no!' - JNT; 'How terrible, how terrible' - NLT), that great city Babylon ('Bavel' - HRV), that mighty ('strong' - NASB; 'powerful' - JB, NIV, KNT) city! For in one ('a single' - KNT) hour (Rev.17:12) your judgment ('doom..' - JB, NEB, Amp.V) has come ('struck' - NEB).' 11 And the merchants ('businessmen' - JNT, Amp.V) of the earth will weep and mourn ('be weeping and distress' - JB) over her, for no one buys ('nobody will buy' - KNT; 'will be left to buy' - JB) their merchandise ('freight' - Amp.V; 'cargo[es]' - NASB, NEB, HRV, NRSV, NIV, AENT, KNT) anymore: 12 merchandise ('their stocks' - JB, JNT; 'cargo' - HRV, AENT; 'great quantities' - NLT) (Ezek.27:36; 28:13,16) of gold and silver, precious stones and pearls, fine linen and purple, silk and scarlet, every kind of citron ('aromatic' - HRV, AENT; 'scented' - JNT, NEB, NRSV, JBP, Amp.V; 'perfumed' - Barclay, NLT; 'sweet-smelling' - KNT) wood ('sandalwood' - JB), every kind ('varieties' - Amp.V) of object ('article' - NASB) of ('piece in' - JB; 'vessel of' - HRV) ivory, every kind of object ('article' - NASB; 'vessel' - HRV) of most precious ('costly' - NASB; 'fine' - JB; 'rare' - JNT; 'costly' - NEB; 'expensive' - NLT) wood, bronze, iron, and marble (Ezek.27:12-13,22; Rev.17:4); 13 and cinnamon ('cardamon' - JNT) and ['spices, the' - NASB; 'amomum' - AENT; 'oriental spice' - KNT] incense ('myrrh' - JB, NIV; 'aromatics' - AENT), fragrant oil (perfume' - NASB, NEB; 'ointment' - JB; 'unguents' - AENT) and frankincense, wine and ['olive' - NASB] oil, fine ('choice' - NRSV) flour and wheat ('corn' - JB), ['their stocks of' - JB] cattle ('beasts of burden' - AENT) and sheep, horses and chariots ('conveyances' - Amp.V; 'carriages' - ISRV), and bodies ('slaves' - NASB, JB, Barclay, NLT) and souls ('nefeshot' - HRV) of men ('human lives' - NASB, NRSV, Barclay, NLT, KNT; 'lives of men' - NEB; 'human cargo' - JB; 'people's souls' - JNT) (1 Tim.1:10).



14 The fruit ('All the fruits' - JB; 'the ripe fruit' - Moff., Amp.V) ['and delicacies' - Amp.V) that your soul ('the lust of your nefesh' - HRV) longed ('lusted' - JNT; 'desire[d]' - Moff., AENT) for ['with all your heart' - JNT) has gone ('departed' - HRV; 'vanished' - Moff.; 'been destroyed' - KNT) from ('failed' - JB) you, and all the things which are rich ('sparkling objects' - KNT; 'magnificent' - NASB; 'your dainties' - NRSV, AMp.V; 'delicious' - AENT) and splendid ('luxury and flashiness' - JNT; 'glitter and glamour' - NEB; 'celebrated' - HRV; 'splendour' - NRSV; 'your elegance and splendour' - Amp.V) have gone ('departed' - HRV) from you ('been destroyed' - JNT; 'are lost' - NEB, NRSV, Amp.V; ' are gone' - NLT), and you shall find them no more at all ('gone for ever' - JB, NLT; 'never to return' - JNT; 'never to be yours/found again' - NEB/NRSV; 'never again to be recovered or experienced' - AmpV).

15 The merchants ('traders' - JB, NEB; 'sellers' - JNT; 'dealers' - Amp.V) of these things ('wares' - NEB, NRSV), who became rich ('had made a fortune' - JB; 'gained wealth' - NRSV; 'grew wealthy' - Amp.V; 'were enriched' - AENT) by her, will stand at a ['safe' - JB] distance ('far off' - NRSV) for fear ('horror' - NEB; 'terror' - Amp.V) of her torment ('agony' - JB; 'tortures' - KNT), weeping and wailing ('mourning' - NASB, JB; 'mourning aloud' - NRSV; 'grieving aloud' - Amp.V; 'torment' - JNT), 16 and saying, 'Alas, alas ('Woe, woe' - NASB, HRV; 'mourn, mourn' - JB; 'Tragic, tragic, is the fate of' - Barclay; 'Oh no!' - JNT; 'How terrible, how terrible' - NLT), that great city that was clothed ('robed' - Barclay, Amp.V; 'dressed' - ISRV) in fine linen, purple, and scarlet, and adorned ('bedizened' - NEB) with ('for all her finery of' - JB; 'glittered with' - JNT, Amp.V, NIV; 'gilded with' - HRV, AENT; 'bedecked in' - Barclay, Amp.V; 'decked out with' - KNT) gold and precious stones and pearls (Ezek.27:36,31; Rev.17:4)! 17 For in one ['brief' - Barclay; 'single' - Amp.V, KNT] hour (Rev.17:12) such great riches ('[vast] wealth' - NASB, JNT. Amp.V) came to nothing ('has been laid waste' - NASB, HRV, ISRV; 'destroyed' - JB, Amp.V; 'ruined' - JNT; 'brought to ruin' - NIV; 'wiped out' - Amp.V) (Rev.17:16).'

Every shipmaster ('pilot and navigator' - AENT; 'captain' - JB; 'sea-captains' - NEB, NIV; 'ship captains and pilots, navigators' - Amp.V; 'master mariners' - KNT), all who travel by ship ('passenger' - NASB, JNT, ISRV; '[live by] seafaring/men' - JB, Barclay, Amp.V; 'seafarers' - NRSV, JBP; 'voyagers' - NEB; 'shipmasters' - Moff.; 'shipowners' - NLT), sailors ('crews' - Amp.V, NLT), and as many as ['ply their' - Amp.V, KNT] trade ('make their living' - NASB, JB, JNT) on ('do business by/on' - HRV, Moff., AENT, KNT) the sea, stood at a ['safe' - JB) distance 18 and cried out when they saw the smoke of her burning ('conflagration' - NEB; 'as she burned' - JNT) (Rev.19:3), saying, 'What is like this great city? ('Truly the great city was unique' - Barclay; 'Where in the world is there another city like this?' - NLT) (Rev.13:4)' 19 They threw dust on their heads (Josh.7:6; Lam.2:10; Ezek.27:30) and cried out ('with tears' - JB), weeping and wailing ('mourning' - NASB, JNT, NEB; 'with groans' - JB), and saying, 'Alas, alas ('Woe, woe' - NASB, HRV, 'Mourn, mourn' - JB; 'How terrible, how terrible' - NLT), that great ('lavish' - JB) city (Rev.17:18), in which all who had ships on the ('at' - NASB, NRSV) sea ('ship-owners' - JNT; 'shipmen' - Moff.) became ('grew' - NEB) rich ['through her extravagance' - Amp.V] by her ['great' - Amp.V] wealth ('made a fortune' - JB)! For in one ('a single' - NLT, KNT) hour she is made desolate ('has been laid waste' - NASB, NEB, NRSV; 'ruined' - JB; 'was devastated' - HRV; 'destroyed and has become a desert' - Amp.V; 'has become a desert' - KNT) (Ezek.27:30-34; Rev.19:2).'

20 Rejoice ('exult' - NEB; 'celebrate' - Amp.V, KNT) over her ['fate' - JPB] ('celebrate her downfall' - JB), O heaven, and you qadoshim ('holy [ones]' - KNT; set-apart ones; 'people of God' - JNT, NEB, Amp.V; 'heavenly messengers' - AENT) shlichim (AENT, RSTNE) (apostles, 'emissaries' - JNT, HRV, ISRV) and nevi'im (prophets), for Elohim (God) has avenged ('vindicated' - JNT; 'vindicated your cause' - NEB; 'judged your cause' - AENT) you ('pronounced judgment for' - NASB; 'given you judgment' - JB, NRSV; 'in judging - JNT; 'executed vengeance' - Amp.V, 'avenged you' - ISRV) on ('against' - NASB, JB) her! ('has apssed ahainst her the sentence she passed against you' - KNT) (Is.44:23; Jer.51:48, Rev.19:2)

"21 Then a mighty ('strong' - NASB, KNT; '[single] powerful' - JB, Amp.V) malak (angel, 'messenger' - ISRV, AENT) (Rev.5:2; 10:1) took up a stone ('boulder' - JB, JNT, Moff., Amp.V, NLT, NIV) like a great millstone and threw ('hurled' - JB, JBP, Barclay; 'flung' - Moff.) it into the sea, saying,

'Thus with violence ('such a rush' - ISRV) the great city (Rev.17:18) Babylon ('Bavel' - HRV) shall be thrown ('hurled' - JNT, Amp.V, KNT; 'sent hurtling' - NEB) down ['to destruction' - Amp.V; 'like that with a splash' - KNT], and shall not be found anymore ('never to be seen again' - JB, NEB, KNT; 'disappear' - JBP) (Jer.51:63-64; Ezek.26:21) . 22 The sound of harpists ('harpers' - AENT), musicians, flutists ('flautists' - NRSV, ISRV; 'flute-players' - NASB, JNT, NEB, KNT, Moff.; 'minstrels' - JB, NEB, Amp.V; 'pipers' - AENT), and trumpeters shall not be heard in you anymore (Is.24:8; Ezek.26:13). No craftsman ('[skilled] artisan' - NRSV, Amp.V) of any craft ('trade' - NEB, NRSV; 'worker of any trade' - JNT; 'industry' - NLT) shall be found in you anymore, and the sound of a millstone ('mill' - NASB, JB, NEB) shall not be heard in you anymore (Is.24:8; Ezek.26:13). 23 The light of a lamp ('candle' - AENT) shall not shine in you anymore, and the voice of bridegroom and bride (Jer.7:34; 16:9; 25:10,16; 33:1; Hos.2:16; Is.62:5) shall not be heard in you anymore. For your merchants ('traders' - JB, NEB; 'businessmen' - JNT, Amp.V) were the great ['and prominent' - Amp.V] men ('ones' - HRV; 'princes' - JB, NEB; 'most powerful' - JNT; 'magnates' - NRSV) of the earth (Is.23:8), for by your ['drug' - ISRV] sorcery ('magic' - KNT; 'witchery' - JPB; 'under your spell' - JB; 'by your magic spell[s]' - JNT, Amp.V) ['and poisonous charm' - Amp.V] (Nah.3:4) all the nations were deceived ('seduced' - HRV; 'led astray - seduced, deluded' - Amp.V).

24 And in her was found the blood (She stands exposed as the murderer' - Barclay) of ['the' - Barclay) nevi'im (prophets) and qodeshim (saints, 'set-apart ones' - ISRV; 'God's people' - NEB, NLT; ' dedicated people' - Barclay; 'set-apart believers - AENT), and of all who were slain ('killed' - HRV, NIV; 'the blood that was ever shed' - JB; 'slaughtered' - JNT, NRSV, JBP, Barclay, Amp.V, NLT; 'the blood of all those who had been done to death' - NEB; 'the martyrs' - Barclay) on the earth' (Jer.51:49; Rev.16:6; 17:6; Mt.23:25)" (Rev.18:9-24, NKJV).

¤BIBLE VERSIONS KEY: AENT = Aramaic English New Testament (NT, Gabriel Roth), Amp.V. = Amplified Version (1958 ed.), Aram.Pesh. = Aramaic Peshitta (NT), Barclay = William Barclay New Testament, B.Wilson = Benjamin Wilson's Emphatic Diaglot, Vatican MS 1209 (NT), CLNT = Concordant Literal New Testament, CJB = Complete Jewish Bible (David Stern), HCSB = Holman's Christian Standard Bible, HRV = Hebraic Roots Version (James Trimm), JBP = J.B.Philips New Testament, MRC = Messianic Renewed Covenant (NT), NASB = New American Standard Bible, NKJV = New King James Version, NIV = New International Version (1984 edn.), NRSV = New Revised Standard Version (1995 edn.), ISRV = Institute for Scripture Research Version ('The Scriptures', 2009 edn.), JB = Jerusalem Bible (1st edn.), JNT = Jewish New Testament (David Stern), KJV = King James Version, Moff. = Moffat Translation, NEB = New English Bible (1974 edn.), NLT = New Living Translation, RNAB = Revised New American Bible, RSTNE = Restoration Scriptures True Name Edition (2005 edn., Moshe Koniuchowsky), RSV = Revised Standard Version (1952 edn.), Tischendorf = Tauchnitz Edition, Vol.1000, 1869 (NT), S&G = Smith & Godspeed

We've looked at some examples already of the burning down of individual buildings. If that isn't horrific, imagine what it's like when whole city districts go up in flames and tens of thousands are burned alive and killed overnight. Back in the Second World War, when air power was put to devastating use, whole cities were utterly consumed by incendiary bombs. If you have never read the account of such an horrific occurence, you should. I recommend historian David Irving's acclaimed book, The Destruction of Dresden as a primer [2]. 2,000 allied bombers dropped 3,000 tons of bombs, including 650,000 incendiaries, on the centre of the beautiful, ancient historic centre of Dresden in Saxony, that resulted in a fire-storm that virtually erased the whole city and killed 135,000 people. It was packed with refugees from the east where the rapacious Soviet Army was carrying out one of the worst genocides in history. The city was totally undefended. Many other German cities suffered a similar fate - Hamburg, Wuppertal and Königsberg being three of them. I use the word 'fire-storm' advisedly.

In some of the districts of the Hamburg raids of 1943, as many as 36 per cent of the civilian population was burned alive. That's one in every three persons. Large numbers of liquid-filled bombs ensured that fires broke out not only in the attics and upper floors of homes but right at the foot of the buildings too. Those without cellars didn't stand a chance, and most of those perished anyway. Interestingly, in the light of the recent 'pandemic', a deception tactic to ensure the German night-fighters intercepted Allied bombers in the wrong places, was code-named 'Corona' [3]. A greater part of those who died were asphyxiated by poisonous carbon monoxide fumes before being turned to charcoal. 8 square miles of the city had burned as one single bonfire. The air above this area was heated to such an extent that a violent updraught resulted which caused the surrounding fresh air to be sucked in from all sides to the centre of the fire area. This tremendous suction caused movements of air of far greater force than normal winds, raising the temperature anywhere from 600° to 1,000°C. Nobody above ground level stood a chance. It was a massacre.

Years ago I saw a vision of New York City as a whole consumed by flames in future judgment. The whole city was ablaze. I believe we shall see many cities suffering this fate in the end times, another reason to physically leave them. So in order to properly understand the language of today's text about the end of Babylon, I want you to imagine a city with every kind of building and every kind of trade. Cities develop their own life, as complex as a human body. Every part links up with every other part: an elaborate interlocking network of trade and travel, of manufacture and communication. When you work there, there is so much you take for granted: the electricity grid, the water grid, this shop on this corner, that factory down that street, this church, that restaurant, these streets leading to those homes, and schools and markets.

Suddenly, in an hour, it is all gone (Rev.18:10,17). The long lament of the kings and the merchants, in which John has drawn together material from Isaiah 23 and Ezekiel 27, is as much a lament about the speed of Babylon's downfall as about the lost opportunities for trading, great though that loss is. You may remember one or more of the great stock market crashes - if not the devastating Wall Street one of 28 October 1929, then at least the more recent (though less disasterous) global financial crisis of of 2008-9. We are waiting for one as great as, if not greater than, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 that led to the Great Depression. We know it's coming and that it has been deliberately designed to enable the New World Order (NWO) to take full global control amidst the ensuing chaos. What we are about to experience will be a foreshadowing of what will finally happen at the end of the Age that we read of in today's text. As I've said, there is a reason we are doing this Book of Revelation Study at this time. We are about to be given a living example of what to expect on an even more massive scale in the future.

When the bottom falls out of the market, millionnaires as well as billionnaires will become paupers overnight. The speed of ruin is crucial to the sense of shock in today's haunting description. Everyone was taken unawares in 1929. And though many are today aware, most aren't and are wholly unprepared. What's coming will wipe out the Middle Class for good and widen the wealth gap between rich and poor to such an extent that each will be living in completely alien economic universes to each other.

Please understand that John does not say that the gold, silver, precious stones and the rest were bad things in and of themselves, which nobody should have celebrated or enjoyed in the first place, because many of these find an honoured place in the New Jerusalem of chapter 21. Rome was able to bring all these fine commodities, listed in verses 12-14, from the ends of the earth. Among the things listed are goods that would have come from India, China and Africa, as well as Arabia, Armenia and beyond. The ancient world enjoyed worldwide trade as we do today, reinforcing the idea that Rome and Babylon were, on one level, to be viewed as synonymous.

But the giveaway point comes at the end of verse 13. John has built up this marvelous catalogue of luxury goods as well as the basics of trade - flour, wheat, cattle, sheep, and so on. But then, right at the end, we find the horror we discussed last week. Among these goods are bodies - human lives. They are also part of Babylon's 'trade' and, however obnoxious, a very lucrative part of it too. More money is generated from the sex trade than from the whole sports industry combined, and that's pretty massive. When you worship idols, the powers behind the idols demand sacrifices. When you worship Mammon the money-god (or Mars the war-god, or Aphrodite the sex-goddess...she had a massive temple in Corinth, a reason the Corinthian congregation was so weak, immoral and chaotic), they too (or rather the demonic powers behind them) demand 'sacrifices'. And some of those sacrifices will be human, whether the human sacrifices demanded by the massive, ever expanding devil-worshipping cults of today's Satanists (like the Moloch-worhippers of old), that includes neo-natal killing (abortion, that is today enshrined in some nations' Constitutions). Hence the massive child-abduction industry and sex-slave trade - just consider the vastness of the online porn industry, as I mentioned. Over 65 per cent of the internet is given over to it.

So here, in the middle of this lament over Babylon, we find one of the many places in the Messianic Scriptures (New Testament) where a small but significant note of implacable protest is raised against the entire system upon which the ancient world was built: slavery - the buying, selling, using and abusing of human beings as though they were on a par with gold, silver, ivory and marble (except that you could ill-treat them in a way you never would do with your luxury jewels and furnishings!) - this was the dark thread that ran through everything else. Slavery was to the ancient world, more or less, what steam, oil, gas, and electricity are to the modern world. Slavery was how things got done. Life was almost literally unthinkable without it. Banning it would have meant unraveling the whole of the otherwise self-perpetuating, demonic-inspired Babylonian system as it was back then and would have resulted in anarchy.

Clearly the apostle John believed in the Elohim (God) of the Exodus, the Elohim (God) who sets slaves free. Why did it take so long for a powerful nation like Great Britain to finally ban slavery through the vigorous campaigning of William Wilberforce (1759-1833), and push the frontiers of slavery back to the nations in the Middle East, Africa and Asia? The answer is, quite simply, the satanic system 'pushed back' with all its might and power. Today we have slavery on the rise again, even in Britain. By the time we come to the end of the æon or age, as we see in this chapter, slavery is part-and-parcel of the Babylonian economic system and is fully integrated with it. A huge amount of the Book of Revelation, as we have already seen, is built up on the basis of what Yahweh did in Egypt, with the promise that eventually - in the millennial age - slavery would finally be banished globally and the noble work of Wilberforce vindicated on a cosmic scale. The seal of the final act of slave-freeing took place with the sacrificial death of Yah'shua (Jesus) on the cross. As the Book of Revelation itself testifies:

"With Your own blood, You purchased a people for Elohim (God)" (Rev.5:9, KNT).

That is what is known as 'Exodus language' or 'buying-slaves-to-set-them-free language'. Here in Revelation 18, John is looking at Rome and Babylon and sees, with his mind's eye, the slave-market. He sees, perhaps families that have been captured far away and are now auctioned off, the husband to this slave-owner, the wife to that slave-owner, the beautiful daughter to a seedy, smirking old man, the strong son to a mine-owner. You get the idea. Perhaps, also, at the back of his mind, John saw Joseph being sold by his own brothers to the Ishmaelite traders and thence to Pottiphar, an Egyptian slave-owner, and his eventual redemption by Pharaoh and his own rôle later as the redeemer of his own brethren who had sold him into slavery in the first place...and by this means he saw Elohim (God) working all things for the good! This is a salvational picture, redemptive imagery.

In our own parabolic and pseudepigraphic Books of Abraham, in the third volume, the story is told of Darash the Kadmonite who is taken prisoner by bandits and sold into slavery. She is eventually bought by Abram at an exorbitant price and is then doubly surprised when he sets her free and returns her to her father's house. In the end she falls in love with her redeemer and marries him (3 Abr.62-63). This is a beautiful picture of how Christ paid an exceedingly high price with His own life to purchase us from the slavery of sin and how we, similarly purchased, overwhelmed by such a great and amazing love, ourselves, voluntarily - without any sort of compulsion - gladly yield ourselves to Him as allegorical wives, to love and serve Him forever. Paul uses similar imagery in Ephesians 5:22-28, admonishing husbands and wives to relate to one another in the same way the allegorical Bridegroom-Messiah relates to the allegorical Bride or Messianic Community (Church). The final redemption of the world when Satan and his rotten, oppressive, slavery-infested Babylonian system, in the form of Babylon, Rome, and all the other oppressive empires, a rottenness that infects everything else as happens in every Babylonian-type city or metropolis like Washington DC, London or Tripoli, is finally won at the end of the present Æon (Age) when the Bridegroom-Messiah returns in glory.

John can clearly understand the shock and bemusement of the merchants and mariners, can hear their cries of dismay echoing out across the countryside as they see the plume of smoke and smell the acrid, bitter smell. He can appreciate how great this ruin is. He has written a beautiful and haunting lament over it. But he has no sympathy for Babylon which has, after all, accused and condemned Yahweh's people, and now Yahweh is passing the same sentence on her (v.20), and this in accordance with the Torah which says that an accuser, falsely accusing an innocent man, must be punished with the same punishment belonging to the crime of which the innocent is being accused. The ancient, yet still current (because the Torah has not been abolished or done away with, as orthodox Christians falsely claim) mitzvah (commandment) echoes across the centuries and answers the demand of the righteous for justice as well as acting as a powerful deterrent:

"If a malicious witness takes the stand to accuse a man of a crime, the two men involved in the dispute must stand in the presence of Yahweh before the cohenim (priests) and the judges who are in office at the time. The judges must make a thorough investigation, and if the witness proves to be a liar, giving false testimony against his brother, then do to him as he intended to do to his brother. You must purge the evil from among you. The rest of the people will hear of this and be afraid, and never again will such an evil thing be done among you" (Dt.19:16-20, NIV).

To falsely accuse the innocent is a "great evil" and must be "purged" if Israel - the Remnant Body of Christ - is ever to be redeemed. To allow such evil to flourish is to admit the spirit of slavery through the front gate of society. As such Yahweh's people are admonished to be at the forefront of exposing such injustice, because Yahweh hates it. His Son cannot return and shalom (peace) finally come to the world, until 'Babylon' is judged in accordance with Divine Law. The punishment may seem harsh but it is absolutely necessary to cut out the cancer of false accusation. So be warned never to falsely accuse the innocent. I have seen so many believers suffer because they have falsely judged their brethren. Learn the lessons of the Book of Revelation and learn them fast. Repent if you have ever falsely accused someone and caused them needless suffering for you will be judged along with Babylon at the final day if you do not make right your sin. I say this especially to those who know what the Bible teaches about certain truths, continue teaching lies by twisting the Scriptures, and who yet adamently insist on upholding their false traditions and instead persecute those who bear true witness.

We must always remember where Babylon has acquired her power from, namely, the Beast who has in turn acquired his power from the Accuser, haSatan - 'the Satan', Heylel, Lucifer, Satan or the Devil, the old Dragon who, though he is out of sight for the moment, is remembered in chapter 12 and will shortly reappear in our narrative. The whole Babylonian system is built on lies and on lying, on false accusations and false claims. So much of the Book of Revelation is about being able to tell the difference between the lie and the truth: and so many of the lies appear as accusations or adversarial 'satans'. That is why it is so difficult to overthrow the deep state Babylonians and their lackies in this world, unless it is simply by the force of the new Babylon, whatever that may be, as older versions of the rotten system are replaced by newer ones - fascism and communism by liberalism, liberalism by wokeism, and wokeism by what is coming next. It's why the mainstream narratives keep changing like the shape-shifting demons that drive these narratives, from one set of lies to the next set. One minute racism is accepted as normal, then condemned, and then re-introduced, back and forth in a confusting and bewildering array of contradictions because there is no truth in Babylon. First fascism is promoted, then condemned, and then reintroduced and merged with its former antagonist, communism. Good-cops and bad-cops are the woof and warp of Babylon, designed to keep the population dancing around confused without any sort of safety net or handle of security to hold onto, because fear is what drives the system, not reason, not love, not logic or truth.

When Christians and Messianics go desperately seeking for human politicians like a Trump or a Putin to liberate society from the deep state Babylonian rulers like the Clintons, Obama or Biden, they are missing the entire point: it is impossible to overthrow Babylon at its roots except through the Blood of the Lamb and the faithful witness of His followers, because the Trumps and Putins are a part of the problem. At best they can only bring some short-term relief, as I have been teaching now for so long - they are never the solution, and never can be. This is the reality, and until believers wake up to this truth, their hopes for human deliverers are going to be continually dashed. The solution is not the ballot box, even if we must use it from time-to-time for short-term gain. The solution is Christ, and Christ alone, because He's the only one who can finally trample the whole rotten system in the vine-press of His fury into oblivion (Rev.14:19-20; 19:15). He can, and does, give local victories to His commandment-keeping qodeshim (saints, set-apart-one) who trust Him, so that they may accomplish their tasks, such as the Last Exodus and the Final Gathering. We may therefore walk in victory in the midst of the sea of this vile imperial power that seeks to crush all in its path. We may yet continue to leave behind our Father's visiting card on the ashes of Babylon's own folly in trying to extinguish the work of Father's valiant firstborn witnesses, and we shall, and already have.

The scene ends in today's segment with a prophetic act worthy of Jeremiah or indeed of Yah'shua (Jesus) Himself - both of whom spoke of stones being cast into the water:

"When you (Jeremiah) finish reading this scroll, tie a stone to it and throw it into the Euphrates. Then say, 'So will Babylon sink to rise no more because of the disaster I will bring upon her. And her people will fall'" (Jer.51:63-64, NIV).

"And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck" (Mark 9:42, NIV).

Likewise the Saviour said:

"I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him'" (Mark 11:22-23, NIV).

Do you know what he meant by that? to what He was alluding? This is apocalyptic imagery. He is saying that His commandment-, Torah-keeping children, who love truth and justice, and who adhere to Christ through trust with every particle of their being, are also called to be His prophetic executioners, when called upon to do so, by supernatural means and not by means of the flesh, and that means is through proactive emunah (faith). Behind this imagary is also the allusion of the Temple mount of corrupt Talmudic and occultic, Kabbalistic Judaism being 'thrown into the sea' too.

Now John sees a powerful malak (angel) performing an act, of great and powerful prophetic symbolism. Babylon is to be hurled into the sea, never to rise, never again to hear its musicians and workmen, never again to see the lighting of lamps or the contracting of marriages. Do you now understand what Yah'shua (Jesus) meant when He told the unbelieving, resurrection-denying Sadducees, whose mindset was that of the Babylonian system, that in the Kingdom æon or age to come that there would be no more of their Babylonian-type contractual marriages that more or less define all contemporary marriages?

"For in the resurrection they (the people of this Babylonian æon/age [4]) neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like malakim (angels) of Elohim (God) in heaven. But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by Elohim (God), saying, 'I am the Elohim (God) of Abraham, the Elohim (God) of Isaac, and the Elohim (God) of Jacob'? Elohim (God) is not the Elohim (God) of the dead, but of the living" (Mt.22:30-33, NKJV; cp. Mark 12:25; Lk.20:34-37).

You see, the contractual, business-like marriages of the immoral Babylonian æon (age) were all temporary ('until death do us part') like the Babylonian system itself, which had no part in any resurrection, save the resurrection of condemnation (Jn.5:29, NKJV) by being metaphorically thrown into the depths of the sea forever. There is no 'contracting' of marriages in the world to come - you're either married by virtue of those concerned being in Christ, or you're not (because you're not in Christ). Did you really suppose that all marriage would be abolished? Marriages truly in Christ are eternal marriages (because Christ is eternal) just as our allegorical marriages to Him as the Messianic Community, Church or Bride of Christ are. What do you suppose the eternal marriage of the qodeshim (saints, set-apart ones) is a type of? Literal eternal marriage, of course. But that is not something the unbelievers will enjoy in the eternities who, like malakim (angels) currently, will be single, because no Babylonian-type marriages will be contracted in the next æon (age), just as no new converts will be made in the next æon (age).

And so the impact of Babylon, like a stone being thrown into the sea, quoting N.T.Wright's translation of verse 21, will be like an enormous "splash". Babylon is then seen by John sinking like a stone to the bottom of the sea, never to be seen again, together with all her lies, abuses, slaving, sex-trafficking, pedophilia, murderings, trading, fiat money system and man-made 'state marriages' where the 'state' becomes a polyandrous 'partner' of sorts, deciding who can remain married and who can divorce, which is the sole prerogative of Elohim (God) to decide, not man.

A final thought before we end this teaching and chapter 18. Once more, in case anyone should feel the last vestiges of sympathy for Babylon and all that it stands for, we have the explanation for the city's utter and permanent disappearance. You see, Babylon is a city founded on force, compulsion, war and violence, not forgetting the blood of the martyrs which is symbolically mixed into the cement that holds its bricks together (as in the Tower of Babel), in the same way foetuses are mixted into the bitumin of Spanish roads, in the same way that witches secretly mix their menstrual fluids in with the foods they serve their victims in order to sexually ensnare them. Babylon has been the centre of a network of violence that spanned the world, and all who have been slaughtered on on earth have, in a sense, been slaughtered at the behest of Babylon. Babylon has ordered the slaughter of countless millions of souls (and by the time it has finished, billions), just as it has ordered the slaughter of the current Ukrainian and Gaza wars. The merchants of the military-industrial complex have grown rich on the back of military conquest. Money and power have done their collective worst, and John lumps them together, as we have seen, under the metaphor of fornication and adultery. Even their marriages, spiritually-speaking, are adulterous because of the adulterous involvement of the state polyandrously. It amazes me (and yet does not amaze me) that the churches insist on state involvement and accuse those of not contracting marriages with state approval [5] as fornicators and adulterers when the very opposite is true!

Babylon the whore is, at the end of chapter 18, gone, and will not return. Wars have ceased and the Millennial Reign of Shalom (Peace) can begin with Christ as World Regent. And we, who live in the constant shadow of modern Babylon, can and must shudder as we, too, watch the plumes of smoke and smell the bitter smell, as my family did in seeing those burning buildings locally and their charred remains, as the appalled survivors did in Dresden, Hamburg, Wuppertal and Königsberg, and indeed as the survivors of the Great Fire of London caused by an accident when a bakery caught fire, consuming thousands of wooden homes fanned by the rush of air down their narrow streets, must have done. Only Babylon will not be rebuilt again. It will be forever gone for Christ is not in it - anywhere. Yahweh's people will be resurrected, celebrate the Wedding Supper of the Lamb, and endure for ever.

And that is where we must end this week. Next week, we will take the first 10 verses of chapter 19 into careful consideration as Yahweh's victory is rightly celebrated once the smoke of Babylon has died down and the stench blown away. Until then, may you soberly reflect on these things, and believe the testimony that John has shared with you, and respond in faith accordingly. May Yahweh bless your week until we meet again next sabbath is my prayer in Yah'shua's (Jesus') Name. Amen.

Endnotes

[1] Andrew Gabriel Roth, Aramaic English New Testament (AENT), Netzari Press, USA: 2012), p.698
[2] David Irving, The Destruction of Dresden (Macmillan, London: 1963/85)
[3] Ibid., p.46
[4] "Yah'shua (Jesus) replied, 'The people of this [Babylonian] æon (age) marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy of taking part in that [Kingdom] age [to come] and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage [the Babylonian way], and they can no longer die; for they are like the malakim (angels). They are Elohim's (God's) children, since they are children of the resurrection" (Luke 20:34-37, NIV)
[5] State marriage licenses are a fairly modern affair historically-speaking. Until recently, the government was not involved at all, and marriage was either a church affair or just a private one.

Acknowledgements

[1] Tom Wright, Revelation for Everyone - The New Testament for Everyone Commentary Series, Vol.19 (SPCK, London: 2011)
[2] E.W.Bullinger*, Commentary on Revelation (Kregel Classics, Grand Rapids, Michigan: 1984)
[3] David H. Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary (JNT Publications, Clarksville, Maryland: 1992)
[4] ESV Study Bible (Crossway, Wheaton, Illinois: 2011)
[5] The NIV Study Bible (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan: 1995)
[6] Ed. J.R.Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (MacMillan, London: 1909)
[7] David Pawson, Unlocking the Bible: A Unique Overview of the Whole Bible (Collins, London: 2007)

*E.W.Bullinger was a brilliant Anglican clergyman and scholar whose works merit careful study by serious students of the Bible. He was, however, seriously in error in at least three main areas, namely, (1) he believed the 'Church' has been raptured before the Book of Revelation opens, (2) he believed that the 7 churches in Revelation 2-3 are 7, literal Jewish churches or assemblies yet to come, and (3) he believed in a pre-tribulation, pre-millennial rapture.

• 1. White horse - military aggression
• 2. Red horse - bloodshed
• 3. Black horse - famine
• 4. Pale Green/Blanched/Pallid/Sickly-looking horse - disease, epidemics

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• 5. Persecution & prayer
• 6. Tremour & terror

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  INTERLUDE I (Ch.7)
  (The 144,000 Redeemed)

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• 7. Silence in heaven, listening to prayers which are then answered in a final catastrophe: a severe earthquake I

• 1. Scorched earth
• 2. Polluted sea
• 3. Contaminated water
• 4. Reduced sunlight

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• 5. Insects and plague (for five months) (1st Woe)
• 6. Oriental invasion (200 million army) (2nd Woe)

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  INTERLUDE II (Ch.10-11)
  (The Malak with the Little Scroll)
  (The Two Witnesses)

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• 7. The Kingdom comes, the world is taken over by Yahweh & Yah'shua (Jesus) after a severe earthquake II (3rd Woe)

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  INTERLUDE III (Ch.13-14)
  (The First & Second Beasts)
  (The Lamb & the 144,000)
  (The Messages of the Three Malakim)

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• 1. Boils on the skin
• 2. Blood in the sea
• 3. Blood from the springs
• 4. Burning by the sun

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• 5. Darkness
• 6. Armageddon

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• 7. Hailstorm (OB 368:11-12) and severe earthquake III, leading to international collapse

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  POSTSCRIPT (Ch.17-18)
  (Babylon the Great & the Bride)

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