“And the kings of the earth, who committed sexual immorality and lived in luxury with her, will weep and wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning. They will stand far off, in fear of her torment, and say, ‘Alas! Alas! You great city, you mighty city, Babylon! For in a single hour your judgment has come.’ And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo anymore, cargo of gold, silver, jewels, pearls, fine linen, purple cloth, silk, scarlet cloth, all kinds of scented wood, all kinds of articles of ivory, all kinds of articles of costly wood, bronze, iron and marble, cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and slaves, that is, human souls. ‘The fruit for which your soul longed has gone from you, and all your delicacies and your splendors are lost to you, never to be found again!’ The merchants of these wares, who gained wealth from her, will stand far off, in fear of her torment, weeping and mourning aloud, ‘Alas, alas, for the great city that was clothed in fine linen, in purple and scarlet, adorned with gold, with jewels, and with pearls! For in a single hour all this wealth has been laid waste.’ And all shipmasters and seafaring men, sailors and all whose trade is on the sea, stood far off and cried out as they saw the smoke of her burning, ‘What city was like the great city?’ And they threw dust on their heads as they wept and mourned, crying out, ‘Alas, alas, for the great city where all who had ships at sea grew rich by her wealth! For in a single hour she has been laid waste. Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, for God has given judgment for you against her!’ Then a mighty 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 be found no more; and the sound of harpists and musicians, of flute players and trumpeters, will be heard in you no more, and a craftsman of any craft will be found in you no more, and the sound of the mill will be heard in you no more, and the light of a lamp will shine in you no more, and the voice of bridegroom and bride will be heard in you no more, for your merchants were the great ones of the earth, and all nations were deceived by your sorcery. And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slain on earth.”

In Matthew 16:24–26 Jesus says to His disciples,

“… If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?”

This question, about what material gain could possibly be worthy payment for the loss of one’s soul is a large question – it’s so large and its asking so obviously rhetorical that sometimes we don’t bother to stop and truly answer it. The right response is so clear it’s painful – there is nothing, no riches, no status, no power, no influence that is worth the price of your soul. During the temptation of Jesus, Matthew 4:8–10 says,

“Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.”’”

Dominion over the entire world, all the glory that man can offer, or, service to the Lord Most High? It’s not a hard question, it’s a simple, straightforward, honest answer, there is no rightness, no logic for that matter in denying the Truth for the gain of lies – and yet this is exactly what countless people do every day. Jesus says to the Pharisees in Matthew 15:7–9,

“You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”

There are many who purposefully deny Christ and bow down before the idols of the world – but there are also many who profess Christ who bow down before the idols of the world as well. It amounts to the same thing – whether they blaspheme the name of God, or they speak pleasantries around their creator with a distant heart, their love is given to the world. James 4:4 tells us,

“You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

Those who serve God serve what is eternal – eternal life, an eternal kingdom, eternal joy, eternal worship of the One who is worthy of eternal worship. In the passages we’ve looked at recently, we’ve been given a clear picture of the thing that those who serve the temporal bow down before. The woman, the prostitute of Babylon, the symbol of a corrupt and blasphemous empire, dedicated to sin and abominations, propped up by Satan, destined for destruction. We looked at the condition of this woman – the danger of her seduction and the blackness of her heart, and the fate that would befall her. Last week we saw how she was exposed, her riches and grandeur ripped away, her façade of decadence broken, and the veil of hypocrisy torn, and what was left was a broken and desolate thing, its evil burned up with vengeance under the wrath of God – we saw as the thing that the world loved, what made up all that it holds dearest was destroyed. What we see now, as we close our look at Revelation 18 is the world’s response to the loss of what they cherished most, the mourning of the end of something that never should have been and was destined to go to destruction. In this we see a clear image of what it looks like to sell your soul to gain the world, and then watch the world be destroyed. Galatians 6:8 tells us,

“For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.”

In the lamentation that goes up over Babylon we see what it looks like to reap corruption and death as your only fruit, to despair as the worldly evil you prized above all else goes up in smoke – and again we see the goodness of the justice of God in the judgment of that which has rebelled against Him.

The Wicked Lamentation for the Kingdom of Man

1. The Mourned Fruit of the Fallen Kingdom

“And the kings of the earth, who committed sexual immorality and lived in luxury with her, will weep and wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning. They will stand far off, in fear of her torment, and say, ‘Alas! Alas! You great city, you mighty city, Babylon! For in a single hour your judgment has come.”

The sinner replaces God with the world in his heart, the wicked hold the symbol of Babylon as their lord and master while denying their Creator. But just because they’ve sold themselves out to the world, because they’ve anchored themselves to it, shackled themselves to its foundation, made its sin their sin, doesn’t mean that they truly love the world. Certainly they desire the world, they worship the world, they lust after it, and seize it with greedy hands, but they know nothing of love. John writes in 1 John 4:7–8,

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

Earlier in this same letter John wrote in 1 John 3:16,

“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.”

The love of a Christian is found in sacrifice, modeled after the great example of Jesus, God made flesh willingly crucified for the sins of man. At the destruction of Babylon the world is distraught, they weep and mourn, but we watch as they do so from far off, detached, removed. These are not the tears of solidarity, not the weeping of compassion or empathy – their sorrow is selfish, their grief that of a spectator. In Genesis 19:17, as the angels send Lot and his family away from the city of Sodom they tell them,

“… Escape for your life. Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills, lest you be swept away.”

But then shortly after we read in Genesis 19:23–26,

“The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.”

Lot and his family had been delivered from a place of grief, a pit of evil and depravity that was destined for utter destruction. Their deliverance was a blessing, it was a profound act of mercy, and yet rather than running headlong toward the freedom she’d been given, Lot’s wife stopped, she paused in their flight and she looked back. The people grieve the thing that holds their hearts, the thing that they’ve set at the center of themselves, that has come to a rapid and brutal end. The thing is, they look on detached, from a distance they cry out as though this were happening to someone else, not acknowledging that the fate they’re witnessing is their own. We read the warning from heaven last week in Revelation 18:4–5,

“Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues; for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.”

The people crying out, the people lamenting the end of the wicked, fallen city are watching their own destruction – they who have cast their lot with the enemy and favored rebellion over God are reaping the same just punishment that is poured out on the symbolic Babylon.

“And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo anymore…”

Jesus teaches in Matthew 6:19–2,

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

The mourners of Babylon show us what it looks like to have your treasure fully invested in the world, to have nothing stored up beyond the place where moth and rust destroy, to have a heart made only for the flesh. They do not cry for the suffering of the city, they don’t despair in repentance over the wickedness that earned this judgment – they wail because their commerce is dead, because their mortal prosperity has ended, because in the burning city of the dead there is no one to buy their wares.

“… cargo of gold, silver, jewels, pearls, fine linen, purple cloth, silk, scarlet cloth, all kinds of scented wood, all kinds of articles of ivory, all kinds of articles of costly wood, bronze, iron and marble, cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and slaves, that is, human souls.”

After reading of how the people mourn the loss of what their materialism has prized above all else, we see a list, some of the particulars of what it is that they’ve lost. We saw last week how Babylon was corrupt across an entire spectrum – spiritually specific, spiritually general, from the physical sky to the physical earth, there is no part of her where sin does not fester. We saw, as we just reread, the warning that those who did not come out of her would take part in her sins. But now, in this list, we see the spectrum of corruption of those who joyously followed the harlot who drank the blood of the martyrs through their priorities. We see these things that they prized above God, what they cherished, what they now mourn. They move through them categorically, and there’s meaning attached to each section. First there’s the precious metals and gems. Jesus rebuked the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23:16–22

“Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? And you say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it. And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it.”

Gold and silver, jewels and pearls all have material value – but why? The simple answer would be rarity, and to some extent, utility. While mostly associated with adornment, these materials can also have unique properties when it comes to matters like durability or corrosion. But why are they rare? Why is gold less common than bronze, why does it not rust like iron? Why do emeralds and sapphires sparkle more brilliantly than a river stone, why are they so much harder and more durable and shale or flint, and what gives a pearl more luster than a pebble? Because God has made these things so, because he designed them that way. There is nothing that we should prize or admire in all of creation that doesn’t make us prize and admire the Creator. As the people rattle through the list of all they feel they’ve lost, we can see how blind they are in every area – they lost their precious metals and jewels, they’ve lost their fine materials for clothing, the things used to flaunt their decadence and wealth. They’ve lost their building materials, the things used to craft their lives of luxury and opulence, and gone are the exotic fragrances and spices that they filled their spaces with. Then, there’s a shift – the first things they grieved were the losses of extravagance, but as they move along the spectrum they arrive at staple items. Wine, oil, and flour, cattle and sheep are all things that can be obtained in excess, that can be great markers of wealth and prominence, but at their core these things are staples. If there’s no wine to assist in purifying water then suddenly there’s nothing to drink, as well as nothing (along with oil) to dress wounds with. While gluten may have largely become our enemy in modern times, through much of human history flour and the bread that came from it was a dietary staple, and without it many would be left to starve. But again, none of these things are notable unto themselves – it is God who makes the grape to grow on the vine, the olive to blossom on the tree, and the wheat to sprout in the field. If we look to the things that comprise our daily table and think ourselves sufficient because of what we see there then we are blind. It is the Lord who gives us our daily bread, and it is He who has stripped away any semblance of stability from the ruins of Babylon. The mention of horses and chariots may seem like a small shift from agriculture and livestock, but this actually takes in another direction of blind self-sufficiency, as it shows the people mourning the fall of their military strength. Psalm 20:6–8 tells us,

“Now I know that the LORD saves his anointed; he will answer him from his holy heaven with the saving might of his right hand. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God. They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright.”

The fallen city is left stripped and desolate in every respect, and in each area of their lamentation we can see the blindness of the people – but then we arrive at their final mourned commodity, and their wickedness is revealed in a new light. Slaves – not servants or workers – this isn’t the word used when we read that we are slaves or servants of righteousness, the word translates as “bodies.” This is the reduction of those who were made in the image of God, human beings bearing immortal souls, and treating them as something transactional, completely denying their humanity and the One who formed them. From gold and silver to the souls of men, the wicked cry for their material loss, nothing more. This calls to mind the words written Amos 2:6–7,

“Thus says the LORD: ‘For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals— those who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and turn aside the way of the afflicted…”

Chasing each of these things, pursuing materialism, forsaking God, it’s all worthy of judgment. But perhaps we can feel a pull to make exception or excuse, seeking to sympathize because of the greed that we ourselves harbor. But what we have to see is that the sphere of evil occupied by those who dehumanize and buy and sell those made in the image of God as though they were cattle, is the same space occupied by those who cry and wail because their gold and silver, their spices and oil have all gone up in flames. We have no leave in any area to elevate things beyond the place that God has set them, or to devalue and commoditize that which He has prized.

“‘The fruit for which your soul longed has gone from you, and all your delicacies and your splendors are lost to you, never to be found again!’”

The world which rebelled against God is handed over to Satan for a time – we are given as our ruler the one we asked for through our sin. But this is a temporary thing, the fruits of wickedness are nothing that will be allowed to bear up forever. Numbers 11:4–6 tells us,

“Now the rabble that was among them had a strong craving. And the people of Israel also wept again and said, ‘Oh that we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.’”

The people, liberated from slavery, freed by God, given His Law and miraculously fed from heaven grumbled – they took their freedom and the Lord’s miracles for granted, and they craved the things they knew and enjoyed in their slavery. But those who are slaves are those under sin, and the fruit of sin was not made to endure but to burn. What we see as we move through today’s passage is a wicked and hypocritical people, lamenting the end of something that was never going to endure, should have never been, and was marked from its inception for just and violent destruction.

2. The Mourned Image of the Fallen Kingdom

“The merchants of these wares, who gained wealth from her, will stand far off, in fear of her torment, weeping and mourning aloud, ‘Alas, alas, for the great city that was clothed in fine linen, in purple and scarlet, adorned with gold, with jewels, and with pearls! For in a single hour all this wealth has been laid waste.’”

Just as the kings stood far off as their harlot was destroyed, so too the merchants, those who have gained wealth and prominence from her remain at a distance as they despair. And as they cry, they praise her broken image, they exalt the delusion that she herself propped up as we read in Revelation 18:7,

“As she glorified herself and lived in luxury, so give her a like measure of torment and mourning, since in her heart she says, ‘I sit as a queen, I am no widow, and mourning I shall never see.’”

There is no mention of the fact that she is a home for demons, that every unclean spirit, bird, and beast dwells within her, no one addresses the fact that her lips are red with the blood of the saints, that from her every perverse blasphemy and wicked temptation spill forth. Their lamentation just focuses on the adornment, on the shine and sparkle, with no consideration for the rot and corruption. They only talk about the “good” things, the lavish things – they don’t bother to address the loss of the building materials, the dietary staples, the livestock, the elements of war, or the human lives, the image bearers of God that have been reduced to transactional items. They mourn only the parts they care to focus on, only the splendor that attracted their eye and stirred their lust. Showing an interaction between Jesus and a wealthy young man, Matthew 19:16–22 says,

“And behold, a man came up to him, saying, ‘Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?’ And he said to him, ‘Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.’ He said to him, ‘Which ones?’ And Jesus said, ‘You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ The young man said to him, ‘All these I have kept. What do I still lack?’ Jesus said to him, ‘If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.’ When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.”

Babylon is a thing to be rejected – not just rejected, but spurned, hated, and judged. But to the world whose eyes are darkened she is held as a thing of beauty and devotion – in fact they’re so devoted that they follow her in her wickedness, they bow down before her harlotry, disregard her fatal flaws and adopt them upon themselves. Psalm 52:1–7 tells us,

“Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man? The steadfast love of God endures all the day. Your tongue plots destruction, like a sharp razor, you worker of deceit. You love evil more than good, and lying more than speaking what is right. You love all words that devour, O deceitful tongue. But God will break you down forever; he will snatch and tear you from your tent; he will uproot you from the land of the living. The righteous shall see and fear, and shall laugh at him, saying, ‘See the man who would not make God his refuge, but trusted in the abundance of his riches and sought refuge in his own destruction!’”

Those who cry out for the broken image of Babylon and lament at its fall have begged for the destruction that comes upon them. They follow Satan, who props her up and is her guiding spirit, they rebel as one against the Living God, and they suffer and despair at the fall of Babylon because they have committed themselves wholeheartedly to a lie rather than serve the Truth.

“And all shipmasters and seafaring men, sailors and all whose trade is on the sea, stood far off and cried out as they saw the smoke of her burning, ‘What city was like the great city?’ And they threw dust on their heads as they wept and mourned, crying out, ‘Alas, alas, for the great city where all who had ships at sea grew rich by her wealth! For in a single hour she has been laid waste.”

This rhetorical question asked, “What city is like the great city?” mirrors language we’ve seen used before. We read in Revelation 13:3–4 concerning the antichrist,

“One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast. And they worshiped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, ‘Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?’”

The world cannot fathom a higher peak of power than the beast or a greater display of grandeur than the city of Babylon – because they are blind, with darkened minds and wicked hearts. They praise squalor, rot, and corruption, delighting in it, describing it as something unimaginably grand, when these things are horribly broken and destined to be destroyed. In Matthew 7:24–27 Jesus teaches,

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

Babylon is a city built upon sand, the hearts of its mourners have sand as their foundation, and as they stumble, they cry out. As they watch the utter annihilation of a system they imagined as unstoppable and unending their hearts are broken, their heads are covered with the dust of mourning – because the wicked thing that they made their god has been destroyed and the judgment they themselves have begged for through their actions has come upon them, and great is the fall of broken image of the kingdom of the world.

3. The Celebrated Silence of the Fallen Kingdom

“‘Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, for God has given judgment for you against her!’ Then a mighty 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 be found no more…’”

There are two responses to the destruction of Babylon, to the judgment brought upon this broken system of man’s self-deification. One is what we’ve seen so far – the heartbroken lamentations of the wicked people whose whole identities were rooted in the fallen city. But the other response, the one we see called for now, is celebration. Jesus teaches in Matthew 18:4–6,

“Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”

Again, as we’ve looked at multiple times, especially through Revelation 17 and 18, the judgment of God is nothing for the Christian to despair over, but for us to draw comfort from, for us to delight in. This doesn’t mean that we make light of it – Hebrews 10:31 tells us,

“It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

We should not mitigate the terror of the enemies of God as a trivial or casual matter – but His judgment is a good thing, it is a right, just, and holy thing. It is right that the millstone be cast into the sea, that it sink from sight never to be seen again. It is right that all those who have built upon the sand, who have placed their faith in the wicked and fallible hearts of men, who have declared war against Holy God, be anchored to the millstone in which they placed their faith, that with that great weight fastened around their necks they should share in its fate, judged, destroyed, and cast into outer darkness for their innumerable transgressions against the Holy One.

“…and the sound of harpists and musicians, of flute players and trumpeters, will be heard in you no more, and a craftsman of any craft will be found in you no more, and the sound of the mill will be heard in you no more, and the light of a lamp will shine in you no more, and the voice of bridegroom and bride will be heard in you no more, for your merchants were the great ones of the earth, and all nations were deceived by your sorcery. And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slain on earth.”

Continuing the passage we read from earlier, concerning the rich young man who came to Jesus seeking eternal life, Matthew 19:23–30 goes on to say,

“And Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.’ When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, ‘Who then can be saved?’ But Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’ Then Peter said in reply, ‘See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

I’ve been looking at the things I own with a different eye lately, with a sense of detachment. Not too long ago we were going to have some friends over for dinner and they were nervous because their toddler was beginning her “getting into everything” phase, and they didn’t want her to break anything. I replied, playfully, but also with sincerity, that according to 2 Peter everything in the universe is destined to be burned up, so there’s nothing their little one could break that wasn’t going to be destroyed one day anyway. There are things that used to matter to me, certain clothing, certain forms of entertainment, various hobbies and pursuits that I simply don’t care about anymore. There are of course also things that do matter to me, I’m not entirely without sentiment. The guitar my mom got me for my birthday one year when I desperately wanted one but was flat broke, a truck that belonged to my wife’s grandpa, a hatchet my grandpa gave me when I was a kid that I somehow managed to not lose through the years, a rifle my dad gave me, the study Bible my wife got for me. These items matter to me, if they were gone from my life tomorrow I would genuinely miss them – but I’ve realized (and you may have picked up on this), they only matter as much as they do because of the people who they came from to me. There are plenty of guitars, hatchets, and trucks floating around out in the world, but these all have ties to relationships and histories that give them sentimental weight. The physical items themselves are nothing from an eternal perspective – I’ll have no need or desire for an ’86 Stratocaster or a Ruger 10/22 in the throne room of heaven. I love my study Bible, just looking at it makes me smile, but I won’t need that when my eternity is in the literal presence of the One who is the Word. These things matter to me, but only so much, only to a certain extent. It’s not that Christians have to live like minimalist monks, but it’s a right question to pointedly ask ourselves as to how much our possessions mean to us. We’ve watched as Babylon was identified, revealed, and destroyed, and how the world has mourned for the end of all her lavish wickedness. But now we see the Christian response, the righteous reaction of the saints as silence is declared in the absence of this great evil – and as with the scope of Babylon’s wickedness, and the varied cargo that she once boasted of, this too follows a sort of spectrum. When Babylon is thrown down like a millstone into the sea, when the wickedness of the world is burned down to nothing, its profound wickedness swallowed up in the obscurity of the abyss, the first thing we note that falls silent is the celebration. The is no music, no revelry in the judged and fallen city. Next the craftsmen are addressed – there is nothing to be produced – no fine jewelry or extravagant clothes to be made, no pagan statues or altars to be carved, or buildings to be built. There is no expansion or production. The mill falls silent – there is no grain, no flour, because there is no food, and no one left to eat it if there were. There is no light, nothing to see or exist by, nothing to orient yourself by or comprehend your surroundings through – the Light of the world that was once offered to any and all who would come to Him has been cut off, Christ is not an available path for the drowned and desolate Babylon. The last thing touched on may seem a bit strange after everything else – the voices of the bridegroom and bride, or lack thereof are the final contribution to the vast silence. This is because the function of a husband and wife joined in marriage is that they be fruitful and multiply as God first commanded, and there will be no further generations brought forth in Babylon, the fallen city of the dead. There is no sound, no movement of life – there is only nothing and its accompanying silence. And the reasoning, which has been provided in such extensive detail, is summed up in two concise reasons – their merchants were the great ones, like the mighty men mentioned in Genesis 6 and 11, those who presided in power over the earth as corruption flourished and spread. These figures of Babylon were the pinnacle, the example by which all the world was taken in, captivated and seduced by appearances, enticed by worldly power, the people of the earth have all made themselves guilty of the sins of Babylon. And her sin is the sin of Satan, the sin of the murderer, the transgression of the one who cries out for the blood of saints and prophets, who delights in wanton slaughter, who desires to glorify himself above and beyond any other. And so the judgment is right, the silence is a glorious thing, the destruction of the evil on the earth under the mighty hand of God is beautiful, sweet, and just thing. The call that we read in verse 20 was,

“Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, for God has given judgment for you against her!”

The prayer of the martyrs that we saw in Revelation 6:10,

“O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”

Has been answered – the Lord has been vindicated against the world that has blasphemed His name and harmed His children. And what we see next week as we move into Revelation 19 is a massive answer to this call, a glorious outpouring of praise and celebration from the multitude of heaven – because the fallen kingdom has been burned up and washed away, the Lord of Hosts has claimed His righteous vengeance, the lamentations of the wicked fade into the silence of the deep, and the victory of God is absolute and final, His perfect triumph revealed for all to see.

Pastor Chris’ sermon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v9uEW0GUNs