Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #14 of Revelation, chapter 14, and we are going to read Revelation14:8:

And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.

So far in Revelation, chapter 14, God has been talking about the “144,000” in the first five verses.  They were the firstfruits unto God and they were saved during the 1,955 years of the church age.

Then, in verses 6 and 7, there is a switch to the everlasting Gospel being preached when the “hour” of judgment came.  That is the “hour” of the Great Tribulation.

So we had the church age covered in the first five verses and verses 6 and 7 covered the Great Tribulation.  We know from other Scriptures that God saved a great multitude out of that Great Tribulation.

Now in verse 8, it talks of the fall of Babylon.  This angel, too, is a figure of the Lord Jesus, and He is saying, “Babylon is fallen, is fallen.”  This is a transition verse.  It is “another angel” to designate another period of time – it is not the church age (God already covered that) and it is not the Great Tribulation period (God already covered that).  This is Judgment Day and it is the natural progression of what God has been saying: from the church age to the end of the church age and the beginning of the Great Tribulation; and from the conclusion of the Great Tribulation to the beginning of Judgment Day.  That is why, as we read of Babylon’s fall, in verse 8, it leads right into drinking of the “wine of the wrath of God,” in verse 10 and the smoke of their torment ascending up for ever and ever, in verse 11.  It is language that describes the judgment of this world and Babylon is a picture of the kingdom of Satan and Satan is typified in the Bible (especially in Isaiah, chapter 14) as the king of Babylon.  He is king over all the unsaved people of the world and Babylon is a representation of his entire kingdom.

During the Great Tribulation period, once God loosed Satan and he entered into the churches as the “man of sin,” he conquered the churches of the world and they became a part of Babylon.  During that period of time when Satan was loosed and he was victorious and overcame the saints, Babylon had not yet fallen; it was victorious.  Babylon was the conquering nation.  For instance, if we go back to the Book of Jeremiah, we will see that when God speaks of King Nebuchadnezzar (a type of Satan) and Babylon, He points out that they will be triumphant and they will bring all nations in submission to them.  It says in Jeremiah 25:9-11:

Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the LORD, and Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and an hissing, and perpetual desolations. Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the candle. And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

During this seventy year period, had Babylon fallen?  Can we apply what we read in Revelation 14:8, where we read “Babylon is fallen, is fallen” to this point in time?  No, Babylon is far from fallen at this point; they are gaining power and authority and the king of Babylon is becoming greater and greater.  God even calls him his servant, historically.  Babylon did not fall during the seventy-year period.  During that seventy years Babylon was the greatest power in the world.  They were the mighty nation that conquered other nations, including the nation of Judah and Judah was the outward representation of the kingdom of God on the earth at that time, so it is a figure of the New Testament churches and congregations at the time of the end when judgment begins on the house of God; Satan is loosed; Satan comes against the churches.  God is utilizing Satan as a destructive force and a tool to bring about desolation in the churches and congregations of the world in order that the Lord could accomplish His judgment on the rebellious and unfaithful corporate church.  That is the spiritual fulfillment of what we just read in Jeremiah 25 where the Lord speaks of raising up the Babylonians and bringing them against the land of Judah to picture what God would do at the time of the end. 

Historically, when God did this, Babylon did not fall at any point during these seventy years.  When God loosed Satan and Satan brought spiritual desolation to the churches of the world, Babylon did not fall during that Great Tribulation period.  The kingdom of Satan was prospering and it was doing better than ever before, as a matter of fact, as he had never had such power prior to his being loosed.  He had increased power, to the point that the world marveled at the beast that came up out of the sea and whose deadly wound was healed; the unsaved inhabitants of the world worshipped the beast and the unsaved inhabitants of the churches and congregations were made to worship the image of the beast.  Satan was reigning.  He had dominion and power.  There was no fall in sight.  There was no loss for Satan and his kingdom during the twenty three-year Great Tribulation period – that seventy-year period we read about in Jeremiah 25 refers to this period.  The church and the unsaved people of the world served Satan for twenty three complete years; that was the duration of the Great Tribulation period, from May 21, 1988 through May 21, 2011. 

Then God says in Jeremiah 25:12-14:

And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith JEHOVAH, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations. And I will bring upon that land all my words which I have pronounced against it, even all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah hath prophesied against all the nations. For many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of them also: and I will recompense them according to their deeds, and according to the works of their own hands.

In other words, once the seventy years are finished, then God turns to the king of Babylon and the kingdom of Babylon and begins to punish them.  He begins to pour out His wrath upon them, but only after the seventy years have been completed.  Once again, the seventy years are an historical type and figure of the complete duration of the Great Tribulation period.  Historically, it was after seventy years, in the year 539 BC, that the Medes and the Persians, led by King Darius, took the kingdom of Babylon in one night, just as Christ came as a thief in the night on May 21, 2011 and took the kingdom of Satan.  From that point, Babylon is the object of God’s wrath.  Babylon falls immediately after the seventy years.  Likewise, “immediately after the tribulation of those days,” the kingdom of Satan fell and Satan lost all power and authority and rule within the churches and congregations and in the world.  The Lord Jesus Christ began to reign beginning on Judgment Day, May 21, 2011.  The Lord Jesus reigns with a rod of iron over all that Satan previously had ruled.  That is what God has in view when He says, “Babylon is fallen, is fallen.”  Whenever we hear that statement, we can know it is the completion and end of the Great Tribulation.  It is the beginning point of Judgment Day.  That statement is made a few times in the Bible.  We find it in Isaiah 21:9-10:

And, behold, here cometh a chariot of men, with a couple of horsemen. And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground. O my threshing, and the corn of my floor: that which I have heard of JEHOVAH of hosts, the God of Israel, have I declared unto you.

I read verse 10 because the Lord makes an interesting connection between the “fall of Babylon” and “harvest” and harvest is what the threshing of the corn relates to in this verse.  I do not think we will be able to get into this in this study, but several times in the Bible God makes that sort of relationship between the “fall of Babylon” and “harvest.”  This connection is actually made in Revelation 14, too.  For instance, it says in Revelation 14:8: “And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen,” and then look at Revelation 14:14:

And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.

The sickle is a threshing instrument that is used in harvest.  This is not the last time the Lord mentions this.  It says in the middle of the verse in Revelation 14:15:

…Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.

Then it says in Revelation 14:16:

And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.

It says in Revelation 14:17:

… he also having a sharp sickle.

Then it says in Revelation 14:18:

…Thrust in thy sharp sickle…

Then it says in Revelation 14:19-20:

And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden without the city

From verse 14 through verse 20, Judgment Day is pictured as a harvest.  In Matthew 13, we read a parable that refers to this “harvest” at the end of the world.  So when God says, “Babylon is fallen, is fallen,” and He connects it with “harvest,” it is another confirmation to us that Babylon relates to the kingdom of Satan in this world, wherein all the unsaved people of the earth are coming before God to experience the wrath of God in the Day of Judgment.  There are other connections, too.  Let us go to Jeremiah 51:2:

And will send unto Babylon fanners, that shall fan her, and shall empty her land: for in the day of trouble they shall be against her round about.

Regarding the word “fan,” we read in Luke 3:16-17:

John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire: Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable.

All of this language is related to harvest.  The “fan in his hand” is used to purge his floor and then there is language regarding gathering the wheat into the barn and burning the chaff.  So when God says in Jeremiah 51:2 that He “will send unto Babylon fanners, that shall fan her,” it relates to harvest.  Then we read in Jeremiah 51:8:

Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed: howl for her; take balm for her pain, if so be she may be healed.

Again, harvest is in view in the context and Babylon falls.  Let us look at one more reference to the fall of Babylon.  We read in Revelation 18:1-2:

And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

So, what do we know about Babylon’s fall when we read that kind of language?  We find God states this and then restates it – He says it twice and we know when something is doubled in the Bible it is certain and will shortly come to pass.  Judgment Day has come.  God has brought it to pass and when Babylon falls, there is only one time period – only one – that the Bible permits us to relate it to and we cannot say the fall of Babylon relates to the fall of the church during the Great Tribulation.  Why can we not say that?  It is because Babylon did not fall during the seventy years.  That is when Judah fell and that pictured the judgment on the churches during the Great Tribulation, but Babylon, historically, fell at the end of seventy years and then God stopped using Nebuchadnezzar as his servant (Satan) to bring destruction on the churches and He stopped using the kingdom of Babylon as an instrument of His judgment and He began to bring judgment on Babylon itself.  That is when Babylon falls and there is no other point of the fall of Babylon other than at the conclusion of the Great Tribulation period and the conclusion of the figurative seventy years and the conclusion of the actual twenty three years of the Great Tribulation. 

May 21, 2011 was the end of the Great Tribulation and that was when the kingdom of Satan fell.  No other time is possible and no other time can relate to this statement.  It is “harvest” time when the final judgment on the world began and that is the time of the final separation of the wheat and the tares.  There was a process under way during the Great Tribulation, as God had commanded His people to come out of the churches.  God was separating the wheat from the tares, but that process was not completed until the end of the twenty three years.  Then, finally, it could be said that all that remained in the congregations (and did not obey God’s command to depart out of the midst of the congregations and flee to the mountains) are now the tares.  Now they could all be bundled, spiritually speaking, and cast into the fire of Judgment Day.  But the wheat are all outside. 

God had another plan and another testing scenario for all those that came out of the churches.  Not everyone that departed out of the churches was saved.  Obviously, we know that.  So God reserved the period of Judgment Day to be (in all likelihood) a total of 1,600 days, which breaks down to “40 x 40” and that would be a time of severe testing to see if all the people that did come out of the churches were “gold, silver, precious stones” or “wood, hay, stubble.”  A fire was put to them and God left His people on the earth in the Day of Judgment to manifest who would “endure to the end.”  The true believers would endure sound doctrine and to hold fast to the Word of God to the end of this period of time, while the others would fall away and turn back and they would, as it were, be burned up.  So no one escapes the testing of God.  Those that were in the churches were tested and tried throughout the Great Tribulation period.  Their big test was to get out of the churches and when they did not listen, they failed the test and were bundled as tares for the burning.  They are not being tested during these 1,600 days.  They had their period of testing and they failed the test; all those that remained in the churches are not being tested.  The test was for those that came out.  Those believers that were outside of the churches and congregations are being tested during these days.