Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #23 of Revelation, chapter 16, and we are going to be reading Revelation 16:19:

And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.

I will stop reading there. We were discussing this last time and we saw that the city that is divided into three parts is Babylon, which is also called “the cities of the nations.” It is the kingdom of Satan and Satan ruled over all the kingdoms of this world, over all the nations and all the unsaved, until he was defeated at the beginning of Judgment Day.

At this point, this is describing the judgment of God upon the Babylon, the kingdom of Satan, and the defeat of Satan and his armies, all the unsaved people of the earth. We have seen in other places that Babylon is said to have fallen, so the “cities of the nations fell,” and “the great city was divided into three parts.” One part consists of the true believers that are still living on the earth in the Day of Judgment and the other two parts consist of the unsaved people of the earth, which number in the billions. Then it says, “And great Babylon came in remembrance before God,” and this means that it was time for God to punish her for her sins and it was the time of her judgment. God used Babylon (Satan and his kingdom) to come against the churches and congregations of the world, so the “cup” was given, in a sense, to Babylon and Babylon gave it to the corporate church to drink. But now we see that God says, in Revelation 18:6:

Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.

Babylon was instrumental in God’s meting out the cup of His wrath to the churches and now God says, “Double the cup” and “double” that which she meted out to the “third part,” as Revelation, chapter 8 describes. The judgment on the “third part” was the judgment on all Christendom, the professed churches and congregations of the world during the Great Tribulation period. The Great Tribulation concluded on May 21, 2011 and that was the day of transition from judgment on the churches to the judgment on the world and, therefore, the command is to give the cup to Babylon and fill it “double,” because now the judgment is not just on the “third part,” but it is upon every unsaved individual on the earth, including the people in the churches and congregations. God typifies the unsaved with the number “666” or “two thirds,” as “.666” is the result of converting “two thirds” as a decimal. The “two thirds” is double “one third,” so we can understand what God is saying in regard to His judgment on the entire world; it is “double” that which was upon the churches.

Finally, it says at the end of Revelation 16:19:

… to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.

This language is familiar because we came across it back in Revelation 14:8:

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.

This fits exactly with what we read in Revelation 16, so we are certain of the context. Notice that after the cry is made, “Babylon is fallen, is fallen,” (it is repeated or doubled, indicating it is certain and will shortly come to pass) and then it says in Revelation 14:10:

The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:

Babylon falls and the reason is given: “because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.” Now it is her turn to drink of the cup. There has been little question by many theologians that Revelation 14:10 and the following verses are describing Judgment Day, the day of the Lord’s wrath and His furious anger. It is in the context of Babylon’s fall and Babylon fell, historically, only after seventy years (and not during the seventy years). During the seventy-year period, they were triumphant. Satan and his forces were the great nation during the Great Tribulation period which the seventy years typified and Babylon did not fall during that time. They were triumphant over the churches and congregations, as Satan and his forces were winning because God had designed it that way by turning the churches over to them to destroy. It was only at the end of the seventy years that Babylon fell in one night, as the Medes and the Persians conquered them. It is at the end of the Great Tribulation that Christ came as a “thief in the night” and Satan’s kingdom was taken and the judgment of God came upon Babylon. Now Babylon is to drink of the cup of the wrath of God.

You know, we have also talked about what this picture points to and we know that when we search out the word “cup” in the Bible, it points to the wrath of God and we find that “spiritual judgments” are in view, as for instance, when the Lord Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane. The word “Gethsemane” means “place of the press,” and I believe it has to do with an “olive press,” and it was the idea that Christ was being “pressed” as He experienced the wrath of God. It says in Matthew 26:38:

Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me. And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.

We see that Christ is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. He is in the Garden of Gethsemane, the “place of the press.” He is beginning to experience the wrath of God and He is being punished a second time. Of course, He is not making payment for sins at this point, as payment was made from the foundation of the world and God only requires payment for sin one time. It was all the Law demanded. It was death for the “wages of sin” for all Christ’s elect and He made that payment from the foundation of the world, but it was God’s determinate counsel and will to send His dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ (who was already declared to be the Son through His death and resurrection before this world was ever created) into the world to carry out the Father’s will by going to the cross as a demonstration of what He had done. The Bible speaks of Christ being under the wrath of God for three days and three nights; it began in the Garden of Gethsemane that Thursday evening, as the wrath of God began to be poured upon Him. Yet, any observer that saw the Lord Jesus as He fell on His face and prayed that the cup of wrath might pass from Him, would have seen “nothing” else. They would have seen Christ on His knees in prayer. They would not have seen “thunderbolts” or “fire and brimstone” or a “sword” from heaven striking Him. They would have seen none of those things because He was suffering a “spiritual judgment,” an unseen judgment. God’s wrath was not visible upon Him, but it was certain and Christ experienced the wrath of God.

Also, in the Book of Jeremiah, we know that just as the Lord Jesus drank of the cup of the wrath of God in a spiritual way, so, too, the churches and congregations drank of the cup of the wrath of God spiritually. We read about this in Jeremiah 25:15-18:

For thus saith JEHOVAH God of Israel unto me; Take the wine cup of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send thee, to drink it. And they shall drink, and be moved, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them. Then took I the cup at the JEHOVAH'S hand, and made all the nations to drink, unto whom JEHOVAH had sent me: To wit, Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, and the kings thereof, and the princes thereof, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, an hissing, and a curse; as it is this day;

Then it continues to describe various kings and nations, but let us look ahead at Jeremiah 25:28-29:

And it shall be, if they refuse to take the cup at thine hand to drink, then shalt thou say unto them, Thus saith JEHOVAH of hosts; Ye shall certainly drink. For, lo, I begin to bring evil on the city which is called by my name, and should ye be utterly unpunished? Ye shall not be unpunished: for I will call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, saith JEHOVAH of hosts.

Here, we have God’s end time judgment program laid out before us. First, notice that when we read of the cup of the wrath of God, God said to Jeremiah that all the nations would drink. Then the list starts out, in verse 18, with “Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah,” and then God comments on that, in Revelation 28:29: “For, lo, I begin to bring evil on the city which is called by my name.” This was Jerusalem and Judah, the people of God in the Old Testament that typify the people of God in the New Testament, the corporate church. 1Peter 4:17 tells us that “judgment must begin at the house of God,” and that statement does not just appear out of thin air. This statement is right from this chapter in Jeremiah, where God begins to give the cup of his wrath first to Jerusalem and the cities of Judah. It is in keeping with what we read in Ezekiel, chapter 9, where men go forth with slaughter weapons at the command of God and it says in Ezekiel 9:4-6:

And JEHOVAH said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house.

The command is “Begin at my sanctuary.” This was where the judgment started, as 1Peter 4:17 tells us: “judgment must begin at the house of God.” God gives Jeremiah the cup of wrath to give to the nations: “For, lo, I begin to bring evil on the city which is called by my name, and should ye be utterly unpunished? Ye shall not be unpunished: for I will call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, saith JEHOVAH of hosts.” And this is what God did, if you remember, as it said in Revelation 8:11-13:

And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter. And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise. And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound!

This describes judgment on the “third part,” the churches. Judgment began at the house of God and the city called by God’s name. Then God says to the nations, “Shall ye be utterly unpunished?” No – He called for a sword on all the nations of the world, saying, “Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth.” Then Revelation chapters 9, 10 and 11 are describing these three “woes” on the world in the Day of Judgment, starting on May 21, 2011. It is the “cup of wrath” that has transitioned from the churches to the world and the judgment on the churches was the identical cup. In Jeremiah, chapter 25, God gives Jeremiah the cup and Jeremiah first gives that cup to “Jerusalem” and then to the nations. We do not read that he gave a special or different cup to Jerusalem and Judah than he gave to the world – it was the same cup of wrath.

The cup of wrath that God meted out to the churches and congregations was a cup of judgment and it was a spiritual judgment. God says that not one stone would be left upon another and God speaks of the Spirit of God coming out of the midst of the churches and Satan entering in and He speaks of desolation and making the churches and congregations a wilderness and a dry land, with no water. As we read in Revelation, chapter 8, the “third part” of the sun was darkened and the “third part” of the moon; the light of the Gospel was put out within the churches and congregations of the world and, yet, not one of those things were literal or physical. The church buildings remained intact, stone upon stone. There was no physical wilderness, no desolation or dried up waters that could be seen in the physical churches on the street corners. It was all spiritual language to teach the main truth, which was that God had abandoned the churches and His Spirit came out from among them. In that action of God, the churches and congregations lost their most valuable blessing they had possessed, which was salvation. During the 23-year judgment upon them there was no salvation. God was not working to save anyone in any church in the world, but Satan was working his lying “signs and wonders” and his evil operations were being conducted within the churches. The work of God in blessing His Word unto salvation was not being performed and that is the “cup of wrath.” It was the “cup” that Christ drank of in the Garden of Gethsemane. It, too, was spiritual.

How do we determine what something like this means in the Bible? We have to look at how God uses these words in other places and in other situations. When we do, we find the “cup” of the wrath of God found in two of the most major judgments described in the Bible (judgment upon Christ in Gethsemane and judgment upon the New Testament churches) and they were both “spiritual judgments.” No physical judgment was involved. Christ did not physically suffer from something like “thunderbolts” in the garden and the churches did not experience the destruction of their physical buildings so that not one stone was left upon another. They were spiritual judgments.

Likewise, when we read our verse in Revelation 16:19 or in Revelation 14:10 as it speaks of the cup of the wrath of God at the time of Babylon’s fall, it can only be understood to mean that a spiritual judgment is taking place upon the unsaved inhabitants of the world. It is in keeping with the fact that “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light,” and so forth. As it says in Mark 13:24, there are a period of “days” after that Tribulation and Luke 21:25 tells us that “there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars,” and that is because the judgment is completely spiritual in nature.