Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #30 of Revelation chapter 18 and we are going to read Revelation 18:21:

And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.

We saw in our last study that the “mighty angel” is Christ and the stone that He took up was said to be like a great millstone and He threw it into the sea.  The millstone is a type or figure of Babylon, as “stone” or “mountain” in the Bible represent kingdoms and this represents the kingdom of Satan.  It is being cast into the sea to picture the wrath of God and it is an eternal wrath.  Ultimately, at the end of Babylon’s judgment it will be complete annihilation and she will never be found again.

When we go back to Jeremiah 51, where this verse in drawn from, we read in Jeremiah 51:63-64:

And it shall be, when thou hast made an end of reading this book, that thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of Euphrates: And thou shalt say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I will bring upon her: and they shall be weary. Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.

Here, God is commanding Jeremiah to take the Book (the Bible) and tie it to a stone and cast it into the Euphrates River, where it will sink.  It is as if the Word of God is pulling Babylon down and causing her to sink into the depths of the water and that is because it is the Word of God that is declaring judgment upon the world at this time during the Day of Judgment.  God has brought the entire world into the condition of “hell” or the “grave,” because He has ended His salvation program, which guarantees death for every unsaved inhabitant of the earth upon the completion of Judgment Day.

Now this verse says that Babylon shall sink and “shall not rise from the evil that I will bring upon her.”  The word translated as “rise” is also translated this way in Isaiah, chapter 24, a chapter in which God describes the end of the world and the final judgment of mankind.  It says in Isaiah 24:19-20:

The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly. The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.

Of course, this is similar language to what we read in Revelation 18:21 concerning Babylon and this is additional confirmation that Babylon is representative of the earth – it is all the nations of the world.  Also, we read similar things in Jeremiah, chapter 25, where God speaks of the cup of His wrath that He first gave to the city called by His name (Jerusalem or Judah) and then He turns His attention to the nations and they also drink of the same cup.  It says in Jeremiah 25:27-29:

Therefore thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith JEHOVAH of hosts, the God of Israel; Drink ye, and be drunken, and spue, and fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send among you. 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.

Again, it is the cup of God’s wrath.  God says, “Drink and you will fall and rise no more.”  How did Revelation 18 start out?  It started out, “Babylon is fallen, is fallen,” and this is exactly what God has in mind.  She is fallen because it is time to drink of the cup of God’s wrath; it is Judgment Day and she will rise no more.  She will not rise in the resurrection of God’s people; she will not rise in the Rapture because only God’s people will rise.  Babylon is fallen and will never rise again.  It is the end for the unsaved individuals of this world.

Let us go back and read again Revelation 18:21:

And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.

Again, the word “thrown down” is the same word as “removed,” where the Lord speaks of the mountain that is removed and cast into the sea in Matthew 21.  Babylon is thrown down, but the Lord says, “Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down,” and when we look up the word “violence” we find a related word that is used three times.  It is Strong’s #3729 and we will read two of the three times it is used.  It says in Matthew 8:31-34:

So the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine. And he said unto them, Go. And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine: and, behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters. And they that kept them fled, and went their ways into the city, and told every thing, and what was befallen to the possessed of the devils. And, behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus: and when they saw him, they besought him that he would depart out of their coasts.

This happened when Christ healed a man possessed with devils.  Christ cast out the devils and they entered into a herd of swine.  We get a little more information in Mark 5:7-13:

And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not. For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many. And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country. Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them. And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea.

Here, we read again of the man with devils and the devils beseeched Jesus that He not torment them and He cast out the devils and they entered into the swine and ran “violently” down a steep place.  Notice the connection with our verse in Revelation 18:21, where Babylon is thrown down into the sea with “violence,” and, here, the herd of swine run “violently” down into the sea.  So we definitely have a tie-in through this word “violence” or “violently” and it is also a picture of Judgment Day, both in Revelation 18 and here with the herd of swine and the devils or fallen angels.  Their time of final judgment and destruction comes at the end of the world and it is illustrated by this descent into the sea, once they enter into the swine and they are choked in the sea.  The word “choked” is only found one other place and that is in the parable of the man who was forgiven much by his lord.  After his lord forgave him a great debt, but then that same man had a fellow servant that owed him very little and he took him by the throat and said, “Pay me what thou owest.”  That phrase “took the man by the throat” is a translation of the same Greek word “choke.”  The parable illustrated the man’s lack of forgiveness; there was no forgiveness, even though he had been forgiven, but he, in turn, did not show forgiveness to his fellow servant.  God does command us to forgive one another and forebear one another, even as God has forgiven us for Christ’s sake.  So the fact that he took his fellow servant by the throat indicates no forgiveness and, likewise, there is no forgiveness for the devils or fallen angels and they are “choked” in the sea.  There is no salvation for them.  They are under the wrath of God and they are destroyed by the wrath of God for evermore, as it says in Revelation 18:21, “they shall be found no more at all.”

It also says that there were about “two thousand” swine and that is because of the time this historical event was taking place.  I do not know if we can pinpoint the year, but it was between 30 AD and 33 AD when Jesus encountered this man and cast out the Legion of devils into a herd of swine that were nearby and the herd ran “violently” down a steep hill and into the sea.  Can you imagine this happening, if you had owned the swine?  That is why the people came out because this was a huge herd of swine, almost 2,000 in number, and every one of them ran down that steep place and into the sea and were all choked and drowned.  So the sea would have been filled with swine; they would have been everywhere.  The people ought not to have done this, but it may have been out of fear that they beseeched Jesus to move on from their city.  They were terribly frightened.  It was an awful thing to witness and a fearful thing.  It is a tremendous illustration of the final judgment of mankind that would take place about 2,000 years from that point in history (about 30 to 33 AD) during Jesus’ ministry.  Notice how God used the word “about” and He does not tell us the precise number of years, but it is a verse that gives us a general idea of when Judgment Day would be.  May 21, 2011 qualifies because it is “about 2,000 years” and the year 2015 also qualifies because it is also “about 2,000 years.”  There is another Scripture in the Old Testament where God uses the very same number and the same “qualifier,” when He says, “about two thousand years.”  It is in Joshua, chapter 3, and this actually confirms the account of the swine because of the setting and context.  In both cases, they indicate a final judgment from the time of Christ’s ministry.  How could God do that in the Old Testament?  We know Jesus was present when the swine ran down into the sea, but how could God indicate Christ’s ministry in the Old Testament?  It says in Joshua 3:3-4:

And they commanded the people, saying, When ye see the ark of the covenant of JEHOVAH your God, and the priests the Levites bearing it, then ye shall remove from your place, and go after it. Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure: come not near unto it, that ye may know the way by which ye must go: for ye have not passed this way heretofore.

God is speaking to Israel as they are about to cross the river Jordan into the promised land of Canaan and the water typifies the wrath of  God that they must cross before they can make it to the land of Canaan, a picture of heaven.  It is just like the Red Sea when they had to cross through the water to get to the other side in order to get to heaven, spiritually, in that historical parable, as  God parted the Red Sea.  Here, God parted the river Jordan and the waters stood up in order that the Israelites could cross over on dry ground and the ark went before them.  The Ark of the Covenant is a picture of Christ.  The priests carried the ark into the Jordan and as soon as their feet touched the river Jordan the water begins to stand up.  Let us read what happened in Joshua 3:15-17:

And as they that bare the ark were come unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped in the brim of the water, (for Jordan overfloweth all his banks all the time of harvest,) That the waters which came down from above stood and rose up upon an heap very far from the city Adam, that is beside Zaretan: and those that came down toward the sea of the plain, even the salt sea, failed, and were cut off: and the people passed over right against Jericho. And the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of JEHOVAH stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean over Jordan.

The ark went first and once the feet of the priests touched the brim of the water, the water stood and rose up.  Normally, the water of a river flows downward; it is not like a sea that churns back and forth and must be parted.  God just stopped the flow of the water, causing the water that was flowing down to stand up.  Then He miraculously created dry ground; it certainly should have been wet or muddy, but it was dry, allowing Israel to pass over.  There was a space of “about two thousand cubits” from the point of the priests’ entry.  Once the waters stood up and became dry, then Israel began to move and they would have had to pass the ark and the priests that were bearing the ark.  The people would have passed by them and gone on to the other side of the river.  One of the important things about this is that they were located “about two thousand cubits” behind the ark.  To put it another way, Christ entered into the world to make manifest what He had done from the foundation of the world and then He went to the cross and it was a vivid picture of Him being under the wrath of God.  Just as the people crossed Jordan after the ark entered, it was necessary for Christ to go first, typified by the ark, in order that the waters not drown the Israelites and to make a “way” for them.  So Christ did go first in that manifestation in 33 AD and “about two thousand years” later, we have the dates May 21, 2011, the beginning of Judgment day, and October 7, 2015 (if we are correct)  is the completion of Judgment Day when all spiritual Israel (the elect) will have crossed over into the new heaven and new earth.   So it will be “about two thousand” years for all the elect to pass over, once Christ made the way.

By the way, I just want to point this out because sometimes people wonder what Mr. Camping would think about us developing a timeline from the “1,600 furlongs,” where it says in Revelation 14:20 that the blood came out of the winepress “by the space of sixteen hundred furlongs.”  Here, God says, “Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure,” and in Psalm 39, the same word “measure” is found in Psalm 39:4:

JEHOVAH, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am.

Here, God ties together a “measure” with the “end.”  He says, “Make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days.”   God is using a word that relates to measurement and it is the identical Greek word that is translated as “space” here, where it says, “a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure.”  Cubits are not time like days or months or years, but it is a measurement.  You could go the space of two thousand cubits and you could “measure” that out.  Yet, in Psalm 39:4 God connects “knowing my end” with the “measure of my days.”  He connects time with measurement.

Mr. Camping, in his Bible studies, was the one that had pointed out that “about two thousand swine” related to “about two thousand years” from the time of Christ.  He also pointed out that “about two thousand” cubits tied in to “about two thousand” years.  So, in his Bible studies he had already discovered this same thing.  Yes, you can Biblically do this.  It is the Bible and it is how God hides things in His Word.  He is able to use three branches and relate it to three days, as He did in the Book of Genesis.  He can also take a measurement like cubits and relate it to years or He can take 1,600 furlongs and relate it to 1,600 days.