Babylon the Great, Fallen

“When they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.” 1Thess. 5:3.

As I look around, while I stay with my sister in her Washington, DC suburbia home, I see construction abounding. Cranes have moved from the inner city and commercially oriented Arlington to her once largely single-family home residential town, and way beyond, in all directions. They tower above the low landscape, a symbol of the progress of human endeavor. They also fitly symbolize the same progress happening throughout the country and around the world. Millions of people flowing from the countryside into the cities for their share of success in this life.

Materialism, the curse of the family unit, is taking over; pastoral patriarchy is stepping aside for the fast-paced, city life. Babylon is rising from the ashes. The thirst for wealth and possessions, the competition for promotion, the forgetfulness of God, all displace the self-sacrificing love required to lay a solid emotional foundation and build up a strong family. American families are in havoc, even if they look healthy. Where is the deep-seated trust that strengthens a society and a nation, far beyond the casual imitation represented on the television? Where is the consecrated sentiments that say, “Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge:...where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me?” Ruth 1:16,17.

Ours is a civilization of half-heartedness, a proud, “moral” society. We’ve tasted the wares of success and now it controls us. The good life has an unflinching grip on our hearts, displacing the deepest need for love. Our desires are a function of selfishness: I demand that money because I am entitled to it; I deserve to be treated good; what’s mine is mine because I worked hard for it; I demand my rights, because it’s only fair; “spoil yourself for once!” Humility and self-sacrifice give way to a looming image of self, rising to take its place.

“Thy riches, and thy fairs, thy merchandise, thy mariners, and thy pilots, thy calkers, and the occupiers of thy merchandise, and all thy men of war, that are in thee, and in all thy company which is in the midst of thee, shall fall into the midst of the seas in the day of thy ruin. The suburbs shall shake at the sound of the cry of thy pilots.” Ez. 27:27,28.

So, the day comes and hastens quickly, when this sprawling Babylon all crumbles to the ground. Not because of small scale terrorism, but because the Lord cries, “It is enough!” Long will He have worked to get humanity’s attention. Great will have been the effort to bring them to confession and broken heartedness and surrender to Him. “How can I let thee go? How can I give thee up? Why will you die?” has gripped His heart and motivated all His discipline toward a race ruining itself.

But He will do nothing until He has made a final call to escape her destruction. “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 the cage of every unclean and hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.” Rev. 18:1-5.

Not until the very last honest soul detaches his loyalty and leaves her, will her destruction fall. Then with the fierceness of a sudden, torrential downpour Jesus will come and bring an end to Satan’s daring Him to demolish this place. He will utterly destroy the wicked, not because of Satan’s dare, but because they wholly refuse to hear His call and be prepared for the kingdom to come. Sin must come to an end. Yet it is a strange act for the Lord to do this, because it is out of His normal character, that of mercy that endures forever, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Nevertheless, the day of destruction comes upon the world like a thief in the night.

“And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent.” Rev. 16:21. Jesus returns to save His people whose lives at that time are endangered by the wicked. As He approaches, myriads of meteors and meteorites, in that asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, will be corralled and pushed ahead of His heavenly retinue. For many years, loose, very large cosmic debris have been on collision courses with our planet, but all have mysteriously barely missed us. They should have already damaged Earth long ago were it not for God’s protection. Yet the generations living on Earth care not, nor thank God and return to Him, even though they know how close those meteors have come to us. Now they have gone beyond the point of God’s mercy by determining the death of Christ’s servants who gave the last message of the good news of His coming kingdom and provided the invitation to repentance necessary to receive it.

That day will be like none anyone can imagine. Satan himself will fear for his existence. No amount of ballistic missiles can stand off the armory from space, and stop its devastation. Millions of burning balls of magma pound the earth. Like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, all the skyscrapers reap a destruction that 9/11 gave only the smallest taste. Mansions and wealthy homes, magnet schools and university complexes, crowded streets and lots full of expensive new cars, shopping centers and malls, everything is pummeled to the ground in searing heat. The largest mega-bombs that pounded Afghanistan don’t compare to the noise and quaking of each screaming stone from the sky; nuclear detonations don’t compare to the force and heat generated. People run for protection into the basements of buildings, only to be entombed. Caves are not even safe, for many meteors in space are the size of mountains, some the size of states. There will be no safety for those who have shaken their fist at God and flipped Him off.

“Turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemning them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly.” 2 Pet.2:6. Today we can see the remains of those cities at the base of Mt. Masada, in Israel. Their heaps of what once were walls have a layered, convoluted look, as the intense heating of the brimstone coagulated and quasi-liquefied the stone buildings. Today the ashy powder of those walls, pock-marked with still-existent sulfur pellets, testifies of the coming destruction.

“Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” Matt. 24:29-31. Among the falling flames of burning asteriods, Jesus’ brilliant angels swoop down to gather His people. Many of the wicked are death-stricken at the sight of the army of heaven about which they had jeered and ridiculed.

“The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.” 2Pet. 3:10-13.