The Christ in Prophecy Journal

The Mighty Angels of Revelation 18 and the Weeping Merchants

MP3: The Mighty Angels of Revelation 18
Hosts: Nathan Jones & Vic Batista

The Weeping Merchants

Revelation 18:8 reveals the Voice calling out of Heaven with the sentence of destruction for the Antichrist’s empire of Babylon: “Therefore her plagues will come in one day — death and mourning and famine. And she will be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judges her.”

We are reading about the final destruction of the Antichrist’s political and economic system. The text uses the word “utterly.” Utterly means nothing is left, right?

Nathan Jones: Correct! God destroys the Antichrist’s kingdom in its entirety. He destroys it in just one day. God uses fire as the method, and He does so by His own hand. Maybe we are talking about a big flaming comet, or meteor, or fire from Heaven that will come crashing down on the Antichrist’s capital city. We can only speculate on how the fire works. But, by the end of the Tribulation, people will be used to seeing supernatural disasters.

Satan and the Antichrist think they are so powerful that they’re untouchable, and yet God humiliates them by destroying their strength in merely one day. In just one day the Antichrist’s empire will be made no more!

In just one day the #Antichrist's empire will be made no more! #Revelation Click To Tweet

Babylon’s destruction reminds me of Damascus, which years earlier will have been destroyed. As Isaiah 17 and Jeremiah 49 prophesies. in one evening the capital of Syria will be destroyed by Israel. Like Damascus, the world will witness the Antichrist’s kingdom being destroyed in just one day. All that the Antichrist will have left is his army, and at this stage of the Tribulation it will have been readied to wage war at the Battle of Armageddon.

Vic Batista: God is a righteous God and He will judge people for their wickedness and sins. What does God have to say about the nations’ reaction to Him destroying Babylon?

Nathan Jones: Revelation 18:9 and following goes on and on with the lamenting over the destruction of Babylon. The people who have sworn allegiance to the Antichrist across the earth will weep and wail because of the destruction of their income. All of their money will be gone. As verse 9 explains, “The kings of the earth who committed fornication and lived luxuriously with her will weep and lament for her when they see the smoke of her burning.”

In verse 10 they will cry while “standing at a distance for fear of her torment, saying, ‘Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! For in one hour your judgment has come.'” The Lord destroys seven years of the Antichrist’s hard work in empire-building, not in a day, but in just one hour!

Verse 11 goes on to say “the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her, for no one buys their merchandise anymore.” Then verses 12-14 give a long list of all the goods that no longer will be available: the money, the oil, the wine, the wheat, the shipping, and also the sale of the bodies and souls of men. That means slavery will return again during the Tribulation.

All those loyal merchants of the Antichrist will cry out that all the wealth of the world that came through Babylon will be gone forever. By verse 18 they “cried out when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, ‘What is like this great city?'” Verse 19 tells us that the merchants “threw dust on their heads and cried out, weeping and wailing, and saying, ‘Alas, alas, that great city, in which all who had ships on the sea became rich by her wealth! For in one hour she is made desolate.'”

The Rejoicing Prophets

Nathan Jones: In verse 20 a contrast is made to the weeping merchants: “Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you holy apostles and prophets, for God has avenged you on her!”

Vic Batista: What an excellent exhortation! All those people who put their trust in a false god are proven false, because in just one hour Babylon will all be destroyed.

Heaven rejoices! “You holy apostles and prophets, for God has avenged you.” God doesn’t forget all the evil that’s happening. God is not blindsided by the corruption of this world. Justice will come! The Voice says to those who trust in Him to rejoice because the time will come when true justice is going to be metered out in this world.

#God is not blindsided by the corruption of this world. #Justice will come! Click To Tweet

Nathan Jones: True justice. Finally! I am so tired of corrupt, fallible “justice” that seems to favor legal loopholes, lets criminals go free, and allows evil people to flourish. By the end of the Tribulation time period, all evil will finally be put down by God Himself. Praise the Lord!

Vic Batista: There is always hope in the future for those who turn to Jesus Christ. They have security in the future because they possess the promise of eternal life with Jesus Christ.

For more information on Babylon described in Revelation 17-18, I recommend the book by Tim LaHaye titled Charting the End Times. In his book, Dr. LaHaye highlights the seven dooms of Babylon. He shows how doom number one will be Babylon made devoid of all human life. The second doom has Babylon burned with fire. The third doom is how Babylon will be destroyed in one hour. The fourth doom has the inhabitants afraid to enter her borders. The fifth doom shows Babylon’s riches are brought to nothing. With the sixth doom Babylon is violently overthrown, and by the seventh doom all activity in Babylon has ceased.

Nathan Jones: Christ’s victory over the Antichrist’s kingdom should give people today great hope that even in this dark time we can know that God is the ultimate victor. We can then wait expectantly, hopefully, and prayerfully for that inevitable victory that we will all share in one day soon.

In the fifty-third segment of our series “The Mighty Angels of Revelation,” we will watch Babylon writhe in her death throws!

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ABOUT AUTHOR View all posts Author Website

Dr. Nathan E. Jones

As the Internet Evangelist at Lamb & Lion Ministries, Nathan reaches out to the over 4.5 billion people accessible over the Internet with the Good News of Jesus Christ. He also co-hosts the ministry's television program Christ in Prophecy and podcast The Truth Will Set You Free.

2 CommentsLeave a Comment

    • l believe that there is a “:Babylon” connection to the internet. I have this constant thought that just about everything would come to a standstill on this planet by the destruction of the Internet, which I am led to understand would happen if all the satellites failed for any reason! T he world’s merchants sure would have something to weep and wail and throw dust on themselves for! All the satellites could probably be destroyed with modern know how even now. It could easily be destroyed in an hour! Am I on the right track; could this be a part of the destruction scenario described in Revelation?

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