Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #3 of Revelation, chapter 18, and we are going to be reading 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.
I will stop reading there. Last time we were discussing Christ’s “glory.” The Bible speaks of Christ coming in judgment and sitting on his throne of glory. He comes with His saints or holy messengers.
We also discussed the term “loud voice” which is “megas-phone” in the Greek and how these words often introduce Judgment Day. This is what is going on in these first two verses. The “angel” coming down is Christ and He is coming in power and glory, as we read in Matthew 24:30 and in other places.
Yet, we also read here that at this time of Judgment Day, it says, “the earth was lightened with his glory.” What does that mean? What is God telling us when He says the “earth was lightened”? Let us take a look at this word. It is the Greek word “photizo” and I suppose it is related to our English word “photo.” It is Strong’s #5461 and it is translated as “lighteth” in John 1:9:
That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
This refers to the Lord Jesus Christ. The word “lighteth” is the same word that we see in Revelation 18, verse 1. We can tell from the verse in John, chapter 1, that it is speaking more of a spiritual light than a physical light.
Also, it says in 1Corinthians 4:5:
Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.
Again, the word “light” is more of a spiritual light than a physical light. It is not the light of the sun, but it is light that involves spiritual things.
It says in Ephesians 1:17-18:
That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,
The word “enlightened” is our word in this passage. It says, “The eyes of your understanding being enlightened,” and this is what God does for His people as they read the Bible. He opens up our “eyes” to understand and that is how we come to truth. We are able to see spiritual things and understand parables and their spiritual meanings that God has hidden in His Word as He grants understanding to our minds. It is as though our minds can “see,” but it is all spiritual. Of course, we are not talking about physical light occurring in our minds, but it is spiritual discernment that God gives to His people.
It also says in Ephesians 3:8-9:
Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:
The word translated as “see” in verse 9 is our Greek word “photizo.” God did reveal certain mysteries to the Apostle Paul and he wrote of those mysteries, the hidden truth in the Word of God. To “see” them is to be “enlightened,” as we come to an understanding of what the Bible declares and that is exactly what is in view in our verse at the time of Judgment Day: “The earth was lightened with his glory.” The elect are still living on the earth and will remain until the completion of Judgment Day. God is still opening up His Word and giving progressive revelation. Remember what it said in Romans 2:5 when He is speaking of the day of His wrath and He joins it together with the day of revelation. It says in Romans 2:5:
But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;
The conjunction “and” is used to join together these two ideas. So the day of His wrath is the time He reveals His “righteous judgment.” That is exactly what is happening. We have been learning about the “righteous judgment of God.”
In the days leading up to the Day of Judgment during the Great Tribulation, we learned that there was no place called “Hell” and that, too, related to His “righteous judgment,” but we have learned much more about His judgment since May 21, 2011 when Judgment Day began. We have learned that it is a spiritual judgment on the world, just as it was on the churches. We have learned that it is a time of “no salvation” and that is the primary manner of judgment upon unsaved mankind. We have learned that it was God’s plan to leave His people in the world during that time of judgment and we have learned that God’s people will be severely tried and tested throughout the period of Judgment Day. We have learned that as the people of God go through this time period, they are “making manifest” the judgment they already experienced in Christ from the foundation of the world; that is when the sins of God’s people were paid for as Christ died and made payment for sin. But Christ demonstrated a second time in 33 AD what he had already done in paying for our sins and we are being brought before the judgment seat of Christ in this prolonged Day of Judgment to “make manifest” those things done in Christ from the foundation of the world. We have learned a great many things, most of which were never before understood, regarding Judgment Day.
This is what God is saying in our verse in Revelation 18:1: “The earth is enlightened with his glory.” The eyes of our understanding are enlightened and we see the information in the Bible regarding the time of the end in a much clearer way, due to our vantage point of living in those days after that Tribulation. For instance, now we can map out God’s final judgment program. There was the judgment that began at the house of God which continued to 8,400 days and then transitioned to judgment on the world, which will very likely continue for 1,600 days. This means that now we can “see” the total and complete judgment of 10,000 days of overall judgment. All of this is part of God’s “revelation of the righteous judgment of God,” as He reveals truth to His people according to His timetable. It is not our timetable, but we learn these things in the time He wants us to learn them.
Just think of the information we learned about the Great Tribulation once we were several years into the Great Tribulation. For instance, the Great Tribulation began in 1988, but we learned almost 13 years later in 2001 that the church age had ended 13 years prior to that revelation. God has a timetable for the revealing of truth and often it is after He has already acted. Then we follow along as He opens our understanding. Once we realize what He has already done, then the true believers are put into motion and we take action by God’s Spirit moving within us to will and to do of His good pleasure.
And that is nothing new. Sometimes people say, “Oh, you are only seeing these things after the fact,” and their implication is that it somehow makes the revelation illegitimate. They say, “You should have known there was going to be a spiritual judgment on May 21, 2011 before it happened,” or they say, “You should have known the church age was going to be over before God ended the church age.” But how can we know anything apart from God granting us understanding? God held back information throughout the entire church age; He sealed up His Word until the time of the end and then He gradually opened up information. It is all according to His perfect will and we cannot dispute or argue with Him concerning when He wishes to open up a truth.
I will give an historical example that should quiet those that would say, “You must know these things beforehand.” In the days of the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, Christ told His disciples very directly on a few occasions that He must go to the cross and die and that the Son of man would rise again after three days. But the Bible says that they “understood none of these things.” Also, they had some faulty understanding about the cross; they did not view the cross as a tremendous victory and a great defeat of Satan and a time of triumph for the kingdom of God prior to Christ going to the cross. Remember how dejected the two disciples were as they were on the road to Emmaus? They were cast down: “But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel.” You could hear the disappointment and the sorrow they felt because Christ had died on the cross. They had thought He was the one, but He had died and was in a tomb. Remember how Christ rebuked them? Let us turn to Luke 24:25:
Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
Then it says in Luke 24:31-34:
And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight. And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures? And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them, Saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon.
It was “after the fact.” It was after the crucifixion and after Christ rose from the dead that Jesus encouraged His people by showing them the truth from the Word of God, assuring them that the things had happened according to the prophecy from the Bible; it was all done by the determinate fore counsel of God. Christ’s death on the cross was fulfilling the Father’s will. There had been no defeat, but it was the greatest of victories. It was a tremendous triumph, as Satan was “bound” and cast into a bottomless pit and shut up for a “thousand years,” the duration of the church age, which was 1,955 years and Satan would not be able to conduct himself in the world as he had done previously. It was a tremendous victory, despite how it appeared. It did not look like a victory because Christ had died on the cross, with people reviling Him and the Roman soldiers mocking Him. Everything seemed to indicate that the enemy Satan had won the battle and, yet, God revealed after the fact that it was a victory and from that point on His followers exalted in the cross.
Likewise, on May 21, 2011 the appearance was that all had failed and all had gone wrong. Everything seemed off course. Where was the earthquake? Where was the rapture? But God began to explain to us, just as Christ explained to the disciples, through the Bible and opened the eyes of our understanding. As we are “enlightened” through the Word of God as His Spirit guides us into all truth, we are encouraged. We are comforted. We are strengthened. Then we realized that May 21, 2011 was Judgment Day and it was a time of tremendous triumph and great glory for Jesus Christ and His kingdom. It is really similar to the mistaken way the cross was viewed initially. Then God slowly has been revealing the things He had done and we are greatly encouraged. Through His Word, the people of God are being lifted up from our feeble knees and straight paths are made for our feet. Now we are encouraged to “look up for thy redemption draweth nigh.” We see the “signs in heaven” that Christ has given concerning the coming of the Son of man and the end of the world; the sign is the spiritual darkness that has come upon the earth. That is the sign that Matthew 24 and other passages give us.
Let us go back to Revelation 18:2:
And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen…
Once again, the “strong voice” is “megas-phone.” It is the grand introduction to the Day of Judgment. It is the voice of God, the Word of God, “and the earth was enlightened with his glory.” The enlightenment relates to the introduction of judgment, the time of the end of the world as the final wrath of God is being poured out upon the kingdom of Satan and his kingdom is typified by Babylon and Satan is typified by the king of Babylon. It was a great kingdom. Remember how the king of Babylon, in the Book of Daniel, gloried in the greatness of his kingdom, in his pride and arrogance. Likewise, Satan gloried in the kingdom that he had won through the right of conquest over mankind in the Garden of Eden.
More than that, at the time of the beginning of the Great Tribulation God loosed Satan and his kingdom increased and multiplied in wickedness. When deceit and wickedness multiply, Satan is being paid homage because he is the father of lies, so it was a tremendous time for him in the world and in the churches. The churches and congregations of the world were defeated by him. From the very beginning he had tried to overcome the churches. In Revelation, chapters 2 and 3, we find that when the seven churches in Asia Minor were established, we already find reference to a “synagogue of Satan” and we find reference to emissaries of Satan (Jezebel and others) that had infiltrated into the churches and tares were sown among the wheat for hundreds and hundreds of years. Satan had certain triumphs and he could defeat a local congregation and, at times, he might defeat an entire denomination; if that denomination felt it was superior to the Bible and they usurped authority over the Bible, then the whole denomination would fall to the power of Satan. Yet, Christ was in the midst of the churches, using the churches that remained relatively faithful to the Word of God, especially if they at least recognized the Bible as the Word of God and the final authority. Christ had been in the midst, accomplishing His purposes and Satan could do nothing about it. He could not prevent it.
It was not until 1988, the 13,000th year of earth’s history, when Satan was suddenly loosed from his bounds and he was able to do all he desired to do in destroying the churches; his emissaries were throughout the churches. It had been given to him, as God had abandoned the churches and gave them over to him. The “daily” was taken away and the “abomination of desolation” was set up. Satan took his seat in the temple, showing himself that he is God and Babylon was ruling. Babylon had conquered Judah and Satan, the king of Babylon, ruled over “Judah,” the churches and congregations of the world. The entire corporate church became a part of Babylon, the kingdom of Satan and he, therefore, ruled over many provinces. One of them was “Judah,” or the churches, along with all the other kingdoms of this world. Babylon was all of those things and not just the corporate church, but it included the churches. His kingdom was made up of all the unsaved people of the world, inside and outside of the churches; all were worshipping the king of Babylon, Satan.
At the time of Revelation, chapter 18, it is the time when Babylon would fall: “Babylon is fallen, is fallen.” No longer is it spreading out its wings and no longer is it conquering the nations in a mighty rampage. No longer is it defeating its enemy. That took place during the seventy-year period, historically, and during the Great Tribulation. Satan could not be defeated then because God had willed this to happen. But it was at the end of the seventy years that Babylon fell and it was at the end of the Great Tribulation on May 21, 2011 that was the day of Babylon’s defeat. On that exact day it was the 23rd full year and the exact 8,400th day of the Great Tribulation and it was the end of the period of Babylon’s rise to power and glory. It was the time when Christ took the kingdom. He brought judgment upon Babylon and Babylon fell, spiritually, to Christ, just as, historically, Babylon had fallen to the Medes and the Persians.