Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #6 of Revelation, chapter 18, and we are going to read Revelation 18:2:

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.

As I mentioned in our last study, the word “hold” and the word “cage” are a translation of the same Greek word that is also translated as “prison.”  We went to Matthew 5, verses 25 and 26, and we went to Luke 12, verses 58 and 59, and we saw how God uses that word, Strong’s #5348, to point to a prison that has to do with making payment for sin.  In the passages I just mentioned, the Lord likens Himself to an adversary and it said in Matthew 5:25-26:

Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.

So “prison” is a place where penalty is exacted and that is what Judgment Day is, as God punishes the unsaved of the world.  Why is God punishing the unsaved?  It is because they have transgressed the Law of God and the Bible declares that when you break the Law of God, the wages of sin is death.  The penalty is death, so God brought judgment upon the world on May 21, 2011 and when He shut the door of heaven and ended His salvation program, He brought the world into a condition of death.  The unsaved people of the world, for all intents and purposes, were slain on that day, at the beginning point of Judgment Day and throughout this period of time.  Their spiritual condition cannot change and that is what God tells us in Revelation 22:11:

He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still…

What this means is that the unsaved will be “unsaved still.”  They were “killed” by that action because it guaranteed they would be destroyed; they will remain spiritually slain until God literally destroys them at the conclusion of this long Day of Judgment.   So the unsaved of the world have been brought into this “prison” where God is carrying out the penalty which the Law of God demands.  He is bringing the cup of His wrath and punishing the unsaved inhabitants of the earth.  This is part of the reason that God says that upon Babylon’s fall, it “is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.”  The words “hold” and “cage” are the word “prison.” 

Just as those words are a translation of the same Greek word, so, too, are the words “foul” and “unclean.”  The Greek word is normally translated as “unclean,” and it is Strong’s #169.  Let us look at a few places this word is used.  It says in Matthew 10:1:

And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.

Then let us go to Mark 1:23-27:

And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out, Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the unclean spirit had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him. And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing is this? what new doctrine is this? for with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him.

In healing the man with the unclean spirit, Jesus was giving an illustration of salvation, like all the healings Christ did as He would grant sight to the blind or ears to the deaf or a mouth to the dumb.  They all typified salvation.  Casting out “unclean” spirits is a picture of salvation. 

It says in Mark 5:2:

And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit,

Then it goes on to say in Mark 5:8:

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.

Again, this is another illustration of salvation as this man is cleansed of these “unclean” spirits and then he follows the Lord.  When a man is in his sins, it is as though he is possessed of an “unclean” spirit.  Salvation does cast out an “unclean” spirit because God gives the one He saved a new heart and a new spirit, so the spiritually dead soul is resurrected and we have a living soul and the Spirit of God within us, so this is actually a very good illustration when God speaks of “unclean” spirits as typifying the unsaved.

It says in Mark 9:20-25:

And they brought him unto him: and when he saw him, straightway the spirit tare him; and he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming. And he asked his father, How long is it ago since this came unto him? And he said, Of a child. And ofttimes it hath cast him into the fire, and into the waters, to destroy him: but if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us. Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit…

Remember that this same Greek word can be translated as “foul,” but it can also be translated as “unclean.”  Here, it is in verse 25 of Mark, chapter 9, it is translated as “foul” spirit.  Then it goes on to say in Mark 9:25-27:

… saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him. And the spirit cried, and rent him sore, and came out of him: and he was as one dead; insomuch that many said, He is dead. But Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up; and he arose.

Here, we have a young man with an “unclean” spirit rising as though from the dead.  This is a little more detailed spiritual picture, as this young boy was his father’s only son, so in a way, it points to Christ.  But it is still an illustration of someone with an “unclean” spirit that rises to life and it is a picture of salvation.

It says in Ephesians 5:5:

For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

So to have an “unclean” spirit cast out points to salvation, but what if the “unclean” spirit is not cast out?  Then you would remain “unclean,” or as it is said in Revelation 22:11, you would remain unjust and filthy.  What God has done in our verse in Revelation 18:2 is that at the point of Babylon’s fall, which occurred at the end of the Great Tribulation on May 21, 2011, Judgment Day began and Babylon became the habitation of devils and the “hold” or “prison” of every foul spirit and the cage or “prison” of every unclean and hateful bird.  This world has been turned into a prison in which God the righteous Judge has cast those that could “not agree with the adversary” because they had no Saviour and Christ had not paid for their sins.  They will have to pay the uttermost farthing or the last mite, as they are cast into the prison of the wrath of God.

By the way, remember how God spoke of Satan’s binding when he was bound at the cross?  It said in Revelation 20:2-3:

And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.

The “bottomless pit” is like a prison and it is language that God uses in Revelation, chapter 9 and other places to speak of the condition of “hell.”  Satan was in the condition of “hell” and he was in a “prison.”  He was laid hold of and bound and held in that bottomless pit for the figure of a thousand years.  We know it was like a prison because it says in Revelation 20:7:

And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,

The word “prison” is the same word translated as “hold” or “cage.”  This means that Satan was punished at the cross.  It was a form of punishment to be bound, although it was not the completion of punishment upon him.  He was held prisoner for a “thousand years,” which pointed to the completeness of that particular judgment upon him, but there is more judgment upon Satan, which will include his final destruction.  But that particular sentence upon Satan was a figurative “thousand years,” just as it appears that God has set a 10,000-day sentence on the unsaved inhabitants of the world.  The majority of this sentence had to do with those that were called by His name, as judgment began at the house of God and lasted for 8,400 days, but then God expanded the judgment to include the entire world.  There is a strong likelihood that at the end of this 1,600-day period (on the 10,000^th overall day) God will have completed the judgment upon the unsaved inhabitants of the earth.  It would include the unsaved in the churches and all the unsaved of the world.  In a figurative sense, it is as though they have been placed in “prison” under the condition of “hell” until the completeness of the sentence.  The sentence goes for 10,000 days.  God also uses the 1,600 final days, which breaks down to “40 x 40.”  Remember how God speaks of a judge administering stripes in the Book of Deuteronomy, chapter 25.  It said in Deuteronomy 25:1-3:

If there be a controversy between men, and they come unto judgment, that the judges may judge them; then they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked. And it shall be, if the wicked man be worthy to be beaten, that the judge shall cause him to lie down, and to be beaten before his face, according to his fault, by a certain number. Forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed: lest, if he should exceed, and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother should seem vile unto thee.

Just as 10,000 days points to the completeness of judgment, the Lord has also set a limit to the degree of wrath that can be meted out.  You cannot exceed “forty stripes,” and God does speak of Judgment Day as the time when those that had identification with Him by being in the churches receive many stripes and those that had no identification with Him receive few stripes.  The stripes point to the wrath of God being applied to the unsaved of the earth.  When we have a number like “1,600” to represent the duration of Judgment Day and within that number is the breakdown of “40 x 40,” it appears God has taken great care not to go beyond “40,” as this would be the “utmost” of 40 or “40 x 40.”  Of course, this is just a type and figure, but it is as though God is emphasizing that His wrath is not going beyond “40,” so the “1,600” also represents the severest penalty that God could justly administer, as God is very concerned with justice.  That is why Romans 2:5 speaks of the “righteous revelation of the judgment of God.”  It is the righteous revelation of God’s judgment and His judgment is carried out to the furthest point of the Law but it does not exceed the Law.  It must be in perfect accord with the Law of God, but it is the fullness of the penalty of God’s wrath.

God speaks of Babylon, which is fallen, and He says it has “become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.”  Why does God say that?  We understand that man is “unclean” and every unclean individual shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven.  Man, in his sin, is certainly unclean, so we understand that man has an “unclean” spirit that desperately needed salvation, but now it is Judgment Day and the day of salvation has ended and all those that are unclean will remain unclean. 

But why does God speak of “every unclean and hateful bird”?  We have to remember that this is the Bible and God has set a pattern in the Old Testament.  We have talked about this before, but theologians call it “Hebrew parallelism,” and this is when God makes a statement and then He slightly rewords it; the first part of a verse will make a statement and the second part of the verse will say the same thing in slightly different language.  It appears that is what God has done here and that is why He used the same word translated as “hold” and “cage,” but it is the word for “prison.”  It is the same case with the words “unclean” and “foul.”  So it could say that Babylon is the “prison” of every foul spirit and the “prison of every unclean and hateful bird.  Just as “foul” spirit points to unsaved mankind, so, too, do the “unclean” and hateful birds. 

How can we show that?   Let us go back to Leviticus, chapter 11, where God speaks of unclean birds.  It says in Leviticus 11:13-17:

And these are they which ye shall have in abomination among the fowls; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray, And the vulture, and the kite after his kind; Every raven after his kind; And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind, And the little owl, and the cormorant, and the great owl…

Then it goes on to list several more birds.  Here, God speaks of these as “unclean” birds, so we have similar language to our verse in Revelation 18:2: “every unclean and hateful bird.”  The word “hateful” has been added, but we have unclean birds mentioned in our verse. 

If you remember in Acts, chapter 11, God revealed to Peter that the Gentiles were to be partakers of the Gospel, just like the Jews.  There was no difference as “God is no respector of persons” and He could save either people and God showed this to Peter by giving him a vision of “unclean” animals.  It says in Acts 11:5-9:

I was in the city of Joppa praying: and in a trance I saw a vision, A certain vessel descend, as it had been a great sheet, let down from heaven by four corners; and it came even to me: Upon the which when I had fastened mine eyes, I considered, and saw fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. And I heard a voice saying unto me, Arise, Peter; slay and eat. But I said, Not so, Lord: for nothing common or unclean hath at any time entered into my mouth. But the voice answered me again from heaven, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.

So the “unclean” animals including “fowls of the air” represented the Gentiles or the people of the nations of the world.  They were also to hear the Gospel and the Gospel was not to be held back from them.  We can see that as God speaks of Babylon, a representation of this world, and He says it is the time of the fall of Babylon (the Day of Judgment) and it becomes a prison for every foul spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird.   As we see in Acts 11, unclean birds can represent unclean men, the people of the world.  That explains why it is a “hateful bird,” because that is unsaved man’s attitude toward God, God’s Word and the people of God.  They hate the kingdom of heaven in all of its aspects.  That is why the Bible says, “Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.”  The “unclean and hateful bird” is pointing to the unsaved inhabitants of the earth and that also helps us to understand Isaiah 13, which we looked at previously, and Isaiah 34.  These are chapters in which the judgment upon the world is laid out and in both cases it speaks of the wrath of God and it says, for instance, in Isaiah 34:8:

For it is the day of the JEHOVAH'S vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion.

Then it leads into these statements in Isaiah 34:10-11:

It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever. But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it: and he shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness.

Then it says in Isaiah 34:13:

… and it shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls.

It says in Isaiah 34:15:

There shall the great owl make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and gather under her shadow: there shall the vultures also be gathered, every one with her mate.

Every “unclean and hateful bird” dwells in the world under the judgment of God.  It is Judgment Day upon the unsaved and unclean in spirit.