Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #9 of Revelation, chapter 18, and we are continuing to look at Revelation 18:4:

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.

Once, again, this is describing God’s judgment on Babylon and the fall of Babylon.  God is speaking to His elect people, those that were saved out of the Great Tribulation all over the earth.  He is commanding them, “Come out of her, my people.”  This has application to the time leading up to May 21, 2011, because that is when God was still saving; whenever a person became saved, they had previously been in the kingdom of Satan and they were translated out of the darkness and into the light or into the kingdom of God’s dear Son.  Therefore, they came out of the darkness and out of Babylon, the kingdom of Satan, and they were then citizens of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ and of God; they never went anywhere, physically and they did not leave the world.  They did not go into heaven, except in the Person of Christ, because at the point of salvation we are lifted up into heavenly places to be seated in Christ Jesus and that is where our citizenship is and we have that heavenly citizenship.  Yet, we remain on this earth until we die or until God takes us out of this world.  That is what happened to all of God’s people that were taken out of Babylon, spiritually, in salvation.

There is another aspect to this as God saved that great multitude outside of the churches and congregations during the “little season” or the second part of the Great Tribulation called the Latter Rain.  He saved people in Muslim lands and He saved people of other religions and of “no religion.”  He saved people in faraway places that may have had no Bibles.  He saved them through a billboard or through a tract and then they went on their way.  It only takes a Word from the Bible, the living Word of God, to create a new heart.  So if they were one of His elect, God would have saved them through the hearing of His Word. 

But what about the “follow up”?  The church age was over; God did not want them in the churches and there was no direction from God to go to the churches, so these people had no ability to follow up with that information by going to a church, which had been typical during the church age.  Instead of churches, they would have had mosques that were in their cities or towns, as in the Muslim religion, so they could not “follow up” there with what they had heard of God’s Word.  So where were they to follow up?  That is one of the reasons that God says, “Feed my sheep.” 

Also, as we bring the Word of God and the Bible is declaring the news that it is Judgment Day and the world is soon to end, God is speaking to the people He has saved located in all the nations of the world and, therefore, in the sense that Babylon is the nations of the world, they could still be located in the physical nations of the world and God is saying, “Come, my people,” as He has given them “ears to hear” and He is calling them through His Word and the news that Babylon is fallen and that judgment is on the world.  He is saying, “Come out of her.  It is time for you to live as a child of God.”  That can also be a part of this command, but it primarily relates to salvation as God pictures the deliverance of the entire company of elect at the time of Babylon’s fall, because it was also the time of deliverance for the people of God.  Historically, at the point of Babylon’s fall at the hands of the Medes and Persians, it brought about a deliverance of the Jewish captives.

Let us look at some of the language that speaks of God’s command to the Jews to flee out of Babylon.  It says in Jeremiah, chapter 51:6:

Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul…

Right away, God is making a connection between “fleeing Babylon” and “delivering your soul,” because it relates to salvation.

It goes on to say in Jeremiah 51:6-8:

…be not cut off in her iniquity; for this is the time of JEHOVAH'S vengeance; he will render unto her a recompence. Babylon hath been a golden cup in JEHOVAH'S hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad. Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed: howl for her; take balm for her pain, if so be she may be healed.

Again, God inserts the command to flee Babylon in the context of Babylon’s fall.  Historically, we know that occurred at the end of seventy years.  Spiritually, it occurred at the end of the 23-year Great Tribulation period which ended on May 21, 2011.  At that point, they were to be delivered from Babylon and to “deliver every man his soul.” 

Also, in Jeremiah, chapter 51, it says of the fall of Babylon in Jeremiah 51:44-45:

And I will punish Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he hath swallowed up: and the nations shall not flow together any more unto him: yea, the wall of Babylon shall fall. My people, go ye out of the midst of her, and deliver ye every man his soul from the fierce anger of JEHOVAH.

This basically repeats the earlier commandment in Jeremiah 51: “Flee out of the midst of Babylon.”   You must flee Babylon or experience the wrath of God.   Of course, if God did not grant you His salvation (the only way to deliver your soul) before He shut the door of heaven, then when the Tribulation ended, you would have been a part of Babylon, the kingdom of Satan, and you would experience the fierce anger of God in the Day of Judgment.

Also, in the Old Testament, it says in Zechariah 2:6-9:

Ho, ho, come forth, and flee from the land of the north, saith JEHOVAH: for I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the heaven, saith JEHOVAH. Deliver thyself, O Zion, that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon. For thus saith the LORD of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye. For, behold, I will shake mine hand upon them, and they shall be a spoil to their servants: and ye shall know that JEHOVAH of hosts hath sent me.

Here, the information is to go forth from Babylon and “Deliver thyself, O Zion, that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon.”  Then He says that those that spoil you will be spoiled and that is also consistent with other things we have seen concerning God’s judgment on Babylon for daring to put forth their hand against God’s anointed, the churches and congregations.  So God brings His vengeance for the destruction of His temple.  That is why He is judging the world, Satan’s kingdom.

There is one other place we find information in Isaiah, chapter 48.  We have looked at this before, but not in the light of our verse in Revelation 18.  It says in Isaiah 48:20:

Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans…

We see that these verses have in common a command to “come out,” which God says in Revelation 18 when He says, “Come out of her, my people.”

Again, it says in Isaiah 48:20:

Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth; say ye, JEHOVAH hath redeemed his servant Jacob.

So there is seen together the command to flee Babylon and the language of redemption concerning Jacob, which typifies the elect.  As God mentions in other places to “deliver thy soul,” the going forth from Babylon involves the redemption of Jacob or of God’s elect.  It is the same thing, spiritually.  It is the point at which God saves a sinner and “delivers his soul” in redemption.

I would encourage anyone to carefully look at these verses I am going to read in Isaiah, chapter 48.  We just looked at Isaiah 48:20, which said to flee from the Chaldeans (Babylon) and that took place in 539 BC, historically.  It was long ago from our perspective, but that is the historical date that would agree with the command to come out from Babylon.  Then look at what it says in Isaiah 48:21:

And they thirsted not when he led them through the deserts: he caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them: he clave the rock also, and the waters gushed out.

Did that happen when the Jews came out of Babylon?  We can read about it in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah and, perhaps, in 2Chronicles.  Do we read of that taking place anywhere?   No.  We do not read anything about wandering in the wilderness and then drinking of water out of a rock.  Where is that kind of language found?  It is language that is involved with the coming out of Egypt, not the coming out of Babylon.  It occurred when the Jews were in Egypt and servants of Pharaoh, just as the Jews were captives in Babylon and servants of the king of Babylon.  Spiritually, we know that Pharaoh and the king of Babylon point to the same evil being, Satan.  The Pharaoh is a type of Satan and the king of Babylon is also a type of Satan.  The captivity of the Jews in Egypt and the captivity of the Jews in Babylon also point to the same spiritual picture and that is to be held in the kingdom of the “evil one,” which would identify with being in spiritual darkness. 

Then God brings great deliverance to the Jews in Egypt through Moses and the plagues God brought upon Egypt.  He wrought deliverance for His people and brought them out with a high hand and they crossed the Red Sea in a glorious fashion.  They then began to wander in the wilderness due to their unfaithfulness and their murmurings and their failure to obey God when He told them to enter into the Promised Land.  Instead, they received the evil report of the twelve spies that reported that they could not overcome the peoples of that land.  Then God judged them and tested them.  Some people say that the number “forty” has nothing to do with judgment.  But when God judged Israel, He said that for the forty days they had searched out the land, they would wander in the wilderness a year for each day for judgment against them.  It was a judgment and a severe time of testing for the people of God and they would wander in the wilderness for forty years.

It was during that time that God commanded Moses to strike the rock and water gushed out of the rock to give drink to the congregation of Israel, which may have numbered as many as two million people.  God also uses the spiritual picture of the kingdom of Babylon as the kingdom of Satan and the coming out of Babylon as the deliverance from the captivity to sin and Satan.  The deliverance that took place on May 21, 2011 was the final deliverance of all of God’s elect out of spiritual bondage.  All of God’s people then entered into this time period, not after 40 years of wandering, but after 1,600 days, the very likely duration of Judgment Day, which breaks down to “40 x 40.”  It is a time of judgment on the unsaved and a time of severe testing for the true believers.

So we have these very similar occurrences between the coming of God’s people out of Egypt and the coming of the Jews out of Babylon, which points spiritually to what took place on May 21, 2011, when God completed His salvation program and completed the deliverance of all spiritual Israel out of the kingdom of Satan.  They were all delivered and that is why God is joining the two great deliverances together in Isaiah 48, verses 20 and 21, the deliverance of Babylon and the deliverance of Egypt.  He is speaking of them as if it was one and the same deliverance.  He speaks as if the Jews did wander in a wilderness and drank from a rock when they came out of Babylon, but, spiritually, this did take place at the end of the world at the time of the end of God’s salvation program.  This took place, spiritually, at the end of the Great Tribulation on May 21, 2011.  That is the point of the final deliverance of God’s people out of the kingdom of Satan.  This is what the Lord is hearkening back to in our verse in Revelation 18:4:

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.

If you would not become saved, then you would be a partaker of Babylon’s sins.  The Greek word translated as “partaker” is Strong’s #4790 and it is also translated as “fellowship” in Ephesians 5.  The word is not translated as “partaker” anywhere else.  It says in Ephesians 5:11:

And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

That is what God is saying to His people when He says, “Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins,” or do not have fellowship with her sins.  It also says, “and that ye receive not of her plagues.”  If a person is not saved, they are still in Babylon and they are still subject to the penalty of God’s wrath for their sins and, therefore, they will receive the plagues, which represent the wrath of God.  There are no actual plagues taking place.  There are not actual plagues like those that came upon Egypt when God delivered His people.  There were no actual physical plagues upon the churches, but the language of the actual plagues (the darkened sun, the dried up waters or waters turned to blood) indicate the wrath of God and the judgment upon the unsaved.  That is what God is saying here; if you were not saved and translated out of Babylon, Satan’s kingdom, into the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, then you will partake of Babylon’s sins and you will, likewise, partake of her plagues.  It is the severe judgment of God upon this world, which are the “shut door” of heaven, the putting out of the light of the Gospel and the drying up of the Gospel waters, and so forth.  That is the nature of the judgment and the wrath that is being poured out upon you personally, if you are not a child of God.