"The Book of Revelation, An Eschatological Srudy of the Endtimes", by Chad J. McCoy

Chapter Nine
The Lament of Babylon



Rev.18:1-24: After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor. 2 With a mighty voice he shouted:
"Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!
She has become a home for demons
and a haunt for every evil spirit,
a haunt for every unclean and detestable bird.
3 For all the nations have drunk
the maddening wine of her adulteries.
The kings of the earth committed adultery with her,
and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries."
4 Then I heard another voice from heaven say:
"Come out of her, my people,
so that you will not share in her sins,
so that you will not receive any of her plagues;
5 for her sins are piled up to heaven,
and God has remembered her crimes.
6 Give back to her as she has given;
pay her back double for what she has done.
Mix her a double portion from her own cup.
7 Give her as much torture and grief
as the glory and luxury she gave herself.
In her heart she boasts,
'I sit as queen; I am not a widow,
and I will never mourn.'
8 Therefore in one day her plagues will overtake her:
death, mourning and famine.
She will be consumed by fire,
for mighty is the Lord God who judges her.
9 "When the kings of the earth who committed adultery with her and shared her luxury see the smoke of her burning, they will weep and mourn over her. 10 Terrified at her torment, they will stand far off and cry:
"'Woe! Woe, O great city,
O Babylon, city of power!
In one hour your doom has come!'
11 "The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no one buys their cargoes any more- 12 cargoes of gold, silver, precious stones and pearls; fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet cloth; every sort of citron wood, and articles of every kind made of ivory, costly wood, bronze, iron and marble; 13 cargoes of cinnamon and spice, of incense, myrrh and frankincense, of wine and olive oil, of fine flour and wheat; cattle and sheep; horses and carriages; and bodies and souls of men.
14 "They will say, 'The fruit you longed for is gone from you. All your riches and splendor have vanished, never to be recovered.' 15 The merchants who sold these things and gained their wealth from her will stand far off, terrified at her torment. They will weep and mourn 16 and cry out:
"'Woe! Woe, O great city,
dressed in fine linen, purple and scarlet,
and glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls!
17 In one hour such great wealth has been brought to ruin!'
"Every sea captain, and all who travel by ship, the sailors, and all who earn their living from the sea, will stand far off. 18 When they see the smoke of her burning, they will exclaim, 'Was there ever a city like this great city?' 19 They will throw dust on their heads, and with weeping and mourning cry out:
"'Woe! Woe, O great city,
where all who had ships on the sea
became rich through her wealth!
In one hour she has been brought to ruin!
20 Rejoice over her, O heaven!
Rejoice, saints and apostles and prophets!
God has judged her for the way she treated you.'"
21 Then a mighty angel picked up a boulder the size of a large millstone and threw it into the sea, and said:
"With such violence
the great city of Babylon will be thrown down,
never to be found again.
22 The music of harpists and musicians, flute players and trumpeters,
will never be heard in you again.
No workman of any trade
will ever be found in you again.
The sound of a millstone
will never be heard in you again.
23 The light of a lamp
will never shine in you again.
The voice of bridegroom and bride
will never be heard in you again.
Your merchants were the world's great men.
By your magic spell all the nations were led astray.
24 In her was found the blood of prophets and of the saints,
and of all who have been killed on the earth."

The basic premise of this chapter is that Babylon has fallen. The city Babylon, and the government Babylon.
Babylon had the attitude that she was great, lofty, rich, and majestic.
God said that she was evil, excessive, sinful, demonic, unclean, detestable, and adulterous.
And as bad as her sins were, God has taken her own sins from her own golden cup, and mixed her a double portion of them. He will give her as much torture and grief as the glory and luxury she gave herself.
She said that she was royal, and would always be happy. No one could harm her.
God will overtake her with death, mourning, famine, and fire, and it will happen all at once.
She thought she was above all the suffering of the world, all the poverty, and all the misery. No one would deal those things to her. She would be the dealer. The other nations of the world would bow to her.
But God says she is an abomination to Him. Her words are detestable, and her actions vile. She doesn't think she can be touched, but God will overcome her with His violent, furious, vicious, powerful wrath. He will come upon her like thunder and savagely mangle and crush her, grinding and crunching and breaking and pulverizing her bones and flesh until her blood oozes like the blood of the prophets and saints, and everyone else she has cruelly tortured and murdered.
The Lord will be in a righteous fury as he rips her limbs from her body and shreds her flesh from her bones so that it hangs in tatters. With such violence will the city of Babylon be thrown down, never to be found again.
Woe, woe, great city of Babylon, for in one hour your doom has come.
There are some clues here that link the city of Babylon to the Great Harlot, that we identified as Babylon earlier.
She is said to be dressed in fine linen, purple and scarlet, and glittering with gold, precious stones, and pearls.
The Great Harlot wore clothes of scarlet and purple. The Tower of Babel was adorned with precious metals and stones.
Nebuchadnezzar described how "gold, silver and precious stones from the mountain and from the sea were liberally set into the foundations" of the tower.
The ruins of the Tower of Babel are on the outskirts of ancient Babylon in modern Iraq, and are150 feet above the plain with a circumference of 2300 feet. King Nebuchadnezzar inscribed the following words upon it:
I have completed its magnificence with silver, gold, other metals, stone, enameled bricks, fir and pine.
The first which is the house of the earth's base,
the most ancient monument of Babylon;
I built and finished it.
I have highly exalted its head with bricks covered with copper. We say for the other, that is, this edifice, the house of the seven lights of the earth, the most ancient monument of Borsippa.
A former king built it, (they reckon 42 ages) but he did not complete its head. Since a remote time, people had abandoned it, without order expressing their words. Since that time the earthquake and the thunder had dispersed the sun-dried clay.
The bricks of the casing had been split, and the earth of the interior had been scattered in heaps. Merodach, the great god, excited my mind to repair this building. I did not change the site nor did I take away the foundation. In a fortunate month, in an auspicious day, I undertook to build porticoes around the crude brick masses, and the casing of burnt bricks. I adapted the circuits, I put the inscription of my name in the Kitir of the portico. I set my hand to finish it. And to exalt its head. As it had been in ancient days, so I exalted its summit.

In addition, mention is made of their magic spells which have led all the nations astray. These are the Mystery Religions.
Isaiah 47:9-14: They will come upon you in full measure, in spite of your many sorceries and all your potent spells. 10 You have trusted in your wickedness and have said, 'No one sees me.'
Your wisdom and knowledge mislead you
when you say to yourself, 'I am, and there is none besides me.' 11 Disaster will come upon you,
and you will not know how to conjure it away.
A calamity will fall upon you that you cannot ward off with a ransom; a catastrophe you cannot foresee
will suddenly come upon you. 12 "Keep on, then, with your magic spells and with your many sorceries,
which you have labored at since childhood. Perhaps you will succeed, perhaps you will cause terror.
13 All the counsel you have received has only worn you out! Let your astrologers come forward, those stargazers who make predictions month by month,
let them save you from what is coming upon you.
14 Surely they are like stubble; the fire will burn them up.
They cannot even save themselves from the power of the flame.

Recall that Saddam Hussein has inscribed his own words underneath those of King Nebuchadnezzar. Babylon will rise again, and we see Saddam Hussein involved right now in rebuilding this city and emulating King Nebuchadnezzar:

SADDAM HUSSEIN: A Psychological Profile
Part I: The Nebuchadnezzar Factor

Peter Arnett, the CNN International Correspondent who has spent as much time in Iraq as any foreign journalist, in a recent dispatch tried to analyze the motives of Saddam Hussein.
He of course is not alone, the State Department and Foreign Offices around the world have all tried to come up with explanations for Saddam's so-called irrational behavior.
Questions are obvious, the answers have been tentative at best. Is he mad, a megalomaniac, completely out of touch with the "real world"? Why is he spending billions on lavish palaces, whilst his people starve? The experts come up with very non satisfying answers. One actually went so far as to make the following statement.
"He has believed for many years that he belongs up there in the pantheon of great socialist leaders: Mao Tse-tung, Castro, Tito. But until the Gulf crisis, he had been overlooked."
Where do they get this stuff?
The fact is that Saddam above all is a student of history, particularly Babylonian and Assyrian history. He sees himself as the inheritor of a great tradition and his obligation to carry on where the greatest of his ancestors left off.
Above all he models himself on one of the greatest, Nebuchadnezzar II and all his actions confirm that analysis.

Nebuchadnezzar II (Nebuchadrezzar II 604-562 BC) you will recall is the great Babylonian King who destroyed Solomon's Temple and took the remnants of the Children of Israel who had not already been exiled by the Assyrians, back to Babylon. Thus we see the first reason for Saddam's obsession with Israel which has nothing to do with either Islam, nor his State's proximity to the Jewish State. Saddam after all began his career as a secular socialist, a member of the Ba'ath Party which at the most paid lip-service to Islam.
Let us look further into the life of King Nebuchadnezzar who is described in the following way by "The Cambridge Ancient History", vol. III page 212.
".......(he) was a vigorous and brilliant commander, and physically as well as mentally a strong man, fully worthy of succeeding his father. He was to become the greatest man of his time in the Near East, as a soldier, statesman and AN ARCHITECT (emphasis mine)."
Much has been said about Saddam's lack of knowledge of the world. However it is often forgotten that he obtained his law degree at the University of Cairo and his rise up the ranks of the military, considering he was just a country boy from the provinces ( he was born in Tikrit in 1937) was not due solely to his ruthless style.
It is somewhat ironic that much of what we know about Nebuchadnezzar comes from the Bible. The King was one of the great builders of history but his own inscriptions are somewhat sparse. Jeremiah was to prophesy about this King:
"All the nations shall serve him, and his son and his son's son, until the time of his own land shall come." Jeremiah 27:7.
We will spend some time in later lectures discussing the Babylonian exile and its ramifications, suffice it to say that the exploits of Nebuchadnezzar had and have a profound effect on how Saddam views the world in general and Israel in particular. Ancient Iraq eventually conquered Egypt, and all of the Near East was in the control of the Great King by the time he was an old man.

Unlike many of Kings in the ancient world, Nebuchadnezzar was not one to keep extensive archives nor to boast of his exploits in great inscriptions, instead he was the pre-eminent architect and builder of history. He built many magnificent palaces and temples. His reconstruction of Babylon was extolled far and wide and his magnificent Hanging Gardens were regarded as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. His temples built mainly for the god Marduk were spread around the country. In Borsippa, Sippar, Larsa, Ur, Dilbat, Baz and Uruk he built the most magnificent of edifices and on each brick he had his name inscribed.
It is no wonder that Saddam has also undertaken a massive building programme unsurpassed since the time of the great King. He too has his name inscribed on the bricks and tiles and marbles that he uses to adorn his palaces. This is not a man building magnificent homes, this is a man obsessed with emulating his ancestor.
A few quotes from the great historian Rogers will round out the profile of the King:
· "A man of blood and iron."
· "His punishment of Zedekiah is to be placed with the very worst instances of savagery in all that history."
· "He was, however, careful to pay homage to gods many and lords many in different cities of his empire, and to these, as we have seen, he likewise dedicated temples."
· "His building operations were so extensive that in this particular he outranks all who preceded him, whether in Assyria or Babylonia."
· "For the most part these works were beneficent, though the execution of them must have cost much human life and terrible suffering of fatigue and oppression."
The picture could not be more startling clear. Saddam has used as a blueprint for his life, the exploits of Nebuchadnezzar. The question is whether it is possible to predict from this what Saddam will do in any given circumstance.

The evidence is clear, he will sacrifice everything for his ambition to destroy Israel, to become the leader of the Middle East and to leave a legacy of greatness in his buildings. Thus the morality of using "weapons of mass destruction" ( what a terrible phrase by the way, we should all stop using this hypocritical expression as if bombs and missiles or even automatic machine guns are not also weapons of mass destruction) does not even enter into his thinking. The interest to him is only whether they can be used or threatened in order to increase his power.
Lying and cheating are not moral issues, only ways of achieving his goals. Thus to negotiate with him is by definition an exercise of futility as are agreements and treaties. Like his predecessor there is only one way he will be stopped, perhaps first by madness but eventually only by death.
To Be Continued.........
© Michael S. Sanders
February 21, 1998


I pointed out earlier, that pl