Final Fall

 

    An angel descended from Heaven.  He held great authority and illuminated splendor.  He announced that the great prostitute was guilty and she fell into the pit to burn.  Babylon, the home of uncleanliness, has fallen.  The nation known for drunken debauchery, sexual immorality, and the wrath that it brought ends here as the woman falls.  

    God will not forget her crimes of indulgency, sensuality, and excess.  They will bring her torment and grief.  Her plague hit in one day: death, grief, and famine.  This is her judgment.

    The rulers (kings) who fell for her, and listened to her,  followed her right into the pit.  They listened to her instead of God, so they shared the same fate of terrible torment.  They try to avoid it by watching what happens to her from afar, but they still mourn her.

    The people who were influenced by Babylon and the rulers will mourned her as all their splendors and wealth disappear.  They do not mourn her as much as what they lost: comfort, security, and excess.  All the fabulous things in the world will be consumed in a single hour.  Violence will consume the world as all the joy leaves it.

    The angel then throws down a large millstone to remove Babylon from the world to never be found again.  This also reminds me of an OT story of a woman who pushed a milestone on a corrupt leader killing him.  The light is removed to never be lite again because she was full of the blood of the saints that were slaughtered on Earth.

Revelations 18