March 29, 2020
Norwalk First United Methodist Church
Book of Revelation
Fifth Sunday in Lent
Funeral and Judgment of the Harlot
Revelation 18
In our previous chapter, Chapter 17 of Revelation, the angel of God gives the Apostle John the vision that Rome will soon fall, especially the evil manipulations of the Emperor Domitian and the elaborate web of temples and priests for emperor worship. So, as we move into Chapter 18, John writes as if the city has already been destroyed.
A funeral dirge, a doom song, if you will, is delivered over the fall of the harlot city and a judgment is rendered on the city and its people. Listen to the song:
“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird. For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed acts of immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality.”
There is no group of people who would have sung this “Doom Song” more than the Christians of 95 A.D. Their persecution was reaching its peak. These kinds of doom songs are common in the prophetic books of the Old Testament. Listen to this one from the Book of Isaiah, Chapter 13:
“And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the splendor and pride of the Chaldeans, will be like Sodom and Gomorrah when God overthrew them. It will never be inhabited or lived in for all generations; Arabs will not pitch their tents there, shepherds will not make their flocks lie down there. But wild animals will lie down there, and its houses will be full of howling creatures; there ostriches will live, and there goat-demons will dance. Hyenas will cry in its towers, and jackals in the pleasant palaces; its time is close at hand and its days will not be prolonged.” This “doom song” from Isaiah sounds amazing similar to the one we read here in Revelation.
One other thing to note in this song. The ruined city has become the dwelling place of demons and unclean spirits. Dramatic, isn’t it! Imagine, with the fall of this great immoral city of Rome, its Greek and Roman gods are now banished from their reign and gloomily haunt the ruins of the temples where once their power had been supreme. This is a fate the city and the emperor deserved. Would you pray with me?
PRAYER
In the gospel of Mark, Chapter 13, Jesus is warning his disciples that the time will come when the Temple in Jerusalem will be destroyed, and the city will be overrun by an invading force, namely Rome. When they see this happening, Jesus urges the Jews and Christ-followers to flee the city. Listen to what he says.
“When you see ‘the abomination that causes desolation’ [in other words, the Roman destruction of the Temple] standing where it does not belong—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 15 Let no one on the roof of his house go down or enter the house to take anything out. 16 Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak. 17 How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! 18 Pray that this will not take place in winter, 19 because those will be days of distress unequaled from the beginning, when God created the world, until now—and never to be equaled again. 20 If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, whom he has chosen, he has shortened them.”
This same type of warning is being given to John in his vision by an angel of God in verses four and five. “I heard another voice from heaven, saying, ‘Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues; for her sins have piled up as high as heaven and God has remembered her iniquities.” The Christians are urged to leave Rome before the day of God’s wrath comes.
God is always calling upon his people to cut their connection with sin and to stand with him and for him. You see, Christians are to be apart from the world. As Christians, we are not to conform to the world but to be transformed from the world. We are not to retire from the world, but to live differently within the world. God did not want the Christians of Rome to be affected by the plagues he would bring down upon Rome during its destruction.
As we move into verses six through eight, God orders the angel to bring about his divine judgment, because vengeance belongs to God and to God alone. “Pay Rome back even as she has paid, and give back to her double according to her deeds.” Many times, Jesus talked about people reaping what they sow. In Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, we find an expression of that law: “The measure you give will be the measure you get.” In Jewish law, found in the Book of Leviticus, people responsible for loss or damage to another person had to repay it twice over. For whatever you did, you received back double the punishment. There is no getting away from the fact that punishment follows sin, especially if that sin involves the cruel treatment of fellow human beings.
So, with that in mind, Rome is going to receive double the punishment for what she has been doing in the persecution of the Christians. There will be plagues, pestilence, and famine. Rome will be punished for her pride, for her extravagance, and for her evil. Rome will be humiliated before the nations of the earth.
Folks, Rome’s wealth was without equal. There is a saying in the “Talmud,” the book of Jewish civil law, that ten measures of wealth came down into the world and that Rome received nine and all the rest of the world only one. This first century world in which the Christians were living was pouring its riches into the lap of Rome. For example, in one day Emperor Caligula squandered the revenues of three provinces, amounting to $250,000. At one banquet, Emperor Nero spent $75,000 alone on Egyptian roses. Nero also never made a journey with less than 1,000 carriages.
The emperors dissolved pearls in their wine to drink. Emperor Vitellius, who ruled less than a year, spent over fourteen million dollars, mainly on food. There has never been any parallel in history to the extravagance of Rome.
As the downfall of Rome seems imminent, John sees in his vision the laments of the kings, merchants, shipmasters, and sailors who will be financially affected by Rome’s destruction. Their extravagance will be no more. First, it’s the kings in verses nine and ten who sing their dirge song. “Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city!” Rome will no longer be providing the kings with the wealth and excesses to which they were accustomed.
Then it’s the merchants in verses eleven through sixteen who sing their dirge song. “Woe, woe, the great city, she who was clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls…” The merchants only bond to Rome was in their trade.
During this time, Rome had a passion for silver. Rome had over 40,000 men working in the silver mines in Carthagena, Spain. Silver was everywhere in Rome. One Roman general carried with him on his campaigns wrought silver dishes which weighed 12,000 pounds. Fine linen came from Egypt. Silk from China was so expensive that one pound of silk sold for a pound weight of gold. Brass and bronze came from Corinth, iron from the Back Sea and from Spain, and cinnamon from India and Zanzibar.
Myrrh was a gum resin of a shrub which grew mainly in Yemen and in North Africa and was used as an astringent, a stimulant, and an antiseptic. It was also used for embalming bodies. The trade with Rome had gone beyond legitimate bounds with the buying and selling of slaves and human lives. There were over 60 million slaves in the Roman empire.
Lastly, it’s the shipmasters and sailors who sing their “doom song” in verses seventeen through nineteen. “Woe, woe, the great city, in which all who had ships at sea became rich by [Rome’s] wealth.” These men of the sea stand far off from Rome and do nothing to help her. Each of these laments, from the kings, the merchants, and the sailors is not for Rome but for themselves. They placed all their happiness in material things. How terrible it is that they missed out on the greatest thing of all, love and friendship with their fellow human beings. The greed and narcissism in this city was over the top.
But among all this lamenting over the wealth that will be lost comes the voice of joy. “Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, because God has pronounced judgment for you against [Rome]. The Christian saints in heaven are singing songs of praise because God has wrought his vengeance upon their enemies and persecutors.
The final four verses of this chapter, twenty-one through twenty-four, summarize the case and judgments against the harlot city, Rome. The final desolation of Rome is symbolized by one of God’s angels hurling a large boulder into the sea which closes over Rome as if it never existed.
Gone will be the music once heard in the city. Never again will its inhabitants hear a millstone grinding, see the light of a lamp shining, or hear the voices of bridegrooms and brides at a joyful wedding. Punishment has come to Rome because she worshipped wealth and luxury, lived wantonly, and found no pleasure except in material things. Rome was found guilty for shedding the blood of prophets and martyrs.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, is all of this in 95 A.D. so much different than many countries today? Here in the United States and in large cities around the world, many of its people worship money, false idols, and material possessions. Good economies are valued over good relationships. Greed replaces love for one’s fellow human being. Wars rage because of ideologies, religion, and land. The blood of martyrs is shed in some countries for Christian beliefs. This has been the plight of humans and especially Christians for centuries. God sees it all. Imagine his disappointment.
We can only hope that we never hear the revelation from God that he once gave to those before Noah in Genesis 6: “The Lord saw that the wickedness of people was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. The Lord was sorry that He had made humans on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. The Lord said, ‘I will blot out man and woman whom I have created from the face of the land…for I am sorry that I have made them.’”
I can only say this. If you have declared Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and believe in your heart that he died for your sins and rose on the third day to defeat the power of Satan over sin and death, then stay faithful and loyal to God and his Son Jesus, and God will seal you from an eternal death with his Holy Spirit. Amen.