This chapter warns the nations that if they put the commercial interests before duty to Christ, they too will share in Rome’s fate. But, because we are dealing with a “mystery” and the spirit behind Babylon, it does inform us that any present usurious system that builds its house out of the straw instead of bricks of Divine law will expire just like Rome. This chapter is not directly about modern globalism, America, or the United Nations. Without Christ communism, socialism, and democracy will politically disintegrate. Just as it was God’s will for Rome to die, it is the will of God that all humanistic societies perish. When shady commercial treaties collapse, merchants are the first to feel the pain. It is God’s will that every economic system built on deception and sustained by force self-destruct. While the original readers would have immediately applied this dirge to Rome, it portrays the fate of all godless commercial systems. Just as Babylon fell, Rome will fall and, though the malevolent spirit of Babylon will morph its way through history attaching itself to various governments, God will remember its iniquities, and destroy the system that has brought so much grief to mankind. Because John was in the Roman theater, he could not directly address Rome’s demise or celebrate its collapse.
When John speaks of “Mystery Babylon,” he is encrypts a message to the first century readers that the spirit that controlled ancient Babylon now possessed Rome that just as Babylon was the ancient enemy of Israel, Rome is now the enemy of God’s people.
saints to know that the city they hated and the Caesars they feared would experience a ghastly fate. What enlightenment! What joy it brought to the N.T.
Mourners sit in pews weeping and crying as Roman orators show off their oratory skills with an epideictic by acclaiming the importance of the Italian city. Yet, the angel takes John into the future to attend Rome’s funeral. Her charms delighted the international traders but her military might could grind resistance into powder. Rome governed the world with sharp swords and iron spikes for crucifixion. Oh, how the early Christians must have marveled at this chapter. Thi s chapter is a funeral dirge regarding the destruction of Mystery Babylon.
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