Decline Of Babylon The Great

Ancient Babylon's fall in 539 B.C.E. was the start of a long decline that ended in her desolation. Similarly, since the first world war, the influence of Babylonish religion has declined remarkably on a global scale. In Russia, the Bolshevik Revolution has continued to stifle the influence of the Orthodox Church. In Japan, Shinto emperor worship was proscribed following the second world war. In China, the communist government controls all religious appointments and activity. In Protestant northern Europe, most people have become indifferent to religion. And the Roman Catholic Church has recently been weakened by schisms and internal dissent in its global domain. - Compare Mark 3:24-26.

All these trends are doubtless part of the 'drying up of the river Euphrates' in preparation for the coming militaristic attack on Babylon the Great. This 'drying up' is reflected too, in the pope's announcement of October 1986 that the church mist "again become mendicant"-because of huge deficits. (Revelation 16:12) Particularly since 1919 has Babylon the Great been exposed to a public gaze as a spiritual wasteland, just as the mighty angel here announces: "And she has become a dwelling place of demons and a lurking place of every unclean exhalation and a lurking place of every unclean and hated bird!" (Revelation 18:2b) Soon she will be literally such a wasteland, as desolate as Babylon's ruins in 20th century Iraq. -See also Jeremiah 50:25-28.

The word "demons" here is likely a reflection of the word "goat-shaped demons" (se'i-rim') found in Isaiah's description of fallen Babylon: " And there the haunters of waterless regions will certainly lie down, and their houses must be filled with eagle owls. And there the ostriches must reside, and goat-shaped demons themselves will go skipping about there." (Isaiah 13:21) It may not refer to literal demons but rather to shaggy-haired, desert-dwelling animals whose appearance made onlookers think of demons. In the ruins of Babylon the Great, the figurative existence of such animals, along with stagnant, poisonous air ("unclean exhalation") and unclean birds, signifies her spiritually dead condition. She holds forth no life prospect whatever for mankind. -Compare Ephesians 2:1, 2.

Her situation also matches Jeremiah's prophecy: "There is a sword against the Chaldeans,' is the utterance of Jehovah, 'and against the inhabitants of Babylon and against her princes and against her wise ones. . .There is a devastation upon her waters, and they must be dried up. For it is a land of graven images, and because of their frightful visions they keep acting crazy. Therefore the haunters of waterless regions will dwell with the howling animals, and in her the ostriches must dwell; and she will nevermore be dwelt in, nor will she reside for generation after generation.,' " Idolatry and chanting of repetitious prayers cannot save Babylon the Great from a retribution resembling God's overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah. -Jeremiah 50:35-40.

Next time: Passion-Arousing Wine.