Mourning and Rejoicing at Babyon's End - Hurling a Great Millstone

 What John next sees confirms that Jehovah's judgment of Babylon the Great is final: "And a strong angel lifted up a stong like a great millstone and hurled it into the sea, saying:  'Thus with swift pitch will Babylon the great city be hurled down, and she will never be found again.'"  (Revelations 18:21)  In Jeremiah's time, a similar act with powerful  prophetic meaning was performed. Jeremiah was inspired to write in a book "all the calmity that would come upon Babylon."  He gave the book to Seraiah and told him to travel to Babylon. There, following Jeremiah's instructions, Seraiah read a declaration against the city: "O Jehovah, you yourself have spoken against this place, in order to cut it off so that there may come to be in it no inhabitant, either man or even domestic animal, but that she may become mere desolate wastes to time indefinite."  Seraiah then  tied a stone to the book and threw it into the river Euphrates, saying:  "This is how  Babylon will sink down and never rise up because of the calamity that I am bringing in upon her." - JEREMIAH 51:59-64.

The throwing of the book with the attached stone into the river was a guarantee that Babylon would be plunged into oblivion, never to recover.  The apostle John's seeing a strong angel perform a similar act is likewise a powerful guarantee that Jehpovah's purpose toward Babylon the Great will be fulfilled.  The completely ruined condition of ancient Babylon today testifies powerfully to what will befall false religion in the near future.

The strong angel now addresses Babylon the Great, saying:  "And the sound of singers who accompany themselves on the harp and of musicians and of flutist and of trumpeters will never be heard in you again, and no craftsman of any trade will ever be found in you again, and no sound of a millstone will  ever be heard in you again, and no light of a lamp will ever shine in you again, and no voice of a bridegroom and of a bride will ever be heard in you again; because  your travel merchants  were the top-ranking men of the earth, for by your  spiritistic practice all the nations were misled." - REVELATION 18:22, 23.

In comparable terms, Jeremiah prophesied concerning apostate Jerusalem:  "I will destroy out of them the sound of exultation and the sound of rejoicing, the voice of the bridegroom and voice of a bride, the sound of a handmill and light of the lamp. And all this land must become a devastated place, an object of astonishment."  (Jeremiah 25:10, 11)  As the  principal part of Babylon the Great, Christendom will become a lifeless ruin, as so vividly depicted by Jerusalem's condition after 607 B.C.E.  The Christendom that once rejoiced hightheartedly and bustled with everyday noise will find herself  conquered and abandoned.

Indeed, as the angel here tells John,  all of Babylon the Great will change from a powerful  international empire to an  arid, desertlike wasteland.  Her "traveling Merchant," including  top-ranking millionaires, have used her religion for personal advantage or as a cover-up , and the clergy have found it profitable to share in the limelight with the.  But those merchants will no longer   have Babylon the Great as their accomplice.  No more will she be hoodwinking the nations of the earth with her mystic religious practices.

Next time: Mouring and Rejocing  at Babylon's End -  Hurling a Great Millstone -An Appealig Bloodguilt

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