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Jonathan Zirkle

Lessons from the Fall of Babylon

Dear Lord, we thank you so much for this time that we can study your word together.

Lord, I pray that you would send your Holy Spirit to speak through me.

You know, I think back to the old Seventh-day Adventist church logo.

You know, there was actually wasn't an official logo.

It was just something that we always kind of did the same, but there's a lot of variations to it.

But 1 of the things that was on that logo was the 3 trumpets.

And it was the 3 angels with the 3 trumpets.

It really represented something that defines Seventh-day Adventism.

And I would like to just read where that comes from.

And this should be very, very familiar to you.

Revelation 14, I'm just going to read a little bit of it.

I will admit that today I'm going to go through a lot of different scripture and I hope that you'll spend some time following along with me.

Revelation 14 verse 6, And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth and to every nation kindred and tongue and people saying with a loud voice fear God and give glory to him for the hour of his judgment is come.

And worship him that made heaven and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.

And there followed another angel saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.

You know when you study out the book of Revelation as you read it you'll see is especially as you get into the latter half it's the story of kind of 2 cities.

You have Babylon and you have New Jerusalem.

And as you look through this, you will see that Many times the theme is Babylon is fallen.

And then if you just turn the page, just a few more pages, turn with me if you will, to Revelation 18.

Because there's kind of a repeat going on of what I just read there in Revelation 14.

And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power, and the earth was lightened with his glory.

And he cried mightily with a strong voice.

Cried mightily with a loud, with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become the habitations of devils and the hold of every foul spirit and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

Well, when I was looking at these texts, I was looking at what do they mean and what can we learn from them?

And I realized, you know, we've seen Babylon fall once before in scripture, haven't we?

And if you study scripture, you will see that in Daniel, you see the story of the fall of Babylon, and then we see it all talked about in Revelation, And there's all kinds of parallels between the ancient and the modern.

In fact, as you study this, you can actually see a continuation between the ancient and the modern.

Both Babylon's were big into pagan worship.

If you read it both in Revelation and in Daniel, they're both doing that.

And if you study this very carefully, you'll see that Babylon violated the sanctuary.

In ancient Babylon, they burned the temple, they took the vessels, they had parties with them and things like that.

And then you can see the prophecies and you can kind of see what's going on.

Babylon denies that there's a heavenly sanctuary.

Babylon denies the ministry of Jesus in the heavenly sanctuary today.

In the past, in ancient Babylon, there was forced worship.

And then modern Babylon comes along and it has forced worship.

You know, You see this in many different ways.

And this is, you know, I'm so pleased to hear that you guys are going to have a Daniel study.

But you can see when you're looking and doing your Daniel study, you will see that through the ages, during the papal system, there's no religious freedom, it's all forced worship.

And then we see in Revelation, the modern Babylon, the modern Babylon is going to be giving the mark of the beast, which is forced worship.

And then you look at Babylon, look at ancient Babylon.

They thought they were so great that nothing could destroy them.

It was this unique city with a river going through it.

They had unlimited water, and they had these amazing walls and everything like that.

When their enemies would come around, they'd be all like, you know what?

And modern Babylon is not that different.

We look here at Revelation 18, where I hope you're still at, verses 7 and 8, talking about Babylon.

How much she hath glorified herself and lived deliciously.

Now listen to this, for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen and am no widow and shall see no sorrow.

But therefore shall her plagues come in 1 day, it's an instant destruction, 1 day, death and mourning and famine, and she shall be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.

You know, when Babylon falls in Revelation, what comes next?

And you know, when you go back and look at the old ancient Babylon, what comes next?

Babylon falls, Cyrus takes over and what does he do?

He sends out a decree to rebuild the temple in New Jerusalem.

So with that today I want to spend some time studying the ancient fall of Babylon.

Now, as I study this, it's a beautiful chapter we're going to look at, Daniel chapter 5.

But There was something about that chapter as I was studying it that I went like, you know what, this story doesn't make any sense.

And it wasn't what was in Daniel chapter 5, it's actually what's in Daniel chapter 6, which is what our scripture reading for today was.

Because in Daniel chapter 6, Daniel is set over the entire kingdom.

Now think about that for a second, we're going to look into this in more detail.

In Daniel chapter 5, they're having this big party and Daniel comes in and we'll study what happens there and then he's elevated and he puts on the robe, You know, the king puts on the robe, makes him third in the kingdom, which is a really important fact.

And then, next thing you know, Cyrus and his men come in, kill the king, kill everybody in there.

I mean, the king's number 2 in the kingdom, right, the real number 1 is out in Saudi Arabia.

But the king's number 2 in the kingdom, he's off with his head, right?

Ah, we're gonna elevate him to rule for us.

He should have been the next guy killed, right?

And as I studied this out, I learned a lot.

And I believe there's some spiritual lessons for us.

Well, if you want to understand Daniel and the story of Daniel, you actually have to go back, Like I could go back, you know from the beginning of time, but but today times a little bit limited So you have to go back to Hezekiah?

Hezekiah was a king in Israel and he lived about a hundred years before Daniel.

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Lessons from the Fall of Babylon

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