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Dunlap SDA Church

P. Gerard Damsteegt

Second Angel’s Message: The Fall of Babylon

Heavenly Father, we ask you to give me the wisdom to share this historical presentation that each 1 of us will understand this message, which is very serious, and give me the Holy Spirit to present this in a very special way in Jesus' name, amen.

The second angel's message is 1 of the most serious messages there is in the scriptures.

Here it is, and there followed another angel saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen.

That great city, because he made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of a fornication, Revelation 14, verse 8.

And the way that I will present this is from a biblical perspective, from the beginning of the Bible, how Babylon there was received later on, and then in the New Testament, because the shift from the Old Testament to the New Testament is very significant.

The literal significance in the Old Testament becomes then spiritual, and it affects many, many, many, many, many persons.

So let us first look here on Babylon of the Old Testament.

And for the first time that we come in contact with Babylon is after the floods.

God's plan for human beings after Noah's flood.

Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

So the earth need to be filled with people.

Now, what was the condition of the earth, the world, after the flood?

Now, perhaps today we would say that would be nice, all the same language, everybody speaking English, and we will have no problems.

And so God says, fill the earth, spread the earth.

And then the reaction was a rebellion of a group of people and they said, let us build a city, a tower who stop reaches in heaven, the heavens.

So we will not be scattered over the whole earth.

God said, fill the whole earth, and what was the reaction?

We will build a city where we can all stay here.

And so now God reacted because any kind of rebellion against God will receive its consequences.

And so God's response, confusion of the 1 single language.

Confusion of the languages, And the result, people stopped building a city and scattered all over the earth.

Can you imagine you're building a tower and then you need some more concrete or mortar?

So how long will the power continue to be built?

It stopped because they couldn't understand 1 another.

And so then those of each language groups and scattered all over the earth as God had commanded.

So no matter what human race does, if God says something and it doesn't work out in the human race, sooner or later it will work out as God has intended it to be.

Here is the ancient world of the Chaldeans.

You see here on your left the Mediterranean.

There you find the 2 major rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris River.

And according to archaeologists, the Tower of Babel was basically there between the 2 rivers, and then later on, when the city of Babylon was built, The line of support was that the Euphrates River went in the midst of Babylon.

And that was the support that they needed.

It was a city that was so strong that nobody worried even that it would be conquered because they had all the supply for many, many years.

Later on in the Bible, Babel, the town of Babel was expanded to Babylon.

And this refers to the country and city of Babylon with its false religions that opposed the true religion of the Bible.

Ancient Babylon in the ancient Babylon, Babel in Babylon.

Here you see then the remnants of Babel, the Tower of Babel, which was not certainly not going into heaven, because They wanted to build it into heaven so that if there's another flood, they could escape.

And so here you see it in the city of Babylon on both sides of the Euphrates.

There in the circle in the middle there, the remnants of the Tower of Babel.

The name Babylon is derived from Babel and signifies confusion.

But if you go deeper, this confusion was the result of rebellion.

And this rebellion was basically a defiance of the true God.

And so, this defiance brought enmity and war, the enemy of God.

And so in the Old Testament The major enemy against God and God's people was Babylon.

And so if you go to the New Testament, it's the same, but it is spiritual Babylon.

And you can see here in Jeremiah the terrible war and it was also prophesied Babylon conquers God's people.

And here you see then the destruction of Jerusalem.

And at the same time, what you see there is that the people are being taken captive.

And again, this was again, because of the rebellion of God's people.

And the vessels from God's temple, the sacred vessels, were carried into the Babylonian temples to clearly indicate that our God, our Babylonian God, is a true God, God Marduk, and will certainly get the victory over the Israelite God.

Here are the golden vessels that were then placed in the pagan temples.

And Babylonian captivity was a punishment of 70 years.

And in 1 of the Psalms it shows you the tragic sin situation.

The Bible says, by the rivers of Babylon there we sat down, yea we wept, and when we remembered Zion.

We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst of.

That was a very very tragic thing and whole nation can you imagine whole nation is being transported.

Then the captives comes to the Ishtar Gate and they show their pride and superiority.

Here You can see them from the north going through the Istar Gate.

And if anybody has ever gone to Berlin in Germany, there you can see the remnants of the Istar Gate.

Here you see the Istar Gate through which the captives came.

And 1 of the dominant motives was the lion.

The lion you see also in the prophecy of Daniel 7, the first animal representing Babylon.

And it was the pride and superiority because that was the nation that basically conquered the then known civilized world.

Here you see then an artist's reproduction of the Tower of Babel as it was after in the Old Testament.

But again, the superiority and pride was there.

Then you see the magnificent hanging gardens of Babylon.

The queen there didn't like the deserted area of the desert of Babylon, and so she requested of the king to have gardens.

And so he allowed her to have gardens flourishing on the top of the roofs of the temples and the palaces.

Then in Daniel chapter 4 you see the Nebuchadnezzar looks over Babylon and says in his pride and superiority, is this not the Babylon that I have built?

And so you see that in Daniel 4, that God punished him.

He says, okay, because you think that your greatness is because of your greatness and not mine.

You will eat grass." And that was the punishment that Nebuchadnezzar got.

But fortunately for him, at the end he recognized the true God of the world and he got converted.

It led him to deep repentance and he gave a whole degree to give power and glory to the God of Israel.

However, the next generations didn't accept this anymore.

And here you see in Daniel 5 the fall of ancient Babylon.

Second Angel’s Message: The Fall of Babylon

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