The Bible Study Podcast, episode 196.

Today, the Bible Study podcast continues the study of Revelation with chapter 18.

Welcome to the Bible study podcast. I'm your host, Chris Christensen.

There are, in fact, only four more chapters to go in Revelation.

Good news for those of you who are dying for it to be over. There are two more chapters of bad news, one chapter of climax, and one chapter of Dana-Mall.

Chapter 18 starts this way. After this, I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great

authority, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor. With a mighty voice, he shouted,

Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great. She has become a dwelling for demons and a haunt for every

impure spirit. A haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable animal,

for all the nations have drunk the maddening wine of her adulteries. The kings of the earth

committed adultery with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries.

Again, we talked last time about it's unclear exactly who Babylon the Great is here, although

my suspicion is that we're probably talking about Rome, just because if you think about

who this letter was written to originally, it was written to people who were under persecution

from Rome, and we're going to dwell quite a lot on this

judgment, on this falling of Babylon the Great, who is unclean and detestable and drunk and

filled with madding wine and adultery. And that does describe, unfortunately, Rome, especially

the Rome of this particular period, but also going forward, Rome will only get more and more corrupt,

at least until the point at which Constantine decides he's just going to move the capital

because he doesn't see any hope in changing the capital that is there in Rome.

But again, I could be wrong. It's not clear exactly who Babylon is, but we're definitely

talking about sin and punishment but we're definitely talking

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