When Does Babylon Fall?

 

One of the fundamental questions that needs to be understood if any understanding of the end time can be made.

 

This subject is a vital one that cannot be answered with a simple 'yes or no' style reply. Our full article that asks the question:

'When does the end time start' involves Babylon and when it falls. An excerpt is copied from that article here, but the full article is the one to give a full answer.

Full article:  When? The big question.

 

Excerpt for:  When does Babylon fall

 

Who Is Babylon

The scriptures used to answer this question are Jeremiah chapters 50, 51 which is the single longest prophecy in the bible and Revelation 18. These two sections cover all the detail found in other passages.
The first real help to pinpoint Babylon’s identity is to first see who she is not. That can quickly be determined by ascertaining the timing of the fall of Babylon. This is going to be critical because so much else will follow on from the outcome.

Is Babylon the Beast?

This is the popular assumption, yet when the scriptures are carefully checked that conclusion won’t stand up. There are three lines of reasoning, any one of which is sufficient. God has made sure we have more than enough to demonstrate that the Babylon of Rev 18 is not the beast power and must be someone else active in a different time frame to the beast.
These three lines of reasoning are: the trading details given for Babylon, ‘come out of her My people’ and the Armies from the North.

Armies from the North.

The beast power is destroyed and its leaders captured by Christ and the saints at His return.

And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army. 20 And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. 21 And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh. Rev 19:19

In clear detail Christ lets us know how the beast power is rounded up and with him the armies of the world and their kings. This is the beast and his empire fully intact and waging war until the very end when Christ returns and deals with those that resist Him at Armageddon. The false prophet is there also. Both are fully active throughout the whole of the end time right up to Christ’s return.

The details of Babylon’s downfall are completely different.

For, lo, I will raise and cause to come up against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the north country: and they shall set themselves in array against her; from thence she shall be taken: their arrows shall be as of a mighty expert man; none shall return in vain. Jer 50:9

Behold, a people shall come from the north, and a great nation, and many kings shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth. 42 They shall hold the bow and the lance: they are cruel, and will not shew mercy: their voice shall roar like the sea, and they shall ride upon horses, every one put in array, like a man to the battle, against thee, O daughter of Babylon. 43 The king of Babylon hath heard the report of them, and his hands waxed feeble: anguish took hold of him, and pangs as of a woman in travail. Jer 50:41

There are many references to Babylon being defeated by nations. God has left no room for any doubt that the nations of the world are responsible for defeating Babylon and taking her into captivity for some time. This presents a contradiction that cannot be ignored. (NB. This is the time when ‘Judah and Israel will seek the Lord for a perpetual covenant that will never be broken’ at the same time Babylon is being attacked by nations from far and wide. Jer 50:4 This is a reference to the future covenant in Heb 8 etc.).

The trading details for Babylon

In Rev 18 we have a whole chapter giving very specific detail on what and who is trading.
The goods listed are normal every day-to-day goods. Spices, ointments, food, luxury cloth, jewellery, wheat, fine flour and ‘all goodly and dainty things’. (verses12 to 14)

However, during the years of the tribulation, the world has suffered the most devastating warfare. The 2nd World War unfortunately, is not even a comparison. The scale of casualties is hundreds of times greater.
None of the goods being traded would be available for general usage and could not be transported without the conditions needed for normal trade. After years of the worst time possibly imaginable, no one would be hearing the voice of harpers and musicians and concert venues. No one is planning marriages and families. No one is getting rich from the abundance of prosperity and a rising stock market.
What people are doing is wish they could die. All they want is for life to end to escape the misery.

And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them. Rev 9:6

There is no food, there is no wheat or fine flour to trade. They all ran out years before when thousands of millions died from starvation and warfare during the first four seals of Revelation. The Great Tribulation is yet to occur!

The account in Rev 18 shows that at the time of the fall of Babylon, (complete and utter fall) not only Babylon but also the whole world was enjoying relative prosperity. Ships were plying the oceans delivering day-to-day goods and life was for all intents and purposes very normal. This is definitely not a description of the last seven years of the end time. You cannot sail the seven seas selling pearl necklaces and packets of nutmeg whilst meteorites are plunging into the oceans destroying all shipping and sea life. Rev 8:8

In case we forget what conditions are like once ‘peace is taken from the earth’, listen to some quotes concerning shipping and trading circumstances during World War Two.

“Food supplies were low due to the tactical bombing of food carrying merchant vessels across the sea. The war effort, as it was so named, saw women making coats out of blankets”.

“1942 was the most successful year in U-Boat history, with 1,200 Allied ships sunk. Other sources count 1,664 ships sunk, 1,097 of them in the North Atlantic.

“President Franklin Delano Roosevelt: A Message to the Congress Asking Power to Requisition Idle Foreign Ships in American Waters. April 10, 1941
To the Congress: There are now in our ports a large number of foreign merchant vessels which have been here for considerable periods of time and which because of war conditions have not seen fit to depart.
Public Law 101
[H.R. 4466] June 6, 1941 AN ACT
To authorize the acquisition by the United States of title to or the use of domestic or foreign merchant vessels for urgent needs of commerce and national defense, and for other purposes.”

“But the number of merchant marine ships still available had become much too small for a successful continuation of the war. And crews for them were being rapidly exhausted, incapacitated or killed. There was as yet no effective system of replacement for either ships or men. This was the tremendous problem of the Battle of the Atlantic”.

“The Battle of the Atlantic was not what one usually thinks of as a “battle,” since it did not take place in one location over a limited period, such as the Battle of the Bulge. It was a Battle for CONTROL over shipping in the Atlantic and lasted from September 1939 until May 1945. Germany’s submarines (U-Boats) tried to sink merchant ships faster than the Allies could build them. Starting in 1940, through the middle of 1942, U-Boats were very successful - they sank more ships than were built”.

“One way to understand the Second World War is to appreciate the critical role of merchant shipping... the availability or non-availability of merchant shipping determined what the Allies could or could not do militarily.... “

This is the bottom line: Once war breaks out on the scale of the first four seals in Revelation which claims a quarter of the earths population, there are no ships available for trade. They are all requisitioned for the war effort. The scarcity of food and essentials that was the third seal (Rev 6:5) leaves nothing left to be traded.
For this reason we need to be very clear that once the end time has started and war breaks out there is no ‘trade’. However, since world trade is clearly shown to be normal and prospering at the time of Babylon’s very sudden destruction, this event must have occurred prior to the outbreak of end time events.

We can formulate a short summary:

A). The beast is captured and destroyed by Christ at the very end of the end time. Years of war and deprivation have seen his followers in such a stressful state they wish they could die. God’s people have been resurrected years beforehand (or killed by the beast if within his reach). All shipping has been virtually destroyed during the seventh seal.

B). At the time of the sudden, unexpected, inexplicable fall of Babylon: The entire world is enjoying prosperity and peaceful times. Trading conditions are such that it is ‘full steam ahead’ for all business. Food and daily staples are in plentiful supply. God’s people are still in Babylon and free to come and go as they please. They are in fact being urged to leave Babylon indicating they are under no pressure. Life at this point in time as shown by God’s word is in one word, normal.

This Babylon in Rev 18 is not the beast power at the return of Christ. The destruction of Babylon marks the turning point from ‘normal time’ into the ‘end time’. This ‘sudden destruction’ is the first event of the end time that impacts the world.

 

Suggestion for next article: How close is all this likely to occur?
See article: Watch!

If Babylon and the relevant nation of Israel are one and the same and they seem to be attacking each other, is this a contradiction?
See article:  Bible Contradiction