Now look at the contrast, verse 20, "Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles
and prophets."
So are they, is heaven weeping and wailing?
Are the prophets weeping and wailing?
Are the apostles, they're rejoicing, they're praising the Lord.
It says, "For God hath avenged you on her, and a mighty angel took up a stone like a
great millstone," kind of a throwback to Jeremiah 51, "and cast it into the sea, saying thus
with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more
at all."
"And the voice of harpers and musicians, and of pipers and trumpeters shall be heard no
more at all in thee.
And no craftsman of whatsoever crafty be shall be found any more in thee.
And the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee.
And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee.
And the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee.
For thy merchants were the great men of the earth," and watch this, "for by thy sorceries
were all nations deceived and in her was found the blood of the prophets and of saints and
of all that were slain upon the earth."
So there we see that this nation, Babylon, this great city, the Bible's basically using
and you say, "Well, it's a city, not a nation," but here's the thing, we're not talking about
Babylon at all.
Babylon doesn't exist anymore.
What we're talking about is that the city of Babylon is a picture or symbolic of the
United States of America, because just as the city of Babylon was once the ruler of the
civilized world, basically in the end times, the United States through the United Nations
is basically ruling over the entire world, okay, in the way that the city of Babylon
did.
That's what the United States is doing, and so the United States is symbolized by the
city of Babylon, okay, and that's what we're seeing in Revelation 18.