"And after these things, I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power, and the earth was brightened with his glory. {2} And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of demons, and a hold of every foul spirit, and the cage of every unclean and hateful bird. {3} For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.""

This begins the 18th chapter of the great book of Revelation, a book which is designed and delivered to reveal things to man, but which hss generated a variety of interpretations that would absolutely boggle the mind. So how can you say it has revealed anything, if everybody who reads it comes up with a different interpretation of it?

Well, the reason for the difficulty is that, the entire prophecy is an account of a vision, a nightmare dream, in some cases, and is delivered in symbols and figures of speech. It should, like many prophecies, be read aloud like poetry.

Sometime if you have a get together with your friends, assuming these friends are people who like to read the Bible, take turns reading aloud from these chapters and interpreting them with vocal inflections and pauses and vocal coloration. Try to let the Scriptures speak through the human voice as the human voice interprets it as you go. You would be surprised at how some things begin to fall into place in these prophecies as they are read aloud and interpreted more in terms of meaningful poetry, rather than simply trying to read them as prose and attacking them intellectually, because attacking these prophecies intellectually is probably going to lead you astray, leave you out in the cold, leave you not understanding them at all.

One of the reasons why this is difficult is that John is seeing more than one world at a time. Now let me explain what I mean by that. Science fiction writers are fond of the idea of another dimension. The idea of another universe that exists in parallel, shall we say, with our own universe, occupying the same space, but invisible, untouchable. You can't hear it. You can't experience it, it is absolutely impossible to sense it, or to experience it, even though it's right here and you could reach out and touch it, if there was anything there that could be touched.

Science fiction writers postulate occasional rants or tears in the fabric that separates these two universes, and they love to explore the strange things that can happen as unintended interaction might take place between two very different worlds, sitting here running along by each other and once in a while one of them, sort of slopping over into the other, as it were.

Now this is not really as far-fetched as it may sound to you.

In second Kings, the sixth chapter, there's a really interesting little interplay that takes place. The problem that exists, let me set it up for you is, that God had been revealing through his prophet Elisha, the movements of a foreign king to the king of Israel, so that as the foreign king would try to make a move against the king of Israel, he would be warned and would go somewhere else, and the foreign king, the king of Assyria thought, there was a spy somewhere, a very logical deduction, and his servant said, "No, no spies, just that the Lord reveals to this prophet over in Israel, what you're doing before you do it and he goes and tells the Israelite king and the Israelite king escapes."

I will begin reading in second Kings 6 and verse 8, "The king of Syria warred against Israel, and took counsel with his servants, saying, "In such and such a place shall be my camp," {9} And the man of God sent to the king of Israel, saying, "Beware that you pass not this place, for there the Syrians are over there." {10} And the king of Israel sent to the place which the man of God told him of, and warned him of, and saved himself there, not once, nor twice, {11} So the king of Syria was troubled with this thing, and he called his servants and said, "Will you not show me which one of us is the spotlight for the king of Israel?" {12} And his servants said "No, no, there's no spy my king, it's Elisha, the prophet in Israel. He tells the king of Israel, the words you speak in your bedchamber."

He said, {13} "You go and spy where he is. I'm going to send and fetch him." They said, "Well he's in Dothan." So they loaded up the chariots, soldiers, the horsemen and they sent them off to Dothan. They came by night and they surrounded the city. Verse 15, When the servant of the man of God was risen early, and went forth, behold a host encompassed the city with horses and chariots. And his servant said to Elisha, "Alas my master! What are we going to do now?"

Well, what indeed? All avenues of escape are cut off. Horses and chariots all around the city. All of them out there waiting for and demanding the presence of one Elisha and they are going to take his head off. Elisha answered the servant, {16} "Don't be afraid, they that are with us are more than they that be with them."

I can imagine the servant looking back at Elisha, blinking a couple times, looking out over the wall and saying, "What is he talking about? There is just a handful of us in this city. We couldn't fight an army like that. There are thousands of them out there, they are all over the place. They are like ants on the landscape and he says, "Those who are with us are more than they are with them."

Elisha prayed and said, {17} "Lord, I pray you, open his eyes that he may see." And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man and he saw." He walked over to the edge of the wall and he looked, "and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha."

That makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck to realize, that one moment he's looking out here, surrounded with armies and they seem to be entirely alone.

Elisha prays, the young man blinks his eyes, and suddenly there's a whole other army out there in the field. Horses and chariots of fire, this time, in the field, so they were hardly alone.

Now we don't know a lot about this parallel universe, actually a biblical writer would call it, the 'spirit world.' We do not know a lot about this, but there are little hints of it here and there in the Bible and some of them help us to understand the idea of Babylon as it's presented here in Revelation. There is an incident in Daniel that I've always found of singular interest. I'm going to read parts of it to you, I will read an abridged version for you. You have to take time to read it later at your convenience.

The passage is found in chapter 10 of Daniel's prophecy. "In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia, a thing was revealed to Daniel, and the thing was true, but the time appointed was long, and he understood the thing and had understanding of the vision."

So it's a vision given to him way back in the reign of Cyrus, but the time of this thing, when it was to take place was a long way off into the future. Now I am not going to concern ourselves, particularly today, with the prophecy. There's just an aside here, just something that's almost a throw away, that has really nothing to do with the prophecy at all, that gives us a tiny glimpse into another world that runs right along side of our own that we otherwise would not even know was there.

He says in verse two, "In these days, I Daniel was mourning for three full weeks, {5} And I lifted up my eyes, I looked, and behold, a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz, {6} His body was like the beryl (which is a precious stone), and his face, as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes like lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like the color of polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude."

My goodness, what a hair-raising thing he saw, you have to go to science fiction to somehow find anything to do with that. Some explanation or some description of it, to visualize this person standing before him, sort of clothed in linen and gold, and with his face crackling like lightning in it and all of this going on with the man, and the power that's there and then the voice when it came out, sounds like the voice of a multitude of people.

"I Daniel," {7}, "alone saw the vision, for the men that were with me, didn't see it, a great quaking fell upon them, and they fled to hide themselves."

Okay, I can understand that, they took off, they were afraid of whatever was happening and they were gone.

Continuing in Daniel 10 and verse 8, "Therefore I was left alone, and I saw this great vision, and there remained no strength in me, for my comeliness was turned in me into corruption. I did not have any strength left." He fell flat on his face, on the floor. {10} "And behold, a hand touched me and set me up on my knees and upon the palms of my hands." So he's on his knees, with his hands on the floor, in the crawling position, and the voice behind the hand, {11} Said "O Daniel, a man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak to you, stand upright, for to you I am now sent." And when he had spoken this word to me, I stood up trembling."

I identify with Daniel, I really do, to be standing there and shaking like a leaf, in the presence of something like this that he had never seen before. You and I have never seen anything quite like it either.

He said to me, {12} "Don't be afraid, for from the first day that you did set your heart to understand and to chasten yourself before God, your words were heard, and I am came because of your words."

Daniel had been looking for some answers. He had prayed a magnificent prayer of repentance in chapter 9 of Daniel, something again for you to read after you finish this article. But because of the prayer that he made and because of the way he besought God about this matter, God loved him. God cared about him and he immediately sent this angel to him.

Well, where had this angel been? {12} He said to me, "Fear not Daniel, from the first day, your words were heard, and I am come because of your words, {13} But the prince of the kingdom of Persia, withstood me for 21 days."

What? Now if you think about this for a moment, here is a man who prays to God. God answers this man. He sends the answer, at least He dispatches a messenger with the answer. Now I'm accustomed to think that when God sets out to do something or sends someone to carry out something, whatever it is that person is sent to carry out, GETS DONE! How is it possible then, when God miraculously sends this man or this angel to Daniel, for someone to stand in the way and stop it for three weeks.

Daniel prayed to God. God heard him, and immediately dispatched a messenger to him, and as I said before, you would normally expect that to take about five seconds and a messenger would show up in Daniel's room because God is all-powerful, God can do everything and so forth.

Continuing in Daniel 10 and verse 13, The Scripture tells us that, the angel who came to Daniel told him, quote, "But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me for 21 days: but, lo Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, and I was detained there with the Prince of Persia."

What? Well, you know, about all you can do with that, is to think, here is this incredible creature standing in front of Daniel must've had something sort of like a laser sword, shall we say, in his scabbard, and when he tried to get there, he was opposed by someone who was just as big, just as strong, just as powerful as he was, and they stood there fighting, trusts, parry, counter, for 21 solid days. It boggles the mind, but there it is. It's not even central to the prophecy. It doesn't even have anything to do with what the angel was sent to do, he just explained it to Daniel, why he was delayed. "I'm sorry I'm late. I had to fight my way in."

Now, you need to understand that Daniel was not in Jerusalem. Daniel was in Babylon. It was the kingdom really that would be the kingdom of Persia and the Prince over this area is called the 'Prince of the kingdom of Persia' and he seems to have some sort of jurisdiction. In other words, this angel had to fight his way in, and we are going to see later. he was going to have to fight his way back out again.

It's shocking to think that there is a world out here, with beings running back and forth, going to and fro, seeing, looking, opposing God, supporting God, fighting for God, defending God. There is an absolute spiritual warfare that goes on all around our ears, and we never know a thing in the world about it.

Just this little tear in the fabric that allowed this great angel to step through and speak to Daniel and step back through to the other side.

Well, earlier in Revelation, we heard of a war in heaven. A war that the devil lost, but you know for there to have been a war at all, the devil must've fought, and been defeated, and it must've taken some time for this battle to go on.

Now the one who came to Daniel is what we are accustomed to calling an angelic being, and boy, what a misuse of words we get involved in with that. We talk about little children being a little angel, no, NO. This is an angel. Although the word angel, really from both Hebrew and Greek means messenger, and we probably don't serve ourselves very well by referring to these great beings as angels because of the way we have abused the word, but realize this being was something of a warrior, as well as an angel, for he had to battle this prince.

The Prince of the kingdom of Persia must be a spirit being of nearly equal strength and power, and we are left with this staggering image of two powerful beings waging war, one on one, a duel, with something like spiritual swords for three solid earth weeks that is, it might not have been the same in their world. That's a lot of thrust and parry, a lot of countering of moves and finally it took two of them to occupy this great powerful prince, so Daniel's messenger could get to him.

In other words, Michael, that great Prince that stands for the children of Israel, who was another angel, this one is not the Prince of Persia, he is the Prince of Israel. So what do we have" Are there great spirit princes that stand for each of the nations and for all the peoples of the earth? One can only wonder about this. We are not told, but we have these little hints of this interaction or connection between our world and the spirit world, that does exist.

It calls to mind Paul's statement in Ephesians the sixth chapter and verse 11, where he says this, "Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. {12} For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Now you could've fooled me, because as far as my life is concerned, as far as the struggles that I deal with, I would sort of think that I'm dealing with people and things and circumstances right here. I'm dealing with men for the most part, it is people, it's flesh and blood that cause most of us most of our difficulty. In one way or another, we have our storms and earthquakes to deal with, but mostly, what we wrestle with is people.

Now here comes Paul and says "No, you're not wrestling against flesh and blood, that's not where the battle is, it's not where the lines are drawn. It's not the approach that you need in order to win this battle, your wrestling against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places!

And so here's poor Daniel sitting in Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom, another world entirely, and an angel is sent to him, through all the battles to get to him and Daniel is made aware of the fact that the real battle is not with the physical king of Persia or Babylon. The battle is spiritual.

Now the struggle, just because its spiritual, doesn't mean it's any less real, nor does it mean that it's any less lethal, because it very much is. These great beings don't kill one another, but sometimes in their battles and their fights they stomp all over us little guys and leave us wounded and dead in the streets.

Daniel was inside the territory of the Prince of Persia, and this great messenger from God, had to fight his way in and this warrior would have to fight his way out.

And so he said to Daniel, in conclusion, {20} "Now you know why I have come to you and now I'm going to return to fight with the Prince of Persia."

He has to fight to get back out again, "And when I am gone forth, lo, the Prince of Grecia shall come!"

What, another one? It makes you wonder doesn't it with the battle going on between Michael and the Prince of Persia over here, while the first angel is talking to Daniel and he's going back to join that battle again and here comes another one on the scene who is called the Prince of Grecia, {21} "But I will show you that which is noted in the Scripture of truth, and there is none that holds with me in these things, but Michael your prince."

The Prince of Grecia would be the great spirit being presiding over the conquests of Alexander the great, he would absorb the Babylonian and Persian spirits and the basic system would remain the same.

It's hard to think, that as you stand in the quiet field, listening to a mockingbird, feeling a gentle breeze and in contemplating the fish in the brook, that there could be a war ranging about your ears, but it is so!

And so, there is a great spirit world out there somewhere that you and I can't see and there are these great messengers going to and fro, with goals, with missions to carry out, carrying weapons and fighting battles as they go to and fro.

We need to understand that in order to get a little bit of a picture of what the angel is saying to John in the book of Revelation in chapter 18 and verse 2, He says, "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of demons in prison for every foul spirit, and the cage for every unclean and hateful bird."

The cage of every unclean and hateful bird is merely a poetic way of saying that Babylon is a collection of these fallen princes, these foul spirits. The habitation of demons and foul spirits is not the sort of thing, you may have seen in a horror movie with teeth and some of these prehistoric looking monsters is the slobbering at the jaws, no, No, NO! Evil does not look like evil to you and me unless we have learned to see it as it is.

Don't you remember what the apostle Paul said about the appearance of evil? Writing in his second letter to the Corinthians, the 11th chapter and verse 13, he says this, talking about some preachers out here. He said, "For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. {14} And no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. {15} Therefore, it is no great thing, if his ministers or servants also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works."

Now brace yourself for this, but if Daniel had been able to see this messenger and the Prince of Persia and Michael in battle, before he knew any of them, he would not have been able to tell who was who! One would not have looked evil, while the other looked good.

Be careful now about your mental image of Babylon the great harlot, remember that Babylon was two things. It was a great empire and the great religious system that road along with the Empire. These ancient city states all had their own gods, Babylon, having conquered many of the cities had subordinated their gods to its own. Now if you can just imagine this, here is a great city, Babylon, which has subjugated the nations that are right around it.

Babylon is noted by its own god, and so when they go out to war, they battle against another city state, and they carry the image of the banner of their god, and above them in battle, comes their prince, and when they went to battle against another kingdom, say Persia, when the time came, then the Prince of Persia was there over the hordes of Persia as they came to battle, and when Persia won over Babylon, they simply absorbed the Babylonian gods and the Babylonian system, and so you have a growing and developing cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

That is, these great spirit beings up there, which have turned their backs on God, have turned against God, and have fought against God and have developed an incredible religious system that manifests them and their will and their agenda to the people who serve them.

And so the system of Babylon, which conquered many of the cities and subordinated their own gods to its own. Actually, even in losing the physical battle to Persia, absorbed their gods into its own. The great spirit world may in some ways resemble our own because these great beings have influence here. They seem unable to destroy one another, but they do win and lose and one becomes subordinate to the other.

The idea of absorbing and dominating the gods of the nations around them is a practice of Babylon and of the great spirits that dominate Babylon.

Now should it be a great surprise then, that the Babylonian system would attempt to absorb, dominate and rule over, first, Judaism and then Christianity. Well, to the Babylonian system, Christ is just another Prince to be dominated, another Prince to be controlled, kept like a dog on a leash.

What Revelation 17 and 18 describe is the end of the war and the final destruction of the Babylonian system. God in winning the war will not absorb the Babylonian system, He will not keep it like a dog on a leash. He will wipe it out, destroying the physical manifestation of it, and banishing the spiritual into outer darkness.

Listen to the words of Jude, {5} "I will therefore put you in remembrance, though you once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed the unbelievers. {6} And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness to the judgment of the great day. {7) Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. {8} Likewise these filthy dreamers (referring to these great spirits that kept not their first estate), these filthy dreamers, defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities. {9} Yet Michael the Archangel, when contending with the devil and disputing about the body of Moses, did not dare bring a railing accusation against him, but said, "The Lord rebuke you."{10} These speak evil of things, they don't even understand. Later he says, "Their raging waves of the sea, foaming out their shame, wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever," but that's not for you.

Until next time, this is Ronald Dart reminding you, You were Born to Win!

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This article was transcribed with

minor editing from a Born to Win Radio Program by: Ronald L. Dart

Titled: The Book of Revelation -Program #24

Transcribed by: bb 05-3-25

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