BIRTH PANG NUMBER 27
Chapter 29 – God Divides the Great City
December 14, 2001
Revelation 16:18,19
[18] And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was
not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great. [19]
And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations
fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the
cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.
Birth Pang Numbers 2 and 3 contained a lengthy
exposition of Revelation 16:18-21.
Therefore, to preclude repetitions, I will attempt to limit myself, as
much as possible, to verse 19, but I do recommend a review of the
aforementioned birth pang numbers for a better understanding of Birth Pang
Number 27. We are advised that a great
worldwide quake, which affects not only the Jordan Rift Valley but also all the
“cities” of the “nations,” will also divide “the great city” into three parts. The great city that will be divided is not
Rome. It is the great city we identify
as Jerusalem. I will not dispute that
the “great Babylon” of the latter part of this verse will have its
ecclesiastical headquarters in Rome, but these are two different cities, which
are separated grammatically by “the cities of the nations.” The Jordan Rift Valley connects with the
east-west fault line across the northern coastline of Turkey, which in turn
moves between the toe of the Italian Boot and Sicily up to a point off the
coast of Rome, and then westward through the Straits of Gibraltar. The world’s greatest earthquake since God
placed man on this planet will occur in the Jordan River near the southern end
of the Dead Sea, but it will eventually send a rippling effect to set off a
chain of worldwide earthquake activity, and one of the greatest will be off the
coast of Rome on the Mediterranean Sea Floor.
This chain of earthquakes will eventually affect most of the “cities” of
most of the “nations.” Some believe “the
great city” is Rome, but the same inspired Koine
Greek construction for “the great city” is also used by John in Revelation
11:8.
Revelation 11:8
[8] And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of
the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our
Lord was crucified.
The Apostle John wrote Revelation about AD 96, some
26 years after the leveling of Jerusalem by Titus and his Roman Legion. Once this happened in AD 70 to fulfill the
Olivet prophecy Jesus had made 40 years before it happened, the living
disciples began to refer to the great city of Jerusalem as “Sodom and Egypt.”
So
“The great city” of Revelation 11:8, and of 16:19,
is one and the same. Jesus was not
crucified outside Rome, but outside the city of Jerusalem. John had looked down on Jerusalem many times
as he approached it from a higher elevation coming west on the Jericho
Road. He recognized it once again as he
looked down on it from above in his vision from heaven, and he saw it divided
into three parts from the earthquake activity.
Throughout the Bible, when God makes divisions of
physical things, He invariably uses land and water to make separations. He uses mountains and valleys in the
landscape, and rivers, seas, oceans, creeks, or streams in the hydrological
pattern. When all the changes of the
previous birth pangs have been completed, Jerusalem will have been divided into
three parts by land, elevation, and water.
In Figure 46 (See top of this
Birth Pang for menu) you may view all three topographical divisions of
Jerusalem. Part 1 will be the down
faulted section north of Ezekiel’s stream, Part 2 will be the section south of
the stream, and part 3 will be the uplifted western section of “the great
city.”