1. I. THE LAST JUDGMENT HAS BEEN COMPLETED

My earlier work on THE LAST JUDGMENT dealt with the following subjects:

The day of the Last Judgment does not mean the destruction of the world (The Last Judgment 1-5).

The reproduction of the human race will never cease (6-13).

Heaven and Hell are from the human race (14-22).

All people who have ever been born since the beginning of creation and have died are in heaven or in hell (23-27).

The Last Judgment is to be where all are together, and so in the spiritual world, not on earth (28-32).

The Last Judgment takes place when a church comes to an end; and this happens when there is no faith because there is no charity (33-39).

All the predictions made in the Book of Revelation are today fulfilled (40-44).

The Last Judgment has taken place (45-52).

On Babylon and its destruction (53-64);

on the former heaven and its abolition (65-72);

on the future state of the world and the church (73-74).

53. IX. BABYLON AND ITS DESTRUCTION.

All the predictions made in the book of Revelation have to-day been fulfilled (see above 40-44). The last chapter demonstrated that the Last Judgment has already taken place, and showed how it took place on the Mohammedans and the heathen. The next subject is how it took place on the Roman Catholics, who are what is meant by Babylon as mentioned in many passages of Revelation, and in particular its destruction in chapter 18. This is described thus:

The angel cried out in a loud voice, Fallen, fallen is Babylon and become the dwelling of demons, and the prison of every impure ¹ spirit, and the prison of every unclean and hateful bird. Revelation 18:2.

But before the story of how the destruction happened some preliminary remarks are needed:

(i) What is meant by Babylon and what it is like.

(ii) What the people from Babylon are like in the other life.

(iii) Where their dwellings have been up to now.

(iv) Why their presence there was tolerated up to the day of the Last Judgment.

(v) How they were destroyed and their dwellings turned into a desert.

(vi) Those of them who had an affection for truth arising from good were preserved.

(vii) The future state of those who come from earth from that source.

Footnotes:

1205. That 'the Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites, Hivites, Arkites, Sinites, Arvadites, Zemarites, and Hamathites' were just so many nations, who also mean just so many different forms of idolatry, and that those nations mean forms of idolatry, is clear from many places in the Word, for they were inhabitants of the land of Canaan who on account of their idolatry were rejected and partially destroyed. In the internal sense of the Word however it is not those nations that are meant but the forms of idolatry themselves - in general as they exist anywhere at all, and in particular among the Jews. For people who make worship consist solely in externals and have no wish at all to learn of internals, and who when instructed reject them, incline very much to all these forms of idolatry, as is all too clear in the case of the Jews. internal worship alone holds within it the bonds that keep a person back from idolatry, and once those bonds cease to exist there is nothing to hold him back. There are however not only external forms of idolatry but also interior. Into external forms of idolatry rush those people who possess external worship devoid of internal, and into interior forms those people rush possessing external worship whose interiors are foul. These forms of idolatry are likewise meant by these nations. Interior forms of idolatry are just so many falsities and evil desires which they love and adore and which thus take the place of the gods and idols which existed among gentile nations. It would take too long to explain here however which particular falsities and evil desires they are that people adore and which are meant by these nations - by the Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites, Hivites, Arkites, Sinites, Arvadites, Zemarites, and Hamathites. In the Lord's Divine mercy this will be discussed in the places where these names occur.