Revelation 18:16; The Merchants of These Things
Revelation 18:15-16 (KJV) The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, And saying, Alas, alas, that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls!
“The merchant of these things” the world over never before experienced so great a harvest, and double up riches on riches with a rapidity which seems like a miracle. Everything looks like secure and perfect triumph for earth’s wisdom and inventions. But all at once this commerce stops, and all its wheels stand still. The mercantile circles of the whole earth are stricken with consternation. Every counting-room becomes a place of mourning. The great traders all weep and mourn, not so much for Babylon’s sufferings, for man’s sympathy for man shall then have been eaten away by the common sordidness; nor yet for their great sins, for the day of repentance is then over for them.” (Seiss)
When Jonah cried out to the city of Nineveh concerning their impending judgment from God, the entire city repented in sackcloth and ashes from animals to men.
Jonah 3:4-10 (KJV) And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.
For the future Babylon, it shall not be so because the people did not repent. Did God give time? Indeed, He has but His warning has gone unheeded. The profit was too great and precious to stop trading and depart.
Alas, it was too late!
Jeremiah 18:8-10 (KJV) If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.
Amen.