the serpent will swallow his tail

The Word for today:
Revelation 18:21-19:10

Jesus, prophetically, said that a kingdom divided against itself will not stand:
If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. (Mark 3:24-26)

We are going to see the kingdom of Babylon begin to dissolve due to that very principle.

"Babylon," as we have seen, is a kind of all-purpose code word for the world system which is ruled by Satan. This is the kingdom that Satan had offered to Jesus:
And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, "To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours." (Luke 4:5-7)

In chapter 17, we saw religious "Babylon," the prostituted church which Satan (working through Antichrist) will manipulate for for his purposes. This is the religious arm of the beast.

In chapter 18, we see a political/commercial “Babylon,” which is the other arm of the beast.

And then, as if the beast were arm-wrestling himself, we see political Babylon turn against religious Babylon.

These two Babylons had been one. In the blunt and graphic language of Revelation, we are told that the kings (the political world system) had fornicated with the harlot (the world religious system). They'd used one another:
Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, "Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality..." (Revelation 17:1-2)

But after using the false religious system to unify the world and gain complete control of all, the Antichrist will turn against the harlot, plunder and destroy her, and seize all power and worship for himself. As he does, he will be carrying out God's will:
The beast and the ten horns you saw will hate the prostitute. They will bring her to ruin and leave her naked; they will eat her flesh and burn her with fire. For God has put it into their hearts to accomplish his purpose by agreeing to give the beast their power to rule, until God's words are fulfilled. (Revelation 17:16-17)

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We have seen evil at war with itself before:

**In 2 Chronicles, three nations were in league against Israel until they turned on each other:
As they began to sing and praise, the LORD set ambushes against the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir who were invading Judah, and they were defeated. The men of Ammon and Moab rose up against the men from Mount Seir to destroy and annihilate them. After they finished slaughtering the men from Seir, they helped to destroy one another. When the men of Judah came to the place that overlooks the desert and looked toward the vast army, they saw only dead bodies lying on the ground; no one had escaped. (2 Chronicles 20:22-24)

**In the court of Pharaoh, a snake devoured the other snakes. (Exodus 7:11-12)

**Ultimately, at the cross, Jesus became sin in order to defeat sin:
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

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When God has no alternative but to fight fire with fire, he will pit hell against hell, until heaven wins.

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