<p>17:18- see on Rev. 14:6-9.</p><p><i>And the woman whom you saw is the great city which reigns over the kings of the earth</i>- &quot;Which reigns&quot; returns us to the immediate reality which John is watching, and the reality of the moment experienced by God's people under Gentile domination at all times. That great city is now reigning; but we have just seen how she shall come to an end. As noted on 16:19, the &quot;great city&quot; in its latter day sense is Babylon enthroned in Jerusalem.</p><p>As in Hezekiah&rsquo;s time the Assyrians likened captivity in their land to the wonders of being in God's Kingdom, so too Babylon is likewise depicted as a fake Kingdom of God. All the&nbsp;nations flowed together unto her (Jer. 51:44), as they will to the true Kingdom of God (Is. 2:2). She is called &quot;that great city, which <i>reigns</i> (Gk. '<i>basilia</i>') over the kings of the earth&quot; (17:18). 'Basilia' is normally used about God's Kingdom. When Jesus described His Kingdom as a tree &quot;greater than all herbs&quot; with &quot;great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it&quot; (Mk.4:32), He was actually quoting from the description of the kingdom of Babylon in Dan. 4. By doing so, He was pointing out that Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom, legendary as it might be, was but a fake replica of His.</p><p>When the mountains flee in Rev. 16:10, Babylon loses the support base of the coalition she leads. These kings are described in Rev. 17:18 as the kings of the land- that promised to Abraham. And within the boundaries of that land we find seven such nations- Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Iran. The appeal in Rev. 14:6-8 and Rev. 18:4 for Christian believers to &ldquo;come out of her&rdquo; would imply that there are believers within those nations and that there will be a major witness made to her- and it is surely highly significant that there has been a great growth in conversions in those areas in recent times This is a sure sign that we are approaching the time of the end. Sadly Rev. 18:24 implies that believers will be murdered in these areas in the final tribulation- and already the persecution and murder of Christian converts is in full swing there. The description of Babylon sitting upon various peoples, nations and tongues is to be connected with the same use of the phrase in Rev. 5:9 and 7:9 to describe the world from which Christian believers are drawn out. And significantly, the same phrase is very commonly used in Daniel to describe the area ruled over by historical Babylon (Dan. 3:4,29; 4:1; 5:19; 6:25; 7:14).</p><p>Issue number 3 of the Islamic State magazine <i>Dabiq</i> frequently talks of the call to follow Ibrahim Abraham in making <i>hijrah</i> migration to the land promised to him: &ldquo;Islam in the end of times will be more manifest in Sham... So the best of the people on the earth in the end of times will be those who keep to the land of Ibrahim&rsquo;s hijrah, which is Sham&rdquo; Majmu&rsquo;ul-Fatawa. Ibn Taymiyyah (rahimahullah) also said, &ldquo;So he informed that the best of the people on the earth are those who keep to the land of Ibrahim&rsquo;s hijrah, in contrast to those who pass through it or leave it. The land that Ibrahim made hijrah to is Sham... the land of Ibrahim&rsquo;s hijrah... And the land of Ibrahim&rsquo;s hijrah, has been made for us equal to the land of our Prophet&rsquo;s hijrah. The best people on earth will be those who keep to the land of Ibrahim&rsquo;s hijrah&rdquo;. Note how the theology of these jihadists effectively replaces the land of Saudi Arabia and the city of Mecca with that of the Levant, the territory promised to Abraham; and Mecca is replaced in their focus by Jerusalem. With Saudi Arabia now supporting the Western coalition against the jihadists, such a shift in emphasis isn&rsquo;t surprising. But it means that all is being prepared for the last days- for the Bible prophecies focus upon the domination of the land of Israel and Jerusalem in particular. It&rsquo;s significant that the Caliph of the Islamic State Caliphate is referred to by his followers as Caliph Ibrahim / Abraham; the idea is that the faithful will follow him in migrating from their homelands to the land promised to him- which is the very same <i>eretz</i> which is the focus of the Bible&rsquo;s latter day prophecies, and which is to be dominated by an antiChrist figure and his beast.</p>