Then another angel followed him through the sky, shouting, “Babylon is fallen—that great city is fallen—because she made all the nations of the world drink the wine of her passionate immorality.” Then a third angel followed them, shouting, “Anyone who worships the beast and his statue or who accepts his mark on the forehead or on the hand must drink the wine of God’s anger. It has been poured full strength into God’s cup of wrath. And they will be tormented with fire and burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and the Lamb. The smoke of their torment will rise forever and ever, and they will have no relief day or night, for they have worshiped the beast and his statue and have accepted the mark of his name.” Revelation 14:8-11
In Revelation so much is in apocalyptic language, messages of the end of
times, and the completion of the Bible’s prophecies, and God’s final judgment over
evil. It’s easy to get lost in the
imagery and shadows. Generally accepted
scholarship is that “Babylon” stands for the worldly system which opposes God’s
will, including everything from elevating human power to greedily control
people and governments, all the way to the basest of ignoring the basic human
needs of food and shelter for the poor.
In the end all the grandiose schemes and manipulations of the powerful,
controlled by Lucifer’s darkness, will be exposed, humiliated, and
defeated. The image of sulfur, fire, and
smoke of torment forever is not lost on our internal compass of God as final
justice, and recompense for transgressions.
Exposing the dark side of this world’s systematic error is Revelation’s purpose
in unveiling the Son of Man, Jesus, the one who will stand in judgment of those
who give worship to anyone or anything other than the one, true, living God, Jehovah. The righteous Son of God is alone worthy to judge
the nations of all times.
So, when Babylon is the label, it is evil that is exposed to the
light. It is a picture of an event I
once heard (and cannot forget) described by evangelist Vance Havner in a sermon
delivered to about 1200 students at New Orleans Baptist Seminary. He was picturing the classic struggle between
light and darkness, or good and evil. He
asked us to imagine a dark room behind the door. The room is filled with little creatures,
roaches. When you open the door, they’re
on high alert; you switch on the light and you know what happens, the creepy,
crawly critters scatter! Light does have
that effect.
As our first parents, Adam and Eve fell from innocence in Eden, so we all
follow this inherited nature of sin. The
grace of God was offered to all of us as forgiveness, a gift of Christ’s blood
on the cross. In the end, as Revelation
so dramatically depicts, those who reject that grace by clinging to this world’s
evil system of power, greed, and estrangement from God, will fall a second time…this
time, eternally…into a judgment of suffering, too terrible, unending and unquenchable
to imagine. That suffering has little to
do with the fire; it has everything to do with being separated from God our
Creator forever. No light…only dark
side.
For You Today
There is not a
prophecy of Scripture that has missed the mark…they all come true. Even this promise of judgment on the darkness. But God has offered us the choice to reject
the darkness and move into the light:
If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Romans 10:9
You
chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!
Title image, Pixabay.com
and W Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
For other posts on God’s Judgment see: Harvest of the Earth and Creator
Savior Judge
No comments:
Post a Comment