December 28/29, 2014
Our penultimate (next to last) reading!
Revelation 17-19
These three chapters take us from the depth of cultural depravity and its final destruction to heights of glory and the wedding supper of the Lamb!
Revelation 17 describes the woman who sits astride the beast. The woman is “Babylon the Great.” Since the days of Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon has been the Bible’s universal symbol for sinful culture. It seems that here, Babylon is code for Rome, the “mother of...abominations.” Rome does not persecute the faithful without riding on the back of ultimate evil, the beast. Ironically, the beast “hates” the prostitute who sits on him, and will turn on her (17:16).
Revelation 18 is, perhaps, the saddest chapter in the Bible. “Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!” I remember reading an end-of-the-world, nuclear holocaust novel named, “Alas, Babylon,” which took its title from this chapter. Read chapter 18 with such destruction in mind, and Nevil Shute’s novel seems a distinct possibility. Everything that cries wealth and power in this world will one day be destroyed!
Revelation 19 shouts, “Hallelujah!” not just because sin and idolatry has been punished, but because the wedding of the Lamb has come and His bride (the Church!) has made herself ready! (19:7) But there are two “banquets depicted in Revelation 19; the second is the banquet of carrion enjoyed by the scavenger birds after the last battle.
On December 30, we conclude our year-long trek through Scripture!
Your fellow traveler through the New Testament,
Pastor Gary
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