“Revelation 18:4-8”

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

“I heard another voice from heaven, saying, ‘Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues; for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. Pay her back even as she has paid, and give back to her double according to her deeds; in the cup which she has mixed, mix twice as much for her. To the degree that she glorified herself and lived sensuously, to the same degree give her torment and mourning; for she says in her heart, ‘I SIT as A QUEEN AND I AM NOT A WIDOW, and will never see mourning.’ For this reason in one day her plagues will come, pestilence and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; for the Lord God who judges her is strong.”

---End of Scripture verses---

Christians must endeavor to live IN the world, while being careful to not be OF the world (John 17:16). God does not desire for us to “go out of the world” (1 Corinthians 5:10) in order to separate ourselves from it, but we dare not participate in its evil deeds (verse 4). “Therefore do not be partakers with them, for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord, walk as children of the Light (for the fruit of the Spirit consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them; for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret.” (Ephesians 5:7-12)

Homer Hailey wrote regarding verse 5: “In His longsuffering God allows man to continue his own way until his sins have reached an intolerable point of saturation; then judgment falls. The phrase used by Amos, ‘For three transgressions, yea for four’ (Amos 2), expresses the idea. The rage of Israel against Judah ‘reached up unto heaven’ (II Chron. 28:9); the judgment of Babylon reached ‘unto heaven,’ and was ‘lifted up even to the skies’ (Jer. 5:19); and the iniquities and guilt of the Jews had ‘grown up unto the heavens’ (Ezra 9:6). Iniquity piles upon iniquity until it becomes a stench in the nostrils of God—it reaches into heaven. When this point is reached, then ‘the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath’ (16:19) is given into the hand of the offender.”

We have no one to blame but ourselves for the consequences of our own sins. Until we can take an honest look at the person in the mirror we will never see an end to the problems that our foolish choices usher into our lives. Rome certainly deserved “twice” the mixture of wrath returned upon her head for the evil that she committed, but verse 6 is likely a plea for paying her back justly with an equal measure for her wickedness. The prophecy in verse 7 is “to the same degree” that she “glorified herself and lived sensuously” she would be given “torment and mourning” (Luke 16:19-25). The Psalmist’s prayer of righteous indignation was much the same for prototypical Babylon of old: “O daughter of Babylon, you devastated one, how blessed will be the one who repays you with the recompense with which you have repaid us” (Psalm 137:8).

Once again the words Isaiah spoke against ancient Babylon are used in regard to Rome in verse 7. “Yet you said, ‘I will be a queen forever.’ These things you did not consider nor remember the outcome of them. Now, then, hear this, you sensual one, who dwells securely, who says in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one besides me. I will not sit as a widow, nor know loss of children.’ But these two things will come on you suddenly in one day: loss of children and widowhood. They will come on you in full measure in spite of your many sorceries, in spite of the great power of your spells. You felt secure in your wickedness and said, ‘No one sees me,’ your wisdom and your knowledge, they have deluded you; for you have said in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one besides me.’ But evil will come on you which you will not know how to charm away; and disaster will fall on you for which you cannot atone; and destruction about which you do not know will come on you suddenly.” (Isaiah 47:7-11)

Like Babylon before her, Rome was a great world power and fancied herself indestructible, that her lands would always be fertile and her prosperity inexhaustible. But eternal power, strength and permanency belong to the Lord and Him alone (verse 8).

Please read Revelation 18:9-14 for tomorrow.

-Louie Taylor

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