Rejoicing songs of praise not being vendetas but rejoicing in God and His justice, but what is the central focus of Revelation is that All Christians will rejoice at the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ – a joy such as none of us I’m sure has ever known in this world – even though that coming must mean the end of the unbelieving world and the judgment and punishment of its people. “Maranatha, O Lord Come quickly,” is always the sweetest part of our song!
The very nature of the union with the Harlot and Beast has led to the shock of Satan’s divided house … and has brings home to us all the Gospel of Christ’s Household united in bonds of selfless, sacrificial love.
Without the word of God we will Marvel at the power and seduction of evil … even as Christians! – This is because the unusual way that God has ordained life to be lived this side of the resurrection. This middle paragraph in Rev 17 is giving us the wisdom needed to flip the picture right side up, and see that – as threatening and intimidating and overwhelming as the Woman and the Beast look, one little Word will fell them!
By God’s exposure of the Great City, the Mother prostitute of Babylon – he not only vindicates His judgment but anticipates the Chaste virgin Bride of Christ, the New Jerusalem – the city of our God – and exposes Her implicitly as a faithful and truly beautiful Bride. Not for what she is naturally, but for what Christ has made her – by being the Lamb slain for her… by drinking the cup of God’s fury for her. This act of self-sacrifice taking her from her own prostitution and establishing her in purity.
The Christian response to suffering, to COVID-19, to life … is to rejoice in the work God is doing and has done and to repent while it is still called today.
From our text we see that it was not just at Calvary that Satan and the rulers of this age make this Classic blunder, but all through Redemptive History Satan always gets a surprise defeat in great battles because, as the whole book of Revelation has been teaching us, the fire that refines the church, consumes the enemy!
Solomon asking for wisdom is for us a call to be humbled to true wisdom and the joy of that condition. Paul was crushed under the HIGH GLORY of the ministry of gospel and called out “WHO is sufficient for these things?!” – only to be comforted by Christ that “God had made him sufficient, by hiding the treasure in Paul’s clay jar so that he could show the surpassing power belonged to God and NOT to man.” I fear that our current crisis has not yet had that effect on all Christians. But HAPPY is the saint bowed to petition God in humility.
What do you expect to happen in worship? As we look at the first 5 bowls of the wrath of God’s holiness being poured out, I wonder if you have ever expected GOD to dethrone YOU! But that is not something that I can produce by yelling louder or slapping the pulpit. As Thomas Watson rightly said, “Ministers can only speak to the ear, the Spirit speaks to the heart.” Only the Spirit of God can change our hearts to honor God as God!
Worship is Warfare! This is the Strangest type of warfare … as the songs go UP the canons are fired. As the delight in Grace is realized the infantry advances! It is an odd battle tactic, but not one we are totally unfamiliar with. God gave us plenty of examples in the Bible. John is teaching us in the introduction to the 7 bowls of God’s wrath, that we are most effective in defeating the devil when we are most transformed in worship!
Truly loving Christ is to have Him as your song! And when you know Christ to be your conqueror then you will sing His song like it is your song!
