Tuesday 26th December - Revelation 19

Today’s chapter is Revelation 19

Tom writes:

Never again. That has been the refrain of the last few passages.  Never again will Babylon be found. Never again will a lamp shine in her.  Never again will she lead the nations astray. While much of the book of Revelation has been an open door into what is going on in heaven right now, what we are reading here is the True End of this world in its current form. This stuff hasn’t happened yet. But it will. Yes it will. It is worth lingering a while on that. We get so used to the ugly head of the devil popping up in our lives that it can be hard to believe that a time is coming when it will never happen again. But what happens here really is a brand new reality being born. The Wedding will occur. The Banquet will begin. The birds of the air will gorge on the flesh of every demonic being. The beast and the false prophet will be thrown into the fiery lake. Lots of imagery points to the total destruction of all that is evil. Into the next chapter we see the wholesale destruction of every source of evil taking place.

I say again that this is worth a linger; a sure and certain conviction that evil will be annihilated would be a good portion of our daily bread.  To know that evil’s days are numbered inspires us, emboldens us, helps us stand firm.  And we can know that it is true because it is already happening. While the True End depicted here hasn’t occurred yet, don’t we already see The Rider on a White Horse already dressed in a robe that has been dipped in the blood? He put that on at the cross. Don’t we already know that the KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS has started treading out the winepress. Every time we see an addiction overcome, every time we see a healing occur, every time we see someone forgiven of their sins or growing in love or standing firm in trial - we see the victory of Faithful and True, we see a glimmer of a foretaste of the downfall of evil. Jesus is doing his thing right now through his church when we continue in faithfulness and we live like the lamb. And so we worship now. Of course our worship then will be vaster, more roar-like, more “an ocean wave” than what we do now - as I said it is hard to comprehend life totally liberated from any trace of evil. But when we read these passages it shows us that we are on the right track and that our worship and our faithfulness and our “keeping on keeping on” is a clear witness about Jesus. Jesus will consummate the whole thing in the end. There will be a day when the devil is utterly destroyed and the world is utterly redeemed. What we taste in the now will become all things in all ways for all days without end.

Question for reflection

Can you imagine the entire universe without any trace of any form of evil affecting it?