Practical words from watching these kings
Some people will watch birds and other people will watch people. It is good for us to look at these kings and marvel not at their wealth or their wicked liaisons. We must not stare at them open mouthed or in shock. Nor should we just discard what they did as foolish and shortsighted. We must be wise and learn from their mistakes.
Remember that God is powerful
The very power which God WILL USE in the destruction of Babylon is present and active RIGHT NOW. It has always been present and the first scriptural insights into this happen right away in Genesis. There God is introduced as maker, creator, beginner. It is easy in our era to believe that God himself is merely conceptual, not to mention the power that is supposed to emanate from him.
We need to deliberately recall to mind that all things we see in nature are because a divine being said, “Go.” That divine being made all of the elements that make the world work. Sure our scientists have classified the elements into a thing called the periodic table. Why are they there? Why do they have that arrangement? Well, because the scientists studied how things work. When they put their microscopes onto the things in the world they found entities that behaved a certain way. Other entities behave differently. Eventually the entities have been categorized and plopped into neat arrangements.
What is the neatest arrangement? The things that are around us. The way those elements work in our experience. Scientists did not make any of these elements. They merely labeled them. Of course, they are alive because of them, but they did not need to know their names to live, to think, to study, to breath, to do all the things that make them alive.
God is the one who is outside of the electrons, the protons, the neutrons and all of the subatomic particles with which scientists the world over are enamored. The best way to be enamored is to say, “Wow, look what God did.” The next step in that is to participate in the world with thankfulness. See God is powerful. The kings around Babylon saw God’s power of judgment. The best thing is to see God’s power, experience the “wow” and live a life of thanksgiving.
Look at the star over Bethlehem and come to Jesus
Think back to the kings in Revelation 18. Let your mind also go to the featured image for this lesson. What do we see there? In both sides of the photo there are bright spots. There are events behind the bright spots one is God’s star over Bethlehem. The other is a depiction of a city on fire. What did the wise men from the east do? They came to find Jesus. What did the foolish kings of the world do? They stood far off. Both events were big events. The eternal outcome in both was also very big.
You and I are not now facing either of these things1. You and I are given understanding of both of these things though. Will we be wise and upon seeing God’s power come to him with acknowledgment and thankfulness? Or, will we say, “Probably later.” Later is forever. Forever in the house where Jesus lives, a.k.a. Heaven, is one thing. Forever outside of God’s house, a.k.a. Hell, is quite another.
Some people deny Heaven and Hell; other people deny one or the other2. Some people say Heaven and Hell are what we make of our lives on earth. My answer to that has two words: “sort of.” No matter what your current opinions stand on remember that God is powerful, remember that he sent his Son announced by a star, and remember that he will send his son with sudden judgment at some point in the future. How do you fit on that spectrum? Do you deny that spectrum? I think the latter is particularly risky; I am not willing to deny the star or more seriously to deny what it tells me of my origins.
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