Pull-apart #2 & 3: Glory and Power
The sheer magnitude of God’s power was plain to all in heaven, on earth and under the earth. The kings, merchants, and sailors left alive after Babylon’s destruction were astounded. They were rubbing their foreheads with their hands, shaking their heads in disbelief, moaning and wailing, after all how could this happen? Babylon was so massive. She was so strong holding a grip over the entire world. All aspirations seemed to derive in some manner from what Babylon had and did. She was the example of success and winning. But she was made the example of failing and losing. Her fail and loss were epic both in scope and speed.
Power was God’s and having exercised it glory accrued to him. Worship was the result.
“Oh, great, how can I worship like that?”
When we read the scripture we are to apply it to our lives. My first reaction to reading of this worship service is to take it as a template for worship now. If, after all, these are in heaven and they are saying these things it must be right.
God eventually pointed out the obvious to me. Revelation 19 is beyond life as we know it. Maybe I could say it is “beyond faith.” That might seem an odd way to phrase it, but I really just mean that these worshipers do not need faith anymore. They no longer see truth darkly or with difficulty. They see things of God in the house of God with clarity. From that vantage point they look back over their lives and see them as temporary, not eternal. Maybe, like Paul, they even designate them “light and momentary” 1 compared with the weight of glory revealed to them.
So it is not wrong to use the words of this future scene to help craft worship to me, but God does not expect cookie cutter application of it to the now. Worship right now is still by faith and not by sight.
Great advantage comes by looking at life beyond faith
A time is coming when wickedness fails
Babylon was a beast. There is no question to that. Even the unsaved sailors making cargo runs into and out of Babylon saw her wickedness and oppression. If those who were earning their living in Babylon’s employ saw it those who earned their dying under the martyr’s blade felt it. In Revelation 18 and 19 these two groups saw and experienced the end game God had for Babylon. Her wickedness failed as she underwent a violent, permanent disappearance.
Matthew tells us some words of Jesus. “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28–NIV) In Matthew 10 Jesus was speaking to those who were still having to live by faith and not sight. In Revelation 18 and 19 God graciously bestowed upon us a glimpse of the other world, his world, his house. He gave a glimpse beyond faith for faith.
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