Rejoice

DEVOTION

THE REVELATION

REJOICE

Rev 18:17-20

"Every sea captain, and all who travel by ship, the sailors, and all who earn their living from the sea, will stand far off. 18 When they see the smoke of her burning, they will exclaim, 'Was there ever a city like this great city?' 19 They will throw dust on their heads, and with weeping and mourning cry out: "'Woe! Woe, O great city, where all who had ships on the sea became rich through her wealth! In one hour she has been brought to ruin! 20 Rejoice over her, O heaven! Rejoice, saints and apostles and prophets! God has judged her for the way she treated you.'"

NIV

We have seen all the world leaders gnashing their teeth over the collapse of this great ideology. Although the actual city of Babylon was on the Euphrates river it was still fairly well inland within the now land of Iraq. It is doubtful the downfall of this city is what all this is about, but rather as we have been seeing, this is the collapse of the world economy. All the cruise ships, the mighty vessels of luxurious vacation times will stand empty. The great cargo ships that once carried hundreds, even thousands of containers filled with the goods of manufactures for sale, will remain but large void hulls. Whatever kind of merchant ship there is, they will have no merchandise to carry. The various navy ships of countries that have such naval strength will wonder why they should continue, there is nothing left, no more fuel, except of course those power by nuclear reactors. But there are no more supply ships bringing food and other needs to these ships, they cannot continue without food supplies. The ships of the fishing industry have already been affected once with one third of the seas turned to blood, unless that meant a great battle on the high seas, but if that was true, now it is even worse, for the even the fishing industry has lost its ability to gather its catch, no fuel left, the world economy in shambles, chaos everywhere, food and water has become the only prize sought after in an effort to sustain life. Surely from this chaos a leader will attempt to emerge, promising to solve this, to bring order. Surely this will be an anti-Christ of great magnitude. But the world cannot solve this, because it is about to be ended forever. We have seen over the centuries of time, Christians persecuted. Even before that we have seen the great prophets of God killed. We know all of the Apostles except John met with a horrible death at the hands of those who hated Christianity. History does tell us of believers having met death at the hands of what was supposed to be the church. Even today we see believers being killed for their faith. But the wide spread hatred and persecution of Christianity has yet to reach its fullest. There is coming a day when all believers will feel the wrath of the pagan, secular world. But God has already judged them and all this chaos they are to taste before their ultimate destruction, unless they see the truth and repent. Then God will have mercy and compassion on them, giving free salvation to them. But should they not repent, their fate is sealed, as surely as ours is sealed by the Holy Spirit. How can we warn them? They will not listen to reason, their minds are closed to the truth. They have faith in themselves and their supposed wisdom, knowledge and what they believe is science. They trust in nothing but their own power, and in their gold, their wealth. We are so blessed to have been convicted by the Spirit and given insight into the truth of God. We shall rejoice over this collapse. Our rejoicing is not so much over the chaos those people who hate God and who may well have caused harm to believers, but because the end is coming soon. The new earth and new heaven is near, and our new life with God in the new city of Jerusalem is approaching closer and closer to being at hand. It is almost over and we are going to be in such glory we have never known before. Yet it is sad to see all those people in so much torment, we should warn them, we should tell them what is to happen. We should be announcing their pending disaster, as the prophets of old did. But then would we be killed as they were? They certainly will attempt to silence our voice, discredit our message, but we should not allow that to keep us from speaking up. There are more people who can be saved, it is the will of God none should perish. But we know there will always be so many who will have to go through this experience. World leaders, world merchants, and those who make their living on the waters of the earth. Why won’t they listen? Why are men so stubborn about refusing God? Certainly with all the collapse of the world economy men would turn to God.  This is the message of this revelation. Turn to God, repent before it is too late. Just as in the days of Noah, God gave men an opportunity to repent all the time it took Noah to complete the ark. But then the day came when God shut the door and all of mankind was wiped from the face of the earth, except for Noah and his family. This too is the fate of mankind if they do not repent. The whole the scriptures tell the story of God, how he has always provided for his people. How he determined a way for his creation to be reconciled to himself, and be saved. But now the last chapter of mankind is at hand. All the time, God has been showing us to trust in him, his provision for our salvation, Jesus. But a time is coming God will close the door once again, he will close the door on mankind, and bring the full force of his wrath upon them as he did in the days of Noah. Mankind, all of mankind, every aspect of this world’s power and authority will be crushed when the world economy collapses and the end will be at hand. But we trust in God, we look to him for all things, for life itself. Praise God for he is everything, he is our hope, our salvation. Rejoice!