Blessed is He
(Rev 16:15ampsim21)
Have your parents accepted the Lord? The most blessed life is to believe in Jesus and enter the heavenly kingdom. After the woes of the seals, trumpets, and bowls, God prepared his last and seventh woe. God said 'Blessed is he .......' before pouring out his bowl into the air, informing us that he actually intended to bless us through his woes. How then can we receive his blessing?
1. Remember that the ruler of the kingdom of the air will surely fall. Gods angel poured out his bowl into the air after the others poured theirs into the sea and the springs of water, and the Euphrates. The seventh bowl is unavoidable. As in Ephesus 2:2, the air is Satans domain, the intermediate space between heaven and earth. Pouring out the bowl into the air is actually against Satan, who tries to enlarge his domain. The clause 'And God saw that it was good' appears after each stage of Gods six-day creation except for his creation of the sky. Thus the high place is a troubled domain. Likewise the air is the dwelling place of demon spirits, which brings demon possession and mental disease on earth. 'It is done!' in the passage is a past perfect sentence, which means everything is finished. This is two sides of the same coin Gods salvation and Gods judgment. God paid crucifixion for salvation. One deacon, who is third highest in his workplace, feels unhappy that he is often treated as a delivery man when visiting his customers office. One day he reflected upon himself, facing his customers, a couple suffering from an explosive disorder. Later he shared in his small group that he endured it thanks to his QT and apologized to the couple. On hearing this, his wife said, 'You are working in your 31st workplace. Simply accept that you are just a delivery man!'
2. Remember that the great city Babylon will fall.
(1) The city will fall by flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, and earthquake. The great earthquake stands for a perfect judgment. No one can avoid the judgment in order to receive salvation because the nature of God himself includes both aspects. God cant stand sins. Revelation is not a warning book about the end of the world, but a book of consolation, instructing that God will conquer evil for good.
(2) The city will fall as God remembers it according to its deeds. Babylon was the city that brought about confusion by standing against God at every opportunity. The city also refers to Rome in those days. It can also represent current prosperous non-Christian nations or people or communities. Yet it falls as God remembers it by the deeds of its people. So it is with our life. God will surely remember us by our deeds, good or bad. Believing Jesus as God is considered a good deed while not believing as a bad deed. One deacon, a would-be Christian confessed that he believed in God as a sort of blessing genii. Then he saw his sins in his community sharing and recognized the will of God the Father by the help of the Holy Spirit. Just showy godly deeds or religious action without Jesus leads us nowhere.
(3) The city will fall by its curse on God because of the plague. The plague of hail that weighs more than 30kg made people curse God instead of returning to Him. One elder, a cancer patient, because of his suffering, cursed God to his very last moment. So it is with us. No one knows what his last moment will be like. Trial doesnt bring everyone before God. Good interpretation based on faith does. Those who dont accept Jesus as their Lord fail to interpret and curse God. Those who recognize Gods wrath on themselves are already on the right track. We can stop abusing others by recognizing that God is 100% right.
3. Be awake and wear your clothes. Blessed are those who are free from spiritual disgrace. Thats why we need to be awake whether before or after the plague. God commanded us to buy white clothes so we can cover our shameful nakedness. The best way to cover our shameful nakedness is to reveal our physical disgrace. Thus we need to prepare for Jesus second coming by being awake in our daily life. Trials often keep us spiritually awake because we cant be awake by ourselves.
Here is a confession of a deacon, who changed his family household into a blessed family on the verge of being broken because of his Babylon values. In his small group, the deacon shared that he had decided to go to Japan because he was about to lose his position because his company had to work out M&A. People were excited about this news, but his small group leader prescribed that he should stick to his community, remembering that the deacon once had driven his family to a crisis on account of his affairs while he was living separated from his family. Next day the deacon cancelled his plan for Japan, saying that he had deceived himself by believing that Japan was his promised land, instead of seeing it as Moab, which would save his children from an education hell. Later the CEO of his group company offered him a position as the boss of the merging company. He was overwhelmed by Gods great project that he didnt expect. I pray that God will bless us to carry our cross well, enduring our present sufferings, looking for the glory that will be revealed in us no matter how tough the situation we are currently placed.
Behold, I come like a thief! Blessed is he who stays awake and keeps his clothes with him, so that he may not go naked and be shamefully exposed (Rev 16:15).
