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In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
After this I heard what sounded like the roar of a great multitude in Heaven shouting:
“Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for true and just are His judgments. He has condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth by her adulteries. He has avenged on her the blood of His servants.”
Revelation 19:1-3
This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
One major source of the world’s evil had been vanquished as God initiated judgment on the Mother of Prostitutes, a woman also referred to as “Babylon the Great”. Her fall is detailed in the closing verses of Revelation, chapter 17, and the response to her demise in chapter 18. That response was one of lamenting the loss of the wicked prostitute by those who profited off of her. They included the kings, the merchants, and the sea captains.
As we move to chapter 19, we find a much different response from Heaven, a trifecta of hallelujahs that we’ll look at in the next three messages. Let’s start with verses one through three and look again at those words here:
After this I heard what sounded like the roar of a great multitude in Heaven shouting:
“Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for true and just are His judgments. He has condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth by her adulteries. He has avenged on her the blood of His servants.”
While those associated with the prostitute on earth were saddened, we see the polar opposite as John heard “what sounded like” a “roar” coming from “a great multitude in Heaven”. We see that the first word they shout is “Hallelujah!”
Simply put, the word “Hallalujah!” here translates to “Praise the Lord!”, important because the focus wasn’t on the prostitute like those expressing sorrow in chapter 17. Rather, the full attention and devotion here is squarely on the One who made the death of the sinful Babylon the Great happen, the Lord God Almighty.
Why was God being praised here?
We find the answers in what follows the pronounced “Hallelujah!”. For we find the Lord being exalted for the following:
1. His salvation and glory and power.
“Salvation and glory and power belong to our God...”
All of these are found exclusively in the Maker and Master of all created things.
All glory is His because all mankind had and have sinned and fallen short of His glory (Romans 3:23).
His power is unmatched and unrivaled. It is infinitely great and through it, there’s nothing that He can’t do.
Finally, salvation only happens because He made a way for it through offering His Son Jesus as a living, one and for all atoning sin sacrifice so that whosoever would believe in Him wouldn’t perish but gain eternal life (John 3:16).
2. The true and just nature of His judgments.
...for true and just are His judgments. He has condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth by her adulteries.
God is perfectly right and righteous which makes Him perfectly able to discern and punish wickedness. He never errs and so every judgment He doles out is deserved, to include His condemnation of “the great prostitute”.
3. The avenging of His persecuted followers.
He has avenged on her the blood of His servants.
In verse 6 of Revelation, chapter 17, the scriptures tell us this about the evil prostitute:
I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of God’s holy people, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus.
And then in the final verse of chapter 18, we read this:
In her was found the blood of prophets and of God’s holy people, of all who have been slaughtered on the earth.
Indeed, there was great loss in the Christian ranks who fell victim to the incredible evil manifested by the prostitute but those who died for the cause of the Gospel did not go unredeemed by the God they served. Rather, God brought His vengeance in horrific fashion as the Mother of Prostitutes was made naked in the midst of ruin before her flesh was eaten and she was burned (17:12) by the beast (antichrist) and the ten kings who aligned themselves with him.
Evil destroyed evil but the scriptures make it clear that God was the One who made it happen (17:17). He avenged His beloved by destroying the malevolence that killed them.
Today, nothing has changed about our God.
Salvation, glory, and power are still His and His alone.
He is still perfectly just and true in the way He carries out judgment.
And He will work to avenge any of His followers who might lose their life at the hands of evil when it is His will to do so.
With this, let us raise our voices and join the multitude in Heaven by shouting “Hallelujah!” to our God.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
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