Category: Commentary

Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.” And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.” And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her, I marveled greatly. Revelation 17:1-6.

There are so many images and symbols in this chapter it is hard to know where to begin. So I tend to stick with big picture issues instead of those things that are beyond me.

Whoever this woman is, we know she represents a worldwide cult of sexual immorality. She rides the great beast that demands to be worshiped as god, but the beast hates her and will eventually destroy her. So, although she serves the beast’s purposes, she is only a tool to use against the church. All this insane sexual “freedom” will not last.

I saw two news stories within a week, in which a group of Muslims in the UK got LGBT education tossed out of their school. Shortly thereafter, I saw that a UK journalist is being prosecuted for a hate crimes because she would not call a transexual by his preferred gender pronoun. The journalist is a Christian, and one with actual moral convictions. She is going down, but the Muslims aren’t, which does look like all this jack-booted sexual fascism is just weaponized sin to use against the church.

The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple, from the throne, saying, “It is done!” And there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, and a great earthquake such as there had never been since man was on the earth, so great was that earthquake. The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell, and God remembered Babylon the great, to make her drain the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath. And every island fled away, and no mountains were to be found. And great hailstones, about one hundred pounds each, fell from heaven on people; and they cursed God for the plague of the hail, because the plague was so severe. Revelation 16:17-21.

When you don’t have an almighty God to fear, I suppose you can get pretty worked up about a 2 degree change in the Earth’s temperature. And it must be pretty exhilarating to think you’re saving the world by forcing your neighbor to junk his SUV and take the bus. But there may be something more important to save that we are more certain to lose: our souls.

Before you call ME a crazy alarmist, remember that death is not an unproven theory and does not rely on computer models to forecast our demise. So, cosmically speaking, it is a small extrapolation to predict the sun will someday run out of hydrogen and leave the Earth cold and dead. What sets me and my kind apart is the belief that this could feasibly happen in our lifetime. AND that you can do something about it and save yourself. Isn’t that worth considering?

After this Absalom got himself a chariot and horses, and fifty men to run before him. And Absalom used to rise early and stand beside the way of the gate. And when any man had a dispute to come before the king for judgment, Absalom would call to him and say, “From what city are you?” And when he said, “Your servant is of such and such a tribe in Israel,” Absalom would say to him, “See, your claims are good and right, but there is no man designated by the king to hear you.” Then Absalom would say, “Oh that I were judge in the land! Then every man with a dispute or cause might come to me, and I would give him justice.” And whenever a man came near to pay homage to him, he would put out his hand and take hold of him and kiss him. Thus Absalom did to all of Israel who came to the king for judgment. So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel. 2 Samuel 15:1-6.

Joab’s scheme to bring Absalom back to Jerusalem and reunite him with his father is not going the way he expected. Absalom is back, but he’s being ignored. He decides to fix that and begins to actively campaign to be king. It’s it an elected position, but Absalom must sense that there is some current of discontent in the kingdom. So he begins to endear himself to the people who have grievances.

Using what would become a template for campaigns far in the future, Absalom wins the hearts malcontents everywhere by doing no more than “feeling their pain.” Nowhere does it say he actually solved anyone’s problems. But he is very successful nonetheless, and he collects enough supporters to create a powerful conspiracy to have himself crowned in Hebron.

Since the way ex-kings in the ancient world were usually dealt with was with the sword of the new king, David flees Jerusalem. His unpopularity had to be noticable enough, even to him, that he did not call the army to resist the rebellion. He had his loyalists, including the Levites with the Ark of God, but he sends them back.

David’s unwillingness to fight for his crown is noteworthy. He didn’t fight to get it. Yet he’d fight the Philistines or the Amalekites at the drop of a hat. He saw his authority, the crown, as something borrowed from God, whereas defeating Israel’s enemies was a standing order from God. He may have thought this was how God was making a change in leadership, and he was wary of resisting it.

Today the church in America has largely forgotten it’s mission of evangelizing the lost. Rather than seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, we seek a secure republic that will protect our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We want to win the election more than we want to win the lost. Then we wonder why we are so vastly outnumbered.