Victory of God, Revelation Lesson 8

"Brutal battles were fought by our forefathers so that we do not need to go through it ourselves," a friend remarked casually over ice-cream sometime ago. This astute observation was made in response to our discussion over what the world today thought of wars and violence.





Given that this friend is considerably younger, I shouldn't be surprised that our sentiments about life and hardship ran somewhat discordant. My parents lived through World War Two and horror stories of the much-feared Japanese occupation were a staple during dinnertime. My friend, almost a decade younger, grew up in the relatively easy boom of the 90s. In that way, he was considerably removed from the ugly memories of atrocities that up to two generations ago, kept everyday folks frozen in terror.

Time helps us forget.


And if it can water down such deep sentiments in just two generations, think of how far removed we are from the original readers of Revelation, the first-century Jews - 2000 years apart from us.

Here in this chapter, we will try to get into the shoes (and minds) of the original readers of Revelation. And when we understand what the text meant to them, we can appreciate it for what it would mean to us, too.


Observations
Chapter 15


Another set of visions are opened with this prelude. The setting is in heaven and the seven angels are about to pour out the final judgement of God. A victory song was sung by the overcomers. In the early church, the day of a person's martyrdom was called the day of his victory. The real victory was not to live for safety, to evade trouble, or to cautiously or prudently preserve life. The real victory is to face the worst that evil can do, and if need be, to be faithful unto death (Barclay).

And the seven angels move out, each carrying a bowl. These bowls of judgements come directly from God's presence and have the full sanction of God. The bowls also refer to the prayer of the saints (8:5). The prayers of God's people even though insignificant, are important! They have a part in bringing about the final state of affairs.



The power and glory of God was seen in the thick smoke surrounding the temple. This is final. There is no more intercession possible.


Chapter 16



The swift, unretractable judgements of God are poured out full wrath. In case we are wondering, God's punishment fits the crime. Whereas in the cycle of trumpets only a-third (a significant number) of nature is destroyed, in the cycle of bowls, the extent of the damage is complete and final. We find that although Bowls #1- #4 deal with the destruction of nature, Bowls #5 - #7 are "directly political". They are aimed at the destruction of the operations of the powers of evil.


Meanwhile, the powers of evil assemble. These are kings and world leaders whom are gathered to make battle against God. Then, verse 15 in a parenthesis refers to Jesus speaking as first-person "See, I am coming like a thief!..." This implies that there are believers who will be caught unprepared. They will be ashamed at a critical time in history. Compare this with the parable of the 10 virgins in Matt 25.






Then, of course we arrive at the oft-quoted location in last-days theory - Harmageddon. Har means mountain in Greek, and Megiddo is the name of a city in Manasseh. In this area, God overthrew the Canaanite kings by miraculously aiding Deborah and Barak in the account in Judges 4. Just the mention of the famous battleground or Armageddon to a Jew would suggest a horrific slaughter. If we follow a consistent thread in our studies, the location Armageddon is symbolic for a hopeless situation with a great appearance of the gathering of evil... where God will overturn the situation and win the victory!

Thoughts


I am grateful I live in an era of relative peace. I don't mind being subjected to horror war stories during mealtimes, but honestly, don't get me involved in the ugly, violent battles that define history, people and places.


The bible says however, that christians are already at war. This is a spiritual war and each was recruited the day they became believers in Christ. And God's promises still stand. At the point of impossibility, He will overthrow evil with a resounding victory and claim His own.




Like the original readers of Revelation, we are confronted with the realisation that there is a decisive moment in history.

And we decide which side are we on.

One Tragedy Less Would be Good

"How long have we been brothers?" Zilong (Andy Lau), the title character in the movie Three Kingdoms :Resurrection of the Dragon, asked his sworn brother Ping-An (Sammo Hung). "Thirty-two years and four months" was the reply. That was more than half of Zilong's lifetime. Albeit being one of the legendary 5 generals of the formidable Shu Kingdom in ancient China, Zilong was not mentioned in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. That aside, the film was true to its literary depiction of the Shu Kingdom as the protagonist.

The film began and ended with Zilong and Ping-An, chronicling their fateful first encounter to the battleground where one met his valiant end while the other assumed greatness by proxy. Their lives, though panned out differently, had one thing in common - both had come full circle and ended up where they started. They spent the better half of their lives fighting for a cause, only to find very little reason to do so at the end.

Such are tragedies made of.

I had some hard thinking to do too. After spending 6 years living for a cause, have I come full circle? All that I wanted was to have a family growing and maturing in the ways of God. Maybe I was too hopeful. Or maybe I had heaped too much expectations on myself and on them. Maybe I had played God too many a time. Maybe I need to release them all to Him and move on with life. Maybe.

Ecclesiates tell us that life is meaningless apart from God. Do I need to plunge the depths of futility to understand what that means? Or... maybe I can simply fear and love God, obey His commandments... and set out like a junior Augustine... do whatever I like?

Don't know. But the world certainly don't need another tragedy.

Ramblings

March went by in a daze. It was election month. And for a while, everything else took a backseat whilst conversations went on furiously in coffee shops, kopitiams, mamaks, boardrooms, bedrooms... you name it. Who wagered which party was going to win, stories of corruption (old tales... yawn), cronyism and all the rest of it. Election fever was on!

Even the bible studies took similar slant. It was by no accident either that we were going through chapters 19 and 20 of Exodus, which spoke about the preamble and the formalization of the constitution for Israel.

Many parallels were drawn, allusions alluded, mental gymnastics exercised finally dare I say, tho we were not altogether wiser about the state of politics in Malaysia, we at least learnt that God's covenant with Israel all those centuries ago has ramifications for us today.

I love history for the way it progressively unfolds human nature. I just hate the idea of it being a subject for examinations. Love the relational factor, hate the rigidity of the structure that attempts to contain it.

Just as well, because beneath the rules and regulations and laws - meant to govern behaviour - isn't the ideal to live a life so exemplary that laws are no longer needed? But...ah, I am in fantasyland.

I digress.

Tomorrow we wrap up our 3-week analysis on the 4th Commandment, The Sabbath. After tracing its origin in Genesis, we looked at its institution in Exodus as a commandment, its part in the moral and ceremonial practices in the Old Testament, the controversy it sparked when Jesus interpreted it for the pharisees... and finally, its significance for New Testament christians. Phew!

And like those coming-of-age movies, the class discovered that the quest for one thing can open up doors of understanding to a bigger picture, beyond what was initially expected. What the students expected was a neatly-packaged doctrine, nicely presented in a "do this but don't do that" label (a product); but what they got instead was a process of thinking, re-thinking, interpreting and re-interpreting (an education, hopefully).

I must admit that I have learnt much too, thanks to these students, without whom I would not force myself to think a few steps ahead. The preparation for the studies have benefited me greatly. Tiring, but worth it.