Corona Chronicles - Crown of Gold

Welcome to the crowded chroniclesacks for tuning in for another day. We've got a guest with us. Today. And some of you may know him only as the taskmaster. If you've been watching from Cornerstone Church, but this is Rory 1 of our members.

Great tech. Great to have him with us on the corona chronicles. And a good time, good time to join. We're we're gonna be jumping into chapter 18 today. And just reading the first 3 verses.

And you might remember if you watched yesterday, we were thinking about these evil forces. Babylon and the beast. And although they presented a unified front, actually in the end because they're fundamentally selfish and opposed to God, they end up ripping each other to pieces because the house divided against itself cannot stand. Only god and his people are the unified ones to the end. And we're really gonna circle back and look at a bit more about Babylon's future now.

So this is chapter 18 After this, I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority and the earth was illuminated by his splendor. With a mighty voice he shouted, fallen fallen is babble on the grate. She has become a dwelling for demons and a haunt for every impure spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable animal. For all the nations have drunk the maddening wine of her adulteries.

The kings of the earth committed adultery with her. And the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries. So here we are thinking about the Ford of Babylon again. And what what strikes you about it, mate? What do you reckon?

I mean, it's it's quite a a stark sort of condemning of battle on the great. Right? Fall and fall and is Babylon on the great. And I I sort of get this picture when I when I read that. You know, for like a city that sort of experienced great violence or great sort of wall or bombing or something like that.

You always sort of At after that, the aftermath is always sort of a a desolate broken place and you sort of you've got rocks and rubble all over the place and and there's there's birds scavenging for things and that wild animals looking for things. And It feels like that this once great city. This once great nation. As good as it once was, now now it's just totally messy. Mhmm.

Mhmm. Absolutely. And it's it's amazing that those Yeah. You're right. Those are war torn cities because you you see some buildings there that you know at 1 time, you can even see it in old photos, looked extremely grand.

And who would have been hanging out there? Well, only the most senior politicians and military generals and important people. And yet now, you know, you pay 10 quints of tourists and you go and look around it. It's a horn. Isn't it?

A shadow of what it once was. And Babylon has become like even like a haunted house. You know, everything that is unclean. I mean, that that's really repeated here, isn't it? A haunt for every impure spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every detestable animal.

Basically, all that is shameful and unclean and against God has now made its home in this once prosperous once prosperous a prosperous place. And you know, in verse 3, we're told why that's the future. For all the nations have drunk the maddening wine of her adulteries. And, yeah, that's that's that's what she does, isn't it? And that's what Babylon was famous for.

You know, seducing kings and people away from God. Yeah. And the wine is the wine is maddening because there there is a madness in sin, isn't there? That's that's the thing about sin. It's not just making the wrong choices.

The fact that we would ever turn away from God is a madness, isn't it? That we would think we know best in our creator. Yeah. Yeah. With that as well, like, it's it is a madness.

But because it's wine, there's that addictive -- Yeah. -- wanting to go more and more and more. And I think this is what happens. Great nations. They think they're so good.

They think they're great. They're so proud in who they are. They think they can do whatever they want. And they indulge, and they they they feel untouchable because of and I guess that's what Warren does to you. You feel like you could do anything in the world.

But actually, that will always come to your ruin. The addictions of of wine. You know, even just an alcoholic -- Mhmm. -- they feel invincible. But actually, often, that comes to their own.

You think about those young men who climb up buildings because they're drunk and drunk because Yeah. You can do anything. Well Yeah. It's madness. Well, the mounding wine of the the people that drink of the, you know, babble on the grapes that will come to the ruin and the hauntedness of it all shows that ruin.

Yeah. It does. And and we've picked up on this before, but the phrase adultery which keeps being repeated in the same sentence as Babylon. Mhmm. People aren't familiar with the bible story.

That might be weird. Why is it going on about adults very constantly? But it's like it's it's kind of 1 of the most horrible descriptions of sin, isn't it? And then there's a betrayal of your lover, your creator, and you trade him in for a wildly inferior love. A different god, a different way of living.

And adultery is that's why because it's so hurtful a break to break the covenant promise, isn't it? Yeah. And that that's that's kind of what what that's all about. And, you know, I think I think as we've sort of touched on before, this this helps us in our day, doesn't it? And to keep a proper perspective, and we've been reflected on how this coronavirus has 1 of the things it's done is is begun to show that our institutions which look impenetrable most of the time.

Actually, all it takes is 1, you know, 1 fish market in a bit of China. Something happens an animal is handled, and the world is beginning to come down. You know, the the people I was hearing on the radio this morning, but the bank of england, I think it was. Of saying that, you know, this is the worst financial for hundreds of years, but by a little virus that you can't even see with an naked eye. And and so that that reminds us, yeah, let let's let's just be careful for what we think.

This is the secure place to trust, you know. And we we've seen that pattern throughout history. Yeah. And that that these sort of great nations and these great empires come up and they think that they're gonna last forever. Mhmm.

And then suddenly they're gone. And, you know, we talk we we could talk about Alexander the great who who dies. That but but a very simple thing. Or or the Roman Empire looked like it was gonna last forever, but didn't last forever. It collapsed.

You think about even and the Nazis with Hitler. Mhmm. And this was maybe the thousand year -- Yeah. -- national empire. Yeah.

And in 13 years, hit this committed suicide and there's no more. Yeah. Yeah. Or even communism only lasts for 70 years in rome. So so all these nations -- Yeah.

Always collapse. Yeah. And, it's the same for for the ones that are going on now. And so, our western civilization, our western cultures think they're invincible. Yeah.

And this coronavirus is saying, no, you're not. Yeah. And actually, this will collapse like all others. And I think it's all just pointing towards the final days. Mhmm.

They're all just a a shadow, a pointer towards the day when all nations and empires will be no more. And they will come to be judged for God's kingdom to to be made apparent. And as Christians, we don't learn from that, you know, we're with fools on. It's why the great here, you know, on Christ, the solid rock ice sand, all other ground is sinking sand. You know, that's what this is trying to show, isn't it?

And in in tomorrow's episode, we're gonna have to think about what specifically the church are called to do in light of what's gonna happen to Babylon.