That Great City

Rev 18:1-2 After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was made bright with his glory. And he called out with a mighty voice, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast.�

This morning as we were getting up Helen told me that people were queing from Christmas Day evening for the opening of the sales on Boxing Day! Listening to the radio on my way home from dropping friends off on Christmas Day I discovered that there were special sales online that were for Christmas Day only. It made me sad that not even one day in the year was spared from the constant treadmill of buying and selling. That people just had to spend and get.

I've joked on FB and Twitter that Westfield (huge shopping centre in West London) is a temple and people go there to worship - but really that is exactly what it is. The temples of Revelation's Babylon - the great city - are not religious but materialistic. They are shops that sell everything we want but don't need. The warning in Revelation 18 is for the church not to get involved in her spiritual adulteries; not to go chasing after these things instead of God. Too often, I must be honest, my eye is distracted by the swing of her hips and the seduction of her advertising boards.

"Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great." So much evil is perpetrated in the pursuit of wealth. The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. The judgement of God will fall in a single day.

The wonder of God is that out of the adulteries of the great city he rescues people for the heavenly city. He walks in, and just like the gates of hell, the gates of Babylon will not prevail against him. Where his justice turns Babylon into a wilderness fit only for the unclean, his grace takes the adulterers and makes them clean and pure, fit to be his own beloved bride.

I wonder this sales season who you will chase after - the shiny showy luxuries of the great city, or the Lamb who was slain to make you pure, blameless and beautiful in his sight.