GOD HAS AUTHORITY OVER NATIONS FOR HIS PEOPLE

“After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor. 2 With a mighty voice he shouted: ‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!’”  (Revelation 18:1-2a)

It’s Lent.  The story of Jesus’ passion is rife with people who opposed him, his message, and eventually his Church.  Around the world we see that opposition continue in some horrifying ways. Here in the U.S. we take some heat for what we believe, too.  And it isn’t always from those who openly reject Jesus and his Word.  Sometimes it is from voices who claim to be in the Church but who find fault with those who hold to all of the Bible because it is God’s Word.  This is nothing new, but what’s to become of us who follow Jesus?

When John recorded that vision in the verses above it was in the first century A.D. Babylon had already fallen.  Everyone knew that.  It had happened six centuries earlier.  That mighty kingdom had fallen which once held sway over the fertile crescent, swept over Judah and carried God’s people off into a seventy-year captivity.  She had fallen to the Medes and Persians, to the Greeks and then to the Romans.  Why announce it as if it were news?  It was ancient history. 

And that was precisely Jesus’ point.  Did you notice the certainty of the verb Jesus chose to use in those verses?  Babylon is fallen.  There is no maybe, there is no doubt in God’s rule.  When God acts on behalf of his people, things happen his way.

What a comforting message for us to hear, especially in these times of moral decay at home and geopolitical turmoil abroad.  None of that is easy for the church to cope with, is it?  God’s people in every age have faced formidable forces arrayed against the church.  Sometimes merely vexing and other times vicious, those forces have opposed God’s kingdom, thrown hindrances in the way of the gospel, and discouraged believers.  First century believers living under Roman rule were experiencing some of that, and there was more to come.  But it would not last.  It can’t.  Just as Babylon had fallen, so will all those who oppose God and his gospel.  Kings can take their stand against the Lord and nations can rage against the gospel, but when all is said and done their opposition will be in vain.  That is God’s promise.  If the gates of hell itself will not prevail against his church, what can mere human forces do against it?  Trust that the same God who loved you so much that he sent his Son into the world to be your Champion and Victor over sin, death and the devil still rules the world.  The God of grace is still the Lord of history.  Luther had it exactly right when he said, “Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that the believer would stake his life on it a thousand times. This knowledge of and confidence in God’s grace makes men glad and bold and happy in dealing with God and with all creatures.” (LW, Vol. 35, pp. 370-31)

Dear Lord, rule over the nations for the benefit of your church.  Amen.