Revelation 18

Hey everyone!

I am not going to go into detail about how I am so incredibly sorry for not having blogged in so long because I just know I will have to make the same speech again...

and again...

and again.

So for the last 6 months you have been receiving posts from me.  Daily posts.  Hourly posts.  Is that to hard to imagine?

I have just gotten involved in a Bible Study and it is very good.  Last night as I was doing my S.O.A.P (the form this particular study uses to break the passage up, etc.) I was getting really confused.  It was Revelation 18, and I just wasn't getting anything!  I asked my sister what she had gotten from it, and she replied that she had only skimmed the passage, and had done her S.O.A.P on another verse they assigned.

If that worked for her, that was fine, but I wanted to know about Revelation!  It is so confusing, and yet very interesting.  Fascinating.  I wanted to know what it meant!!!!!!

So I decided to bring out trusty homiletics.  When I started doing it, I understood it so much more!

Here is my paper:

Revelation 18:

V. 1-2 Powerful Angel from Heaven proclaimed:  Babylon has fallen, it's a place for demons, foul spirits and unclean birds.

3-5 All nations have sinned and become rich with her, but stay away, so you don't sin, because God knows and will punish.

6- 7  Do twice what she did to you.  For all she party's and brags, she will have that much in sorrow.

8.  Her plagues will come strong in one day.

9-18  All earth will mourn when she is destroyed, but only for her stuff!

20  people of God: "Rejoice!  Revenge is sweet :)"

21  Angel throws rock in the same way Babylon will be thrown.

22-24 Nothing can be heard.  Merchants and sorcerers deceived everyone.  Prophets and saints died.

I don't know what Bible Scholars get out of this.  I'm not one.  I am just a 13 year old girl who is trying to get something out of the Bible that will apply to her!

And I got something :)  Please read this:

V.   ^{9And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,}

 ¹⁰Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.

 ¹¹And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more:

 ¹²The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble,

 ¹³And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.

 ¹⁴And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all.

 ¹⁵The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing,

 ¹⁶And saying, Alas, alas that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls!

 ¹⁷For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,

Sorry this is in the King James version.  I didn't want to type all of this, so I got this portion from an online Bible site.  Really handy!

Read over this.  Babylon's "friends" are mourning for her, right?  Sounds like a nice thing to do, right?  Look closely.  What exactly are they mourning for?  

The loss of her GREATNESS and her STUFF!  Merchants and sailors can't get rich off of her anymore.  No one can buy from them.  That is what they are sad about!!!!

I put it in a parable to explain it to my sister.  It really helped her get it!

                                              The Rich Business Man and his Sorry Doom.

Once upon a time there was a rich business man with lots of friends.  He was very charismatic and won the hearts, souls and body's of everyone he met.  He had so much of everything, lots of gold and silver, precious jewelry, fancy clothes, A huge house made of fantastic and expensive woods and metals, so much cologne,  the best food in the land, and only the finest cars.  He had everything he could ever want, he was the life of a party, and everyone loved him.

Well, not everyone.  Mr. Businessman cheated and murdered people.  He partied to much, and certain people hated him.  

God warned him "Your sins are piling up in Heaven.  You will lose everything in a day, and will have as much sorrow as you have parties to brag about!"

Some people took heed to God, and stayed away from the man.  But most people, including the business man himself, ignored God, and continued to live their lives in sin.

One day, the stock market crashed.  Mr.  Businessman went home to find his house had been robbed, his fancy cars were gone, and there was a foreclosure sign on the door.  In his sorrow, he went to all the homes he had partied in, but they couldn't even recognize him and they shut the door in his face.

He was so distraught he didn't even realize what he was doing, and that night he died.

His friends cried mourned, saying "We will never go into that huge house again, or have a big party that none of us could afford, or ride in his limo, or ferrari or any of his cars!  We can never get rich off his business deals, or eat his food, or be popular with all his friends again!  Woe, fine businessman in your designer clothes and diamonds and pearls!  For in only an hour you have nothing!"

But the people he killed and cheated rejoiced, because God had justly punished her.

My application:  Babylon (Mr. Businessman)  was evil.  She had everything you could want, threw big parties and people became rich off of her.  It seemed like everyone loved her, but when she died, all they did was cry over her stuff!

What so people think of me?  How will they remember me?  Does God genuinely shine through me, or do people only pretend to like me for what I have?

These are all rhetorical questions by the way :-)

I encourage you (yes, YOU) to study this passage on your own, and tell me what you got out of it.  But you will have to comment on my Facebook page, because I cannot get my comments to work!

Thank you for reading this ridiculously long post!