Revelation 18:1-8

February 21, 2021

Lord’s Day Worship

Sean Higgins

The sermon starts around 18:15 in the audio file.

Or, Or, Double, Double, Torment and Trouble

Series: Just Conquer Part 47

Introduction

One question that I don’t remember being asked over these last ten years is why I usually use a second title for each sermon. There is a title, then an “or” subtitle. I’ve been doing it for lo, these many years, and it has a couple connections in my mind.

More than anything, it is a titling shout out to many of the Puritans who regularly had paragraph length sub-titles; their sub-titles were more like a synopsis. Even today, many books have a title and a tagline, intended to tell you a little more about the contents, or catch your interest. I have no reason to suspect that the Puritans were in it for the marketing aspect. They were in it for the clarity, and generally they had time and words to spend.

I will admit that the device of title then an alternative title also featured in the “Rocky and Bullwinkle” episodes my dad enjoyed to turn on when I was a kid. Our family has some DVDs that we pull out every once in a while, and there is quite a comedic cleverness on display.

So for me, the double attempt to tease out the direction of the message has some playfulness, and whether it always connects well, I do pray that it works toward helping us understand and remember the passage.

The phrase, “double, double, toil and trouble” comes from Shakespeare’s Macbeth. It’s hard to forget, in Act 4 Scene One as a foreboding chant made three times by all three witches. Whether you’re reading the repetitions or watching it performed, it’s a dark and ominous, even demonic, scene. More than just finding the word “double” in Revelation 18, the story of Macbeth is one of ambition and arrogance and conspiracy and murder. Rather than get away with it, Macbeth is haunted and neck deep in his guilt. Your sin will find you out, and losing your mind may result in losing your head.

This is where we find “Babylon” in Revelation 18. But this story is not fictional, and it’s not limited to one throne. Her sins are heaped up high toward heaven, and her torment and trouble will be doubled.

It’s been twelve Lord’s Days since our last look at the Apocalypse. We finished the last part of Revelation 17 the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Chapters 17 and 18 really can’t be separated, and I mentioned even then that stopping in between would be sort of like parking downhill, easy to get going again.

The time is near for finishing our study of this book. We have seen the opening of the seven seals, which led to the blowing of seven trumpets, which led to the pouring out of seven bowls. While I’ve tried to see the angle of those who argue that the three series of judgments are different ways of referring to the same judgments, overlapping in meaning though using different descriptions and symbols and orders and even numbers, I don’t believe that’s what John wrote. I am still committed to hardly using the word literal for my arguments, while also still being committed to accept what the Word says even if that seems crazy to someone.

However much we might be tempted, 2020-21 is not playing out these prophecies in front of us, though our news cycle has pushed some of our imaginary boundaries for what’s possible. There are though, undoubtedly, similarities between what various world leaders are trying to arrange today and what the beasts will accomplish, but our leaders are beastish. The final embodiment of the political and religious beasts has not taken shape. We don’t have an image of the beast to worship (Revelation 13:14-15), and the COVID vaccine is not the mark of the beast.

The resemblances between world leaders and the final world leaders are like that of a redwood sapling and centuries old redwoo[...]