After God pleads with us to come away from sin and her influences in Rev18:4, in Rev18:7b-19 Jesus describes three basic reasons that we will not respond to His Plea & tend to hang on to sin & it’s old desires & habits! The 1st is 7b where “in her heart (root of sin in us) she BOASTS, ‘I sit as queen; I am not a widow, & I will never morn’”.This describes an ARROGANCE&INDEPENDENCE that denies TRUTH & accepts UNtruths about life and the real consequences of sin for our lives....arrogantly refusing to seek Almighty God for HIS Help in learning TRUTHS of what life is all about! The 2nd is a worldly sense of AFFLUENCE/PLEASURES/SUCCESSES that are all temporal, & not having little Eternal Significance!->Rev18:11-15, ”The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her (sin’s desires & temporal successes) because no one buys their cargoes any more....They will say, ‘the fruit(riches&successes)you longed for is gone from you. All your RICHES and SPLENDOR have vanished’...the merchants who sold these things and gained their wealth from her (temporal/lustful roots of desire) will stand far off, terrified at her torment (their personal torment from a life built on life paradigms producing things/successes that do not last forever).” We succumb to this 2nd basic reason when we do not do as Romans12:2 begs us to do->”Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”! The attachment we feel to the riches & pleasures of this world will draw us away from the Peace and Joys that surpass all understanding that The LORD desperately desires us to have! The 3rd reason is living a life seeking what boils down to a FALSE SENSE of SECURITY ; living to find the comforts and securities defined by the people & world around us, instead of seeking the ETERNAL SECURITIES of living life according to what God Says is “putting up treasures(SECURITIES) in Heaven that last forever”-as Jesus says in Matthew6:19-20, ”Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.”! In other words, our sense of security needs to be ETERNALLY BASED, and NOT based on paradigms of security that last a defined period of time! In these verses Jesus breaks down the challenges we all personally face in seeking & following Him faithfully, & and thereby having a life filled with HIS Peace and Joy that surpasses all understanding!->The ONLY Peace and Joy that stands firm when all sorts of calamities come around and even into our lives, & the only Peace & Joy that will last forever! Dear Lord, these verses remind me that I have all of these challenges in my life to one degree or another- I have a part of me that is motivated by ARROGANCE&INDEPENDENCE; I am influenced by a worldly sense of AFFLUENCE/PLEASURES/SUCCESSES; and I tend to lean toward the  FALSE SENSE of SECURITY defined by the world instead of totally leaning on YOU. Lord Jesus, I pray that You open my eyes to see these things more clearly in me...so I can ask You to help me through Your Word and Your Spirit to continuously correct these in my life so all of me may be aligned with Your desire for me to cling to only You for all of my life’s Security, Peace & Joys!

There is no way that we can begin to understand God’s Ways without having an Eternal Perspective in life. The devil knows this, & that is why he is all about getting us to have a laser focus on the here and now, and the short term pleasures and securities of having a life lasting ONLY 80-100 years. This kind of perspective translates to a life building and fulfilling aspirations that have an “Expire Date” stamped on them. And as we get closer to this date, our heart/mind/life will have some kind of a forlornness rattling around inside. Part of the reason for this forlornness is that we are created to be Eternal, even if we don’t reckon it as true. Even though we are Eternal beings, unfortunately once Adam and Eve sinned every one of their progeny must taste death! We are still Eternal beings, having one of two Eternal destinations! God’s greatest desire is for everyone’s Eternal destination to be with Him in Heaven. But because of our being infected by sin, HE is our only HOPE to have our ultimate destination be with HIM in Heaven. Since the arrogant deceitfulness of Satan introduced the virus of sin into the life of humankind, all of us will taste the sting of death. But God’s Original Plan for us to be Eternal beings has never changed. And THIS is the reason for the Birth/Life/Teachings/Sufferings/Death/Resurrection/Ascension of Jesus! For us to be saved from the Eternal Consequences of sin, God gave us the ONLY Escape through The Provisions of The Gospel of Christ! Throughout history God has made every creative effort there is to get the attention of all humankind so we would wake up to the TRUE significances of our Eternality! The major TRUTH being that because of the infinite nastiness of sin, there is a HELL that is the only place where sin may remain throughout Eternity! Along with this TRUTH is the fact God’s Original Plan for us to be Eternal Residents of His Heaven has not been thwarted by sin! God offers to everyone HIS saving Mercy&Grace through Christ! And throughout all history God has sovereignly been behind the scenes making every effort to alert humankind to the desperate plight we are born into because of sin. HE has allowed humankind to see the tip of the iceberg of the nastiness and misery of sin...,& because of God’s Ultimate Concern to wake us up before it is too late, HE has allowed humankind to see horrible results of sin via awful disasters and the inhumanities brought on by the arrogant rebellions of sin. God does this for our own Eternal Good! All the sufferings we may go through, if they wake us up to the Eternal Significance of God’s Pleading to accept HIS Saving Mercy&Grace through Christ...and for our Eternal Destination to change from Hell to Heaven...all of the sufferings then become the most valuable “eye-opening” events of our life...if we just open our eyes to what God’s Heart is pleading for us to receive from HIM->HIS Love! This was the purpose for the 10 plagues that the Pharaoh of Egypt suffered when God sent Moses before him 10 times! Yet Pharaoh’s ego & arrogance kept him from genuinely honoring God’s request every time. In The Book of The Revelation of Christ, all of the Seals, the Trumpets, Bowls of Wrath have the same purpose->giving everyone one last opportunity to accept TRUTH->THE TRUTH THAT GOD IS GOD,& JESUS IS LORD OF LORDS & KING OF KINGS! Satan fully knows the significance of THIS TRUTH! And he has been setting his stage for ultimate denial of THIS TRUTH by getting humankind century after century to swallow little UNtruths bit by bit for thousands of years....making us like the frog that placed in a kettle of room temperature water will never notice the increasing of temperature as it comes to the boil that kills. Same with being placed in a world environment that accepts little lie after little lie...and year after year Satan turns up the heat on lies so humankind stands little chance of knowing THE ULTIMATE TRUTHS about Eternity, & ESPECIALLY God’s Rescue from Hell...,unless we determine in our hearts/minds/lives to seek to know and honor TRUTH. And all TRUTH begins with the ONLY Eternally Trusted Source of TRUTH that has always been-> Proverbs 1:7,”The fear of (REVERENCE OF) the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.” We must “begin at the right place (REVERENCE OF THE LORD) & then continue from that right place....seeking to know ever more about what God says about TRUTH and HIS WAYS. If we do, then the devil has little room in our hearts/minds/lives to introduce his little lies that make room for bigger and bigger lies. Rev18:4 is God making this plea-> “And I heard a loud voice from Heaven saying,' ‘Come out of her (away from the temptations/lies of sin), my people, that you may not participate in her sins and that you may not receive her plagues (terminal impact of sin).” In the middle of the challenges and temptations of our life, GOD is PERSONALLY making this plea to us...turn to Him and Seek His TRUTH and His Ways. Dear Lord, I pray for You to help me respond to Your plea...to know Your Mercy&Grace in the innermost parts of my life...and for Your Truths to root out of my life all of the lies that I have allowed to enter into the core of my heart/mind/life..& fill these spaces with The Truths about You and Your Love for me.

Satan/the devil is nothing but the evil, wicked, & deceitful supreme commander of the enemies of Almighty God. Some of Satan’s character and his aspirations have been revealed throughout world history via the lives of the narcissistic kings/rulers/leaders/despots that have for thousands of years, at one time or another, shown up on the world stage as Satan’s virtual minions! Without exception, every one of these have been responsible for the deaths of millions of people & the evil deception of their followers! At the core of every deception is an UNtruth! This is Satan’s strategy, to begin with a small UNtruth, & build on top of that one UNtruth a mix of other 1/2 truths that are in essence more UNtruths! In doing this, Satan’s strategy over the ages has proven to be one of redefining GOOD & EVIL, HOLY & UNHOLY, RIGHTEOUSNESS & UNRIGHTEOUSNESS....so that he can deceive us into following his ways, instead of God’s Ways. Just like all the deceitful despots throughout history! Every example of these ultimately lead to wretched miseries for all of those deceived into following the deceptions/temptations that opened the door to the torments of sin. This is Satan’s long term strategy for humankind. When we deny ourselves the only ultimate protection from sin, we expose ourselves to the infectious nature of sin that Satan means to destroy us with. In the Book of Revelation, Jesus is warning us of just how horrific sin is! HIS awesome desire is for us to know these TRUTHS about sin so we will become over-comers of Satan’s evil scheme->Revelation 12:10-11,”Then I heard a loud voice in Heaven say:”Now have come the salvation and the power and the Kingdom of our God,and the authority of His Christ.For the accuser (Satan) of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They (those who trust&follow Christ) OVERCAME him (Satan) by the blood of the Lamb (Jesus) and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death (they turned away from sin).” This is the ULTIMATE TRUTH that Satan desires to UNseat as TRUTH! That the only way to OVERCOME Satan’s evil plot was ACCOMPLISHED once and for all time by Jesus Christ - by HIS Blood! The evidence that we accept what Jesus did on our behalf is by our words and our lives TESTIFYING to our acceptance of the Mercies of Christ! What comes out of our mouths, and the ways we turn from the lies sin tells about life and the  priorities that sin set up against God’s Heart/God’s Ways...these are the ways that our life testimony convicts us as being TRUE Acceptors of The Salvation of The Gospel of Christ....and mark us/identify us as TRUE OVERCOMERS! Dear Lord Jesus, I pray for Your Spirit, that You sent to help me and guide me, be WHO I hear above all other voices in my life...so I may be drawn to know Your Heart/Your Ways,and to seek Your help so that the words I speak, & the way I live will testify to my absolute TRUST in Who You are,& what You did for me when You shed Your Blood for me.

Whenever we displace God’s Fatherly Counsel for our lives with anything else, it boils down to a leadership issue of whose we are or what leadership are we revering in place of Almighty God....when humans rebel against the leadership of God’s Heart for us, we turn do another leadership of some kind that is not seeking and following Almighty God. This is a battle for our hearts/minds/souls/lives! Revelation Chapter 16:13-16  talks about how all types of leadership are gathering to “battle on the great day of God Almighty”. All types of leadership around the world set up to battle Almighty God. This has been going on since the very 1st generation of humankind when Adam & Eve decide to listen to the false wisdom of the devil instead of remaining steadfast in God’s Word/God’s Leadership. Then onto the 2nd generation when Cain killed his brother Abel, & continues to this day as we see kingdoms & countries, all sorts of leadership-including; political leadership; business leadership; religious leadership (even in many of our Christian Churches), setting themselves up against God and His Word. Rev16:13-16;”And I saw, coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs. For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty. ‘Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!’ And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.” Satan’s leadership strategy is to use all sorts of deception & signs to lure humankind away from the One True God and into following all kinds other gods/leadership! This comes in the from of everything from UNholy/misguided aspirations & motives in our personal lives, to what political leadership we choose to support & follow. When these verses in Revelation mention “kings of the whole world”, these include community, religious, military and political leadership. Anyway, all of these things will set themselves up to battle Almighty God at a place called Armageddon. This place refers to where King Josiah was killed in a battle that God did not want him to fight (2Chronicles35:20-24), at a place called Megiddo, which is a plain below a hill. That hill of Megiddo would be translated Armageddon, which is where the enemies gathered for the battle that God told Josiah he was not to fight. Josiah was to be prepared and have his people prepared, but God was not going to have anything to do with the battle that those enemies wanted to fight. God wanted His people to address that battle in another way! But Josiah nor his people were prepared to Trust God’s Word. God wanted His people to prepare themselves to trust in HIS Sovereignty & His Word! God told Josiah that the battle of Megiddo is being waged by those that follow other gods...and that God’s Sovereign Omnipotence/Omniscience/Omnipresence was ALL that Josiah and his people needed to TRUST&FOLLOW! But Josiah was lured away from trusting God’s Word by what some of the other nations may think of him..and that he might create a problem with future political alliances if he truly/faithfully listened to and trusted/followed GOD. SO Josiah turned from listening & following GOD’S WORD and it cost him his life, & eventually led to yet another historic period where God’s chosen people were influenced by the kings/leadership around them that had little to no reverence for Almighty God...& they rejected HIM & rebelled against HIM. It is interesting that battle all the foreign influences of the world are assembling for in Rev16:13-16 never really happens! They all assemble for a concerted effort against ALMIGHTY GOD, but nobody nor anything can actually “do battle with Almighty God”! They can set themselves up against THE LORD GOD and those that are God’s adopted children through The Gospel of Christ! And we are suppose to be prepared to fight the way that Josiah was suppose to fight -> by trusting God’s Word->2Corinthians10:3-6”For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God (God’s Word!), and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete”. So,in Rev16:15 Jesus says to us,”.....Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!” We must “stay awake”(keep our minds and hearts sharpened & prepared with knowledge of what GOD says in His Word),keeping our garments on(always ready with the full armor of God and praying at all times as Ephesians6:10-18 tells us!).Interesting how the world misleads us to believe that there is actually going to be a Battle of Armageddon, when God’s Word says nothing about a battle in the valley of Armageddon! Rev 16:16 says that there will be a gathering of everything evil can muster against THE LORD in the valley of Armageddon. BUT there is no battle! This just another way that the deceptive influences of the world want to make Almighty God out to be smaller than HE IS! Nobody nor Anything can actually leverage any accumulation of strength-force-power that can stand in the PRESENCE OF GOD’S FULL GLORY! NOTHING! HE IS infinitely HUGE, infinitely All Knowing; and infinitely Present across All Time and All Space; INFINITELY POWERFUL; INFINITELY GLORIOUS; INFINITELY RIGHTEOUS! Nothing is capable of effectively doing battle with Almighty God when HE REVEALS HIS FULL GLORY! By introducing the thought that there is a battle of Armageddon, or any other MISconception about GOD or HIS WORD, is an attempt of all that is evil to make GOD out to be anything less than INFINITE in ALL of HIS CHARACTERISTICS! Especially the infinite MERCY & GRACE HE showers those with that decide to TRUST IN CHRIST! So, The Book of The Revelation of Jesus Christ warns about all the influences go after HIS CREATION to lure us away from  a True Reverence for God and His Word, that HE Alone has proven that HE Alone deserves! And that HE Alone is absolutely worthy of our seeking and following! In fact, we MUST seek and follow HIM if we are to be prepared to battle with what the world will bring up against us. Dear Lord Jesus..I praise You for being so concerned about me that You have given me Your Word to be my guide and my protection as I live through my days in this world. I pray that You prepare and shape every part of me to contend with arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of YOU! And may I always remember that Your Love and Your Mercy and Your Grace for me is to always be the common thread in everything I think and do...so that Your Love is reflected through me to those around me.

The Book of Revelation comes with a promise->Revelation 1:3, ”Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take it to heart”(NIV); ”Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and keep what is written in it, for the time is near”(NASB). In verse 1 John tells the reason that Jesus gave us this book->”...to show His servants what must soon take place”. Jesus gave us The Book of Revelation so we may have Wisdom & Discernment about what is going on around us, and so that we would be BLESSED by having His Wisdom & Discernment to apply in our everyday life...”take it to heart/keep what is written in it”! This is why Satan leverages thousands and thousands of ways to misuse The Book of The Revelation of Jesus in books, movies, and stories that misconstrue what is written in it. As well as using the words of well meaning Christians to do the same thing! All this so the he, Satan, can make The Book of the Revelation of Jesus appear to be something it is not, or something that is beyond the understanding of a belief that is “just seeking” to know more about the heart of Christ! The devil definitely goes to great lengths to make it seem “beyond our understanding”, so that we will be stymied from the promise of The Book of The Revelation of Jesus to be personally blessed! Jesus gives us His Book of Revelation through John for our benefit, & HE means for us to know what it has to say...AND that we would be blessed by it’s reading! The same Jesus that gave Himself up on our behalf would NOT make The Book of The Revelation a book of hidden and coded messages beyond our understanding...HE means for it to be a life resource for living with Wisdom & Discernment for our Eternal Good! In The Book of The Revelation, Jesus tells us how the devil will endeavor to pull us away from revering The Lord, & what the influences of the devil will look and sound like. Jesus also tells us the lamentations of those that refuse to repent of sin and turn to HIM...& then Jesus tells us about the joys and celebrations of those whom determine to be steadfast & endure in their faithfulness to Jesus and His Word->Revelation14:12-13 ,”Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus. And I heard a voice from Heaven saying, ”Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” Blessed indeed”, says the Spirit, ”that they must rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!” For certain, the Book of The Revelation of Jesus is not a book that we will be able to understand everything in it the first, or second...,or thousandth time we read it! BUT it is a book of miraculous promise for those that sit down before it and read with purpose to have the Spirit reveal a poignant lesson for that particular time that we read it with the purpose to “hear and take to heart what is written in it”! An example is how the book starts off, and the issues that Jesus addresses to the seven churches. These are some of the things that I must “take to heart/keep what is written in it”. For Jesus also says in 14:13, “…for their deeds follow them”! This reminds me of one of my favorite lines from the movie “The Gladiator” when at the beginning Maximus is going up and down the line of the soldiers he is leading into battle and he says ,”remember, what we do in life, echos in Eternity”! I must remember that the lessons of the entire Bible and sorta/kinda condensed for my sake in The Book of The Revelation of Jesus, by Jesus Himself...that I must take them to heart! For what I do now will echo in Eternity! Dear Lord Jesus, I pray for Your Spirit to draw me to Your Book of Revelation regularly...& for Your help in understanding what You know I need as takeaways from it to be taken to heart....and I will need Your help in taking Your message for each day personally… take it to heart.