‘Day 288

“And every island fled, and no mountains were found. And huge hailstones, weighing about a talent each, came down from heaven upon people; and people blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, because the hailstone plague was extremely severe. Revelation 16:20-21. (NASB)

Babylon, that great city who has deceived the whole world, is now remembered before God. God is about to bring judgment on the throne of the dragon, the throne of the beast, and the throne of the false prophet. A great earthquake divides her into 3 parts. (See Jeremiah 50:25)
A talent is thought to be about 27-30 kgs. Missiles that bring utter destruction on the earth! However, mankind continues in its obstinance. Unrepentant, they blaspheme God! Probation for humanity has closed, and the followers of the Lamb are safe. Notice what Joel says about this event: “The Lord roars from Zion and utters His voice from Jerusalem, the heavens and the earth quake. But the Lord is a refuge for His people…” (Joel 3:16 NASB)

When I was a lad, doing my degree in theology I used to spend my vacations out in western NSW working on a wheat property. Ploughing and sowing in the winter and harvesting in the summer. One blistering hot day, from the friction in the comb of my header, a fire erupted in the crop I was harvesting.  While I and others tried to beat the flames, the wind had other ideas and kept fanning it into life. The wind kept changing and we had to put the machinery in the burnt-out patch (now about a hectare) where the fire had been, to secure them from the flames. A neighbour, seeing the smoke, panicked for his own crop, hooked up his plough and drove straight over the fence, and ploughed around the fire, while we beat out the remaining flames. Our only safety in the final moments of earth’s history is to be where the fire of God’s wrath has already been. In Christ! The blood of the lamb on the doorpost of our lives! 

I end as I began pointing out that these plagues are Calvary’s plagues: Calvary’s leprous sores (outside the gate), Calvary’s darkness, Calvary’s thirst, Calvary’s blood, Calvary’s Armageddon (Gethsemane), Calvary’s Earthquake, Calvary’s curse!

The plagues at the end are horrible. In a perfect world, God would never choose to destroy and devastate as described here. But this is not a perfect world. God’s people are in danger of destruction and God intervenes to deliver them from End-time Babylon. God could create beings that were programmed to obey Him or He could create beings that were truly free. But free beings would be able to reject God and plunge the creation into great misery. It was a God-sized decision. There were pluses and minuses either way. God chose freedom and the rest is history. One day the wisdom of His choice will be clearly seen. For now, we live with the necessary consequences. 
With this, the end has come. However, Babylon and its fall need more understanding and explanation and thus we step back in time in Chapter 17. From this point forward, God gives us a bird’s eye view of what the closing scenes will be.