Read Revelation 18:9–19
In this section of Chapter 18, we see three different groups of people react to Babylon’s destruction: kings, merchants, and people in seafaring trades. The kings were sad that they would no longer be able to live it up with Babylon. The merchants were sad because no one would be around to buy their goods anymore. And all the people working on the sea knew their livelihoods were going to dry up too because no one would have any use for their services. To a certain degree, their collective sorrow is understandable. None of us like to lose people who mean something to us or see our livelihoods suddenly dry up, but we should temper our sympathy in this instance.
Each of these groups is described as standing far away, afraid of what was happening to Babylon. They seemed to know their time was short too. They were trying to put as much distance between themselves and the situation as they could, before their own ends came to pass. They had attached themselves to evil, and now they were seeing the final result of where that decision would take them. One clear indication of just how far they had allowed themselves to go is in verse 13. At the end of the list of everything the merchants traded, we find slaves—a point which the text goes out of its way to remind us are “human lives.” They cared so much about what would benefit them that they violated other people, completely ignoring what would benefit those other people.
Now, are any of us reading this slave traders? Not likely. But we do not have to go to that extreme to find ourselves self-interested, taking advantage of others, and aligning ourselves with evil. That may seem beneficial in the short term, but one day the tables will turn. As we have seen so many times in Revelation, God’s Kingdom will prevail. Committing our lives to living apart from Him will lead to our destruction. Have all of us lived for ourselves at some point? Yes. We may even find ourselves turning in that direction tomorrow. But we also know that God is merciful. Today, take time to remember God’s mercy and ask Him to lead you to a better way
