Evil turns against evil

And he said to me, "The waters that you saw, where the harlot is seated, are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues. And the ten horns that you saw, they and the beast will hate the harlot; they will make her desolate and naked, and devour her flesh and burn her up with fire, for God has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose by being of one mind and giving over their royal power to the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled. And the woman that you saw is the great city which has dominion over the kings of the earth."

- Revelation 17:15-18

Chapter 17 describes the partnership between the harlot and the beast. At first the harlot rides on the beast and sells herself in order to make use of his powers. The beast is happy to provide for the harlot.

But what happens at the end of the chapter is the beast turning against the harlot. Almost without recollection of their previous relationship, he now joins forces with other enemies and aim to “make her desolate the naked”, and to “devour her flesh and burn her up in fire”.

God allows the devil to tempt us, and He allows us to make choices for or against Him. Out of His great and absolute love for His creatures, God gives us total freedom to make choices. He makes extra efforts to tell us the consequence of our choices. The natural consequence for sin is death, the natural consequence for obedience is life. We see here that evil will eventually turn against evil. They do not stand together because they have separate agendas.

When evil contends with evil, it becomes a battle of power of the two sides. One will be victorious over the other. And the greater evil will not stop at victory, but will pile on humiliation upon humiliation: nakedness, eating of flesh, burning in fire. The devil is not on our side. He makes use of us the same way we make use of him when we sin. But he is more powerful than us as individuals, so in this battle of evil against evil, who will win? Yes, the greater evil. That’s precisely why we need God on our side.

Let’s not be confused with verse 17, “for God has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose by being of one mind and giving over their royal power to the beast”. In truth, God is Love and only Love. His way can only be of love. But just as the same sun that lights a room also melts a candle, God’s ways causes friction among the evil.

Hell is a lot simpler than many of us make. A popular perspective is that God sends us one way or another. A less popular (but more accurate one, as I argued in an older post) is that we send ourselves one way or another. Perhaps I could offer a third perspective – not theologically accurate, but an interesting thought: Is it not possible that at the end of life, God sends us all to the same place, and that place is with him, forever. If one loves God and true goodness, he spends eternity in that goodness, with God. If one hates God and hates goodness, and prefers to go against God, he spends eternity in goodness too. But because he cannot stand goodness, it’s effectively hell.

Think of it as a worship service: one who loves God, and loves to sing and dance and praise Him, it would be an enjoyable time. But for one who truly in his/her heart does not believe in God, it would be understandably sickening for him/her to be at the very same place. If you hate goodness now, you can’t possibly enjoy Heaven, goodness eternal?

Let’s form ourselves according to Him. He is the Creator, and He knows what it’s like there. And He says we will be happy there. Otherwise Jesus would not lament over souls ending up in hell. Let’s trust Him in His Word, and mould our lives according to Him. At least we know he’s always on our side.