Daily Dose of Hope

March 23, 2025

Day 1 of Week 52

Scripture:  Job 28-30; Revelation 18

And just like that, we are on week 52.  After a full year of reading, we will complete our reading of the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation.  You guys are amazing.  By the way, this is the Daisy Dose of Hope, the devotional and podcast that complements New Hope’s Bible reading plan, if you didn’t already guess that.

Today, our Old Testament reading is in Job, chapters 28-30.  You may have noticed, but Job’s emotions are all over the place here.  He doesn’t necessarily believe his friends that he has done anything wrong before God, but he is baffled at what has happened to him.  He questions God.  He knows that God is the only one with understanding of the universe.  God is the only one with the answers.  So in chapter 30, he demands that God gives him some.  What is going on?  Why has this happened?  Job wants to believe that God is just but he is struggling.  Maybe you have been there before. 

Our New Testament reading is in Revelation.  In chapter 18, we see the fall of Babylon. This sprawling, affluent civilization, which lived hedonistically, rejecting the things of God and oppressing God’s people, has been brought to its knees. What took many years to develop is destroyed in one hour. In one single hour God takes down Babylon!

Chapters 17 and 18, which describe the fall of Babylon, are some of the most disputed in all of Revelation. Scholars disagree as to their meaning and there are vastly divergent interpretations out there. I don’t think it’s helpful to get too bogged down in the interpretation. I do, however, think there are some things we must reflect on:

1.What could Babylon represent?

2.How does our current nation and culture resemble Babylon? How is it different?

3.How might God’s people be called to live and behave within a modern Babylon?

4.What does this Scripture suggest about God’s ultimate plans for the Babylons of this world?

Something to think about.  More tomorrow.

Blessings,

Pastor Vicki