“The fruit you craved has left you. All your splendid and glamorous things are gone; they will never find them again.” (v. 14)

The warning seems like a thing that is far off.

In the Judgment, the sinful cravings of the world are cast down, and they come to nothing. The powers that peddled them are desolated. In the end, all they leave is emptiness and regret.

It’s a warning, pointing the whole world to what is assured, when Revelation is fully unfolded.

But is the warning only about them then?

Or are we not similarly warned, regardless of whether ours are the last days, or simply more days on the way? Is it not just as relevant to us—and to our neighbors?

If we hand our hearts over to lusts and greeds and idolatries and immoralities, we won’t have to wait for that day. We will know emptiness now. We will grieve imminently. We will see all those things come to nothing—and we will wonder why we gave so much of our lives to them, for them. The day might be when some quantity of them have slipped through your fingers. It might be when your relationships crater, with covenants broken (or perhaps never known). It might be on your deathbed, when the vanity of things and the elevation of self are utterly exposed for their fruitlessness. But these are judged now, too.

Be warned now, for their emptiness is assured.

— Tyler