The Fall of Babylon: Sovereign God
Isaiah • Sermon • Submitted
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· 65 viewsGod predicts the fall of Babylon almost 2 centuries before it happens
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Isaiah 13: THE BURDEN OF BABYLON
Isaiah 13: THE BURDEN OF BABYLON
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As we concluded the Prophecy to King Ahaz, Isaiah breaks out in a song of praise.
For the believer, the follower of Jesus, Heaven is a joyous place – a place of constant worship and Praise …. Church on steroids
BUT for those who have not received Christ as Lord and savior
YOU AND GOD HAVE AN ISSUE: Your sin and God’s Wrath!!!
GOOD NEWS: Because of the shed blood of Jesus, we can be forgiven!..
God’s anger is turned away
So here, in the Old Testament, we find the Gospel of Jesus… the Good news!
The result: Spontaneous Praise… a song of Joy by Isaiah
And a desire to “Cry Out and Shout” … to tell others of the Goodness of Jesus!
Intro
Bible Prophesy is God’s Calling card
The fore-telling of the Future
God’s proof of His existence outside of limits of time
· ONLY God can tell what will happen before it does
· Every look at the annual Predictions of Astrologers… Or Weathermen?
· They only get it right about 10-15%
- Guessing would get you 50% accuracy!!!!!
“History is the unrolled Scroll of Prophecy -President James Garfield
“History is His Story” -American Missionary Leader Arthur T. Pierce
Now, whenever prophecy comes up,Misuse and misinterpretation do not negate truth and understanding.
hydroxychloroquine is an arthritis treatment that has also had positive effects concerning malaria - and depending on what flavor of Kool-Aid you are drinking has either had very positive or negligible effects in treating Covid-19.
Couple ingested fish food because it contained hydoxycloroquine phosphate.
Their mis-application and misuse does not negate its effectiveness as a arthritis or malaria treatment - it just means you need to apply it properly.
Much of Bible prophecy has what we refer to as a near, and a far, fulfillment
With regard to prophesies about Messiah Jesus, Very often we see intertwined prophesies about his first coming and about his second
Isaiah 61:1-2 is a prime example
Jesus stood in the synagogue at Capernaum one Sabbath and he read from it:
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
Is 61:2b “…. and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;”
This part of the prophecy refers to His 2nd coming….
· So for 2000 years, we’ve been stuck at a comma
THE GAP… The Comma
But Isaiah didn’t know this – so he wrote it all together. That is the case we have here in our chapter this morning
The oracle concerning Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw.
On a bare hill raise a signal;
cry aloud to them;
wave the hand for them to enter
the gates of the nobles.
I myself have commanded my consecrated ones,
and have summoned my mighty men to execute my anger,
my proudly exulting ones.
The sound of a tumult is on the mountains
as of a great multitude!
The sound of an uproar of kingdoms,
of nations gathering together!
The Lord of hosts is mustering
a host for battle.
They come from a distant land,
from the end of the heavens,
the Lord and the weapons of his indignation,
to destroy the whole land.
Wail, for the day of the Lord is near;
as destruction from the Almighty it will come!
Therefore all hands will be feeble,
and every human heart will melt.
They will be dismayed:
pangs and agony will seize them;
they will be in anguish like a woman in labor.
They will look aghast at one another;
their faces will be aflame.
Behold, the day of the Lord comes,
cruel, with wrath and fierce anger,
to make the land a desolation
and to destroy its sinners from it.
For the stars of the heavens and their constellations
will not give their light;
the sun will be dark at its rising,
and the moon will not shed its light.
I will punish the world for its evil,
and the wicked for their iniquity;
I will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant,
and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless.
I will make people more rare than fine gold,
and mankind than the gold of Ophir.
Therefore I will make the heavens tremble,
and the earth will be shaken out of its place,
at the wrath of the Lord of hosts
in the day of his fierce anger.
And like a hunted gazelle,
or like sheep with none to gather them,
each will turn to his own people,
and each will flee to his own land.
Whoever is found will be thrust through,
and whoever is caught will fall by the sword.
Their infants will be dashed in pieces
before their eyes;
their houses will be plundered
and their wives ravished.
Behold, I am stirring up the Medes against them,
who have no regard for silver
and do not delight in gold.
Their bows will slaughter the young men;
they will have no mercy on the fruit of the womb;
their eyes will not pity children.
And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms,
the splendor and pomp of the Chaldeans,
will be like Sodom and Gomorrah
when God overthrew them.
It will never be inhabited
or lived in for all generations;
no Arab will pitch his tent there;
no shepherds will make their flocks lie down there.
But wild animals will lie down there,
and their houses will be full of howling creatures;
there ostriches will dwell,
and there wild goats will dance.
Hyenas will cry in its towers,
and jackals in the pleasant palaces;
its time is close at hand
and its days will not be prolonged.
For the Lord will have compassion on Jacob and will again choose Israel, and will set them in their own land, and sojourners will join them and will attach themselves to the house of Jacob. And the peoples will take them and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel will possess them in the Lord’s land as male and female slaves. They will take captive those who were their captors, and rule over those who oppressed them.
13:1 BABYLON
Babylon is mentioned 287 times in Scriptures more than any other city except Jerusalem.
Originates from Genesis 11: tower of Babel
Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”
Babylon has come to symbolize The World System that man Creates in Defiance of God
READ ON YOUR OWN:
ISAIAH 13-14
JEREMIAH 50-51
REVELATION 17-18
Isaiah is writing in regards to the coming destruction of Babylon
A PHYSICAL REAL BABYLON
AND A WORLD SYSTEM OF BABYLON
Some of it applies to Daniel’s day, when Babylon would fall… immediate application
But many scholars believe that it also has dual reference to the events also included in Revelation and will occur during a period known as the Tribulation.
A coming judgment that will pour out on Antichrist who will rule and reign from Babylon
Is 3:2-5
WE know from Daniel 5, and from history, that the overthrow and downfall of the Babylonian empire occurred when the Medo-Persian empire invaded Babylon at night
While King Balshazzar was hosting a Drunken Feast, God wrote on the wall
MENE-MENE-TEKEL-UPHARSIS
You have been weighed and found wanting: Your Kingdom will be divided
Cyrus the Medo-Persian general diverted the river Euphrates and lowered the Euprhates at night to sneak in under the walls of Babylon
The Babylonians were so drunken and so engaged in the big party, they didn’t see it !!
When the Medes conquered Babylon, they did not even destroy the walls.
This prophecy here speaks of destruction by a world-wide confederation of the nations
Yet they were taken down by a single nation – the Medes
In verse 5, it says that they come from a far country
The Medes were right next door to Babylon
So it is obvious that the Fall of Babylon by the Medes is not the fulfillment
This is looking out further than that …
Is 3:6-9 THE DAY OF THE LORD
So now here we have the time frame: THE DAY OF THE LORD
The day of the Lord is an important phrase, used some 26 times in the Bible.
It speaks of not a single day of judgment, but of the season of judgment when the Lord sets things right
Often the GREAT TRIBULATION – last 3.5 years
Or the Final Battle - Armegeddon
IS 13:10-11 GOD TURNS THE LIGHTS OUT
Several prophetic passages describe the cosmic disturbances that will precede and surround the return of Jesus
The earth quakes before them;
the heavens tremble.
The sun and the moon are darkened,
and the stars withdraw their shining.
When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.
All the host of heaven shall rot away,
and the skies roll up like a scroll.
All their host shall fall,
as leaves fall from the vine,
like leaves falling from the fig tree.
“Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
IS 13:12 MAN MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD
DEATH IN REVELATION :
4 Horsemen (Rev 6): ¼ population destroyed
Trumpet Judgments (Rev 9): 1/3 population destroyed
And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.
Let’s say five billion people enter into the tribulation period. It has been estimated that as many as four billion people will die leaving one billion survivors
IS 13:13- EARTH REMOVED OUT OF ITS PLACE
“Being removed out of it’s axis” may refer to another polar Shift
Physicists tell us this happened at least once before..
AS with other things that have not been scientifically stated before, there are differing opinions concerning how frequently they occur....
We do know that the area of Siberia was once lush, tropical jungles, and great mammoths roamed in those jungles.
How do we know that? In the frozen tundra of Siberia, they have found mammoths that have been perfectly encased in the ice, and in their digestive tracts there is tropical vegetation.
Now they were flash-frozen, because the meat was still edible. The dogs ate the meat of these mammoths,
We know that some of the worlds great canyons and mountains were the product of some cataclysmic shift… probably in conjunction with the flood
Geologists in the past try to tell us that things such as the GRAND CANYON were the product of thousands of years of the Colorado river eating into the rockbed.
Yet The geologists today, rather than ascribing to the theory that the grand canyon was formed by hundreds of, or billions of years of gradual erosion by the Colorado river, are now saying it probably happened more rapidly by a massive flow of water over a short period of time, rather than a small flow of water, over a long period of time.
WE do have a wonderful laboratory that God gave to us about 40 years ago: Mt St Helens
IN just a few days, a canyon about half the size of the Grand Canyon was formed when Mt St. Helens blew on May 18, 1980
Is 13:14-16 no escape from God’s judgment
It is like one of the nature movies where the hunted gazelle is overtaken by the lion, and it utterly consumed. There is no escape from God’s unrelenting judgment.
3:17 -18 2 isaiahs? How can man Know??
Isaiah finished his prophetic career in 685 b.c., almost 100 years before Judah finally fell before the Babylonian Empire (586 b.c.). At the time of this prophecy, Babylon was a significant nation, but they were definitely behind the Assyrian Empire in status
It is specifically worded passages like this that drive skeptics of the Bible crazy, pushing them to regard the Isaiah as written after the events prophesied.
But doesn’t God know the future, and know it specifically?
“Remember this and stand firm,
recall it to mind, you transgressors,
remember the former things of old;
for I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me,
declaring the end from the beginning
and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,
and I will accomplish all my purpose,’
Is 13:19- 22 RISE OF BABYLON AGAIN
So was Babylon completely destroyed? …. Not so as you had noticed
“When Cyrus conquered Babylon, he did not devastate the city. The walls were left standing until 518 b.c., and general desolation did not set in until the third century b.c.
Babylon gradually fell into decay, and the prophecy of Isaiah was fulfilled. Babylon became completely depopulated by the time of the Muslim conquest in the seventh century a.d., and to this day it lies deserted.”
Yet today, it is being rebuilt..
Saddam rebuilt the palace and stamped his own name into the bricks, alongside Nebuchadnezzar's
This is also true in its ultimate fulfillment. When Jesus returns in glory and conquers the world system, He will rule the earth for 1,000 years. As He does, there will be no more “world system” in opposition to God as we know it. In this sense, the world system in opposition to God will never be inhabited again.
CONCLUSION
PROPHECY IS GOD’S CALLING CARD… Proof of His Existence
To be a Babylonian is to be part of the World System that is against God
Literally, as the Antichrist will be Spiritually, as unbelievers are Or FUNCTIONALLY BABYLONIAN… To claim to be a Christian, but not to lay your life down in the control of Jesus… Babylonian!
So we realize that Jesus Christ fights against the Spirit of “Babylon” in every generation by His Word and by His Spirit, and that He will overthrow the final form of Babylon in the Second Coming.
So we guard our hearts from the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life or in one’s possessions for because of these things the wrath of God is coming into the world.
Christ alone can rescue his people from being destroyed with Babylon.
Where will you find yourself.