WWUTT 2599 The Picture Babylon's Destruction Paints (Jeremiah 51:1-64)

The Judgment of Babylon as a Picture of Judgment on the Nations

God had declared judgment upon the wicked nation of Babylon. And the issue of judgment that we see in the Bible upon Babylon becomes a picture of the way that God will bring judgment on all the nations of the earth when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the Word. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we feature New Testament Study, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our Q &A on Friday.

Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the book of Jeremiah, we come to chapter 51. We've got two chapters left, but chapter 51 happens to be the longest chapter in the book of Jeremiah. Now, we have been reading here about the judgment that God promises upon Babylon.

Israel had done wickedly. They had worshipped false gods. And so God, as punishment, had given them over into the hands of the Babylonians. He used Babylon to bring judgment on Israel because of their sin.

But that doesn't clear Babylon, nor does it make them innocent especially. They have done even more wickedly than Israel. And so God is going to bring judgment upon the Babylonians by bringing the Medes and the Persians against them.

So we will continue to hear about that judgment here as we come into chapter 51. Let me begin by reading the first 10 verses. Hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord, Behold, I will stir up the spirit of a destroyer against Babylon, against the inhabitants of Lebkemi.

And I will send to Babylon winnowers, and they shall winnow her, and they shall empty her land, when they come against her from every side on the day of trouble. Let not the archer bend his bow, and let him not stand up in his armor.

Spare not her young men. Devote to destruction all her army. They shall fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans, and wounded in her streets. For Israel and Judah have not been forsaken by their God, the Lord of hosts.

But the land of the Chaldeans is full of guilt against the Holy One of Israel. Flee from the midst of Babylon. Let everyone save his life. Be not cut off in her punishment, for this is the time of the Lord's vengeance, the repayment He is rendering her.

Babylon was a golden cup in the Lord's hand, making all the earth drunken. The nations drank of her wine. Therefore the nations went mad. Suddenly Babylon has fallen and been broken. Wail for her. Take balm for her pain.

Perhaps she may be healed. We would have healed Babylon, but she was not healed. Forsake her, and let us go each to his own country, for her judgment has reached up to heaven and has been lifted up even to the skies.

The Lord has brought about our vindication. Come, let us declare in Zion the work of the Lord our God. Now notice here that it is very clear that Babylon's sin is against God. It's not against their gods, but it is against the Lord God.

They have much guilt against the Holy One of Israel, as said there in verse 5. Now it is also said in verse 7 that Babylon was a golden cup in the Lord's hand, and it made all the earth drunken. The nations drank of her wine, therefore the nations went mad.

And this is talking about how many nations had benefited from the richness of Babylon. But now because of their continued rebellion against God, he would bring judgment upon them suddenly. And it practically happened in the course of a night, according to what we read in the book of Daniel.

It was immediate that this judgment came upon Babylon. And as we see, people wailing for her here as talked about in Jeremiah chapter 51. It's from here that we read in the book of Revelation. Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, and many of the nations will wail for Babylon.

That's taken from the way that Babylon is talked about in the prophets. Because just as the nations will weep for her in this day, hundreds of years before Jesus is born, so it will be on the day that Christ returns, when he pours judgment out on the earth.

Babylon in the Old Testament becomes a picture of the way that God will bring judgment on all of the wicked nations in the book of Revelation. And we see that day is coming upon us soon. One day, our Lord Christ is going to return.

He will pour his judgments out upon the earth, and the people who had trusted in Babylon, and the whore that rides on her head, drinking from her wine, they will all perish because of her. Now, at the end of this particular declaration, in the passage that we just read, verse 10, it says, the Lord has brought about our vindication.

So talking about how God's love is still for Israel, he will deliver them, and they will come back into their land, as we've seen previously declared here in the book of Jeremiah. So God has brought about our vindication.

We have been lifted up out of the captivity we were in when we were in Babylon. So come, let us declare in Zion. Remember, the promise is that they would come back even to their land. The temple would even be rebuilt, and the people would praise God there.

So let us declare in Zion, the city of God, the work of the Lord our God. Let's go on from there. Verse 11, sharpen the arrows, take up the shields. The Lord has stirred up the spirit of the king of the Medes, because his purpose concerning Babylon is to destroy it.

For that is the vengeance of the Lord, the vengeance for his temple. It would be the Medes and the Persians God would use to bring judgment upon Babylon. Verse 12, stand up, or set up rather, a standard against the walls of Babylon.

Make the watch strong, set up watchmen, prepare the ambushes. For the Lord has both planned and done what he spoke concerning the inhabitants of Babylon. Oh, you who dwell by many waters, rich in treasures, your end has come.

The thread of your life is cut. The Lord of hosts has sworn by himself, surely I will fill you with men, as many as locusts, and they shall raise the shout of victory over you. So talking about how the many waters will be filled with the bodies of the dead that God will strike down in Babylon, that's a pretty harrowing thing to consider.

You know, the waters of Babylon was something that Babylon was actually very famous for. In fact, if you know of the seven wonders of the ancient world, one of those wonders were the hanging gardens in Babylon, and those gardens were lush and benefited.

They were nourished from the waters of Babylon themselves. In fact, in Psalm 137, the waters of Babylon are mentioned there. By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion.

On the willows there, so it even makes reference to the lush greens in Babylon that benefited from its many waters, there we hung up our lyres. For there are captors required of us songs, and our tormentors mirth saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill. Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.

This is a psalm about remembering the very place where God dwells. That's where I desire to be, where God has set a name for himself. I desire to be near God. So let me not sing joyful songs in Babylon, but rather songs of lament that they would repent of their sin and be restored back to the land, which is being promised here in Jeremiah 51.

They will come back to Zion and declare the work of God. We continue on, verse 15. It is he who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens.

When he utters his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and he makes the mist rise from the ends of the earth. He makes lightning for the rain, and he brings forth the wind from his storehouses.

Every man is stupid and without knowledge. Every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols, for his images are false, and there is no breath in them. They are worthless, a work of delusion. At the time of their punishment, they shall perish.

Not like these is he who is the portion of Jacob, for he is the one who formed all things, and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance. The Lord of hosts is his name. You know, Scripture says that God is invisible, and so when people who even profess to be Christians make images of God and worship them, then they are worshiping idols.

It doesn't matter if they call those things God. I think of even some of the religions in the world that claim to be Christian, like Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. And the idols that they raise up and will even bow down to, they will call it veneration.

They will say this is just iconography, but God has said you will not make for yourself an image and bow down to it. Not anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth or in the waters under the earth.

Nothing shall you make a graven image of and bow to it. And we see several times in the Bible where even Israel had made idols that they called God and bowed down to them, and God considered this as wicked.

When the golden calf was made at the base of Mount Sinai, the people referred to that as Yahweh. They called that thing Yahweh, the golden calf. And then in the book of Judges, also there was the story toward the end of the book of Judges, the man who made the image that represented God.

And this was depicting how wicked Israel had become, that they had forgotten even the first commandment. I am the Lord your God and you will not have another one. You will not raise up for yourself graven images.

And here they were raising up graven images they called God. And this was considered to be as wicked. We are not to have images of God that we would bow down to and worship. We worship the invisible God.

He is looking for people who will worship Him in spirit and truth, as Jesus said in John chapter 4. Not worshiping images of Him. But knowing the invisible God is with us, and trusting in Him though we cannot see Him.

Let us not give ourselves over to vain things created by the hands of man. These are even vain doctrines that are invented by man. When we believe that we can make something that looks like God and bow down to it and think that's actually worshipping God.

That is not how God has said He is to be worshipped. So this isn't some primitive thing from way back when, these people that used to worship idols then, but we're certainly smarter now. There are many people that will raise up graven images and worship those things.

We continue on in verse 20. You are my hammer and weapon of war. With you I break nations in pieces. With you I destroy kingdoms. Talking about Babylon. We've seen this before in the book of Isaiah, talking about Babylon being a hammer in God's hand.

With you I break in pieces the horse and his rider. With you I break in pieces the chariot and the charioteer. With you I break in pieces man and woman. With you I break in pieces the old man and the youth.

With you I break in pieces the young man and the young woman. With you I break in pieces the shepherd and his flock. With you I break in pieces the farmer and his team. With you I break in pieces governors and commanders.

If you think of God using a hammer, using Babylon as a hammer, the picture is a hammer here, and every strike, bang bang bang, right? That's kind of the pattern that we have right here in this part of the prophecy, which is written like poetry.

So with you I break in pieces. That's a strike of the hammer. With you I break in pieces, another strike of the hammer. So it's written very poetically and how God would use Babylon to bring judgments upon these wicked nations.

Well now it is time for judgment to come on Babylon. Verse 24. I will repay Babylon and all the inhabitants of Chaldea before your very eyes for all the evil that they have done in Zion, declares the Lord.

Behold, I am against you O destroying mountain, declares the Lord, which destroys the whole earth. I will stretch out my hand against you and roll you down from the crags and make you a burnt mountain.

No stone shall be taken from you for a corner and no stone for a foundation but you shall be a perpetual waste, declares the Lord. Set up a standard on the earth. Blow the trumpet among the nations. Prepare the nations for war against her.

Summon against her the kingdoms, Ararat, Menai, Ashkenaz. Appoint a marshal against her. Bring up horses like bristling locusts. Prepare the nations for war against her, the kings of the Medes with their governors and deputies and every land under their dominion.

The land trembles and writhes in pain for the Lord's purposes against Babylon's stand to make the land of Babylon a desolation without inhabitant. The warriors of Babylon have ceased fighting. They remain in their strongholds.

Their strength has failed. They have become women. Her dwellings are on fire. Her bars are broken. One runner runs to meet another and one messenger to meet another to tell the king of Babylon that his city is taken on every side.

The fords have been seized. The marshes are burned with fire and the soldiers are in panic. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, the daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time when it is trodden, yet a little while and the time of her harvest will come.

Now hold on tight for as far as the reading is concerned, we're only halfway through. Let me continue. Verse 34. Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon has devoured me. He has crushed me. He has made me an empty vessel.

He has swallowed me like a monster. He has filled his stomach with my delicacies. He has rinsed me out. The violence done to me and to my kinsmen be upon Babylon. Let the inhabitant of Zion say. My blood be upon the inhabitants of Chaldea.

Let Jerusalem say. Now notice there he's made me like an empty vessel. He swallowed me like a monster. Some of the picture that's being painted here is how the king of Nebuchadnezzar had taken the sacred vessels out of the temple and had used them as his own silverware.

Well I guess in this case goldware. But he had drank from them and had filled himself with them, filled his stomach with my delicacies. So this was the king of Nebuchadnezzar blaspheming the holy things that had been in the temple.

But of course God had removed himself, his presence from Israel so that Nebuchadnezzar could do such things and he wouldn't be stricken dead for them. But judgment of course as said here is coming upon all the inhabitants of Chaldea.

Verse 36. Therefore thus says the Lord. Behold I will plead your cause and take vengeance for you. I will dry up her sea and make her foundation dry. And Babylon shall become a heap of ruins, the haunt of jackals, a horror and a hissing without inhabitant.

Verse 38. They shall roar together like lions. They shall growl like lion's cubs. While they are inflamed I will prepare them a feast and make them drunk that they may become merry. Then sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake declares the Lord.

I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter like rams and male goats. How Babylon is taken the praise of the whole earth seized. How Babylon has become a horror among the nations. The sea has come up upon Babylon.

She is covered with its tumultuous waves. Her cities have become a horror, a land of drought and a desert. A land in which no one dwells and through which no son of man passes. And I will punish Bel in Babylon and take out of his mouth what he has swallowed.

The nations shall no longer flow to him. The wall of Babylon has fallen. Go out of the midst of her my people. Let everyone save his life from the fierce anger of the Lord. Let not your heart faint and be not fearful at the report heard in your land.

When a report comes in one year and afterward a report in another year. And violence is in the land and ruler is against ruler. Therefore behold the days are coming when I will punish the images of Babylon.

Her whole land shall be put to shame and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her. Then the heavens and the earth and all that is in them shall sing for joy over Babylon. For the destroyer shall come against them out of the north, declares the Lord.

Babylon must fall for the slain of Israel just as for Babylon have fallen the slain of all the earth. You who have escaped from the sword go. Do not stand still. Remember the Lord from far away and let Jerusalem come into your mind.

We are put to shame for we have heard reproach. Dishonor has covered our face for foreigners have come into the holy places of the Lord's house. Therefore behold the days are coming declares the Lord when I will execute judgment upon her images.

And through all her land the wounded shall groan. Though Babylon should mount up to heaven and though she should fortify her strong height yet destroyers would come from me against her declares the Lord.

Yes Babylon was heavily fortified and it even built great towers and yet God would bring destruction against it. Verse 54. A voice, a cry from Babylon the noise of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans.

For the Lord is laying Babylon waste and stilling her mighty voice. Their waves roar like many waters the noise of their voices raised. For a destroyer has come upon her, upon Babylon her warriors are taken their bows are broken in pieces for the Lord is a God of recompense he will surely repay.

I will make drunk her officials and her wise men, her governors, her commanders and her warriors they shall sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake declares the King whose name is the Lord of hosts and we see in the book of Revelation that very King who brings judgment upon Babylon is Jesus Christ.

Verse 58. Thus says the Lord of hosts the broad wall of Babylon shall be leveled to the ground and her high gates shall be burned with fire. The people's labor for nothing and the nations weary themselves only for fire.

Verse 59 the word that Jeremiah the prophet commanded Sariah the son of Neriah son of Masiah when he went with King Zedekiah king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. Sariah was the quartermaster.

Jeremiah wrote in a book all the disaster that should come upon Babylon all these words that are written concerning Babylon. And Jeremiah said to Sariah when you come to Babylon see that you read all these words and say O Lord you have said concerning this place that you will cut it off so that nothing shall dwell in it neither man nor beast and it shall be desolate forever.

When you finish reading this book tie a stone to it and cast it into the midst of the Euphrates and say thus shall Babylon sink to rise no more because of the disaster that I am bringing upon her and they shall become exalted.

Thus far are the words of Jeremiah and that is the conclusion of Jeremiah chapter 51. Now just as we read here about destruction that will come upon Babylon so will destruction come upon all the nations.

In the Bible class that I teach over at a Christian school on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I actually just read for the students this week what is said in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 3 while people are saying there is peace and security then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman and they will not escape.

So my friends judgment is coming upon the earth and the only way to be saved is by faith in Jesus Christ. So proclaim his gospel that others may come to faith in him and be saved from the wrath to come.

The nations will not be spared. God's judgment will be poured out on them and the only nation that will be saved is his church. Heavenly Father we thank you for what we have read here and may it be a reminder to us that every sin will be found out and the righteous judgment of God will come on the day of vengeance.

The wicked will be destroyed. The godly will be saved. Those who put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. May the message of the cross go forth. May the justification that comes by faith in Jesus and his resurrection from the dead be upon us and we walk in the ways of righteousness that we've been given in Christ Jesus our Lord.

May his name be proclaimed throughout all the earth. It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.

This has been When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt .com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com and let your friends know about our ministry.

Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's word when we understand the text.