“Babylon Is Suddenly Fallen And Destroyed”
Jeremiah 51
1Thus saith the Lord; Behold, I will raise up against Babylon, and against them that dwell in the midst of them that rise up against me, a destroying wind;
2 And will send unto Babylon fanners, that shall fan her, and shall empty her land: for in the day of trouble they shall be against her round about.
3 Against him that bendeth let the archer bend his bow, and against him that lifteth himself up in his brigandine: and spare ye not her young men; destroy ye utterly all her host.
4 Thus the slain shall fall in the land of the Chaldeans, and they that are thrust through in her streets.
5 For Israel hath not been forsaken, nor Judah of his God, of the Lord of hosts; though their land was filled with sin against the Holy One of Israel.
6 Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul: be not cut off in her iniquity; for this is the time of the Lord's vengeance; he will render unto her a recompence.
7 Babylon hath been a golden cup in the Lord's hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad.
8 Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed: howl for her; take balm for her pain, if so be she may be healed.
9 We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: forsake her, and let us go every one into his own country: for her judgment reacheth unto heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies.
10 The Lord hath brought forth our righteousness: come, and let us declare in Zion the work of the Lord our God.
11 Make bright the arrows; gather the shields: the Lord hath raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes: for his device is against Babylon, to destroy it; because it is the vengeance of the Lord, the vengeance of his temple.
I Corinthians 6
19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
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Babylon, the preeminent super-power of its day …
Who living at that time would have ever imagined how quickly it would all unravel and fall apart?
But that’s how it happens once God decides He has had enough. Almost in the blink of an eye, what once was is no longer.
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Jeremiah uses up a lot of ink - in what we know as chapters 50-51 - detailing the devastation God is going to unleash upon Babylon. It’s amazing to read the account because of the exactness in which it is all laid out. God is going to move upon Babylon in such a way that there will be no doubts as to what happened and Who did it.
What caught my attention specifically is the swiftness in which God takes action once He has decreed it. When He decides to act He does it without hesitancy and with absolute precision. Nothing is left to chance or circumstance. God, the Sovereign LORD Almighty, unleashes His fury in no uncertain terms. If it weren’t so horrific it would be, in-and-of-itself, a thing of beauty to behold.
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Human nature tends to think that what is will always be. And human nature always seems to be surprised when that turns out to not be true. Everything comes to and end. Everything has its own set duration.
As it says in Ecclesiastes 3:1 — “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”
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The Bible seeks to instruct God’s people to discern the signs relative to the times in which they live. That’s especially significant when it comes to the End Times. (Matthew 16:3) As such, God has given us a Book of Discernment because He wants His people to be prepared, vigilant, and fit for His use (II Timothy 2:21). He knows how prone we are to become at ease in our own planned and contrived Zions. (Amos 6:1)
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Personally, I believe things are ramping up relating to the End Times as foretold in the book of Revelation. Too much has happened in recent decades, years and days to not at least cause one to sense an urge to look up because our redemption draws nigh. (Luke 21:28).
As I ponder and consider, in the light of God’s Word, where we are in relation to God’s timetable — I am moved to not focus so much on the condition of the world around us but the people of God around us.
I am burdened and concerned for the lost around us. I breaks my heart (and gets me angry) at how easily the lost are falling in line (around the whole world) with a landscape that is increasingly growing further from God.
But I am even more concerned about the whole slew of God’s people (around the world) that are doing likewise. I truly am amazed, mystified, baffled, befuddled, distraught and yes … angry at us, God’s people. It appears, at least to me, that we are trying to mentally hold onto life as we once knew it to be — just like the world.
We, myself included, are mentally living within our own Twilight Zones. That’s not as much a criticism as it is an observation. Who among us isn’t finding it difficult to rationalize and make sense of what we are witnessing and living in? And I think this is especially true for Westernize Christianity that has been allowed to live within a sort of fairy-tale quasi-Biblical reality.
The lives we’ve been privileged to live, especially in America, are not the norm as far as the Biblical outlook presented in the Scriptures.
The norm is that God’s people are expected to be a hated, persecuted and castigated group within the greater fabric of society.
Perhaps God has (had?) blessed America because of its attempt (albeit coming far short) to frame a society of people beholding to the principles and teachings of God’s Word. But that has all changed especially with the implementation of Roe v. Wade in 1973. That was, in no uncertain terms, the beginning of the beginning of the end not only for this Country but the Countries we have enabled to do likewise.
Make no mistake: God will not be mocked.
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Could it be America is waltzing itself into the same scenario Babylon did when God decided He would no longer be mocked? It seems He gets really angry when His Temple is defiled and destroyed by unclean hands that seek to diminish His glory in an attempt to exalt themselves above God.
“Make bright the arrows; gather the shields: the Lord hath raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes: for his device is against Babylon, to destroy it; because it is the vengeance of the Lord, the vengeance of his temple.” (v. 11)
Above all else, God acted with such finality because of the desecration of His Temple. That gets God’s attention just like it did Yeshua when He made it very clear how He felt about the defiling of the Temple.
The following verses illustrate that desecrating the standing Temple is equivalent to desecrating the Living Temple.
John 2
13 And the Jews' passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
14 And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting:
15 And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables;
16 And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise.
17 And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.
18 Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?
19 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
20 Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?
21 But he spake of the temple of his body.
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Which brings me to what I’ll close with, and that is this …
We who claim the name of Yeshua as Lord and Saviour are living, physical enclosures of the Spirit of God which in turn designates us as “the temple of the Holy Ghost”
As God is concerned with His architectural Temple, so He is with His Temples of the Holy Ghost — us.
We are, and will be, facing challenging days from now until the scenario of the book of Revelation comes to fruition. The encouragement to us is that as His Temples on this earth and at this time, He is closely monitoring our situations and will, in His time and as He deems fit …
Bring Sudden Destruction and … our deliverance, Amen!
Take heart brethren, our redemption draweth nigh.
I Thessalonians 5
But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.
2 For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then SUDDEN DESTRUCTION cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
4 But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
5 Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
6 Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.
7 For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.
8 But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.
9 For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
10 Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.
11 Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.