The LORD Burns Babylon

GI

-Babylon movie. - I haven’t seen it. It appears to be horrible.

- my knowledge of the movie comes from the IMDB page and from Chat GPT. I haven’t watch it. Despite whatever themes it may have against pagan idolatry and headonism, it still glories in it and glorifies it.

-it’s about holywood in it’s twenties, it depicts the extreme headonism and gross idolotry of the era

-there is a severe depiction of gross sexual immorality, which goes along with idolatry.

the characters are constantly using drugs, which goes by an older name, pharmakia, which is the word we would also translate, sourcery.

-There are secret, or hidden, or occultic societies within the industry, secret societies,

-basically all the elements of ancient babylon, for which ancient babylon was known, are depicted in this movie.

-And these things of course, all these things are dmonstrations of godless, idolatrous societies, where humans are oriented and operated by their lusts and desires and passions.

the characters idolize fame and stardom, and are willing to sacrifice essentially everything to get it. There are no moral standards.

-And the movie even has depiction of judgment, though not obviously providential, it does depict that this immoral livestyle led to permanent disaterous consequences, the deaths of these characters. So far as godless people can understand divine judgment.

-I bring it up becfause it actually ikllustrates the way we should think about these specific historical examples given in prophecy.

-That in order for holiwood to depict the grosest image of immorality which they can possibly conceive of, they call the movie “Babylon”

-The movie is not about ancient babylon historically; it is depicting holiwood in the 20’s,

-but all the operating principles, all the thoughts and ideas, and animating forces which made ancient Babylon what is is, are depicted in this movie. One can say that Spiritually this movie is about Babylon. The Spirit of Bablyon is depicted.

SI

God gives us historical examples in Scripture of specific things kinds of things, types of things, which occur repeated in history because of the nature of the story which God is telling.

Another example is that, i was watching RC Sproul teaching about the life of Martin Luther, and when Luther was brought before the diet of Worms and told to recant his teachings, he asked for 24 hours to think it over, and Martin’s prayer that night has been preserved historically.

R.C. Sproul said that Martin had his own Gethsemene.

What does that mean? It means that Martin Luther experienced something of a similar kind or type of Jesus’ example in the garden of Gethsemene.

Martin Luther wrestled with God in prayer, in incredibly high distress, knowing he would suffer for the word of God, and submitted himself to God.

I am drawing your attention to this feature of language. These are ways that what the Bible has recorded relates directly to our lives.

Purpose Statement

My purposes today is for you to understand the nature of Biblical prophecy, specifically how the historical example of Babylon relates to how you should view God’s enemies.

PNP

We will see this in 3 big steps The Lord throws down prideful Babylon,

The Lord brings evil upon Babylon in judgment,

and that the Lord burns Babylon.

Today is very much about judgment, so please buckle up.

Review

We are walking through Isaiah, 40-66

-This is one long excursis, one continual prophecy, some of the most principle points we’ve spoke of so far are these:

-Israel is to be comforted, her punishment is done.

-The Lord is coming to visit His people.

-The Lords Arm is going to rule for Him.

-A great and grand truth told is emphasized over and over again, is that the Lord is absolutely sovereignty over all creation, both in creating the world and in it’s constant governance:

-in establishing and deposing ruler.

-in rescuing the needy and afflicted, in renewing the strength of His people

-in breaking the wicked and proud, in the destruction of the babylonians, who stand in for all the enemies of God’s people.

-in good, and even in calamity, in the destructions and devastation of the world, He is sovereign.

-The Lord call the ends from the beginnings, perfectly always.

-He is God, and there is no one else.

-He gives a specific example of raising of Cyrus the conqueror, by name. And the specific details of Cyrus’ life and campain described in a way far any natural explanation.

- because of these things, those who trust in idols are fools.

-Continually throws down the gauntlet on false gods, which are the objects of worship of the pagan nations.

-On the basis of these things, God’s people are to believe in new things.

-He has called forth Israel, His chosen people, from the ends of the earth. He has constituted them as a nation, that they may know and believe that God is, and there is no other. They will be His witnesses. His conquerors, His servants.

-Yet, they fail. There is still the greater Servant, the Head of the Servant of the Lord,

-The Father promises His Servant that He will give Him to be a covenant to the world. We see this with later revelation as being a promise from the Father to the Son.

-who is given as a covenant with the world, for the salvation of the world - the salvation of the nations

-He is the Head of the Church, Jesus Christ,

-He will lead forth JUSTICE TO VICTORY, and the coastlands, the distant shores, will wait for His law.

43,

-We see prediction of latter day glory, of great outpouring of the Spirit of God on all flesh, on the dry places, and the sons of Israel will pop up all over. They will write Yahweh on themselves and call upon the name of Jacob with reverence.

-Yahweh has redeemed Israel, and no other nation. This is stated, and then immediatly shown afterward that God has called forth His sons and daughts from the east and the west,

He has brought them together, and has gathered them, He challenges them out of their ignorance, and reveals Himself to them, that they would be Israel, His people.

**read 43:5-10**

You see Israel constituted as a nation gathered together, for the purpose of them knowing and believing that God is He. He is. He does not change.

He cannot be resisted!

And He does not remember the sins of His people.

He promises that the plunder of the nations will be given to His people,

That the gentile nations will come and bow down toward them and know that God is with them,

A promise which Jesus takes and applies to a little Gentile church congregation, that the Jews persecuting who are really not Jews, they will come and bow down before them and know that God has loved them.

The Lord declares in 45 that He created the world to be inhabited, that He has made Himself available to the world.

He culminates with the command to all the world, to be saved! For unto Jesus Christ, every knee will bow.

Every knee, the ends of the earth will say “Only in Yahweh have they righteousness and strength,” the men will come to Him from a far, and thus in Yahweh shall all the seed of Israel be justified and boast.

-I believe we have seen very repeatedly that Israel is identified with those whom God has called. Those whom God calls and brings from the ends of the earth.

-Isa 41:8-9

Isaiah 41:8–9 LSB

8 “But you, Israel, My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, Seed of Abraham My friend, 9 You whom I have strongly taken hold of from the ends of the earth, And called from its remotest parts And said to you, ‘You are My servant, I have chosen you and not rejected you.

Isaiah 43:1 LSB

1 But now, thus says Yahweh, your Creator, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine!

Isaiah 43:7 LSB

7 Everyone who is called by My name, And whom I have created for My glory, Whom I have formed, even whom I have made.”

Isaiah 45:3 LSB

3 “I will give you the treasures of darkness And hidden wealth of secret places, So that you may know that it is I, Yahweh, the God of Israel, who calls you by your name.

That God calls forth His people, and the King of His people, which is the Chirst. We will talk more about this later.

We saw last time that:

-Yahweh carries His people, while the idols are carried off. - the absolurte lameness of the idols

-fallen and can’t get up.

Yahweh commands you to remember His works, to trust Him in your trials, that you would pray without ceasing to Him.

And Yahweh brings His righteousness from afar, upon the wicked, giving salvation in Zion, through Jesus Christ.

Which brings us to where we are today.

Purpose statment

My purposes today is for you to understand the nature of Biblical prophecy, specifically how the historical example of Babylon relates to how you should view God’s enemies.

PNP

We will see this in 3 big steps The Lord throws down prideful Babylon,

The Lord brings evil upon Babylon in judgment,

and that the Lord burns Babylon.

______

People get into trouble with interpreting prophecy, and they flip things on their head,

instead of seeing the destruction of Babylon as an example of the principles that God judges all the wicked, they see the fact that God judges the wicked as a priciple given to illustrate the fact that historic Babylon was judged by God.

In short, people apply God’s language to only a fraction of what it really teaches.

It would be like if I said that said America is beautiful, and there was an interpretive dispute over whether or not I meant that wisconson or origan was beautiful.

There are going too specific, beyond what I meant.

So the prophet here in this chapter gives the destruction of Babylon as an illustration to God’s people at all times of God’s destruction of the wicked.

Yes God is talking about historical Babylon, but He is not ONLY teaching us that God once destroyed babylon, He is ALSO teaching us that on the basis of God’s destruction, God destroys all BABYLON-LIKE People. All Babylonians. All wicked, godless headonistic nations. All the nations which forget God will perish.

What does that mean? It means that because this is an example of God’s dealings with the enemies of His people, that later prophets can take the same language and apply it to the Spiritual successors of Babylon, without us needing to take their language as meaning the exact same objects of the original prediction.

When a new prophecy in the Bible, like the book of revelation, wears the costume of the old prophecy, it does not mean that the object, the “referent” or that which it reffers to, is the same as the previous prophecy, it means that the new is immitating the old.

So, the Prophet here, having previously discussed the fuitility and powerlessness and weakness of the Babylonian gods, now moves on to the judgement of the empire it’self.

Babylon is personified as several different types of women, as a royal virgin who will be thrown down and degraded, and this is connected to God’s power as an illustration of God’s soverign power and identity as Savior,

the empire is predicted in more detail as being caught unaware of the coming destruction, being led astray by false wisdom and false charms and sorceries, and ultimately destroyed by fire and completely abandoned by all her allies.

The Lord throws down Babylon (1-7)

The Virgin

Isaiah 47:1 LSB

1 “Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon; Sit on the ground without a throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans! For you shall no longer be called tender and delicate.

dethronement and debasement, sitting on the dust of the earth

The virgin daughter Babylon, the city and nation of Babylon.

virgin daughter is the “collective personification of the inhabitants”

Chaldeans - It is the name for the ethnic group which were the rulers of Babylonia, these are the ones which destroyed Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar was a king of the Chaldeans. While they are an ethnic group. It can be both a name for the people or for the country.

She, this virgin is dethroned, and will no longer live the life of luxery and comfort which she is acustomed to.

Isaiah 47:2 LSB

2 “Take the millstones and grind flour. Uncover your veil, strip off the skirt, Uncover the leg, cross the rivers.

this is one of the most slave-like occupations. It is the work for female slaves.

The uncovered veil is a way of saying that she will look like a slave. She will be uncovered to look like a slave.

Same with the image of the skirt, she is taking off her luxerious clothes and being reduced to slavery.

Walking through the rivers, this is the habitual exposure to the rivers of the lower classes of women. They have to work down in the rivers. It’s not likely to refer to an exile or deportation.

Isaiah 47:3 LSB

3 “Your nakedness will be uncovered; Your reproach also will be seen; I will take vengeance and will not spare a man.”

This is the climax of the idea, the greatest reproach, she will be stripped and her shame will be seen.

Then the literal meaning of the figure is used, God will bring vengence ont he people and will not spare a man. No one will escape. inescapable and unstoppable vengeance.

Often times in Biblical prophecy a symbol or metaphor will be used which afterwards the literal meaning is stated. This is a clear example of that, and it’s important to remember on some other more debatable prophecies.

Isaiah 47:4 LSB

4 Our Redeemer, Yahweh of hosts is His name, The Holy One of Israel.

This downfall is proof of Yahweh’s power and His identify, and purpose. This verse brings us to mind the purpose for this destruction, the redemption of Israel, the covenanted and elected people of God.

God has His vessels of wrath for the good reason of His glorification, and to show His salvation to His people.

This idea blossoms in

Rom 9:22-24

Romans 9:22–24 LSB

22 And what if God, wanting to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath having been prepared for destruction, 23 and in order that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory— 24 even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles?

Wherein the true Israel is shown to be the elect of God, and these vessels of wrath the reprobate.

God’s destruction of vessels of wrath is a demonstration of the riches of His mercy upon His redeemed.

This destruction of Babylon shows the supremecy of God and His protection of His people.

The Queen

Isaiah 47:5 LSB

5 “Sit silently, and go into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans, For you will no longer be called The queen of kingdoms.

Sit in grief, sin in the dark place, the prison of chains, herein is the kingdom of Babylon being specifically mentioned.

The queen of kingdoms. The great mistress of the empire, the one who rules, and controls. She will no longer have this position of exaltation (which God gave her) but she will be ripped down.

Isaiah 47:6 LSB

6 “I was furious with My people; I profaned My inheritance And gave them into your hand. You did not show compassion to them, On the aged you made your yoke very heavy.

The Lord, in His anger against Israel put her out and punished His inheritance as something worthless. Similar to what He said in:

Isaiah 43:28 LSB

28 “So I will profane the princes of the sanctuary, And I will give Jacob to be devoted to destruction and Israel to revilement.

God punished His people because she was disobedient. This is because the law in the Old Testament was the ministry of condemnation (explain) God gave them the righteous law, but they didn’t have circumcised hearts, and the reasources of the Holy Spirit, which led to a continual degregation of the moral atmosphere.

So God profained His special posession:

God’s inheritence, His peopel, which He ownes perpetually, His special posession

Exodus 19:5 LSB

5 ‘So now then, if you will indeed listen to My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My treasured possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine;

Babylon in their invasion and their destruction of the temple (which has not happened in history yet at the time this is written, for the greatest judgments from Babylon on Israel still future, but the prophet speaks in relation to this event in the past tense)

Babylon who unconsciously carried out the providential decree of the Lord, they did it for wicked reasons, they did it with evil motives, entirely corrupt.

So God turns around and judges the rod of His anger. It’s the same as Isa 10:7

Isaiah 10:7 LSB

7 But it does not intend to act in this way, And it does not think in its heart in this way, Rather, what is in its heart is to destroy And to cut off many nations.

Where God uses Assyria, but punishes Assyria for the motives of their heart in their carrying out the decree.

*Implications for God’s sovereignty.

God decrees that they will bring these judgments, and then God pushes the rod of His anger, not for doing what He sent them to do, but for the disposition of their heart, for their pride,

and for their excessive cruelty, going beyond what what was appropriate.

They aggrivated their guilt by their pitilessness toward the aged and elderly. They were extremely cruel towards those who were incapable of resistance or fighting back.

This is an example of how God uses sin in His providence sinlessly.

He judges Israel with foreign nations, and then destroys the agents of His judgement for the thoughts and intents of their hearts, because to the Babylonian, he’s not doing anything for God, he’s just satisfying his bloodlust, and credits the destruction to false gods.

Isaiah 47:7 LSB

7 “Yet you said, ‘I will be a queen forever.’ These things you did not put on your heart Nor remember the outcome of them.

she will be queen, or “mistress” or the head woman forever. She will rule forever of the kingdoms forever.

Because of her pride, she did not remember these things, she didn’t meditate on them or consider them, so did not consider the outcome of her deeds, that God would judge her. She did her deeds and afflicted the aged and profained the inheritence of Yahweh.

She didn’t think that anyone would care.

The Lord brings evil upon Babylon (8-11)

The Widow

Isaiah 47:8 LSB

8 “So now, hear this, you sensual one, Who sits securely, Who says in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one besides me. I will not sit as a widow, Nor know loss of children.’

This is the conclusion of this matter, on the basis of her wickedness, here it comes:

addressed to the sensual one, the one accustomed to the good life with the riches of the creation, the licentious one.

the one who claims idolotrously to be the only power, none greater, that she can do whatever she wants with no consequence.

Instead of a virgin Babylon is now compared to a wife and mother.

Biblical writers often exchange and use many different symbols for something, and consistency from sign to sign is not important, what is important is what is being described and signified by sign.

Here is another illustration:

Revelation 1:15–17 LSB

15 His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters, 16 and having in His right hand seven stars, and a sharp two-edged sword which comes out of His mouth, and His face was like the sun shining in its power. 17 And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, “Do not fear; I am the first and the last,

*See the right hand is full of stars, then He picks him up with his right hand.

What happened to the stars? It’s not important to John.

Biblical writers often exchange and use many different symbols for something, and consistency from sign to sign is not important, what is important is what is being described and signified by sign.

The sign is not as important as the thing signified. She will lose her husband, that the city will suffer cataclysm and ruin, and lose her chief men, and experience judgments and curses,

And the loss of children, which is literally “childlessness” she will not know the berevement, of being forsaken of her offspring.

These are symbols which are speaking of disasters falling upon the city, the execution of leaders, the loss of soldiers, and allies, and power. curses coming upon the city.

Isaiah 47:9 LSB

9 “But these two things will come on you suddenly in one day: Loss of children and widowhood. They will come on you in full measure In spite of your many sorceries, In spite of the great might of your spells.

Suddenly in one day, calamity which comes in an instant. The city will lose both king and people. She will be bereved of her husband and her children at one time.

The Witch

These judgments will come fully, in spite of their great spells, in the mist of their great spells, while Babylons socercers, witches and wizzards, are are doing their horoscopes and soothsaying.

While they are interpreting omens, praticing magic,

Their false prayers, their occultic acts of worship.

despite all these things, the judgment comes swiftly:

These things of false spiritual power. Witchcraft is the unlawful attempts to contact, or gain power, or receive knowledge or communion with the spiritual world. Doing so though manipulation of the natural world to supernatural ends.

Including things like interpreting one’s fate by the stars,

or interpreting the clouds

Oh, let’s kill this cow and interpret it’s liver, palm reading, tarot cards

these things which are attempts to obtain divine knowledge, supernatural or spiritual knowledge through manipulation of the nautral world.

When it comes to the Spirit world,

There is one God, you come to Him through Jesus Christ, you pray to Him and you trust in Him for all things.

You don’t pray to the dead, to the stars, to anyone else by God.

So, In spite of their attempt to see the future, and to gain occultic spiritual power:

Isaiah 47:10 LSB

10 “You felt secure in your evil and said, ‘No one sees me,’ Your wisdom and your knowledge have turned you astray; So you have said in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one besides me.’

In all Babylon’s crimes, they continued on without any fear, without any thought that they would be judged.

God delays His judgments for a time for His own purposes, but He always sees, He knows, He remembers.

Psalm 10:7–14 LSB

7 His mouth is full of curses and deceit and oppression; Under his tongue is mischief and wickedness. 8 He sits in the places of the villages where one lies in wait; In the hiding places he kills the innocent; His eyes stealthily watch for the unfortunate. 9 He lies in wait in a hiding place as a lion in his lair; He lies in wait to catch the afflicted; He catches the afflicted when he draws him into his net. 10 He crouches, he bows down, And the unfortunate fall by his mighty ones. 11 He says in his heart, “God has forgotten; He has hidden His face; He will never see it.” 12 Arise, O Yahweh; O God, lift up Your hand. Do not forget the afflicted. 13 Why has the wicked spurned God? He has said in his heart, “You will not require it.” 14 You have seen it, for You have beheld mischief and vexation to take it into Your hand. The unfortunate commits himself to You; You have been the helper of the orphan.

They don’t think that anyone sees, but God sees. He always sees.

Their worldy wisdom and their knowledge have turned them astray. There is wisdom which is true wisdom indeed, but there is a godless, worldly wisdom. One that which has a fundamental presupposition that there is no God. This is worldly wisdom indeed. There are those always learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Babylon in all their mystical and false knowledge was led astray by their wickedness.

They had great wisdom as the empire, the political rulling state, and they governed the world, and they had great worldly wisdom, they had occultic wisdom, and it led them into

They say, that there is none equal to them, there is no one beside them in power and there is no one over them. They take the claim and status of God and apply it to themselves.

(if there is no God above the state, than the state assigns to itself the perogatives of deity)

Isaiah 47:11 LSB

11 “But evil will come on you Which you will not know how to charm away; And disaster will fall on you For which you cannot atone; And destruction about which you do not know Will come on you suddenly.

but evil will come upon them, it will come from a descent from above, and they will not know how to charm it away. Their magic tricks will not be able to stop it.

They will not be able to atone, they will not be able to receive forgiveness, it will come upon them suddenly, they don’t know about it, and it will come upon them.

It will come down from upon them. It will fall on them. They will be swept like dust, like the chaff.

The Lord burns Babylon (12-15)

The Fooled

Isaiah 47:12 LSB

12 “Stand fast now in your spells And in your many sorceries With which you have labored from your youth; Perhaps you will be able to profit; Perhaps you may cause trembling.

Herein is some holy sarcasm. Stand fast! be firm and corageous in your occultic practices, Perhaps you can profit, perhaps you may cause terror! Perhaps you will be able to succeed and protect yourself from your adversaries.

Give it a try! If a man is rightly ordered, he can see how terrifying it is to have the Lord as an enemy. The Lord doesn’t offer to them to turn in repentence, but the Lord has come in judgment. The time for repentence is gone. Judgment has come, and so the Lord mocks them to continue in their wicked way! Maybe you’ll pull it out the fourth quarter! Maybe it’ll go well with you, keep trusting in your ouija boards!

Isaiah 47:13 LSB

13 “You are wearied with your many counsels; Let now the astrologers, Those who behold visions by the stars, Those who predict by the new moons, Stand up and save you from what will come upon you.

They use so much soothsaying, and sorceries, they use them constantly.

All day long they spent themselves in their may diviniations and astologers, and magic.

The way you may check the news when you wake up, is the way that check the stars.

Their new moons,

Let them stand up and save, let them help them.

A word is to be said for those who may not be exactly in divination and occultic practices, but think that they can predict the future with the polls, with economic indicators.

those who place their hope and trust in the stats of the economy or the polling data,

those who are constantly looking to interpret the future

even futurology, which was the study of the future. A very stupid field which I don’t think anyone tries to practice.

What is condemned is not the awareness of certain indicators and statistics which can demonstrate probabilities of the future, but a godless trust in these things. That by man’s own wisdom, he can predict and control and be the captain of his own destiny.

That by godless means God’s plans can be predicted.

We must first understand history through the worldview of His revelation in general,

we need to understand His principles, the wicked will be destroyed, the humble will be exalted,

we understand the revelation of God first, then we can use scientific and natural indicators to humbly attempt to predict the weather(literally and metaphorically).

All of man’s godless wisdom cannot predict the future, nor grant him power over his own destiny.

God mocks it all and says, maybe they can protect you!

The Fire

Isaiah 47:14 LSB

14 “Behold, they have become like stubble, Fire burns them; They cannot deliver themselves from the power of the flame; There will be no coal to warm by Nor a fire to sit before!

Behold, God has burned them up! He brings His judgments with fire!

The second clause: They are swallowed by the power of the flame,

This is not a fun campfire, where you’re sitting outside of the fire, but a burning conflagration, a holocaust, a consuming destruction.

A quick and total destruction of fire.

God did destroy the world once by water, but that was really only a foreshadow of His destruction of the wicked by fire.

Psalm 21:7–13 LSB

7 For the king trusts in Yahweh, And through the lovingkindness of the Most High he will not be shaken. 8 Your hand will find out all your enemies; Your right hand will find out those who hate you. 9 You will make them as a fiery oven in the time of your anger; Yahweh will swallow them up in His wrath, And fire will devour them. 10 Their offspring You will destroy from the earth, And their seed from among the sons of men. 11 Though they intended evil against You And devised a scheme, They will not succeed. 12 For You will make them turn their back; You will aim with Your bowstrings at their faces. 13 Be exalted, O Yahweh, in Your strength; We will sing and praise Your might.

Fire is used by God in His judgments. I don’t know if any of you have ever been severely burned.

This truth ought to fuel evangelism. Hell, which is what mankind deserves according to God’s justice, we have been saved from, and other can be saved too, they can be snatched from the fire.

In terms of judgment:

We must recognize that the moment a person dies without Christ, they are in Sheol, they are in darkness. A person who lives in luxuriant wickedness, they are swallowed up and destroyed, and they immediatley are in the fires of hell.

Luke 16:19–23 LSB

19 “Now there was a rich man, and he habitually dressed in purple and fine linen, joyously living in splendor every day. 20 “But a poor man named Lazarus was laid at his gate, covered with sores, 21 and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which were falling from the rich man’s table; besides, even the dogs were coming and licking his sores. 22 “Now it happened that the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom, and the rich man also died and was buried. 23 “And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, our God is a consuming fire.

There is this immediate destruction:

Jude says about Sodom and Gomorrah in verse 7 that they are “undergoing penalty being set as an example of eternal fire.”

And there is also the deliverance of saints by death.

We are delivered in history, but we all die, and for the saint, death is a permanent salvation:

Philippians 1:21–24 LSB

21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22 But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and I do not know what I will choose. 23 But I am hard-pressed between the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better, 24 yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake.

When saints die, they are in the presence of God:

Revelation 6:9–11 LSB

9 And when He opened the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the witness which they had maintained; 10 and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Master, holy and true? Will You not judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” 11 And a white robe was given to each of them; and it was told to them that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow slaves and their brothers who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also.

*Steven the Martyr*

Isaiah 47:15 LSB

15 “Thus they have become for you, those among whom you have labored, Who have traded with you from your youth; Each has wandered in his own way; There is none to save you.

The person addressed (Bablyon) sees the destruction of all her sorcerers and magicians.

Thus they are to you - the person addressed sees the destruction, of all their aids and helps.

This last verse is tricky grammatically; I believe it should be read thusly:

There are two thoughts,

“Thus they are to thee” meaning, such is their fate, those soothsayers, those diviners, those among whom you have labors.

In the masoretic pointing (explain) there is a separation after this from the next point, so I believe there should be a semi colon after that,

and then the following clause rendered: those who have traded with you from your youth, each has wandered in his own way,

or “thy dealers from thy youth, each has wandered to his own way,

There is none to save you.”

So the first clause is reffering back to the sooth sayers, and the second would be a statement moreso of the abandonment of those who dealt with Babylon in business,

an image which John pics up in Revelation, which he applies to the fall of the babylonian harlot, which I believe is the Roman empire:

Revelation 18:8–11 LSB

8 “For this reason in one day her plagues will come, pestilence and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; for the Lord God who judges her is strong. 9 “And the kings of the earth, who committed sexual immorality and lived sensuously with her, will cry and lament over her when they see the smoke of her burning, 10 standing at a distance because of the fear of her torment, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! For in one hour your judgment has come.’ 11 “And the merchants of the earth cry and mourn over her, because no one buys their cargo anymore—

Therefore, it’s nothing less than a total destruction, a total burning, her magicians are burned and her friends abandon her. She is burned, abandoned, humiliated, destroyed, a widow and a childless mother. Babylon is fallen.

Application:

How do we apply this?

Be saved

Well first, of course, if you're a Babylonian, repent and come to Zion. Come to Christ. Believe the Gospel.

Come out of her

Now to those who profess Christ and eat and drink His body and blood:

Now God’s instruction to His people which we will see in the upcoming chapters, but should be mentioned here is to “Come out of Babylon, touch no unclean thing”

which of course, in support of the understanding of prophecy which I began with, is taken by the Apostle Paul and applied to the church to be exorted to purity, in the immediate context of Christians being yoked together with unbelievers: 2 Cor 6:14-18

2 Corinthians 6:14–18 LSB

14 Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? 16 Or what agreement has a sanctuary of God with idols? For we are a sanctuary of the living God; just as God said, “I will dwell in them and walk among them; And I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 17 “Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,” says the Lord. “And do not touch what is unclean, And I will welcome you. 18 “And I will be a father to you, And you shall be sons and daughters to Me,” says the Lord Almighty.

In a word, you, Oh children of God, be SEPARATE from Babylon.

We are sojourners in the land of Babylon!

Peter calls Rome Babylon in 1 Peter 5:13

1 Peter 5:13 LSB

13 She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you greetings, and so does my son, Mark.

The spirit of Babylon is alive and well.

God demonstated that He destroyed the literal historic nation, but the beast comes back again and again, and thus we live in a Babylonianish age.

are you yoked to her? Who do you hang out, what kind of music do you listen to? How do you speak? What do you devote yourself? Do you look like a Babylonian or an exile? How comfortable are you in exile.

See the difference

And better yet:

Are you so aligned with God that you can see the difference between Babylon and Zion,

Between the church and the world?

If you cant see it, if everything that is normal in Babylon doesn’t bother you; you ought to be afraid

If you’re not born again you can’t see the kingdom of God; can you see the antithesis, can you see the battle, that Babylon and Israel are always at war.

If you can’t see it, you ought to be afraid.

If you can see it

But if you care about God’s law and His holy people,

then the challenge to you is this, are you taking the long view? when you see the ways of the wicked which prosper at all times (as the psalms say)

have you gone into the temple of God, and recognized their end, that their feet sit in slippery places, and the things to come upon them are quickly at hand?

Psalm 73

The wicked are at all times on a rickety bridge over the pit of eternal destruction. God’s judgement and deliverance is near.

A good barometer perhaps for this is how do you feel about the election, now i’m on the trump train and my bet is on that he will win,

but how much anxiety or stress do you have from the thought of the alternative. Or do you recognize that no matter what happens, God’s will deliver His children and His people, and all His enemies He will find out.

Basically, do you take the long view with Babylon? the Lord knows all things, and He will judge in His season, at His time.

When they die they are gathered into the pit, and after many days they will be visited with punishment.

Conclusion

In conclusion,

Today we’ve seen that the Lord throws down Babylon,

That the Lord brings evil upon Babylon

That the Lord burns Babylon

We must come out of her, touch no unclean thing, we must trust that He will destroy our enemies,