This evening, if you have your Bibles, it will turn with me to the book of Jeremiah, chapter 51 . We’re coming to the end of Jeremiah. Jeremiah is oftentimes called the weeping prophet.
And those of you who have been with us since the beginning of the study, he’s a prophet that was commissioned by God, that was given a tremendous commission. God said, I’m giving you, placing my words upon your lips to share with my people. And there’ll be a hunger in you, and you’ll want to just speak them out.
But I want to tell you, nobody’s going to listen. And what a commission that is, to understand that God is giving you words that are His words, His desires for the people, but the people don’t want to listen. A couple of things that this book has shown to me, as we’ve been going through it, is the depth of sin, and how blind it makes people to the condition that they find themselves in.
As we’ve been going through the book of Jeremiah, and we’ve gone and compared to the various kings that he ministered to at the end of the kingdom of Judah, prior to the being taken away into captivity in Babylon, one of the things that we continue to see is the blindness of those that have been called by God, but don’t see that call. And not only the blindness of not seeing the call, but not understanding the reality of what that call means. In our own nation, we’ve been blessed with so many things, and this nation has been the nation that has been totally different than any other nation in the world, with the possible exception of Israel, with the things that God has blessed it with.
And yet, today what you’re seeing happen in our country is almost unspeakable, where you’ve got people who say they’re Christians that are turning against Israel, that the Lord says is the apple of His eye, which the scriptures tell us is the time piece that shows us where we are in prophecy and in the last days, and want to blame everything on Israel and the Jewish people instead of looking at their own hearts. You see people that were entrusted with principles that were based upon God’s word and the principles of what God had established for man beginning in the book of Genesis, that God had created man, every one of us, in His own image. Every one of us having great value because we’ve been created in the image of God and that our whole purpose in life is to reflect that image and bring glory to our Creator.
And yet today, you have even people that name the name of Christ that don’t see the significance of trying to bring glory to the name of their Creator. And those that don’t know Jesus have no desire to do it at all. That was the situation that Jeremiah finds himself in at the end of the book of Jeremiah and we’re coming to the close of this book.
And Jeremiah has poured out his heart and his soul to the people and as we saw, they don’t listen to him. The last time that they came and they begged him for advice, tell us what God’s word is and we’ll do it. And remember what it was.
God had told them not to go and rely on Egypt but to rely on Him as Nebuchadnezzar was coming for the third time. He besieged the city. He was getting ready to destroy Jerusalem and destroy the temple.
And the people said, we’ll do what God wants us to do. And so Jeremiah interceded for them and what did the Lord tell them? Do not go to Egypt. Rely on Me.
I will prevent Nebuchadnezzar from taking the remnant that is here into captivity. You will remain here as a light of My power in the midst of all this darkness. What was the first thing they do? How do we get to Egypt and tie up Jeremiah and take him along? That is the hardness and the wickedness of sin in men’s hearts that they are so blind.
Well, I want us to see tonight that as we come to the end of chapter , which is really beginning to come to the end of our study in Jeremiah, that even though men’s hearts are so hardened and their eyes are so dark to the truth, yet God does not forget. God does not forget Israel because He’s made covenants with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He does not forget Israel because He has promised that He would return them even though He took them away into captivity because of the hardness of their hearts as a chastisement He gave them.
But He said, I’ll bring you back into the land, which He did during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. They were taken out of the land again because of the hardness of their hearts in A.D. during the time of the Romans. But God said, I’m going to bring you back again and I’m going to bring you back not as two nations, but as one nation, which He did in .
And He said, a nation shall be born in a day which had never happened before in the history of the world, and it happened. As Israel came back and became a nation in one day in . Ever since they’ve come back into the land, by the way, they have been tried to be killed and destroyed.
And that is a work of Satan, not of God, because God promised He was going to bring them back and He said, as long as the stars are in the sky, the sun goes up and goes down, there are seasons on the earth, the nation of Israel shall remain. And yet today, you have a mayor that’s elected in New York, and one of his tenets is, I want all the Jews out of America. He’s a supporter of Hamas.
He’s a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. And he wants death to America and death to Israel. That is the world we live in.
But I want to offer you tremendous hope tonight. Because as God had made promises, God fulfills His promises. And God sees all that’s happening.
You know, the Bible tells us, if you just stop and meditate upon the Word of God, and just stop and think about it, where He says He knows the thoughts and the intents, not of just my heart or not of just your heart, but of every man’s heart. Do you realize the vast intelligence and knowledge and wisdom and power of God to be able to do that? I don’t even know my own intents half the time. The Scriptures tell me that the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked.
Who can know it? And sometimes I don’t know it. I think I’ve got right motives, but I don’t. Because when God opens my eyes to what my motives really are, they’re really selfish motives.
They’re not really pure and for His glory, but rather they’re really to exalt myself and not Him. But in spite of that, God is going to fulfill His promises to Israel. And in spite of their attitudes, in spite of their hardness of heart and stiffness of neck, He is going to fulfill the promises that He made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, dealing with a people, a nation, a Messiah, and a land.
And we’re going to see how these promises are going to be fulfilled in relation to Babylon. Now, God had used Babylon as a hand of chastisement against Judah because of their unwillingness to worship Him the way that He had called them to worship Him and to turn to the gods of the pagan nations around them, which were no gods at all. We saw that Jeremiah brought that out more than once in the text, where he talked about some of the false gods that were around there and they could do nothing.
Just like the false gods today, when it comes to standing against the holy and righteous, can do nothing. And we see that because there are no gods. But I want you to see that God says Nebuchadnezzar took it too far.
Nebuchadnezzar desecrated that which was holy to him. And Nebuchadnezzar destroyed that which was precious to him. And so, judgment is coming against Babylon.
Those of you who are here on Sunday, we’ve been going through the book of Daniel. We’re going to be looking at how this spirit of Babylon is still alive today. But the ultimate judgment will come against it.
And some of the things that we’re looking at in this judgment that’s going to be talked about tonight, remember we said that when a prophet speaks in the Old Testament, oftentimes he’s speaking to his immediate audience. And he can also be speaking to a future audience or a future time or the end times. And that’s exactly what we see here this evening.
So, let’s begin this evening by taking a look at Jeremiah chapter . And I want to begin at verse 36 this evening.
Therefore, thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will plead thy cause and take vengeance for thee. And I will dry up her sea and make her springs dry. Jeremiah 51:36
Now, the first thing I want you to look at in this verse is that it says who’s going to take vengeance. Is God going to give the people the ability to take vengeance? No, it says the Lord will take vengeance on behalf of the nation of Judah.
When Jesus walked on the earth, he said one of the problems that oftentimes we have is we try to take vengeance in our own hands instead of turning it over to God. I shared it to you before. During the Great Awakening in America, the pastor of a New England church gave the message, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.
And the heart of that message was that who dares fall in the hands of an angry God. And he talked about, and if you could shorten the message to just a few sentences, it would be what happens when an unrighteous, ungodly man falls into the hands of a holy and righteous God and faces his judgment. There is no hope.
Jesus said, we’re not to take vengeance in our own hearts, but we’re to turn people over to the Lord. Because number one, he knows their hearts. He knows how to deal with them.
I don’t know how to deal with them. I always kind of botch it up. But God does.
God knows how to open their hearts to truth. And if they choose to harden them, he knows how to deal with that as well. And the Lord told Judah, vengeance is mine.
And he’s told Babylon this. Vengeance is mine. I don’t think that oftentimes we understand what that fully means, because our view of God is so small oftentimes in the day in which we live.
Because we’ve exalted man to such a high place. Our whole culture has become one that we need to build up our self-esteem, build up our self-worth, build up and exalt ourselves, and make ourselves bigger. The Bible tells us, I am to glorify the Lord.
The word glory means to make bigger. And I’m to make God bigger. I’m to realize and show the fullness of God to a world that does not know Him.
I’m not supposed to show them the fullness of me. So the Lord tells Judah, Therefore saith the Lord, Behold, I will plead thy cause and take vengeance. Verse 37,
And Babylon shall become heaps and dwelling place for dragons.
Or another word for the dragons there is jackals. A dwelling place for dragons or jackals. And by astonishment, what they mean is something that people can’t believe has happened.
Now remember, when God is saying this, Babylon is at the height of her power and glory. Nebuchadnezzar is still ruling. Nebuchadnezzar has not died and turned it over to his son-in-law and his grandson.
And his grandson was a wicked and vile and awful man. Nebuchadnezzar was a man that was humbled at the end of his life and came to know the Lord. But his grandson was not.
And we see here that Nebuchadnezzar, during the time of Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon was at her height, her greatest power. She was conquering nations around her. Babylon, the city itself, stood as a wonder of the world.
It had one of the seven wonders of the world in it, the hanging gardens of Babylon which Nebuchadnezzar had built. The walls were so thick, you could drive chariots across the top of the walls. The pride was so great because they felt, we are impenetrable.
Nobody can penetrate the walls of our city. Nobody can defeat us. We are so powerful.
But God is greater than any man or any nation. And we see here that it says, They shall roar together like lions. They shall yell as lion whelps.
You know, in Peter, it talks about Satan. He goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. I read an account one time of an African who understood lions.
I don’t understand lions because the only place I’ve ever seen lions is in the museum. He was living with lions. And one of the things he said is, a roaring lion is a lion that’s trying to cause its prey to become frozen and fearful because there’s something wrong with the lion.
Typically, if you ever watch a nature show and watch lions, you’ll see that typically they sneak up on their prey. They don’t roar, but they sneak up on their prey. A roaring lion is often an injured lion or a lion that cannot do what it wants to do.
The definition given to the Babylonians is they were roaring lions. There were a group of roaring lions and the young lions were yelping. Remember, the symbol for Babylon was a lion with two wings.
And they are trying to make the world sound afraid of them. But God understands they’ve already been defeated. In Peter, it talks about Satan going about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.
But the thing is, also Peter talks about that we have a position in Christ which enables us to stand firm against Satan. And we do not have to fear his roars. And we do not have to fear his threats.
And we do not have to fear what he can do to us. Because we serve a God who is greater than a lion and has already defeated him. He’s defeated this enemy and he’s defeated him for good at the cross of Calvary.
And we need to understand this. And so we see here that Babylon thinks that by showing her strength and roaring and coming out that the people will remain afraid. But God says, no they’re not.
I’m going to raise up a people against you that shall defeat you and destroy you. And they’re going to destroy you completely. It’s not going to be just a minor destruction.
Now the destruction of Babylon didn’t come in a day. The capture of the city of Babylon came in a night. But the ultimate destruction of the whole kingdom didn’t come immediately.
It was over a period of time. And the Medes and the Persians did it over a period of time. They ultimately controlled all of Babylon.
This once powerful city. This Ur of the Chaldees that was there during the time of Abraham. And Ur of the Chaldees had always been the center of human wisdom.
At the time that Abraham lived, which was hundreds of years before this event was occurring, Ur of the Chaldees already had a huge library. They also had men that were deeply involved in the occult. The Chaldeans were sorcerers and magicians.
And they relied upon Satan. And why did they do that? Because their roots were grounded in the Tower of Babel with Nimrod, who was really controlled by Satan and desired to establish control over the whole world. And that spirit still lived on in Babylon.
And as we’ve seen in Daniel and alluded to it, it was passed from one kingdom to another all the way down to the Roman Empire, which we’re going to get at later on in Daniel in the near future. And we see here that these people are trying to show their strength, but they’re already defeated. In their heat I will make their feasts and I will make them drunken and they may rejoice and sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake, saith the Lord.
They think that they’re going to have all this wonderful time of celebrating, but God is saying, yeah, you’ll go to sleep. You’re defeated. There’s nothing to celebrate.
I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with the he goats. How is Shishak taken? And how is the praise of the whole earth surprised? How has Babylon become an astonishment among the nations? These are questions that he’s asking. Jeremiah’s asking this because, like I said, he’s speaking this when Babylon’s at the height of her power.
How could this possibly happen? Because I am speaking prophetically, Jeremiah’s saying. I’m speaking what’s going to happen, what the Lord’s going to do. Babylon’s going to become nothing.
And it’s going to be an astonishment amongst the nations. They’re all going to go, wasn’t that Babylon? You know, sometimes if you look at history, this is often the way history has gone. Nations rise up and they think they are so powerful, but they’re not.
What made our nation great? It wasn’t our military might. It wasn’t because we had more intelligence than other countries. It wasn’t because we had more ability to use minerals and everything else than other nations.
What made our nation great was that our foundation was based in Christ. I just listened to a man talking the other day on an interview and the person was saying, well, how can you say that our nation was founded in Christ when Christ doesn’t appear in our Constitution? He said the Constitution alludes to Jesus more than once. It talks about our Creator.
And when they wrote the Constitution, they knew exactly who the Creator was. It wasn’t a Hindu God.
It was Jesus Christ. Patrick Henry, who was there in the Constitution when the Articles of Confederation were originally written. And then they rewrote the Constitution because they needed to make some things and make some changes to bind the states together and make the Constitution stronger.
But Patrick Henry said they did one thing that made it much weaker. The original Articles of Confederation stated that the United States had been brought together, that these states had united together for the honor and glory of Jesus Christ. That was in the words of the Articles of Confederation.
They changed Jesus Christ to God in the Constitution. By doing that, they opened it up so that other people can say, that means my God, but it doesn’t mean their God. No other God created.
No other God created man in his image. No other God has all power and authority. No other God judges.
No other God forgives. And we see here that as we’re looking at this, it talks about the fact that Babylon is sitting there in all its power and glory, but Jeremiah is saying it’s going to end. And it’s ended for all nations when they failed to turn to God.
Our nation, we came very close. And we’re still not beyond the possibility of our nation collapsing. But what really needs to happen is a true revival amongst God’s people and true evangelism amongst the lost in America and a turning back to Christ.
And he says in verse , The sea is come upon Babylon, she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof. What is he speaking of the sea is coming upon Babylon and the multitude of the waves? He’s talking about the Medes and the Persians that are just going to come in waves over them. They can’t stop it.
If you look at history, that’s what’s happened. Attitudes and sins and usually empires begin to crumble from within and it results from wickedness and sin overcoming the people and turning the people against the principles of God, which do not allow them to remain standing and God’s judgment comes. And this is exactly what happened to Babylon.
He says, For cities are a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness, a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby. If you go to where Babylon was today during the time of Saddam Hussein, he tried to rebuild Babylon. It didn’t happen.
Much of Iraq is desolate and desert. Those who served in Iraq, it was not a fun time of service because even during the cool time of the year, it was hot. It was unbearably hot during the summer.
It was desolate. There wasn’t a lot of green. It wasn’t always like that.
As a matter of fact, the Tigris and Euphrates were called, I don’t know if you were in school, I learned in school, but that was really the Fertile Crescent. It was the place where some of the most fertile land in the world was there and the best crops were there. Yet you go to much of that country today and it’s desolate, it’s desert.
God judged. And I will punish Bel. Now who is Bel? Bel was the chief god amongst the Babylonians.
And he’s going to punish Bel in Babylon. And who’s doing that? It’s not the people from Judah. It’s not the Jews.
It’s God. And who is Bel? Well, Bel is a false god that the Babylonians worship, but behind Bel is a demonic spirit and behind that demonic spirit is ultimately Satan. And he says, I’m going to punish Bel in Babylon.
And I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he hath swallowed up and the nations shall not flow together any more unto him, yea, the wall of Babylon shall fall. Now, I want you to understand, this is a prophecy given specifically for this time, but it’s also a prophecy given for the future. And you can find that future in Revelation.
And you can see there where it talks about Babylon rising again. It talks about a spiritual Babylon and it talks about a commercial Babylon and it also talks about a political Babylon. And they’re all going to rise in the last days.
And one of the things that’s been the characteristic of Babylon all the way back to the Tower of Babel is that man, inspired by Satan, tries to draw men to himself.
It talks about a spiritual Babylon, and it talks about a commercial Babylon, and it also talks about a political Babylon. And they’re all going to rise in the last days. And one of the things that’s been the characteristic of Babylon, all the way back to the Tower of Babel, is that man, inspired by Satan, tries to draw men to himself.
Nimrod, at the Tower of Babel, what did he want to do? He wanted to control all the people. And so he brought them to the Tower of Babel, and he said that they were going to build this tower, and build it to really honor the pagan gods or the demonic spirits. And some people say, well, he was building it trying to reach to heaven.
No, he was building it to honor the pagan spirits. That’s what it was for. And it was in defiance of God.
And God had said, go forth, take dominion of the earth, multiply and take dominion of the earth. He didn’t say, go forth and build this giant tower, and everybody gather together in Babel and stay there. That’s not what he said after the flood.
He gave them the same command that he gave Adam at the beginning, at creation. We were to have dominion over the earth, we were not to worship men, and we were not to worship false gods, but we were to worship the Lord. Well, that has been the spirit of Babel all the time, to draw people back.
You can see the same thing happening today in our world. Right now, the World Economic Forum has a plan for the United States and the whole world. And part of that plan is they want to control everybody.
How about during COVID? I mentioned before, that was a trial run to see how people would respond. But the thing is, what they want to do is control you. They want to tell you where to live, how to live, what to eat, when to eat.
They want to tell you what to worship. They want to tell you how to live. And they’ve got plans for 15 -minute cities, where you will live in a city that you cannot go any further than you can ride a bike or walk in 15 minutes.
Unless you think that I’m making that up, you can go online and Google 15-minute cities and see what comes up. They have that plan. And it’s to absolute total control.
That was Nimrod’s desire. And it’s ultimately inspired by Satan. All men will worship me.
All men will worship Lucifer. And if you look at what the Satanic philosophy is, it’s the direct opposite of God. He tries to mirror God.
He tries to have his trinity. He tries to have his system. But it’s always totally opposite.
And ultimately, that which is evil and wicked will receive God’s full judgment. Well, in the last days, it says here that the nations will no longer be able to go to Babylon. What’s happening in the last days? The whole world is going to come against the nation of Israel.
That’s what it tells us is going to happen. And it tells us that there’s going to be a battle in Armageddon. And it says every nation of the world, there are those people in the United States who don’t think the United States should be supporting Israel.
I want to tell you, there’s going to come a day where the U.S. won’t support Israel if we’re still a nation. Because the Bible says all nations of the world will come against Israel. And they’re all going to meet at the Valley of Jehoshaphat, the Valley of Judgment.
And the Lord will come, and he’ll defeat them in a moment with his word. And no longer will the nations be able to gather together to worship Babylon. Because what are they being motivated by? The spirit of Babylon.
To destroy that which God loves, to destroy that which is representative of the Lord, and to destroy the very character of God. You realize that Satan can defeat the promises of God. God isn’t God.
If you are not saved by the blood of Jesus, so that you know where you’re going for eternity, God isn’t God. And consequently, if God can’t deliver upon the promises he gave to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God isn’t God. And so Satan wants to destroy every Jew, and he wants to kill every Christian.
Why do you think there’s so much massacre going on by the Islamists, Mohammedans, in Africa right now, of Christians? Because Satan hates us. What we stand for is truth and light. And he wants us to worship him.
Well, there’s coming a day where none of the nations will be able to run to Babylon again. And it’s going to happen, it happened during the time of Nebuchadnezzar’s grandson, when he was ruling, and it ultimately will happen in the last days. Verse , My people, go ye out of the midst of her, and deliver ye every man his soul from the fierce anger of the Lord.
What does he tell us there? And it’s interesting, he gives the same command in the book of Revelation. In the last days. What does it mean, come out from her? Do not be absorbed into her philosophies into her way of accounting.
And do not run to Babylon for your power, but come to God. All you have to do is look around and you can see the spirit of Babylon and where that leads you, versus the spirit of God. I just want to give you one example from our own community.
What is our own community doing? They’re giving drug paraphernalia to drug addicts. Does that seem like a smart idea to you? That’s exactly what Satan wants. Because he wants people to be enslaved to their sin and he wants to keep them there.
Jesus says, come unto me and I will set you free. There is a way which seems right unto man, but the way of that leads to death. But the way of the Lord delivers unto life.
That’s the spirit of God versus the spirit of Babylon. And we’re not to be caught up in the spirit of this world, but rather we’re to be caught up following and looking to the Lord as our deliverer, our Lord as our strength, the Lord as our help, and we’re to look to Him as our hope. One of the things that, as you look at what’s happening in our culture and look at the Bible history, it’s never been the number that’s important to God, but it’s been the heart of the people that follow Him that’s important to God.
God always uses what appears to be the most insignificant to accomplish the greatest. But the most insignificant is also totally loyal and obedient to Him. David, when he’s going out to Goliath.
David, a shepherd boy. David, who’s bringing lunch to his brothers and brought with him his slingshot that he carries with him because that’s what he uses as his weapon to guard the sheep. He has no armor.
He has no bow. He has no sword. He is totally bare naked, if you would, if he’s going to battle.
At the same time, you’ve got Saul quivering in his armor in his tent, afraid of Goliath. You’ve got the soldiers of Israel lined up on one mountain looking at the giants, and there were more than one of them, of the Philistines, and filled with fear. And Goliath comes down and mocks the God of Israel and insults Saul and uses horrible words against the people of Israel.
And David hears it all. Now, what’s the difference between David and everybody else that was there on the side of Israel? It was David’s heart. David looked at the situation and he said, the words he uses, is there not a cause here? Is there not a cause? Will no one stand against this Philistine who is mocking our God? When he’s going to go out and fight Philistine, Saul thinks he needs to put on his armor.
So Saul goes and he gets, has his armor bearer go and says, put my armor on David. Now, if you remember what Saul was in relation to all the other Israelites, he stood head and shoulders above the rest of the Israelites. He was a tall guy.
Wasn’t nearly as tall as Goliath, but he was tall. And he’s going to put his armor on a teenager who’s not fully developed. David puts on this armor and he can hardly, it must have been comical to look at really because he probably couldn’t even move and he’s going to go out and fight this giant.
He says, I don’t need this armor. I need God. And he goes out and he takes his stone.
Now, he takes five stones. I heard one guy commentary say, well, there was Goliath and he had four brothers. So David wasn’t going to stop at one.
I don’t know if that’s true or not because the Bible doesn’t say that. But he only took one stone. He only needed one stone.
And Goliath mocked David and laughed at him when he came out. And in a moment, David was knocked out cold on the ground and David took Goliath’s own sword and cut off his head. And this teenage boy without armor and only one stone defeated the undefeatable.
But it really wasn’t David. It was God. And that’s what Christians have to get through their mind as they look at this.
Judah was going into captivity. Jeremiah is telling them. But there’s hope.
And the hope is God is judging you because of the hardness of your heart and the fact that you would not listen to the truth when you had it all laid before you. And because of your disobedience, He’s going to put you in captivity for years. But then He’s going to bring you back out again.
And in order to do that, guess what He’s going to do? He’s going to defeat the Babylonians who you could not defeat. Who the Assyrians could not defeat. Who none of the people around you during the time of Nebuchadnezzar could defeat.
But God will defeat them. And it will be a complete destruction without your help. And what we need to understand is in our lives, the problems that we’ve got and we face, the first place we need to go is to the Lord because He is the one that is our ultimate source.
And in order to do that, we need to come out from amongst her. He says to the people, come out from Babylon. Don’t be part of Babylon.
Come and be with me. You’re mine. That’s what He says to every Christian.
Come out. Don’t be part of Babylon. Don’t be part of this world system in the sense of getting caught up in his beliefs and his philosophies.
And I can’t get ahead unless I lie and cheat and step on people and do all these things. No, I get ahead by living a godly Christian life and allowing the Lord to work through me and put me in situations where I can be a witness for Him and light in the midst of darkness. We’re going to close here tonight and we’ll finish up the last little bit of chapter next week.
But I want you to know the command is great. Come out. Jesus gives the same command to the church in the last days in the book of Revelation.
Come out from amongst her. The Babylonian spirit still lives in the day in which we live. Babylon isn’t alive.
Babylon was destroyed but that spirit is still here and it’s manifesting itself in countries all over the world. And are we going to stand and worship the Lord? Or are we going to try and fight Babylon with Babylon? Let’s just close in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this day and Lord, I pray that you would help us to understand that vengeance is yours, not ours.
And Lord, you tell us to pray for our enemies and to pray for those that despitefully use us. And Lord, you said you will deal with the wickedness in men’s hearts. Lord, we turn it over to you and we ask that you would help us to be your mouthpiece and help us to stand for your truth in the midst of this great spiritual battle that rages around us but also help us to remember never to get caught up in the spirit of the age but to walk by the power of your Spirit.
This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Therefore thus saith the Lord;
Behold, I will plead thy cause, and take vengeance for thee;
and I will dry up her sea, and make her springs dry.
37 And Babylon shall become heaps,
a dwellingplace for dragons,
an astonishment, and an hissing,
without an inhabitant.
38 They shall roar together like lions:
they shall yell as lions’ whelps.
39 In their heat I will make their feasts,
and I will make them drunken,
that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep,
and not wake, saith the Lord.
40 I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter,
like rams with he goats.
41 How is Sheshach taken!
and how is the praise of the whole earth surprised!
how is Babylon become an astonishment among the nations!
42 The sea is come up upon Babylon:
she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof.
43 Her cities are a desolation,
a dry land, and a wilderness,
a land wherein no man dwelleth,
neither doth any son of man pass thereby.
44 And I will punish Bel in Babylon,
and I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he hath swallowed up:
and the nations shall not flow together any more unto him:
yea, the wall of Babylon shall fall.
45 My people, go ye out of the midst of her,
and deliver ye every man his soul from the fierce anger of the Lord.