If you will, turn with me in your Bibles to Jeremiah chapter 51 and I'm going to be reading
from verse 1 through verse 17 of the book of Jeremiah.
On December 28th, 1906, there was an earthquake in Messina, Italy.
A lot of people died, 84,000 to be exact.
But what is not so well known about that is that before that earthquake, laws were passed
which were basically anti-Christian, blasphemous I guess you could say.
And in one of the local newspapers, they recorded about a story in which God needed to prove
himself by bringing an earthquake about.
That was at Christmas.
Within a few days after that, there was an earthquake.
People see that as the judgment of God and maybe it is.
But what we want to talk about this morning is the judgment of God.
Now it is not a popular topic, but it is there in the Bible from the beginning of it to the
end.
And as we come to the end of our journey through the book of Jeremiah, we see God's judgment
on a group of people that God used to punish his own people, Babylonians.
Babylon was going down.
Even though it had been an instrument of God for his purposes.
Let's see what Jeremiah the prophet tells us about the end of Babylon.
This is what the Lord says.
See, I will stir up the spirit of a destroyer against Babylon and the people of Lebed, come
on.
I will send foreigners to Babylon to winnow her and to devastate her land.
They will expose her on every side in the day of her disaster.
Let not the archer strain his bow nor let him put on his armor.
Do not spare her young men.
Completely destroy her army.
They will fall down slain and Babylon, fatally wounded in her streets for Israel and Judah
have not been forsaken by their God, the Lord almighty, though their land is full of guilt
before the Holy One of Israel.
Flee from Babylon.
Run for your lives.
Do not be destroyed because of her sins.
It is a time of the Lord's vengeance.
He will repay her what she deserves.
Babylon was a gold cup in the Lord's hand.
She made the whole earth drunk.
The nations drank her wine.
Therefore they have now gone mad.
Babylon will suddenly fall and be broken.
Wail over her.
Get bomb for her pain.
As she can be healed, we would have healed Babylon, but she cannot be healed.
Let us leave her and each go to our own land for her judgment reaches to the skies.
It rises as high as the heavens.
The Lord has vindicated us.
Come let us tell Zion what the Lord our God has done.
Open the arrows, take up the shields.
The Lord has stirred up the king of the Medes because his purpose is to destroy Babylon.
The Lord will take vengeance for his temple.
Lift up a banner against the walls of Babylon.
Reinforce the guard, station the watchman, prepare an ambush.
The Lord will carry out his purpose, his decree against the people of Babylon.
You who live by many waters and are rich in treasures, your end is come.
The time for you to be destroyed.
The Lord Almighty has sworn by himself, I will surely fill you with troops as with a
swarm of locusts.
They will shout and triumph over you.
He made the earth by his power.
He founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding.
And when he thunders the waters and heavens roar, he makes clouds rise from the ends of
the earth.
He sends the lightning with the rain and brings out the wind with his storehouses.
Everyone is senseless and without knowledge, every goldsmith is shamed by his idols.
The image he makes are a fraud.
They have no breath in them.
Let's pray.
Ask God to bless the reading of his holy and inerrant word.
Our Heavenly Father, help us to see your kingship and your justice this morning.
May we not think of you as a grandfatherly type who can do nothing.
But may we see with you that justice will roll and does roll.
Hear the prayers of your people who await you.
Amen.
History.
Why do we study history?
I have students tell me, I don't like history.
I don't want to study history.
After all, that stuff occurred in the past.
We don't need to hear about that anymore.
And I always feel like saying, when I hear that, the reason you're saying that is because
of history.
That is how you were brought up and that is part of the American environment where we
downplay history for what is present.
But you can't escape history.
All of us are either victimized by it or we have profited from the past in some way.
And if you read the Bible, a good deal of it has to deal with history, the history of
God's people and what took place to Israel, to the church.
And you want to know how God acts?
You look at what he did in the history of Israel with the disciples and with the early
church.
It shows us a God who is active and does not shrink away from this world.
What he's done in the past, he will also do again because his character does not change.
And one of the ways that he acts is through judgment.
And we don't like to hear that.
We don't want to hear about a God who is active in this world.
What the modern world wants is to push your faith to the private sectors of your life.
It is something that you do at home by no means make it public at all.
Your religion should be no more than your prayer life and precious thoughts to help
you make it through the day.
Do not bring God into the public affairs of life.
But if God is a sovereign ruler and if God is controlling history, then it's hard to
escape the fact, even though we may not know all the details that he is involved and that
the whole point of history ends with the new heavens and the new earth and Jesus's return.
This is what the God of the Bible is like.
A great king who brings nations up and also brings them down.
Who lets kings and rulers arise, but he also brings them down because all of the world
is in his hands, he is the sovereign king of this universe.
And today I want to look at one of the final passages in the book of Jeremiah where we
see clearly his hand in what took place in the past, the judgment of God against a nation
that he had used.
He's an instrument in his hands, it was doing his will, but yet that same nation is going
to be punished by him.
And it's going to show us this morning that if he did it once, he will do it again.
Babylon down.
It's full of bad news and it's also full of good news for God's being.
And when I look at this passage, one of the first thoughts that ought to come to your mind
as well as my mind is, why is this passage here?
What is it teaching us?
It's teaching us about the judgment of God.
That is the overall picture of what you see here, judgment.
Now you've got to understand here, what is the question that people had in their minds
back in Jeremiah's day?
You know the story if you've been here Sunday after Sunday, Israel sinned.
And it wasn't just little picadillos of sins, it was great sins.
They were to be the representative of God to the world, but they looked no different
than any other pagan nation.
They were worshiping idols.
There was cult prostitution.
There were idols being made.
Never mind that God said, you are to be holy as I am holy.
Never mind any of that.
They sinned and God responded to their sins because they broke his covenant.
He sent Babylon, the superpower of its day to punish God's people.
Now was Babylon holy?
No.
Was Babylon orthodox?
No.
Did Babylon follow Yahweh?
No.
They were just as bad as any other nation, even though they were God's instrument of judgment.
So the question comes up in God's people mind is, well God, you punished us for our sin.
What about those Babylonians?
What are you going to do with them?
Look at what they did to our people.
Look at what they did to our temple.
God, won't you do something about this?
And God says, don't worry.
Yes I will.
You see it in verses four and following where God's word says, they will fall down slain
in Babylon, fatally wounded in her streaks.
Look at verse eight.
Babylon will suddenly fall and be broken well over.
Get bombed for her pain.
Perhaps she can be healed, but it later goes on and says, she can't be healed.
Time's going down.
God's justice and judgment will be upon her.
The punisher will be punished.
The rod of God's judgment will be judged by the righteousness of God.
And while God may use sinful people to bring about his will, it does not mean that they
will escape his justice.
In the end, they will be punished.
Now on a very personal level, there may be a drunk driver who runs into you and it may
be part of God's disciplining of you.
That drunk driver may have harmed you, but that drunk driver will also be judged by God.
The tyrannical vicious boss which you work for may be an instrument of God's justice
and judgment.
But don't think he's going to get off scot-free.
He will have to face God.
The unfair teacher who doesn't like a certain student grades that student down may be an
instrument of God's discipline, but that unfair teacher will also have to face the justice
of God for what they have done.
But let's not just think of our own personal lives.
Let's think big picture as well.
God brings nations and empires into existence, but he also brings them down.
Greece at one time was a great empire.
Did it last forever?
No.
The Roman Empire, great empire.
Did it last forever?
No.
It was brought down.
And you go into World War I, there were three great empires, the Ottoman Empire, the German
Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and they were all brought down by God ultimately.
None lasted.
None were holy.
None were righteous.
No nation, no empire, including our own, can withstand the justice of God.
So this morning what you've got to keep in mind, brothers and sisters in Christ, no government,
no power will ever ultimately get away with their sinfulness, for the powers in this world
are nothing compared with the power of God.
One time I went to a museum of modern German history.
And in this museum they had the speech of John F. Kennedy, the I.M. Berliner speech,
guess which speech they didn't have?
Reagan's speech.
Remember it?
Mr. Gorbachev teared down this wall.
And what happened shortly after that?
The Communist Empire of Russia fell apart.
Partly due to the United States, partly due to the internal rot and corruption in Russia.
Today maybe we need to hear Mr. Putin, your empire's going down sooner or later.
Mr. Xi, your empire's going down sooner or later by the sovereignty of God.
You may persecute Christians, you may harm the innocent, but you cannot stand against
the righteousness and holiness of God.
And sometimes as Christians we get so caught up in our own little spiritual world, we forget
the big picture, the cosmic picture, the picture of history.
The big picture is those empires will suffer the wrath of God for their sins.
And look at what verse 6 says for those who want to take comfort in those evil empires,
what does it say?
Flee, get out, get away, do not get caught up into their systems.
As God's wrath is coming upon them.
So why is this passage here?
It's detaches us about the judgment of God, and it's not pleasant, but it's also detaches
us about the vindication of God.
And you may be saying, well, the vindication of who?
God's people, Israel.
Over and over again in this passage it talks about God as the one who vindicates.
God's people had been punished, but it was the end of their story.
Oh no, God does not give up on them.
And I want you to think what the Babylonians did to Israel.
They destroyed the temple.
They mocked God's people.
They probably said, oh, you thought your God was so great.
Guess he hadn't seen anything like the Babylonian gods.
Think God was happy with that?
No.
He wasn't happy with that.
He wasn't happy at all.
And if you look at verse 24, what does it say?
Therefore, before your eyes, I will repay Babylon and all who live in Babylon for the
wrongs they have done to Zion, he clears the Lord.
In verse 35, he says something similar where he says, may the violence done to our flesh
beyond Babylon say the inhabitants of Zion, may our blood beyond those who live in Babylonia
says Jerusalem.
God was not happy with Babylon even though he was, God was using Babylon.
The discipline had to happen.
But that doesn't mean you make fun of God or his people when you do that.
And how will he do that?
How will he bring this vindication?
Another superpower is going to come along.
This time the Persians, and they are going to bring Babylon down.
And the reason God is doing it is to vindicate his people and say, my people are right.
They are my people.
And they are still my treasured possession.
And in verse 10, everyone look at it together.
What does it say?
The Lord has vindicated us.
Come let us tell it in Zion what the Lord our God has done.
In other words, all those promises that God made are still true even though they have
been exiled and even though the Babylonians have come.
It is the vindication that's going to take place.
And you know, we've got to think about this when the end of the biblical story and the
end of all human history comes about.
The passage in Jeremiah is also in the book of Revelation in chapter 18 where it once
again talks about Babylon.
Now you're thinking to yourself, but Babylon didn't exist at that time.
You're right.
It didn't exist in the New Testament time.
So what's it referring to then?
Now partially Rome, but also partially any world power or system which sets itself up
against the people of God.
And listen to what Revelation chapter 18 says.
After this, I saw another angel coming down from heaven.
He had great authority and the earth was illuminated by a splendor and with a mighty
shout he said, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great for she has become a dwelling for
demons and a haunt of every impure spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for
every unclean and detestable animal.
For all the nations have drunk the maddening wine of her adulteries.
The kings of the earth committed adultery with her and the merchants of the earth grew
rich from her excessive luxuries.
Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, Come out of her my people so that you will
not share in her sin so that you will not receive any of her plagues.
Her sins are piled up to heaven and the Lord has remembered her crime.
Give back to her as she is given.
Pay her back double for what she has done.
Pour down a double portion from her own cup.
Give her as much torment and grief as the glory and luxury she gave herself.
In her heart she boasts I sit enthroned as queen.
I am not a widow.
I will never mourn.
And what do we find out happens in the book of Revelation after that?
They go down.
All those worldly powers from the beginning of history to the end that have set them up
to oppose God's people fall.
And the next thing we have after the fall of Babylon in the book of Revelation is the
wedding supper of the Lamb where God's people are vindicated.
And I want you to think of world history.
States have come and nations have gone but the people of God even though we are weak
and helpless we are still here and we will continue to be here.
I know if you are a fan of the South you probably don't like the battle hymn of the Republic.
But when I listen to those lines and I think of them they reflect something that is very
biblical.
Remember what the words say, my eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.
He has loosened the faithful lightning of his terrible swift sword.
His truth is marching on.
Do you hear it?
Do you hear what I hear?
Do you hear the soldiers coming into the battle camp?
Do you hear the angelic hosts gathering under the banner of our God?
You see the troops gathering together preparing for that final battle?
Oh I can hear it.
Because it's coming.
Oh it is coming.
And if you are one of those evil dictators, power brokers in this world who have set yourself
up against God and His people who persecute the Lord's chosen ones, beware.
Beware.
The battle is about to begin.
And when we think of the judgment of God, the vindication of God's people, let's also
remember His promise.
He's not giving up on His people.
Not at all.
You may be the weak.
You may have no political power.
You may have very little.
But what does it say in verse 5, for Israel and Judah have not been forsaken and you are
not forsaken as God's worldwide people, that's His promise.
The gospel will not stop.
The kingdom will grow.
And His promise is when the Lord armies roll, you will be protected and you will be set
up with that everlasting kingdom that never fades away.
One time, I believe it was when I was working at the YMCA in Jackson, Mississippi, there
was an elderly African-American janitor who always had his Bible and a concordance.
And I think someone asked him one time about the book of Revelation.
What's the purpose of it?
His response?
It's about the victory of Jesus.
It's not just the book of Revelation.
It is also the story of the whole Bible.
God wins through His judgment, His vindication, and His promises to His people.
This is not a passage which may make our hearts go pitter-patter, but it is something just
as great, the control of this world and the purposes of history.
Let's pray.
Our Heavenly Father, we come before you now, asking that you show us that you are the king
of this world.
And even though your people may be frightened, scared of all that is happening in this world,
with all of the anti-Christian sentiment that is being spewed out, we may even be scared
of another war.
Help us to realize the great day of Jesus' second coming is just around the corner.
And He's coming again to judge the quick and the dead.
So help us instead of to have fear to look forward to that great day where we will be
with you, Jesus, forever at the wedding supper of the Lamb.
Hear our prayer now.
Amen.