Jeremiah 51:1-58

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This morning we're going to continue on in Jeremiah chapter 51 now. Going to get about three quarters of the way through the chapter. More on Babylon. And just wanted to thank you. Jeremiah is the longest book of the Bible. This is not a click-baity type posting or things like that. We just don't do that on this channel. So I just want to encourage you that if you've found your way to this devotional, This is God's Word, and it's not like a magic pill. It's not click-baity. We have to slowly ingest it, work through it, wrestle with it.
And so, we do our A, what's this about? B, best verse to summarize, and C, what are we called to do? And so, as we wrestle through chapter by chapter, through books, and then paragraph by paragraph, making sure we understand what we're reading, this is how God transforms us from the inside out. So, let's have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll get into God's Word.
That's right. Father, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you for your word. And God, we pray that your spirit would give us patience. Patience to be humble and to listen, to work through even longer passages. But this is your word, and it is more valuable than gold and more precious and delightful than even the freshest of honey. Lord, please care for us this day. In Jesus' name, amen.
Here we go. We are at Jeremiah chapter 51. Thus says the Lord, behold, I will raise up against Babylon, against those who dwell in Lebkemai, and a destroying wind. And I will send winnowers to Babylon, who shall winnow her and empty her land. For in the day of doom, they shall be against her all around. Against her let the archers bend his bow, and lift himself up against her in his armor. Do not spare her young men. Utterly destroy all her army. Thus the slain shall fall from the land of the Chaldeans and those thrust against her in the streets. For Israel is not forsaken, nor Judah, by his God the Lord of armies. though their land was filled with sin against the Holy One of Israel."
All right, so remember the Babylonians are those who conquered Jerusalem, and they did so because of Israel's sin, and yet God has not turned his back on Israel. Actually, he's going to now judge Babylon for her sins. And so this is what he's saying, that their land is gonna be like the chaff getting thrown up into the air as there's winnowing, right? So the Lord's not forsaken Judah. The Lord's not forsaken Israel.
All right, let's keep going. Flee from the midst of Babylon, and everyone save his life. Do not be cut off in her iniquity, for this is the time of the Lord's vengeance. He shall recompense her. Babylon was a golden cup in the Lord's hand that made all the earth drunk. The nations drank her wine, therefore the nations are deranged. Babylon has suddenly fallen and been destroyed. Wail for her. Take balm for her pain. Perhaps she may be healed. We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed. Forsake her, and let us go, everyone, to his own country. For her judgment reaches to heaven and is lifted up to the skies. The Lord has revealed our righteousness. Come, let us declare in Zion the work of the Lord our God. Make the arrows bright. Gather the shields. The Lord has raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes, for His plan is against Babylon to destroy it, because it is the vengeance of the Lord, the vengeance of His temple. Set up the standard on the walls of Babylon. Make the guard strong. Set up the watchmen. Prepare the ambushes, for the Lord has both devised and done what He spoke against the inhabitants of Babylon. O you who dwell by many waters, abundant in treasures, your end has come, the measure of your covetousness. The Lord of hosts has sworn by himself, surely I will fill you with men as with locusts, and they shall lift up a shout against you."
Right, the Lord is going to avenge his temple, he's going to... Babylon is beyond healing. There's going to be war, there's going to be siege, and he even names the people who are going to do it, the Medes. are going to do this. By the way, you can read through Daniel and find out that this is what happens. So Jeremiah's saying this centuries, or not centuries, years and years and years, decades before this is gonna happen.
Verse 15, he has made the power by his people. He has established the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding. When he utters his voice, there is a multitude of waters in the heavens. He causes the vapors to ascend from the earth. He makes lightnings for the rain. He brings the wind out of his treasuries.
Jeremiah is quoting Psalm 135 here, right? God is the one who sets the heavens. God is the one who reigns supreme above all the nations. God is the one who has made the earth by his power. This is the point that God is much higher and greater than People were imagining or thinking of him.
The portion of Jacob is not like them, for he is the maker of all things, and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance. The Lord of hosts is his name." Right? The God of armies, Jehovah Sabaoth. This is the God who has all power. And all these idols, they're just nothing. And those who make them are worthless.
Let's see what he's saying. You are my battle axe and weapon of war. For with you I will break the nations in pieces. With you I will destroy kingdoms. With you I will break in pieces the horse and its rider. With you I will break in pieces the chariot and its rider. With you I will break in pieces man and woman. With you I will break in pieces old and young. With you I will break in pieces the young man and the maiden. With you also I will break into pieces the shepherd and his flock. With you I will break in pieces the farmer and his yoke of oxen. And with you I will break in pieces governors and rulers.
And I will repay Babylon. and all the inhabitants of Chaldea, for all the evil they have done in Zion in your sight, says the Lord." He's saying, he's bringing the Medes and they're gonna be like the axe against Babylon and they're the, why? Because he's going to take vengeance on what they did in Zion. They didn't conquer Jerusalem because they wanted righteousness, they did it out of their desire for their own plunder and power.
And so, behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, who destroys all the earth, says the Lord, and I will stretch out my hand against you, roll you down from the rocks, and make you a burnt mountain. They shall not take from you a stone for a corner, nor a stone for a mountain, but you shall be desolate forever, says the Lord.
Set up a banner in the land. Blow the trumpet among the nations. Prepare the nations against her. Call the kingdoms together against her. Ararat, Mini, and Ashkenaz. Appoint a general against her. Cause the horses to come up like a bristling locust. Prepare against her the nations with the kings of the Medes, its governors and all its rulers, all the land of his dominion. and the land will tremble in sorrow, for every purpose of the Lord shall be performed against Babylon, to make the land of Babylon a desolation without inhabitant.
The mighty men of Babylon have ceased fighting. They have remained in their strongholds. Their might has failed. They became like women. They have burned their dwelling places. The bars of her gates are broken. one runner will run to meet another and one messenger to meet another to show the king of babylon that his city is taken on all sides the passages are blocked the reeds they have burned with fire and the men of one of war are terrified
that's just god saying right he's bringing the beads and war is going to come babylon's going to be judged and conquered.
For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, the daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor. When it is time to thresh her, yet a little while and the time of her harvest will come. Right, they're going to crush her under their feet.
Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, has devoured me. He has crushed me. He has made me an empty vessel. He has swallowed me up like a monster. He has filled my stomach with my delicacies. Filled his stomach with my delicacies. He has spit me out.
Let the violence done to me and my flesh be upon Babylon. the inhabitant of Zion will say, and my blood will be upon the inhabitants of Chaldea, Jerusalem will say."
This is the Lord anthropomorphizing here, saying like, when you destroyed Jerusalem, it's like you tried to destroy me. What you did to my people, you did to me. It reminds me of what Jesus says to Paul on the road to Damascus. Paul, Paul, or Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Saul is destroying the church trying to kill people and ruin their lives and yet Jesus says to Saul he was persecuting him.
Verse 36, therefore thus says the Lord, behold, I will plead your case and take vengeance against you. I will dry up her sea and make her springs dry. Babylon will become a heap, a dwelling place of jackals, an astonishment and a hissing without inhabitant. They shall roar together like lions. They shall growl like lion's whelps. In their excitement, I will prepare their feasts. I will make them drunk that they may rejoice and sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake. says the Lord. I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with male goats.
Oh, how Shishak is taken. Oh, the praise of the whole earth is seized. How Babylon has become desolate among the nations. The sea has come up over Babylon. She is covered with the multitude of its waves. Her cities are a desolation, a dry land in a wilderness, a land where no one dwells. through which no son of man passes.
I will punish Bel in Babylon, and I will bring out of his mouth what he has swallowed, and the nation shall not stream to him anymore. Yes, the wall of Babylon shall fall. You're going to become a byword, a hiss, your god bell. I'm going to absolutely destroy. There's going to be like a tsunami coming across the city of Babylon, the nation, and this people.
We're almost there guys, about another 13 verses. My people, go out of the midst of her, and let everyone deliver himself from the fierce anger of the Lord. And lest your heart faint, and you fear for the rumor that will be heard in the land, a rumor will come one year, and after that, in another year, a rumor will come, and violence in the land, a ruler against ruler, Therefore behold, the days are coming that I will bring the judgment on the carved images of Babylon. Her whole land shall be ashamed and her slain shall fall in her midst. In the heavens and the earth and all that is in them shall sing joyously over Babylon. For the plunderers shall come to her from the north, says the Lord. As Babylon has caused the slain of Israel to fall, so at Babylon the slain of all the earth shall fall.
You who have escaped the sword, get away. Do not stand still. Remember the Lord afar off and let Jerusalem come to your mind. He's saying there's going to be all sorts of people who rejoice when Babylon falls, but when you remember Babylon, also remember Jerusalem. And when you remember Jerusalem, remember Yehovah far off. Let Jerusalem come to your mind.
Verse 51, we are shamed because we have heard reproach. Shame has covered our faces, for strangers have come into the sanctuaries of the Lord's house. Just in case we forgot, if you go back a few years when we went through all the tabernacle type stuff in Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers, nobody was allowed to go into the tabernacle except for the priests, and especially not in the most holy places. Aaron, and in the most holy of holies, only once a year. And yet, they weren't ashamed, the Babylonians, to just walk into God's temple, defile His presence.
Therefore behold, verse 52, the days are coming, says the Lord, that I will bring judgment on her carved images, and throughout all her land the wounded shall groan. Though Babylon were a mount up to heaven, and though she were to fortify the heights of her strength, Yet from me plunderers would come to her, says the Lord. He says, doesn't matter how big you make your walls, doesn't matter what fortresses you build, I'm going to send people and they're going to fight, conquer, and steal all your stuff.
The sound of a cry comes from Babylon and great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans. Because Jehovah is plundering Babylon and silencing her loud voice. Though her waves roar like great waters, and the noise of her voice is uttered, because the plunderer comes against her, against Babylon, and her mighty men are taken, every one of their bows is broken, for Yehovah is the God of recompense. He will surely repay.
" And I will make drunk her princes and wise men, her governors, her deputies and her mighty men. And they shall sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake, says the king, whose name is Jehovah, Lord of hosts or God, Jehovah of armies. That says Jehovah of armies. The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly broken. And her high gates shall be burned with fire. The people labor in vain, and the nations because of the fire, and they shall be weary.
" So what's this about? God is taking vengeance on Himself, for Himself, on the Babylonians. Many times he's speaking about this as future. This is going to happen because temporally in Jeremiah's time it's going to happen. And yet there's other times in this that Jeremiah is using the perfect or the past tense and that he's saying these things have happened. Why? Because in God's mind they're as good as done. And so what's this passage about? This is God vindicating his own righteousness and goodness and power and perfection and being, right? It is God proving he is who he is. They thought that they had destroyed, they were going to destroy the temple and, you know, all this was going to be done and prove that Yehovah was a worthless God. And Jeremiah, the Lord speaking through Jeremiah saying, no, no, no. I'm the one who let you do that out of your sinfulness and you're going to pay for it. And here's the nation who's going to do it to you because I'm still God. I still reign.
And so this is what I want to say, right? Because we, this is where I'm just going to go to seek calling real quick. We sometimes look at the world and we see the chaos of the world and we think, how can God possibly be reigning on his throne? How can God be sovereign above all these things that seem to be happening in the wickedness of the world? and this is where we have to sit back and humble ourselves and if he could be working in all this mess that's happening between the Assyrians and Israel and Babylon and Judah and Babylon and the Medes and not to mention what's going on with the Egyptians and we've talked about that in previous chapters and what's going on with Edom and Moab and the Ammonites and all these right but God knew exactly what he was doing God's giving people agency to make choices, even sinful ones, but that doesn't mean He's not going to judge them for it.
And that gives me a great deal of comfort when I think about Jesus being the King of kings right now, exalted to the right hand of God the Father Almighty. It may look like chaos, and I may not understand what's going on with world history. I may not understand why things have happened, or what effect it's going to have that the things are going on right now. But what I can know is that God has a plan, and He is holy, and He is good. He loves His people, and He's going to vindicate Himself.
So, will I follow Him? Will you follow Him? Let's pray.
Father, we pray that you would please help us. Even as we see wars and rumors of wars, even as we hear of famine and earthquake and disasters that come, Lord, we know that these things are coming from you. You're the one who raises up kings and kingdoms, and you're the one who brings them down. But we know one thing, that you are the king of kings, and someday you will come again, and you will establish your kingdom on earth. And so, Lord, we pray that you would please Let us not take our eyes off of Christ, and let us seek a heavenly kingdom. Lord, we pray that we would be good citizens here, but that we would be faithful in trusting you, no matter what happens in world events. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
Well, may God bless you. May you have peace, despite the news cycle. But I'll see you next time. Bye.