Mims Chapel Church 

LESSON 2 • Second Week

Isaiah's Prophecies of
Judgment Against Babylon

Background Reading
Revelation
17:1-18

Devotional Reading
2 Chronicles 36:6-7; Isaiah
Isaiah 13:1-14
14•.22-23; Jeremiah 29:15; 39:6; 51:49-60•,

Central Verse
"And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah."
Isaiah 13:19, KJV

"Babylon, the most glorious of kingdoms, the flower of Chaldean pride, will be devasted like Sodom and Gomorrah when God destroyed them."
Isaiah 13:19, NLT

Key Terms
Depraved—Marked by moral corruption or perversion as shown by a capacity for extreme and wanton physical cruelty.
Patron God—A deity believed to protect, watch over, or guide a specific person, profession, city, or activity.
APOSTATE—One who is giving up of a religious faith or a previous loyalty to God.

Introduction

Babylon was always Judah's most vile enemy. It was the place that God allowed His people to be taken and held in captivity for seventy years. But in a toxic environment God allowed his people to sun./ive and to thrive. Babylon was the school room where Daniel and the Three Hebrew Boys learned how to wait on God and to be of good cheer. It was the place where they learned that victory comes to believers who believe and trust God for the anything and the eveything.

Babylon is now the present-day Iraq and parts of Syria. It was situated in central-southern Mesopotamia valley and was once a very powerful nation that conquered other nations. But like many nations before it, corruption from within and from without caused it to fall.

Discussion

God had Isaiah to prophesy judgment upon foreign nations as well as apostate Jerusalem. Isaiah started with Babylon, letting them know that all nations are accountable to God; those who oppose Him and His divine plan of salvation will be judged and destroyed, and those who believe in Him will ultimately triumph.

Isaiah prophesied that Babylon would be overthrown like Sodom and Gomorrah, for Babylon was the center of heathen culture, opposing God and His ways from very early on in human history. To be likened to Sodom and Gomorrah was a terrible indictment. Both cities were filled with the most depraved human lifestyles that any humans could have and because of their wickedness they were destroyed by sulfur and fire from heaven (Genesis 19:14). The destruction of Babylon is a type of the end-time destruction of all of God's enemies and the final judgment to come all over the earth during the period of the Tribulation.

Babylon was the place where the people decided to build a tower to go into heaven. Their purpose was based on pride and rebellion against God. They had a desire to dominate the world apart from God using what they thought was their own organizational skills, unity, power, and the ability to make great accomplishments. God destroyed their efforts by multiplying languages so they could no longer communicate with one another.

Babylon was the place where the world derived both ethnicity and language diversity. It was there that humanity turned from God to idolatry, sorcery, and astrology. This is where God gave them up to the impurity of their own hearts. It was at Ur of the Chaldees, one hundred miles southeast of Babylon, near the Euphrates River that the moon god "Sin" became the patron god of that area.

Abram was a native of that area, for it was there that God called him out of the filth of that time and area. It was the place where one man proved that God could come into a person's life even when he dwells among people who do not love nor reverence God. It was the place that one man developed such a great relationship with God until he became known as a friend of God.

Babylon was the place that God had Jeremiah to tell His people to build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat from the fruit of them, to marry and build families so they could increase and not be diminished. He told them to seek peace and pray for the peace of the cities so that the cities would be peaceable. He cautioned them to remain true to their God and not allow false prophets to deceive them. False prophets told them that they would not have to stay in Babylon for seventy years. Believers learn that storms may come and they can be in the storms but yet still be in the will of God. God will preserve them even during the times of storms, for He is a shelter in the time of storms.

Babylon was the place that God sent the captive Israelites the assurance that He had not forgotten them. He let them know that He had plans for their lives, to give them a future and a hope. He let them know that He was going to come visit them and that they were not in their troubles alone (Jeremiah 29). It gives the believers a wonderful feeling to know that they serve a God who will never leave nor forsake them.

Conclusion

God told Isaiah that He would stir up the Medes against the people of Babylon. The Medes were the people from the Mountains east of the Mesopotamia. Isaiah's prophecy was fulfilled 200 years later when the Medes and the Persians destroyed Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon. The Medes and the Persians would not accept gold nor silver as a tribute to spare Babylon. It would be destroyed, never to rise in glory again. Many different animals will occupy the places where Babylon had stood in all its glory. God's Word is true, for the day would come when Babylon would be destroyed forever, yet God's city Jerusalem will thrive forever. Babylon would not be able to keep her captives.

The description of the king of Babylon's fall is often said to refer to the fall of Satan, for they both had one of the things that God hates. They had the spirit of pride, which made them think that a created being could take the place of God. This is what led to Babylon's destruction and will finally lead to the destruction of Satan and cause him to end up in hell.

Questions

Why was Babylon judged so harshly?
What was one of the main emotions that caused Babylon to be seen as a wicked place?
Why did God change the languages of the people at the Tower of Babel?
What was so notable about Sodom and Gomorrah?

Essential Thought- "Wickedness against God always brings judgment from God."

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