Jeremiah 51:1-64

God’s wrath is often very slow in being displayed.  However, a delay in God’s judgment should be interpreted as grace not weakness or forgetfulness.  God tolerated Israel’s idolatry for generations and used Babylon as an instrument of judgment on Israel.  Babylon was also an idolatrous nation who became very powerful and very proud.  God’s wrath would also fall upon her.  God’s purposes will be realized and His name will be glorified.  Today’s generation has become very comfortable in sin and idolatry.  God’s wrath seems to by lying dormant as society sinks further and further into self-worship and denies God’s very existence.  This reality will not go on forever.  One day His wrath will be revealed and judgment will come.

THE VENGEANCE OF THE LORD WILL BE RECEIVED: When Babylon destroyed Israel and Judah, an attack was leveled on Jerusalem, the city was destroyed and the temple was burned.  The sacred objects from the temple were hauled to Babylon and made into objects of idolatry in the Babylonian temples or trophies to celebrate Babylonian dominance.  God’s wrath burned against this idolatry and He calls upon the nations to come and exact His vengeance over the Babylonian rulers and people.  The nation will be destroyed and left in desolation as God repays their evil ways.  We rarely consider God to be vengeful, but the truth is that He is very jealous and takes vengeance upon those who reject Him, blaspheme Him and place idols of their own making above Him.  Babylon would discover this as will all nations and all men who turn from God.

THE VICTORY O F THE MEDES WILL BE REVEALED: Just as God raised up Babylon to be His instrument of judgment on Israel and other nations; God will raise up the army of the Medes to invade Babylon.  They will come upon the city like an army of locust and destroy everything in their path.  Not one stone will be left upon another as the city is consumed.  There seems to be an immediate fulfillment to this prophecy in the overthrow of the Medes and Persians.  However, there seems to be a futuristic vision of further judgment that may only be realized in God’s judgment of the nations in the tribulation.  Whatever the case may be, we know God used the Medes to invade Babylon on this once great and proud city was destroyed and leaders were humiliated.  God is in control of the rise and fall of nations and has determined how He will reveal this plan throughout history.  We can rest assured of His sovereign control over the nations and our lives.


THE VIOLENCE OF THE BABYLONIANS WILL BE REPAID: Cruelty and pride will always bring about condemnation from God.  The armies of Babylon were extremely violent and brutal in their conquering of the nations.  These barbaric practices and their overall cruelty would not go unpunished as it did not go unnoticed by God.  Jeremiah speaks of fire and flood consuming and destroying the city and its inhabitants.  The nation of Israel is instructed to flee from Babylon and return to Jerusalem as a refuge because the violence in Babylon was about to exceed what they had experienced in the conquest of Jerusalem.  God knows very well how to repay evil for evil and one day the violence of this generation will be repaid by the Lord.  Our only hope of escape from the wrath of God to come upon this and every generation is through faith in the Lord Jesus as He transforms our hearts into His image and we live for His glory instead of our own.

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