Isaiah chapter 47 and reading
from verse one. Come down and sit in the dust,
O virgin daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground. There is no
throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans, for thou shalt no more be called
tender and delicate. Take the millstones and grind
meal. Uncover thy locks, make bare
the leg. Uncover the thigh, pass over
the rivers. Thy nakedness shall be uncovered. Yea, thy shame shall be seen. I will take vengeance and I will
not meet thee as a man. As for our Redeemer, the Lord
of hosts is His name, the Holy One of Israel. Sit thou silent
and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans, for thou shalt
no more be called the Lady of Kingdoms. I was wroth with my
people. I have polluted mine inheritance
and given them into thine hand. thou didst show them no mercy,
upon the ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke. And thou
saidst, I shall be a lady for ever, so that thou didst not
lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter
end of it. Therefore hear now this, thou
that art given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that
sayest in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me. I shall
not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children.
But these two things shall come to thee in a moment, in one day,
the loss of children and widowhood. They shall come upon thee in
their perfection, for the multitude of thy sorceries, and for the
great abundance of thine enchantments. For thou hast trusted in thy
wickedness, thou hast said, None seeth me. Thy wisdom and thy
knowledge, it hath perverted thee. And thou hast said in thine
heart, I am, and none else beside me. Therefore shall evil come
upon thee, thou shalt not know from whence it riseth, and mischief
shall fall upon thee, thou shalt not be able to put it off, and
desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not
know. Stand now with thine enchantments
and with the multitude of thy sorceries wherein thou hast laboured
from thy youth. If so be thou shalt be able to
profit, if so be thou mayst prevail. Thou art wearied in the multitude
of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the
stargazers, the monthly prognosticators stand up and save thee from these
things that shall come upon thee. Behold, they shall be as stubble. The fire shall burn them. They
shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame.
There shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire to sit before
it. Thus shall they be unto thee
with whom thou hast laboured, even thy merchants, from thy
youth. They shall wander every one to
his quarter. None shall save thee. Amen. May the Lord bless to us this
rather solemn reading from his word. Brothers and sisters in Christ, we enjoy a blessed and privileged
position in this world. As the redeemed people of God,
we enjoy a blessed and privileged position that is almost beyond
comprehension. There is nothing to compare with
the gospel of free grace and the message of forgiveness, redemption,
and salvation from God. that we possess. We are a people who by nature,
inclination and practice deserve only condemnation from our holy,
righteous creator. And yet, and yet, from the deep
and humbling revelation of God's divine counsels, to the unmistakable evidences
of God's goodness and kindness to us in our everyday lives, to the grand promises of everlasting
joy and happiness in heaven, We are endowed with blessings
and privileges so absolutely contrary to what we know we deserve
that it is almost unbelievable. Indeed, were it not that God
himself gave us faith and enabled us to believe what he has done
for us, we'd refuse to believe such a prospect, such blessings,
such an inheritance could possibly be ours in this world. And so
I say again, there is nothing that compares in all the world
to the gospel of free grace and knowing the peace and pardon
and love and care of God for his elect in Christ. You may be old and frail and
sick, but to have Christ, if you have Christ, All your afflictions
are small in comparison to the glory and the bliss that is set
before you in heaven, soon to be possessed. You may be lonely
and grieving, but if you have Christ, you have a friend and
comforter dearer to you than all this world's recognition.
You may be financially poor, but, says James, you are rich
in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them
that love him. You're the child of a king and
you hold a title to a mansion. You may be anxious and uncertain.
You may be overwhelmed by the prospects of what lies ahead
for you in this world, especially if you're one of our younger
listeners. And maybe you're thinking about school or work or your
career. Maybe you're wondering what 2024
will mean to you, will bring for you. You have a protector and a provider
in whom to trust. who knows you better than you
know yourself and who knows what is good for you and promises
never to leave you nor forsake you as long as your life on this
earth lasts. And maybe you're worried about
somebody else, your family, your loved ones. you can place all
your hopes and fears and troubles and cares into the hand of the
one who does all things well, who will do what is right, what
is perfect and what is fully commensurate with his sovereign
unconditional love for you. I doubt that there could be better
consolation with which to enter a new year than this. The psalmist says in Psalm 84,
the Lord God is a sun and shield. The Lord God is a sun and shield. The Lord will give grace and
glory. No good thing will he withhold
from them that walk uprightly. That is, from them that trust
in the Lord Jesus Christ. He promises us grace now, grace
for today, and glory hereafter. And that nothing good will be
withheld from us in time or eternity. So I'm going to say it for a
third time. There is nothing in all this world that compares
to the gospel of free grace and knowing something of the peace
and love and care of God for his chosen people in Christ. In our chapter today, we are
given a glimpse of what it is that we have been redeemed from
and saved from by the Lord Jesus Christ. These Old Testament passages
don't pull any punches. when they describe the judgement
that lies ahead for this world and for the rebel reprobate in
it. Let us note, let us remind ourselves
that Isaiah is speaking principally to the remnant Jews, the remnant
people of God, the Old Testament church. And I know he is addressing
Babylon, but that's a literary technique. Isaiah is writing
to the remnant Jews. It is to those remnant people
that this letter is sent and is meaningful. And us with them. He is speaking principally to
these remnant people, the Old Testament church that was about
to go through terrible persecution, including exile and loss of everything
at the hand of the Babylonians, the hand of Babylon, the city,
the empire, the armies. So that this passage is not directly
an address to Babylon, though I am sure that some people in
Babylon would read it because the people of God would carry
it with them, if not in their possessions, certainly in their
heart and certainly in their mind. But this was a blow-by-blow account
to God's people to encourage and reassure them as they made
their way through these troubled years that the Lord was with
them. and that as these Old Testament
saints fell under the sword, as they were sold into slavery,
as they watched their children and their loved ones being taken
away from them and separated, probably never to see them again,
that they would be able to lean upon the word of Isaiah, they
would be able to rest upon the promises of God by Isaiah and
that these great truths would come to mind. As Babylon meted out on God's
elect, upon God's elect, the viciousness of that dominating
regime, these promises would return to the Lord's people.
And as indeed Babylon meted out their punishments, the Lord's
people would remember that those very same punishments would be
meted out against Babylon. And that's what we read in verse
three and verse four. Take the millstones. What millstones? The millstones that the remnant
people of Israel had been grinding at in their slavery and in their
exile. Now the Lord says to Babylon,
now the Lord says to the daughter of the Chaldeans, take the millstones
and grind meal. Uncover thy locks. They used
to keep their hair all braided and perfumed. Uncover thy locks. Make bare the leg. Uncover the
thigh. Pass over the rivers. They would
be stripped to nakedness. thy nakedness shall be uncovered,
yea, thy shame shall be seen. I will take vengeance, saith
the Lord. I will repay in kind. Justice will be done, and the
cries of my people in their sorrows will not go unanswered, will
not go unheard. Now this is a fact of history that this took
place. And our interest in it is that
the Lord will have his New Testament church likewise equipped with
the same reassurance as we go through our lives. that these
things that Isaiah wrote to the people of a bygone day in order
that they might be sustained in the midst of their trials
will also be an encouragement to us in our lives. You see,
the scriptures were written to all the Lord's people. And they're all profitable for
all ages. In God's good providence, many
of us may not live to see how God will judge this world in
a day to come. And that's probably not a bad
thing. But we are assured that judgment will come and justice
will be served. God weighs with a small balance
and whatsoever a man sows, that shall he reap. That is the message
to Babylon, that is the encouragement to the Lord's people and it is
an encouragement to us as well today. This truth is so potent,
so powerful, so significant that in the book of Revelation, John
uses the Babylon analogy. He uses the Babylon history and
the memory of this. The memory that continued in
the mind of the Jews of this ancient judgment as an example
to present and explain to the New Testament church and to you
and I today how our own persecutions will be repaid in kind and how
all who trouble Christ's church will be troubled by Christ in
judgment. Now the fall of Babylon, the
old city of Babylon in history, did indeed occur as Isaiah prophesied. But the gospel application and
the spiritual instruction supplied by this chapter goes beyond history. For the church today, John speaks
of the world system of anti-Christ religion in the book of Revelation,
and he calls it, mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots
and abominations of the earth. And it's all in uppercase to
give it emphasis and prominence and significance because this
is important. It was important to the remnant
in the day of Isaiah that they read this chapter. They knew
that there would be judgment upon their oppressors. They knew
that God said, I will take vengeance. And it is important for the church
today to know the same. Now, some interpret this mystery,
Babylon the Great, mother of harlots and abomination of the
earth, as the Church of Rome. They see it as typical of the
Church of Rome. And then the Church of Rome,
or the city of Rome, and thereafter the Church of Rome, then, The
Church of Rome would be the religion of the Church, or indeed broadening
it out even to more than just simply the Roman Catholic denomination,
but as typical of the whole of the man-made religion of our
age. And I think surely there is value
and significance in taking that application because there are
certainly parallels for the blood of the martyrs that were spilled
throughout the ages of the church and how that religious order,
that religious structure has dominated and persecuted the
remnant people of Christ. There are endless parallels that
could be drawn. Indeed, we find actually one
of the key ones that's spoken of in this chapter is that Babylon
of old took the names of God and attributed those names to
itself. which has been the very heretical
feature of the Church of Rome, taking the divine titles and
applying it historically to itself. But whether the Church of Rome
is the entirety of mystical Babylon or an element of it, I will leave
others to decide. What seems clear is that the
Apostle John uses Babylon in Revelation chapters 17, 18 and
19 to describe the worldwide anti-Christ system. that continuously and relentlessly
afflicts the Lord's redeemed people and sets itself up in
opposition against the Church of Jesus Christ. so that what we draw from our
chapter today is that just as ancient Babylon is humbled and
ruined in Isaiah's prophecy, so John's Babylon the Great and
all the anti-Christian systems of this world will also be ruined
by the Lord in vengeance for the sake of his elect. he rises to judge mystical Babylon. Isaiah's censure of the city
of Babylon and the empire of his day listed the crimes which
this people had committed, for which judgment would come. Pride. Sorcery, by which I understand
deceit and lying and deceiving. Claiming divine titles and hurting
the flock of Christ. These are the essential elements
of false religion. And as old Babylon fell, so judgment
will fall on today's satanic system of rebellious religion
against God and the hatred that it expresses for Christ and his
church. Justice. The Bible teaches us. God teaches us. The law of God
teaches us. Justice is right and proper. There's a propriety in justice
that is universal. Everyone knows that. It's a cry
that men and women, whether they are religious or not, frequently
utter. It's not fair. Fair? What's fair? There is a propriety of justice
that men and women know. It is a throwback to being created
in the image of God. And justice will come on sin
in this world. Perhaps it is the great error,
the great sorcery of mystical Babylon that it has sown in the
minds of men and women today that because God is love and
because God delights in mercy, he will be loving and merciful
to everyone. That's the big lie that religion
today is foisting upon men and women. God is a God of love. God is a God of mercy. He will
be loving and merciful to everyone. Maybe you've noticed how today
everyone who dies goes straight to heaven. Nobody goes to hell
anymore. And how many times have we heard
totally irreligious people say of totally irreligious people, Well, at least they're in a better
place. At least, they say, at least
they're in a better place. What does that mean? No, they're
not. No, they are not. The holiness of God as revealed
in his law is absolute is terrible and is unforgiving. And this
chapter tells us that the Lord will have vengeance. It is a
fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. The
Lord our God must do righteously. He must act in holiness. He must hold all men and women
accountable for their sins. And God's hatred of sin is seen in the death of Jesus
Christ on the cross. Because it was there that Christ
carried the curse of his people's sin. It was there that he bore
the judgment of God's broken law and suffered the weight of
the sins of the elect in his own sinless, spotless soul. Today's big lie, today's false
doctrine tells men and women that because Christ died, they
will not. And many go to hell clutching
that half-truth in their hands. What the cross of the Lord Jesus
Christ actually shows is how much God hates sin. Would that men and women would
listen when Scripture speaks of fleeing the wrath to come. But they will not. In fact, the
Lord Jesus Christ himself said to the men, the religious people
of his own day, ye will not come to me that ye might have life. What did John tell us these things
were written for? These things were written that
you might have life and might have it more abundantly. But
you will not come that you might have life. The message of this chapter is
the judgment and retribution God will visit upon his enemies
to punish their sins and avenge his people. This world system,
its politics, its morality, its ambition, will collapse under
the crushing hand of Christ, just like ancient Babylon. That city was built on pride,
on greed, and lust. It had no time for Christ or
his church. In this one word that the Lord
uses, vengeance, I will take vengeance. In that one word,
vengeance, the two sides of God's holiness are displayed. From
out of this corrupt world, God has redeemed a people by the
blood of a great deliverer. And for their sakes, because
of his love towards them, He will avenge their hurt at the
hand of Mystery Babylon and the persecuting powers of this world. And I think there's a little
application here for us, for you and me, and I'd just like
you to think on this and use it, as I say, as an application
because this is the Lord's work. The Lord says to his people,
I will take vengeance. And I want to put the emphasis
there on the I, because it's not your job and it's not mine.
It will never be your calling or my calling to avenge our own
selves or indeed to avenge our brothers and sisters. That's
not our role in life. Our role in life is to be as
kind and as gracious and as helpful and as patient and forbearing,
even with all the troubles that we face, to endure them, to endure
our persecutions. It's never your role or mine
to avenge our heart or take revenge for an offence. Individual believers
are called to love our enemies and bless them who curse us and
pray for those who despitefully use us. And the Lord will handle
all the punishment and the vengeance and the retribution that needs
to be done. Getting near the end. We saw
in the little note that I sent out yesterday how one verse stands
out as a bright light in this dark passage of judgment. And it was verse four, as I pointed
out. That verse is a cry of faith
and gratitude from the Old Testament church upon hearing God's promise
of deliverance upon reading, as it were, Isaiah's prophecy
of what God was going to do to vindicate and avenge his people. They cried out, in verse four,
at the prospect of liberty and salvation at the hand of their
saviour. Let us not imagine that that
remnant people of Isaiah's day were only rejoicing about the
fall of ancient Babylon. I'm sure they were. I won't deny
them that. But remember that this was a
spiritual people receiving spiritual truth. This was a people of faith
to whom these things were revealed. They cried, as for our Redeemer,
the Lord of hosts is his name. The Lord of Hosts is the Sovereign
Lord, the Holy One of Israel, that is the righteous God. It was an avowal of faith and
confidence in the Messiah, in Christ, who is the Sovereign
Lord and the righteousness of his people. The elect of all ages. have placed their trust wholly
and exclusively in Christ. It is a mark of who we are and
what we have been made. The elect of all ages place their
trust in Christ to deliver them, not simply in this life, but
for eternity. And yes, the city of Babylon,
the old city of Isaiah's day, Babylon's fall and its demise
and the subsequent rebuilding of the temple under Cyrus, they
all pointed the Lord's people of that age to the greater redemption
and the everlasting righteousness that comes from the Lord Jesus
Christ. Paul reminds us, and with this
I'm done. We are in Christ Jesus, who for the Old Testament saints,
for the saints of Paul's own day, and for the Lord's people
in every generation, we are in Christ Jesus, who of God is made
unto us. Wisdom, that is spiritual understanding,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. A day of wrath and vengeance
came upon Babylon. Another day of wrath and vengeance
is coming upon this corrupt world. Isaiah knew it, and Isaiah spoke
of it, and he spoke of Christ and redemption. and so too the
elect speak of Christ, calling him the Lord of hosts, the Holy
One of Israel, who is Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and
forever, the Lord our Redeemer, the Lord our righteousness. Amen.