In the sermon 'Babylon in Your Heart,' Scott Brown explores Isaiah chapters 13 and 14, focusing on the symbolic representation of Babylon as a figure of pride, self-sufficiency, and worldliness. Brown discusses how Babylon is not just a historical city but also a metaphor for the sinful nature inherent in humanity. He emphasizes God's promise to destroy Babylon both externally and internally, symbolizing the defeat of sin and evil in the world and within individuals. The sermon highlights three forces of destruction: the world, the flesh, and the devil, and underscores God's sovereignty in orchestrating historical events for His purposes. Brown also speaks to the dual nature of God's wrath and mercy, illustrating how God's judgment against Babylon serves as a message of hope for believers, as it promises the ultimate downfall of sin and evil. The sermon calls for introspection on personal pride and worldliness, urging believers to seek God's glory over their own and to find comfort in God's righteous judgment and mercy.

Isaiah 13. The burden against Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amos saw. Lift up a banner on the high mountain, raise your voice to them, wave your hand that they may enter the gates of the nobles. I have commanded my sanctified ones. I have also called my mighty ones for my anger, those who rejoice in my exaltation.

The noise of a multitude in the mountains, like that of many people, a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together. The Lord of Hosts musters the army for battle. They come from a far country, from the end of heaven, the Lord and His weapons of indignation, to destroy the whole land. Wail for the day of the Lord is at hand. It will come as destruction from the Almighty.

Therefore all hands will be limp. Every man's heart will melt, and they will be afraid, pains and sorrows will take hold of them. They will be in pain as a woman in childbirth, they will be amazed at one another, their faces will be like flames. Behold the day of the Lord comes, cruel with both wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate, and He will destroy its sinners from it. For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light.

The sun will be darkened in its going forth, and the moon will not cause its light to shine. I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity. I will halt the arrogance of the proud and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. I will make a mortal more rare than fine gold, a man more than the golden wedge of Ophir. Therefore, I will shake the heavens, and the earth will move out of her place.

In the wrath of the Lord of Hosts, and in the day of His fierce anger, it shall be as the hunted gazelle, and as a sheep that no man takes up. Every man will turn to his own people, and every one will flee to his own land. Everyone who is found will be thrust through, and everyone who is captured will fall by the sword. Their children also will be dashed to pieces before their eyes. Their houses will be plundered and their wives ravished.

Behold, I will stir up the meads against them, who will not regard silver, and as for gold they will not delight in it. Also their bows will dash the young men to pieces, and they will have no pity on the fruit of the womb. Their eye will not spare children, and Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans' pride, will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It will never be inhabited, nor will it be settled from generation to generation, nor will the Arabian pitch tents there, nor will the shepherds make their sheepfolds there. But wild beasts of the desert will lie there, and their houses will be full of owls, ostriches will dwell there, and wild goats will caper there.

The hyenas will howl in their citadels, and jackals in their pleasant palaces. Her time is near to come and her days will not be prolonged." Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father God, we come before you, we come before this text, Father, and we cry out for your Spirit. Father, we cry out that you would anoint Mr. Brown as he comes and opens up this text to us.

As He opens up and speaks forth Your Word for our hearing, for our understanding, Father, we ask that You would, by Your Holy Spirit, open our ears to hear, open our eyes to see. Father, that You would Help us to see the goodness of Your justice, the goodness of Your wrath. And at the same time, rejoice. Rejoice in Your kindness and Your mercy to us. Father, fill us with fear in all of You this day.

Father, be with Mr. Brown as he comes and shares with us this day. In Jesus' name. Today we begin a journey into Babylon. We'll be spending three sermons on our focus on Babylon in Isaiah chapters 13 and 14 And we're going to lift up a banner Each time and say that God will destroy Babylon And so we're going to have some time to learn about Babylon.

You won't get it all today, for sure. But as the next couple of weeks pass, we'll hopefully understand what it means to live in Babylon and to understand God's use of the city of Babylon for his own purposes. In Isaiah chapter 13 and 14, God is declaring that he's going to dismantle the works of pride and self-sufficiency that are the roots of everything that is Babylon. The problem with Babylon is that you live in Babylon, and Babylon lives in you. But Babylon is an image, it's a figure, it's something to teach us about life in the world and who we are.

And if you look at verse 22, you'll see what I think may be one of the primary things that Isaiah is wanting to communicate, and that is, Babylon's days are numbered. That's really good news. Her time is near to come. Her days will not be prolonged. You can't get better news than that, not for your own personal soul, not for your family, not for your church, and not for your nation.

Because what it means is that that serpent of old, that devil, the accuser of the brother, he'll be taken out. And you can rejoice. Rejoice your enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil. They have an enemy, and they have an enemy that will not lose. They have an enemy that cannot lose.

So before us here really is the condemnation, the destruction of Babylon. And we recognize that God is relentless in His forcefulness as he progresses against Babylon. If you look in chapter 14, verse 26, please look there. Chapter 14, 26. There's some remarkable language piling up word after word to really explain God's resolute and powerful, unquenchable wrath and work against Babylon.

This is the purpose that is purposed against the whole earth. And this is the hand that is stretched out over the nations. For the Lord has purposed and who can annul it? His hand is stretched out and who will turn it back? This is the purpose of the purposes of God to come and unravel everything of Babylon, everything.

And that means unraveling everything of Babylon that is around you and everything in Babylon that is in you. It's such a remarkable promise that we're given here. Now one of the great glories of the Gospel is that what is working for your destruction, It will be neutralized. What a blessing it is to know that. You know, there are three forces that are always working for our destruction.

The first, there is an external and impersonal enemy. It's called the world. Secondly, there's an internal enemy, and that is called the flesh. And then there is a personal enemy, and that is the devil himself. And our passage here in Isaiah chapter 13 and 14 brings us face to face with this external and impersonal enemy, the world.

The Bible uses the term for this enemy, and that enemy is Babylon. And Babylon, yes, it is a city, but it's more than a city. It's a way of thinking, it's a way of living, it's a way of existing in the world, it's a way of making your way in the world. And what we find here in the text regarding Babylon is that God is exalting His glory through the judgment of the wicked. And we see this in Isaiah, that God is destroying the glory of man.

And he's exalting himself in judgment. One thing that I think we should recognize as we move through this journey of the judgment against Babylon is this. Don't take worldliness too lightly, because God will brutally deal with the worldliness of the world. Her time is near to come. Her days will not be prolonged.

This is the truth about the worldliness of the world. It really has two ways to consider it. One is that God will destroy it, But at the same time, we should do what God calls us to in Revelation, Chapter 18, flee from Babylon. Now the wider context of Chapters 13 and 14, I want to just acknowledge briefly. In Isaiah, chapters 1 through 12, there are a series of sermons and a song and a poem that explain the predicament of Judah and the result of her embracing eastern ways and God is bringing judgment against those eastern ways.

You can call the first twelve chapters probably the book of Immanuel, someone has called it that. And we saw so many images and beautiful pictures of the love of God and Jesus Christ there. And now as we turn to chapters 13 to 23, we turn to God's judgment over the nations. And God will bring the pride of man down, the way that it's expressed in the various nations of the earth. And so after hearing the praises from the heart and the various refreshments from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah in chapters 1-12, Isaiah is now turning to the destruction of his enemies that are the nations.

And he is going to deal with this first enemy, Babylon, which is representative of the world itself. And so what we find here in chapters 13 to 23 is an explanation of the way that God deals in judgment with the nations of the world. And so it's one sermon here in chapters 13 and 14. And the focus of chapter 13 and 14 is Babylon, this great nation, but it's just the first of ten oracles against the nations. For example, at the end of chapter 14, there's the oracle against Philistia.

In chapter 15 and 16, Moab. In chapter 17 Damascus, in chapter 18 Kush, in chapter 19 Egypt, in chapter 21 Edom, and in chapter 21 Arabia. There's also the very famous Valley of Vision in chapter 22. And then Tyre, the prostitute, will be destroyed. And then finally, in chapter 4, there's a hymn of praise to God for His holiness, for His destruction of the worldliness of the world.

So that's just a sort of a flyover of the next section here in Isaiah. And Isaiah is writing before the Babylonian domination. He's writing 189 years before Babylon is destroyed. He's writing actually before Babylon is even a great nation. It must have been strange to hear what Isaiah said, but it was a vision that he saw.

It was something in the future, something that wouldn't be understood immediately in his time, But after 189 years had passed, it would be understood quite well. And we can understand it by looking back. So let's go into the text and begin to work our way through the things that Isaiah is saying here. First of all, the announcement of Babylon's doom is made in verses 1 and 2. The burden against Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amon saw, lift up a banner on the high mountain, raise your voice to them, wave your hand, that they may enter the gates of the nobles." So this is a picture of the future.

Isaiah saw it in a vision. He saw this happening. What an amazing thing to consider what God did with Isaiah, to actually show it to him before the eyes of his heart. It was a vision against Babylon, very much like the Tower of Babel, which was brought down. Now Babylon will be brought down while the original spirit of Babylon, the Tower of Babel, was frustrated.

Now, we'll see this with Babylon itself. And Of course, it is about Babylon. Babylon is mentioned about 260 times in the Bible. Jerusalem is the most frequently mentioned city. Babylon takes the number two position.

So it's a significant city in the scriptures. There are great cities in the scriptures, aren't there? There's Sodom, there's Babylon, there's Jerusalem. These great cities actually stand for something, and they have meaning for us. And When you hear those words, they should bring a flood of memories.

You know, as you raise your children now and teach them, make sure they understand Babylon. Make sure they don't just understand as a city in the ancient Near East, but they understand the spirit of Babylon, the mystery of Babylon, its message, its heart. And that they would understand as they go through life how to deal with Babylon, because like I said before, they not only live in Babylon, Babylon lives in them. There's a city living in the midst of every human heart, it's the city of Babylon. And it's right for us to understand how we might break down its walls, how we might close its doors, how we might turn off its entertainments, how we might deal with its economy, how we ought to handle its pride and its lust, and how to break up its streets and how to shut off its lights.

Because Babylon is not just a city in the ancient Near East. You live in Babylon, and Babylon lives in you. But thankfully God is declaring that He will destroy Babylon. He will destroy Babylon that you live in, and He will destroy the Babylon that lives within you. This is such an encouraging passage.

On the one hand, it is so devastating in its language. But we recognize that Babylon has an origin. Babylon really has its origin in the devil himself who said, I will, I will, I will. That's the spirit of Babylon. Genesis 10 indicates that Nimrod was the founder of Babylon.

It was the city of violence. It was the city where man wanted to make a name for himself and built a tower as a result of it. But in these first few verses, Isaiah is making it clear that the enemy will enter the gates of Babylon and Babylon will be destroyed. Now, he is speaking of the Medes and the Persians who will come in and destroy Babylon, but he's speaking of more than that. Revelation chapter 18 makes that very clear, that Babylon that's mentioned here, there's something greater there.

And Babylon is typological. And what Isaiah is communicating here and it's communicated in other places of scripture is that Babylon raises its head all the time in many nations and many families and many hearts. And God is raising up His hand against the city of Babylon wherever it is. And he will destroy it wherever it comes up. And this is why you see the destruction of the nations of the world.

Has any nation lasted that's raised up its pride against God? No. And any nation that does has no hope at all. So Babylon is typological. It's symbolic of everything that arises out of the pride of man, first of all.

Secondly, Babylon is known by various expressions in the impulses of the autonomy of man that says Let us make a name for ourselves. You can know Babylon is working when this becomes your great great preoccupation To operate in the spirit of Babylon is to say, my will be done. It's to be unsatisfied with God and to be satisfied with the things of this world. To live a life, The life of Babylon is to set aside the Word of God for the sake of your own traditions. To live in Babylon is to exalt your own thoughts.

To live in Babylon is to make your way in the world your own way without the government of God. So Babylon, yes, it was a city, a real city in space and time, but it's also a city that gets built in the human heart. Because not only do you live in Babylon, Babylon lives in you. The spirit of Babylon legitimizes things that are clearly wrong. The spirit of Babylon calls good evil and evil good.

The spirit of Babylon exchanges the truth of God for a lie. The spirit of Babylon minimizes sin. It looks for security in this world. It's like a city that lives in your heart. In James Hamilton's commentary on the book of Revelation, as he speaks about Revelation 18, He speaks of Babylon in this way.

Do you feel good about yourself because the world respects you? Or do you feel good about yourself because you trust God in Jesus Christ and are united by Him in faith. Do you feel good about yourself because you think you can make a lot of money and ensure your future or do you feel good about yourself because you trust your Heavenly Father to meet all your needs because He is good and you can trust Him. Do you feel good about yourself because you know your agenda, you know your goals and you're chasing your dreams? Or do you feel good about yourself because you're seeking your joy and the joy of those you love and it feels so good to make sacrifices for them for their benefit.

Do you feel good about yourself because you have a sound mind and a strong body and you have great health insurance? Or do you feel good about yourself because the purpose of your life is to make much of Jesus and death will be gained to you because you will be in His presence and you are confident that He will raise your body to be the glorious body on that last day. Do you feel good about yourself because you have a great security system in your home, and you pack a weapon that you know how to use? Or do you feel good about yourself because you trust God's providential plan for you, and you're ready to preach the gospel every chance you get while you live? Well, Babylon is a city that lives in your heart, and it has a lot to say, and it has an awful lot to do.

But Isaiah is making it clear that God is going to completely destroy the city of Babylon. He destroys Babylon in so many different ways. He will destroy it in the final judgment. What we find in the record of Scripture regarding Babylon is that God is destroying Babylon progressively. And We don't even find that final destruction of Babylon in this passage.

We do find it though in the final judgment. But we find the principle of what God is doing with Babylon, and that He is destroying it. There's so many ways that God is at work to destroy Babylon in our hearts though. He sometimes does it through the preaching of the Word of God. He sometimes destroys it by the inner voice of the Holy Spirit in your conscience that convicts you of sin.

He may destroy it by the exposure of sin in your life through some confrontation of a brother or through communication by the church, or perhaps even excommunication, and you return to Him. He may destroy it in your life because someone else's sin was exposed. If someone else is caught and destroyed by something, you may be frightened yourself and you might turn from Babylon before your own destruction in that same way. We can give thanks to God that the things that hurt us the most, the things that disappoint us the most, God is in the process of destroying. He's in the business of destroying evil.

He's so kind. He takes us in our iniquity and He works with us day after day. He progressively is sanctifying, making holy, exposing our sins, pouring out His mercy upon us, teaching us His ways. The funny thing about the Christian life is you keep learning new things, keep learning new things about yourself. God shows you things you could not see before He's dealing with Babylon, because there's a city that lives inside of you.

And the threat isn't nearly so great in that city that is outside of you. It's that great city of Babylon that lives within. But God is kind. He will destroy the worldliness of the world. And He's glorifying Himself in the judgment of the wicked and the salvation of the repentant, because He hates evil.

And His desire is to comfort all those who have been hurt by the works of the devil. What a wonderful thing it is that God would come and He would relieve the suffering, He would heal the wounds progressively by one street in Babylon at a time. And so he's dealing with worldliness, the worldliness of the world. You know, when you go to Revelation 18, and I know that we're going to be dealing with Revelation 18 at some point, but I decided not to deal with it this morning. But if you go to Revelation 18 verse 4, you find really the heart of the matter.

And what I think might be one of the critical things that we should be saying week after week as we deal with Babylon in chapter 18 Verse 4 in Revelation, Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, lest you receive of her plagues. For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. To come out of her, to come out of Babylon, is such a critical thing And let's remember this Let Babylon remind us not to take worldliness so lightly because God will brutally deal with the worldliness of the world of Babylon. Her time has come and her days will not be prolonged. No one can escape God's judgment against Babylon in any way.

The second thing we see is in verses 3 and 5 where God's war against Babylon is explained. Verse 3, I have commanded my sanctified ones. I have also called my mighty ones for my anger, those who rejoice in my exaltation. The noise of the multitude in the mountains, like that of many people, a tumultuous noise in the kingdoms of the nations gathered together. The Lord of Hosts musters the army for battle.

They come from a far country, from the end of heaven, the Lord and his weapons of indignation to destroy the whole land." This is a picture of the Medes and the Persians gathered against Babylon, the city of Babylon in the ancient Near East. And the forces are gathered. And what's so remarkable about this gathering of forces is that in the midst of it is perhaps one of the most most vivid statements of the absolute sovereignty of God over all the nations and every person who ever lived. And he... Verse 3 is one of the clearest statements of his sovereignty.

He calls those who are attacking Babylon, my sanctified ones, mine. My mighty ones, they're mine. The Lord and His weapons of indignation. These ungodly forces are His weapons, sanctified, set aside, made mighty by him, weapons, made weapons of actual indignation. Isaiah has already said that Sennacherib is just an axe, that Assyrian king, that he's just a saw in the hand of God.

And now, and now he's saying that the Medes and the Persians are his sanctified, his mighty, and his weapons. And so this is another, another statement of the great sovereignty of God. Let me just say this again. You can never need to fear what happens in the nations. You never need to fear anything.

God appoints every mind to do what He desires it to do for his own purposes of glorifying himself. The Christian is safe in the world with God because we know that God is destroying the works of the devil and he's also deploying whatever he desires to destroy the works of the devil. God is in control of history. You know, you mothers and fathers, when you're teaching history to your children, make sure that you use it as an opportunity to praise God, to praise God that He has been the prime mover of every movement in history. It's a blessing to study history because you see the tracks of God.

Studying history shouldn't be a boring proposition where you're just dealing with dates and things like that. Well the dates matter because God is moving history along a line. But let's don't forget that God, God has raised up every nation. He's raised up every force in the world, and He is arranging it for His own glory. And He is arranging it to glorify Himself, to glorify His name in the destruction of Babylon.

And it should teach us here, this picture. Don't take worldliness lightly, because God can see the worldliness, and He will deal with it. And He'll deal with it with a vengeance. Thirdly here, As you are tracking in your outline, there's a call to wail. A call to wail is delivered in verse 6.

And there's a reason for the wailing. And it is the day of the Lord. This is a term that we've run into before. We'll run into it again in Isaiah. But this is actually a command to wail.

You know, Isaiah is seeing this happening, and he's commanding the victims to wail, to cry out. And it's an appropriate response, because God's judgment is hard. There's a time to mourn, and there's a time to laugh, and there's also a time to wail at God's vanquishing judgment against the wicked. And the reason it's given, the Day of the Lord is at hand. Now, the Day of the Lord is not the result of some random forces that are created by the whims of strategic military thinkers, but rather God who is in control of history.

It's God who appoints his days of judgment and vengeance. The Day of the Lord is figurative and it has happened many times in the history of the world. Every incidence of the day of the Lord points to a greater day of the Lord. So, you know, whenever you see various days of the Lord that are announced in Scripture, recognize that they really are precursors. There are four tastes of that great day of the Lord at the end of the age.

They all tell you something about that great day. And so they're important for us to understand. The day of the Lord was when the Northern Kingdom was destroyed by Sennacherib of the Assyrians. A second is the Babylonians being destroyed here, which is being spoken of here. Perhaps the fall of Jerusalem is another day of the Lord.

Anytime God intervenes in history to judge his enemies, points to that great and final day of the Lord. And so, this, what Isaiah is saying is, wail for the day of the Lord is coming. Psalm 37 says that the Lord laughs at the wicked because he sees his day coming. And that's why we should never take the worldliness of the world lightly, because God will brutally deal with worldliness. We also see the frightening experiences that are documented here beginning in verse 7 all the way to the end of the chapter.

This is the longest section in the passage. Now I'm going to identify 14 distinct experiences that describe God's brutality toward the worldliness of the world. I think you can probably find a few more. I've just boiled them down to 14. And the first is in verse 7.

Therefore, all hands will be limp, every man's heart will melt, and they will be afraid. Now each one of these contain language that connects to other places in Scripture where God is declaring His destruction over the works of the devil. If you look at the language here, you'll find it will take you to many, many places. I wish we had time to draw these lines and walk down these trails. We can't, but Just know that the language that's used here of the judgments takes you to other places in scripture.

But the confidence turns to weakness here in this day of judgment. And The Bible melting is almost always associated with some level of fear or discouragement or doom. Like in Psalm 68 verse 2, the psalmist says, As wax melts before the fire, so let the wicked perish before God. There's much to say about melting in the Bible. In Psalm 46, verse 6, it says that the nations raged, the kingdoms were moved.

He uttered his voice. The earth melted. The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge. We see it in Isaiah chapter 19 in the burden against Egypt, where the heart of Egypt will melt. We see it also in Nineveh in Nahum chapter 2, where we read, She is empty, desolate and waste.

The heart melts and the knees shake. Much pain is in every side and all their faces are drained with color." This is what God will do to the pride of Babylon. You find it in Exodus chapter 15. You find it in Joshua chapter 5, where their heart melted. Neither was their spirit in them anymore because of the children of Israel.

This was fear in the face of the children of Israel. In 2 Peter chapter 3, verse 10, we read, the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. There is this melting that will go on in the judgment. God's vanquishing hatred towards sin and the defilements of Babylon and the harm that Babylon has done to every person in the world has an enemy. God.

God is the enemy of Babylon. Second, you see that health turns to pain. Verse 8, Pangs and sorrow take hold of them. They will be in pain as a woman in childbirth. They will be amazed at one another.

Their faces will be like flames. These sorrows are taking hold, literally possessing them. There's this almost inexpressible grief and distress and anguish and regret and loss that takes place. Their faces will be like flames, just redder than red, almost in flames, because we know that bodies will be in hell And the flames will be there, but their bodies will seem to be intact, their eyes and their frame will still be there even in the flames. Then you see the cruelty that turns to destruction here in verse 9 behold the day of the Lord comes cruel With both wrath and fierce anger to lay the land desolate and he will destroy its sinners from it You know when you play around with Babylon When you when you like Babylon's entertainments when you like Babylon's ethic and its economy and its pride and its lust, you need to recognize what that means.

What does it mean? Cruel, with both wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate. He will destroy its sinners from it. God is in the business of destroying sin. And His hand is stretched out still here in this passage.

Don't believe the lie that God hates the sinner and loves the sinner. The Bible makes it clear that He hates sinners, and He hates those who rebel against him. Psalm 5 says, you hate all those who do iniquity. Psalm 11 says, the Lord hates the wicked and those who love violence. In Proverbs 6, he says, there are six things which the Lord hates, and one of those is a person, it's a kind of person.

He hates the false witness who utters lies and spreads strife among brethren. Here's the truth. God hates the sin, number one. Number two, God hates the sinner. But number three, God loves the sinner and calls him to repentance.

Yes, he does love and he does hate at the same time. And that is how he calls sinners to repentance. And so we should not take the worldliness of the world lightly, because God will deal brutally with it. Next we see Number five, the light gives way to darkness, verse 10. For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light.

The sun will be darkened and it's going forth, and the moon will not cause its light to shine. This is figurative language of the judgment of God. You find it all over in scripture. When we get to verse 13, we'll see it again. We'll talk about it in a little bit more detail, though.

But This is figurative language of the judgment of God. You find it all over in scripture. When we get to verse 13, we'll see it again. We'll talk about it in a little bit more detail, though. But this is figurative language of the end of Babylon.

You see it in Joel chapter 2, for the day of the Lord is coming, for it is at hand, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, like the morning clouds spread over the mountains. In other words, this imagery of these things happening in the heavens, it describes the brutality of God's judgment against Babylon historically in the ancient Near East. It was like that. So God uses this kind of language figuratively to explain His wrath. Peter in Acts 2 says the day of Pentecost was just like that.

He said, this is that. He goes back to Joel 2. He quotes Joel 2. And he says, I will show wonders in the heavens and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord and it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved Peter says this that's happening on the day of Pentecost is that it's that same thing so it's a figurative it's figurative language fulfilled in the gospel number six the proud will be laid low verse 11 I will punish the world for its evil.

That's one of the most astonishing statements, I think, in the Bible. I will punish the world for its evil. It's so profoundly stated. And the wicked for their iniquity. I will halt the arrogance of the proud, and I will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.

That means that God will deal with every sinner. Every secret sin will be punished. And He will deal with every sinner. God has it in such a way that there will be a day when He will finally remove the very last sinner from the earth in the final judgment. Until then, he deals with it in different ways throughout history.

Number seven, men will be killed and scarce, in verse 12. I will make the mortal more rare than fine gold, a man more than the golden wedge of Ophir. In other words, you just can't find them, you just can't find the men for the economy or for really anything to do. They're dead, they're gone. This is a picture of final judgment.

Many are called, but few are chosen. Number eight, the violence in the heavens and on the earth will be seen in verse 13. Therefore I will shake the heavens and the earth will move out of her place in the wrath of the Lord of hosts and in the day of his fierce anger. Again, he's speaking, he's speaking primarily of that physical battle where the Medes and the Persians come in and destroy Babylon, and it will be like that. Haggai speaks of this, Haggai chapter 2 verse 6, and in Hebrews chapter 12 verses 25-29 we see the same thing in the latter days.

He's speaking the entire age from the first coming of Christ to the second. He says in Hebrews chapter 12, to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks of better things than of Abel, see that you do not refuse him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused him who spoke on the earth much more shall we not escape if we turn away from him who speaks from heaven whose voice then shook the earth but now has promised saying Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also heaven. Now this, yet once more, indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace by which we may serve acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire.

This shaking takes place as a result of the power of the gospel. Number nine, the hunted are fleeing in verse 14, and it shall be the hunted, and it shall be as the hunted gazelle, and as the sheath that no man takes up. Every man will turn to his own people and everyone will flee to his own land. Number 10, there's rampant killing in verse 15. Everyone who is found will be thrust through and everyone who is captured will fall by the sword.

You see the brutality of the violence that's connected with the fury of God. God is judging Babylon and at minimum it should make us be very careful not to take our worldliness too lightly. Number 11. Families are plundered and defiled and killed. Verse 16.

Their children also will be dashed to pieces before their eyes. Their houses will be plundered and their wives ravished. You know, in Babylon they were sacrificing their children to Molech, they were plundering and committing immorality, and God is bringing the same judgment upon them that they judged others with. And you'll see this pattern also in these two chapters, and particularly when you get to Revelation chapter 18, you'll see that God punishes his sinners the same way that they did evil in the world. When you get to different passages, you find God punishes double.

Sometimes He punishes seven-fold. But what we learn is that we are punished for the things that we have done as well. In Revelation 13, 10, it says, He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity. He who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. Number 12, the ferocity and the single mindedness of the Medes.

In verse 17, Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them. Now, the attacker, the temporal attacker is identified, the Medes. He names the nation that will destroy the Babylonian Empire 189 years previous to its destruction. But this attacker is fierce. They will not regard silver, and as for gold, they will not delight in it.

In other words, you cannot bribe them, you can't give them any booty, you can't do anything to turn them away. Nothing will stop their hand. And this is a principle really of God's wrath. Nothing will stop it. We've already heard Isaiah said, his hand is raised up still.

This is the complete destruction of the kingdom of the Medes and the Persians. Number 13 in verses 19 through 20, you see how it all comes down. And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans' pride, will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah." So God is crushing them because of their pride. And then number 14, finally, the 14th picture of his wrath. Babylon becomes uninhabited.

Verses 20-22. It will never be inhabited, verse 20, nor will it be settled from generation to generation, nor will the Arabian pitch tents there, nor will the shepherds make their sheepfolds there. But wild beasts of the desert will lie there, and their houses will be full of owls, ostriches will dwell there, and wild goats will caper there, The hyenas will howl in their citadels and jackals in their pleasant places. Her time is near to come and her days will not be prolonged." Now this destruction took place in stages. And there's much that we could say about it.

We could talk about how Saddam Hussein tried to re- he believed he was the incarnation of Nebuchadnezzar and he had been trying to rebuild Babylon and what happened to him. You remember the last image in the news? He was in a hole being captured. No one who raises itself up like Babylon survives. He had such pomp, he had millions of bricks made with an inscription on them, and they started cracking within ten years But it will not it will not sustain Okay, I want to give you some applications these applications are in the form of questions.

Number one, are you polluted by the worldliness of Babylon? Are you, have you been polluted by the worldliness of Babylon? We know the answer to that is yes, because not only is Babylon a city in the ancient Near East, it's a city that lives inside of us. The pollutions of the world, the compromises. And the appeal really here has come out of Babylon.

You know, Can you see the works of Babylon, the works of pride in your heart? This is perhaps one of the most important questions when we consider Babylon. Are you polluted by the warliness of Babylon? And do you hate the pollutions there? Do you hate the poisons?

Are you drinking them? Do you like them? If you like them, be terrified. Do not underestimate God's wrath against the pollutions of Babylon. You've just seen such a remarkable description of it.

Question number two. Are you loving God's glory more than your own glory? Are you loving God's glory more than your own glory? Babylon is about glory. Babylon is about pride.

And what we find here in Isaiah 13 and 14 is that God is exalting His glory in His judgment. And what we find is this theme runs throughout here. God created the world for His own glory. He didn't create it for my glory or your glory. We are just creatures useful for the declaring of God's glory.

And often we lose our way because we think we are so important in this world. In Isaiah 16, 14, the glory of Moab will be despised. In 17, chapter 4, the glory of Jacob will wane. In chapter 21, all the glory of Kedar will come to an end. You know, Isaiah has already asked in chapter 10 verse 3, what will you do in the day of your visitation?

Where will you leave your glory? Where will you leave your glory? In Isaiah 43 he says, But now says the Lord who created you, O Jacob, and He who formed you, fear not, I have called you by name." And then he says, everyone who is called by my name, whom I have created for my glory, I have formed him, yes, I have made him. We were made for the glory of God. And Babylon is all about the glory of the man and the woman and the nation.

So the question is, are you loving God's glory more than your own glory. So many of our problems come from that one issue. How many marriage problems come from that problem right there, of loving your glory more than God's glory? How many problems in your business have come because of that? Or in your family, or anywhere?

In your own soul? Question number three. Are you getting your satisfaction from Babylon? Are you getting your satisfaction from Babylon? Are you getting your satisfaction from Babylon?

Is that where you get your needs met? Is that the lake from which you want to drink? I'll quote James Hamilton again in his commentary on Revelation. Are you going to a spiritual prostitute for your safety, security, health, purpose, provision for the future, and self-esteem? Because Babylon, as we know, is the harlot.

She is the prostitute. And what happens with the people of God is that they often go to the harlot. It's difficult to talk about Babylon without talking about spiritual harlotry, and then going to that prostitute to get your needs met. Going into her streets, finding joy in her entertainments, going up and opening her doors, and drinking her water and breathing her air, getting your satisfaction from Babylon. You know, The satisfactions of Babylon have so many names, we would fail to try to name them.

But it really comes down to the disposition of the heart. Do you love the sweet things of God, or do you long for the pollutions of Babylon and they taste good enough for you because everybody knows That when you drink a Babylon you get hurt. Everybody knows that. Number four. Are you taking comfort in God's glorifying himself in judgment?

Like, is it okay with you that God is going to judge? Is it okay with you that God will so vanquishingly destroy the wicked? Have you reconciled yourself that God is good in the judgment of the wicked? Now, the Christian does understand that because they see how their crucified Savior and all of His sufferings, the punishments of sin that were laid upon Him, they see God's kindness in judgment. They see that it's mercy that has judged His Son, and all of our sins have been laid upon Him.

They can see that, and so they can find comfort in God's judgment. But God is comforting his people through his judgment. You know, Luther said, Through this world with devils filled, Shall threaten to undo us. We will not fear, for God has willed his truth to triumph through us the prince of darkness Grim we tremble not for him his rage We can't endure for lo his doom is sure one little word Shall fell him you know we can we can give we can give so much thanks for God's judgment, because, you know, the devil is destroying souls. The devil is deceiving nations.

The devil is wrecking churches. He will be judged for that. He is tearing marriages asunder. He's breaking hearts. He's murdering babies.

He's killing joy. He's discouraging hearts. He's wasting lives in frivolity. He's driving to insanity. He's suppressing the truth.

And this is what God is destroying. God is coming to destroy the works of the devil because of his love. In every act of judgment is also a commensurate act of mercy and love. You cannot have justice without love, and you cannot have love without justice. And that's the picture that we see here, that God is pouring out His mercy on the world in the judgment of the wicked.

These tidings of doom are also tidings of comfort, because the prophet here is delivering news of Babylon's doom. And you can have so much comfort to know that God is destroying the works of the devil in your life. If you've turned to Him, He is destroying the works of the devil. He started a work in you, He's going to complete it until the day of Christ. You know, this passage is so frightening about judgment, it should encourage us to know what God is doing.

He is dealing with sin, but He's removing the poisons, and He's taking away the works of the devil, because God is so good. And He's declaring His domination of all things, including these governments of the world. Another question, are you ready to face the wrath of God's anger? Does the wrath of God abide on you? John 3.36 says, He who believes in the Son has everlasting life, and he who does not believe in the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him." Because the truth about the whole universe, the truth about your life and my life, is that there is wrath.

There is wrath for every person, and it either rests upon you or it rests upon His Son, Jesus Christ. Because the wrath of God will be satisfied. He will justify the wicked through an act of judgment. And the wrath of God always rests on every human being in one way or another. And either you've escaped the wrath of God because you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

All people are born with inborn sin, And there's a stain that nothing can take away except the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ who was born sinless so that His sinless life would be laid upon you. He kept the law because you could not keep it. And he died on the cross, and he became the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Because the wrath of God is against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

But whoever believes in the Son, the wrath of God does not abide on him." And so we should be very careful here as we go through these chapters on Babylon, that we should not take the worldliness of the world or the worldliness in the city of our own heart lightly, because God will brutally deal with that worldliness. Her time is near to come. Her days will not be prolonged. I want to close with a psalm, And I think it brings out some of the most encouraging aspects of this whole proposition that Isaiah is bringing against Babylon. Psalm 25, verse 15.

My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for he shall pluck my feet out of the net. Turn yourself to me and have mercy on me, for I am desolate and afflicted. The troubles of my heart have enlarged. Bring me out of my distresses. Look upon my affliction and pain and forgive all my sins.

Consider my enemies, for they are many, and they hate me with a cruel hatred. Keep my soul and deliver me. Let me not be ashamed for I put my trust in you. Let integrity and uprightness preserve me. I wait for you.

Redeem Israel, O Lord, out of all their troubles." Isaiah is making it very plain that there is a city called Babylon and it's a city of troubles. But God is in the midst of that city and He is dealing with the defilements and the troubles of those people who love Him. And He will destroy the works of the devil. He will destroy the works of the devil in your life, and He will destroy the works of the devil in your church life. And there will be one day when he will completely destroy the works of the devil and he will remove the very last sinner from the earth and he will either justify him by the blood of Jesus Christ or destroy Him in hell forever.

So what you see in the Gospel is you see both the judgment of God and the mercy of God. They exist side by side. There's love in judgment and there's judgment in love. And the promise of Isaiah 13 is that God is going to destroy the works of the devil in your life. And I pray that we can have a Sabbath day that's so consistent with meditating upon that.

Would you pray with me? Lord, Lord, thank you for your exalting yourself in judgment. Oh Lord, that you would open up our eyes to see the Babylon that is in our hearts, that you would help us to turn from every prideful way of Babylon, that we would hate the works of the devil, that we would, Lord, that we would set aside the things that hurt us. We thank you, Lord, that you have such love for us, to destroy the things that have harmed us, to come against the things that have defiled us, to come and deliver us from our fears and our poisons that exist in our souls. Oh Lord, I thank you for your love.

I thank you for your judgment. I thank you that they exist together for your own glory. Amen.