Doom of Babylon, cont.

Isaiah 47: 3-4.

³ Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and I will not meet thee as a man.

⁴ As for our Redeemer, the Lord of Hosts is His name, the Holy One of Israel.

⁵ Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called, The lady of kingdoms.

Again, nakedness is a mark of shame and humiliation. The last clause in verse 3 indicates that Babylon won’t be allowed to stop or oppose the Divine vengeance.

Verse 4, in the middle of the prediction of Babylon’s destruction, is a reminder that the Israelites had a Redeemer, but the Babylonians did not.

In verse 5, Babylon is pictured as sitting in the silence of darkness, in sorrow and humiliation instead of having the distinction of being “The lady of kingdoms.”  Sitting in darkness was a sign of mourning,

 

Streams in the Desert

Isaiah 35:3-6. “Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees.  Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence;  He will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongues of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.”

Continuing on the theme of restoration, peace, and healing, Isaiah gives encouragement to the people  who will have suffered so terribly under Antichrist. The whole world will have suffered, but the Jews in particular would have been the objects of his wrath.

In the Millennium, all that will be over. Isaiah speaks of encouraging each other; and of putting fear aside. He describes the changes in the land itself when Messiah reigns from Jerusalem.  He talks about physical healing for God’s people, and promises God’s vengeance on those who persecuted them.

You may wonder if the Israelites thought Isaiah’s words applied to their immediate circumstances. If they were paying attention, they knew that Isaiah’s words spoke of the far future because he was using the Hebrew prophetic verb tense.

None of the prophecies in this chapter have as yet been fulfilled. They are Millennial prophecies, to take place in the time after the Great Tribulation and the Battle of Armageddon have ended; Jesus will have returned to earth and dealt  with Antichrist and his armies, and the whole world can then join in singing, “Joy to the World, the Lord has Come!”

 

The Day of the Lord

Isaiah 34:7-8. “And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls: and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness.  For it is the day of the Lord, a vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion.”

The word unicorn means a wild bull, buffalo, antelope, or rhinoceros in the several places where it is used in scripture.  It does not refer to the mythical animal we think of today.

The armies of Antichrist will be sacrificed like animals. It will be a terrible reckoning because of the controversies over Jerusalem and Israel.

The day of the Lord  is the Second Advent, when He returns to earth to defeat Antichrist and set up His kingdom on earth for 1000 years.

 

Retaliation

Matthew 5: 38-42. “Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.”

How about a little humor for a rather heavy topic?  This little boy colored the Sunday funnies every week when I was a kid.  He’s a classic, kind of like Charlie Brown. I loved the expression on Mr. Wilson’s face.  That must be the way a lot of people feel when we choose not to retaliate, but to forgive.  Shock, chagrin, and maybe a little dread. 

This is quite an interesting passage to study.  I’m using three sources today; one is Gaebelein’s Matthew, and the other two are Bible commentaries, especially my trusty old Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible.

Do you know that this passage goes against our grain so strongly that we’ve been trying to explain it away ever since Jesus first uttered the words?  We don’t like it.  We want to get even when someone harms us.  Everyone’s favorite motto is, “I don’t get mad; I get even.” The trouble with that is, who gets to decide what “even” means?  You?  The other guy?  A neutral third party?  

In my experience, getting even usually means getting on top.  It’s always a one-up, one-down situation.  The Hatfields and the McCoys are often used as examples of the futility of getting even.   You can read all about them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatfield%E2%80%93McCoy_feud

The Hatfield Clan.

I wonder what would have happened if, instead of being taught to kill each other, babies in these families had been taught to love each other, to forgive? 

So what’s really going on here with this eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth business? 

The Old Testament law permitted, but did not require, that if you were harmed or your property were harmed, you could retaliate only in kind. If you lost an eye in some kind of altercation, you could not demand that the other guy lose his eye, his hand, and his foot. Only his eye. The same held true in matters of property.  Restitution could be demanded, but only in accordance with the loss. 

Now, Jesus is saying there’s a new and better way for the citizens of the kingdom to deal with matters that used to be considered matters of retaliation.  He  says we are not to resist evil, but to forgive. We are not to insist on dire and dreadful punishment, but only that which is necessary to maintain law and order in the land. There will always be evil-doers among us. We can’t just close our eyes and say, “Well, I can’t get even. I have to forgive, no matter what.”  We have an odd understanding of forgiveness these days that leads us to believe we must continue to accept mistreatment. Not so, and that’s a subject we’ll get into in Chapter 6. 

What Jesus is teaching here is that we must not be revengeful. “Resist not evil” means we are not to seek vengeance, not render evil for evil; not bear a grudge nor avenge ourselves.  We must go beyond them by forgiving them. 

Remember when you were a kid and your sibling whacked you a good one?  Did you fight back?  I sure did!  “He started it!”  isn’t the approach Jesus is teaching here, partly because it always leads to “Did not! Did too!”  He’s teaching that he who forgives goes beyond the one who wants to pick a fight. He chooses the better path, sets the better example, and demonstrates the character of Christ. 

It took me a long, long time to figure this out.  Even now, as old and crochety as I am, my old nature wants to retaliate.  It’s not worth it, and I know it’s not worth it. But, boy, does that old habit of going on the attack rise quickly in my heart!

Instead of revenge, we need to cultivate love and kindness toward those around us.  We can’t be stupid about it. We need to listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit in this environment of entitlement, but we need to be beneficent where and when we can. 

Sometimes, that just means choosing the high road of forgiveness over the low road of revenge. 

 

 

In Flaming Fire

II Thess. 8a. “In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God. . .”

This is a picture of a holy, righteous, and just God that we would much rather replace with the gracious, loving, and merciful One Who gave us His Son.  In our limited human understanding, we find it difficult to reconcile the one with the other. We have to always keep in mind that above all else, He is holy (Isaiah 6:3). If you were to do a study of the word holy and all that it entails, you would find that His holiness sets the parameters for all His other attributes. His holiness must be satisfied; that is why He gave us Jesus.  His holiness cannot tolerate any sin, no matter how small we may think it.  Because of His holiness, the only view He can have of us is through the blood of Jesus. 

The flaming fire in this verse is the instrument of His vengeance. Again, we have to make an effort to think of vengeance not as a petty human reaction to hurt feelings or loss. It is the righteous reaction of a righteous judge on those who have dared to reject Him, to “boo” Him as some Americans so recently did; to treat Him with contempt and utter disrespect.  I actually felt sick when I saw a photo of someone at the DNC carrying a sign that said, “If Jesus comes back, crucify him again!”  This vengeance will be a completely holy, righteous and deserved reaction to that kind of outrageous  blasphemy. 

The fire that is mentioned is not used here to picture the instrument of destruction of the ungodly. Instead, it describes the returning Lord encircled, clothed, with a fiery robe, like a flame leaping and blazing around Him.  In the Old Testament, theophanies (appearances of God) were often accompanied by the presence of fire (Ex. 3:2, 19:18, 24:17; Ps. 18:12; Is. 30:27-30; Dan. 7:9-10). The fire shows His divine majesty, and His indignation against sin.  Ascribing the same fire to Jesus makes it crystal clear Who He is; His return will be a terrible sight for His enemies. 

John 5:22 tells us that “the Father. . .hath committed all judgment unto the Son.” That is, He has given the authority to be the righteous Judge to His Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus will judge (decide, recognize) those who have rejected the Father, and His judgment will inflict full justice on unbelievers, giving them all, but no more, than their guilt deserves. 

Harsh? Yes, but no more harsh than rejecting the overwhelming love of the Father, or than attributing the works of Jesus to Satan, which is the unforgivable sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Mark 3:28-29). In a society that wants to be tolerant of sin that God has clearly forbidden, wanting to call deliberate sinful choices “mistakes” that can be overlooked, we have forgotten that God, the righteous Judge, cannot tolerate our sin. At all. Ever. 

Thank God for His Son, Who has provided salvation and redemption for us. To reject Him is to risk everything.