God's Timing

 Jeremiah 51:33-48

What happens when Zion complains against Babylon’s treatment of its land and its people to the LORD?  Questions that we must ponder; when did they enter this complaint, was it at the beginning of the seventy years of captivation or the middle or was it just days before the Lord tells them He is going to plead their case?  If you're part of the American church that has a doctrine of “Name it and Claim it” you have a mindset of it had to be one short prayer, and God shows up to do your bidding, and that’s just garbage!  

But this is encouraging, God heard and responded, and He was on time for He always will be.  And the Lord is going to plead their case, and even today the same Lord is pleading your case before His Father.  Babylon’s waters are going to dry up, I not sure what all that means but maybe the Euphrates and Tigris rivers were going to be rerouted.  But this I do know that’s no big deal for our great and mighty God.  God declared that Babylon would become a heap of rubble and a den for jackals.  And Babylon will be given a feast, following which she will fall asleep forever. 

The Lord declares that Babylon will become a horror among the nations, in that she is desolate, dry and arid land, a land where no one lives.  And what about her little god Bel and her high walls 12 feet thick and with a lane 23 feet wide between it and the inner wall, which was 21 feet thick.  The walls had towers that rose from the walls every 60 feet, and outside the walls, a moat-like ditch was bricked and filled with water from the Euphrates River.

It seems clear to my mind that in that day this was a very secure place, a place where one might put their faith, and it is misplaced faith, and that always brings one into judgment with a holy God.  How about you, have you put your confidence in what looks secured, something that will guard and fortify?  The something may be your skills, your mind, your ability to make money, or it might be in the military, or even your family?  But the wall came down, and Bel did not show up to save the people of Babylon, and now all they believed in has fallen.

God’s message then and now, “Go out of the midst of her, my people!
Let every one save his life from the fierce anger of the Lord!  Let not your heart faint, and be not fearful at the report heard in the land, when a report comes in one year and afterward a report in another year, and violence is in the land, and ruler is against ruler.  “Therefore, behold, the days are coming when I will punish the images of Babylon; her whole land shall be put to shame, and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her.”

After the death of Nebuchadnezzar, his sons had feuds and revolts and killed off each other; this is what God was referring to.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice