Crystallization-Study of Jeremiah and Lamentations
Message Nine
God's Judgment upon Egypt and Babylon
Scripture Reading: Jer. 46:2-28; 50:1, 8-16; 51:6-9, 24-25, 28-37, 44-45, 58-64
I. The book of Jeremiah presents a picture of God's coming in to punish and judge the nations, which typify aspects of the world—46:2; 47:1; 48:1; 49:1, 7, 23, 28, 34; 50:1:
A. In speaking concerning the nations, Jeremiah mentions Egypt first (46:2-28) and Babylon last (chs. 50—51):
1. This indicates that, in God's view, the world is first Egyptian and then Babylonian.
2. According to the picture in the book of Jeremiah, the last nation to be judged is Babylon; when God judges Babylon, His judgment of the nations will be complete.
B. For the accomplishment of God's economy, the church, God's New Testament elect, must be separated from the world in all its aspects—John 17:14, 16; Rom. 12:2; 1 John 2:15-17.
II. Jeremiah 46:2-28 speaks concerning God's judgment on Egypt:
A. Egypt typifies the world of making a living and of enjoyment, with which Satan, the ruler of the world, typified by Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt, occupies and usurps the people chosen by God for His economy—Gen. 12:10; 41:57—42:3; Num. 11:4-6; Heb. 11:25; John 12:31:
1. The nation of Egypt signifies the kingdom of darkness, the authority of dark ness—Col. 1:13; Matt. 12:26.
2. The world is not a source of enjoyment; it is a place of tyranny, and every aspect of the world is a form of tyranny—Gal. 4:8.
3. In the world Satan is keeping God's chosen people, those des-tined for the ful fillment of God's purpose, under his usurping hand—Eph. 2:2; Luke 13:11-12:
a. To exist is one thing, but to exist for the divine purpose is another thing—Rom. 8:28; Eph. 1:11; 3:11; 2 Tim. 1:9.
b. Satan has usurped people so that they care only for their existence, not for God's purpose in their existence—Matt. 6:25, 31-33.
4. One aspect of God's purpose in calling us is to use us to bring others out of the usurpation and tyranny of Satan and the world—Acts 26:18; Eph. 3:9.
B. The world is an evil system arranged systematically by Satan— 1 John 2:15-17; James 4:4:
1. God created man to live on the earth for the fulfillment of His purpose, but His enemy, Satan, in order to usurp the God-created man, formed an anti-God world system on this earth by systematizing people with culture, education, indus-try, com merce, entertainment, and religion—Eph. 3:11; Gen. 1:26-28; 2:8-9; 4:16-24.
2. All the things on the earth, especially those related to man-kind, and all the things in the air have been systematized by Satan into his kingdom of darkness to occupy people and frus trate them from accomplishing the purpose of God and to distract them from the enjoyment of God—1 John 2:15-17.
3. The world is against God the Father, the things in the world are against the will of God, and those who love the world are enemies of God—vv. 15-17; James 4:4.
4. "The whole world," the satanic system, "lies in the evil one"— 1 John 5:19:
a. The whole world comprises the satanic world system and the people of the world, the fallen human race.
b. Lies means remaining passively in the sphere of the evil one's usurpa tion and manipulation; the whole world and the people of the world are lying passively under the usurp-ing and manipulating hand of Satan, the evil one.
c. The Greek word rendered "evil" in 1 John 5:19 refers to one who is per nicious, harmfully evil, one who affects others, influencing them to be evil and vicious; such an evil one is Satan, the devil, in whom the whole world lies.
5. Satan is utilizing the material world and the things that are in the world to eventually head everything up in the king-dom of Antichrist; at that hour the world system will have reached its zenith, and every unit of it will be revealed to be anti- Christian—2 Thes. 2:3-12.
6. Satan's evil world system, the kingdom of darkness, was judged through Christ's work on the cross—John 12:31-32; 16:11:
a. Through His death on the cross in the likeness of the flesh of sin, the Lord destroyed Satan, who is in man's flesh— Rom. 8:3; Heb. 2:14.
b. By judging Satan in this way, the Lord also judged the world, which is hanging on Satan—John 16:11.
c. The Lord's being lifted up on the cross caused the world to be judged and its ruler, Satan, to be cast out—12:31-32.
III. Jeremiah 50 and 51 speak concerning God's judgment on Bab ylon:
A. Babylon began from Babel—Gen. 10:8-10:
1. At Babel Satan caused the human race to rebel against God, to worship idols, and to exalt man's self; thus, Babel was the origin, the source, of man's rebellion against God, man's wor-ship of idols, and human self-exaltation—11:1-9.
2. Babel had its continuation in Babylon, which, in the sight of God, is the consummation of human government—Jer. 50:1; Dan. 2:32-34:
a. Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, was even identified with Satan as Satan's embodiment—Isa. 14:4, 11-15.
b. Babylon destroyed God's holy city and His holy temple and carried God's holy people and the vessels of God's temple into captivity—2 Chron. 36:17-20.
B. In Revelation 17 and 18 the restored Roman Empire is called Bab-ylon the Great, which has two aspects—religious and material:
1. Revelation 17 is an unveiling of religious Babylon—the apos-tate Roman Catholic Church:
a. In the eyes of God the Roman Catholic Church, which per-petuates much of Judaism and has assimilated much of paganism, is Babylon.
b. The harlot in 17:1 is the apostate Roman Catholic Church.
c. Because God hates the apostate church, at the beginning of the great tribulation God will cause Antichrist and his ten kings to destroy the Roman Catholic Church—vv. 16-17.
2. Revelation 18 is an unveiling of material Babylon—the city of Rome:
a. In Revelation 17 and 18 two aspects of Babylon—the reli-gious aspect and the material aspect—are mixed together:
1) The harlot in 17:16 denotes religious Babylon, signifying the Roman Catholic Church, whereas the woman in verse 18 denotes material Babylon, signifying the city of Rome.
2) Since Babylon the Great is twofold, to come out of her means to come out of both religious Babylon and mate-rial Babylon—18:4.
b. Material Babylon, the city of Rome, will become hateful in the eyes of God because it has been the source of both devilish politics and devilish religion—vv. 6-8, 20-24.
c. Christ as another Angel will shine over the earth to de-stroy Babylon the Great, the city of Rome, with His great authority—vv. 1-2.
C. The principle of Babylon is mixing the things of man with the Word of God, and the things of the flesh with the things of the Spirit—17:1-5:
1. Babylon is the mixture of the things of God with the things of idols:
a. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon burned the house of God in Jerusalem, and he carried away all the vessels in God's house for God's worship and put them in the temple of his idols in Babylon—2 Chron. 36:6-7; Ezra 1:11.
b. In the New Testament this mixture is enlarged with the great Babylon—Rev. 17:3-5.
2. We must come out of every situation where man's power is mixed with God's power, where man's ability is mixed with God's work, and where man's opinion is mixed with God's word—18:4, footnote 1.
D. Babylon the Great will have two falls—the fall of religious Bab-ylon and the fall of material Babylon—14:8; 18:2:
1. The fall of religious Babylon will take place at the beginning of the great tribulation—17:16-17.
2. The fall of material Babylon will take place at the end of the great tribu lation—18:2, 21.
3. The praise in 19:1-4 is related not mainly to the fall of mate-rial Babylon but to the fall of religious Babylon, because in the eyes of God religious Babylon is more hateful than material Babylon.
E. God will judge Babylon to such an extent that nothing of Babylon will remain in the universe:
1. Both Isaiah and Jeremiah prophesied that once Babylon has been destroyed, it will not be restored—Isa. 14:22-23; Jer. 50:39; 51:62.
2. When God destroys both the religious and the political Bab-ylon at the end of the age, that will be the end of the judgment on Babylon prophesied in chapters 50 and 51.
3. Babylon the Great will be destroyed, removed from the earth, and cast into the lake of fire, and the New Jerusalem will be brought in to be the prominent center of God's eternal king-dom in the new heaven and new earth—Rev. 11:15; 21:2, 10-11.