WEDNESDAY 25TH APRIL, 2018 MORNING PRAYER DEVOTION
SCRIPTURE READING:- GENESIS 11
TOPIC:– BABYLON MUST FALL
TEXT:- DANIEL 4:30
Babylon means Babel; confusion; mixture; gate of god. Babylon is same as Babel. The Hebrew word for “confused” is babal, which sounds like Babylon. The Greek form of Babel, meaning “The gate of god”.
Babylon first appears in the Bible under the guise of the tower of Babel. The great evil of the tower builders is their sinful pride against the rule of God. See Genesis 11.
Also during the reign of Hezekiah, envoys from Babylon came to Jerusalem. The prophet Isaiah chastised the king for showing off the treasures of Judah and predicted that Babylon would someday carry these riches off. See 2 Kings 20:12-19.
The postexilic reader would have seen the roots of the destruction of Jerusalem in the foolish pride of Hezekiah and in the greed of Babylon. The prophets describe Babylon as a city of pride and idolatry. Yet the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon presents the prophets with a dilemma.
If God is sovereign and makes use of Babylon to punish Judah, can Babylonans a tool in the hand of its Master be blamed for its behavior? Isaiah addresses this problem by portraying Babylon as a woman, the queen of kingdoms, who should be tender and delicate but is not. See Isaiah 47:5.
God gave his people over into her power, but rather than caring for them she has shown them no mercy. This is a result of her overweening pride, evidenced in her statement that “I am, and there is none besides me,” Isaiah 47:8.
Although the conquest of Jerusalem is in keeping with the will of God, the brutality and greed of the conquerors the fruit of Babylon’s idolatry and failure to recognize the kingship of God are not. Because of Babylon’s pride, she will be destroyed. Psalm 137 personifies Babylon as a woman who is doomed to destruction and whose infant children will be savagely killed.
Daniel reinforces the picture of Babylon as full of pride and defiance toward God. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, is punished with madness because he denied God’s control over “Babylon the Great”, Daniel 4:30.
Centuries after the destruction of the Neo-Babylonian state by Cyrus of Persia, Babylon reappears in a dramatic role in the Book of Revelation a role marked by numerous references to Old Testament imagery. Pride, idolatry, cruelty, and greed are associated with the city. The dominant image of Babylon in Revelation is the city’s personification of a rich woman, the “mother of prostitutes”, Daniel 17:5.
Under Nebuchadnezzar, it became one of the most splendid cities of the ancient world. After passing through various vicissitudes, the city was occupied by Cyrus, “king of Elam,” B.C. 538, who issued a decree permitting the Jews to return to their own land, Ezra 1.
It then ceased to be the capital of an empire. It was again and again visited by hostile armies, till its inhabitants were all driven from their homes, and the city became a complete desolation, its very site being forgotten. So, I declared, your Babylon must fall, in the name of Jesus Christ!
Prayer Points:-
1. O Lord God as you shut up the mouth of the lion for Daniel in Babylon, shut-up all roaring lion of my life, in the name of Jesus Christ.
2. The fourth man in the fiery furnace, identify with me in my problem and see me through, in the name of Jesus Christ.
3. Power as of that which rested upon Daniel and the three Hebrews to make it in a foreign land, rest upon me now for testimonies, in the name of Jesus Christ.
Have A Beautiful Mid-Week!
