Friday, March 27, 2020

Babylon as Symbol

"The destruction of Babylon pictures to some degree the final destruction of the world, of which the prophet writes, "Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate; and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it." (Isaiah 13:9).

Destruction came upon Babylon while the king and his lords were engaged in feasting and revelry. Cyrus and his army marched up the bed of the river Euphrates...The monarch, his princes, and guardsmen, were given up to feasting, and, intoxicated with strong drink, they knew nothing of the peril of the kingdom. There was a noise at the palace gates, the doors were forced open, the troops of Cyrus rushed in, and in a short time the king and his guests were lying mangled in the heaps of the slain, and the drunken slept a perpetual sleep.

Babylon is a symbol of the world at large.
When its doom was made certain, its kings and officers seemed to
be as men insane, and their own course hastened its destiny.
When the doom of a nation is fixed, it seems that all the energy, wisdom, and discretion of its former time of prosperity, deserts its men of position, and they hasten the evil they would avert.
Outside enemies are not the greatest peril to an individual or a nation.
The overthrow of a nation results, under the providence of God, from some unwise or evil course of its own."
E,G.W.