Isaiah 13:1-22 A Message about Babylon

by Larry Ferrell  |  February 23, 2018
As a relatively small nation threatened by great powers, Judah was constantly tempted to look to political and military alliances to save her. Chapters 1-12 began by focusing on Judah and ended with proclamation of the nations. This second major section (chapters 13-27) begins by focusing on the nations and ends with Judah. But the net massage is the same. Salvation is to be found in the Lord alone. While Assyria falls into the background here, it is not forgotten entirely. The nations in view in chapters 13-23 were all threatened by Assyria at one time or other, and were all actual or potential partners with Judah in anti-Assyrian alliances.

Babylon was no newcomer to the world stage. It had a history reaching right back to the tower of Babel, and was therefore a fitting symbol of that arrogant pomp and power of the world that were characteristic of the nations as a whole in their rebellion against God. Babylon had already had one great period of glory in Isaiah’s day, and it was soon to have another before its end came. But come it would; Isaiah was certain of that. The story of Babylon was, for him, the story of all nations that defy God.

This symbolic significance of Babylon becomes more and more apparent as the oracle unfolds. The historical Babylon was not in fact overthrown by the Medes in a violent bloodbath and its site left abandoned, as verses 17-22 would indicate if taken literally. It surrendered without a fight to Cyrus the Persian, who had already achieved ascendancy over the Medes. But in Isaiah’s day the Medes were the barbarians of the ancient Near East, living beyond the eastern fringe of the civilized world and always threatening to overwhelm it. The Lord’s announcement that he will stir up…the Medes (v. 17) is a declaration that he has already settled upon the destruction of Babylon and all that it represents. Isaiah is not so much describing Babylon’s eventual fall as pointing to what that will represent. The fall of Babylon merges, in this oracle, with the final, great day of the Lord, when all human arrogance will be judged in cosmic, larger-than-life terms because of the greater reality that it anticipates and points to: the eventual fall of the whole world system which stands in opposition to God.

Isaiah 13:1-22 Reflection Questions:
Where do you look to first when you are threatened by someone or something (work, school, family)?
Going with Isaiah’s definition of “Babylon,” do you see that playing out in today’s world stage?
Why would today’s “one world order” that many want, in opposition to God?

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Philippians 3:4-8 Profits and Loss

by Larry Ferrell | March 9, 2018
Here Paul says that he learned to count all human effort as loss that he might win Christ. To state these truths he uses the figure of a balance sheet, showing assets and liabilities. He says that he has learned to reckon all the assets he had earned before he knew Christ as liabilities and to enter into his new column of assets the name of Jesus Christ alone. We must realize that human righteousness is nothing when measured against the righteousness of God revealed in Jesus Christ and that God is right to insist upon His standards.

In the first place, human righteousness falls short of the standards set by God, and anything short of those standards is unrighteousness. Righteousness is one of those things like perfection that loses its meaning entirely if you divide it. Perfection is a whole. Righteousness is exactly the same. You are either entirely righteous by God’s definition or you are not righteous at all. Jesus Christ said in what is undoubtedly the most important single verse in the Sermon on the Mount, “Be perfect, therefore, even as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). That is the standard! All fall short of it, and falling short of it, they miss it all. There is a second reason why human righteousness is not adequate when measured against the goodness of God. Human goodness, even at best, is polluted by sin. We do good things, but all of our good deeds, even the best of them, are contaminated by sin. And because sin is there, sin can always break forth into death. That is why the noblest ideals and the most sublime ideologies of human beings lead away from God. God must pronounce a curse upon them in order that true righteousness might be established through the work of Jesus Christ.

In verses 4-8, Paul illustrates these principles from his own experience. Humanly speaking he had acquired all the assets that anyone could imagine. He was a Jew, and Jews had always had a special place in God’s dealings with the human race. But in terms of salvation Paul came to admit that these things had actually kept him from God. He writes, “But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil. 3:7-8). Paul lists seven achievements in these verses, those that were inherited and those that were earned. That is a real list of assets from a human point of view. But the day came when Paul saw what this was in the light of the righteous God. Probably the most important word in the entire third chapter is the word that begins verse seven: “but.” That “but” marks Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus when Paul first saw Jesus and learned what God’s righteousness was. He thought before this that he had attained righteousness by keeping the law. But when he saw Christ he knew that all his righteousness was as filthy rags.

That is the work of God in a human heart. Paul came to the point where he opened his ledger book. He looked at what he had accumulated by inheritance and by his efforts and reflected that these things actually kept him from Christ. He then took the entire list and placed it where it belonged – under the list of liabilities. He called it “loss,” and under assets he wrote, “Jesus Christ alone.”

Philippians 3:4-8 Reflection Questions:
Have you exchanged your assets for Christ? Or are you trusting in the kind of goodness that will never be accepted by God?
What are the inherited assets that Paul had? What were Paul’s earned assets?
Have you reached the point in your Christian walk were you count all your inherited and earned assets as loss and put “Jesus Christ alone” as your only true asset?

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