Babylon--The Power of Prophecy

1. Babylon--The Power of Prophecy John 14:29, “And now I have told you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe.”

2. The Power of Fulfilled Prophecy • Bernard Ramm writes, • “One real case of fulfilled prophecy would establish a supernatural act. But if our interpretation of the prophetic passages be correct, there are great numbers of them. One unequivocal miracle, one indubitable fulfilled prophecy would show the fallacy of naturalism, for the causal web of the universe would be ruptured at that point through which the supernatural is intruded. Therefore, radical doubt must be certain it has silenced the testimony of all prophecies, whereas the Christian asserts that rather than resting the case of one prophecy, we have dozens at our beck and call” (Protestant Christian Evidences, p. 86).

3. Chronology of the Prophets Cyrus defeats Babylon in 539 B.C.

4. Six Prophecies of Babylon • Prophecy #1: Babylon would be completely overthrown by the Medes. • “Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, Who will not regard silver; And as for gold, they will not delight in it. • 18 Also their bows will dash the young men to pieces, And they will have no pity on the fruit of the womb; Their eye will not spare children. • 19 And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, The beauty of the Chaldeans’ pride, Will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah” (Isaiah 13:17-19).

5. Six Prophecies of Babylon • Prophecy #2: Babylon was never to be inhabited or dwelt in from generation to generation. • “It will never be inhabited, Nor will it be settled from generation to generation; Nor will the Arabian pitch tents there, Nor will the shepherds make their sheepfolds there. • 21 But wild beasts of the desert will lie there, And their houses will be full of owls; Ostriches will dwell there, And wild goats will caper there. • 22 The hyenas will howl in their citadels, And jackals in their pleasant palaces. Her time is near to come, And her days will not be prolonged.”” (Isaiah 13:20-22).

6. Six Prophecies of Babylon • Prophecy #3: The Arab will refuse to pitch his tent there. • “It will never be inhabited, Nor will it be settled from generation to generation; Nor will the Arabian pitch tents there, Nor will the shepherds make their sheepfolds there” (Isaiah 13:20).

7. Six Prophecies of Babylon • Prophecy #4: Wild beasts of the desert shall lie down there. • “21 But wild beasts of the desert will lie there, And their houses will be full of owls; Ostriches will dwell there, And wild goats will caper there. • 22 The hyenas will howl in their citadels, And jackals in their pleasant palaces. Her time is near to come, And her days will not be prolonged” (Isaiah 13:21-22).

8. Six Prophecies of Babylon • Prophecy #5: The city to become as heaps. • “Babylon shall become a heap, a dwelling place for jackals, an astonishment and a hissing, without an inhabitant” (Jeremiah 51:37).

9. Six Prophecies of Babylon • Prophecy #6: The walls of Babylon to be broken. • “Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly broken, and her high gates shall be burned with fire; the people will bear labor in vain, and the nations, because of the fire; and they shall be weary” (Jeremiah 51:58).

10. The Prophecies Fulfilled • Prophecy #1: Babylon was to be completely overthrown by the Medes. • The Cyrus Cylinder discovered in 1879 and now located in the British Museum confirms this prophecy. • “This clay cylinder is inscribed in Babylonian cuneiform with an account by Cyrus, king of Persia (559-530 BC) of his conquest of Babylon in 539 BC and capture of Nabonidus, the last Babylonian king. • Cyrus claims to have achieved this with the aid of Marduk, the god of Babylon. He then describes measures of relief he brought to the inhabitants of the city, and tells how he returned a number of images of gods, which Nabonidus had collected in Babylon, to their proper temples throughout Mesopotamia and western Iran. At the same time he arranged for the restoration of these temples, and organized the return to their homelands of a number of people who had been held in Babylonia by the Babylonian kings. Although the Jews are not mentioned in this document, their return to Palestine following their deportation by Nebuchadnezzar II, was part of this policy” (www.britishmuseum.org).

11. The Prophecies Fulfilled • Prophecy #1: Babylon was to be completely overthrown by the Medes. • Herodotus also confirms information about Cyrus the Mede’s attack upon Babylon during a feast. • The army of Cyrus diverted the water from the nearby Euphrates river to a nearby lake basin. • This allowed his army to enter Babylon by going under the wall. • The city was blindsided in the middle of a drunken feast.

12. The Prophecies Fulfilled • Prophecy #2: Babylon was never to be inhabited or dwelt in from generation to generation. • Alexander the Great came to Babylon in 331 B.C. intending to make Babylon the capital of a new empire. • “None of it, however, was to be. Alexander died at Babylon in the grip of some sudden and mysterious disease in June of B.C. 323, after twelve years of rule and a mere thirty-two years of life” (Francis E. Peters, The Harvest of Hellenism: A History of the Near East from Alexander the Great to the Triumph of Christianity).

13. The Prophecies Fulfilled • Prophecy #3: The Arab will refuse to pitch his tent there. • Ferrell Jenkins writes, • “It is true that the Arab will not pitch his tent in Babylon nor make his sheep to lie down there. This is especially interesting when compared with the prophecy of Nineveh: ‘and all flocks shall lie down in the midst of her’ (Zeph 2:14). When I visited Babylon there were no sheep there, but at Nineveh I saw many sheep grazing atop the ruins of that once great city” (Introduction to Christian Evidences, p. 104). • Christian apologist Floyd Hamilton wrote in the 1960’s, • “Travelers report that [Babylon] is absolutely uninhabited, even by Bedouins. There are various superstitions current among the Arabs that prevent them from pitching their tents, while the character of the soil prevents the growth of vegetation suitable for the pasturage of flocks."

14. The Prophecies Fulfilled • Prophecy #4: Wild beasts of the desert shall lie down there. • Edward Chiera, who excavated at Nuzi in 1927 and 1928 wrote of Babylon, • “On all sides is desert…The large network of canals…is now represented by a series of small mounds of dirt, running in all directions. Even the Euphrates has abandoned this land by changing its course…A dead city. I have visited Pompeii and Ostia…but those cities are not dead; they are only temporarily abandoned…Here only is real death. Not a column or an arch still stands to demonstrate the permanency of human work. Everything has crumbled into dust…Under my feet are some holes which have been burrowed by foxes and jackals” (They Wrote on Clay).

15. The Prophecies Fulfilled • Prophecy #5: The city to become as heaps. • H.V. Morton writes in Through Lands of the Bible, • “And as we wandered over the lonely mounds, silent except for the hum of the wild bee and the hornet, I thought how literally Isaiah’s prophecy of the fall of Babylon had been fulfilled. It is, indeed, overthrown as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. The ‘broad walls’ of Babylon have been ‘utterly broken,’ as Jeremiah prophesied; her gates have been ‘burned with fire’; the city has indeed become ‘an astonishment’ and ‘an hissing without an inhabitant.’ The words of Jeremiah have become literally true; the city is in ‘heaps.’ What word better describes this awful desolation: ‘And Babylon shall become heaps.’”

16. The Prophecies Fulfilled • Prophecy #6: The walls of Babylon to be broken. • Diodorus once wrote of the construction of the walls of Babylon that it took 200,000 men a full year to build. • Wight writes, • “The wall of Babylon was indeed formidable. There was an outer and inner wall with space between filled with brick rubble. The whole thickness of the structure was nearly 85 feet. The city would have been a difficult one to capture by an enemy” (Highlights of Archaeology in Bible Lands, p. 53). • Yet, Herodotus asked, • “Where are Babylon’s walls and its 100 gates of brass?”

17. Lessons Learned From the Fall of Babylon

18. God’s Word Is True Deuteronomy 18:21-22 Isaiah 41:21-24 Present your case,” says the LORD. “ Bring forth your strong reasons,” says the King of Jacob. 22 “ Let them bring forth and show us what will happen; Let them show the former things, what they were, That we may consider them, And know the latter end of them; Or declare to us things to come. 23 Show the things that are to come hereafter, That we may know that you are gods…24 Indeed you are nothing, And your work is nothing; He who chooses you is an abomination. • “And if you say in your heart, ‘How shall we know the word which the Lord has spoken?’—when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.”

19. God’s Word Is True • 2 Timothy 3:16-17, • “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

20. Lessons Learned From the Fall of Babylon

21. God’s Power Is Great • Nebuchadnezzar learned of God’s power during his reign in Babylon. • Daniel 4:30-31, • “The king spoke, saying, “Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for a royal dwelling by my mighty power and for the honor of my majesty?” • 31 While the word was still in the king’s mouth, a voice fell from heaven: “King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: the kingdom has departed from you!” • Yet, his son never learned the same lesson (Dan 5:17-31).

22. Lessons Learned From the Fall of Babylon

23. God Warns—Listen! • Matthew 24:35, • “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.” • 2 Peter 3:9-13, • “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. • 10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. 11 Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? 13 Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.”

24. The Power of Prophecy John 14:29, “And now I have told you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe.”