And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans’ pride, will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. Isaiah 13:19
This promise of prophecy is a prediction to be fulfilled in history.
H. M. S. Richards, the founder of the Voice of Prophecy, tells of a time when he was walking over the ruins of Babylon. There they were, the foundations of the ancient palaces, the hanging gardens, the impregnable walls, the great temple, or ziggurat, the great avenues of victory. But they were all a great ruin.
Richards’s stated, “I found exactly what Isaiah had prophesied. Babylon, the golden city of a golden age, lay in vast disorder with no human inhabitants within its ancient walls. Its worldwide commerce was gone, and its terrible armies vanished into the mists of time.”
King Nebuchadnezzar had looked out over his world capital and said, “Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power and for the honor of my majesty” (Daniel 4:30)? But now, it is only a memory and a name. The history of this world is really “a tale of two cities,” Babylon and Jerusalem. Ancient Babylon declared war against God’s people and God’s city, Jerusalem. But Babylon collapsed and is forgotten in its grave of the past, from which no Gabriel of future history will ever call it forth to pleasant memories. It is indeed like Sodom and Gomorrah. Any nation, any city, any man that forgets God and opposes God’s plan for this world is on the road to ruin.
Babylon was built upon the ruins of another great structure. The Tower of Babel. The tower was built to elevate humanity to the level of God. It was built to allow humans to reach into heaven and take from God what they desired. Babel became the place where human’s attempted to elevate themselves and their accomplishments above God himself. It became the place where humanity showed it wouldn’t trust God and placed its trust in itself to accomplish by its own hands whatever it desired.
Every false teaching in Christianity can be traced back to the tower. And every false teaching in Christianity today results from not fully trusting in God and elevating self to achieve salvation.
When we look at the Great Pharoah’s hosts with tossing plumes, like echoes now in empty rooms, each Pharoah’s dreams of greatness echo as a voice in an empty room.
All of Assyria’s march of death as it conquered the world is but a fading memory upon the pages of time.
Nebuchadnezzar echoed the words of all great kings and Pharaohs when he said, “Look what I have built and done.” But now, Babylon and her golden strands are the places of drifting sand.
The words of Daniel two tell the stories of passing kingdoms, all built upon human strength and wisdom. None built upon God, but upon mistrust of God.
But Daniel two leaves us with hope. From the mount of Israel, a stone would be cut. This stone is cut out without hands. Unlike the kingdoms before, it was not built upon power and oppression. It was not built upon mistrust of God. This rock, cut out without hands, is based upon trust in God. It is based on love, understanding, and reliance, not upon oneself, but only on God.
Daniel chapter two tells us that this kingdom, cut out without hands, is based upon love. A kingdom that is different than all other kingdoms is a kingdom built upon trust in God and will supplant all other kingdoms. Not with or by might or force, but by love and its reliance upon God.
Two thousand years ago, Christ came to model what this kingdom is like. He came to show us what trusting in God looks like and how it can be accomplished. Christ never elevated himself. He never reached into heaven to help himself to what He felt He deserved.
Heaven freely gave to Jesus all that it is willing to give to you and me when we fully and completely trust and love God as Jesus did.
When I attempt to keep the law, I am building a tower as the builders on the plain of Shinar did. My actions say I do not trust God to do the work of salvation for me, for I must accomplish it myself.
Paul tells us in Romans 13:10, “Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.”
Paul is echoing the words spoken by Jesus in Matthew 19:18, 19, Mark 12:31, Luke 10:27 and written by Moses in Exodus 20:13-17, Deuteronomy 5:17-21, Leviticus 19:18.
As Paul says, “Love for God, Love for Others is the fulfillment of the law.” The only way to fulfill the law is by loving God, trusting God, and then loving others. (Deuteronomy 6:5).
Our desire should be and our observation that of the Psalmist, when he says, “But you O God, shall bring them down into the pit of destruction; bloody and deceitful humanity shall not live out half their days, but I will trust in you” Psalm 55:23.
Trust breeds love, and love is the fulfillment of the law!
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