Limapela Education Project
Faith in Action
This project aims to provide quality education to children in Zambia's Copperbelt Province.
As we look at world events today, it is easy to despair and wonder whether evil and injustice will ever be overcome. In this sermon, preached at Greyfriars' Classical Service on 15 March 2009, Senior Minister Rob Yule describes the extraordinary exactness of the Bible's predictions about the destruction of the great ancient civilisations of Babylon, Edom and Tyre. A larger view of the sweep of history, illuminated by the fulfilment of biblical prophecy, shows that we can be confident in the ultimate triumph of God's purposes in history.
In the world today it is easy to despair about evil and injustice. The widespread resort to terrorism, the belligerence of rogue states, and the bullying attitude of super-powers causes us to wonder whether justice will ever prevail over oppression, truth over lies, peace over militarism.
The fulfilment of biblical prophecy demonstrates that God is in control of history. It shows that the conduct of oppressive nations doesn't continue indefinitely but is ultimately called to account by God.
Babylon was at the zenith of its power around 600 BC. At that time it was the largest city in the world. There were huge mud-brick perimeter walls with ornate iron gates. Streets, squares, and sewers were laid out like a modern city. There were many temples and palaces. Man-made canals brought shipping right into the city from the Euphrates River and the Persian Gulf. It was a great trading and military empire. Its famous hanging gardens - artificially terraced hills and trellises - was one of the seven wonders of the world.
Babylon was a civilisation built on occult power, symbolised by Esagila, the great temple of Marduk, whose ziggurat or temple tower suggests the famous tower of Babel (Bab Illi is Assyrian for 'Gate of God', which the Hebrews punned as 'confusion'). Babylon was a great pagan civilisation, prosperous, proud, powerful: a symbol of human enterprise and pagan religion.
Prophecies of Babylon's overthrow are found in Isaiah 13:17-22 and Jeremiah 50-51. Isaiah prophesied in the second half of the 8th century BC, before Babylon had even gained independence of Assyria. Jeremiah prophesied around 600 BC, when Babylon was at the height of its power. Their prophecies specifically foretold a number of things about Babylon:
1. It would be conquered by a northern empire, that of the Medes (Isaiah 13:17, Jeremiah 51:11, 27-28).
2. Its capture would involve a drunken feast (Jeremiah 51:39, 57), the drying up of its rivers (Jeremiah 51:36), the capture of its river crossings (Jeremiah 51:32), and the destruction of its famous walls and gates (Jeremiah 51:58).
3. It would be destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah - become a salt waste (Isaiah 13:19, Jeremiah 50:3, 40).
4. It would never again be inhabited (Isaiah 13:20a, Jeremiah 50:3, 39b, 51:37, 62).
5. Its ruins would not be fit for livestock grazing but only for wild desert animals - jackals, owls, hyenas, and goats (Isaiah 13:20-22, Jeremiah 50:3, 39a, 51:37).
The fulfilment of these prophecies has been amazingly precise. Belshazzar, grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, held a drunken feast at which he used the gold and silver goblets taken from the temple in Jerusalem. As they revelled mysterious handwriting appeared on the wall:
'MENE, MENE, TEKEL, PARSIN,'
Translated by Daniel, these Aramaic words conveyed a sombre announcement (Daniel 5:25-28):
That very night in 539 BC, Persian troops of Cyrus diverted the waters of the Euphrates, came up the dry river bed under the supposedly impregnable walls, and occupied the city. Over two hundred years later, around 300 BC, Alexander the Great's successor Seleucus built a new city, Seleucia, 50 kilometres away on the Tigris River. Old Babylon was demolished to provide building materials, and a large part of its population deported to the new city.
Over the centuries since, a salty crust developed on the site. Only the hardiest tussocks survive there - not fit for animals to graze. No shepherds graze their sheep in the ruins of Babylon.
Saddam Hussein, the modern dictator of Iraq, had a grandiose scheme to restore the ancient city of Babylon. One of the casualties of the ill-conceived American invasion of Iraq was the abandonment of this project.
The Edomites were descendants of Esau, brother of Jacob. They were hostile towards Israel, and attacked Judah in 586 BC when Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian armies were besieging Jerusalem. Petra (known in the Bible as Sela) was a great city carved out of the red sandstone cliffs in a canyon-like valley in the hills of Jordan east of the Arabah, midway between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba. Access was through a narrow defile over a kilometre long, easily defended by a few soldiers.
Prophecies of Edom's overthrow are found in Obadiah and Jeremiah 49:7-27. These two prophets prophesied that Edom would be overthrown, be plundered by other nations (Obadiah 16) and become desolate and uninhabited (Jeremiah 49:18). 'Though you soar like an eagle and make your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down, declares the Lord.' (Obadiah 4).
The fulfilment of these prophecies has been slow acting, but sure. They took over 1500 years to be completely fulfilled. The Nabatean Arabs conquered Petra in 300 BC, followed by the Romans in AD 106. Petra became unimportant from that time, but remained inhabited through the Christian period until after the Crusades, around 1300. Today Petra is desolate - beautiful, uninhabited, eerie - visited only by tourists to Jordan (and for a while, as a dare after the Six Day War, by Israeli youths!).
Tyre was a great Phoenician seaport on the coast of Lebanon, ancient Phoenicia. In fact it was two seaports - one on the mainland, and one on an island offshore. Like the Norsemen centuries later, the Phoenicians turned seawards, away from the hinterland of enclosing mountains, and became a great seafaring nation. They were famous for their glassware, purple dye, and trading. They plied the Mediterranean in their ocean-going ships, far out into the Atlantic. They were the traders who brought their wealth to King Solomon's empire. Archaeologist Cyrus Gordon believes that they reached South America, and I wonder whether they may have circumnavigated Africa.
Phoenicia's island harbour and fortress seemed impregnable. Whenever the mainland city was threatened by invading armies, the inhabitants retreated to the island fortress - and kept on trading! Nebuchadnezzar occupied mainland Tyre and besieged island Tyre for thirteen years (585-573 BC), but couldn't take it. Supplies kept coming by sea to keep their commercial activity going.
Prophecies of Tyre's overthrow, despite its apparent impregnability, are found in Ezekiel 26. Ezekiel says the following things would accompany Tyre's downfall:
1. Its walls, defences, and buildings would be destroyed (Ezekiel 26:4a, 9, 12).
2. It's rubble would be removed and thrown into the sea, leaving only bare rock (Ezekiel 26:4b, 12b, 14a).
3. It would become a place to spread fishing nets (Ezekiel 26:5, 14b).
4. It would be covered by the ocean (Ezekiel 26:19).
5. It would never again be rebuilt (Ezekiel 26:14).
6. It would never be found again (Ezekiel 26:21).
The fulfilment of these prophecies began with the eastward campaigns of Alexander the Great and his Macedonian army in the 4th century BC.
A few months after Ezekiel's prophecy was spoken the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar had begun a thirteen-year siege of mainland Tyre (585-573 BC), but he failed to capture the island port offshore.
But Alexander the Great destroyed it after a bitter seven-month campaign in 322 BC. Phoenicia submitted to him without resistance, and Tyre was even willing to acknowledge his sovereignty. But the authorities refused to let him into the city in person. It was never wise to slight Alexander the Great. Angered and provoked, he undertook the most difficult siege of all his campaigns.
Lacking a fleet, he demolished coastal Tyre to build a causeway 800 metres long and 200-300 metres wide across the sea from the rubble. He had to use captured Phoenician vessels to prevent interference in its construction, and the causeway finally reached the island. Island Tyre surrendered after a heroic defence, at the cost of 10,000 lives. The remaining 30,000 inhabitants were sold as slaves.
Alexander's causeway converted the island into a peninsula. The present shoreline, where fisherman today spread their nets, overlies the place where biblical Tyre once stood. An archaeological expedition, just prior to the takeover of modern Tyre by the Palestinian Liberation Organisation in the 1970s, found that the coastline of original Tyre has sunk beneath the Mediterranean Sea.
The remarkable and exact fulfilment of these biblical prophecies has important implications for us today.
God's word in the Bible is reliable and true. It is trustworthy. 'All Scripture is inspired by God' (2 Timothy 3:16). Prophecy shows that 'we have the word of the prophets made more certain' (2 Peter 1:19). So amazing and accurate are these prophecies that liberal scholars seek to postdate their utterance to after the events, and then accuse their authors of falsely attributing their authorship to earlier writers. Such views say more about the ethics of liberal scholars than about the nature of the biblical writings!
In Paul's speech to the philosophers in Athens, he says that God sovereignly 'determines the times set [for nations] and the exact places were they should live' (Acts 17:26). Proud and oppressive nations will not endure, however much they vaunt themselves. Evil and injustice is not the last word in history.
Each of these nations - Babylon, Edom, Tyre - were a byword in their day for human pride and achievement. 'Babylon, the jewel of kingdoms, the glory of the Chaldeans' pride.' (Isaiah 13:19). The people of Edom boasted that they were impregnable, living 'in the clefts of the rocks', occupying 'the heights of the hill', and building their nest 'as high as the eagle's' (Jeremiah 49:16, cf. Obadiah 3-4). Tyre considered itself 'perfect in beauty' (Ezekiel 27:3-4), and thought of itself as sitting 'on the throne of a god in the heart of the seas' (Ezekiel 28:1). Demonic forces at work in the proud history of such civilisations, manifesting themselves in exploitation, oppression and militarism.
God will overthrow such proud and unjust nations. Truth and justice will ultimately prevail. God will defeat the satanic principalities and powers that animate pagan nations. Those who exalt themselves before God will be brought low. Those who oppress peoples will be overthrown. No principalities and powers - nor anything else in the universe - can ultimately separate us from God's enduring love and purpose (Romans 8:38-39).
Rob Yule, 15 March 2009
© 2009, Greyfriars Presbyterian Church
