If we didn't take it into the English language, and we understand that we're using the word burden in a negative way, sin creates a burden. Well, Hebrews 12, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily besets us or ensnares us. And that weight is the burden and it is always connected to sin.
Everything is spiritual about human beings, everything. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Isaiah.
Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of Isaiah chapter 13 with today's edition of Cross-Reference Radio. Verse 11 of Isaiah 13, I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity. I will halt the arrogance of the proud and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.
Well, that's a pretty serious statement. So that's what this chapter is going to open up. Beginning with this 13th chapter till we get to the 23rd chapter, we have what we call the book of judgments against the nations. You know, we've been going through what the Lord was going to do to the Northern Kingdom for her apostasy and then to Judah.
But this section, these chapters from 13 to 23 are dealing with the nations, Babylon, Judea, Moab, and the others. So this first verse will speak of the burden. And the prophecies that use this gets its name from the Hebrew word for burden, translated burden, Massah, in the Hebrew. And it is never connected with blessings. It's not just speaking of picking up something heavy and carrying it, though metaphorically that is the picture that it gives to us.
It always has something to do with judgment. Isaiah is not the only one that uses this word in this context. Well, sin creates a burden. If we didn't take it into the English language and we understand that we're using the word burden in a negative way, sin creates a burden. Well, Hebrews 12, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily besets us or ensnares us. And that weight is the burden and it is always connected to sin. Everything is spiritual about human beings, everything. When there's a problem, it's spiritual.
Whether it is two friends, husband and wife, worker, coworker, there's a spiritual element to it and Satan knows that and that's why he will drive a wedge wherever he can. And I know, you know, you can lift a bridge with wedges. I mean a suspension bridge, you know, parts of it.
I know because I've done it. So a wedge is a powerful thing. So we are always mindful of this. Anyway, these seven chapters, seven of these 13 chapters of Isaiah speaks of this burden and each nation will get its chance. It also shows up in Lamentations, Nahum, Habakkuk, as I mentioned, other prophets.
Now throughout history of the world, the nations have been watched and known to Jesus Christ. They don't believe that. Well that's not going to stop it. You're just going to huff and puff and deny the Lord from being the Lord.
You can to your own fate. Our purpose in knowing this kind of information and being reminded of it is so that we can do something with it if given the chance and to let them know, hey, by the way, God sees it all and don't go making up. When you hear something, when you hear me say to you, God sees it all, don't go making up what you think that means.
That just irritates him even more. So no sense in listing the nations today that are under the scrutiny of Christ or through history because it's all of them. It's all of them. There's no need to list them, including the United States. You know, these kingdoms of the earth, all of them will fall to the destruction of judgment. Many have already, but let's just consider the civilizations, the nations and the empires that have tried to destroy the Jewish people.
Let's just single it down, just narrow it down to them because they're gone. The Philistines, you won't meet a Philistine. You won't say, hey, where are you from? I'm a Philistine.
No, you're not. They're gone. The Assyrian Empire, gone. In fact, you ask somebody on the street, where's Assyria? They're going to say, Assyria, because of that part in it.
It's really Iraq. Anyway, Babylon, the Babylonian Empire, gone. The Persian Empire, the Seleucid Empire, the Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Spanish Empire, the Nazi German regime, and the Soviet Union. There's just ten of them. There are more. There are ten established governments that are no more because the Lord reigns. And Ezekiel 38, 39 tells us the list will grow.
There are more that will be added to this list. And so the wicked people of history and all of this, you know, we're talking about the judgment of Babylon today. It goes beyond ancient Babylon and includes apocalyptic Babylon. And then that has categories such as apostate, the apostate Babylon, which is Rome.
Who else can it be? You arrive at that very quickly through process of elimination. Then you have spiritual Babylon, which is the occult world. You have economic Babylon, political Babylon, and Revelation just brings this forward. And when you understand it, the Lord is covering them all.
This is comprehensive judgment. And he's using Babylon as sort of the template, the poster boy for this spiritual defiance because that's what it is. It's flat out spiritual defiance in ancient Babylon. It was so loaded with the occult that they were also referred to as the Chaldeans.
And they were the ones involved in much of the sorceries and things like that. Anyway, when you consider the judgments, you know, Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler's name is always in the bunch, but Stalin was probably worse. Tojo, you know, there was a guy called Tojo of the, you know, the Japanese empire during World War II, Chairman Mao. He's not a chairman now.
He's a wicked man. He tried to purge the communist China. And we should make that distinction. There are Chinese people, then there are the Chai Coms, the Chinese communists.
Big difference. You could say that about the Cuban people. You know, there are Cuban people, then there are the Cuban communists. Communism is a religion that pretends to be a political entity.
It does both, but it really is a religion because it will not tolerate any other religion. Looks to stomp them out. Anyway, so look at Isaiah 14, just one page over maybe, verse 9.
I'll be kicking myself later, but not too hard. Anyway, hell from beneath is excited about you in the context, again, all of these wicked leaders of history, to meet you at your coming. It stirs up the dead for you, all the chief ones of the earth. It is raised up from their thrones, all the kings of the nations. He's mocking those entering hell. And in this case, it will be the king of Babylon and then begins to expand into Satan. We'll get that next session. But it's mocking them. You won't be ruling in hell. Nobody's going to be excited to see you. They're going to have their own problems. What is there, a committee there waiting for you?
Not at all. Anyway, so these chapters, 13 through 23, they emphasize that God's kingdom includes this world. And Amos, the prophet, he preached the same thing to the northern kingdom when it was still there. Now at this time, the northern kingdom is probably gone.
It's judged. Judah is still there, Jerusalem. The interesting thing about Amos is a prophet from Judah and he goes north into the northern kingdom and he starts out with his prophecies against the nations. And the Jews were loving that until he started turning his attention to them and began to say, woe to you. You're going to be judged for what you're doing in the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. And they even asked him to go leave.
Can you just leave, just go away, move back to Judah? Anyway, Daniel, he reports what was told to King Nebuchadnezzar that just highlights for us God's not missing any of the moves. He sees it all.
And just because he delays a response doesn't mean it's not coming. And there's a lot of woe in between, granted. Daniel, chapter 4, verse 25, this is what Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar. They shall drive you from men.
He doesn't mean in a car. Do you know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men and gives it to whoever he chooses? So with that statement and Daniel, we get what we're getting from the other prophecy, God rules. And the judgment that's coming will be global because the defiance towards Jesus Christ and his people will, by the time of the Great Tribulation, it will be global.
So we now look at verse 1 with that, hopefully that set up for it. The burden against Babylon, which Isaiah, the son of Amos, saw. Well, the focal point at this point is the ancient city of Babylon. And it stands for something much bigger than just Babylon.
We get that. Because from Genesis 11, 9, where Babylon was in rebellion, God called him out on it, to Revelation 14, 8 and beyond, but it's first mentioned by name in Revelation 14, 8, but by practice it had showed up earlier. From Genesis, almost to Revelation, Babylon becomes virtually synonymous with wickedness. And that's why we're halting at this one chapter and not kind of moving through it and just get to 14. Because it is synonymous with spiritual wickedness, the darkness on the earth, Satan's kingdom, where he thrived.
And it represents civilization and its stronghold of darkness, the sorcery and the occult which we're seeing now. How many of you have had a good time watching the news? Ever?
I mean, do you walk away and say, I feel so much better now? Everything's under control. Isaiah 13, again, I will punish the world for its evil. And that punishment involves the destruction of the cities against God, the slaughter of countless multitudes, that all because evil has stirred this up. And Isaiah, of course, not only seeing, as I mentioned, ancient Babylon, and if you're going to understand your revelation at all, you've got to understand that, there's ancient Babylon, there's apocalyptic Babylon. Because ancient Babylon was just a den of sorcery.
And so is apocalyptic, the apocalyptic kingdoms, the superpowers. And in Isaiah's lifetime, this is interesting, Babylon wasn't anything. It wasn't a superpower, it was overshadowed by Assyria. Assyria even conquered it more than once, just put it in its play. Oh, you want to pay taxes or tribute?
Come down here and show you who's boss. And it destroyed the city, then it was rebuilt, Nebuchadnezzar built it into one of the seven wonders of the world, of the ancient world. And eventually, again, it was sacked and ruined to the point where armies have marched over in the desert, the ruins of Babylon, not even knowing it was there. So Isaiah, he saw beyond the time he lived in, and he said, yeah, Assyria is a superpower now.
Everybody thinks they're invincible. But they're not the ones. Babylon is going to eclipse them. And now, not so much in the days as an individual of Nebuchadnezzar, because Daniel worked with that man, but still, the Chaldeans were hard at work, and that's a whole other story, because Daniel even saves their lives. Anyway, the biblical prophecies concerning Babylon really cover three time periods. And this is basic prophecy study. There's the near fulfillment. There are things that Isaiah said, this is going to happen to ancient Babylon. You didn't have to tell them ancient Babylon. And it happened.
It's done. That's a near fulfillment. There are spiritual applications in his prophecies, which we'll get some of in the next chapter, to Satan controlling empires through the ages, not just in the days of the prophets. Then there is the distant fulfillment, which is the ultimate, the conclusion of the matter. For instance, Isaiah 53 is ultimate fulfillment is Christ on the cross, and what comes out of that. Well, this man said the burden which he saw, that makes us say, okay, God told him this, I want to know about it. I want to know about it as much as I can, because I have learned as a Christian, the more ammunition I load up with ammunition of truth, the more I'll get to use it. And maybe some Christians say, well, God never uses me.
Well, maybe because you're out of bullets, and you've got to get to work. Anyway, so let's just, you know, in preparation to share from the Bible, there's that just hard work session, where you just get doing the facts, you're doing the research, and it really doesn't get very nice as a rule until the Lord then takes the research and fashions it into something spiritual. You see the blessings then. So and I, you know, in preparing for this, I entered this, oh man, chapter 13, I know it's coming here. But then as, you know, you begin to dig into it, it begins to percolate, and you sense, okay, this is the Lord.
And this is the kind of, to me, the things that were blessing me. Ancient Babylon, and of course, apocalyptic Babylon, not the same. And in the history of Israel, ancient Babylon was God's scourge, used as God's scourge upon his wicked people.
Well, so was Syria, other nations too. But Babylon was the one that wiped out Jerusalem's, the temple, the city. I mean, it took the people prisoner, killed some of them, many of them, but they really, they're the ones that sat and destroyed the first temple. And so, and then you have New Testament Babylon, which more than any other city, it personifies the forces of the world deliberately against Christ. So we're talking about Babylon now, we're talking about the kingdoms of the world that think they're getting away with defying Jesus Christ.
And, you know, we're seeing this more and more. There's not only a resistance to Christ or apathy, there's a hatred for Christ in many circles, especially in the bigger cities. Well, in the Great Tribulation, this Babylon is defiant humanity against the Godhead, it's very deliberate. In the New Testament, in the Revelation, the word Babylon is used to describe the global governments against Jesus.
And that's the part we don't want to leave out. They're not only, you know, apathetic, they are anti. Where does that really show up in Scripture? Anti-Christ. So evil is anti-Christ that the Bible calls him an animal.
He's just a beast and he's not the only one. He's just the one that's calling the shots. He has a planet of advocates behind him. So beginning in Revelation 17, John then describes the Lamb of God and his step-by-step victory over the beast and his kingdom, the many facets of Babylon. In Revelation 17, he deals with religious Babylon, or the apostate. The apostate has fallen away. It has been exposed to the truth, claimed to believe it, and then fallen away. This is Rome, for sure.
It doesn't stop there. In 17, this religious system is judged. Revelation 17, 5, and on her forehead, a name was written.
Now, in ancient Rome, many of the brothels where the prostitutes were, they would wear headbands with their names on them. And so here we have something that in that age, people would, I get this, Mystery Babylon, the great mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth. When God says that about something, what is he talking about?
I don't want to be on that team. Revelation 17, 18, and the woman whom you saw is that great city which reigns over the kings of the earth. And the history of the Pope's ruling kings, subjecting them to punishments, threatening them with excommunications and all sorts of things. Antichrist is going to play along with them. This harlot will have a ride-along for a while until they destroy her because they hate her for many reasons. Anyway, the false religion is the harlot who has abandoned truth and sold herself for wealth. And when we see her riding the beast, going on this ride-along with Antichrist, she's bedecked in jewels, has this incredible amount of wealth. So the Bible portrays the false religion, the harlot, the apostate religion. The true church is the chaste virgin.
And we see that in 2 Corinthians 11, 2, where Paul says you are a chaste virgin. And then we see at the marriage wedding for the bride of the lamb, Revelation 19, 7 and 8. Verse 17 again, the religious system is judged. And there we read about the beast being destroyed and they eat the beast and cast it out. In Revelation 18 now, we see the judgment of the lamb upon the political and economic system. They fall victim to his judgment. Then you come to Revelation 19 and there the Lord himself returns to earth. He judges Satan, the beast and the false prophet. And we hear Paul talk about this.
One of my favorite verses in scripture is 1 Corinthians 15, 24. Then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom of God to the father, when he puts an end to all rule and authority and power, because he is all rule and authority and power. And I'm going to be there to see that and so will you. And again, when that angel grabs hold of Satan and chains him up, that's a tough angel man.
He just grabs him and that's that. Don't you want to see that happen? Don't you want to say, can we cheer? I know there's going to be that moment of silence in heaven, but this is maybe not it.
Can we like ring in with hallelujahs? Anyway, so you have political, economic, apostate, spiritual, Babylon. All of these, Satan used the men and the women in these institutions and nowadays their technology. And don't think for a minute, he's not using the technology to protect. Satan knows how to protect his people, but he just can't do it permanently.
He protected Judas for long enough and then discarded him. So anyway, John, again, could find no better picture to say, look at what these people are doing, these kingdoms, than Babylon. He says, they're Babylon.
This fits a perfect fit. And included in all of this is man's, the story of man's sorcery. So let's look at some of those verses. Revelation 9 21, telling us what's really going wild in the end times, the end of the end times I should say, because the end times began with Christ. The end of the end times is now, we're upon it, with Israel being back in her land and looking that, hey, you know, this cannot be sustained, what mankind is doing. Anyway, Revelation 9 tells us a little bit about the people. He says, and they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.
It covers a lot with that. Why is it that a politician can go into the White House making, I don't know, $200,000 a year and come out like a multi-millionaire? What is happening? How did they, did they, you know, hit lottery or something? I think there are a lot of hands under the table. A lot of lobbyists, which are buying these politicians, this is stealing, this is theft. The murders, just with the unborn, you can just do that one. Then how many other people have murdered for power? So anyway, 9 21 of Revelation calls it like it is. Revelation 14 8, and another angel follows saying Babylon has fallen, is fallen, that great city because she has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. And that, again, is just very descriptive about even what the angels, you know, when there's a repetition, there's an emphasis.
It's fallen, it's fallen, it's gone. So we'll be in heaven when this is happening. All of Revelation 9 through 18, then Revelation 18 7, in the measure that she glorified herself and lived luxuriously in the same measure, give her torment and sorrow. She says in her heart, I sit as queen and am no widow and will not see sorrow.
Wrong. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio today. Cross Reference Radio is a ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. If you'd like to learn more about this ministry, we invite you to visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com.
You'll find a number of teachings from Pastor Rick available there. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of new additions of Cross Reference Radio. Just search for Cross Reference Radio on your favorite podcast app. You can also follow the links at crossreferenceradio.com. We're glad we were able to spend time with you today. Tune in next time to continue learning from the book of Isaiah with Pastor Rick right here on Cross Reference Radio.
