August 14 / Every Day God: Categories...

This is a lot of Scripture to take in all at once, but it applies to us all.

Jeremiah 50:41-51:64The Message (MSG)

41-43 “And now, watch this! People pouring

    out of the north, hordes of people,

A mob of kings stirred up

    from far-off places.

Flourishing deadly weapons,

    barbarians they are, cruel and pitiless.

Roaring and relentless, like ocean breakers,

    they come riding fierce stallions,

In battle formation, ready to fight

    you, Daughter Babylon!

Babylon’s king hears them coming.

    He goes white as a ghost, limp as a dishrag.

Terror-stricken, he doubles up in pain, helpless to fight,

    like a woman giving birth to a baby.

44 “And now watch this: Like a lion coming up

    from the thick jungle of the Jordan,

Looking for prey in the mountain pastures,

    I’ll take over and pounce.

I’ll take my pick of the flock—and who’s to stop me?

    All the so-called shepherds are helpless before me.”

45-46 So, listen to this plan that God has worked out against Babylon, the blueprint of what he’s prepared for dealing with Chaldea:

Believe it or not, the young,

    the vulnerable—mere lambs and kids—will be dragged off.

Believe it or not, the flock

    in shock, helpless to help, watches it happen.

When the shout goes up, “Babylon’s down!”

    the very earth will shudder at the sound.

    The news will be heard all over the world.

Hurricane Persia

51 1-5 There’s more. God says more:

“Watch this:

    I’m whipping up

A death-dealing hurricane against Babylon—‘Hurricane Persia’—

    against all who live in that perverse land.

I’m sending a cleanup crew into Babylon.

    They’ll clean the place out from top to bottom.

When they get through there’ll be nothing left of her

    worth taking or talking about.

They won’t miss a thing.

    A total and final Doomsday!

Fighters will fight with everything they’ve got.

    It’s no-holds-barred.

They will spare nothing and no one.

    It’s final and wholesale destruction—the end!

Babylon littered with the wounded,

    streets piled with corpses.

It turns out that Israel and Judah

    are not widowed after all.

As their God, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, I am still alive and well,

    committed to them even though

They filled their land with sin

    against Israel’s most Holy God.

6-8 “Get out of Babylon as fast as you can.

    Run for your lives! Save your necks!

Don’t linger and lose your lives to my vengeance on her

    as I pay her back for her sins.

Babylon was a fancy gold chalice

    held in my hand,

Filled with the wine of my anger

    to make the whole world drunk.

The nations drank the wine

    and they’ve all gone crazy.

Babylon herself will stagger and crash,

    senseless in a drunken stupor—tragic!

Get anointing balm for her wound.

    Maybe she can be cured.”

9 “We did our best, but she can’t be helped.

    Babylon is past fixing.

Give her up to her fate.

    Go home.

The judgment on her will be vast,

    a skyscraper-memorial of vengeance.

Your Lifeline Is Cut

10 “God has set everything right for us.

    Come! Let’s tell the good news

Back home in Zion.

    Let’s tell what our God did to set things right.

11-13 “Sharpen the arrows!

    Fill the quivers!

God has stirred up the kings of the Medes,

    infecting them with war fever: ‘Destroy Babylon!’

God’s on the warpath.

    He’s out to avenge his Temple.

Give the signal to attack Babylon’s walls.

    Station guards around the clock.

Bring in reinforcements.

    Set men in ambush.

God will do what he planned,

    what he said he’d do to the people of Babylon.

You have more water than you need,

    you have more money than you need—

But your life is over,

    your lifeline cut.”

14 God-of-the-Angel-Armies has solemnly sworn:

    “I’ll fill this place with soldiers.

They’ll swarm through here like locusts

    chanting victory songs over you.”

15-19 By his power he made earth.
    His wisdom gave shape to the world.
    He crafted the cosmos.
He thunders and rain pours down.
    He sends the clouds soaring.
He embellishes the storm with lightnings,
    launches the wind from his warehouse.
Stick-god worshipers look mighty foolish!
    god-makers embarrassed by their handmade gods!
Their gods are frauds, dead sticks—
    deadwood gods, tasteless jokes.
They’re nothing but stale smoke.
    When the smoke clears, they’re gone.
But the Portion-of-Jacob is the real thing;
    he put the whole universe together,
With special attention to Israel.
    His name? God-of-the-Angel-Armies!

They’ll Sleep and Never Wake Up

20-23 God says, “You, Babylon, are my hammer,

    my weapon of war.

I’ll use you to smash godless nations,

    use you to knock kingdoms to bits.

I’ll use you to smash horse and rider,

    use you to smash chariot and driver.

I’ll use you to smash man and woman,

    use you to smash the old man and the boy.

I’ll use you to smash the young man and young woman,

    use you to smash shepherd and sheep.

I’ll use you to smash farmer and yoked oxen,

    use you to smash governors and senators.

24 “Judeans, you’ll see it with your own eyes. I’ll pay Babylon and all the Chaldeans back for all the evil they did in Zion.” God’s Decree.

25-26 “I’m your enemy, Babylon, Mount Destroyer,

    you ravager of the whole earth.

I’ll reach out, I’ll take you in my hand,

    and I’ll crush you till there’s no mountain left.

I’ll turn you into a gravel pit—

    no more cornerstones cut from you,

No more foundation stones quarried from you!

    Nothing left of you but gravel.” God’s Decree.

27-28 “Raise the signal in the land,

    blow the shofar-trumpet for the nations.

Consecrate the nations for holy work against her.

    Call kingdoms into service against her.

    Enlist Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz.

Appoint a field marshal against her,

    and round up horses, locust hordes of horses!

Consecrate the nations for holy work against her—

    the king of the Medes, his leaders and people.

29-33 “The very land trembles in terror, writhes in pain,

    terrorized by my plans against Babylon,

Plans to turn the country of Babylon

    into a lifeless moonscape—a wasteland.

Babylon’s soldiers have quit fighting.

    They hide out in ruins and caves—

Cowards who’ve given up without a fight,

    exposed as cowering milksops.

Babylon’s houses are going up in flames,

    the city gates torn off their hinges.

Runner after runner comes racing in,

    each on the heels of the last,

Bringing reports to the king of Babylon

    that his city is a lost cause.

The fords of the rivers are all taken.

    Wildfire rages through the swamp grass.

Soldiers desert left and right.

    I, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, said it would happen:

‘Daughter Babylon is a threshing floor

    at threshing time.

Soon, oh very soon, her harvest will come

    and then the chaff will fly!’

34-37 “Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon

    chewed up my people and spit out the bones.

He wiped his dish clean, pushed back his chair,

    and belched—a huge gluttonous belch.

Lady Zion says,

    ‘The brutality done to me be done to Babylon!’

And Jerusalem says,

    ‘The blood spilled from me be charged to the Chaldeans!’

Then I, God, step in and say,

    ‘I’m on your side, taking up your cause.

I’m your Avenger. You’ll get your revenge.

    I’ll dry up her rivers, plug up her springs.

Babylon will be a pile of rubble,

    scavenged by stray dogs and cats,

A dumping ground for garbage,

    a godforsaken ghost town.’

38-40 “The Babylonians will be like lions and their cubs,

    ravenous, roaring for food.

I’ll fix them a meal, all right—a banquet, in fact.

    They’ll drink themselves falling-down drunk.

Dead drunk, they’ll sleep—and sleep, and sleep . . .

    and they’ll never wake up.” God’s Decree.

“I’ll haul these ‘lions’ off to the slaughterhouse

    like the lambs, rams, and goats,

    never to be heard of again.

41-48 “Babylon is finished—

    the pride of the whole earth is flat on her face.

What a comedown for Babylon,

    to end up inglorious in the sewer!

Babylon drowned in chaos,

    battered by waves of enemy soldiers.

Her towns stink with decay and rot,

    the land empty and bare and sterile.

No one lives in these towns anymore.

    Travelers give them a wide berth.

I’ll bring doom on the glutton god-Bel in Babylon.

    I’ll make him vomit up all he gulped down.

No more visitors stream into this place,

    admiring and gawking at the wonders of Babylon.

    The wonders of Babylon are no more.

Run for your lives, my dear people!

    Run, and don’t look back!

Get out of this place while you can,

    this place torched by God’s raging anger.

Don’t lose hope. Don’t ever give up

    when the rumors pour in hot and heavy.

One year it’s this, the next year it’s that—

    rumors of violence, rumors of war.

Trust me, the time is coming

    when I’ll put the no-gods of Babylon in their place.

I’ll show up the whole country as a sickening fraud,

    with dead bodies strewn all over the place.

Heaven and earth, angels and people,

    will throw a victory party over Babylon

When the avenging armies from the north

    descend on her.” God’s Decree!

Remember God in Your Long and Distant Exile

49-50 “Babylon must fall—

    compensation for the war dead in Israel.

Babylonians will be killed

    because of all that Babylonian killing.

But you exiles who have escaped a Babylonian death,

    get out! And fast!

Remember God in your long and distant exile.

    Keep Jerusalem alive in your memory.”

51 How we’ve been humiliated, taunted and abused,

    kicked around for so long that we hardly know who we are!

And we hardly know what to think—

    our old Sanctuary, God’s house, desecrated by strangers.

52-53 “I know, but trust me: The time is coming”

    —God’s Decree—

“When I will bring doom on her no-god idols,

    and all over this land her wounded will groan.

Even if Babylon climbed a ladder to the moon

    and pulled up the ladder so that no one could get to her,

That wouldn’t stop me.

    I’d make sure my avengers would reach her.”

        God’s Decree.

54-56 “But now listen! Do you hear it? A cry out of Babylon!

    An unearthly wail out of Chaldea!

God is taking his wrecking bar to Babylon.

    We’ll be hearing the last of her noise—

Death throes like the crashing of waves,

    death rattles like the roar of cataracts.

The avenging destroyer is about to enter Babylon:

    Her soldiers are taken, her weapons are trashed.

Indeed, God is a God who evens things out.

    All end up with their just deserts.

57 “I’ll get them drunk, the whole lot of them—

    princes, sages, governors, soldiers.

Dead drunk, they’ll sleep—and sleep and sleep . . .

    and never wake up.” The King’s Decree.

His name? God-of-the-Angel-Armies!

58 God-of-the-Angel-Armies speaks:

“The city walls of Babylon—those massive walls!—

    will be flattened.

And those city gates—huge gates!—

    will be set on fire.

The harder you work at this empty life,

    the less you are.

Nothing comes of ambition like this

    but ashes.”

59 Jeremiah the prophet gave a job to Seraiah son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, when Seraiah went with Zedekiah king of Judah to Babylon. It was in the fourth year of Zedekiah’s reign. Seraiah was in charge of travel arrangements.

60-62 Jeremiah had written down in a little booklet all the bad things that would come down on Babylon. He told Seraiah, “When you get to Babylon, read this out in public. Read, ‘You, O God, said that you would destroy this place so that nothing could live here, neither human nor animal—a wasteland to top all wastelands, an eternal nothing.’

63-64 “When you’ve finished reading the page, tie a stone to it, throw it into the River Euphrates, and watch it sink. Then say, ‘That’s how Babylon will sink to the bottom and stay there after the disaster I’m going to bring upon her.’”

Prophetically speaking, Babylon represents the wisdom of the world and the kingdoms of the world who are against God. Israel represents those who are following God. 
This portion of scripture tells me I have nothing to fear except the Great and Terrible God. And if I am following Him with my whole heart which means constantly cleansing my heart and allowing Him to transform my heart, He is not fearful at all! He is my Best Friend!
But hey! This WILL HAPPEN, folks! The kingdoms of this world, including America, WILL FALL! Why? Because they have chosen, on purpose, to defy God, and go completely AGAINST His Word. 
But the remnant of Christians (not the Christians in name only, but those who live every aspect of their lives according to His word) who fear the Great and Terrible God and follow Him will be saved. Even those of us who have strayed. All we need to do is repent and run back into God's protection! 
We have NOTHING to fear, except God. However, we must be very afraid IF, AND ONLY IF, we join up with the wisdom of the world, and defy God. Why? Because He WILL destroy those who go against Him. And that's a PROMISE.
Each one of us falls into one of these categories:
1. Babylon
2. Babylon, but wish to give our hearts to God, and change our evil ways.
3. Israel
4. Israel who has sinned and wants to repent.
5. We don't care either way.
Our outcome, according to God's word:
1. We will be destroyed.
2. We must come to God! Change our lives! Turn from our wicked ways! According to God's word, there is hope for us!
3. We will be saved, as long as we continue to follow God.
4. We must repent! Cleanse our hearts! Turn to God, and we will be saved!
5. We will be destroyed. Period. 
"Dear God, I pray that someone out there reading this today will stop, repent, turn from their wicked ways, and follow You with their whole heart. Your word is clear, and yet we sometimes fool ourselves into believing we are probably okay. Help us all to humble ourselves, look into the mirror of Your word, see the ugly reflection, and make the choice to turn to You. You are our ONLY Hope. It's not complicated at all. Following You is very clear and concise. Easy to understand. Hard to do at first, but when we take the first step, each step becomes easier and more exciting! An adventure of a lifetime! How I love You! How I adore You! You are my Best Friend, Jesus! AMEN."