So, i had all these "things" planned for when i got home, but they somehow got lost. Lost in the piles of boxes and bags, lost in home cooked meals, lost in conversations, lost in the absolute lack of any type of obligations home entails for me. So i am stuck with simply reminiscing on my past year of college, what i learned, what i didn't, what i should have done, what i did do, the journeys the lord took me on, and the ones my friends drove me to and it lead me to Babylon. The Lord taught me something really sweet and showed me certain things he wanted me to finally let go of but it took him taking me all the way to Babylon to do so.
I was blessed to be apart of a really wonderful life group at school, during worship one guy told me he felt the Lord was telling him to tell me to read Jeremiah 50. So to Jeremiah i ran, and where i fell to my knees. Jeremiah 50 is about the Judgement on Babylon. It is one of the longest prophesy's predicting Babylon's soon to be downfall, the Lord is speaking through Jeremiah on what is to come.
In a very small nutshell, it discusses how Babylon is to be put to shame, how her idols will be put down. The captives of Babylon shall come out and seek their God first, for they have been lost sheep, their shepherds have led them astray to idols, and therefore whoever found them devoured them. He tells these captives to flee from Babylon, for Babylon is going to be invaded and Babylon will fall, it will be an
"utter desolation". He says to show her no mercy "
Raise a shout against her" and "
take vengeance on her; and do as she has done to you. Cut off from Babylon the sower" all things, and people that allow this country to prosper, cut them off, let her not survive. He says, "
In those days and in that time, declares the Lord, iniquity shall be sought in Israel, and there shall be none, and sin in Judah, and none shall be found, for i will pardon those whom i leave as a remnant." He is saying, to those captives those tribes of Israel that have been living for idols and in sin against the Lord, that he will forgive and pardon them. He goes into the battle and destruction of Babylon ( Jeremiah is a man of some serious imagery, my 10th grade English teacher would be real proud). He tells those destroying Babylon to "come against her from every quarter; open her granaries; pile her up like heaps of grain and devote her to destruction." Attack her from all sides, do not be shy, do not give her any room to turn or escape from, take all the treasures she has stored and and destroy them. He then goes on telling of Babylon's fall and what it looks like.
So i am reading, this lengthy passage while talking to the Lord on how it possibly has anything to do with me and it hits me so hard it brought me to my knees.
I am a
captive of
Babylon. But my Babylon isn't a country, it is the false idols i daily live for.
I am like the men and women enslaved in Babylon, i daily live worshipping the wrong idol. i have chosen to praise this false God, seek comfort in it, look for it to fill me, and i have been trapped, unable to run away because i am simply enslaved to it. God was telling me to be "as a male goat before the flock" to step in front of my temptations, my habits, and trial, and take the way out because just how ruin was coming to Babylon, if i did not escape, i would crush under the weight of it, under the ruined city. God was pleading me to stand against satan, give him no mercy, to set myself "array against Babylon all around" to surround it, encircle it, to not let it defeat me anymore and give it no mercy. To do to Babylon as she has done to me and to cut off everything that nurtures this idol so that it is an idol no more. Then God does what he does best and give beautiful mercy saying there will be no iniquity i will not find fault in you, because i love you. he will pardon me as someone left as a reminder of a struggle or an enslavement that has passed. In Jeremiah it says she won't fall easily, satan does not want to be defeated, but just like the demon pleaded with Jesus to not be driven out of the man, Jesus commanded him out and into the swine, so command whatever your Babylon is out.
So that is my question to you, what is your Babylon? Where is Jesus calling you to brokenness? What does he so desperately want you to stop worshipping, stop holding onto, stop controlling you, and give totally to him? Is it forgiveness, is it a temptation, a habit, a past trial, a current battle, whatever the idol, whatever the struggle Jesus is giving you a way out, before it tumbles on top of you. My Babylon may be different from your Babylon, but we all have one, and we all know we need to let go of it. So seek God, ask him for a way out, seek that way, run and never look back.
Jeremiah 50
