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5 The LORD
[Yahovah] hath broken [shabar] the
staff [matteh] of the wicked [rasha`], and the sceptre [shebet]
of the rulers [mashal]. KJV-Interlinear
5 "The
Lord has broken the staff of the wicked, The scepter of rulers NASB
The staff and the scepter are symbols of the power and authority and the will of the rulers and leaders and people of any given nation. So, when a person or nation holds the scepter, then they possess the power and authority to rule. And, when they lose the scepter, then they have lost the power and authority to rule.
When Babylon was first invaded and destroyed, shortly after Isaiah’s time, that was at the hands of the Persians led by Cyrus. God’s authority and will was a part of that history.
When Hitler rose to power and fell, his destruction was of the hands of the Allied forces. God’s authority and will was a part of that history.
When any leader or nation or person for that matter, rises to whatever position they are in, God’s will is a part of that event.
God’s will is involved in every event that has ever occurred, or ever will occur, in all of human history.
That does not mean that the event was right or correct, this only means that God’s will was involved no matter what the event might happen to be.
God appoints all leaders, and God removes all leaders. God gives and God takes away. Jesus Christ is God, and Jesus Christ controls history.
Jesus Christ controls history in three ways.
First, is his direct control. He directly creates life. He directly created the universe. He directly created the angels. He directly creates life in every human being.
Second, he controls history through indirect control, allowing the free will of man to function freely. Evil can rise and another evil can rise against that first evil, and good can rise against either one of those evils, creating a conflict of the nature that you might see in jungle.
Third, he controls history through the laws of establishment, which are divine laws that function throughout history and throughout society, providing stability within the functions of society throughout history. Divine laws of establishment include volition of man and his freedom to choose, principles of marriage and family and authority, the principles of economics and free enterprise, the principles of freedom and liberty, the principles of patriotism and nationalism, the principles of freedom through military victory, and many, many more.
At the end of our current dispensation which we call the church age, the rapture will occur, removing all believers in Christ from the face of this earth. Simultaneously, the restraint against evil which has existed here on earth in society, will be completely removed, leaving a world full of people who will be unbelievers, without any sense of restraint for anything they choose to do, or choose not to do.
The levels of crime and chaos will rocket right off of the charts. The evils of government will reach unbelievable levels. And except for those people who discover Christ through the gospel, and their spiritual life through doctrine, there will be no restraint from evil, across the entire planet.
This makes the seven year period tribulation the absolute worst period in all of the history of creation.
There will be no honor, no integrity, no loyalty whatsoever in anyone, for anything.
Evil will run rampant, and as we saw in our study of Revelation, and some of the studies in Isaiah, the abuses and atrocities of people against people will be beyond imagination.
Toward the end of the tribulation, which you recall is only seven years long, the vast majority of the worlds population will have already died. So by the time Christ returns at the second advent, most of the worlds population will have killed itself off.
Thus far we have only been studying the fall of Babylon. And in the next several chapters we will be studying other nations surrounding Israel, their decline, and destruction, at their own hands and at the hands of others, as well as at the hand of God.
God brings with him into history all of the tools that are available to him. And as such, with the power of foreknowledge and the power of giving and taking and the power of putting people in the right place at the right time in history, then God can and does control the outcome of everything, even in the face of man’s attempt to chart his own course through history.
Through well over six thousand years, God has sustained human history, and spite of all of the wars, all of the diseases, all of the disasters that have occurred in history, that should have destroyed man many times over long ago, we are still here. But no thinks to ourselves or to human ingenuity. God alone has kept us here on this planet.
However, when man is given complete control and authority over his own destiny, during the tribulation, then within seven short years man will bring on his own, all of humanity to the brink of extinction.
Therefore, in order to save humanity, Christ has to destroy evil. And that is the example portrayed here in the destruction of Babylon.
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