The Metaphoric Babylon of Captivity Runs Twice

Posted : 23 Sep, 2013 06:37 AM

The Metaphoric Babylon of Captivity Runs Twice



"My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their restingplace..........Remove out of the midst of Babylon, and go forth out of the land of the Chaldeans, and be as the he goats before the flocks." Jeremiah 50: 6, 8



"Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul: be not cut off in her iniquity; for this is the time of the LORD's vengeance; he will render unto her a recompence." Jeremiah 51: 6



"For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; The daughter of Babylon is like a threshingfloor, it is time to thresh her: yet a little while, and the time of her harvest shall come." Jeremiah 51: 33



Jeremiah 23: 31-32 gives the reasons why God sent physical Israel into the literal Babylonian captivity, and Jeremiah 29: 8-10 repeats the reasons and says physical Israel will be in captivity seventy years.



Yet the Babylon in Jeremiah 50 and 51 quoted above is not the literal Babylon of king Nebuchadnezzar. It is a metaphoric concept. The metaphoric Babylon in Jeremiah 50 and 51 is physical Israel in false doctrines and false practices. But,as we will see, there are verses in Jeremiah 50 and 51 which apply also to the time of the New Covenant and the falling into false doctrines by what the II Timothy 3: 5-8 Christians call the church.



Jeremiah 23: 1-2, 31-32 and Jeremiah 29: 8-10 give the reason why God judged physical

Israel in the time of the Babylon captivity in about 586 BC.



Jeremiah 23: 1-2 says "Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the LORD. Therefore thus saith the LORD God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people; Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the LORD."



Scattered is not limited to dispersing the people of physical Israel over the earth, though that also happened to some extent. Scattering also refers to diminishing the spiritual power of physical Israel, as in Daniel 12: 7, which talks about scattering the power of the holy people.



Then God in Jeremiah 23: 31-32 says "Behold, I am against the prophets, saith the LORD, that use their tongues, and say, He saith. Behold, I am against them that prophesy false dreams, saith the LORD, and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by their lightness; yet I sent them not, nor commanded them: therefore they shall not profit this people at all, saith the LORD."



"For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Let not your prophets and your diviners, that be in the midst of you, deceive you, neither hearken to your dreams which ye cause to be dreamed.

9. For they prophesy falsely unto you in my name: I have not sent them, saith the LORD.

10. For thus saith the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place." Jeremiah 29: 8-10



Physical Israel was judged and began to be sent into a literal Babylonian captivity in about 586 BC. After this period of seventy years, under Ezra, and Nehemiah and Zerubbabel many of physical Israel

returned to Jerusalem, and the wall and temple were rebuilt.



Just as the people of physical Israel in the time of Jeremiah (whose ministry was from about 626 BC to 586 BC) were sent into literal captivity in Babylon, so the people in the timeline of the New Covenant at the time of the end are sent into spiritual captivity to their own false doctrines. The Great Tribulation of Matthew 24: 21 is judgment by God for being in false doctrines, and that judgment consists of being brought into captivity to spiritual Babylon, or Christianity in false doctrines taught by the huge number of false prophets (Matthew 24: 11. II Peter 2: 1-3).



And that spiritual captivity to false doctrines taught by the huge number of false prophets, the priests and preachers of the church, is metaphorical Babylon in Revelation 17 and 18.



Revelation 18: 4 says "Come out of her, my people that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues."



This is a repeat of the call of Jeremiah 50: 8 to remove out of the midst of Babylon, and go forth out of the land of the Chaldeans, and of Jeremiah 51: 6 to flee out of the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul: be not cut off in her iniquity. In other words, Babylon as a metaphor for being in captivity to false doctrines repeats, running once in the time of the Old Covenant and again in the period of the New Covenant.



Then there is that interesting metaphoric statement in Revelation 18: 23, "And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived." Christ and his elect, the bride of Christ, are not in Babylon, not inside the camp in Hebrews 13: 11, but outside of Babylon, now the camp in false doctrines.



"For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; The daughter of Babylon is like a threshingfloor, it is time to thresh her: yet a little while, and the time of her harvest shall come." Jeremiah 51: 33



The tribulation mentioned in Matthew 24: 29, which comes before the time when the sun and moon are darkened, the stars fall from heaven and the heavens shaken, is, metaphorically, the threshing floor of Jeremiah 51: 33.



In the threshing floor, those deceived by the huge number of false prophets of Matthew 24: 11, II Peter 2: 1-3 and Revelation 9: 14-9, are separated from those not deceived, who come to the knowledge of the truth. Those who are deceived by the false prophets and their man made doctrines, are under the indignation of God of Isaiah 26: 20. This is a time after the falling away of II Thessalonians 2: 3-4 begins in the modern timeline.



Many will not understand the threshing floor metaphor, which is not too hard to grasp. The threshing floor is where the wheat is separated from the chaff, that is, where those who have come to the knowledge of the truth (I Timothy 2: 4, II Timothy 3: 7, III John 1: 4) are separated from those who have not come to that knowledge and resist the truth, though they may think they have been born again by procedures which do not change them from the state of the natural man to spiritual new creatures.. What is the cause of people not coming to the knowledge of the truth? It can be that the Lord has not given them ears to hear the truth, and that they have been deceived by the false prophets, the priests and preachers, into believing false doctrines and the re-defined and reduced Gospel taught by these guys.



The remnant found in Revelation 12:17, who have the testimony of Jesus Christ, and are outside of Babylon, not inside the camp of apostasy, but out in the spiritual wilderness (Revelation 12: 6,14), help to separate the wheat from the chaff in the threshing floor of Jeremiah 51: 33. "And the dragon was wroth with the woman and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have he testimony of Jesus Christ." Revelation 12: 17



"And they that understand among the people shall instruct many: yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil, many days." Daniel 11: 33

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