SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/29/2023 9:15 AM
PT-13 Intro to Daniel
“Listen. Nebuchadnezzar came in 586.
He actually arrived in 588, two years before the captivity. And he started his
siege. By this time, the people are so sick of hearing Jeremiah, they threw him
in a slimy, filthy cistern pit to die. That’s his thanks for preaching the
truth. And he’s languishing in a foul slimy cistern left to die. Finally, they
decide to release him and in 588 Nebuchadnezzar came. And Werner Keller writes
this, “The Chaldean divisions of infantry, fast cavalry and charioteers smashed
all resistance and conquered city after city sweeping across Judah. Except for
the capital of Jerusalem and the frontier fortresses of Lachish and Azekah in
the south, the whole land was finally subdued. Azekah fell and then they went
for Lachish.”
“And Werner Keller says this, “In
701 B.C. the stormed troops of the king of Assyria had rushed the walls of
Lachish with tanks.” This is Sennacherib in the past. One hundred and forty
years before, he had rushed with tanks. And tanks were – were sort of war
machines like chariots with big wheels and had battering rams. They didn’t
shoot anything, they just drove pillar – or pylons right into the walls. But
Nebuchadnezzar had a better idea in 588. “Investigation of the stratum,” says
Keller, “that marked the Babylonian work of destruction produced to Starkey’s
astonishment,” – and Starkey is an archaeologist – “ashes.”
“In other words, as they studied the
archeology around there they discussed the fact that – that when they got to
the level of Jerusalem when it was taken by Nebuchadnezzar they found ashes
everywhere. “Ashes,” says Keller, “in incredible quantities. Many of the – of
the layers of ashes are yards thick. And still, it says after 2500 years higher
than the remains of the walls are the piles of ashes.” We know from archeology
that Nebuchadnezzar’s engineers were specialists in the art of incendiaries. In
other words, they were great at setting fires. They were masters at starting
great conflagrations and burning whole cities to the ground.
“Whatever wood they could lay hands
on they dragged to the spot. They stripped all the area around Lachish of all
of its timber. They piled high the firewood as high as a house outside the
walls. They just piled firewood all the way around the city. They hacked down all
the olive orchards. And they know that because the ashes they have found have
masses of charred olive pits. Day and night, sheets of flames just continued to
leap sky-high and a ring of fire around the city continually, continually,
continually.
“They piled on more and more wood,
more and more wood until what happened was the wall became white hot, the
stones of the wall were blistering hot and they literally burst, and the wall
of protection around Lachish crumbled. And all that was left for Nebuchadnezzar
was Jerusalem. And they took the whole Babylonian war machine and they directed
it at the city of Jerusalem. They couldn’t use incendiary technique there
because the – the forests that used to ring Jerusalem were now denuded by past
conquerors. And so they just laid siege. Second Kings 25 says the city was
besieged under the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.
“A couple of verses later in 2 Kings
25, it says, “And the city was broken up and all the men of war fled by night.”
You know you’re in trouble when the army goes out the back door, and that’s
what happened. They took Zedekiah, the last king, and they did what was
customary to do in those days to those who committed treason. They took a hot
sword and they burned out both his eyes. But before they did that, they lined
up all of Zedekiah’s children and they slaughtered them and instantly after
that burned out his eyes so the last image he would ever remember would be the
slaughter of his children. That was their way of punishing treason.
“By the way, I had – in looking
Werner Keller’s book, The Bible As History, this week, they had a picture of a
relief found on a wall in archeological diggings of that very thing going on. A
king kneeling on the ground and a sword being pushed into his eyes. They also
showed people with rings in their lips because the prophets had said that they
would take them into captivity by hooks. And one of the ways they humiliated
and dragged prisoners away was by putting rings in their lips and tying them to
ropes and pulling them along by their lips.
“The land then became a Babylonian
province. They put a puppet ruler in there by the name of Gedaliah who didn’t
last very long because some pro-Judah renegades who had hidden out in the hills
came down and slaughtered him. A group of Jews trying to escape from all of the
hassles ran to Egypt and they dragged Jeremiah with them and dear old – bless
his heart – Jeremiah died alone in Egypt. And the curtain of history came down
on an empty, barren devastated land and now, all of the people of Israel were
scattered the four winds.
“Werner Keller says, “Six hundred
and fifty years after the children of Israel had under Joshua set foot on the
promised land there was not one of their descendants still in it.” Six hundred
and fifty years later they were all gone. The prophetic threats and warnings
had been fulfilled; the judgment of God which had been proclaimed had come on
them. Jeremiah said, “Behold, saith the Lord, I will make the cities of Judah a
desolation without an inhabitant,” Jeremiah 34:22.
And the story of the children of Israel is at an end and the story of the Jews
begins.
“Now our scene shifts to Babylon
because there’s nothing left to look at in Judah. What’s it like in Babylon?
Imagine you were dragged off and you’re there. What was their attitude? Turn to
Psalm 137 and let’s hear a Psalm that expresses their emotion. Psalm 137,
this is the – the cry of their hearts in Babylon. Psalm 137, listen. And you
have to imagine this in Hebrew because it’s in poem form, poetic form and no
doubt was chanted in a very mournful dirge-like manner. “By the rivers of
Babylon there we sat down, yea we wept when we remembered Zion.”
“Zion was their favorite name for
their land. “We hung our harps on the willows in the midst thereof. For there
they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted
us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we
sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” They hung their harps on the willows.
There was no song to sing.
“And then they cried out, “O if I
forget thee, Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not
remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I prefer not
Jerusalem above my chief joy. Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day
of Jerusalem who said raise it even to the foundation thereof. O daughter of
Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewarded thee as thou
hast served us. Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones
against the stones.”
“You want to hear their attitude? “O
God, may we never forget our home and, God, may You bring judgment on the
people who have done this to us.” That’s what was coming right out of their
hearts. They were brokenhearted. You want to know something? They never got the
message from history, and they never got the message from prophecy, and they
never got the message from revival but, boy, did they get the message in
captivity.
“God, if we ever forget Jerusalem.”
What do you mean by that? Not just the geography, not just the aesthetics, but
all that the worship of Jehovah means in the city of our God. If we ever forget
where we belong may my – may my right hand forget its cunning. And so the Word
of the Lord had come to pass which said, “My Spirit shall not always strive
with man.’”
It looks like that there will only
be one more introduction from this sermon from John MacArthur, and then I will
move to what I wrote beginning in 2013.
When I wrote my Spiritual Diaries on Daniel in 2013 I began in March of
that year doing the first chapter, and then I did one chapter per month until I
was through the book of Daniel. So it
looks like one more introduction from MacArthur’s sermon and then when I begin
to look at what I wrote in March of 2013 there will be another introduction
there.
11/29/2023
9:24 AM
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