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Text: Jeremiah 49:23-27
Egypt, Philistines, Moab, Ammon, Edom, Damascus – the sixth judgment. The first city was specifically identified for judgment under Nebuchadnezzar.
A theology of nations
- When it comes to time, some things are measured in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months. But death and judgment by God seem to be measured in corruption that works in wickedness. People and nations are born in a race against corruption. And when it comes to nations, the LORD created a nation out of a faithful man named Abraham. But the nation was corrupted by cultures that love money, power, and pleasure.
- Sodom and Gomorrah
- Jonah 1:2 Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.
- Righteousness exalts a nation
- Deuteronomy 9:4-6
- Proverbs 28:2
- Damascus is one of these corrupting influences in the land.
Damascus’ history and future
- Damascus is the oldest inhabited city in the world. It was a city before Abraham. It was referenced in some of the earliest records of man. Given the historical record, Damascus was established shortly after the flood.
- Damascus has changed hands many times over history. Damascus has been destroyed many times and rebuilt many times over history.
- Damascus was the capital of the kingdom of Aram (Syria), the northern neighbor of Israel. During the ninth century before Christ the Syrians were the most formidable foe with whom the nations of Israel and Judah had to do battle. Damascus reached the height of its power under Hazael (841-801 B.C.) who oppressed Israel and Judah throughout his reign. Damascus suffered greatly in the campaign of Shalmaneser IV in 797 B.C. and the king of Israel was able to recover the territories which he had lost to Hazael (2 Kings 13:25). Under king Rezin (750-732 B.C.) Syria again oppressed the people of God (2 Kings 16:6) and many Judeans were taken captive to Damascus (2 Chronicles 28:5). In 732 B.C. the mighty Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser crushed Damascus and thereby unwittingly fulfilled the prophecies of Isaiah (Isaiah 17:1) and Amos (Amos 1:4-5).
- Damascus has a future
- Damascus certainly had a future after Nebuchadnezzar.
- In the 1st century A.D., Damascus is a Nabatean location. Paul is going to Damascus when he is converted to Jesus Christ (Acts 9:2). There are Jewish disciples of Christ in Damascus. One named Ananias whom Paul is supposed to meet after his conversion (Acts 9:10, 19)
- Paul preaches in Damascus for a period of time and then is taken to Jerusalem (Acts 9:20-27).
- Damascus is found in Ezekiel 47 which describes land inheritance being portioned out to both Jews and Gentiles.
Jeremiah’s prophecy
- This is straightforward enough. Nebuchadnezzar is going to overtake Damascus.
- Fainthearted for good reason
- When news comes of the dreadful Babylonian army, the Syrian world is shaken. Those in the capital will be targeted.
- The people are like the sea in how they sound and in their instability (vs 23).
- See Isaiah 17, Woe to the multitude of many people, which make a noise like the noise of the seas; and to the rushing of nations, that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters!
- When the institutions and the solid ground you thought life was built on start to collapse, the natural response is to fear.
- Paul uses this same analogy of people given to false doctrine being like waves violently thrown back and forth by the wind. Ephesians 4:14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
- James also uses this analogy of people who are double-minded and therefore become fearful b/c their trust is in something unstable. James 1:6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
- Feeble like the travail of labor pains
- A time of tribulation (vs 24) like labor pains.
- This analogy is used many times of Jerusalem by Jeremiah. Micah says the same thing.
- 1 Thessalonians 5:3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
- Flee, don’t fight
- Verse 25 asks why are people still sticking around in Damascus?!
- God’s opposition means it’s time to abandon the ship.
- Flee idolatry.
- Flee fornication.
- Fall is inevitable
- b/c they don’t leave, young men fall dead in the streets.
- The military is cut off. The nation’s defenses are useless.
- Past the point of no return.
- Fire to condemn the influences on the nation
- Benhadad is the surname Hadad. Jamil Hadad, a Syrian Christian came through and preached for us a few years ago. Hadad is a common Syrian surname even today.
- The Hadad royal family was either the name of a real person or a god. Ben-Hadad means son of Hadad. And there were many kings in Syria named Benhadad.
- The political and religious institutions are broken down and burned.
