Season 6, Podcast 67, Isaiah 14:21-32, “Zion.”

Season 6, Podcast 67, Isaiah 14:21-32, “Zion.”

As we read Isaiah 14, consider three things. (1) a description of the fall of Babylon. (2)  a description of the fall of Lucifer, a son of the morning and his being cast out of heaven along with a third part of the hosts of heaven who followed him. They came to earth and continued the war against the people of God. Just as Lucifer and the angels who followed him lost the war in heaven, they, now known as the devil and his angels, will lose the war against the saints of God on earth and will be bound for a thousand years at the Second Coming of Christ. (3) And finally, a description of that final battle against Satan. They describe the events just prior to the Second Coming of Christ and his reign during the millennium. Babylon symbolizes a type of the world and its sins. Babylon, or the world, will fall quickly and the saints of God will live in peace in Zion.

Isaiah 14:21

Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities.

The fall of Babylon will be complete. 

Revelation 18:2

And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

‘The habitation of devils’ illustrates just how evil the world will become just before Christ returns. The earth is ‘the hold of every foul spirit.’ One of the great paradoxes of life is that people, thinking they are agents unto themselves, are sometimes, by their own devices, being led by Satan and his angels. Isaiah puts it this way:

Isaiah 5: 18-22

Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope: That say, Let him make speed, and hasten his work, that we may see it: and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it! Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink: Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him!

John also refers to the world prior to the Second coming of Christ as ‘a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.’ Later Isaiah lists the types of birds. 

Isaiah 34:11-15

But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it: and he shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness. They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none shall be there, and all her princes shall be nothing. And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls. The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; the screech owl also shall rest there, and find for herself a place of rest. There shall the great owl make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and gather under her shadow: there shall the vultures also be gathered, every one with her mate.