Love Your Enemies

Read Jeremiah 34:8-22, 49:34-39, 50:41-46, 51
 
Jeremiah 51:7-8 Babylon has been a gold cup in the LORD’s hands, a cup that made the whole earth drunk. The nations drank Babylon’s wine, and it drove them all mad. 8 But suddenly Babylon, too, has fallen. Weep for her. Give her medicine. Perhaps she can yet be healed. 
 
THERE seems to be an overwhelming focus on Babylon in the prophetic scriptures. This is a nation that was a literal personification of evil. It will also be the image of sin in Revelation. Babylon will destroy. Babylon will exile. Babylon will disappear. God raised a powerful nation to judge his people’s sins. Then the LORD God Almighty judged Babylon as he judged Judah and Israel. He held Babylon in his hand as a wine cup, then he destroyed it.
   Then we are surprised to see God’s grace. When his justice is complete, God will extend his healing to the broken and desolate. Here is God’s magnificent tenderness to restore those he has judged. When the penalty is paid, the LORD opens the way for the sinner to be saved.
   This is the gospel. This is the purpose of Jesus’ redemptive work on the cross. Jesus was the Father’s wine cup filled with the Father’s wrath against a sinful world. The Son served the Father’s purpose to declare judgment on sin. Then the Father destroyed his cup of wrath, broken on the cross.  
   Now sin’s penalty is paid. Luke 22:17 Then he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. Then he said, “Take this and share it among yourselves. 18 For I will not drink wine again until the Kingdom of God has come.”…20 After supper he took another cup of wine and said, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people confirmed with my blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you.”
    Mankind’s exile from God, begun in Eden, is done for all who receive Jesus as Savior. We can go home to the Tree of Life because Jesus’ death has removed the cherubim and flaming sword (Genesis 3:24) to open your way to God. The Spirit points you to the Father. We are Babylon restored, healed from our war against God.
  
Law Obeyed, Law Broken
 
Jeremiah 34:9 Zedekiah had ordered all the people to free their Hebrew slaves, both men and women. No one was to keep a fellow Judean in bondage. 10 The officials and all the people had obeyed the king’s command, 11 but later they changed their minds. They took back the men and women they had freed, forcing them to be slaves again.
 
Zedekiah’s one righteous act becomes another crime in Judah. One time Zedekiah obeys the law to free Hebrew slaves. The Jews do so. Then they take their slaves back.
   Aren’t you glad God is not this way? When we confess Jesus is LORD, risen from the grave, ascended to heaven, we are free of sin’s tyranny. The Father will not return us to Satan, forcing us to be slaves again.
   Praise God! We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the LORD. (Ephesians 2:21)