Author: BTP

“And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean” (Leviticus 13:45).

“Command the children of Israel, that they put out of the camp every leper” (Numbers 5:2).

We find the disease of leprosy mentioned quite often in the Word of God, in both the Old and the New Testaments. We know that the Lord Jesus cured people of their leprosy, and they were very grateful, for there was no cure for it in those days. In many countries today we do not see leprosy very often, but in a few countries of the world it is still quite common.

As we see in our verses today, a leper in the land of Israel had to stay outside the area where other people lived, and had to warn everyone who came near him that he was unclean. Leprosy in the Bible is a picture of sin. It is a very good picture of how sin works in us, for leprosy acts by taking away the sensation of pain in many parts of the body. Then, when you do not feel the pain of burning your finger, or pinching it between two hard objects, you injure yourself without even knowing it. Gradually parts of your body are damaged severely, and you lose the ends of your fingers, or your toes, and even parts of your face. If you have leprosy over a long period of time, you die from it, unless you are able to get treatment for it.

Sin in us is like that too. Before we were saved, we often sinned and did not even realize, in some cases, that we were doing anything wrong. We became so used to sin that we did not feel it anymore. Then, by the time we realized what was happening, perhaps we were doing some rather serious things. That is how sin works in us.

But just as the Lord Jesus cured leprosy, so He is able to “cure us” from sin. He wants to wash away our sins and give us a new life in Him. This does not mean that we never sin again, for even after we are saved, we still have the old sinful nature. But the Lord gives us power to keep that old nature from acting, if we look to Him.

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“And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God” (Revelation 21:10).

“The Jerusalem above is free, which is our mother” (Galatians 4:26 JND).

Yesterday we saw some of the history of the city of Jerusalem, and how important that city is to the people of Israel. We saw too that it will be the capital of Israel, and indeed the capital of the whole world, during the millennium.

Here in our verses today we see the heavenly Jerusalem, a picture of what we will share together in heaven as the church of God. God compares us to the city of Jerusalem, for just as Jerusalem in the land of Israel will be God’s center on earth in a coming day, so we will be God’s center in heaven. The holy city pictures to us the church, but it is looked at as a city. If you read Revelation, chapter 21:9-27, you will read a description of that city. It is probably not meant to be taken literally, as it is a picture, but if we look at the dimensions of it, how big it is! Twelve thousand furlongs long, twelve thousand furlongs wide, and twelve thousand furlongs high. Since there are eight furlongs in a mile, that means that this city is fifteen hundred miles long, fifteen hundred miles wide, and fifteen hundred miles high! You and I have never seen a city like that. Even if it were all on one level, it would cover more than two-thirds of the land area of continental U.S.A. But this city is also fifteen hundred miles high! We cannot imagine anything like that.

It is also very beautiful, as we read of its foundations being decorated with all kinds of precious stones, and its gates being made of pearl. There is no night there, nor do they need light from the sun, for we read that “the Lamb is the light thereof” (Revelation 21:23).

Again, all this is probably just a picture of what we will enjoy in a coming day, and there are spiritual meanings to all these things that we will not take time to go into here. But as I have already said, God is going to have a Jerusalem on earth, but also you and I, as His church, will be the “new Jerusalem” in heaven.

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“And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God” (Genesis 14:18).

“They shall call thee [Jerusalem], The city of the Lord, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel” (Isaiah 60:14).

For the past few days we have spoken about the city of Babylon, and how it represents man in all his pride. Now we would like to look at another city — a city that the Lord loves. You have probably heard of it, and read about it, both in the Bible, and in the news today — the city of Jerusalem. The city of Jerusalem is in the news a lot today, as the nation of Israel claims it as its capital, yet many in the Muslim world consider it to be their sacred city too. There is constant fighting over it, although the nation of Israel controls it with its army.

Jerusalem is a very old city, and many consider that the reference in our first verse to Melchizedek as “king of Salem” as a proof that the city of Jerusalem existed away back in his day, nearly 4000 years ago. What we know definitely about Jerusalem dates from about 1000 B.C., although it is mentioned in Egyptian history under another name about 1400 B.C. Before David was king the Jebusites had settled there, and they were not definitely defeated until David’s time.

Perhaps no city in the world has been fought over as much as Jerusalem. It was destroyed at least twice, attacked more than fifty times, and captured and recaptured forty-four times. Under David and Solomon the city became the capital of Israel, and evidently was very beautiful. Much later, in the time of Nebuchadnezzar, the city was destroyed and then eventually rebuilt. It came under Muslim control in the seventh century A.D., and continued in this way until the British took it over during World War 1.

Today, Jews, Muslims, and Christians all have a strong interest in Jerusalem, and the eyes of the whole world are focused on it. But the day is coming when it will be the capital, not only of Israel, but of the entire millennial earth. Only when the Lord Jesus Christ comes to reign during the millennium will it again be called the “city of peace,” which is what Jerusalem means. (Salem is the Hebrew word for peace.)

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“And great Babylon come in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath” (Revelation 16:19).

“And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all” (Revelation 18:21).

Here again, at the end of the Bible, we find the name of Babylon mentioned again. It is obviously not the same as the tower of Babel we read about in Genesis, nor is it the city of Babylon in the time of Nebuchadnezzar. This time it is the great religious and political system of things that will develop in the world after the Lord comes and takes us home to heaven. At that time, the pride of man will reach a tremendous height, and they will even think, at one point, that they can fight against God.

We will not go into a lot of detail about all that is going to happen, but we will only point out that the same pride that started away back in the time of Nimrod and continued into the time of Nebuchadnezzar, will still be present even after we are safely at home with the Lord. The name of Babylon is the name used to describe that pride, and it will an awful thing to see. Yet we read that when the Lord brings down judgment on that whole system, it “shall be found no more at all.” God hates pride, for as we have noted before, the pride of man takes the glory that belongs only to God, and gives it to man. God is going to bring down all of man’s pride, so that His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, can be exalted above all else.

Many people on this earth at that time will be very sad when this happens, for a lot of business and commerce will be lost when that whole system is gone. The lives of many people will be disrupted. But God must do this, so that His kingdom can be established. All the evil must be taken away so that the Lord Jesus can reign over the earth as the rightful King.

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“O king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken; The kingdom is departed from thee. And they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field” (Daniel 4:31-32).

“And thou his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this” (Daniel 5:22).

One of the reasons why the name Babylon is mentioned so often in the Bible is that it is connected with the pride of man. As we saw yesterday, man’s pride started away back in the book of Genesis, and that pride is there all the way through man’s history. It will be the same pride that God will judge, after every true Christian has been called home at the Lord’s coming for us.

When Nebuchadnezzar became so proud, the Lord changed him to be like an animal, with hair that grew like eagles’ feathers, and nails like birds’ claws. (Yes, that really happened! You can read about it in Daniel, chapter 4). He also ate grass like a cow. Then, after seven years, the Lord gave him back his right mind and his kingdom, and he honored the Lord. He recognized that the Lord was the only true God, and that he, the great Nebuchadnezzar, was only a man.

Later on, after Nebuchadnezzar had died, his grandson Belshazzar became king, and he too was very proud. You can read about him in Daniel, chapter 5. Belshazzar was actually the son of Nebuchadnezzar’s daughter, whose name was Nitocris. Instead of learning from what had happened to his grandfather, Belshazzar worshipped the Babylonian gods, and then dared to bring the gold and silver vessels that had been taken from the temple in Jerusalem, and drink wine from them. While they were doing this, they praised all those false gods.

But then the Lord allowed a hand to appear suddenly, and it wrote on the wall of the palace where all this was going on. Can you imagine how frightened Belshazzar was, when that hand appeared, and wrote on the wall something he could not understand? But while he was frightened, he does not seem to have repented before God, and the Bible tells us that he was killed that very night. The Persians were camped outside the city with their army, and Belshazzar felt that they would never get into the city. But they managed to dam up the Euphrates River, and then just came under the wall where the riverbed was. All that big wall did not protect the city, when God was ready for the Babylonian empire to end!

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“Nimrod … and the beginning of his kingdom was Babel” (Genesis 10:9-10).

“The king [Nebuchadnezzar] spake, and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I have built … by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty?” (Daniel 4:30).

The name Babylon occurs many times in the Bible, and perhaps you have wondered why it is mentioned so often. We know from history that it was an ancient city, the capital of the Chaldean Empire, but why is it mentioned so many times in the Bible, and in different connections?

The history of Babylon goes a long way back, as we see by our first verse. Away back in the book of Genesis, we read about a man named Nimrod, who started a kingdom called Babel. Babel and Babylon are apparently the same in the Hebrew language, so that Babylon, at least in spirit, started a long time ago. It seems that Nimrod was also responsible for starting what later became the kingdom of Assyria.

Hundreds of years later we find the name Babylon again, when the people of Judah were taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. He was a very proud ruler, but used of God to punish the nation of Judah for worshipping idols, and constantly rebelling against God. God gave Nebuchadnezzar all the power and glory that he had, but then he dared to say, concerning the great city of Babylon, “Is not this great Babylon, that I have built … by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty?” (Daniel 4:30).

Babylon was indeed a large and beautiful city, and probably the biggest city in the ancient world. Its hanging gardens, built on terraces by Nebuchadnezzar for his wife, are regarded as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The Euphrates River flowed right through the city, guaranteeing a water supply, and apparently the city had twenty-five brass gates.

Its walls were absolutely amazing. Built of clay bricks, the walls were at least two hundred feet high, and possibly as high as three hundred feet. They were also about eighty feet thick. Can you imagine a wall like that — between twenty and thirty stories high? The average traffic lane on a major freeway in North America is about twelve feet (3.6 meters) wide, so those walls were wider than six lanes on a big highway. No wonder king Belshazzar (Nebuchadnezzar’s grandson) thought he was safe inside that wall! But we will see tomorrow what happened.

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“For we are unto God a sweet savor of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: to the one we are the savor of death unto death; and to the other the savor of life unto life” (2 Corinthians 2:15-16).

These verses may seem hard to understand, but if we know how things were done when this epistle was written, it becomes clear. In the days of the Roman Empire, the army often went on military campaigns against other nations and peoples. If the army returned to Rome victorious (and usually they did!), they brought quite a few captives with them. The proud Roman general would ride through the streets of Rome, amid the cheering of the people. With him would be the captives in chains, some appointed to die, and some allowed to live. All along there would be clouds of sweet-smelling incense and perfume sprayed into the air, which everyone could smell.

That sweet-smelling perfume meant something different to those condemned to die, and those who would live. It smelled nice to both groups, but to those who knew they would live, it was a reminder that the Romans had showed mercy to them. But to those who were condemned to die, it was a reminder that they were doomed, even though the perfume was the same.

The gospel is like that. It is a wonderful story of God’s love, and to those who accept it, it means eternal life, and a life with Christ in heaven for all eternity. To those who reject the gospel, it is still a beautiful story, but it reminds them of eternal judgment, for refusing God’s love.

Wherever we go, if we speak about the Lord Jesus and His love, it is a “sweet savor to God.” God loves to hear us speak well of His beloved Son. But that sweet savor means something different to those who are saved, and those who are lost.

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“Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us” (Romans 8:37).

When we do anything that is competitive, we all like to win. Also, we like to see those whom we support, win too. I can remember driving by the football stadium one Lord’s day afternoon, in the city where I grew up. The home team in our city had just lost the game to another visiting team, and many of the local fans were not happy. I saw one man walking along the sidewalk who was so upset that he was kicking every parked car he passed, just to work out his frustrations. But how can we be more than conquerors? After all, if we win, we win. How can we do more than win?

Perhaps we can use an illustration. Back in the days of sailing ships, they sometimes encountered severe storms. Then they had to take in the sails, and just let the wind carry them wherever it blew. Then, after the storm was over, they would get things back together, check their position, and try to get back on course. If they got through the storm and had no damage to the ship, they would say they had conquered. They had made it through the storm.

But suppose that after the storm, when they checked their position, they found that instead of blowing them off course, the storm had driven them right on course, and that they were much closer to their destination than if the weather had been nice. Instead of working against them, the storm had worked for them! That would be a case of being more than a conqueror.

It is often that way in our lives. The storms the Lord allows in our Christian pathway do not blow us off course. They are working for us, not against us, and through those storms we learn lessons we could not learn any other way. Also, we learn the Lord’s care of us, and how He can protect us. We could not learn that kind of thing in heaven, for there will be no storms up there. We have to learn all that down here, but we will have the memory of it for all eternity.

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“I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content” (Philippians 4:11).

The Apostle Paul had many different experiences in his life. Some of them were rather difficult, and others were very pleasant. You can read about some of those difficult experiences in 2 Corinthians, at the end of chapter 11. But Paul had learned to be content in whatever state he found himself.

Notice that he says he had “learned” to be content. Paul was no different naturally than any of the rest of us. He did not naturally like hard circumstances; he would have liked everything to go smoothly for him. But that is not the way we learn things in our Christian life. Paul had to learn to be content in whatever situation he was, and so do we.

How could Paul be content in difficult circumstances? It was because he knew that the Lord had placed him in that situation, and that the Lord had a purpose in doing it. He knew that he had something to learn wherever the Lord placed him, and perhaps the Lord also had something for him to do there. Most important, he knew that wherever he was, the Lord was with him, and would give him the strength to do what He had for him to do there. We learn far more in difficult situations than we do when things are going smoothly for us.

Although it is not the main meaning of this verse, we can also use it to speak about how the Lord has made us. He has given us our bodies, our brains, our abilities, and our spiritual gifts. Sometimes perhaps we look at others, and wish we had the abilities or gifts that they have. But just as the human body is made up of many different parts, so believers do not all have the same abilities. As we saw with John the Baptist, the important thing is to use what the Lord has given us, where He wants us to use it. That is what pleases Him.

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“John did no miracle: but all things that John spake of this Man were true” (John 10:41).

We saw yesterday that John the Baptist was given a high honor by the Lord Jesus, because he was willing to be where the Lord wanted him, and he did what the Lord gave him to do. However, as I mentioned at the end of yesterday’s meditation, there was one other important reason why the Lord Jesus commended John so highly.

In our verse today, the people commented that John had not done any miracle. God could have given John the Baptist the power to do miracles, but He left that for the Lord Jesus to do. As the Messiah, it was His place to perform those miracles, to prove who He was. But the people also commented that everything that John had said about the Lord Jesus was true. At first this might seem like something very simple to us, but there is a deeper meaning to those words.

John the Baptist never talked about himself, or boasted about who he was, and the work he was doing. When the people asked him who he was, he said, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord” (John 1:23). But John always said a lot about the Lord Jesus, and who He was. He told the people to get ready for Him, as the rightful King of Israel. He could say in John 3:30, “He [the Lord Jesus] must increase, but I must decrease.” It was also for this reason that the Lord commended John the Baptist

It is rather sad that some people who want to serve the Lord want to be given credit for it, and want to have a place of honor. I have some Christian friends that, whenever I talk to them, within five minutes want to tell me how much they are doing for the Lord. However, you and I know that the only One who is worthy to be honored is the Lord Jesus. John the Baptist understood this, and always talked about the Lord Jesus, not about himself. The people recognized this, and it caused many to believe on the Lord Jesus. That is the way it should be in our lives.

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