Participants: David Down
Series Code: DUTP
Program Code: DUTP000005
|
00:01 In the last episode, we talked about the
00:04 Assyrian empire, which terrorizes the 00:07 surrounding nation with it's cruelties for 300 00:10 years. Its last two kings even invaded Egypt. 00:15 But, the Assyrians were eventually conquered 00:17 by the Babylonians. Well, David has visited 00:20 Babylon many times and in fact, even slept 00:23 among stitch ruins. And today he will be 00:26 telling us about the story of the Golden City of Babylon. 01:00 Well, Babylon certainly was a magnificent city, 01:04 Isaiah called its the City of Gold, and gold 01:08 was just about as plentiful as the dust of 01:10 Babylonians today. Nebuchadnezzar, of the 01:13 great king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, 01:17 was a marvelous conqueror. And he was an obsessed 01:21 builder. He just built palace after place, 01:24 temple after temple in all Babylon. And a visit 01:27 to Babylon today, even now it's lying in ruins 01:30 gives you some idea of what a magnificent city it was. 01:35 We entered by the Ishtar Gate. Ishtar, of course was the 01:39 Babylonian fertility Goodness. And this Ishtar gate 01:43 was dedicated to her. On the wall of this gate 01:47 you can see the Sirrush as they called them. 01:50 They are composite creatures and these 01:53 were molding bricks. In the building museum 01:57 professor Koldewey, who excavated Babylon 02:01 has reassembled part of this gate. It was might 02:04 of glazed bricks, beautiful blue glaze 02:08 colors and it must be an impressive sight to walk 02:12 through this gateway into the great procession street. 02:17 And here the King and his captives were 02:20 brought as they returned from the military 02:23 campaigns. And here is the very procession 02:27 street along which the captives were dragged. 02:30 At the end of the procession street there 02:32 is still standing there a pillar. With the matter 02:35 of fact that's its use by the stocks today to 02:38 build in this upon top of it. But, this was one 02:41 of the mighty pillars of Babylon. Not far away 02:44 is, has been reconstruction of the temple to Nimach, 02:49 one of the Babylonian deities. And this has being rebuilt 02:55 as it was in the days of ancient Babylon just 02:57 one of the many temples that had been 03:00 erected by King Nebuchadnezzar. 03:04 And then there was the palace throne room or 03:07 you can see today is just the floor of this throne room, 03:10 and of course, the great hanging gardens of Babylon, 03:14 one of the seven wonders of the world. 03:16 Do you know what hanging gardens are? 03:18 It doesn't mean now it dangling by rope or 03:20 something like that. It's simply means that these 03:23 gardens were built upon suspended diverted 03:25 water course. And Koldewey, the great Excavator, 03:29 German excavator of Babylon found what he 03:32 can consider to be the foundation of 03:34 this hanging garden. And the conduits 03:37 through which the water came and that would 03:39 drawn up onto the garden. Do you know why he had 03:42 this hanging garden? Let me tell, you see 03:45 when Nebuchadnezzar and his father conquered 03:49 the city of Nineveh in Assyrian in 612 BC. 03:55 The whole campaign was sealed by the marriage of 04:00 Nebuchadnezzar to the daughter of Cyaxares, 04:05 the Median King. Her name was Amytis, 04:08 as she came from the Highlands of median 04:11 up there near Hamadan up to 200 meters above sea level. 04:15 It was pretty cooled, beautiful garden up there. 04:18 And so when Nebuchadnezzar princess was moved down the 04:21 Babylon to live in the sweltering heat there, 04:23 like a good husband he decided to try and make 04:27 her feel at home. And so he built these beautiful 04:30 hanging gardens one of the seven wonders of the world, 04:33 just to make his wife happy. Isn't that malice? 04:35 And so we have the hanging gardens of Babylon. 04:39 And then there were the great residential areas 04:43 and the palace of Nebuchadnezzar or it 04:46 must have been a tremendous city and 04:48 you can walk all around the ruins of Babylon today. 04:51 And get some idea of what an enormous and 04:54 magnificent city it was do you know it was ten 04:58 miles that's about 16 kilometers in circumference. 05:02 Therefore, those days that was a huge city. 05:04 What you think that Jericho city, on the 350 05:07 meters long by 150 meters wide. 05:09 And here it was Babylon 16 kilometers in circumference, 05:13 a huge doubled wall. You can see the 05:15 foundation of the wall lay today. And so this 05:19 doubled wall was right around Babylon to protector. 05:23 And Nebuchadnezzar thought that he was 05:24 building a city that would last for all 05:27 eternity, and starting a dynasty 05:30 that would never die. And how disappoint 05:32 that he would be weaken after die and 05:34 see what's happened to his beautiful city of Babylon. 05:38 Well, Babylon started off a long time ago. 05:42 You know, I believe it's the oldest city in the world. 05:46 And we found the reference to its origins 05:48 in Genesis chapter 11; If you heard of the 05:52 tower of Bible, well we told here that as the 05:57 people travel down from Mount Ararat 06:00 along the river Euphrates they came to 06:02 this place called Babel or Babylon. And they 06:06 said, one to another, come let us make bricks, 06:09 and bake them thoroughly and they had 06:12 brick for stone and they had asphalt for mortar, 06:16 you know, that's historically very accurate, 06:18 because there are lots of temple towers all 06:21 like call them Ziggurats in Mesopotamia or what 06:25 we called Iraq today. And do you know what 06:28 they've made up bricks that have been burnt 06:31 very, very thoroughly. They are so toughed you 06:34 drop them on the ground or smash them 06:36 against each other. You can hardly break them 06:38 open. And another thing is by struck together with 06:42 asphalt just exactly as the Bible builders built 06:47 their tower of Babylon. Now when was this tower? 06:51 Well for long time, a place called Berossus Nimrod, 06:54 was regarded as the traditional tower of Bible. 06:58 But, this was only because of it was tallest 07:00 standing ziggurats in Mesopotamia. 07:03 And so the early Christians and for that matter the early 07:07 Jews thought that Berossus Nimrod was the tower of Bible. 07:11 It is a temple tower. It is a ziggurat and it goes up in 07:13 stages. And it was very high. Right upon top later 07:17 on Nebuchadnezzar built a tower that is not the tower. 07:20 What you are looking at is the great huge man made 07:25 mountain of bricks. And that is Berossus Nimrod. 07:29 But, however, the tower of Bible or the Babylonian 07:34 tower was not here. It was naturally in Babylon itself. 07:39 And just because it can't be seen there today people 07:41 think well let can't be it. But, you see when 07:44 Alexandra, the great came to Babylon he decided to 07:48 make that his headquarters, the capital city of his Great 07:50 Empire. And he saw this temple tower on Ziggurat, 07:56 which is become into a state of disrepair and so 07:59 told his engineers, get busy and rebuild this. 08:02 They said, well they can't do anything to patch this thing 08:04 up. There is only one thing to do and that is remove the 08:07 whole thing, brick part break and then lets rebuilt it 08:10 from the foundation up. So, he said, go ahead 08:13 and do that. And so they removed this Ziggurat and 08:18 put it over nearby place but before like its start 08:22 rebuilding it, Alexander died while he was just a 08:25 young man, only 32 years of age. 08:28 And so it never got rebuilt. But, Professor Koldewey 08:33 excavated the foundation of it. You can see them their 08:35 today. What's under the water is the first stage and 08:40 this must have been the huge temple tower. 08:44 And so the early Bible builders 08:46 were the first city builders. And they built this 08:50 great city of Babylon, which you know the story, 08:53 how their languages were confused. They all spoke one 08:56 language. Naturally being all descedant from Noah, but their 08:59 language was miraculously confused and by started 09:03 speaking different languages they couldn't 09:05 understand each other. And so like gave up and 09:08 I just went up in different directions according to their 09:10 language groups. And so Babylon virtually fell into 09:14 disrepair and it was left for the greatest Assyrian empire 09:18 to take over and for fifteen hundred years, the Assyrian 09:22 dominated the Middle East and Babylon was just the 09:26 second right city. In the year 701 BC, the Assyrian 09:32 kings Sennacherib invaded Israel. 09:36 And surrounded Jerusalem, and he posed 09:40 a very serious threat to it. I tell you everyone there 09:43 was scared to death. You fall into the hands of 09:45 the Assyrians and you face the risk of being 09:48 impaled or skinned alive, and so king Hezekiah 09:52 and his courtiers and the people were terrified? 09:56 But, they were in Jerusalem at this time, their Prophet 10:00 Isaiah, and Isaiah might have 10:03 very interesting prophecy. You will find here in 10:06 Isaiah, chapter 13 and in Verse 19, strange to say the 10:11 prophecy verse not about Assyria but about Babylon. 10:16 You see Isaiah was looking down the centuries. 10:20 And looking at something that was 10:22 to happen a lot lighter. It says here, "And Babylon, 10:25 the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans' 10:28 pride, Will be as when God overthrew Sodom and 10:31 Gomorrah." It will never be inhabited, Nor will it be 10:36 settled from generation to generation; Nor will the 10:39 Arabian pitch stench there, Nor will the shepherds 10:42 make their sheepfolds there. Now that's a remarkable thing. 10:47 Remember this was 701 BC when Sennacherib was 10:51 besieging Jerusalem. And here we have this prophecy 10:55 by Isaiah who is living at the time, saying Babylon is 10:59 going to be destroyed. Wonder it's only a few 11:02 years later, 689 BC when Sennacherib decided to 11:07 destroy Babylon. He completely rise it to the 11:11 ground. In fact, even flooded the river Euphrates is 11:16 into it and might be just a big swamp. And I supposed 11:19 people living back there thought, they know how, 11:21 just what the prophet said. He said, it was going 11:24 to be destroyed. But, Babylon might come back. 11:28 Under Sennacherib son Esarhaddon, 11:32 Babylon was rebuilt. You see it was futile act 11:35 to destroy it. And so Esarhaddon, rebuilt 11:38 Babylon and it once more became a great city. 11:44 The fonder of the Neo-Babylonian Empire or new 11:48 Babylonian Empire was King Nabopolassar. 11:52 He came to this throne in the 626 BC and 11:55 immediately set up that, establishing an independent 11:58 kingdom. Of course, Assyrians didn't like this but 12:01 Nabopolassar marched an army and started out on the march. 12:05 It took him a long time but finally in the 614 BC, he felt 12:12 strong enough to match on Assur was the great 12:16 religious city of the Assyria. And Nabopolassar 12:19 conquered that city. In the year 614 BC, then next 12:24 move, of course, was the mighty Nineveh. 12:28 And to attack this city he formed an alliance with 12:31 Cyaxares, king of the Medes and together by 12:37 launched an attack in the year 612 BC on the city of 12:41 Nineveh. That was successful, conquered it 12:45 and destroyed it, burnt it down to the ground. 12:48 And the last king of the Assyria died with his 12:51 harem in the flames. And so Nabopolassar, became 12:55 the master of the Middle East. Now there were few 12:59 aims to be tight up and so he had to march against 13:05 some reminisce of the Assyrian army and it 13:08 wasn't until the years 605 BC that ultimately he had 13:13 undisputed ruled over fall of what was once Assyria. 13:18 Then in the battle of Carchemish, he defeated 13:20 not only the reminisce of the Assyrian army but also 13:24 the Babylonians who had come to try and put up 13:27 some resistance with him and so he became master of 13:30 Middle East. It was also in the year 605 BC that 13:34 Nabopolassar, died. Now his son Nebuchadnezzar 13:40 was incharge of the military operations at that time 13:46 against Jerusalem and when he heard that his father had 13:49 died in Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar hastily 13:52 rode back over the Assyrian desert to claim the throne, 13:56 and so Nebuchadnezzar mounted the throne in the 13:59 year 605 BC and began a very prosperous ruler for 43 14:04 years. And so began the great Neo-Babylonia Empire. 14:11 Well, Nebuchadnezzar was a brilliant military leader. 14:14 He was a good politician too. And he was a 14:17 compulsive builder. It was his ambition to built a 14:21 Babylon that would never be conquered, never be 14:23 destroyed. He wanted to establish a dynasty that 14:26 would never end and no doubt he spent a lot of time 14:30 thinking about the future, worrying about whether he 14:34 would succeed in his great ambition. Well, one night 14:39 he went to sleep and he had a dream. Now the Babylon 14:43 is attached a lot of important to drains. 14:45 And in the morning when waken up he knew that he 14:48 had had a dream and an important one. And so he 14:52 called his wise man, his astrologist and the 14:55 magicians. And said, now listen you fellows, I have 14:58 had a dream and I can't remember what it was. 15:02 So, I want you to tell me what I dreamed and the 15:05 interpretation. Well, of course the wise men 15:09 were bitter at the loss. They said look you tell us 15:12 the dream and we will tell you the interpretation. 15:14 They could always thing up good 15:16 interpretation you know. But the king said, I can't 15:20 remember the dream. If you tell me what the dream is 15:23 I will be sure that you will you know the right 15:25 interpretation. But, they said, there is no man or 15:29 God who can do a thing like that. 15:32 Well, Nebuchadnezzar, got pretty angry with them 15:34 and drove them out and decreed the role of wise 15:36 men were put today. Well, at this time, Daniel, the 15:42 man from the, young man from Judah was in Babylon, 15:46 the prophet. And he was included in these people at 15:50 what would to be put to death and when he got the 15:53 bad news he said, well, what it's all about? 15:56 And when he heard he suddenly looked let me 15:58 going to the king and talked to him. And we will see if 16:02 God can reveal this thing. So, he went into king 16:05 Nebuchadnezzar and the King was only too glad to 16:08 give him a little time to work it out. And that night, 16:11 I guess, they did a lot of praying. You know, 16:14 and during the night God revealed to Daniel what the 16:18 dream was. The next morning he went into the 16:21 king and the king said, Can you tell me what I've 16:24 dreamt last night? Daniel said, not I but there is in 16:28 God in heaven who can tell the king what he dream. 16:31 He said, you are king dreamed that you saw a 16:35 great image. Now this little image what I've here. 16:40 It is just a not a idea of what it just like, and it's a 16:43 very small one. What the king must have seen was a 16:47 very big, very impressive awesome image. 16:52 And Daniel, we don't describe it. He said, the 16:54 head was of Gold. The arms and the breast were of 16:58 silver. The belly and the thighs were of brass. 17:02 The legs were of iron, and the feet were part of iron 17:06 and part of clay. He said, you kept watching it until 17:10 you saw a stone taken from the mountain without hands 17:15 and it came crashing down on their feet of this image. 17:18 Grounded to powder and the same with all the other 17:21 metals, they are all ground to powder and I guess as 17:25 Nebuchadnezzar, leaned forward intently 17:28 listening, he recognized what he had dreamed. 17:31 He had dreams are like that; you do something to break 17:34 them and you remember now Daniel said, I will tell 17:38 you the interpretation of this dream. Daniel said you 17:43 Nebuchadnezzar, represented by this head of 17:46 Gold, but your kingdom is going to be followed by 17:49 kingdom of silver and then thee third kingdom of brass. 17:52 And then of fourth kingdom represented by the 17:54 legs of iron and finally the kingdom is going to be 17:57 divided symbolized by the clay and iron. Kings Cyrus 18:01 left the record of his Babylon in the year 539 BC. 18:06 It is known as the Cyrus cylinder. It has cuneiform 18:12 script on it and it tells of his conquest of Babylon. 18:17 Let me read the translation of the portion of this 18:20 cylinder, shall I? He says here I am Cyrus, king of the 18:26 world, great king, legitimate king of Babylon, 18:29 king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the four rims of the 18:31 earth, son of king Cambyses, great king, 18:34 king of Ansan. I think you got the idea. Haven't you? 18:37 He is letting us to know what a good fella he was. 18:40 Now he says this all the kings of the entire world 18:43 from the Upper to the lower Sea, brought their heavy 18:46 tributes and kissed my feet. I returned to sacred cities 18:51 on the other side of the Tirgris, the sanctuaries of 18:55 which have been ruins for a long time. 18:57 I will so gathered only former inhabitants and 19:00 returned them to the habitations. Now that of 19:03 course is just exactly what the Biblical record says in 19:06 the book of Ezra, how Cyrus might have decreed 19:09 that all the Jews could return to their home city 19:12 and rebuilt Jerusalem. So one hand we have the 19:16 Biblical record. On the other hand, we have the 19:18 Cyrus Cylinder by both tells us 19:20 exactly the same story. In the year 530 BC, Cyrus, 19:27 the great died. And was replace by his son 19:31 Cambyses. He didn't last very long. And then he was 19:35 replaced by what is known false Smerdis and 19:38 following that came Darius, the great or Darius the first. 19:43 Darius decided to record the throne that he grasped 19:49 on the wall of the Behistun rock at place called Bisitun 19:53 in Persia And they are on the side of the wall in the 19:57 cuneiform script in three different languages so that 20:00 everyone would get the message. Darius left the 20:04 record of his sent to the throne. It was king Darius 20:08 who decided to built an essentially Persian city 20:12 called Persepolis, literally meaning city of Persia. 20:16 And this is sometime referred toward the pearl of 20:19 Middle East Ruins, even today it's a magnificent 20:22 ruins and it must have been a tremendous city in 20:24 its high day. Darius was followed by his son Xerxes, 20:29 referred to in the Bible as Ahasuerus. You know, the 20:32 King who married the beautiful queen Esther, 20:35 and Xerxes invaded Greece. It was a tremendous campaign. 20:39 Millions of people involved in it. And he met bravely 20:44 Leonidas at the pass and it was there Thermopylae, 20:50 that he murdered or killed Leonidas and moved down 20:54 into Athens and there he burnt the Acropolis. 20:59 The Greeks never forgot this. And so it was when Alexander, 21:03 the Great came on to the scene, he first of all marched 21:07 eastwards, conquered the Persian army, and then 21:13 finally occupied Persepolis. And in retaliation, he burnt 21:17 and destroyed Persepolis. And so you have the three 21:22 great empires that followed Babylon. Babylon was 21:26 followed by Persia. Persia was followed by Greece or 21:30 Macedonia actually, and then ultimately came the 21:34 great Roman Empire. Rome symbolized by the legs of 21:38 iron. The iron monarchy of Rome, overwhelmed the 21:42 Middle East, and so it was that Rome became the 21:46 mistress. Not only at the Middle East but of Europe 21:49 too, and for hundreds of years, Rome ruled the 21:53 world that none ruled. The great Caesars and their 21:59 followers became the masters of culture and 22:04 politics and war. And so the arms of the Republic 22:08 sometimes vanquished in battle. Always victorious in 22:11 war marched across Europe and established the 22:14 great Roman Empire. But, even Rome was not the last 22:18 forever. Remember the legs of iron were followed by 22:23 the feet of clay. What is meant by that? 22:27 Daniel 2, Verse 41 says, "Where as you saw the feet 22:33 and toes, partly of potter's clay and partly of iron, the 22:37 kingdom shall be divided." That same to be a divine to 22:41 decreed that Europe would never again be united under 22:45 a single rule and hasn't that happened. People have 22:48 tried to unite it, you know, the Holy Roman Empire 22:52 and then there were other would be conquerors who 22:57 tried to bind it together, Shahlamian and then 23:02 came Napoleon Bonaparte, who tried to unit Europe 23:07 completely together. And then there were lighter ones, 23:10 I mean, there was Kaiser Wilhelm, in 1914-18 War. 23:14 and then it was Hitler in the 1939 war. 23:19 Verse 43 says, As you saw iron mixed with ceramic 23:24 clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they 23:28 will not adhere to one another, just as iron does 23:31 not mix with clay. Now this expression mingle with the 23:35 seed of men is referring to marriage. In the marriage 23:39 we are standing outside Buckingham palace and on 23:42 my right over here is a status of Queen Victoria. 23:47 You know, in the late 19 century queen Victoria got 23:50 the idea of marrying her family of to crown heads 23:55 of Europe. The idea being if they own married to one 23:58 another they would not fight with one another, 24:00 but of course it didn't work. It didn't unit Europe 24:04 anymore than any others scheme hast. 24:07 You know this text is actually the text that first 24:10 interested may in the Bible. It was in the 24:13 early days of the war and I was in the Australian army 24:17 as an officer in the artillery. And I attained a 24:20 lecture. I didn't realize that was a religious lecture, 24:23 but the title of the lecture was Seven words that spell 24:28 Hitler's Do. Well, at the time Hitler was doing 24:31 pretty well. And as an officer in the army I knew 24:34 very well that the commandos especially 24:36 Britain itself was not really prepared the face upto him. 24:39 And I was a bit anxious, but I went along this I've 24:43 never heard anything like it. He was this lecture saying 24:46 that Hitler would not succeed because this first 24:49 hit it would all never be united again. It says the 24:54 kingdom shall be divided. But, of course, he was right. 24:58 The Bible was right. Hitler didn't succeed and let me 25:02 tell you that neither communism nor the 25:04 common - or anything else is ever going to 25:07 succeed in uniting the nations of Europe 25:10 successfully together. Now it says, in the days of these 25:16 kings Verse 44; "The 'God of heaven' will set up a 25:19 'kingdom' which will never be destroyed. This for 25:23 symbolized by the stone cut out of the mountain without 25:25 hands that smashed the image on its feet and 25:28 ground the whole thing to pieces in other words 25:30 ground up only the kingdom of this world. 25:33 They end of the world at the second coming of Jesus 25:36 Christ is here depicted. We are told here in Matthew 25:41 chapter 21 and in Verse 44; Jesus Christ prefers to this. 25:47 He says, "And whosoever falls on this stone will 25:50 be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will 25:54 grind him to powder." Well, which do you want? 25:58 Obviously you don't to be ground to powder, do you? 26:01 It's better to fall on this rock. What is happening? 26:05 In Psalm 51 and in Verse 17; it says, "The sacrifices 26:11 of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite 26:15 heart, O God, these you will not despise." Have you done 26:20 something wrong? Have you sinned against God or 26:24 have you done something it gives your guilty conscious 26:27 then just come to Jesus Christ and follow his faith 26:31 and say, Lord I am sorry. And Jesus Christ is promise 26:35 to take your sins and he has paid the praise for them. 26:39 And so you can have forgiveness by coming to 26:43 the stone that is refer to here. And the broken in 26:47 heart be sorry for your sins. But, the end of the world 26:51 according to this prophecy will surely come justice 26:54 surely as the other kingdom have come and gone just as 26:59 surely the other aspect of the prophecy have all being 27:02 fulfilled. So, will this. We better be ready. 27:06 Like many people lies to laugh at the idea of the 27:09 world coming to end, but I don't anymore. I think with 27:13 all the frightening things that happening around us 27:16 we aspect that this world can't go on the way it is. 27:21 In our next program we visit that famous old Italian city 27:24 of Pompeii, which in 79 AD came to a disasters end. 27:30 I think there might be a 27:31 message in that for us today. |
Revised 2014-12-17