BUILDING TOWERS TO HEAVEN? ~ A Study in Jeremiah

With our twisted, modern-day definition of ‘love’, not many would bat an eye toward the couple who once were married, get remarried several different times to other partners, then eventually turn back to re-marry the first spouse. In fact, most would look upon this as a ‘love story’ that was meant to be. How do I know that this is a well-accepted notion? Taken a step further, living together ‘to ensure compatibility’ has become the norm. It may take a multitude of partners to find ‘the one’. This is even worse than the divorced woman. What is at the heart of this problem? Treating a marriage covenant trivially.

 

God says, “If a husband divorces his wife and she goes from him and belongs to another man, will he still return to her? Will not that land be completely polluted? But you are a harlot with many lovers; yet you turn to Me,” declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 3:1)

 

The answer to God’s question is: No! He would not return to her. The Mosaic Law allowed for divorce, but it did not allow for that man to take her back again in marriage. The Mosaic Law stated that if a man divorced his wife, he could not take her back if she married someone else. Deuteronomy 24:1-4 says that the husband cannot take her back because she has been defiled and that is an abomination before the Lord. Judah had not abandoned God to marry another; she had abandoned Him to pursue many lovers! The Israelites believed that sin and evil in the people brought reproach on their land—the land God had given them as an inheritance—and polluted it. A nation whose society accepts such practices as the norm, degrades itself and is ripe for judgment. Judah was standing on the precipice of divorce, but God would receive her again if she would repent and return to Him. The likelihood of us taking back a spouse after having pursued a multitude of lovers is slim to nil. But God’s love is unfathomable to mere humans. 

 

Return and backsliding are key words in 3:1-4:31. Backsliding can be translated ‘faithless’ (as in 3:6) and is a form of the word which is translated ‘return’.

 

People flippantly say, “God bless America!” without ever understanding what needs to happen in order that God would do so. We do not deserve God’s grace any more than Israel did. People continually want to believe that the New Testament represents a gracious God and that the Old Testament reflects a God who rules with the iron fist of the Law. It is crucial to understand that based on the Law, Judah had no reason to expect that God would take her back. Today, we hear people say: “You don’t know what I’ve done. God couldn’t possibly forgive me.” For those who believe that way, they must hear the heart of God calling Judah back to Himself. God would do whatever it took to restore His relationship with His people—even if it meant crucifying His Son.

 

“Lift up your eyes to the bare heights and see; where have you not been violated? By the roads you have sat for them like an Arab in the desert, and you have polluted a land with your harlotry and with your wickedness.” (Jeremiah 3:2) Judah would never repent and return if she did not see her guilt for what it was. She did not view what she was doing as forsaking the Lord but only adding more gods to her repertoire of worship. We talked in earlier blog posts about these heights where all sorts of wickedness took place. The word violated means ravished. It is a forceful obscene word for sexual violence. Judah was out looking for a good time, but they were getting raped. One commentator said, “False gods are always abusive.” God sees what His wife cannot see. God portrays His wife as the prostitute sitting on the side of the road watching for lovers in her next scandalous engagement. Like the Arabians in the desert eagerly laid in wait to ambush their victims, Judah eagerly awaited her lovers. Blatant, in-your-face idolatry was everywhere throughout the land. It was the norm. The nation, as a whole, was guilty and was facing the wrath and judgments of God. We need to let that sink in.

 

Therefore, the showers have been withheld, and there has been no spring rain. Yet you had a harlot’s forehead; you refused to be ashamed. (Jeremiah 3:3) Israel’s harlotry had polluted the land. How would that be seen visibly? The rain they needed for their crops and food was withheld by God. What they could not miss in this threat is that many of the pagan gods they worshipped were associated with weather, rain, and fertility as we saw earlier (Baal and Ashtoreth). Today, the land of Israel is still dry. Their constant need for water should show them judgment fulfilled. We know that when the Jewish people do return to Israel with God’s blessing in the end, the land will once again be supplied with an abundance of water by God.

 

When this verse speaks about a harlot’s forehead and not being ashamed, it brings to my mind the Great Harlot in the Tribulation period whom Revelation 17 talks about. While she is described as a mystery, the Bible gives us a lot of clues as to her identity.

 

In verses 1-2, we see she sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed acts of immorality, and those who dwell on the earth were made drunk with the wine of her immorality. In verse 3 she is sitting on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns. We can know from Revelation 13:1, 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4, and Daniel 9:27, that this beast is the Antichrist who will enter the world scene in the Tribulation. He comes up out of the sea, has ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on his horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. So, the Great Harlot, Babylon the Great, is somehow associated with the Antichrist.

 

John in Revelation 17:4-5 writes—The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and of the unclean things of her immorality, and on her forehead a name was written, a mystery, “BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”

 

Revelation 17:15 tells us that the waters which John saw where the harlot sits, are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues. In other words, this Great Harlot will have worldwide influence over peoples and nations. Eight and then ten kings at one time are affiliated with the Harlot as seen in verses 10-14. At some point in time, the Harlot will have control over these kings. Eventually, they will turn on her and destroy her.

 

We can know that the mystery harlot of Babylon is an evil world system controlled by Antichrist during the last days before Jesus’ return. This whore has religious connotations (which should not be a stretch to imagine after just two chapters into the book of Jeremiah). This Harlot has committed spiritual adultery as she promotes worship of the beast in an ungodly, end-times religious system. She will be over a one-world religious system.

 

I have been fascinated by the story of the Tower of Babel almost from the beginning of my walk with the Lord. The story of Babylon begins here. (Genesis 11:1-9)

 

Noah’s descendants, journeying east after the Flood arrived in the ‘land of Shinar’ or Babylon. There, they decided to settle and build a tower or monument to themselves to make themselves known. They wanted to make a name for themselves. Sounds reasonable and an honorable plan to our ears, doesn’t it? The problem is that after the Flood, God told them to be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. The purpose of filling the earth was to make Him known, not to make a name for themselves. They said in verse 4 of Chapter 11: …come let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” In Genesis 1:26 the Godhead was together in creation. God said: “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.” They planned to do the direct opposite of what God had commanded them to do.

 

The tower they built that was to reach into heaven was made from brick instead of stone. The tower was known as a ziggurat, later used in false religions. According to John MacArthur in his commentary: “Ziggurats had on their tops the sign of the zodiac, which was used by pagan priests to chart the stars. Through their observations of the stars, the priests supposedly gained spiritual insights and knowledge of the future.” The leader of this rebellious people was none other than Noah’s great-grandson. He was “a mighty hunter before (against) the Lord,” (Genesis 10:9). His kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. He went from there to Assyria, built Nineveh and Rehoboth-Ir and Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city” (Genesis 10:10-12). Nimrod was a proud, arrogant leader (his name means ‘rebel’) who foreshadowed the Antichrist.

 

When the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, the Lord confused their language so they could no longer understand each other and scattered them throughout the earth. They stopped building the city. The name of the tower was called Babel because it was there that the Lord confused the language of the whole earth and scattered them abroad. In judgment, the Lord scattered the people, and they took their false religion with them around the world.

 

The actual site of Babylon remained an idolatrous center of false worship. Charles Feinberg has said that at one point in its history, Babylon contained no less than 180 shrines dedicated to the goddess Ishtar. The Israelites, as we have seen in Jeremiah so far, got caught up in this worship of Ishtar, whom they affectionately named “Queen of Heaven.”

 

The Great Harlot of Revelation 17 has her identity written on her forehead. God says Judah, ashamed of nothing, has a harlot’s forehead. Set like stone, they did not flinch nor blush in shame at their lascivious behavior. Prostitutes in the Roman world identified themselves in this way. Babylon will be the source of false, idolatrous, blasphemous worship in the end times.

 

Before we see this false religious system coming together under one leader, we must have foreheads set as flint as well. Ezekiel 3:8-11—Behold, I have made your face as hard as their faces and your forehead as hard as their foreheads. Like emery harder than flint I have made your forehead. Do not be afraid of them or be dismayed before them, though they are a rebellious house. Moreover, He said to me, “Son of man, take into your heart all My words which I will speak to you and listen closely. Go to the exiles, to the sons of your people, and speak to them and tell them, whether they listen or not, ‘Thus says the Lord God.’”