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Nanosermon Script:
‘Go set a watchman’ by Harper Lee came out in July 2015 and was the most pre-ordered book since the final Harry Potter. Now, I don’t know about you, but my first thought on hearing the title was, ‘That’s Bible from somewhere, but from where?’
If you too are curious about that, stick around for a minute or two. This gets encouraging. The quote is found in only one place in the Bible, in the Prophet Isaiah, chapter twenty-one and verse six It’s King James Version language and here it is in context:
Isa 21:5 Prepare the table, watch in the watchtower, eat, drink: arise, ye princes, and anoint the shield.6 For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth. 7 And he saw a chariot with a couple of horsemen, a chariot of asses, and a chariot of camels; and he hearkened diligently with much heed: 8 And he cried, A lion: My lord, I stand continually upon the watchtower in the daytime, and I am set in my ward whole nights: 9 And, behold, here cometh a chariot of men, with a couple of horsemen. And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground. 10 O my threshing, and the corn of my floor: that which I have heard of the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, have I declared unto you.
The fall of Babylon
So this is a prophecy about the fall of Babylon. Isaiah is not the watchman but he is to set a watchman, who will watch a long time. He will stand continually, and watch whole nights.
The great commentator Matthew Henry said the asses and the camels appear to be symbols of the Medes and Persians, which fits with the pair of horsemen and the history. The Medes and Persians, a kind of ancient coalition, did indeed overthrow Babylon in the time of wicked king Belshazzar. You’ll remember he was the man with the feast and the writing on the wall.
It could even be Belshazzar’s feast prophesied in verse 5, setting a table, and the princes eating and drinking with the enemy at the door. I’m not sure what the lion signifies. It could be Judah or it could be an omen of war, because the Hebrew word for lion derives from the word for violence. The watchman could be crying like a lion.
John Wesley suggested the lion could be the king of Persia going before his troops. It could even be the Lord of Hosts, God Almighty, who would use the Medes and the Persians to destroy Babylon. It’s good to have a bit of mystery.
‘Babylon’ is the empire of Antichrist
In verse nine, note that all the many idols of dissolute Babylon could not save her from the determined foe. When it says ‘all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground’ I suggest the ‘he’ spoken of is the Lord, using the hand of the king of Persia.
In the New Testament the Apostle John heard the same key words, not now about Babylon as such, but as a type of a wicked city. The Antichrist spirit of Babylon had resurfaced in Persia, then in Greece, and then in the Roman Empire of John’s day:
Rev 14:8 And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.
The Babylon of our age will fall
Finally, remember the Lord Jesus saying God ‘will gather the wheat into his garner’ and ‘burn up the chaff’? The ‘corn of my floor’ are believers who are to take notice about the destruction of Babylon.
Now, commentators said Harper Lee’s hero Atticus Finch was the watchman, he was cast as a sort of moral guardian, but in the book he was eventually found to be only human. But Isaiah’s watchman in this passage is not a moral guardian at all. He pronounces judgment.
It does not matter whether it is Babylon as such, or a Revived Roman Empire, or some other expression of Antichrist. This passage is to encourage God’s people that whatever the kings of the earth do, however badly or oppressively they rule, at any time, there is one mightier than they, and they will be brought down.
Go set a watchman – because the Babylon of our age will fall.
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SCRIPT ENDS
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