Victory Baptist Church

After prophesying concerning eleven different nations, Isaiah enlarged his prophecy and described a judgment that would fall on the whole world. The Hebrew word erets. Used 16 times in chapter 24, it is translated as "land," "earth," and "world" in the King James Version. It is not always easy to tell when erets refers to one country or to the whole earth, but the context usually guides us. Isa 24-27 describes a global judgment that will end with the destruction of God's enemies and the restoration of God's people, Israel, in their land. Isaiah warned the Northern Kingdom that the Assyrians would destroy them, and he told Judah that the Babylonians would take them captive, but these local calamities were only forerunners of a vast end-times catastrophe that would engulf the whole world. The prophets call this time of terrible judgment "the Day of the Lord," and in the New Testament it is described in Matt 24, Mark 13:1, and Rev 6-19. (fro...

  “When God Judges Economic Pride: The Fall of Tyre and the Sovereignty of God” Tonight’s lesson focuses on Phoenicia in Isaiah 23. The Phoenicians were a merchant people whose land approximated what is today known as Lebanon. Their ships plied the Mediterranean coasts, where their many colonies assured them of an abundant supply of the world's wealth. Tyre and Sidon were key cities. Both David and Solomon made use of workers and building materials from Phoenicia (2 Sam 5:11; 1 Kings 5:8-9). King Ahab married the Phoenician princess Jezebel, who promoted Baal worship in Israel (1 Kings 16:29-33).  Isaiah addressed ships from Spain (Tarshish) that were docked at Cyprus (Kittim), telling their crews to weep and go home (v. 6) because Tyre was no more. Merchants from Spain, the coastlands, and even Egypt would wail because Tyre's great shipping industry was gone and the Mediterranean economy had been devastated. (See Rev 17-18 for a parallel, and note that both Babylon and Tyre ...