Isaiah 13:6 Was Babylon's Destruction By The Medes At Hand?

And so, looking forward to being involved there as well. And just a few minutes, we should be underway. So hopefully we've got both. Operating at this time and should be ready to go. Now, I know that, you know, it's the 1st time on for the week and. But we're here and we're going to talk about a subject that, you know, continually comes up when we talk about eschatology. And it is regarding the word at hand and the meaning of at hand, whether or not that is something that means soon, near, imminent, etc. Or does it mean a long protracted time? Is it going to take another couple of thousand years for the event to take place, for the coming of the Lord to take place? We have several passages in the New Testament that talk about the coming of the Lord. And from that perspective, when the word at hand is used, there are those who say that, you know, it has no imminent reference to it, does not mean imminent, does not mean something that was soon to occur. And yet some of these people use the term at hand to talk about a lot of things that the Bible says were at hand and were near and did, in fact, come to pass within the 1st century. For example, with the kingdom of God in Mark 1, 14 and 15, when Jesus came into Galilee after John had been cast into prison, the Bible says that he began to preach saying, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, repent and believe the gospel. And the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of heaven is at hand, repent and believe the gospel. And so from that perspective, they say, well, the kingdom came in the 1st century. As a matter of fact, we may be doing some video clips on that as well, video studies on that in the near future, because I have gone through some material of a gentleman who argued very forcefully for the book of Revelation being fulfilled in the 1st century, but at the same time, and the kingdom being fulfilled in the 1st century, but at the same time deny certain aspects about the kingdom, but also denies that the Lord's coming happened during that time. How are you doing? Corinne, it's good to see you here. And to those who are visiting with us today, we appreciate your being in. And over the last couple of days, I've had some great conversations with some people who are studying on the channel. And if you are new to this channel, all I can say is give yourself a little bit of time to understand, to go through some videos. We have, I think, almost 300, getting pretty close to 300, if we don't have that many already, videos on this channel. Some are short, some are very short, some are long, some are very long. And so there's plenty of material here. And I would suggest that you take the time to, or at least give yourself some time to go through the information and really study it. Because if it's your first time hearing it, you're not going to get it necessarily. It may throw you back a bit because it's going to sound maybe a little bit radical and edgy for you. But once you start to dig into it, you'll begin to see that it harmonizes with what the Bible says. And I'm almost certain that you will find yourself agreeing with a lot of the things that we say. This is the response that we get repeatedly from people who come to this channel. I had a conversation with a gentleman the other day who came and had some, you know, skepticism about what we were saying after he listened for a while, but he studied and he already had some background, but he didn't think that what we were saying was true. And I read the comments. I try to, you know, as best as I possibly can to read the comments that people are writing. I try to answer as many of them as I can. I don't always get an opportunity to do so, but I do try to comment as much as possible. And then when I don't comment, there are others who are very knowledgeable, who hang out with us on a regular basis. And even some who don't, that will give you an answer. And, you know, I'll either leave their answer and say, yeah, I agree with that. Or, you know, if it's something that I don't agree with, I may respond to it. But the point is, you will get some answers here, whether it comes directly from me or whether it comes from someone else. But most of the people who respond are very, very knowledgeable and do a great job in communicating, you know, the information. So you're not going to miss anything in terms of the people who can support you, help support you. If you have questions, you know, we encourage you to write those questions down. We encourage you to use the chat space that's available both live as well as when you are making comments on the archive videos. Be sure and do that because this gives us an opportunity to read, kind of take a pulse of, you know, where people are, what you're thinking, what are the issues. And you brought up some subjects that we are going to cover. I'm working on some subjects now that we're going to cover. You know, we're going to talk about the doctrine of hell. Is it biblical? We're going to get into that and look at, you know, the term Gehenna and Sheol and all of those things that relate to dying and cover those things. So, you know, just stay tuned and we will get into them. Good to see you, Paul. He says, once you get it, everything changes. I mean everything. And that is absolutely correct. You know, I don't want to say very much about the person who did contact me, but there was something going on in their life that once they understood two scriptures that we gave them in regard, you know, reference to the question that they had and the issues that they were experiencing, it turned them from night to day. And I was very, very fortunate. It's just amazing and wonderful to be able to show people how much comfort and encouragement and power there is in understanding things from a fulfilled perspective as opposed to a non-fulfilled perspective. All right. Let's see heavenly skies. How are you doing? She says, I'm caught up on all videos for a few months now. And yes, you will know truth when you listen and research what's being said. Okay. Thank you for that. It's very good. And then June says it takes months of diligent studying fulfilled eschatology to break down the lifetime of futurism indoctrination and emotional attachment. Now that that's well said June. When he says that, you know, you've got a lifetime of futurism that you've been hearing. Let me just give you a little bit of experience on that. Even after I knew and embraced and taught eschatology for a few years, the emotional baggage that I brought with me from futurism lingered, especially when it came down to the resurrection. And I would find myself teaching and preaching at times and still feeling the emotional attachment to those futurist doctrines. And it took a while before, even though I was logically convinced, intellectually convinced and understood, but it took a while before the emotional attachment to those things went away. And I'm glad that it did. And then once it's gone, I mean, it's gone. You know, some people, it may happen sooner. Some people may not. But I mean, you've got to understand, I used to preach futurism. I used to teach all this stuff that you are hearing. Well, not all of it, but I used to teach it from a non-millennial perspective. You know, Jesus coming on clouds and the earth is going to burn up and et cetera. I mean, I taught it diligently, faithfully preach the sermons, et cetera, taught the classes. I remember doing a workshop where I had to do the reading of the judgment day. We had a track called the day of judgment or something, and I had to read it, you know, and I had to read it like, you know, and put that emphasis on the word so that the people in the audience could really experience this judgment that's going to come down on people from the perspective of futurism. But then I had to give all that up. So yeah, this emotional attachment is something. So be prepared for that when you begin to study. I mean, there are several things that you have to be prepared for when you talk about this, especially if you're in ministry, you might want to be prepared for the fact that, you know, it could seriously impact your income and your position wherever you may, you know, have a regular, you know, teaching or preaching ministry. It could impact that. It doesn't necessarily have to. We've seen both sides of that, where some people had a smooth transition, their congregations were eager to learn and open and receptive. And then we've seen those who have been just obstinate and refuse to even consider. So it can work both ways. And we know that, you know, people are concerned about those things. But the important thing is to, you know, put your faith in the word of God. So close friends of mine tell me they understand in their minds the prophecies are fulfilled, but don't want to change their hearts. Yes, this is definitely a heart changing paradigm. So, you know, this is going to really test whether or not you can put your faith in what the word of God actually says and teaches, as opposed to what you've been hearing all your life. And, you know, it's just going to come down the road. And what that's going to mean in some cases is that you're going to stand alone before you have somebody else to stand with you. And that's another really big situation for people, people who have to have approval by others. And, you know, you have difficulty making an independent decision, you're going to struggle, you know, for a while, you're going to struggle if you go this route. And I'm just telling you some of the things that, you know, we've observed. But if you're the person who, you know, loves to study, and you're interested in what the scriptures actually say, and I'm not swayed by, you know, opinion, and any other kind of influence like that, you're going to do quite well as you learn. All right, so let's get into our topic today, which, you know, we will not spend a lot of time, I know I had a little long preliminary, but I say that for people who are new to the subject of eschatology, and we do get new people on a regular basis. I'll probably get a little bit more in depth into this on tomorrow if we revisit the subject. But over time, I will be covering some of these issues, because people have used them, and are using them. Currently, I'm engaged in, you know, sort of back and forth studies. Let's see, here's a Joel Yates, been listening for the last three months, can't catch the live streams because of work, but it's been eye-opening. We appreciate those comments, and that's just the way it is. And believe it or not, there are things that, as I continue to study, that are eye-opening for me. I mean, I talk to my peers, you know, many of you know Don Preston, Daniel Rogers, Holger Neubauer, Steve Basden, and others. You know, we've had Mike Sullivan on, Bill Cannon-Geiser, and you know, everybody is studying. I mean, seriously involved in study. And one person learns something, and then calls the other person up and say, hey, have you seen this? And sometimes we have, sometimes we haven't. And when they said, you know, we have to really dig into it, and figure it out, and see if we can accept what they're saying. Or, you know, they've come up something that's so powerful, it just, you know, it's just awesome. And we incorporate that into what we're doing, because we, you know, see a section of scripture that we haven't had a chance to really dive into, and analyze, or exergy. And so, it's a growing process. And one thing about this, once you get involved in this study, your study will never be boring again, if you really love to study. It will always be challenging to you, and you'll always find some things that are worthy of your time and effort. And I think that's the way God would have it to be. All right. Check. Okay. I will do that. And thank you very much. Okay. So, we're talking about Isaiah 13. And so, here's kind of what's going on. You know, we've been discussing the term at hand. And as I said, whether or not at hand, which is translated from the Greek word, means near, imminent, about to occur. And you have passages in the New Testament, such as Philippians 4.5 that says, and I can only remember the King James Version, because I've taught that for so long, and studied and preached from it for so long, which says, let your moderation be known to all men, the Lord is at hand. I think one translation says, let your gentleness be known to all men, the Lord is at hand. But at any rate, that's one of the passages. You've got another passage in James 5 and verse 8, which says the coming of the Lord has drawn near, you know, is at hand. The form of the verb tense there is has drawn near. And he says, behold, the judge is standing before the door to indicate how near that is. And that's a comparison. And you can make a correlation between that and Matthew 24, when Jesus gives the parable of the fig tree. Some translations actually say, instead of saying it is near, you know, when he talks about, when you see the leaves of the fig tree, et cetera, and you know that summer is near. And so, likewise, when you see all these things, you know that it is near. Well, actually, there are some translations that say, you know, that He is near, directly referring to the coming of the Lord. But that's James 5 and stating that the coming of the Lord was near. Then you have 1 Peter 4 and verse 7, but the end of all things is at hand. Just like Jesus said in Matthew 24, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place. And you have 1 Peter 4 and 7, where you have verse 5, that says He was ready to judge the living and the dead. You have verse 7 that says the end of all things has drawn near. And of course, you've got the book of Revelation, these things which must shortly come to pass, and that the time had drawn near, Revelation 1, verse 1 and verse 3. And then in chapter 22, you have those terms again, where John is told, do not seal the book for the time is at hand. And these were things which must shortly be done. So from all of those statements, we have this concept of things being imminent. Now, there are reasons that people sometimes have difficulty with it. Number one, the first difficulty is if they accept the statements as they are written and applied in their context in the New Testament, then they would have to accept the fact that Jesus Christ has already come, that His coming was imminent. And we know that because even the people who oppose Christianity use those very passages to argue for the failure of Jesus to come, for the non-inspiration of the Bible, and particularly, and in some cases, the non-inspiration of the New Testament, if they are people who believe in the Old Testament, because you have people who are very religious and consider themselves following certain practices in the Old Testament, and yet they will refuse the New Testament because they say, well, Jesus taught that He was going to come very soon. Here are the passages that state that, but look, we're still here. The earth hasn't burned up and we don't see anybody in the clouds, and I haven't seen Him. Every eye, they take Revelation 1.7 and Matthew 24.30, et cetera, and use it to teach against what Jesus said in verse 34 of Matthew 24, which was, the generation will not pass until all these things take place, and Revelation 1.7 that we just quoted a moment ago that says, the time is at hand for these things to shortly come to pass. And so, they use the very statements to deny it. One particular one is 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse 2, and I'm going to read that, where the Thessalonians are under the impression in 50 AD, and that's important to note the time, yeah, the stars haven't fallen to the earth, et cetera, the graves haven't opened up and all that, they use all those arguments. But in 2 Thessalonians 2 and verses 1 and 2, Paul says, now brethren concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. Now, I understand that the King James Version will translate the term as at hand, as though the day of Christ is at hand, but that's not the meaning of inesticon, which is the word that's in the text. It means to be present. And so, what the Thessalonians believe was that the coming of the Lord had already come. All right, good to see you too, Tony, and to all of you, and we appreciate everybody being here. And so, that was written in AD 50, which is 20 years before the time that the Lord said He would return, and yet you have people in Thessalonica believing already that the coming has occurred. And because of that, others who have a totally futurist point of view will read that text and say, well, you see, and particularly out of the King James Version or a similar version that renders it as not at hand, they'll say, well, you see the Lord said it's not at hand. And they will take that and make that stretch for generations and generations to refer to our day and time and beyond that it was not at hand, and yet you have people who have just about every day out there telling you the Lord is about to come at any moment, and have had people selling their houses, climbing up mountains and waiting and watching, et cetera, and I know some of you on this Hangout have done the same thing. But it's an improper application of the term to stretch it beyond that, because you have in epistles that were written later where the Bible says it was at hand. But now how does that, and that's where Isaiah 13 comes in, when we are having these discussions with individuals, you know, other preachers, other students of the Bible, or even friends who, you know, and other people who just study, they will then, after you show them this, they will start looking for ways to refute it, to oppose it, to fight it, because they don't want to acknowledge that these verses are saying what they say. So, when you find a text that says it's at hand, they will look for ways to say that at hand does not mean at hand, or that it can stretch and cover long periods of time, such as hundreds of years, thousands of years, and who knows how much longer. Well, one of those such prophecies is found in Isaiah 13, and it is assumed and alleged that Isaiah 13 teaches the term at hand applies to a time frame, a period of 200 years. Now, it sounds very plausible as an argument, especially when you look at the text, and some people actually make that argument. I've made the argument in the past that, you know, by misunderstanding the text, not that it, that at hand lasts for 200 years, but, you know, it was like a difficulty in trying to figure that out. How could every other place say it's not at hand, and you got it like the situation we just looked at, where you have Thessalonians, and Paul said, you know, well, they said actually that the day had come, he didn't say it wasn't at hand, because the kingdom was taught is at hand as early as the time of Christ, and Christ comes in his kingdom. So, he never said it was not at hand, he actually said it was not present. But those who will reject the translation of inesticon to mean present, will argue that he's saying it's not at hand, and then use that to say that the at hand statements could indicate much longer time, and that's how they get themselves into the 21st century, with the term written in the Bible in the 1st century that says the time is at hand. Okay, so, June says many prefer the hope rather than the manifestation, and that is true. That's an interesting concept about the hope. They want to be in constant hope rather than to have possession of that for which they hoped. And we'll use, you know, for example, Romans 8, and talk about that, you know, and say we're saved in this hope, and so they can't turn loose the hope for the actual reality. And also because of their skewed understanding of what is supposed to be the fulfillment, they think they're losing that when it's explained to them, when, you know, what we actually have in Christ is explained to them. All right, so, in Isaiah 13, let's take a look at this context, look at this text. Tony, you brought up Mark 8 38, and you talked about coming with these holy angels. That's another concept that they have, that they use for the future, when actually that text is speaking of something that is imminent. Let's see, my pastor here in Kentucky started preaching on the time statements of Revelation and the dating of the book, and it split our Baptist Church about a year ago. Very blessed to stumble upon your channel. Wow, we appreciate that, Joel, very much. And ladies and gentlemen, we're getting messages like this every single day, and all of us are continually getting these messages. So you're doing, let me And I know some of you are preachers out there as well, and Bible teachers, so, you know, that's what you naturally do. But that is just, you know, what's happening. This is going to change the world. It's already changing, and it's going to transform the world in the process as people come to understand it more, as more people come to understand it. The Bible was for Israelites for main part, and about the end of Judea, when Shiloh came, and about separation wall broken down, and now all can come to God through his Son and be in the kingdom. That's correct. And so, we have, you know, the gospel open to all, the invitation to salvation open to all. So, when you're looking in Isaiah, and I guess I better get to Isaiah instead of Zechariah, which is where I was, but in Isaiah 13, we have the text which says the burden against Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw. Lift up a banner on the high mountain. Raise your voice to them. Wave your hand that they may enter the gates of the nobles. I have commanded my sanctified ones. I have also called my mighty ones for my anger, those who rejoice in my exaltation. The noise of a multitude in the mountains, like that of many people, a tumultuous noise of kingdoms, or of the kingdoms, of nations gathered together. The Lord of hosts musters the army for battle. They come from a far country, from the end of heaven, the Lord and his weapons of indignation. Now, notice verse 6. Wail for the day of the Lord is at hand. Now, this is one of the passages that is used to counter, or in an attempt to counter, what we have taught about the coming of the Lord being at hand. Now, one of the ways they do it is they look at the passage and they say that the text has a dual meaning. One, it refers to the fall of Babylon, because as the text started out, the burden against Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw. And so, they say Babylon fell to the Medes and Persians in 536 BC, and that was roughly about 200 years from the time that Isaiah prophesied. And by applying it to the time of Babylon's fall in 536 BC, then we have a pretty huge gap. So, how then, if you understand the argumentation, how then can we say that at hand covers a span that is 40 years or less, you know, within a generation? And when you look in the latter verses in the New Testament, or the latter part of the New Testament, where they get closer and closer to the time of the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, you have it mentioned in those passages like I gave you, Romans and Philippians, James, 1st Peter, Revelation, etc. So, they're saying how can you cram the term at hand or contract it into a 40-year period or a 10-year period, etc. When the Bible shows you here, and you know, we're going to cover some of the other passages that they make even longer than this one, but when the Bible shows you here that it was some 200 years before that happened. And so, what they do from that is they reason that if it is 200 years from here, it demonstrates that there is some elasticity in the meaning of at hand, so that it isn't just a term that means something that was soon and that was shortly to come to pass. They take the text to mean that it's relative and that you can stretch it, it's elasticized, in other words, and we've had some right on that very thing. I wrote an article, and I'm talking about Brother Wayne Jackson, who wrote an article on the elasticity of time prophecy, and Isaiah 13, I believe, along with a couple of other passages, was one of those that he used to try to project the coming of the Lord to be way beyond the time that Jesus spoke and the time that the Apostles spoke, which would take it to 70 AD and made it stretch all the way into the first century. So, we go from 200 years in this particular case to 2,000 years, but Wayne Jackson, in particular, actually used the text in Deuteronomy to do the same thing, so we have about a 1,500 year gap between his. I've talked to a person just recently who has a 6,000 year gap or time frame, time span for the term at hand, which I thought was just amazing, and he does it from Romans 5 and verse 14, where the text says that death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin according to the similitude of Adam's transgression, who was a figure of Him who is about to come. You have word mellow there, and because they treat the word mellow with the present infinitive, which means to be about to be, to be on the verge of something happening, they treat it in the same way they do the term at hand, in saying that at hand is elasticized, and so they can stretch it for as long and as far away as they want, because, I mean, if it started in the first century and it's continuing on, and in the case of this other gentleman who says it started in the garden and it's still ongoing, then you can see just how long and how far they put the term at hand. I'll mention a little bit more about that as we go along. But the other part, based on this prophecy, then they say well it has a dual meaning, but the dual meaning, they argue, is taken from the time it was written in Isaiah's day. And if it's taken from the time that it's written in Isaiah's day, then that means that prophetically for the eschatological fulfillment, it still reaches or spans some almost 2,700 years from that time. So they've got a lot of time between that term that's at hand. The literal meaning of the word at hand means to have the hand before your face. That's the literal meaning of it. So you can see that that's not very far away, and the term at hand can be used spatially, it can also be used temporally, you know, with regard to time, which is the way we're using it here, but it can also be used spatially. Now it's important to understand that when you get people claiming that they're using it from a spatial point of view, and they try to do that on Philippians 4 and 5, but that's not what the text is saying. Philippians 4 and 5 is not a spatial concept, and by spatial we mean the distance between something. But you have to understand that if something is spatially near, I mean like for example my hand here, how much time do you think it will take me to get my hand from, you know, about 38 inches or 40 inches out to my nose? Not very long. So my point is when something is spatially near, it's also temporally near. Think about it, if you were to travel from California to Tennessee or from Tennessee to California, that's roughly what, 2,000 plus miles, I guess? I've never driven it. I've flown there a few times, but it's quite a distance in terms of space, but it's also distant in terms of time. But as you get closer spatially or, you know, geographically closer, you also get closer temporally. So you can't have something that is spatially close without having it temporally close as well. That just doesn't work, and yet people try to use that on some of these passages to try to evade, get around the temporal aspect. Now, so that's what they do with this particular prophecy. But let's consider it from this perspective. Now, if it is 200 years, then we would have to, you know, acknowledge that. We would have to consider that. We would have to think about that and say, okay, you've got a prophecy here that lasts 200 years. Well, it's possible. Well, let's give them the benefit of the doubt. And for the sake of argument, let's say Isaiah 13 does allow Adhan to be translated as 200 years based on this particular text from, you know, roughly 700 something BC or 700 BC down to 536 BC. And so you say, okay, well, this means that we've got this 200 year span, but even if you use that, and I'm not saying that it's accurate, I'm just using it as an illustration, then how could you project the coming of the Lord beyond 200 years if that's going to be it? All right. 2,151 miles. Yeah, I just love that. All right. 2,151. So that's the distance between Tennessee and California. So that's quite a distance, you know, certainly wouldn't want to walk it. But at the same time, you can't get closer spatially to California from Tennessee without getting closer in time. It takes you less time to drive. Remember those problems we used to have when we were in school where you'd have to work out, you know, if you left at a certain time and you had this distance to go, et cetera, how long would it take you to get there? I always hated those problems because I couldn't work them. But at any rate, that's what they were doing. They were showing you how to calculate time and space in those particular problems. Now, that being said, let's go back to the text. So it appears that this is what's being said that we're talking about the destruction. Now, let me kind of put the whole thing. Let's read some more of the text so you can see how they're drawing the conclusion. And then we're going to add a little bit of information to this. So he says, well, for the day of the Lord is at hand, it will come as destruction from the Almighty. Therefore, all hands will be limp. Every man's heart will melt and they will be afraid. Pains and sorrows will take hold of them. They will be in pain as a woman in childbirth. They will be amazed at one another. Their faces will be like flames. And by the way, there are those who take this to be simply or solely the future, a future coming of the Lord. And they just bypass Babylon and anything historical altogether. But he says, behold, the day of the Lord comes cruel with both wrath and fierce anger to lay the land desolate and he will destroy its sinners from it or the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light. The sun will be darkened and it's going forth and the moon will not cause its light to shine. So here we have the decreation language that we see whenever God is bringing a judgment upon a nation. And clearly he is speaking about Babylon in verse one, the burden of Babylon. I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity. I will haunt the arrogance of the proud, which means to stop it and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. I will make a mortal more rare than fine gold, a man more than the golden wedge of offer. Therefore, I will shake the heavens and the earth will move out of her place in the wrath of the Lord of hosts. And in the day of his fierce anger, it shall be as the hunted gazelle. And as a sheep that no man takes up, every man will turn to his own people and everyone will flee to his own land. Everyone who was found will be thrust through and everyone who was captured will fall by the sword. Their children also will be dashed to pieces before their eyes. Their houses will be plundered and their wives ravished. Now, it is assumed that these verses are referring to Babylon. Yes, we agree. The Bible says the burden of Babylon, which Isaiah, the son of Amoz saw, and that everything here relates to Babylon. And so when they get to the verse 17, behold, I will stir up the Medes against them who will not regard silver. And as for gold, they will not delight in it. Also, their bowls they will dash to pieces, etc. So they take this and they say, there you have it. So we're talking about the 536 destruction, therefore 200 years away. But I'd like to add some comments here, some from Dr. Kenneth Gentry and also others from Encyclopedia Britannica, and we'll have some more sources on this. Let's see, another couple of comments here. Problem I see, and I was even futurist many times, takes all the Day of the Lords in the Old Testament as the same one, not different ones. That's correct, they do. When God is destroying many nations in these prophecies, and as he destroys some nations, it's called the Day of the Lord. Now, there are times in which several nations would be included in that, but these Old Testament references are not to be taken as all the same day. As a matter of fact, I was looking over a book by Don Preston, which is Like Father, Like Son. This is a good book to study the Old Testament days of the Lord and understand a little bit more about them. But you can order that from Don's website. His Don K. Preston site is down, but should be back up, I'd say, within the next day or two. But the BibleProphecy.com site and the Eschatology.org site is up, and you can get that book from Don. It's a great book and has just tons of excellent information in it. Now, here's what Encyclopedia Britannica says. Sennacherib of Assyria, during the Babylonian War, relieved from his palace in Nineveh, during the rule of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 911 to 609 BC, Babylonia was under constant Assyrian domination and direct control. And I think that if you look back in chapter 10 and also a couple of chapters following, you will see that Assyria was the controlling or the ruling world power at the time. For example, let's go to chapter 10 and verse 5. Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger, and the staff in whose hand is my indignation. I will send him against an ungodly nation and against the people of my wrath. I will give him charge to seize the spoil, to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. Yet he does not mean so, nor does his heart think so, but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off not a few nations. For he says, are not my princes together kings? Is not Kelno like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad? Is not Samaria like Damascus? As my hand is found, the kingdoms of the idols, whose carved images excel those of Jerusalem and Samaria. As I have done to Samaria and her idols, shall I not do also to Jerusalem? And therefore it shall come to pass, when the Lord has performed all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, that he will say, I will punish the fruit of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the glory of his haughty looks, etc. So you can see from that reading that Assyria was a ruling power during this particular time. And so the Encyclopedia Britannica goes on to say that during the reign of Sennacherib of Assyria, Babylonia was in a constant state of revolt, led by a Chaldean chieftain named Merodach-Baladon, in alliance with the Elamites and suppressed only by the complete destruction, now notice, the complete destruction of the city of Babylon. Now when did that occur? In 689 BC, its walls, temples and palaces were razed and the rubble was thrown into the Araktu, the sea bordering the earlier Babylon on the south. All right, now you know you had a Babylon in the time of Ashurbanipal, I think around the 19th century, but you also have, and so you know Babylon has been rebuilt several times, but here you have in 689 BC, Assyria, who was the ruling power at the time, destroyed Babylon and razed it to the ground. And that's one of the distinctions in the prophecy that needs to be considered, because when the Medes came and destroyed Babylon, they didn't burn it to the ground, they didn't completely destroy it, or when they defeated them, they didn't destroy it, and yet that's what this prophecy says. And so you have a prophecy fulfilled in the time frame of this context, related to Babylon, that was at hand. You're talking about, you know if you go from 700 BC, you're talking about 11 years, but not a very long distance from that. Now there are some other resources that cover this as well, but at any rate, this is what is stated. Now let's look at some comments from Dr. Kenneth Gentry, and you know Dr. Kenneth Gentry is a post-millennialist, he disagrees with some of what we say on eschatology, his major view of course disagrees with that, so I'm not saying that he agrees with us on our view of eschatology, and I want to make that clear, so we're not trying to use his name for any credence from that perspective. The only point that I'm making is how he sees and understands this prophecy, in terms of his research as well. And he says many interpreters, because of the mention of the fall of Babylon in verse 19, because you have, you know, "...and Babylon, the glory of the kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans pride, will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah." Assume that Isaiah was, in verses 17 through 18, prophesying Babylon's fall in 539, cross-reference Daniel 5 30 and 31, which is the night in which Belshazzar was slain, to the Medes and Persians. However, that view has some difficulties, and that's what, you know, we were pointing out a moment ago. In the Medo-Persian takeover in 539, not 536, but 539, there was a little, there was, excuse me, little change in the city. It was not destroyed, so it continued on much as it had been, so it continued on, excuse me, much as it had been. But Isaiah 13 19 through 22 speaks of the destruction of Babylon, which is a very, very important point, a very important distinction and clarification in terms of the subject matter. And so, he says, also the word them against whom the Medes were stirred up in verse 17 were the Assyrians. Remember, we said the Assyrians were the ruling power for a time. And so, he says these were the Assyrians referred to in verses 14 through 16. So, and not the Babylonians. It seems better, then, to understand this section as dealing with events pertaining to the Assyrians' sack of Babylon in December of 689 BC. Now, when you look at it from that perspective, the whole idea, the whole concept of at hand having any elastic in it, any latex in it to cause it to stretch, no rubber in it to cause it to stretch over these long, long periods of time, stretching for centuries and for millennia and for eons, it just doesn't happen. And you will see that consistently in every passage that is used to teach that the word at hand does not mean at hand, but can cover a long period of time, an extended period of time. And so, I think that in viewing Isaiah from that perspective and in looking at it from that perspective, it certainly clears up that idea and makes Isaiah make a lot more sense from that perspective to use the term at hand from his point of view. And so, we could go into more today, but before we go into some of the others, I'm going to cover a few others. Before we go into some of the others, we'll look a little bit more on some of these concepts. I have some video clips as well of some statements that I want to share with you. I didn't get a chance to load them because my computer, when I rebooted it, it had, you know, I had some problems connecting, so I couldn't transfer from my other computer over to this one. But at any rate, that's pretty much what I wanted to share with you for today. I hope that you will go back and study it and do some of the research. I will give you a couple of other resources on tomorrow for you to go and do a little bit of research to see if that makes sense with you. I am convinced that it cannot be the 200-year time frame that is being made, and I think certainly the idea that in one case, you don't have the city destroyed, but in the prophecy, it was the time where the city was supposed to be destroyed, and it was clearly destroyed in 689 BC, a very short period of time after Isaiah prophesied it, and therefore at hand proves true to what its stated meaning is, that it means soon, imminent, shortly to come to pass, and not a very long, protracted period of time that's filled with all kinds of exegetical elasticity, so that we can't tell, and you can just make it longer, and if your prophecy doesn't come to pass when you say it comes to pass, you can just add a little bit more rubber to the mix and stretch it out a little bit further. Excuse me. And so, again, that just helps to answer some of the objections that you get out there on the term at hand, shows you how people either do it honestly and fail to interpret the text properly, and others, you know, for whatever motives they may have to try to skirt around the issue, but at hand means at hand, it means soon, shortly to come to pass, and there you have Babylon being destroyed in 689 BC, that harmonizes with the language that we find in the text. All right, well, with that, we're going to close out here, and I will be back on tomorrow, so it was good to see everybody today. Hopefully by the time I get back from, you know, and rest up, because I'm going to have a good time while I'm there, resting and relaxing, but I know I got to work when I go, but at any rate, and oh, you know, there was another gentleman who contacted me from, he wrote me on Messenger, Heavenly Skies, who, he's from Ardmore, where Don, at a congregation where Don used to preach in Ardmore, and he wrote me and said, hey, I'm in, now, where is he? I'm getting these countries mixed up. Does Honduras sound correct? I think that's where he said he was, and he said it's just, you know, not very far away. Am I going in the right direction? Heavenly Skies in June, I have to get my map out and figure that out, but anyway, he's not very far away, and talked about our possibly coming, you know, meeting him while we're there, which would be absolutely fantastic. I didn't even know he was there, but there you have some more predators scattered around the world, and I remember my early day, well, it wasn't too early, but I would say, when was that? It was back in the 90s, after I'd written my first book, so it had to have been around 93, 94, I would say, that I preached out there, okay, and in Ardmore, and met him and his family, a great group of people, and so if I get a chance to see them, that would be awesome, so let's hope that that takes place as well. All right, is there anything else before we leave today, and let me check on the air and see, and I've got another platform that I'm going to be using, I got my cords, I'll tangle with you, that will allow me to be a bit more, allow our, you know, if I can get it set up, so I don't want to say too much until I get it done, but I have somebody who can help me with it, where I will be able to show you the video, have a slide up, I can do all of this at the same time, even put the Bible up, so it's just a multi-use platform that will make this a bit more easy for us to study. Now, look into tourist visas if needed, they said we didn't need visas, or no, the gentleman that we're going to visit, whom we'll be staying with, he said that we don't have to worry about that until we get there, we take care of that when we get there, and he's going to handle all of that, so hopefully, you know, we'll be okay, and if not, we have return tickets, so we can come home, but I think everything should be okay, but I will, you know, based on the suggestion, I'll make sure, and I'll confirm that with him, but I think everything's going to be okay regarding that. All right, anything else? Once again, thank you, and, you know, tune in on tomorrow, we'll try to be in, be on at the same time tomorrow, so that will give you a little bit of a heads up, and I have some videos to record for my going out of town, so that at least, you know, we won't have that long space, but I got to try to get them recorded, you know, between now and the weekend, so we'll do some little short studies for you as well. All right, so with that, I'm going to say good afternoon, and everyone have a great afternoon and great evening. All right.