God’s Sovereign Plan to Destroy Satan’s Puppet Kings

Isaiah 14

Shining morning star, how you have fallen from the heavens! You destroyer of nations, you have been cut down to the ground. (Isa 14:12)

Main Idea: This chapter predicts the fall of the “king of Babylon” in language so soaring that it implies judgment on Satan, the power behind every evil throne, as well as on his human puppets.

1. The Power Behind Every Evil Throne
   1. Satan the puppet master
   2. Satan condemned through his puppet
   3. The satanic ambition of the king of Babylon
2. The Power Above Every Evil Throne
   1. God’s sovereign power to rule and to judge
   2. God’s direct actions on the king of Babylon
   3. God’s expulsion of the arrogant king
3. God’s Sovereign Plan: The Eternal Joy of His Chosen People
   1. The “plan” and the “hand” (14:24-27)
   2. The joy of the redeemed
   3. The taunt over fallen oppressors
   4. Peace at last
4. No Tyrant Stronger Than Death
   1. All tyrants die physically.
   2. All tyrants die eternally.

The Power Behind Every Evil Throne

Isaiah 13 clearly prophesies the fall of Babylon, but we looked deeper and saw it refers both to the literal city of Babylon and to the God-hating, self-exalting “spirit of Babylon” that pervades every empire in human history. Isaiah 14 focuses on the “king of Babylon,” the one who pushed the empire to its dizzying heights of domination. Obviously, in every great human empire there must be great human leaders. So we can take the “king of Babylon” to refer at least to that leader. But the language of verses 12-15 goes far beyond that which we would expect for that of a merely human leader. The KJV translation of verse 12 is one of the most famous in the whole book of Isaiah: “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!” “Lucifer” is how Jerome translated the Hebrew expression (“shining one, son of the dawn”) into Latin. The Latin word “Lucifer” literally means “light bearer,” and it was the common name for Venus, seen to be the morning star. Throughout the history of interpretation of this passage, many have seen this as a poetical reference to Satan, the chief fallen angel and leader of the rebellion against God. The “king of Babylon” is said to have “fallen from the heavens.” He is called a “destroyer of nations.” His ambitions were to “ascend to the heavens” and to set his throne “above the stars of God.” Ultimately, he desired to make himself “like the Most High.” There are five “I will” statements in this staggering boast, showing a soaring ambition to challenge and even supplant almighty God.

So behind any human “king of Babylon” we must see the “puppet master,” Satan, who invisibly dominates world history by controlling the tyrants who do his bidding. Satan is a master of disguises and delights in remaining hidden as he makes evil leaders dance to his wicked tune. He masqueraded as a speaking serpent in the garden of Eden, so God correspondingly spoke his curse to Satan through the disguise of the serpent. So also in Isaiah 14, Satan masquerades behind a human puppet—the real “king of Babylon”—so God speaks Satan’s judgment through that alias. It is the exact same approach that God takes to decreeing judgment on the “king of Tyre” in Ezekiel 28. In both cases (Isa 14; Ezek 28) we have lavish language that exceeds the boundaries of that which would ordinarily be spoken of a merely human king. Satan desires to remain hidden behind every evil throne, moving evil leaders to do his bidding by his clever temptations and evil schemes. So, he is able to intoxicate his human puppet-slave with similarly outrageous ambitions, as so many of these tyrant-kings thought themselves deities soaring to the heavens in their all-conquering ambitions. Alexander the Great thought he was the incarnation of Zeus Ammon, integrating the chief deities of Greece and Egypt. The Caesars were worshiped as gods. Hitler was worshiped as a messiah by the German people. These tyrants all embraced these delusions, delighted in them, and murdered those who opposed them. They craved and accepted worship.

But these human tyrants have been mere puppets on a string; their ambitions and actions have been the responses to promptings by the power behind every evil throne—Satan, the “god of this age” (2 Cor 4:4), the “ruler of the power of the air,” the “spirit now at work in the disobedient” (Eph 2:2). Some of these tyrants, like Adolph Hitler, have secretly embraced occultic powers; others, like Mao and Stalin, denied the very existence of Satan. No matter. They were all dancing on the end of strings held by dark intellect far above their own. Isaiah 14 addresses these human tyrants directly, but it also speaks to the puppet master, Satan, and consigns them all to the same fate—tormented in the final Sheol, which is “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt 25:41).

The Power Above Every Evil Throne

The tone of Isaiah 14 is one of unbridled celebration; it is a triumphant victory song by a formerly oppressed people over the tyrant(s) who have oppressed them. The “king of Babylon” is said to have caused “pain, torment, and . . . hard labor” (v. 3); he was a raging oppressor (v. 4) whose scepter dominated lesser kings and struck the nations of the world with “unceasing blows” and “relentless persecution” (v. 6). But now this seemingly undefeatable tyrant has been thrown down by the sovereign power of almighty God, the power above every evil throne. The Lord’s power over the “king of Babylon” is plain throughout the chapter: in verse 5 it is the Lord who breaks his scepter; in verse 15 God casts him down from his lofty throne to Sheol. The justice and judgments of the Lord pervade this chapter. In the context of the later oracle against the Assyrians, verse 26 clearly declares God’s sovereign power: his plan prepared for the whole earth, his hand stretched out over all nations. God is the power above all evil thrones, including Satan’s.

God’s Sovereign Plan: The Eternal Joy of His Chosen People

God’s wise plan and sovereign hand (vv. 26-27) are ultimately for the eternal joy of his chosen people. Though Israel and Judah had rebelled against God and been subjugated by these tyrant kings—one “king of Babylon” after another—God will settle them in their own land and rule over their oppressors in power (vv. 1-2). Even better for us as Gentile believers in Jesus—we who have become “Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise” (Gal 3:29)—are the foreigners who will unite (v. 1) with Jacob and Israel in the promised land and ultimately in the new heaven and new earth. We will look with triumph forever on the wicked oppressors who dominated us on earth, and we will sing the taunt song of Isaiah 14:3-21. While we live, Satan orchestrates the world system to assault our souls every day with temptations to deny Christ. In some parts of the world he orchestrates worldly temptations to allure us with appeals to pleasure. This is the “king of Tyre” aspect of the puppet master (Ezek 28). In other parts of the world he orchestrates tyrants to beat on the bodies and take the lives of God’s chosen people. This is the “king of Babylon” aspect of the puppet master (Isa 14). But in the future God will cast down both types of enemy, and God’s people will be forever at rest and at peace, singing their triumph over them all.

No Tyrant Stronger Than Death

In the end all tyrants must succumb to one simple reality: all existence comes from almighty God, for “in him we live and move” (Acts 17:28). When God wills to bring the death penalty on the “king of Babylon,” there is nothing the king can do to stop it. God spoke each of these beings into existence, and he can bring each one down to Sheol forever and ever. The human tyrants all succumbed to death one after the other:

• a Babylonian king, drunk and sluggish in his purple-covered bed as Median warriors storm in to kill him while he sleeps;
• a Roman caesar whose word made nations tremble and convulse, being assassinated with a dagger between his ribs by one of the Praetorian guards as he leaves the coliseum;
• a Nazi dictator in a concrete bunker putting a bullet in his head while Russian troops burn his capital around him, his corpse being dragged outside, doused with gasoline, and set ablaze in total ignominy;
• a Soviet potentate, wheezing and gasping as he chokes out his last few breaths and dies in a seizure; and
• a Chinese communist chairman, lying helpless in his bed, stricken with a heart attack and trying to speak but unable to make anything but a hoarse whisper.

None of these world conquerors can defeat the final enemy, death.

And on judgment day Satan himself will be no more able to resist God’s final decree on him than any of his human puppets. The final puppet will be the beast from the sea of Revelation 13, the antichrist. He will be the most powerful of all the satanic rulers, yet both Satan and the beast will be consigned to the lake of fire on that final day (Rev 20:10). There they will burn alike forever—no difference between them. This is the second death (Rev 20:14), and no tyrant will be strong enough to escape it.

Application

These verses strip the disguise from Satan and his puppets. Here we see the world as it really is—a mortal enemy to our souls. We who have trusted in Christ by faith have become sons and daughters of Abraham and stand as heirs of the world (Rom 4:13). At present, our souls are assaulted all over the world by Satan’s wicked schemes—the allure of the “king of Tyre” with his pleasure-promising merchandise, and the brutality of the “king of Babylon” with his threats of persecution, torture, and death. Isaiah 14 gives us the ability to see through these disguises, perceiving behind the puppet thrones the evil puppet master who causes them to dance to his tune. Even better, it causes us to see above every evil throne the power of Jesus Christ, whose second coming glory will destroy the final puppet king, the antichrist, “with the breath of his mouth and . . . the appearance of his coming” (2 Thess 2:8). Meditation on this chapter will help us to humble ourselves before Christ daily, resisting all prideful, satanic temptations to usurp God’s throne. It will cause us to live as meek servants of the true King, whose sovereign plan is for our eternal joy and peace. It will cause us to laugh at the supposedly irresistible power of the world’s tyrants and to trust fully in the wisdom of God’s eternal plan and the power of God’s omnipotent hand.

Reflect and Discuss

1. How does Satan act as a puppet master behind each successive “king of Babylon”?
2. How does this tricky masquerade on Satan’s part line up with his use of the serpent in the garden of Eden? How do both God’s judgment of the serpent in the garden and his judgment of the king of Babylon in Isaiah 14 point to his intention to deal with the real power behind those physical opposers: Satan?
3. How do both the “king of Babylon” passage in Isaiah 14 and the “king of Tyre” passage in Ezekiel 28 seem to be talking about Satan? How do these two realms add up to the allure and threat of the “world” against our faith in Christ—the temptations of Tyre (worldly goods and pleasures) and the threats of Babylon (military domination and tyrannical oppression)? How is Satan behind both?
4. How does this chapter expose the satanic pride that vaunts itself against the throne of God? What do the five “I will”s of Isaiah 14:13-14 show of his pride? If God is so powerful as to be beyond any threat by Satan or any other ambitious rebel, then why does God hate this kind of pride so much?
5. How would meditating on this chapter give us clarity in dealing with the brutality of the tyrants of our world?
6. How does the sovereignty of God and his wisdom in verses 26-27 rule over all of Satan’s puppet-master schemes and those of the puppets themselves?
7. Why is it appropriate for the formerly tormented people of God to sing such a taunt against the “king of Babylon” after his fall?
8. How does Revelation 20:10 relate to Isaiah 14? If the “beast” (the antichrist) is the final version of the “king of Babylon,” how is the fact that he is sharing the same fate as Satan in Revelation 20:10 a perfect fulfillment of Isaiah 14?
9. How could meditation on this chapter help us resist temptation to be worldly?
10. How does this chapter help us to pray for the persecuted church?