End Time Babylon – Part 7
The most unlikely thing EVER…like a thief in the night
Revelation 17:3-18 So he carried me away in the Spirit into the wilderness. And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. (4) The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication. (5) And on her forehead a name was written: MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. (6) I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I marveled with great amazement. (7) But the angel said to me, "Why did you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns. (8) The beast that you saw was, and is not, and will ascend out of the bottomless pit and go to perdition. And those who dwell on the earth will marvel, whose names are not written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world, when they see the beast that was, and is not, and yet is. (9) "Here is the mind which has wisdom: The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. (10) There are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. And when he comes, he must continue a short time. (11) The beast that was, and is not, is himself also the eighth, and is of the seven, and is going to perdition. (12) "The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority for one hour as kings with the beast. (13) These are of one mind, and they will give their power and authority to the beast. (14) These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful." (15) Then he said to me, "The waters which you saw, where the harlot sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues. (16) And the ten horns which you saw on the beast, these will hate the harlot, make her desolate and naked, eat her flesh and burn her with fire. (17) For God has put it into their hearts to fulfill His purpose, to be of one mind, and to give their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled. (18) And the woman whom you saw is that great city which reigns over the kings of the earth."
I started out this train of thought 6 segments ago by saying that I believe the United States is the prophetic end-time Babylon “riding on the Revelation 17 beast” in the Bible. If you are interested in what the news for the last 18 months has to say about this, today is your day!
I have been working on following the thread of Babel/Babylon through the Bible, starting with the first reference to the tower of Babel. This is the point of my tour through the Bible passages about Babylon, to point out that this false idea, that we can make the earth fair and equitable without God, is the Babylon lie that will lead the entire world into the Tribulation. Along the way, I have been trying to lay the groundwork for an understanding of God’s “issue” with Babel and Babylon, which, on the surface actually sounds very appealing to the world.
The Spirit of Babylon is the desire to remake the earth into something good without God. This sounds like Hope and Change, but it is really death and destruction. Stay with me and I hope you will see where I am coming from.
God made the earth for people to enjoy His goodness in a “face to face” way. God made all people to be His royal family, united in the creative development of the resources of creation with God, forever. The Spirit of Babylon, introduced by the serpent satan, corrupted mankind’s heart to desire to “steal“ God’s creation and kick Him out of it! Every attempt at love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self control APART from the owner of these things is rebellion.
God is the source of life for the garden. To rid the garden of the light of God is to kill the garden! Yet, this is the strong desire in mankind’s heart. This corruption even remains in Christians, that is what we are fighting against...the old man. This corruption must be resisted actively as God “reformats” our hearts in sanctification.
Many want God’s goodness…God’s salvation…just not His leadership! This is the false grace message of our day! You don’t get the king of kings to take a place in the back…if you really want the king…you have to want Him to actually be King!
Yet, most of mankind throughout history, including many sincere Christians, have mostly dream of their “best life now,” without the owner of the garden present. This is not only delusional, it is offensive to God! We are supposed to be using all of our mind, soul, and strength to love Him...long for His return.
It is GOD's Garden, and for love, He has withdrawn from it for a little while in order to not kill the objects of His love with His bright perfection while he is fixing them to be back in His perfect garden with Him. His plan to fix the people and the garden REQUIRES the all-in agreement of those He is rescuing! For people, those very objects of His rescue plan, to then want to rebel against God and steal His garden is the ultimate act of treachery.! I just want to go back, for a second, to the parable Jesus told to connect our minds to what is really happening:
Matthew 21:33-46 "Hear another parable: There was a certain landowner who planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it, dug a winepress in it and built a tower. And he leased it to vinedressers and went into a far country. (34) Now when vintage-time drew near, he sent his servants to the vinedressers, that they might receive its fruit. (35) And the vinedressers took his servants, beat one, killed one, and stoned another. (36) Again he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did likewise to them. (37) Then last of all he sent his son to them, saying, 'They will respect my son.' (38) But when the vinedressers saw the son, they said among themselves, 'This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.' (39) So they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. (40) "Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vinedressers?"
This is what Babel was all about…”let us make a name for ourselves!”…let us take the vineyard...let us get the world right without the one who made it right!
Babel was the first story of a man, Nimrod, taking God’s resources, turning God’s mud into bricks rather than using the perfect stone made by God…slapping his brand on them, and then promising those very resources to others in order to consolidate His own power…eventually declaring himself a God and desiring worship!
Nimrod’s Babel was the first global “superpower.” This was the first UNITED expression of what was in mankind’s corrupted heart after the flood. God said eventually mankind would get everything they wanted:
Genesis 11:6-8 And the LORD said, "Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. (7) Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." (8) So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city.
God gives everyone what they want, and the earth STILL wants to provide their own salvation, even many Christians fall for this under the pretense of "God must want us to do good things, right?" When you put your hope in a government program to fix the world, rather than being the hands and feet of Jesus in a direct and personal way, in partnership with Him...growing in love and obedience...when you exclude Jesus, you are putting your faith in Babel!
The world still MOSTLY has a vision of how great the garden could be without its owner, IF we could just unite and get it done!
God promised that mankind, when He allowed it to reunite one last time, would get what it wanted. Right now we are literally witnessing, for the first time in world history, through technology and travel, the reuniting of the peoples. A single man is rising to the top and promising God’s resources to many in order to consolidate his own power. He is promising dramatic hope and change. The world paints pictures of him as a messiah, they rename mountains after him, and roads…
No man can handle this sort of pressure without a deep relationship with Jesus. It is a frightening thing to be given your desires apart from God. The Bible promises he will start to believe his own hype and start to think of himself as a messiah (just like Hitler did). The Bible promises his very first act of “self-deification”, will happen when he promises to be Israel’s sovereign protector for 7 years…her god. The man who makes “peace in the middle east” will get caught up in his own grandeur, and as the world continues to elevate him…just like the first Nimrod…He will sit on the top of his tower and declare himself God. The puppet master behind it all is the same one behind Nimrod…not the flesh and blood guy, but the prince and power of the air…satan himself.
From Babel to our time:
The Bible promises antichrist is the last in a long line of earthly kings like Nimrod (Babel – who demanded worship), Pharaoh (Egypt – demanded worship), Nebuchadnezzar (Babylon – who demanded worship), Darius (Medo Persia – who demanded his subjects pray to him in the story of Daniel and the lion’s den), Alexander the Great (Greece – who demanded worship), the Caesar’s (Roman Empire – who claimed to be gods and demanded worship), Muhammad (the prophet, priest and king of Islam, which led to the Caliph/Ottoman Empire, who instructed his followers to pray to him). The antichrist will be the last of these men…sharing in the same spirit of Babylon which has wound its way through world history being visible in the physical realm when this happens: a global superpower is given over to its own grandeur and the leader then believes he is the savior of the world. This has happened 7 distinct times in world history, which the Bible predicted BEFORE it had happened!
Revelation 17:9-11 "Here is the mind which has wisdom: The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. (10) There are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. And when he comes, he must continue a short time. (11) The beast that was, and is not, is himself also the eighth, and is of the seven, and is going to perdition.
The seven mountains are the seven “towers of Babel”…the ziggurats, literally and figuratively, of world history. Nimrod’s Babel tower was mountain number 1, then comes Pharaoh’s Egypt…the next great ziggurat (pyramid) builder.
Then came a resurgence of Babel in the form of Babylon! This is where Daniel comes in. Daniel was taken to Babylon as a captive, and was shown the next global superpowers that would rule over this ziggurat town: Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon, Darius’ Medo-Persia, Alexander the Great’s Grecian Empire, and then the Islamic Caliphate.
That is a total of 6 “mountains”…one is still missing…which is Rome. Rome is the big “red herring” God threw into the mix…which is why wisdom is required to figure this whole thing out! Most of the Christian world is missing the most amazing thing right before their eyes because they are waiting for Rome to “revive”…that ain’t gonna happen, according to the Bible.
More right now…
Revelation 17:3-18 So he carried me away in the Spirit into the wilderness. And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. (4) The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication. (5) And on her forehead a name was written: MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. (6) I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I marveled with great amazement. (7) But the angel said to me, "Why did you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns. (8) The beast that you saw was, and is not, and will ascend out of the bottomless pit and go to perdition. And those who dwell on the earth will marvel, whose names are not written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world, when they see the beast that was, and is not, and yet is. (9) "Here is the mind which has wisdom: The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. (10) There are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. And when he comes, he must continue a short time. (11) The beast that was, and is not, is himself also the eighth, and is of the seven, and is going to perdition. (12) "The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority for one hour as kings with the beast. (13) These are of one mind, and they will give their power and authority to the beast. (14) These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful." (15) Then he said to me, "The waters which you saw, where the harlot sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues. (16) And the ten horns which you saw on the beast, these will hate the harlot, make her desolate and naked, eat her flesh and burn her with fire. (17) For God has put it into their hearts to fulfill His purpose, to be of one mind, and to give their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled. (18) And the woman whom you saw is that great city which reigns over the kings of the earth."
I started out this train of thought 6 segments ago by saying that I believe the United States is the prophetic end-time Babylon “riding on the Revelation 17 beast” in the Bible. If you are interested in what the news for the last 18 months has to say about this, today is your day!
I have been working on following the thread of Babel/Babylon through the Bible, starting with the first reference to the tower of Babel. This is the point of my tour through the Bible passages about Babylon, to point out that this false idea, that we can make the earth fair and equitable without God, is the Babylon lie that will lead the entire world into the Tribulation. Along the way, I have been trying to lay the groundwork for an understanding of God’s “issue” with Babel and Babylon, which, on the surface actually sounds very appealing to the world.
The Spirit of Babylon is the desire to remake the earth into something good without God. This sounds like Hope and Change, but it is really death and destruction. Stay with me and I hope you will see where I am coming from.
God made the earth for people to enjoy His goodness in a “face to face” way. God made all people to be His royal family, united in the creative development of the resources of creation with God, forever. The Spirit of Babylon, introduced by the serpent satan, corrupted mankind’s heart to desire to “steal“ God’s creation and kick Him out of it! Every attempt at love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self control APART from the owner of these things is rebellion.
God is the source of life for the garden. To rid the garden of the light of God is to kill the garden! Yet, this is the strong desire in mankind’s heart. This corruption even remains in Christians, that is what we are fighting against...the old man. This corruption must be resisted actively as God “reformats” our hearts in sanctification.
Many want God’s goodness…God’s salvation…just not His leadership! This is the false grace message of our day! You don’t get the king of kings to take a place in the back…if you really want the king…you have to want Him to actually be King!
Yet, most of mankind throughout history, including many sincere Christians, have mostly dream of their “best life now,” without the owner of the garden present. This is not only delusional, it is offensive to God! We are supposed to be using all of our mind, soul, and strength to love Him...long for His return.
It is GOD's Garden, and for love, He has withdrawn from it for a little while in order to not kill the objects of His love with His bright perfection while he is fixing them to be back in His perfect garden with Him. His plan to fix the people and the garden REQUIRES the all-in agreement of those He is rescuing! For people, those very objects of His rescue plan, to then want to rebel against God and steal His garden is the ultimate act of treachery.! I just want to go back, for a second, to the parable Jesus told to connect our minds to what is really happening:
Matthew 21:33-46 "Hear another parable: There was a certain landowner who planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it, dug a winepress in it and built a tower. And he leased it to vinedressers and went into a far country. (34) Now when vintage-time drew near, he sent his servants to the vinedressers, that they might receive its fruit. (35) And the vinedressers took his servants, beat one, killed one, and stoned another. (36) Again he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did likewise to them. (37) Then last of all he sent his son to them, saying, 'They will respect my son.' (38) But when the vinedressers saw the son, they said among themselves, 'This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.' (39) So they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. (40) "Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vinedressers?"
This is what Babel was all about…”let us make a name for ourselves!”…let us take the vineyard...let us get the world right without the one who made it right!
Babel was the first story of a man, Nimrod, taking God’s resources, turning God’s mud into bricks rather than using the perfect stone made by God…slapping his brand on them, and then promising those very resources to others in order to consolidate His own power…eventually declaring himself a God and desiring worship!
Nimrod’s Babel was the first global “superpower.” This was the first UNITED expression of what was in mankind’s corrupted heart after the flood. God said eventually mankind would get everything they wanted:
Genesis 11:6-8 And the LORD said, "Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. (7) Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." (8) So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city.
God gives everyone what they want, and the earth STILL wants to provide their own salvation, even many Christians fall for this under the pretense of "God must want us to do good things, right?" When you put your hope in a government program to fix the world, rather than being the hands and feet of Jesus in a direct and personal way, in partnership with Him...growing in love and obedience...when you exclude Jesus, you are putting your faith in Babel!
The world still MOSTLY has a vision of how great the garden could be without its owner, IF we could just unite and get it done!
God promised that mankind, when He allowed it to reunite one last time, would get what it wanted. Right now we are literally witnessing, for the first time in world history, through technology and travel, the reuniting of the peoples. A single man is rising to the top and promising God’s resources to many in order to consolidate his own power. He is promising dramatic hope and change. The world paints pictures of him as a messiah, they rename mountains after him, and roads…
No man can handle this sort of pressure without a deep relationship with Jesus. It is a frightening thing to be given your desires apart from God. The Bible promises he will start to believe his own hype and start to think of himself as a messiah (just like Hitler did). The Bible promises his very first act of “self-deification”, will happen when he promises to be Israel’s sovereign protector for 7 years…her god. The man who makes “peace in the middle east” will get caught up in his own grandeur, and as the world continues to elevate him…just like the first Nimrod…He will sit on the top of his tower and declare himself God. The puppet master behind it all is the same one behind Nimrod…not the flesh and blood guy, but the prince and power of the air…satan himself.
From Babel to our time:
The Bible promises antichrist is the last in a long line of earthly kings like Nimrod (Babel – who demanded worship), Pharaoh (Egypt – demanded worship), Nebuchadnezzar (Babylon – who demanded worship), Darius (Medo Persia – who demanded his subjects pray to him in the story of Daniel and the lion’s den), Alexander the Great (Greece – who demanded worship), the Caesar’s (Roman Empire – who claimed to be gods and demanded worship), Muhammad (the prophet, priest and king of Islam, which led to the Caliph/Ottoman Empire, who instructed his followers to pray to him). The antichrist will be the last of these men…sharing in the same spirit of Babylon which has wound its way through world history being visible in the physical realm when this happens: a global superpower is given over to its own grandeur and the leader then believes he is the savior of the world. This has happened 7 distinct times in world history, which the Bible predicted BEFORE it had happened!
Revelation 17:9-11 "Here is the mind which has wisdom: The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. (10) There are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. And when he comes, he must continue a short time. (11) The beast that was, and is not, is himself also the eighth, and is of the seven, and is going to perdition.
The seven mountains are the seven “towers of Babel”…the ziggurats, literally and figuratively, of world history. Nimrod’s Babel tower was mountain number 1, then comes Pharaoh’s Egypt…the next great ziggurat (pyramid) builder.
Then came a resurgence of Babel in the form of Babylon! This is where Daniel comes in. Daniel was taken to Babylon as a captive, and was shown the next global superpowers that would rule over this ziggurat town: Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon, Darius’ Medo-Persia, Alexander the Great’s Grecian Empire, and then the Islamic Caliphate.
That is a total of 6 “mountains”…one is still missing…which is Rome. Rome is the big “red herring” God threw into the mix…which is why wisdom is required to figure this whole thing out! Most of the Christian world is missing the most amazing thing right before their eyes because they are waiting for Rome to “revive”…that ain’t gonna happen, according to the Bible.
More right now…
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