June 17, 2008

• Biblical Eschatology Revisited
  
  
  
  Babylon in Revelation: The Answer – Part 2

  The question that was left to us in the last post on this subject was
  “what is Babylon?” We had a lot of clues and we’ve had time to think
  about this and now it is time to answer this question.  Some people
  have figured it out but many more simply don’t know.  One cannot look
  at one aspect of Babylon in these verses and suggest a country like the
  U.S. saying it is Babylon. Why? While the U.S. indeed has some grievous
  sin to account for, it lacks the open and bloody persecution of Jews
  and Christians, a requirement in the characteristics mentioned about
  Babylon. So we keep looking… and perhaps if we select a few key bits of
  evidence, we can zero in a bit better on what Babylon is

  In order to come to the best answer on this, we need to consider these
  characteristics in a broad fashion.  For instance, “immorality” as a
  clue isn’t just “sexual perversion”. It covers a lot more things that
  are “immoral” including the worship of false gods just as was the point
  of God’s message to Israel during her time of such activity. It can
  even extend to improper treatment of people.

  Actually, the most troublesome clue might be the best clue… Babylon
  being responsible for all the blood of those ever slain on the earth.
  Now that takes us back to Cain.  What was Cain doing?  He was
  “worshipping God however he saw fit” and did not come to Him in the way
  He prescribed. Those who are wise will realize that those who do this
  declare themselves “god” because they can deem what is appropriate
  worship and what is not instead of God Himself. He didn’t stop at that.
  He killed his brother Abel who was righteous before God. He also
  rejected the judgment of God, for that murder. Now God had said he was
  to be a vagrant and wanderer in the world.  In defiance of this, he
  built his own city to provide for his own redemption from such a
  judgment. So we have already noted that Babylon involves the worship of
  a false God, corrupting God’s word and defiance of it to create its own
  “true message” and by extension the prohibiting of others to hear what
  God truly has to say (censorship). It also involves the persecution and
  murder of the righteous and godly in martyrdom, and acts of preventing
  God’s judgment to fall upon themselves by inventing ways to insure
  against calamity by seeking power and control over the situation.

  So how is this sort of thing still manifested in the world?
  Religiously, we can see it everywhere only it may not take the form of
  “religion”. Sometimes, religion has more to do with “secular” things
  like it is with environmentalism, secular humanism, etc. Each of these
  things take a bit of truth and stretch it to the proportions necessary
  to achieve their ends even to the point of outright pre-meditated
  deception and manipulation. Sometimes such things start in the
  religious realm and then cross over into the secular. A recent news
  article reported on a famous preacher on the political scene for a
  particular interest group was identified as using his ability to cause
  “boycotts” from his constituency to blackmail companies in order to
  receive large sums of money himself (how about his constituents?). 
  Each of these systems within the workings of Babylon have their own
  concepts of “righteousness”, “sin”, and “redemption”. Environmentalism,
  probably the most recent to show its hand, measures these things based
  on one’s “carbon footprint” as if living on this planet by God’s grace
  is some sort of sin that needs atonement through the purchase of
  “carbon credits”. Those of you that are perceptive will realize this is
  the same thing as “indulgences” that could be purchased in the Catholic
  Church in the Reformation period to allow people to buy “forgiveness”
  for their “indulgence in their sins”. The point here is not to put any
  particular blame on that church but simply point out such activities
  seem to happen in all areas of human experience. Now environmentalists,
  as a group, aren’t the only ones creating a “religion” apart from God.
  Such is the religion of Babylon.

  Moving on, we should consider something else about Cain. He was the
  first person in scripture to build a city and he built it for his son.
  What could this mean? Could it not be said that God, the Creator of
  heaven and earth, was to have a Son for whom He would build a city i.e
  “Jerusalem”. So Cain, in rebellion, names his city after “his son”
  named Enoch (of Cain’s lineage, not Seth’s) and by implication of other
  circumstances, that “city” becomes very wicked and violent. Should we
  miss the blatant claim that “man is God” and what comes from it in this
  seemingly little detail in scripture? Isn’t this what we also see of
  Babylon in Revelation? Will not the Beast (aka the man of sin) also do
  the same? Now we know that Cain’s “city”, the antediluvian “Babylon”,
  is destroyed in the Flood but it is only a few hundred years after the
  flood that Nimrod shows up, a mighty one on the earth (apparently like
  those who were destroyed in the Flood which also suggests that he was
  wicked and violent). We might even come to that conclusion since both
  Babel (aka Babylon) and Nineveh, cities he built, were known for that
  very thing. Nimrod could be called the first of a long line of
  post-Flood “high priests” of Babylon the Great.

  Now it is interesting that Babylon again appears as an empire to bring
  Israel into captivity for 70 years, starting the “times of the
  Gentiles” as was given by Nebuchnezzar’s dream in Daniel 2. In that
  chapter, we found that there were to be five kingdoms, the last
  represented by the “feet”, of which would hold onto control of
  Jerusalem until the time of the Gentiles was complete (Luke 21:24).
  History tells us that the prophecy was correct and specifically the
  most important point in Jerusalem is the Temple Mount on which elements
  of Islam have a lock grip and that has been the way it has been since
  638 AD with only a few inconsequential breaks of that possession.  

  We can certainly see from the clues from the last post that Babylon is
  everywhere and even portions of Islam is part of that as well. It needs
  to also be noted that in the same verses in Revelation 17 & 18 that
  tell us that the Beast and Babylon the Great are two different things.
  One is the real mystical Babylon and the other is the Beast who, in his
  treachery, plots to destroy Babylon and will achieve this even as
  Babylon “rides” on the Beast before that happens.

  
  And the ten horns which you saw, and the beast, these will hate the
  harlot and will make her desolate and naked, and will eat her flesh and
  will burn her up with fire. For God has put it in their hearts to
  execute His purpose by having a common purpose, and by giving their
  kingdom to the beast, until the words of God will be fulfilled.
  Revelation 17:16-17 (NASB)

  The most obvious example of how something like this can happen is to
  listen to the rhetoric of some particularly vocal elements of Islam
  today. So the intention of these “radical elements” is to destroy just
  about everything in the world particularly Israel and the U.S. if it
  makes sure that Islam dominates the entire world.  One of the most
  conspicuous characteristics of these people today are their “boasting”.
  The description of the final beast as a boaster is certainly supported
  in the text of Daniel 7.

  
  Then I kept looking because of the sound of the boastful words which
  the horn was speaking; I kept looking until the beast was slain, and
  its body was destroyed and given to the burning fire.  Daniel 7:11
  (NASB)

  In these two passages, we’ve have seen we see how God will dispense
  judgment upon the evil in this world system as manifested by the evils
  of Babylon and that of Satan’s representative and mouthpiece, the Beast.

  So in identifying one, we have gotten closer to identifying the other.
  A curious thing to note is the possibility that the personage that is
  “the Beast” is also likely a turncoat against the harlot (Babylon).
  Both may even have the same backgrounds. It could very well be that if
  this Beast is the Shia Muslim messiah, the Mahdi, it could very well be
  that he will indeed turn upon the Muslims that support him and destroy
  them and the rest of Babylon as well unknowingly according to God’s
  purpose. With his remaining army which would seem to be still quite
  large, would begin to take on Jerusalem which will be his undoing. This
  possibility comes from some study of Islamic eschatology that I’ve made
  reference to in an earlier post, “Discovering God’s Character:
  Implications – Part 17E”(located on the sidebar) and relating it to what the scriptures
  actually says will happen to come to that conclusion. However, the Beast using
  nuclear weapons to destroy the Babylon world system as we know it is also a
  possibility.

  It is hoped that this study has helped some in your quest to understand
  biblical eschatology and the portion of Revelation involving Babylon as
  well.  The purpose here is to help us have a better understanding of
  what the Lord gave us in Revelation and at a minimum helps us take that
  writing out of the realm of the “totally mysterious” and “brings it
  into a very stark and possible reality” because we can see that the
  things written about in Revelation are not so “figurative” as we might
  have imagined.  Some of these things can be quite obvious and appear as
  very real and dangerous possibilities and others give us the certain
  hope that as we go through this ordeal, the Lord, the God of Abraham,
  Isaac, and Jacob, the only one and true God, Creator of heaven and
  earth will send His Son, Jesus Christ to do exactly what He has told us
  in the scriptures. He will reign in Jerusalem. Islam and Babylon will
  be no more. Israel will realize the One who came to die for their sin
  was the One, their long awaited Messiah… and that is the subject of the
  next post.  Blessings, Mr.Vee

  • 12:00 am
  • 2 Comments