Hello everyone and welcome to this second episode of the podcast we are calling the Bible Prophecy Masterclass. In it, we are continuing our dive into all of the Bible's prophecies as they relate to the end times, including the entirety of the Book of the Revelation. Again, this is and will always be a study rooted in a prophecy series written by Mr. Alvin Mitchell and Arya along with Michael. That's me, and or others of my colleagues on occasion will be your affable host.
As noted in our trailers, our conviction here in the Bible Prophecy Masterclass is such that the road to Armageddon can be subdivided into at least three main broad categories. Number one, the fall of Babylon the Great, Revelation 18. Number two, the rise and the global dominance of the Jews in Israel, per Ezekiel 38-39, and Thurfor 3 God's systemic destruction of the earth, per Revelation 6-19.
Thus, you might say that the thrust of our study will proceed according to three primary subcategories of this class titled as follows, all detailed in three books written by Mr. Amm. In today's discussion we will continue with introductory remarks that will lead into our consideration of the 18th chapter of the Book of the Revelation, which is a detailing of God's sore displeasure with and His holy animus toward Babylon the Great.
With that bit of introduction behind us, let us pray that God's will be done and that He will bless this study. In Jesus' name, Amen. Revelation chapter 18 Babylon the Great Burn her with fire Death of the world's biggest loser I will be merciful, to whom I will be merciful? God. In my father's house, there are many dwelling places, John 14 verses 1-4.
Oddly, the language of this segment of the Revelation suggests strongly that there will be practically none reserved for the inhabitants of Babylon the Great, some, yes. For those who obey the call to distance, and to distinguish themselves from her and her brand of Christianity, but not many. She is discarded, like a dirty, filthy, nasty white rag, a worthless, useless thing of no further value. She is proof positive that not everyone who calls Jesus Lord, will be saved, Matthew 7 verses 21-23.
Contrary to popular evangelical or fundamentalist thought, there is no dwelling place for her religious remnants, in the father's house. Like squeezing a camel through the eye of a needle, so is the difficulty in getting the wealthy, the intellectual, into the kingdom of God, Jesus said.
Solomon was the legitimate son born to King David and Bathsheba, in an otherwise illegitimate, blood-soaked marriage, rooted in the shame, the sham and the sin of adultery, the illegitimate son was received into glory by God, at his birth i.e., per the will of God, he died while still a newborn. The well-favored son of the King after God's own heart, God's love for this legitimate son of the illegitimate union was supreme.
God showered this love freely and royally, giving the new King, not only his humble request for wisdom so that he might rule over the people of God wisely, but God gave him great wealth as well. In spite of its otherwise happy outlook, however, there is, and was from the start, a dark side to this saga of Solomon. Not surprisingly, of course, God ultimately knew Solomon better than Solomon the wise man knew himself.
The problem for this neophyte King lay not at all in that God, knowing the downside, failed to inform Solomon. Rather, this incident served to dramatize and play up the fact that this, the wisest man who ever lived, was yet utterly unperceptive and lacking in understanding. With the perceptivity and immense wisdom God imparted to him, Solomon appears to have sought diligently and found out profound statements of information on every subject under the sun.
The one thing he did not know early in life, however, was himself. Speaking of the building of the temple proposed and provided for by King David, Solomon, like his father, appears to have never got the point. The temple of their, short-term, understandably short-sighted, dreams, of which they spoke, and for which they prepared, materially, placed in juxtaposition to the one God had in mind, the one at the center of the long-term promise made to David, were two entirely different entities.
With regard to the ultimate of the two temples, Solomon was told, in no uncertain terms, that he was not going to participate, he was rejected, even while he was yet the most favored and most blessed of all of Judah's kings. He lived large, high on the hog, all per the hand of the Lord his God. Nonetheless, all the while, this giant among Israel's kings, with all of his wealth and material possessions, was being blown off by his God as a loser. Intellectually, he soared on eagles' wings.
He towered over all the kings of the earth. Yet, the message was, he would have no part in the coming of Israel's Messiah. It was a very subtle forecast that overshadowed the even more grim fact that this one, most highly esteemed of Almighty God, would in the end be lost forever. Among the most successful men of any generation, Solomon is therefore the world's biggest loser.
The closest he will ever get to walking on streets of gold is the great white throne, before which he will stand at the last judgment. Thus, God's communication to him might be termed, in essence, a sublime implementation of the height of reverse psychology. God chose to lavish love and affection upon one he knew would not only ultimately fail miserably, but do so without ever looking or turning back.
Similarly, in a manner mindful of the plight of King Solomon, Babylon the Great has been served notice of her status in God's eyes she is rejected. Although, without controversy, she is the brainchild of Almighty God, he takes full responsibility for her being, all her wealth, all of her good deeds, her appearance and the image she portrays upon the global stage will avail her nothing in terms of deliverance, in light of the awesomely awful plan of God for her.
Stuffed to the brim with wealth, overflowing with prosperity untold, strutting in the stupidity of her arrogance, even as she revels in grand illusions of superiority, she is to him like a fatted calf, built and set up only to be struck through, knocked down in humiliation and eternal damnation. In keeping with the divine formula to.extend mercy, where he sees fit while, by implication, withholding it as he chooses, all mercy is to be, and will be withheld from Babylon the Great.
Furthermore, perhaps, in strict keeping with the spirit of the biblical usage of the parable and the riddle, the reality is Babylon need not be confined to either a specific end-time city nor must she be ancient Babylon, a rock rebuilt. New World Order, Phase 1 The New World Order It is a concept rarely spoken of in the American media and public arena. Nevertheless, it is one very real and very much anticipated behind the scenes much more so in foreign countries, it seems, than here in the US.
On August 14, 2008, NPR radio featured a news clip from an interview it conducted with a woman from the breakaway region of Ossetia. The focus of that interview was the Russian invasion of Georgia following Georgia's attempt to reign in the rebel state, which sought its independence, allegedly, according to the Georgians, instigated by the Russians.
The woman stated dogmatically, something to the effect, that the Georgian president Mikhail Sakashvili's attempt to maintain control of those states which want to separate from Georgia while at the same time Georgia seeks to ally itself with the West via NATO was all part of the New World Order, see the sidebar titled The New World Order, on page 30. Not long after that, someone else in the news was careful to make mention of this coming global state of affairs.
Former President George Bush, Sr. was shown in online video footage speaking affectionately, in glowing terms, about the New World Order, http://www.youtube.com/. Except from the lips of media ministers and Bible prophecy sensationalists, it remains an idea heretofore generally unheard of in America, otherwise, see sidebar note below, The New World Order. Chapter 122-4 Babylon the Great has not received a fair amount of press in the Revelation narrative.
As a separate, quantifiable entity, she only appears in but occupies all of the discussion confined to the 18th chapter, Babylon the Great in Chapter 17 is an inscription on the forehead of the woman in that riddle, who otherwise has no bearing on the entity in Chapter 18. Moreover, her eventual drubbing, on all fronts, holds an especially dear place in the heart, in the mind and in the eschatological plans of God.
By way of review, in Chapter 17, the identity of the woman on the scarlet red beast and her two extreme polarities were established. Being bipolar, each of her split personalities was shown to be firmly, solidly rooted in Rome, the Eastern Empire or the Byzantine Empire, established in Constantinople, stood for several centuries longer than the Western Kingdom, it had no meaningful impact on what occurred later in the West.
On the one hand, the first aspect of the bipolar nature of the woman was political. She represented ancient Rome as the capital of the Roman Empire, symbolized by the scarlet red beast on which she rode. Her commanding view from atop the seven heads of the beast, as opposed to its back, was emblematic of the totality of her absolute authority.
The heads were the emperors, although they also represented hills or mountains upon which the woman was physically located, which further helps to establish her identity as that identity relates to her locality. It should be noted that, when this political persona of the woman fell in 476 AD, there was no international shedding of tears, there were no expressions of grief. No one missed her, as they were in the end more benefited than they were hurt.
The then known world was delighted when the woman's political aspect was gone. So it was or would have been for any such kingdom which had forced itself upon another. Whether ancient Babylon, Greece, or Rome, no one would have wept at their collapse. On the other hand, that woman in chapter 17 was to survive under the sway and the control of a highly pious alter-ego he calls the great whore.
As such, she represented, initially, a Roman shambles, led by the popes at the head of the totally apostate church at Rome, Paul's Church of the Romans, following the collapse of the Roman Empire. Each aspect of the woman's persona was, in God's economy, separate and distinct, they could never have coexisted peacefully the Caesars of Rome would not have tolerated the competitive reach of the western popes.
When the western arm of the empire fell, the eastern emperors at Constantinople were not able to subdue and maintain control over the ancient city. Strangely, perhaps, it might rightly be argued on the other hand that they could scarcely have succeeded without this great whore and her crusaders.
Furthermore, it was established that the demise of the religious great whore, on whose account the woman she controls has the expression Babylon the great stencil on her forehead, which exists to this very day, at this very hour, will be at the hands of the end-times beast, the eighth and final of only seven rulers, aided by his consortium of ten other nations, all inspired by God Almighty himself, this will occur early in his short, 3.5-year global reign.
It is more the destruction of a chiefly religious institution, which doubles now as a globally recognized political entity. Since their 1929 settlement to get the pope's corrupting influence out of Italian politics, Vatican City has been a nation making the religious pope a political head of state as well. Nevertheless, for all that has happened, or that has been determined will happen around the theme of Babylon the great, the subject is far from done. As it was in the days of Noah.
Life Goes On, lyrics to a popular 70s-slash-80s song. With the silent encroachment of God's long-awaited doomsday scenario, life for men and women the world over will continue as it always will have, Jesus assured his inquisitive disciples.
Men on every continent, in every nation, in every city and countryside, will marry and give away their daughters, celebrate holidays eating and drinking and generally being merry, they will get up in the mornings so as to toil away the hours at their various jobs, Jesus said, just as was done in the days of Noah and of Lot, Matthew 24 verses 36-42, Luke 17 verses 26-27, 34-37.
While at the same time enjoying some sense of tranquility and calm owing in part to a general cessation of conflict amongst the nations, Paul says of the nations including the Jews they will at some point sigh in relief, saying to themselves, peace and safety, at last, 1 Thessalonians 5 verses 2-3. Paul goes on to say of those end-times days that. perilous times will come, in which men will be lovers of themselves. blasphemers. having no natural affection. traitors. unconcerned
about the things of God. having a form of godliness that even they won't adhere to. Second Timothy 3 verses 1-9. Both the words of Jesus and those of Paul allude to that point immediately preceding the outbreak of the apocalypse, in which all Christians will be snatched out of this world in what is commonly called the rapture in which case Christians are admonished to be always on guard, watching and waiting expectantly.
Throughout what might appear to be the most tranquil of times, much in the way of sinister plotting will be taking place. It may well be assumed that the primary focus of said plotting, which will without doubt involve a peace deal to dampen fears, promote trust and encourage a dropping of their guard will be Israel, Ezekiel 38 and 39.
The objective of what by then will amount to an extensive amount of planning and preparation will be to obliterate the tiny nation of Israel, once and for all, beginning the process of ridding the world of any reference to God. Standing in the way, representing a dangerous and powerful impediment to that hell-spun initiative will be the only ally that the apple of God's eye can count on.
Having been thorough, having done their homework well, thus, knowing and understanding well that their goals represent at best a calculated risk of immense proportions, all will know and agree that there simply are no other options. That foreboding obstacle to the nation's crave for the blood of the Jew will itself pose a menacing threat on its own merit that must be eliminated, the consensus therefore being, we're damned if we attack, we're doomed and damned if we don't.
Notwithstanding the dangers associated with what will be the most daunting of tasks indeed, Almighty God will ensure the success of an otherwise well-crafted, well-coordinated pre-emptive first strike, per Rev 18. At that point, with all saints out of the way, all hell will break loose, culminating in the fall and the eternal ruin of the most powerful nation to ever have existed.
With all the world's major economies left in shambles, the nations will be free to turn their guns on the slumbering Jews. Meanwhile, in heaven, ecstasy will be the order of the day. Babylon the Great, who while masquerading as Christian, promoting her own multifaceted brand of pseudo-relationships with God, having lived for 450 years and living still in flagrant opposition to the will of God, will have been laid waste forever.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, will conclude this edition of the Bible Prophecy Master Class. We sincerely hope that you've been blessed by this study and that you will encourage others to join in on future podcasts. As we depart, please smash that like button and make plans to join us next time for Episode Number 3 of Judgment Day, Volume Number 1, Prelude to Armageddon, Part 1 The United States of America in Bible Prophecy. Until next time, may God bless you.