But we are now primarily concerned with the prophecy that this
New Jerusalem, this Zion of Bible Prophecy, would be captured and conquered
by an alien force or power, called in the Bible - Babylon.
In the very next verse in
Zechariah two God speaks to this New Jerusalem, "Deliver thyself, O Zion,
that dwellest WITH the daughter of Babylon."
And in Micah four, verse
10 God said to Zion, "thou shalt go even to Babylon; there shalt thou be
delivered; there the Lord shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies."
These and many others make it plain prophetic Zion would be captured by
prophetic Babylon.
Now lets go on in the Book
of Revelation and see if we can recognize Mystery Babylon the Great from
the descriptions as shown in chapter 16, 17 and 18. We finished through
verse 20 of Revelation 16 where Babylon was divided into three parts and
the cities and the governments were falling. And every Island fled away
and the mountains were not found; This is symbolic language for countries
and nations. They are disappearing as independent states and are being
absorbed or swallowed up into one or the other of the three parts of Babylon;
One part of Babylon represented by Russia, which rules Western Asia and
Eastern Europe is at this moment waging war against several parts of Africa
at this very moment; Whether the American people are aware of it or not.
Meanwhile Red China, a second part of Babylon is solidifying its control
upon the sub-continent of Asia. With Hong Kong soon to become part of China
again as England has agreed to give up its control of it in the very near
future. The third part of Babylon, the Western European Nations, including
the United States is co-operating completely with those conquests.
Verse 21 is a strange one,
"And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about
the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of
the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great."
This vision that John saw
is often taught as if it will be real hail; frozen water which will fall
from heaven. But remember, although John may have seen hail stones in the
vision, like the other parts of his visions, each of these things was representative
of something else.
The previous verses about
the islands fleeing and the mountains not being found, certainly is not
going to be fulfill by real islands getting up out of the water and running
away on supernatural legs. Nor by the disappearance of all the mountains
on the earth. No, islands and mountains in prophecy stands for small and
larger nations. And water in the Bible represents the Word of God, or the
living water which would come from Christ.
In Ephesians 5 Paul writes
of Christs love for the Church in verses 25 and 26, "Husbands love your
wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That
he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word."
Gods' Word washes and cleanses
people, but in Revelation 16:21 that water is frozen; it is in the form
of hail; it cannot wash, it cannot cleanse, it can only cause hurt and
cause immense pain. And many of the doctrines and teachings of Organized
Religion today is like frozen water. Although they quote God's Word and
present it as God's Word, they are handled deceitfully and in error; it
cannot be drunk, it cannot be absorbed and it is in a form which brings
about blasphemy against God.
Now it says that these hail
stones fell upon men from heaven, which would indicate that God was the
source of them, and it is true that Almighty God will send false doctrines
to men who will not accept His Truths. Second Thessalonians 2:10-11 reads,
"because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should
believe a lie."
And it is obvious to any
that will only open their eyes and see that many are being sent strong
delusions; for many do believe lies and many do blaspheme God. So the hail
of Revelation 16:21 would be, in effect, God's Word being rained upon wicked
men in such a way that they will not believe it nor understand it; But
instead blaspheme God.
To show that this is true,
we have an example in Matthew 13 where Jesus told His disciples that He
taught in parables so that SOME people would not understand Him. Now, there
is one remedy for the frozen Word: Get away from Ministers who freeze or
hide God's Word by mis-teaching it. God's Ministers are to make the Word
plain and teach it in truth. Paul said in Hebrews that God's Ministers
are to be made, "a flame of fire," (Hebrews 1:7), and Fire will unfreeze
God's Word.
Let's go on into the next
chapter, Chapter 17 of Revelation. Please remember that these chapter divisions
were not in the original text. The text was first divided into chapters
and verses when the Geneva Bible was translated in the fifteen hundreds
and it was done so for ease of reference. So Revelation 17 is a continuation
of Revelation 15 and 16. The vision of the seven angels with the seven
golden vials of God's wrath to be poured out upon the earth. After John
saw the hail, we read in Revelation 17:1, "And there came one of the seven
angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come
hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth
upon many waters." The angel is now going to show John the judgment, or
the punishment, or the end of the great whore. Called in verse 5 "Mystery,
Babylon The Great." Remember, Babylon THE GREAT WHORE is ALREADY HERE when
these things are going on. John does NOT see Babylon arriving upon the
scene. In fact, if you will check quite closely you will find that the
Book of Revelation does not announce the arrival or the rise of Babylon
at all.
Only what she is doing and
her end. So she is not something that arises on the scene during the seven
last plagues she is already there when the scene begins. The angel said
to John, "Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great
whore that sitteth upon many waters: With whom the kings of the earth have
committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made
drunk with the wine of her fornication. So he carried me away in the spirit
into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast,
full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns." Here again
is being demonstrated the utter impossibility of these visions being fulfilled
literally. We will not be looking for some woman, dressed in red, riding
upon a red beast having seven heads. No, this is symbolic for something
else. "And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked
with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand
full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: And upon her forehead
was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND
ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH." (Revelation 17:4-5)
And now we wish you to listen,
and read very very carefully to the next verse. Especially those of you
who have been taught that Christians will not be on the earth when these
last chapters of the Book of Revelation are being fulfilled. Verse 6 of
Revelation 17, still speaking of the woman arrayed in purple and scarlet
- MYSTERY BABYLON THE GREAT, "And I saw the woman drunken with the blood
of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration."
America is New Jer <USA> lem
not Babylon - 14
Now that last word there
does not mean that John looked upon her with favor, as the original Greek
word means to look closely or to be in awe. And we can imagine that if
we had seen such a vision that we would have looked upon it in awe also.
But the woman was drunk with what? With the blood of the saints and with
the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.
Whatever this woman in scarlet
is SHE IS A KILLER OF CHRISTIANS! That is obvious because she is drunken
with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.
This woman arrayed in purple and scarlet to be judged here, during the
time of the seventh vial or the last plague upon the earth, was seen by
John to have killed so many Christians he could describe here in no other
way than to say that she was drunken with their blood. In verse 18 the
angel told John, "And the woman which thou sawest is that great city which
reigneth over the kings of the earth." So we can see clearly that she is
the world ruling power. She kills Christians and in the last verse of Revelation
18, after she is destroyed, God says; "And in her was found the blood of
prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth."
Now we have said several
times that this world ruling power called Babylon is here on the earth
today. It is not some future thing! She is ALREADY working her awesome
murders upon the Christian people in most of the nations of the earth.
And she is guilty of the death of not only Christians but of the death
of all that has been slain upon the earth. That God's people would be in
Babylon, captured by her as it were, is obvious by the call of God to his
people in Revelation 18:4, "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not
partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues." Which produces
the following question: Why would God be so foolish as to call for His
people to come out of Babylon, in Revelation 18, if the ministers, the
Clergy of Organized Religion are correct in their Rapture Doctrine, when
they say all the Christians will be gone when these passages are fulfilled?
No, God's people have not only been captured by Babylon, as we read in
Micah 4:10, but Babylon is responsible for the death of many of them.
Let's recount a little history,
actually recent history, which has occurred in the lifetime of the older
people, and at least partiality known to all. The Red Bolsheviks (Communist
Jews) conquered the 16 territories of Russia and Siberia between 1917 and
1921. By 1931 they had put to death at least twenty million (20,000,000)
people, most of whom were Christians, and at least that many more were
in slave camps. Every Christian Bible, to their knowledge, in Russia was
burned or destroyed; every Christian Church was closed; every Christian
Minister was either killed or placed in the slave labor camps in Siberia.
And that process has been repeated in every nation taken over by the Communist,
although it has not been reported upon by the Jew owned news media in America.
The same people who claim their color is red, just the color of the woman
and the beast in Revelation 17 and 18.
The Christians in Russia
were not Raptured; the Christians of Armenia, Azerbidjhan, Byelorussia,
Georgia, Kazakh, Kirghy, Ukraine, Uzbe, Turkmen, Estonia, Latvia, Lithunia
and none of the subsequent nations taken over by the Communist were Raptured;
the Christians of China were not Raptured, nor were the some ten million
(10,000,000) Protestant Christians murdered by the Roman Catholic Church
before and after the inquisition were not Raptured. It has been admitted
by at least one of the Clergy of Organized Religion that most of the Christians
of China have been murdered. The Christians of Cuba were not Raptured,
however, some of them did escape in small boats before Castro's power become
complete.
During the Vietnam War another
war was began and ended in Africa with little if any American news coverage.
The war against the Ible Tribe by the Nigerians. Britain, Russia and the
Jewish Israelis armed eighty thousand (80,000) Nigerian troops and in two
years they had killed or starved to death one million (1,000,000) of the
six million Ible people. Our rulers and our news media remained silent
as did most of the radio and television preachers.
When it was almost over,
Newsweek Magazine ran a one page article on it, casually commenting upon
the one million who had died, and saying that the Ibles were the ONLY Negro
tribe in Africa who had adopted Christianity as the official religion of
the tribe. Just think of it, one million Negro professing Christians slaughter
by arms from a combination of Britain, Russia and Israel and most Americans
never even heard of it!
At the end of the Vietnam
War when the red butchers of North Vietnam swept in upon the helpless people
of South Vietnam and Cambodia refugees who escaped later told of the systematic
murder of every individual who was a Christian and everyone who, to their
knowledge, had been friendly to a Christian or Christian Missionaries.
In the first weeks, after
the Communist takeover, red murder squads went into every Christian orphanage
in South Vietnam and shot to death every baby there, to eliminate what
they called contamination. As you know, thousands of South Vietnamese did
escape by themselves, or with the Americans in those last desperate days
of the collapse of South Vietnam. In America many Ministers did join together
in a relief effort to provide food and clothes for the refugees.
In many cases they even helped
bring them to America and settle them here. Strangely enough, or perhaps
not so strangely even while some were helping Christian refugees from the
Communist slaughter, others went right on preaching about how American
Christians would never suffer such things, but would be Raptured off the
earth before any tribulation came. As Jesus said in Matthew 6:23, about
such men; "If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great
is that darkness!" Being blinded by their own false doctrine, they could
not see the tribulation being enacted right before their eyes. And still
the slaughter and the horror in Southeast Asia goes on without abatement,
without comment by the American news media, the American Government or
the American Clergy of Organized Religion.
Lord Elton, British Tory
spokesman for foreign affairs, stated in the English Parliament; "Of all
the regimes which the fugitives left behind the most ferocious is in Cambodia.
In 1975 the country had seven million (7,000,000) inhabitants and since
the Khmer Rouge took over more than one and one-half million (1,500,000)
have died of execution or starvation." He further said; "The policy is
the destruction of all ties with the past and with the outside world except
China."
Vietnam has since found out
the same thing. The so-called Communist conquest was in actuality a conquest
of Red China, one of the parts of Mystery Babylon. Who is ruling America?
Is it the people of America? Or has the United States, unknown by its citizens,
been captured by that thing known in the Bible as Mystery Babylon? Since
1918 the Red anti-Christ have almost swept parts of Asia and Eastern Europe
clean of Christians.
They are now working to either
kill or drive out all of the Christians in Africa. Aided in their criminal
pursuits by the rulers of our own beloved America. And still the teaching
of the Rapture grows and spreads. It is almost unbelievable to those of
us who study God's Word and recognize from it the present tribulation which
the blind cannot see. But think God, as we read Revelation 17 and 18 we
are not reading of the rise of this great anti-Christ world power, we are
reading of its judgment or its end, its total destruction. And as Babylon
become visible to our people, they will be seeing its termination, its
final death throes. As God moves to bring it to judgment and destruction.
In fact, all of the Bible
teaches it will be the wicked which will be removed from the earth, not
the Christians or the Saints. The so-called Rapture Doctrine, like all
false doctrines has the truth turned upside down and backwards. (This study
is taken in part from a tape by the late Bible Scholar Pastor Sheldon Emry)
The End
