Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

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July 2009 Issue

Babylon Never to be Inhabited Again
Jul 1st, 2009
Art Sadlier
Uncategorized

In Jeremiah 50:29 the Lord said that Babylon would never be inhabited again.  Alexander the great attempted to rebuild Babylon. He chose it to be the Capital City for the Empire of Greece. In 324 he decided to rebuild it, within a year he was dead at the age of 33 and his plans died with him.  Sadam Hussein attempted to rebuild Babylon, look what happened to him before he could do it! He built some walls with no roof over them and no inhabitants in them. God said it would never be rebuilt and it never will be. There are plans today to make Babylon’s ruins a tourist site, but there are no plans to rebuild.

Cheap Religion
Jul 1st, 2009
A.W. Tozer
Uncategorized

What passes for Christianity in our day is cheap religion! To listen to the current concepts of Christianity, we would conclude it is little more than bits of beautiful poetry, a man-made bouquet of fragrant flowers, a kindly smile for our neighbor and a couple of good deeds on behalf of a brother or sister. When I consider some of the elements now offered in Christianity as acceptable religion, I have to restrain myself lest I speak too disapprovingly. I fear my words would be so strong that I would have to repent of them! And I read in the Scriptures that there are some things God does not want us to say even about the devil. What do we find surfacing in much of our Christian fellowship? The complaint that God takes a long time to work out His will. We do not want to take the time to plow and cultivate. We want the fruit and the harvest right away. We do not want to be engaged in any spiritual battle that takes us into the long night. We want the morning light right now! We do not want the cross-we are more interested in the crown!  

Two Babylons
Jul 1st, 2009
Art Sadlier
Uncategorized

The first Babylon was on the Euphrates River in Iraq.  The second Babylon is the city of Rome.  Babylon is not just a city, but a system, a religious, political system, government and religion united to make...

1. An earthly Utopia (without God) by human effort,
2. A religion to reach heaven by human effort.   (Its goal is to unite the world in this effort).

The destruction of the city of Babylon – (not the system) by the Medo-Persians (539 BC), "Make bright the arrows; gather the shields: the LORD hath raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes: for his device isagainst Babylon, to destroy it; because it is the vengeance of the LORD, the vengeance of his temple"  (Jeremiah 51:11). This was prophesied for the immediate future, not 2500 years later. 

"Therefore thus saith the LORD; Behold, I will plead thy cause, and take vengeance for thee; and I will dry up her sea, and make her springs dry. And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling place for dragons, an astonishment and a hissing, without an inhabitant" (Jeremiah 51:36-37).

J. Vernon McGhee: “Note that this utter desolation is to follow not some future overthrow, but the sack of the city resulting from the turning aside of the waters of the river. The Euphrates which flowed directly through Babylon was diverted from its course, which left an entryway at each end for warriors of the enemy to enter under the walls in the dry river bed, by this maneuver they were able to appear suddenly in the streets and take the city by surprise.

The destruction was to be complete –  "And the land shall tremble and sorrow: for every purpose of the LORD shall be performed against Babylon, to make the land of Babylon a desolation without an inhabitant" (Jeremiah 51:29). “Come against her from the utmost border, open her storehouses; cast her up in heaps, and destroy her utterly: Let nothing be left of her” Jeremiah 50:26.

J. Vernon McGhee: “You can look at Babylon today; it is a heap of ruins. It was utterly destroyed!"

Smith’s Bible Dictionary (page 31): “Babel, Babylon (Gate of God). Capital on the plain of Shinar, Gen10:10. Built, 2600 B.C., on both sides of the River Euphrates, a vast square, 56 miles in circuit. About 5 miles above Hillah, on the east bank of the river, are a great many artificial mounds of enormous size in three groups. Scarcely a trace of these walls can be found now, except it may be a few mounds which are supposed to mark some of the gates.” (page 219) “330 B.C. Alexander found the great temple of Belus in so ruined a condition that it would have required the labour of 10,000 men for two months even to clear away the rubbish with which it was encumbered. His designs for the restoration of the temple and general embellishment of the city were frustrated by his untimely death, and the removal of the seat of the empire to Antioch under the Seleucide gave the finishing blow to the prosperity of the place.”

Since then, Babylon has been a quarry from which all the tribes in the vicinity have perpetually derived the bricks with which they have built their cities. The “great city,” “the beauty of the Chaldee’s excellency”, has thus emphatically “become heaps” (Jer.51:37) She is truly “an astonishment and a hissing, without inhabitant.” Her walls have altogether disappeared – they have “fallen”, (Jer. 51:44) been ”thrown down”, (50:15) been ”broken utterly”, (51:58) A “drought has been upon her waters” (50:38), for the system of irrigation, on which Babylonia fertility altogether depends has long been laid aside; ”her cities” are everywhere “a desolation” (51:43) her “land a wilderness;” wild beasts of the desert: (jackals) “lie there”, and the “owls dwell there”. The natives regard the whole site as haunted, and neither will the “Arab pitch tent, nor the shepherd fold sheep there” (Isaiah 13:20).

The destruction was to be final (never to be restored again) "Therefore the wild beasts of the desert with the wild beasts of the islands shall dwell there, and the owls shall dwell therein: and it shall be no more inhabited for ever; neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation" (Jeremiah 50:39). (See also 51:44, 62, 64  Isaiah 13:20, 21). Verse 19 in Isaiah 13 is in the context of the destruction of Babylon. It seems to compare the yet future destruction of the second eschatological, religious Babylon with the overthrow of Sodom & Gomorrah.

This is not an uncommon device in the prophetic scriptures.   For example Isaiah 9:6 is a prophetic reference to two separate events at least 2000 years apart with no explanation given.  Also Isaiah 61:2 is a prophetic reference to two separate events at least 2000 years apart with no explanation.

We read about that future destruction of religious Babylon in Revelation 17:16, "And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire."

This occurs at the mid-trib point. The political kingdom of Antichrist turns against the harlot (religious Babylon) and destroys her with fire. Then, with the city of Rome burned to the ground, possibly by a nuclear missile, he moves to Jerusalem and establishes his worship of Satan by the worship of himself. "Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God" (2 Thessalonians 2:4).

The Second (Eschatological) BABYLON IS not literal historical Babylon 

Excerpts from Feinberg (page 329) ”The reason is that the Apostle John is not speaking of literal, historical Babylon. First - he uses the word 'mystery' with reference to Babylon. This conveys the force of a mystical Babylon. Second – The book of Revelation uses proper nouns figuratively: 1- Jezebel (2:20); 2- The key of David (3:7); 3- Jerusalem (the new) comes down out of heaven (21:2, 10); 4- Sodom and Egypt (11:8); 5- Gog and Magog (20:8); not the same geographical areas of Ezek. 38and 39.  6- Babylon chapters 17and 18 not the city of Mesopotamia, which was situated on a plain, (17:9)”

[The chief references to Babylon are in Genesis, the prophetic books and Revelation. The references indicate that the city of old signified spiritual confusion (Gen. 11). The apostle John states that the idolatry of ancient times will come to a head in an ecclesiastical and political colossus with many commercial ramifications (Rev. 17-18). It will encompass all anti-God systems (cults and religions) concentrated in a vast ecclesiastical system. “Rome alone answers to the description given”, H.A. Ironside.]

Excerpts from Ironsides- (page 297) ”The federation of the future will be utterly godless and God-defiant. When that league is formed it will be but natural that a confederacy of all religious systems will be wrought out, and this too will be satanic in character. It will be a union of Christless professors, inheriting all the human and demonical mysteries of Babylon. In other words all sects will be swallowed up in one distinctively Babylonian system that has ever maintained the cult of the mother and the child. This system will for the first part of the tribulation period dominate the civil power. Thus the woman will be in the saddle again and ride the beast. He who has eyes to see and a heart to understand can readily discern the preparations now in progress, with this very end in view.

Identification of Eschatological Religious Babylon as the Roman Catholic Church Which is Called the Harlot                                We see six identifying marks:

Fornication with the kings of the earth, "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" (Revelation17:2). "For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies" (Revelation 18:3). There is no other city in the world which can claim a special relationship with global, political Leaders, yet being in nature itself strictly religious. Over many centuries the Roman Catholic Church has committed spiritual fornication because it claims to be the church of Christ and yet it has entered into union with Anti-God political entities.

Wealth and splendour of the Church of Rome - "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" (Revelation17:4). The Roman Catholic Church is the wealthiest organization in the world. Much of that wealth came from the sale of salvation (indulgences).  

• “arrayed in purple and scarlet color and clothed and decked with gold and precious stones”. If you have seen Roman Catholic ritual, you will recognize this verse.
• “having a golden cup in her hand”. There are many thousands of gold chalices in Catholic Churches around the world.

The immorality of the Church of Rome -  The unnatural vow of celibacy has filled the Catholic Priesthood with sexual fornication for a thousand years. Today, billions of dollars have been paid out by the Catholic church to settle claims of sexual abuse by her priests."....Full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication” (Revelation 17:4).

Mystery Babylon - Rome’s new catechism explains that liturgy aims, “To initiate souls into the mystery of Christ”. Mystery is at the very heart of Catholicism. "And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH" (Revelation 17:5).

The Martyrs of Jesus – "And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration (amazement) (Revelation 17:6). There is no city in the world where the blood of the martyrs of Jesus was shed more than in Rome. Only Rome qualifies, not Historical Babylon.

The Seven Hills – "And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth"
(Revelation 17:9). From verse 18, we learn that the woman was a city or identified with a city on seven hills. Rome is the city that sits on seven hills. "And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire."

Is there not cause for judgment?  With whom does God have a controversy? Ancient Babylon which has not existed for 2300 years, or Religious Babylon who has martyred millions of God’s dear children over the last 1500 years, and who will martyr multiplied millions more, in the tribulation period.

With whom does God have a controversy? The ancient city of Babylon which has not been populated for 2300 years, and did not even exist to reign over the kings of the earth. Or with Religious Babylon who has committed spiritual fornication with the kings of earth for 1500 years and will do so with Antichrist and his kingdom in the future.

How does this apply today?  The last days apostasy of the Laodicean/Evangelical church are now upon us. A part of that apostasy is a widespread ecumenical movement among evangelicals. It has swept through the Evangelical Church bringing evangelicals and Catholics together. Today there is a massive move to bring Evangelicals back to Rome and Evangelicals have no idea of what is going on and they do not care.

If you are involved in a New Evangelical Church or a church that is toying with the ecumenical movement, you need to remove yourself as quickly as possible. "And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues" (Revelation 18:4). This is s serious warning for this present hour.

The future of the ecumenical movement is in a union with the Harlot Church, which Antichrist will use. The infrastructure for the World Church and the World Government has now been laid and awaits the signal to take over the world. The trumpet is soon to sound!               Art Sadlier