Originally published in "The Lord's Coming Herald & Wesleyan Bible Prophecy Advocate," February Edition 2009
Babylon Identified
Who or what is the great harlot/city Babylon momentarily destroyed by fire by the angry satanically-inspired disenfranchised nations in Revelation eighteen?
First of all read the chapter over carefully until you get the concept.
Here is the scenario: There is a great parasite that appears riding the beast in 17:1-7. This parasite is a filthy-rich woman--a harlot--who corrupts the earth with formication. She seeks to exercise world-wide control on the back of the Roman empire beast.
Is this the papacy of the Roman Catholic Church? I don’t think so--the identity appears to be much broader than that. No one, single, lone human figure seems to be involved. It is, rather, an entire system of corruption, an entity that at one time had a relationship with God, now in violation of that former marital status, and deemed to be a “harlot.”
“How is the faithful city become an harlot?” the prophet Isaiah cried concerning old Jerusalem (Isa. 1:21). Earthly Jerusalem is where Christ was crucified, and where also the two witnesses of God (the church) prophetically meet their demise in the last days (Rev. 11:7-10). Paul described this rival to the gospel as being “in bondage with her children” (Gal. 4:25).
Babylon is dispensational antinomianism in religion, and it is philosophical secular Zionism in politics, wedded into one nearly-seamless unified social entity in the world’s lone super power, the great empire of the USA.
The ten horns will hate the whore and burn her with fire (Rev. 17:16). The “parasite” of attempted Zionist world-domination, under-pinned ideologically by a fundamentalist religious right movement snowed under in the Darbyite heresy, is here being prophesied!--to those with ears to hear and eyes to see, an accurate reality description of our own current situation!
Such a perspective is totally unflattering, indeed, to our patriotic egos, but see Dan. 4:19! Most Americans will keep on struggling with their worldview delusions, even as we slide relentlessly on to our destruction. And to think, it could have been avoided!
Related Article Links
Are We Babylon?
The Shocking Bible End-time
Understanding Zionism