Jeremiah 50:32 I will kindle a fire in her towns that will consume all who are around her.”
From offshore, witnesses will be able to see Babylon burning. The “smoke of her burning” will be visible far out to sea. There will be many witnesses of her destruction.
Jeremiah 50:43 “The king of Babylon has heard the report about them, And his hands hang limp; Distress has gripped him, Agony like a woman in childbirth.
The attack will come so suddenly that the President will simply be paralysed by the news reports coming in. His great military will be wiped out in one hour! (Jeremiah 50: 27, 30)
Jeremiah 50:3 Do not spare her young men; completely destroy her army. 4 They will fall down slain in Babylon, fatally wounded in her streets.
Jeremiah 51:30 Babylon’s warriors have stopped fighting; they remain in their strongholds. Their strength is exhausted; they have become weaklings. Her dwellings are set on fire; the bars of her gates are broken. 31 One courier follows another and messenger follows messenger to announce to the king of Babylon that his entire city is captured, 32 the river crossings seized, the marshes set on fire, and the soldiers terrified.”
Jeremiah 51:53 “Even if Babylon ascends to the heavens and fortifies her lofty stronghold, I will send destroyers against her,” declares the LORD.
Even the USA’s weapons in space will not be enough to save her. The United States is the only nation to have a Star Wars program of weapons in space.1
In addition to this they have the HAARP system (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program), which can be used to influence climate, communications and possibly as a more direct weapon. Russia has already protested about this project.2
For the rest of the world this will be the biggest and most sensational news item ever! The story will flash around the earth, leaving everyone stunned and wondering, “What happens now?”
Revelation 18: 46 At the sound of Babylon’s capture the earth will tremble; its cry will resound among the nations.
Jeremiah 51:54 “The sound of a cry comes from Babylon, the sound of great destruction from the land of the Babylonians. 55 The LORD will destroy Babylon; he will silence her noisy din. Waves of enemies will rage like great waters; the roar of their voices will resound. 56 A destroyer will come against Babylon; her warriors will be captured, and their bows will be broken. For the LORD is a God of retribution; he will repay in full. 57 I will make her officials and wise men drunk, her governors, officers and warriors as well; they will sleep forever and not awake,” declares the King, whose name is the LORD Almighty.
It seems likely that the President and other leaders, including those of the military, will actually be drunk and unable to react when the attack occurs!
Revelation 18:21 Then a mighty angel picked up a boulder the size of a large millstone and threw it into the sea, and said: “With such violence the great city of Babylon will be thrown down, never to be found again. 22 The music of harpists and musicians, pipers and trumpeters, will never be heard in you again. No worker of any trade will ever be found in you again. The sound of a millstone will never be heard in you again. 23 The light of a lamp will never shine in you again. The voice of bridegroom and bride will never be heard in you again. Your merchants were the world’s important people. By your magic spell all the nations were led astray. 24 In her was found the blood of prophets and of God’s holy people, of all who have been slaughtered on the earth.”
How will Babylon fall?
1 She will become the victim of her creditors. Their loan will be called in and they will take revenge on her.
2 The man-beast and the ten rulers who will hand over their authority to him, upon whose back the prostitute has been riding, will hate her, turn on her, “leave her naked, eat her flesh and burn her with fire.”
3 Her destruction will come suddenly – “in one hour”, “in an instant”; and with great violence. It will take Babylon, her leaders, and the whole world, by surprise.
4 The main attack will come from the north – “a nation from the north will attack her”, “an alliance of great nations from the land of the north”.
5 The nations involved would seem to include Turkey, Iran (and her satellites) and Germany, along with Russia and China; though these will not be the only nations taking part.
6 The ruler of Babylon will be totally paralysed by the incoming news of the attack and the destruction of his military forces. He will be unable to react and the military will simply give up fighting.
7 Babylon will be “consumed by fire”, “a fire in her towns ... will consume all who are around her”. The “smoke of her burning” will be witnessed from far out to sea. This would seem to indicate nuclear destruction!
8 The news of her destruction will shake the whole world!
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11 The man is revealed
Jeremiah 50:46 At the shout, “Babylon has been seized!” the earth is shaken, and an outcry is heard among the nations.
As we said in the previous chapter, the news of the fall of Babylon will shock the whole world, leaving the vast majority of people stunned and wondering, “What on earth happens now?”
That worldwide sense of shock will continue. The whole earth will have been taken by complete surprise by the fall of Mega-Babylon. No-one expected this. Nobody will know what is happening. Rulers and kings will be at a loss to explain it. Business leaders and merchants will be devastated by the news. Stock markets around the world will fall through the floor!
In what remains of the United States there will be total chaos. But there will be survivors, because we are told what these survivors will do after the fall.
Perhaps outside of the cities there will be less desolation – although the prophecies describe her rivers being dried up, even the animals leaving! Some human life will remain, though – but there may not be much to sustain it for very long.
Jeremiah 50:3 No one will live in it; both people and animals will flee away.
Revelation 18:22 The music of harpists and musicians, pipers and trumpeters, will never be heard in you again.
No worker of any trade will ever be found in you again.
The sound of a millstone will never be heard in you again.
23 The light of a lamp will never shine in you again.
The voice of bridegroom and bride will never be heard in you again.
This does not promise much of a future for those who have survived!
Jeremiah 50:38 A drought on her waters! They will dry up.
Jeremiah 51:41 How desolate Babylon will be among the nations! 42 The sea will rise over Babylon; its roaring waves will cover her. 43 Her towns will be desolate, a dry and desert land, a land where no one lives, through which no one travels.
Jeremiah 51:25 “I will stretch out my hand against you, roll you off the cliffs, and make you a burned-out mountain. 26 No rock will be taken from you for a cornerstone, nor any stone for a foundation, for you will be desolate forever,” declares the LORD.
There will be no water supply, so no possibility even of subsistence farming, or of eking it out in the woods, or whatever. This place will have become a desert!
Isaiah 13:14 Like a hunted gazelle, like sheep without a shepherd, they will all return to their own people, they will flee to their native land.
Jeremiah 50:16 Because of the sword of the oppressor let everyone return to their own people, let everyone flee to their own land.
Jeremiah 51:9 “‘We would have healed Babylon, but she cannot be healed; let us leave her and each go to our own land, for her judgment reaches to the skies, it rises as high as the heavens.’
Survivors will look around at what is left of their country, still being patrolled by their enemies, They will unanimously decide to give up on Babylon and return to their own people and their own lands. They will flee what is left of America.
This could only happen in a land where you have Irish Americans, German Americans, Swedish Americans, Hispanic Americans, African America
ns, Chinese Americans, etc. At least there will be a possibility of countries for most people to go back to.
Though what will be the situation of the indigenous First Nations people, who for generations have warned and watched helplessly while their land was being destroyed? Of all people, they will have nowhere else to call home. Or will they?
There is already an affinity between Israel and many First Nations people. This link may have grown stronger by the time these events take place, so they may well come to think of Israel as their natural home.
Isaiah 14:1 The LORD will have compassion on Jacob; once again he will choose Israel and will settle them in their own land. Foreigners will join them and unite with the descendants of Jacob. 2 Nations will take them and bring them to their own place.
And of course, of the six million Jews who currently live in the United States, there will still be many who have not heeded the warnings of their own scriptures; and yet some will find themselves miraculously still alive afterwards. They are currently being led astray by their own leaders. The prophets speak clearly about their situation:
Jeremiah 50:4 “In those days, at that time,” declares the LORD, “the people of Israel and the people of Judah together will go in tears to seek the LORD their God. 5 They will ask the way to Zion and turn their faces toward it. They will come and bind themselves to the LORD in an everlasting covenant that will not be forgotten. 6 “My people have been lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray and caused them to roam on the mountains. They wandered over mountain and hill and forgot their own resting place.
7 Whoever found them devoured them; their enemies said, ‘We are not guilty, for they sinned against the LORD, their verdant pasture, the LORD, the hope of their ancestors.’ 8 “Flee out of Babylon; leave the land of the Babylonians, and be like the goats that lead the flock.
18 “I will punish the king of Babylon and his land as I punished the king of Assyria. 19 But I will bring Israel back to their own pasture, and they will graze on Carmel and Bashan; their appetite will be satisfied on the hills of Ephraim and Gilead.
Jeremiah 51:50 You who have escaped the sword, leave and do not linger! Remember the LORD in a distant land, and call to mind Jerusalem.”
Just like they did in Europe after the Nazi holocaust, surviving Jews and Israelites will remember Jerusalem, ‘their own resting place’, ‘their own pasture’, return to the LORD and seek then to get home to Israel – by whatever means there is available!
Jeremiah 50:28 Listen to the fugitives and refugees from Babylon declaring in Zion how the LORD our God has taken vengeance, vengeance for his temple.
The man for the time?
Initially, the world will be in complete chaos, with an economic and political vacuum. World trade will be almost at a standstill, because the one nation which imported 43% of the world’s trade goods every year is no longer open for business and will never rise again! The Revelation seems to suggest worldwide economic collapse. There will be all kinds of shortages, leading to great hardship and, eventually, famine.
But we will already have a world ruler in waiting. Referred to as the ‘beast’ (among many other titles), this man has already been given the power and authority of ten powerful nations, to attack and destroy the world’s only remaining superpower. Now he is poised to ‘stand in the gap’, to fill the political vacuum left after the fall of the United States.
The Messiah can NOT come‘at any moment’
This man is talked of in both the Hebrew Tanakh and in several places in the New Testament. The apostle, Paul (Shaul) makes a very clear statement to those expecting the Messiah ‘at any moment’:
2 Thessalonians 2:1 Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, 2 not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us—whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter—asserting that the day of the Lord has already come. 3 Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. 4 He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshipped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God. 5 Don’t you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things? 6 And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. 7 For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendour of his coming. 9 The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, 10 and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie 12 and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.
What ‘hinders’ the Man being revealed?
Do we know what is holding back the revelation of this man? Who is “the one who now holds it back” who “will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way” This, says Paul, is when the ‘lawless one’ will be revealed. (When Paul calls him the ‘Lawless One’, he means one who is without the Torah, or who opposes the Torah, the instruction of God.)
Well, who, or what, has just been taken out of the way? The nation of Mega-Babylon, which has dominated the whole world, politically and economic-ally – until now! That world has changed forever and it is now time for this man to be revealed.
Up to this time his plans and alliances (with the ten powerful national rulers) have been necessarily in secret. Now he can safely be revealed, and be proclaimed as the ‘saviour of the world’, the ‘hope of the future’.
In fact, says Paul, “he will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshipped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God!”
We will find this person also in the pages of the Tanakh and we will soon learn a lot more about him and his plans. Paul is referring back to the prophet Daniel’s description of the “king who will exalt himself” (Daniel 12:36).
Revelation 14: an end-times summary?
But let us stick with the New Testament just a little longer. The Revelation 14 contains a section where three angels appear in quick succession, each with a different announcement to make. They are referred to as an angel, a second angel and then a third. These, I believe, show us the near future in a nutshell – in chronological order:
Revelation 14:6 Then I saw another angel flying in midair, and he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth—to every nation, tribe, language and people. 7 He said in a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgement has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water.”
8 A second angel followed and said, “‘Fallen! Fallen is Mega-Babylon,’ which made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries.”
9 A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives its mark on their forehead or on their hand, 10 they, too, will drink the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. They will be tormented with burning sulphur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. 11 And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever. There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name.” 12 This calls for patient endurance on the part of the people of God who keep his commands and remain faithful to Jesus. 13 Then I heard a voice from heaven say, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “they
will rest from their labour, for their deeds will follow them.”
14 I looked, and there before me was a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was one like a son of man with a crown of gold on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. 15 Then another angel came out of the temple and called in a loud voice to him who was sitting on the cloud, “Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.” 16 So he who was seated on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested.
The first angel has the “eternal good news” to proclaim to every nation and language. Although many organisations and individuals are zealously working towards this, I don’t think any of them would claim that every tribe and tongue has been reached, as yet. So, this is where we are at the moment in this prophetic time-scale.
The Whore and her Mother: 9/11, Babylon and the Return of the King Page 12