I’m not much on the Book of Revelations. No matter how much
I listen to explanations, explications, read on it, it’s just messiness to me.
I do believe prophecy, and wrote in 2009 about The Harbinger byJohnathan Cahn. Extremely detailed connection between what happened to ancient
Israel when they fell to Babylon and what’s happened to the US (and by
extension Western civilization) since 9/11. The connection to the fall to any
civilization is directly connected to a nation turning its back on God.
My last post on New Years' Day bemoaned the terrible things that beset the
year 2014. I don’t see things much improving in 2015, for reasons explained in
that blog. Christmas for us Western Christians traditionally end Jan 6th the
Epiphany, so this is, I suppose, the last New Year thoughts.
I’m concerned we, as a nation, still think we can wallow in an
oversexed world, reject the family, ridicule and reject and disrespect
authority, have state funded abortion, reliance on excessive drugs and alcohol,
and the abuse and abandonment of children. Lip service is given to support of
the military, but cutting their budgets, sexualizing and feminizing the armed
forces does not bode well for the protection of the US or Western civilization.
What comes around goes around; Babylon brought Jerusalem
down and later Babylon fell. Scripture from Isaiah about Babylon’s downfall:
“Come down, virgin
daughter of Babylon, and sit in the dust.
For your days of
sitting on a throne have ended.
O daughter of Babylonia, never again will you be
the lovely
princess, tender and delicate.
Take heavy millstones
and grind flour.
Remove your veil,
and strip off your robe.
Expose yourself to
public view.
You will be naked and
burdened with shame.
I will take
vengeance against you without pity.”
Our Redeemer, whose
name is the Lord of Heaven’s Armies,
is the Holy One of
Israel.
“O beautiful Babylon,
sit now in darkness and silence.
Never again will
you be known as the queen of kingdoms.
For I was angry with
my chosen people
and punished them
by letting them fall into your hands.
But you, Babylon, showed them no mercy.
You oppressed even
the elderly.
You said, ‘I will
reign forever as queen of the world!’
You did not
reflect on your actions
or think about
their consequences.
“Listen to this, you
pleasure-loving kingdom,
living at ease and
feeling secure.
You say, ‘I am the only one, and there is no other.
I will never be a
widow or lose my children.’
Well, both these
things will come upon you in a moment:
widowhood and the
loss of your children.
Yes, these calamities will come upon you,
despite all your
witchcraft and magic.
“You felt secure in
your wickedness.
‘No one sees me,’
you said.
But your ‘wisdom’ and ‘knowledge’ have led you astray,
and you said, ‘I
am the only one, and there is no other.’
So disaster will
overtake you,
and you won’t be
able to charm it away.
Calamity will fall upon you,
and you won’t be
able to buy your way out.
A catastrophe will strike you suddenly,
one for which you
are not prepared.
“Now use your magical
charms!
Use the spells you
have worked at all these years!
Maybe they will do you some good.
Maybe they can
make someone afraid of you.
All the advice you
receive has made you tired.
Where are all your
astrologers,
those stargazers who make predictions each month?
Let them stand up
and save you from what the future holds.
But they are like
straw burning in a fire;
they cannot save
themselves from the flame.
You will get no help from them at all;
their hearth is no
place to sit for warmth.
And all your friends,
those with whom
you’ve done business since childhood,
will go their own ways,
turning a deaf ear
to your cries. Isaiah 47:1-15
This is pretty much where we are now. History repeating itself,
again. We know if we follow, listen to God, this cycle will be broken. Even
something as simple as obeying the Ten Commandments, even if we threw out the
first one about God to appease atheists and secularists, and just didn’t do stuff like murder, steal, covet other
peoples stuff and relationships would be a vast improvement.
Thinking back on the 20th century, and the horribleness
of it; genocide many times over, WWI, WWII, intentional mass starvation, the
Holocaust, Hitler, Mao murdering millions, Stalin and Lenin murdering millions, gulags
and the rest of it. Abortion has killed millions of babies. I read one analysis
that estimated the Black population of the US would be about 30%, not the about
13% it is now, if they had not aborted so many of their children. Yet the very
attitudes that brought us all that horror continue into the 21st
Century, and at the beginning of 2015 I see no rethinking to restart working
with God, with natural law, with love, to turn all that horribleness back.
I don’t see any indication that church attendance will
increase, that people will fall on their knees and acknowledge God, or repent. This is
where Revelations, talking about Babylon as a symbol now, since it has fallen,
describes us:
After all this I saw another angel come down from heaven
with great authority, and the earth grew bright with his splendor. He gave a
mighty shout:
“Babylon is fallen—that great city is fallen!
She has become a
home for demons.
She is a hideout for every foul spirit,
a hideout for
every foul vulture
and every foul and
dreadful animal.
For all the nations
have fallen
because of the
wine of her passionate immorality.
The kings of the world
have committed
adultery with her.
Because of her desires for extravagant luxury,
the merchants of
the world have grown rich.”
Then I heard another
voice calling from heaven,
“Come away from her, my people.
Do not take part
in her sins,
or you will be
punished with her.
For her sins are
piled as high as heaven,
and God remembers
her evil deeds.
Do to her as she has
done to others.
Double her penalty
for all her evil deeds.
She brewed a cup of terror for others,
so brew twice as
much for her.
Yet we as a nation, as a civilization, embrace this as a
home for demons, rather than God’s direction, rules, and discipline. How can it
be that Satan and the destruction he promises and brings be embraced? Over and over, civilizations throughout history. The Church,
Christians and Jews, must stand up to this. Many in the Church are ignorant of
their own Faith, and have been successfully secularized. The Church, the Body of Christ is so so weakened.
All we can do is pray and educate in a way that doesn’t alienate
more, and bring them back to the Church, and don’t let Satan or the State
dictate to us how we should accept all this repetition of hatred and
destruction. I’m terrified the 21st Century will be a continuation
of the 20th. I think more in our daily lives and in Churches, we need to speak
in a way about Repentance that doesn’t turn them off. The Enemy has even made
the idea of Repentance something to be mocked. We need to pray for a miracle.
