The Fate of Babylon

The Fate of Babylon:  A study in determining the identity and demise of Babylon in John’s Apocalypse

1  Preface

2  Introduction

3  The Significance of “Pharmakeia” References in Identifying 21^st Century

    Babylon in Revelation

4  Further ID’ing of Babylon

5  The Fate of Babylon

6  Light in the Darkness

7  Afterword

Preface

After returning to the U.S. in 2011 from the foreign mission field and pastoring a couple of churches in the Middle East, one of which I helped to plant, and in this latter preaching over 60 sermons on the Book of Revelation, I found that many – both pastors and people – in the United States are somewhat oblivious to the importance of Revelation, or the Apocalypse as it is also called, to our own time.

This is greatly due to the confusion and conflict engendered in the churches concerning eschatology (the study of the last things) because of faulty exegesis and / or political-religious agendas.  Many are put off and discouraged from studying it by this.  And it is a shame, as the Apocalypse was meant to be taken to heart by all the ages of the New Testament church.

Of all the various schemas used to interpret Revelation, only one includes all the churches from John’s day to the end of the age, bypassing none.  This means that the book and its vital – urgent – counsel was as much for the church in Smyrna of Asia Minor in 100 A.D. as it was for the churches of the Waldenses in the mountains of Europe in 1,000 A.D., and for the churches in our contemporary world of 2014 A.D.  The Amillennial – aka the present “millennial” reign of Jesus Christ from heaven, and His binding of Satan, as well his loosing at the very end of the age – is the only view that does not exclude large segments of the age-long church from the blessings of wisdom and courage promised the readers and keepers of the prophecies of Revelation.  Only in the context of the entire NT church age do the details of the visions fit into perfect place. 

The Apocalypse of John is the New Testament’s last prophecy (Rev 1:3; 22:7,10,18,19), and it has rightly been called “the climax of prophecy” as there is nothing left undealt with of all the word of God foretells.  What is particularly grievous is that the urgent information meant for the church in the very end of the age pertaining to approaching danger – extreme danger – is disregarded by many in God’s flock, and we go about our lives as though we shall never experience nationwide suffering and disaster.

In earlier ages – I am thinking of Antiochus Epiphanes a century and a half before the time of Christ, who wasted the Old Testament church – warnings about persons and events enabled the saints to prepare their hearts and minds for trouble.  In those days the clear predictions of Daniel gave the saints warning, and they knew God was in control despite appearances to the contrary; we have the same need for when our own time of troubles come, and they are coming, if we but understand the warnings aright.

Introduction

I have been surprised at the plethora of entrées concerning Revelation’s Babylon linked to America on the web, almost all of them by Dispensational prophecy buffs.  This paper, however, is a Reformed look at the matter, with classic Amillennial commentators used and consulted.   For example, what do these latter have to say about Babylon as depicted to us by John?

From the start, we understand – according to an Amil “modified idealist” hermeneutic – “Babylon” is a symbol, and not a literal resurgence of the ancient city-state in what is now Iraq.  Revelation’s “harlot Babylon” is quite nuanced, spoken of as a woman seducing the kings of the earth and its people (Rev 17:2,15); it is also referred to as a city having dominion over the earth (Rev 17:18).  It is edifying to read the various interpretations commentators give to this Babylon.  They indicate both the historical and present-day significance of the cultural, economic, military, and political critiques in Revelation, and show this book of Scripture as potently subversive of oppressive political regimes.

The first excerpts below are from Richard Bauckham; in his commentary he perceives Babylon in Revelation as referring only to Rome; he highlights John’s scathing critique of it, and Bauckham’s insight is quite remarkable.  Yet the majority of amil commentators see Babylon not only as Rome, but as well other similar cultural and political systems up through history, as the quotes below by Dennis E. Johnson, G.K. Beale, William Hendriksen, and Simon J. Kistemaker make clear.  So what Bauckham says of Rome I extrapolate upon other later regimes, including such in our own time, the 2^nd decade of the 21^st century.  Thus, when you read Bauckham’s remarks on Rome, I suggest that in your mind you apply that as well to the next – the final – manifestation of Babylon Scripture envisions.

Richard Bauckham, The Climax of Prophecy:  Studies on the Book of Revelation

“The Book of Revelation is one of the fiercest attacks on Rome and one of the most effective pieces of political resistance literature from the period of the early empire.  Its thoroughgoing criticism of the whole system of Roman power includes an important element of economic critique.  This condemnation of Rome’s economic exploitation of her empire is the most unusual aspect of the opposition to Rome in Revelation, by comparison with other Jewish and Christian apocalyptic attacks on Rome, and it has also received the least attention in modern study of the book.” p. 338

“The Book of Revelation uses two major, complementary images of the evil power of Rome.  One is the sea monster (‘the beast’), introduced in chapter 13.  It represents the imperial power, the Roman Emperors as a political institution, and in particular their military might, on which the Roman empire was founded.  The other image is of the great city Babylon, first named in 14:8, and then portrayed as a woman, ‘the great harlot,’ in chapter 17.  Babylon is the city of Rome (built on seven hills:  17:9) and in particular the city of Rome as a corrupting influence on the peoples of the empire.  Chapter 17 brings the two images together:  the harlot is enthroned on the seven heads of the beast (17:3, 9-10).  In other words, Roman civilization, as a corrupting influence, rides on the back of Roman military power.” p. 343

        

William Hendriksen, More Than Conquerors:  An Interpretation of the Book of Revelation,

“Babylon is the world as centre of seduction” p. 154

“Babylon....  it becomes evident that the symbol has reference to a great industrial and commercial metropolis.  Babylon, therefore, must indicate the world as a centre of industry, art, culture, etc., which by means of all these things seeks to entice and seduce the believer, that is, to turn him away from God.  It symbolizes the concentration of the luxury, vice, and glamour of this world.  It is the world viewed as the embodiment of ‘the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the vainglory of life’ (1 Jn. 2:16).” p. 168

“a pleasure-mad city” p. 168

G.K. Beale, The Book of Revelation:  A Commentary on the Greek Text,

“Though closely associated with the beast, the woman is not to be equated with the beast.  That she rides the beast connotes her alliance with the state.  The woman must represent that part of the ungodly world that works together with the state, such as the social, cultural, economic, and religious aspects of the world.  In this context the work that they agree to do together is that of persecuting the saints...”  p. 853

“The followers of the beast are guilty primarily not of immorality, but of idolatry....

“Babylon was the ungodly world power under which Israel had to live in captivity. While Israelite saints did not go along with Babylon’s religious practices, they were nevertheless tempted to compromise. When they remained loyal to their God, they underwent trial by their oppressors (see Daniel 1-6). The ungodly social, political, and economic system dominated by the Roman Empire placed believers in the same position as Israel was in under Babylon... Therefore, here in the Apocalypse Rome and all wicked world systems take on the name ‘Babylon the Great’... [emphasis added –SMR]

“The nations’ cooperation with Babylon ensures their material security. Without this cooperation, security would be removed.  Such security is a temptation too great to resist. Therefore... ‘she made to drink’ means that the nations were forced to ‘drink’, to comply with Rome’s and society’s idolatrous demands, if they wanted to maintain economic security.

“Babylon’s promise of prosperous earthly welfare for its willing subjects is an intoxication that the majority of the world’s inhabitants also want to imbibe. Once one imbibes, the intoxicating influence removes all desire to resist Babylon’s destructive influence, blinds one to Babylon’s own ultimate insecurity and to God as the source of real security, and numbs one against any fear of a coming judgment”. pp. 741, 755-756

Dennis E. Johnson, Triumph of the Lamb:  A Commentary on Revelation,

“...the harlot Babylon shows us Rome from the perspective of the spiritual threat of compromise through economic seduction, yet she also transcends Rome and encompasses every expression of the idolatry that worships economic prosperity and cultural achievement, whether in Nineveh, Chaldean Babylon, Tyre, Rome, or later entrepreneurial empires.” p. 243, 244 [emphasis added –SMR]

“This woman represents fallen human culture in all the apparent glory of its achievement and  the true repugnance of its arrogance.” p. 246

“ ‘...the great city,’ all that makes the city emblematic of human culture and achievement – music, craftsmanship, food preparation, domestic life, and commerce...” p. 253, 254

Simon J Kistemaker, New Testament Commentary:  Exposition of the Book of Revelation,

“The text reveals symbolism, evident in the two expressions prostitute and many waters.  These two should be interpreted not literally but spiritually.  First, the great harlot’s goal is to lead people wherever possible away from Christ; hence, she is the exact opposite of the church that seeks to lead all people everywhere to Christ.” p. 462

“Nebuchadnezzar, boasting about the city he built, used the expression Babylon the Great (Dan. 4:30).  He exhibited inordinate pride that resulted in his immediate downfall, because not he but God is sovereign over the nations (Dan. 4:32).  Similarly, this same expression adopted by the great prostitute seals her own doom.  The woman called Babylon, sitting on many waters, which the angel interprets as the peoples, crowds, nations, and languages (v. 15), symbolizes the population of the entire world.  The name Babylon the Great is a figurative description of all the godless inhabitants in the world.  In the second half of the first century, the city of Rome was a cesspool of iniquity and thus became a symbol of worldly pleasure, enticement, and lust.  But as I have pointed out above, to focus attention only on Rome of apostolic times is too restrictive.  The name Babylon applies to the lasting conflict between Satan’s henchmen and the people of God.

“The woman calls herself ‘the mother of prostitutes and of the abominations of the earth.’  She is the mother superior over all those who commit spiritual prostitution by worshipping the beast.  Her underlings proclaim the gospel of the Antichrist while she herself receives their adulation and praise.  She is the source of all that is evil directed against God:  slander, murder, immorality, corruption, vulgarity, profanity, and greed.  And she originates these sins by putting her underlings to work.  She is also the mother of all abominations in the world, for every sin originates with her.  The disparity between this woman who personifies evil and the woman who is the church cannot be greater (12:1).  The apostle Paul teaches that the church is the mother of believers (Gal. 4:26).  Blessed are those who have her as mother and God as Father.  Conversely, God’s enemies belong to the mother of abominations and suffer the consequences.” p. 466.

I don’t quote Herman Hoeksema (Behold, He Cometh!) on Babylon as he veered off and said she was only the apostate church, while I agree with the rest that while the false church is included in Babylon, the harlot encompasses all of the godless world.

These interpretations, although they differ somewhat, are not at odds:  they compliment one another.  But to the gist of what I want to discuss:

Given that Babylon signifies the cultural, academic, legal, economic, and religious / philosophical aspects of fallen humankind, and the beast (from the sea) the antichristian political and military powers, we see in Rev 17:16 that God has put in the hearts of the ten horns (kings / kingdoms) on the beast to hate and destroy the harlot.  These would be nations in coalition with a dominating power to attack this entity, Babylon. This exemplifies Jesus’ saying in Mark 3:24 and 26, “And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.... And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end.”  And I find myself wondering, “What would this look like?  How would it / could it take place:  The governments and their military going to war against the economic and cultural center or centers of the world?”

Of all the commentators two give an inkling:  Beale, who draws greatly on the OT and the Jewish writings, regularly finds background for the symbols used in Revelation; he says,

“In both Nah. 3:4-5 and especially Isa. 23:15-18, Nineveh and Tyre are called harlots because they cause ruin and uncleanness among the nations by economically dominating them and influencing them by their idolatry” [emphasis added –SMR]. Op. cit., p. 885.

“ ‘The woman’ is interpreted to be ‘the great city, which has sovereignty over the kings of the earth.’  She includes the entire evil economic system of the world throughout history.  She receives power from the devil himself.  Her economic-religious influence formerly even extended over the political realm (‘the kings of the earth’).  But their loyalty will shift toward the beast and they will become antagonistic toward her in the end time.  That the ‘woman’ has sovereignty over the world demonstrates that she must be identified more broadly than merely with unbelieving Jerusalem or the apostate church.  Likewise, 18:23 reveals her universal nature by describing her as one who has ‘deceived the nations’.” Op. cit., p. 888.

Kistemaker has an interesting take:

“Does John have in mind the destruction of Rome whereby subordinate vassals rise up against her?  Hardly, for the imperial city never entirely fulfilled the words in this verse.  The splendor of Rome diminished in the course of due time, and the empire came to an end in 476, but the city itself remained intact.  On a broader scale, the text applies to nations pursuing economic and political goals to the detriment of others.  When wealth and riches accumulate, a sudden downturn causes these nations to collapse...”

“These kings together with the beast are determined to destroy the woman who has dominated them.” [emphasis added –SMR] Op. cit., p. 478.

So we have the thought that economic domination and exploitation by Babylon breeds resentment and a violent retribution. 

If we look back in history as shown to us in the Scripture, we find that the two previous manifestations of “Babylonian” empire – Chaldean Babylon and Rome – both had their headquarters in specific city-states, while their empires themselves were far-flung.

The purpose of this study is to seek to discern more particularly what this Babylon is, and what its destruction at the hands of the beast and kings could be.  Granted, there is a lot of flakiness and surmising regarding these points in much current thinking, but this is an attempt to understand in a responsible and Scripturally sound exegesis.  It does, however, venture into a realm rife with error, unfounded speculation, conspiracy theories, and just plain wackiness (although some of these aforementioned rightly intuit close to the truth, if what I understand itself approaches the truth).  The reader may discern and assess for him or herself, and as regards my conclusions may take them or leave them.  In said conclusions I assert Revelation’s prophetic visions when rightly understood are meant for our warning, comfort, and assurance in difficult times.

The Significance of “Pharmakeia” References in Identifying 21^st Century Babylon in Revelation

It is said by some Reformed Amillennialists that one ought not identify any specific historic events as prophesied by John in the Apocalypse, save that pertaining to the local churches addressed in chapters 2 and 3, and the return of Christ in judgment at the end of the age.  I am positing and arguing the existence of one which is a recent and ongoing notorious transgressing the Law of God through the widespread use of what Scripture calls “sorcery”, and which can be discerned as a marker identifying a particular nation.

Said transgression is seen in the phrase spoken of Babylon in Revelation 18:23:  “for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived”, and was a prime – but not the only – cause of the unparalleled judgment executed against her, wherein she was utterly destroyed.  The word translated from the Greek as “sorceries” is in the original language pharmakeia.  Although this was a sin of Chaldean Babylon in OT times (cf. Isaiah 47), it has not been prominent since, yet in Acts 19:19 we do see repentance in Ephesus resulting in many burning books pertaining to magic arts.  We’ll take a brief look at the sin involving pharmakeia.

Cornelius Venema, author of The Promise of the Future (which work has replaced Anthony Hoekema’s The Bible and the Future as the standard Reformed seminary textbook on eschatology), has said of Revelation,

The book, though addressed originally to the circumstance of the church in the first century of the Christian era, certainly speaks of events that will occur prior to the return of Christ and as well of events that are typical of the entire period of history in which we now live.”  (From the article, Revelation 20: Part II – The Millennium is Now) [Emphasis added]

At issue is the question, is this pharmakeia / sorcery spoken of in Revelation truly a discernable event, and if so what actually is it?

Woodstock is well known as the time when drug use in the United States commenced as a popular activity from the 1960s through the 70s, went underground for a while as a result of increased law enforcement, emerged again in the 21^st century by popular demand, and two of them, marijuana and hashish, are now in the process of incremental legalization.  I refer specifically to what are termed the psychedelic drugs, namely marijuana, hashish, LSD, mescaline, peyote, angel dust / PCP and other substances in the same category, which may include speed and others.  What connection is there between the New Testament’s statements concerning the Greek word pharmakeia, the Woodstock drugs, and the identity of Revelation’s Babylon?

First, a brief primer on the Greek and Hebrew terms, on what is Biblically defined as sorcery, and the laws of God with respect to this in the Old Testament and in the New:

We have a word in the New Testament (in the books of Galatians and Revelation) which is translated “sorcery” or “witchcraft”, the underlying Greek of which is farmakeia, pharmakeia.  The same word – pharmakeia – is used in the Greek Old Testament (sometimes called the Septuagint or LXX) and is likewise translated sorcery or sorcerer and witchcraft or witch.  The word in the Hebrew OT is %yIp;êv'K, kesheph.

So what is pharmakeia?  It is the Greek word used in Revelation 18:23, where the symbolic “harlot Babylon” is said to have deceived the nations by means of her “sorceries” (pharmakeia), and it is also used in Rev 9:21 of the Textus Receptus / AV (while what are called the Majority Text and the Critical Text have a variant reading in which the Greek word is pharmakon: drugs “that induce magic spells”, although it doesn’t affect the translation, per the NASB or ESV).  In Rev 9:21 it is used with respect to men refusing to repent of their “sorceries” in the time of terrible judgments in the world, those that survived these lethal judgments meted upon the rebellious of the earth.  When Paul uses this word in Galatians 5:20 (translated “witchcraft” AV, “sorcery” ESV NASB) it is called a work of the flesh, along with murder and adultery.

Related words (called cognates) are used also in Rev 21:8 and 22:15 of “sorcerers”, those who use and administer the drugs, and influence others by means of them.  In 21:8 it says that these people have their part in the lake of fire – “the second death” – and in 22:15 these are said to be eternally barred from the City of God.  Let’s try to get a sense of what this deadly (per Scripture) pharmakeia is.  Consider this entry from The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Vol 2, p. 558,

“. . . pharmakos, magician (Rev. 22:15); pharmakeus, mixer of potions, magician (Rev. 21:8); pharmakeia, magic, sorcery (Gal. 5:20; Rev. 9:21; 18:23).  The basic word pharmakon does not occur in the NT [save in the aforementioned variant –SMR], but its meaning of medicine, magic potion, poison gives the underlying idea of the words.  Potions include poisons, but there has always been a magical tradition of herbs gathered and prepared for spells, and also for encouraging the presence of spirits at magical ceremonies (cf. possibly the final sentence of Ezek. 8:17:  ‘They put the branch to their nose’).  Sorcery is classed among the works of the flesh in Gal. 5:20.”  [underlined and last bold and italicized emphases added – SMR]

Another example, from the old ISBE,

“The word translated in the AV ‘witchcraft’ in Gal 5:20 (pharmakeia) is the ordinary Greek one for ‘sorcery,’ and is so rendered in the RV, though it means literally the act of administering drugs and then of magical potions.  It naturally comes then to stand for the magician’s art, as in the present passage and also in . . . the LXX of Isa 47:9 . . . translated ‘sorceries’.” (International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, James Orr, Ed., Vol. 5, p. 3097.)

And from, The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament, by Spiros Zodhiates:

“Strong’s #5331, pharmakeia, from pharmakon, a drug, which in the Gr. writers is used both for a curative or medicinal drug, and also as a poisonous one.  Pharmakeia means the occult, sorcery, witchcraft, illicit pharmaceuticals, trance, magical incantation with drugs (Gal. 5:20; Rev. 9:21; 18:23; Sept.: Ex. 7:22; Is. 47:9, 12). (pp. 1437, 1438)

The lexicons and the commentators hold that pharmakeia pertains to drugs used in the “magic arts”.  In fact, Kistemaker says of pharmakon (drugs) – appearing as a variant in Rev 9:21,

“farmakon [pharmakon]—‘magic potion . . .’ [and refers] to the concept of drugs that induce magic spells.” [Emphasis in original].  (Simon J. Kistemaker, New Testament Commentary: Revelation, p. 302.)

I think this is sufficient for the moment to demonstrate that the underlying Greek for the word in Revelation translated “sorceries” – pharmakeia – is directly and exclusively used to refer to drug use and drug-related activities of a certain kind, although Joseph Thayer (Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 4th Edition) gives a metaphorical use as well, which shall be discussed just below.

To show why the use of “sorceries” in the Rev 18:23 passage refers to activities involving certain kinds of drugs rather than figuratively for mere deceptive practices, consider the classes of transgressors in Rev 21:8 who are consigned to the lake of fire:  “the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars”.  Sorcerers (from pharmakeus) here specifically means one who administers or uses a certain class of drugs to “enchant”, to cast a psychic spell upon by use of these drugs and accompanying demonic power.   It doesn’t mean a deceiver – a liar – generally or even figuratively, but specifically one who uses sorcerous potions.  Liars / deceivers are already classed separately in this listing.  Likewise in Rev 22:15 where a similar Greek word, pharmakos, is used for sorcerer, with the same meaning as pharmakeus in 21:8, again with liars / deceivers named separately.  In these verses the usage clearly refers to drug-using-and-promoting people, so at the very least it is quite possible pharmakeia / sorceries in Revelation 18:23 – “by thy sorceries were all nations deceived” – refers to drug-related activity and not deceptive practices.  On the other hand there is no doubt at all that Thayer’s, “the deceptions and seductions of idolatry” are a result of and part of Babylon’s sorceries, but the sorceries themselves are distinctly pharmakeia / sorcery (i.e. drug) activity.

The picture we are getting is of drugs used for sorcerous potions, which may “encourage the presence of spirits” and “induce magic spells”.  Often we find in the OT the use of synecdoche (a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa) when the word pharmakeia and its cognates are used, as the use of drugs is the essential and common component in almost all of the “magic arts”.  Consider, the Jews who translated the OT Hebrew into the Greek LXX always used the word signifying “drugs used as magic potions” when referring to certain magic arts and its practitioners.  Why would they do that – use that particular word – were it not actually so?

But what does all this talk of drugs used for occult purposes – for “sorcery” – have to do with 21^st century life?  Aren’t sorcery and magic potions something of the ancient past, legends, and superstition?  First, let us be clear to differentiate between the entire realm of superstition with regard to the occult and its practices, and the plain Biblical definition of the term.  It is granted that there is a vast repository of arcane nonsense in legends, fictional stories, etc, as well as some factual accounts.  Yet it is also certain there is a Biblical definition with regard to actual pharmakeia / sorcery, for to violate it was death under Moses and removal from the church under Christ – very serious punishments!

Were there things happening in the 1st century (and earlier in OT times) that no longer happen now in our day?  But if that’s so, why does John in the Revelation speak of sorceries as pertaining to the end times – the very end times – which may well be in or near our own times?

And can it be that such a sin as this – ranked with murder and adultery, and warranting eternal punishment if unrepented of – is incapable of being identified by modern exegetes?

There is an answer to these questions.  Since the latter half of the 20th century – from events in the 1950s through the 1980s – we have developed a term never before used in the history of the world:  recreational drugs (though I conceive it possible Chaldean Babylon had some equivalent).  People differ in their views of them.  They began in popular use in the ‘60s, and the two staples of the counterculture that used them were marijuana and LSD, although mescaline, peyote, hashish (and hashish oil – both of these derived from the marijuana plant), STP, PCP (angel dust), and sometimes various amphetamines or cocaine were mixed / used in conjunction with these drugs.  To law enforcement these drugs are sometimes a big deal (though some agencies and laws are becoming more lenient, and marijuana is slowly becoming legalized in the U.S.), but to the general populace they pretty much are no big deal at all.  Connecting them with sorcery, given their popularity and seeming harmlessness (at least as regards grass), seems farfetched!

Oddly, the properties of these drugs – all of those noted above – have the same properties as the pharmakeia / sorcery drugs Scripture strongly warns against:  the capability of “encouraging the presence of spirits” and inducing spiritual / religious states of consciousness.  That ought to send up red flags of warning to those who ponder these things.

At any rate, prior to the 1950s such things – recreational drugs – were unheard of, save perhaps in small subcultures (some musicians, for example, who used marijuana).  In the pre-counterculture days going all the way back to ancient Israel, Biblically defined sorcery was verboten – a forbidden thing – connected as it was to the demonic and demonic practitioners.  History is replete with instances of severe inquisition and punishment of those suspected of sorcery and witchcraft; nor were all such occult activities merely superstitious or hoaxes, seeing as the God of Israel took it very seriously, instructing His primary OT Lawgiver to execute the death sentence on violators, and revealing to John in His Revelation to him that eternal torment would be meted on unrepentant violators of His law given through Christ and the apostles.  So we know there is real substance to such activities, for the Bible to take such a view of them!

In the pre-‘60s counterculture times such things showed their faces only in the crawling shadows of the world, rightly condemned by society.  These were shrouded activities, and no wonder superstitions arose about them – they were hidden, frightening, and unknown.

In the time we live some modern Christians do not acknowledge these things, even though the unbelieving world does, as per – for example – this site on the Spiritual use of cannabis <http://sparcsf.org/spiritual-use-of-cannabis>, which gives an interesting history of its use in various religions for obviously sorcerous / pharmakeia purposes, in accordance with the Biblical definition.  This one pharmakeia substance – far more potent than its predecessor in the Woodstock era – is on its way to legalization, or at least decriminalization, in our time.  These things were foretold by the Spirit of God in Revelation.

Two astute writers on the fulfillment of prophecy, Oswald T. Allis and Geerhardus Vos, commented thusly,

[The prophecy of Antichrist] “belongs among the many prophecies, whose best and final exegete will be the eschatological fulfillment, and in regard to which it behooves the saints to exercise a peculiar kind of eschatological patience.” (Geerhardus Vos, The Pauline Eschatology, p. 133)

Although widespread sorcery is not “Antichrist” per se, the principle Vos states – the “best and final exegete will be the eschatological fulfillment” – applies here as well.   O.T. Allis in his book, Prophecy and the Church, wrote similarly to Vos when he said,

The usual view on this subject [“the intelligibility of prophecy”] has been that prophecy is not intended to be fully understood before its fulfilment, that it is only when God “establishes the word of his servants and fulfills the counsel of his messengers,” that the meaning and import of their words become fully manifest. (p 25)

We now in the year 2014 find ourselves in the unusual position of being able to observe – in hindsight – “the eschatological fulfillment” of a portion of the Babylon prophecy, that being the section ending Rev 18:23, “for by thy sorceries (pharmakeia) were all nations deceived”, and for which she would later be judged.

I realize that’s quite an assertion – observing in hindsight part of the Revelation prophecy on the final Babylon – but consider:  there will be a time when this may be said with absolute certainty (which I am not claiming), for before the end shall come many things prophesied will have come to pass, and those still alive will see and understand.  I do believe I am seeing accurately now.

The explosion of these drugs onto the world scene was an event (the term now used for military-scale biological, chemical, or nuclear events) that befell nations around the globe through the drug-energized sixties generation in America, as this potent counterculture permeated these nations through its music and musicians, literature, art, film, and other culture-bearing vehicles, as well as spiritual teachers and gurus.  The nations and cultures of the world were leavened from within by the exciting new consciousness of the sixties and the Woodstock spirit exported into them, but it was a Trojan Horse filled with the denizens of Hell.  Its impact was, in the psychic realm, the equivalent of a massive nuclear detonation.  The “fallout” of this “detonation” came in the presence of malign spirits and their influence upon the new thinking:  it became (seemingly) obvious to all that real vitality was not to be found in the Christian faith but in the relativity of postmodernism – the validation of everyone’s and every culture’s subjective truths and beliefs – and thus was the world made ripe for satanic deception on an unprecedented scale.

It was obvious now – at least to “enlightened” people – that the Christian worldview was a relentless cultural and spiritual imperialism, evil in that it denied the validity of all thought and cultural development contrary to itself and, for the sake of humankind’s health, urgently needed to be eradicated.  We see, with the progressive delegitimizing of Christianity, the rise of fundamentalism in pagan religions such as Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, with these now showing murderous hostility to Christians (not just verbally, but in act).  Communism also attacked “Christian imperialism” with new rigor, as seen in North Korea, China, Eritrea, etc.  And it will eventually give rise to the final deception and manifestation of satanic power in the last and worst antichrist figure and beast government that shall institute the “final solution” for God’s people – the followers of Christ.  And the Jews will be hated as well.

The damage done is irreversible.  The timetable of the Sovereign God is counting down.  Across the non-Western world Christians are already under severe duress – violent, murderous persecution increasing daily.  And the signs are that a groundswell is building in the West – the mystery of iniquity and lawlessness – and that He who restrains it will not restrain it for long (2 Thess 2:6 ff.).

In the West many professing followers of Christ are awash in the wine of great whore Babylon, rooting in her pleasures and entertainments, worse off spiritually than their brethren in other lands being persecuted, for at least the latter are awake, if bleeding.

Finally, let me preemptively answer some objections.  Some may say that because the drugs are illegal, that is sufficient to settle the matter; yet in some countries – with Christians in them – one of the sorcerous drugs is legal; and it is essentially decriminalized in many parts of America, already legal in two states, and it is becoming more widely legal if one has a script from a doctor.  So the old laws of the civil magistrate are no longer fence enough against this evil.  And I daresay that in a short time marijuana will become legal throughout the United States.  Our POTUS has recently declared it is no more harmful than alcohol. 

No, it is up to the church to come to understanding, and to take a stand, at least within its own precincts.  More particularly, it is up to the pastors and elders of God’s flock, and with them the sessions and classes and boards of elders, to teach and uphold the word of God.

Nor will it do to liken this one pharmakeia substance to alcohol, saying only that we must be sober and clear of mind, for it is an entirely different substance with a profoundly different effect on the human system and consciousness. It is foolish naiveté to confound the two.

Yet some will say as regards ongoing use of this drug, “We are only enjoying ourselves; we are not involved in spiritual or occult activity, these Biblical prohibitions do not apply to us.”

To answer:  It’s common knowledge that there had been an upsurge in psychedelic drug use starting in the 1950s with the Beats, and in the ‘60s with the counterculture (as well government intelligence agencies, politicians, practitioners in the therapeutic fields, artists, intellectuals, teachers, lawyers, etc, etc).  Seeing as this was such an open and widespread phenomenon very few have made the connection with the topic of Biblical “sorcery”, an activity commonly thought of as taboo and arcane.  On top of this, the fact that many of those who used these drugs did so “recreationally” and not for any sort of occult or spiritual purposes, has given the impression that these drugs were not necessarily “sorcerous” although they could possibly be used for those ends.  This was the time when “sorcery” / pharmakeia became widely popular and supposedly both fun and enlightening.  “ ‘Sorcery’?” some will say, “What, are you crazy, we’re just having fun!  Just because others have used grass and acid for that, don’t lump us in with that crowd!  Our culture is not a monolith, there are many different things going on.”  (I will focus for the moment on marijuana as this pharmakeia drug will increasingly be legally and socially acceptable in the U.S., although as noted above, the spiritual damage has already been done with that and the other drugs in the previous century.)

Some will say, “I have seen people high on marijuana, and they are not mentally impaired but rather brilliant in their thinking and their arts.”  No argument with that, except to say that the devil, prince of the demons (as well his underlings), are also “brilliant”, so brilliance is no sound criterion of judgment against a sorcerously affected state of mind.

It just goes to show how poorly thought-out and naive our views on the topic are!  People smoke or ingest marijuana to attain a psychological or psychic “high” – an elevated and enhanced state of consciousness – though some would deny calling this “high” as much a pharmakeia activity as a more spiritual awareness, or some would say not even that, but only a psychological high, or simply an enhancement of the senses.  To deny that pharmakeia can involve enhanced physical sensation and pleasure through this psychic “high” – without any overt occultism at all – is an attempt to distance their sinning from pharmakeia activity.  But this is taking refuge in lies.  We must recognize that to use sorcery to indulge in sensory (including psychological) pleasure is as much one of its activities as the seeking of psychic, occult, and spiritual experience.

This following is the view of David H. Stern, the author of the Jewish New Testament Commentary (1992 Jewish New Testament Publications); in his comments on Revelation 9:21, he translates the Greek pharmakeia in that verse as,

“Misuse of drugs in connection with the occult, usually translated ‘sorceries,’ ‘witchcraft,’ or ‘magic arts,’ [and] here rendered by this longer phrase in order to focus on the fact that using potions and drugs is an essential part of the word’s meaning – as is clear from the derived English words ‘pharmaceuticals’ and ‘pharmacy.’  The usual renderings suggest to many people a setting so removed from the fabric of their lives that the text does not speak to them.  The reason I employ this lengthy expression is that the Jewish New Testament is a product of the 1980’s, when the Western world has seen an explosion of drug abuse, and I want readers to understand that this subject is dealt with in the Bible.

“Spiritually speaking, there are four distinct categories of drug misuse:  (1) taking drugs in order to explore spiritual realms, (2) taking drugs in order to engage in ‘sorcery, witchcraft and magic arts’ while under their influence, (3) giving drugs to other people in order to gain control over them, which is another form of ‘sorcery, witchcraft and magic arts,’ and (4) taking drugs for pleasure.  The last is a misuse because the drugs in question – besides whatever temporary enjoyment they provide, and apart from their adverse medical and psychological effects – open a person to supernatural or spiritual experiences; but these experiences are almost always demonic and not from God, since the Holy One of Israel reveals Himself through his Word (Ro 1:16-17, 10:8-17), not through drugs.” (pp. 816, 817)

But what about medicinal use?  Isn’t that legitimate?  This is a more nuanced topic than the world realizes, as it does not have spiritual discernment.  But we who are Christ’s should have it.

It is understood that a person psychically “elevated” by marijuana may experience a sense of detachment from the bodily source of pain, and thus a decrease in the sensation of its intensity; still, the very action that detaches from the pain will open one to other aspects of the “high” such as consciousness in a dimension not usually entered in the normal state of mind, the dimension spirits inhabit.  Even were I (speaking personally) in extreme pain I would not opt for marijuana relief, as the “cure” would be far worse for me as a Christian than the ailment:  making myself vulnerable to demonic activity – deception, depression, oppression, delusion, attack, etc.  The web page linked to earlier in this article, Spiritual Use of Cannabis, showing its use for shamanistic and psychic activity in a number of pagan spiritual paths, clearly demonstrates its effectiveness and power as a means of enhancing contact with the spirit world and its occupants.  Does one think that by force of will – or “good intentions” – one can hold off demons one has opened one’s consciousness and heart to?  One can surely hold them off by the word and Spirit of Christ, but if in disobedience – even if done unwittingly – opening wide the door to their entrance through sorcerous drugs, they will take advantage of that and either enter or exercise their influence under cover of deception.  The folks who say, “I’m only using it for simple enjoyment; but for ‘sorcery’ – be it far from me!”, deceive themselves thinking they can avoid the consequences of entering the dimension of satanic presence, even if they do not believe it.

Let me posit a possible situation in an area where grass is legal for medicinal use.  What would one think of a pastor, say in New Jersey, New York, or California where medicinal grass is legal under prescription for pain (or Colorado, Washington state, or the country Holland where it is simply legal), who, having smoked before the service, ministers while high?  Or where a number in the church are (legally) high in the service?  Would you assert that, if they’ve done it in moderation (or for pain relief), this is fully in accord with the word of God?  Does using a Biblically forbidden substance for pain relief exempt one from obedience to God’s law?  Did God have a good reason for forbidding pharmakeia drugs?  (Note:  this is not forbidding standard analgesics, even medicinal opiates.  Psychedelics – pharmakeia substances– are a class unto themselves.)

Or if the assistant pastor – who teaches the teenage Bible study – has pain from a sports injury, and smokes (with a prescription) beforehand, is that okay?  Though surely there will be teenagers – as well as adults – who, knowing their pastors are smoking marijuana (under medical license) for pain relief, will say, “Well, if they can do it for pain – and are okay mentally, and also accepted by the church – why can’t I do it as well for fun?  We can see it’s not harmful if used reasonably.”

Besides the corruption of morals of others, children included, let me say what the Scripture view of this would be.  A pastor has smoked his grass (ostensibly for pain) and expanded his consciousness by opening himself to the spiritual realm – much as the Hindus do to contact their spirit entities – and he is now open to energies and influences or thoughts that come to him from he-knows-not-where.  But they seem to be godly and in accord with the Bible, and he has a new depth of feeling for the subject he is speaking on, and sharp insight, and he powerfully feels what he believes to be the presence and love of God.  Has this man increased his godliness and anointing through the drug?  Scripture says he has taken a drug (pharmakon) . . . known to induce magic spells, and to encourage the presence of spirits at magical ceremonies.  Well, one wouldn’t call a church service a “magical ceremony” someone might respond!  Unfortunately, using a sorcerous drug of the pharmakeia-class would turn that church service into a magic ceremony, replete with demonic agency operating through the minister intoxicated by it.

A couple of years ago (May 16, 2012) in the NYTimes online OP/ED section, an article appeared by a sitting New York State Supreme Court Justice, Gustin L. Reichbach, titled, “A Judge’s Plea for Medical Marijuana” (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/17/opinion/a-judges-plea-for-medical-marijuana.html), and is one of the most compelling, heartwrenching cries for the allowing of medical marijuana I have heard (and I’m sure those reading can come up with like cases they know of).  Read it and see.  Justice Reichbach is a for-real candidate for this medical use.  Which better allows me to make my point:  As far as the world is concerned, allowing this man medical marijuana – and as he puts it, the “inhaled” kind, not the synthetic – is simply a human right, a humane medical treatment.  But spiritually, what is the cost?  Now Justice Reichbach is not – to my knowledge – a disciple of Christ, but for a disciple what would the issues be?  It would be opening the heart and mind to demonic activity.  Let me put myself in his place:  without some grass – inhaled – I cannot eat (my appetite has failed), and cannot sleep, both of which I need to sustain my life.  But with it, I could do both.  Would it be worth it to me?  To the world this dilemma is false, delusional, and cruel!  To the spiritual man or woman it is vital and actual:  would I allow my communion with Christ and communion with other disciples in spirit to be open to influence or infiltration by demonic beings?  Just for the ability to eat something, or sleep, or to relieve pain?  Put another way, would I, under torture – being starved, subjected to sleep deprivation, and inflicted with pain – betray my Lord and my friends?  With God’s help I would not.  Why, given the same conditions of affliction, would I voluntarily sin, if I would refuse to in the other case?  No, God giving me strength I will retain my integrity of being before Him and my friends.  I would refuse to smoke the “medicinal” marijuana for the sake of keeping my spiritual health and integrity.  Especially if I were in terrible pain with advanced, terminal cancer, I would not use marijuana for relief.  Would anyone in their right mind, when on the very brink of death, open their hearts and minds to demonic influence?  That would be sheer destructive madness!

[There is a scenario, however, where a derivative from marijuana may be used; a chemical termed CBD has shown itself useful in some cases in preventing seizures in children; but this has been extracted from the plant without the THC which is the psychoactive agent producing the “high”, and so in this form the extracted chemical is not in the pharmakeia class.  Here is an article on it <http://news.yahoo.com/colo-pot-aids-kids-seizures-worries-doctors-053424609.html>.]

In sum:  there is an entity of which it may be said, “for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.”  Is there a nation that widely used, championed, and exported to all the world the use of marijuana, LSD, etc?  I’m afraid there is.  And we all know which it is.

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Further ID’ing of Babylon

There is only one Babylon as far as we are concerned, now in the 21^st century, the final and über Babylon, of which the Chaldean and Roman empires were previous and lesser – what are called typical – manifestations, great as they were.  For the one in our time is greater, and more dangerous.  It has not yet morphed into its final stage, as certain things must come to pass before it is known as the Great Whore, drinker of the blood of the saints (Revelation 17:6).

Those earlier empires called “Babylonian” in Scripture both had headquarter cities and nations the heart of them were located in.  Given the precedents, final Babylon will also have a headquarters nation.  This is what is written of her:

“Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire:  for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.  And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning, Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come” (Rev 18:8-10).

These words are ominous:  “utterly burned with fire” and “Standing afar off for the fear of her torment” as those at sea “see the smoke of her burning” fill the skies . . . . this sounds like onlookers far out at sea watching the destruction of a nation pounded by massive nuclear strikes, keeping their distance from the radiation, for fear of it.

When it is written of her, kings and nations and merchants of the earth have “committed fornication” with her, this refers to partaking of her idolatrous economic and cultural enterprises, loving them above God, and to the exclusion of Him.  When it says they have “lived deliciously with her” this means they have shared her luxurious lifestyle, at the expense of the poor, whom they have exploited.  Further indicators that ID her:

Bullet Points on ID’ing Revelation’s ‘Babylon’ as the American Empire

§  We fill the world with moral filth, sending our Secretary of State to officially fund and push for abortion, and for the acceptance of homosexuality, with subtle and not-so-subtle diplomatic and economic penalties against those nations who do not comply with our agendas.  Even now our POTUS is threatening a country (Uganda) for its criminalizing sexual perversion.

§  We have inundated the world with our “entertainment” industry, globally exalting theft, dishonesty, immodesty, blasphemy, adultery and various sexual perversions, violence and murder, and idolatry in the genres of superheroes and demi-gods, overwhelming indigenous cultures around the world with our perverse vision of “entertainment” and culture.

§  We have, through economic and military “strong-arming”, exploited poor nations in the name of free trade and economic openness, draining their wealth and resources to support our own luxurious lifestyles and standards of living.  We have made many rich through our rapacious consumption of the world’s goods and energy, and have at the same time impoverished and endangered vast multitudes.

§  We have, through our unsurpassed military might – greater than all the other nations of the world combined – coerced much of the world into complying with our various agendas, political, military, economic, and cultural / moral.  What we say in much of the world, goes.

§  We have, through our exporting of the Woodstock spirit, and the psychedelic drugs that have power to bring us into the spirit realms, fulfilled this Scripture: “for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived” (Revelation 18:23).  We have thus opened the collective consciousness of humankind to the swift infiltration and influence of demonic spirits.  This has affected the thought-life of the world in unprecedented ways, and has marginalized the Faith of Jesus Christ throughout, wreaking untold havoc in the mental and spiritual spheres of all the nations.

§  Since the infamous Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court ruling in 1973, our nation has murdered 56.5 million children (and counting) in the wombs of their mothers, a slaughter far more wicked than the Canaanite nations who were destroyed by God in ancient times for the same crime of infanticide.  We put great pressure on other nations to do the same thing, in the name of “reproductive rights”, i.e., the convenience of avoiding responsibility for our sexual activities.  Our children are human sacrifices on our altars of convenience.

§  We have thought and said of ourselves (as a nation – both rulers and people), “we sit queen among the nations, and shall not be bereft of our allies, and shall not ever see national tragedy and sorrow” (cf. Rev 18:7).  And yet we have exploited our own people – Americans – and have embittered them with the establishment of unjust economic structures, so that growing multitudes go homeless and in hunger.

§  We have poisoned our environment through the avarice of uncaring industries, filling our homes, waters, lands, air, and foods with carcinogens, toxins, and immune system-weakening chemicals, so that vast multitudes go ill with new and horrific diseases.

§  We have shaken our fist at God and His laws of life and love, banning Him from our children’s schools (replacing His truth with falsehoods), our universities, our laws, our science, our medical industry, and our workplaces.  We set this evil example for all the nations to see.

§  We are as much a mighty and wicked empire as ever Rome and Chaldean Babylon were in their days.  We have exploited and intimidated the whole world.  Our days as such an empire are numbered; the Scriptures alone give a full and clear view of what we have become.

§  And yet we do not perceive ourselves as we are.  We are in a cocoon of delusion, thinking ourselves “a righteous nation”, a fitting “policeman of the world”, but in truth we are war-mongers, always seeking our own self-interests, oblivious of the suffering we cause others.

These are some sketchy and preliminary points of identity comparing the U.S. with the entity called Babylon in the Apocalypse of St. John. 

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If the above points were not enough to anger the world, we are increasing their disillusionment of us by the revelations (leaked by Edward Snowden) of our National Security Agency’s spying on other world leaders and their nations’ citizens through our truly super surveillance technologies.  I surmise that we will further anger the nations through such acts of aggression and disregard for the welfare of the world community that at some point they will mount a concerted offensive against us during a period that our military capabilities have been temporarily deactivated through either a cyber attack or a solar flare event which completely takes down our electric grid, although a man-made EMP attack is also feasible.

In the prophecy (17:12) it looks like this:  the ten horns are kings / nations (ten a symbolic number for a full or complete amount) who give their military strength to the beast (17:13), a new political-military leader who hates Babylon and channels the nations’ hatred of her into a devastating assault – most likely nuclear – which utterly destroys her.  The Lord has put this hatred of her into the nations’ hearts (17:17) so that they fulfil His will, which is to put an utter end to that entity called the final Babylon.

Before this occurs, it is written that Babylon rides the beast (17:3, 7), meaning that it is the beast’s military might that empowers harlot Babylon to have dominating influence over all the nations and rulers of the world (17:1, 15). According to this view, the United States of America is both the beast and the whore Babylon, a nation combining unsurpassed might and irresistible seductive economic, technological, and cultural power. Ancient Chaldean Babylon was another such entity, and its “beast” strength and authority was removed from her overnight – in an “hour” – when the Medes and Persians took Babylon, killed its king, and became the new power in world politics and military might. (In the Book of Revelation the beast is a symbol of persecuting antichristian government, though it may also refer to its ruler.) So the beast aspect of America will be removed from her of a sudden, and passed to another nation and the ruler of that new nation, the former beast being vanquished.

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The Fate of Babylon

The Christians in Babylon are unlike Christians in many other parts of the world – except perhaps other nations of the more affluent West – as even though the U.S. is in economic decline, it still lives high on the hog compared to our suffering brethren in regions where they experience bloody persecution and often life-threatening deprivation.

We Western Christians are – those of us who remain economically afloat – fat cats also riding the beast “the great whore” rides (Rev 17:1; 19:2), and we share some of her glitter and luxury even if we live godly, for this is a prosperous nation, and we partake of her benefits even if we sincerely serve God alone.  True, all the nations and cultures of the world that are in opposition to God comprise the entity Babylon, yet it is also true that, as with the past Babylonian manifestations, the empire has a headquarters nation, and perhaps the above has convinced some of you that America likely fits the bill.

Let me talk to those who doubt:  Is this I posit but sheer speculation?  Then what does the Scriptural statement regarding Babylon’s sorceries mean?  If language has meaning it has to mean something, and there is no better explanation than what I have given – unless one wants to wander off into abstract and vague figurativeness.  I think I have shown that what is referred to is specific and substantial, and with the additional points of identification it is a most reasonable exegesis.  A lot depends on understanding correctly, even our peace of mind and very faith in “a time of trouble” (Daniel 12:1-3).

America is not what it once was, though perhaps it always had within it the seed of this development which, after a while, took over what Christian leaven was in it, and grew into what it is and is yet to become.  For its transformation is not yet complete, as it has not turned lethally against the saints (Rev 17:6; 18:24).  That is all that remains for it to become.  We shall likely also see the forcible suppression of dissent from those citizens who speak against the evil of the ruling powers.

When America is gone (more on this below) the rest of the world will go on – although shattered and reeling from Babylon’s utter destruction – pursuing the mad agenda of the new beast, which will be the continuing persecution of God’s people in all the nations that remain after holocaust USA.  It may well be there is a global move to go after them even while the U.S. still exists – the U.S. may even be the catalyst for this in the West – but I think America will somehow offend the world by some truly outrageous deed, which will provoke it to turn against her – according to God’s plan (Rev 17:17). 

With regard to the timing of things, consider the deeply insightful words of Dennis Johnson on the symbolism of Revelation in relation to time elements in it:

Just as the vision genre sometimes compresses vast historical eons into symbolic images that pass like the twinkling of an eye (see Rev. 12:1-5, which spans redemptive history from Genesis 3 to Acts 1), so a split-second in time may be expanded in visionary description and simultaneous events presented as successive, in order to help hearers to see different facets of Christ’s victory. –Triumph of the Lamb, p. 176. 

This idea may be helpful in making sense of things when they seem to be grouped very close together time-wise, namely the global persecution of the saints depicted a number of times in the Apocalypse, the destruction of Babylon, and the war of Armageddon – which is another angle-shot of the war on the saints, in the midst of which the Lord Jesus returns to a) call His people out of their graves and those still living from the earth to join Him in the heavens, and b) to devastate the earth-dwellers who abused and slew His bride; and then shortly after, to raise them from the dead to stand before Him to be judged and consigned to eternal torment.  The time frame between now in 2014 and Babylon’s shedding the blood of its Christians, being herself destroyed, the further slaughter of the saints in the remaining nations of the world, the calling out of the world His people to Himself, and the Day of Vengeance – could be some years, and then months or weeks or days between final events.  None of this can be ascertained beforehand, as our Lord warned we should not try to do.

Although Babylon had ridden on the back of the beast – the beast which, through all the ages in various manifestations, had gotten his authority and power from the dragon – the authority and power of the dragon had now deserted that beast which carried the last Babylon and world-dominating power moved to another beast manifestation, similar to – I repeat – when power was transferred from Chaldean Babylon to the Persians and Medes in one night, which became the new world power, the old having been vanquished. The beast that bore Headquarters Babylon was now itself vanquished, and the whore with it.

G.B. Caird, in his commentary, The Revelation of Saint John, interestingly says of the fifth vial / bowl of wrath (Rev 16:10), “The darkness was not the three days’ visitation of Exodus x. 21 ff., nor even the paralysing terror so vividly described in Wisdom xvii, but the total eclipse of the monster’s imperial power” (p 204) [emphasis added].  What is especially interesting about this is that for the destruction of Babylon the mighty Beast-nation that she rides and by whose power she prevails upon the nations, must be suddenly made defenseless (the spirit and power of the Beast – which is from the dragon – is evidently transferred then to another nation or nations), leaving harlot Babylon herself defenseless and vulnerable – to attack and destruction.

I have said above that what the text of Revelation 18 seems to describe, Babylon totally destroyed by fire, and that in one hour, with the nations observing it standing afar off for fear of her torment as the smoke of her arises – could well be a nuclear holocaust, and their fear of its fallout.  I know this will be very hard for Americans to hear, much less envision, but it is going to be some nation, and no other is as likely a candidate as we are.  And in these days, how else could an entire nation be destroyed by fire save by nuclear thermal blasts and their heat?

There is another matter to consider.  I am proceeding here as though this scenario will be the case; yet how far in the future I cannot tell.  Could it be as far off as twenty years?  I do not know; yet consider how far we as a society have moved in depravity and wickedness in just the last ten years, and how police-state-like our government has become in that time, and both these developments have accelerated and are accelerating ever more rapidly as the months go by.  Could it be in ten years the U.S. morphs into a Christ and Christian-hating nation, severely punishing believers?  I don’t know; but lawsuits continue to rise from activists against Christian businesses that will not perform services which tacitly approve their ungodly lifestyles.  Could it be in two years?  Again, who can tell how quickly things will unfold?

And other troubles may arise; if one considers the notorious wickedness in this land, judgments against it may arise before final judgment.  Cyberwarfare is a recognized threat, particularly the possibility of the electric grid being taken down nation-wide, causing untold havoc, although this could also be accomplished without human hands, as by solar flares.  God controls the sun.  Or pestilence, either by terrorist activity or “natural” happening, where highly contagious lethal diseases spread swiftly and widely throughout the population, killing millions.  Or economic collapse, and the resulting chaos whereby millions have no food, where municipal services are – as with an electric grid failure – discontinued, and the populaces, especially in large urban areas, are endangered on various fronts.  Remember, for far less wickedness nations have been fiercely judged and destroyed.  Babylon’s demise may come piecemeal before the final reckoning.

I’m sorry to place such horrendous scenarios before you (for I and my family will partake of whatever you partake of), but it is important we be mentally and spiritually prepared for the worst, even while hoping for the best.

A preacher and pastor I have high regard for has said, as regards the sudden onset of real suffering, the shock of it – coming completely unexpectedly and unprepared for – may be more shattering to the soul than the suffering itself.  The apostle Peter said, “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you” (1 Peter 4:12).  Because we in America have been exempted for so long from serious, massive, national suffering we have thought it would never come, and have taken into our own hearts America’s belief that she “shall see no sorrow” (Rev 18:7). i.e., grief at immense catastrophe and resultant suffering.   Better for the church to anticipate such than multitudes of us experiencing nervous breakdowns as society falls apart, or we get turned upon as the Jews were in Nazi Germany.  We should meet catastrophes with hope, eyes upon our God, who will usher us into His kingdom, and His presence.

It was with deeply heartfelt purpose – loving care – God gave us prophecies to alert us to upcoming dangers or catastrophes, that we would not be taken by surprise.  Twice Jesus said to His disciples, “I have told you before” (Matt 24:25; John 14:29) on this very wise.  And earlier, in Old Testament times, such prophetic forewarnings sustained God’s people in and through terrible calamities.

This is from Stuart Olyott’s commentary on Daniel, Dare To Stand Alone. The angel has been telling Daniel the visions of chapter 8:

“You have heard the truth, Daniel,” says the angel (26). “Now preserve the vision, because the future will need a record of what you have seen.”

And it did. In those darkest of days, when the people of God were being hounded and killed in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes, they needed and they had the comfort of this chapter of Daniel.  Throughout that period they were consoled by knowing that this wicked man could not have stepped on to the page of history without divine permission and that everything he did, however awful, was nothing other than what God had predicted centuries earlier.  They knew that in God’s time, and in fulfilment of verse 25, he would at last be removed.  To know all this was an indescribable comfort to them in horrific times. (p. 110)

This will be the case again, when the writings of Revelation will be “an indescribable comfort” in our “time of trouble” (Dan 12:1).  John Calvin speaking on Daniel 8:9-11 goes on at more length concerning the LORD’s care for His people in severe troubles by letting them know they were coming.  These are some excerpts:

9. And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land.

Now God shews his Prophet what peculiarly concerned the welfare of his Church.  For it was of very great importance to warn the Jews of the calamities which were about to oppress them.  There is nothing which more torments the minds of men than their becoming bewildered in false imaginations, and thinking the world the sport of chance, while they never ponder over the providence of God nor reflect upon his judgments.  Hence, with this design, God wished to teach the Prophet and all the pious the nature of their future afflictions, since they would thus understand how events never happened by chance, but all these scourges proceeded from God; for the same God both determines and executes his decrees, as he also predicts future events.  For if nothing had been predicted, the pious would have glided gently downwards to despair in consequence of their heavy afflictions. . . . Antiochus, indeed, who is here alluded to, advanced with cruel tyranny against the people of God.  If this had not been predicted, they would have thought themselves deceived by the splendid promises concerning their return.  But when they perceived everything occurring according as they had been opportunely forewarned, this became no slight solace in the midst of their woes; they could then determine at once how completely it was in the power of God to relieve them from so many and such oppressive evils.  With what intention, then, had God predicted all these things to his Prophet Daniel? clearly that the Jews might look forward to a happy result, and not give way to despair under events so full of anxiety and confusion.  This, then, was the utility of the prophecy, with reference to that particular period.

When the Prophet says, Out of one of those four horns a little horn arose, Antiochus Epiphanes is most distinctly pointed out. . . .

10.  And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them.

Here Daniel continues the vision which he had received.  We have already shewn the object of the Almighty to be the preparation of the faithful to bear serious calamities, because nothing new or unexpected should happen to them.  Now, Daniel’s dwelling upon this point is not surprising, for it becomes his duty to inform the faithful of the heavy calamities which were at hand, and thus to mould them to patience and equity. . .

11.  Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down.

Daniel announces something still more atrocious here, namely, the exaltation of the little horn against God. . .

. . . [W]hat can be the Almighty’s design in allowing his temple to be polluted, and all true sacrifices to cease throughout the world?  One corner alone, as we have lately mentioned, was left where God wished to be worshipped, and now Antiochus seizes upon the temple, and profanes and defiles it with the utmost possible indignity, thus leaving no single place sacred to the Almighty.  For this reason I have asserted the prophecy to appear very harsh.  The Prophet now increases the indignity when he speaks of the perpetual sacrifice.  For God had often borne witness to his temple being his perpetual “rest,” or “station,” or “seat;” yet he is now ejected from this spot, as if exiled from the earth entirely.  The temple could not exist without sacrifices, for the whole worship under the law was a kind of appendage to the temple.  As God had promised the sacrifice should be perpetual and eternal, who would not assert, when Antiochus destroyed it, either all the promises to have been deceptive, or all authority to have departed from God, who failed to defend his right against that impious tyrant.  Surely this must have been a distressing calamity, overwhelming all the faithful!  And when even at this moment we read the prophecy, all our senses are horrified by its perusal.  No wonder, then, that God forewarned his servant of such sorrowful events, and such incredible evils, to admonish his whole Church in due season, and to arm them against the severest temptations, which might otherwise strike down even the most courageous.

[End Calvin]

It is thus with serious purpose our God warns us of troubles coming.  True, such have come throughout the entire New Testament church age, and from the beginning Revelation’s warnings were given and the church up through the age was given notice and thereby greatly benefitted.  As the end of the age approaches there appear to be more intense and more widespread tribulations affecting not only the church but the inhabitants of all the earth, yet the church is going to be singled out by said inhabitants for special mistreatment.  The Amil understanding, without going into the errors and excesses of Dispensationalism (and even Historic Premil), nonetheless receives the admonition to brace for plagues and assaults.

Touching now upon the final catastrophe for America (if so be this is the right understanding of the prophecies).

______________

Nuclear Impact

We have observed, in the previous sections, the ID’ing of Revelation’s Babylon as the United States of America, through both the sorcery connection and America’s other crimes and sins against humanity, the earth, and God Himself.

In chapter 18 of John’s Apocalypse we see the destruction of Babylon by what appears to be a nuclear holocaust meted out by a coalition of other nations under the direction of a new world power.  If such is indeed to be the case, this study by Jonathan Schell in his book, The Fate of the Earth (2000, Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, pp 52-61. . . Originally published by Knopf, 1982), which is a powerful anti-nuclear statement published to let the world see the folly of stockpiling nuclear arms, pretty clearly depicts the sort of devastation Babylon would experience if the thoughts presented in this Fate of Babylon paper are true.

[Schell has just finished a long description of what a single one-megaton nuclear bomb detonated above the Empire State Building in Manhattan would do, the multi-layered devastation spreading out into Queens, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and New Jersey.  Now he proceeds to give a very brief description if this were the more likely twenty-megaton bomb instead, and the scenario of a massive nuclear attack nation-wide.  In this scenario, that horror book of a devastated U.S. called The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, would seem way too optimistic.  Some comments from me after the quote of Schell.]

A description of the effects of a one-megaton bomb on New York City gives some notion of the meaning in human terms of a megaton of nuclear explosive power, but a weapon that is more likely to be used against New York is the twenty-megaton bomb, which has one thousand six hundred times the yield of the Hiroshima bomb. The Soviet Union is estimated to have at least a hundred and thirteen twenty-megaton bombs in its nuclear arsenal, carried by Bear intercontinental bombers. In addition, some of the Soviet SS-18 missiles are capable of carrying bombs of this size, although the actual yields are not known. Since the explosive power of the twenty-megaton bombs greatly exceeds the amount necessary to destroy most military targets, it is reasonable to suppose that they are meant for use against large cities. If a twenty-megaton bomb were air-burst over the Empire State Building at an altitude of thirty thousand feet, the zone gutted or flattened by the blast wave would have a radius of twelve miles and an area of more than four hundred and fifty square miles, reaching from the middle of Staten Island to the northern edge of the Bronx, the eastern edge of Queens, and well into New Jersey, and the zone of heavy damage from the blast wave (the zone hit by a minimum of two pounds of overpressure per square inch) would have a radius of twenty-one and a half miles, or an area of one thousand four hundred and fifty square miles, reaching to the southernmost tip of Staten Island, north as far as southern Rockland County, east into Nassau County, and west to Morris County, New Jersey. The fireball would be about four and a half miles in diameter and would radiate the thermal pulse for some twenty seconds. People caught in the open twenty-three miles away from ground zero, in Long Island, New Jersey, and southern New York State, would be burned to death. People hundreds of miles away who looked at the burst would be temporarily blinded and would risk permanent eye injury. (After the test of a fifteen-megaton bomb on Bikini Atoll, in the South Pacific, in March of 1954, small animals were found to have suffered retinal burns at a distance of three hundred and forty-five miles.) The mushroom cloud would be seventy miles in diameter. New York City and its suburbs would be transformed into a lifeless, flat, scorched desert in a few seconds.

If a twenty-megaton bomb were ground-burst on the Empire State Building, the range of severe blast damage would, as with the one-megaton ground blast, be reduced, but the fireball, which would be almost six miles in diameter, would cover Manhattan from Wall Street to northern Central Park and also parts of New Jersey, Brooklyn, and Queens, and everyone within it would be instantly killed, with most of them physically disappearing. Fallout would again be generated, this time covering thousands of square miles with lethal intensities of radiation. A fair portion of New York City and its incinerated population, now radioactive dust, would have risen into the mushroom cloud and would now be descending on the surrounding territory. On one of the few occasions when local fallout was generated by a test explosion in the multi-megaton range, the fifteen-megaton bomb tested on Bikini Atoll, which was exploded seven feet above the surface of a coral reef, "caused substantial contamination over an area of more than seven thousand square miles," according to Glasstone. If, as seems likely, a twenty-megaton bomb ground-burst on New York would produce at least a comparable amount of fallout, and if the wind carried the fallout onto populated areas, then this one bomb would probably doom upward of twenty million people, or almost ten per cent of the population of the United States.

The "strategic" forces of the Soviet Union – those that can deliver nuclear warheads to the United States – are so far capable of carrying seven thousand warheads with an estimated maximum yield of more than seventeen thousand megatons of explosive power, and, barring unexpected developments in arms-control talks, the number of warheads is expected to rise in the coming years. The actual megatonnage of the Soviet strategic forces is not known, and, for a number of reasons, including the fact that smaller warheads can be delivered more accurately, it is very likely that the actual megatonnage is lower than the maximum possible; however, it is reasonable to suppose that the actual megatonnage is as much as two-thirds of the maximum, which would be about eleven and a half thousand megatons. If we assume that in a first strike the Soviets held back about a thousand megatons (itself an immense force), then the attack would amount to about ten thousand megatons, or the equivalent of eight hundred thousand Hiroshima bombs. American strategic forces comprise about nine thousand warheads with a yield of some three thousand five hundred megatons. The total yield of these American forces was made comparatively low for strategic reasons. American planners discovered that smaller warheads can be delivered more accurately than larger ones, and are therefore more useful for attacking strategic forces on the other side. And, in fact, American missiles are substantially more accurate than Soviet ones. However, in the last year or so, in spite of this advantage in numbers of warheads and in accuracy, American leaders have come to believe that the American forces are inadequate, and, again barring unexpected developments in arms-control talks, both the yield of the American arsenal and the number of warheads in it are likely to rise dramatically. (Neither the United States nor the Soviet Union reveals the total explosive yield of its own forces. The public is left to tum to private organizations, which, by making use of hundreds of pieces of information that have been released by the two governments, piece together an over-all picture. The figures I have used to estimate the maximum capacities of the two sides are taken for the most part from tables provided in the latest edition of "The Military Balance," a standard yearly reference work on the strength of military forces around the world, which is published by a research institute in London called the International Institute for Strategic Studies.) The territory of the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii, is three million six hundred and fifteen thousand one hundred and twenty-two square miles. It contains approximately two hundred and twenty-five million people, of whom sixty per cent, or about a hundred and thirty-five million, live in various urban centers with a total area of only eighteen thousand square miles. I asked Dr. Kendall, who has done considerable research on the consequences of nuclear attacks, to sketch out in rough terms what the actual distribution of bombs might be in a ten-thousand-megaton Soviet attack in the early nineteen-eighties on all targets in the United States, military and civilian.

"Without serious distortion," he said, "we can begin by imagining that we would be dealing with ten thousand weapons of one megaton each, although in fact the yields would, of course, vary considerably. Let us also make the assumption, based on common knowledge of weapons design, that on average the yield would be one-half fission and one-half fusion. This proportion is important, because it is the fission products – a virtual museum of about three hundred radioactive isotopes, decaying at different rates – that give off radioactivity in fallout. Fusion can add to the total in ground bursts by radioactivation of ground material by neutrons, but the quantity added is comparatively small. Targets can be divided into two categories – hard and soft. Hard targets, of which there are about a thousand in the United States, are mostly missile silos. The majority of them can be destroyed only by huge, blunt overpressures, ranging anywhere from many hundreds to a few thousand pounds per square inch, and we can expect that two weapons might be devoted to each one to assure destruction. That would use up two thousand megatons. Because other strategic military targets – such as Strategic Air Command bases – are near centers of population, an attack on them as well, perhaps using another couple of hundred megatons, could cause a total of more than twenty million casualties, according to studies by the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. If the nearly eight thousand weapons remaining were then devoted to the cities and towns of the United States in order of population, every community down to the level of fifteen hundred inhabitants would be hit with a megaton bomb-which is, of course, many, many times what would be necessary to annihilate a town that size. For obvious reasons, industry is highly correlated with population density, so an attack on the one necessarily hits the other, especially when an attack of this magnitude is considered. Ten thousand targets would include everything worth hitting in the country and much more; it would simply be the United States. The targeters would run out of targets and victims long before they ran out of bombs. If you imagine that the bombs were distributed according to population, then, allowing for the fact that the attack on the military installations would have already killed about twenty million people, you would have about forty megatons to devote to each remaining million people in the country. For the seven and a half million people in New York City, that would come to three hundred megatons. Bearing in mind what one megaton can do, you can see that this would be preposterous overkill. In practice, one might expect the New York metropolitan area to be hit with some dozens of one-megaton weapons."

In the first moments of a ten-thousand-megaton attack on the United States, I learned from Dr. Kendall and from other sources, flashes of white light would suddenly illumine large areas of the country as thousands of suns, each one brighter than the sun itself, blossomed over cities, suburbs, and towns. In those same moments, when the first wave of missiles arrived, the vast majority of the people in the regions first targeted would be irradiated, crushed, or burned to death. The thermal pulses could subject more than six hundred thousand square miles, or one-sixth of the total land mass of the nation, to a minimum level of forty calories per centimetre squared – a level of heat that chars human beings. (At Hiroshima, charred remains in the rough shape of human beings were a common sight.) Tens of millions of people would go up in smoke. As the attack proceeded, as much as three-quarters of the country could be subjected to incendiary levels of heat, and so, wherever there was inflammable material, could be set ablaze. In the ten seconds or so after each bomb hit, as blast waves swept outward from thousands of ground zeros, the physical plant of the United States would be swept away like leaves in a gust of wind. The six hundred thousand square miles already scorched by the forty or more calories of heat per centimetre squared would now be hit by blast waves of a minimum of five pounds per square inch, and virtually all the habitations, places of work, and other man-made things there – substantially the whole human construct in the United States – would be vaporized, blasted, or otherwise pulverized out of existence. Then, as clouds of dust rose from the earth, and mushroom clouds spread overhead, often linking to form vast canopies, day would turn to night. (These clouds could blanket as much as a third of the nation.) Shortly, fires would spring up in the debris of the cities and in every forest dry enough to burn. These fires would simply burn down the United States. When one pictures a full-scale attack on the United States, or on any other country, therefore, the picture of a single city being flattened by a single bomb – an image firmly engraved in the public imagination, probably because of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – must give way to a picture of substantial sections of the country being turned by a sort of nuclear carpet-bombing into immense infernal regions, literally tens of thousands of square miles in area, from which escape is impossible. In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, those who had not been killed or injured so severely that they could not move were able to flee to the undevastated world around them, where they found help, but in any city where three or four bombs had been used – not to mention fifty, or a hundred – flight from one blast would only be flight toward another, and no one could escape alive. Within these regions, each of three of the immediate effects of nuclear weapons – initial radiation, thermal pulse, and blast wave – would alone be enough to kill most people: the initial nuclear radiation would subject tens of thousands of square miles to lethal doses; the blast waves, coming from all sides, would nowhere fall below the overpressure necessary to destroy almost all buildings; and the thermal pulses, also coming from all sides, would always be great enough to kill exposed people and, in addition, to set on fire everything that would burn. The ease with which virtually the whole population of the country could be trapped in these zones of universal death is suggested by the fact that the sixty per cent of the population that lives in an area of eighteen thousand square miles could be annihilated with only three hundred one-megaton bombs – the number necessary to cover the area with a minimum of five pounds per square inch of overpressure and forty calories per centimetre squared of heat. That would leave nine thousand seven hundred megatons, or ninety-seven per cent of the megatonnage in the attacking force, available for other targets. (It is hard to imagine what a targeter would do with all his bombs in these circumstances. Above several thousand megatons, it would almost become a matter of trying to hunt down individual people with nuclear warheads. )

The statistics on the initial nuclear radiation, the thermal pulses, and the blast waves in a nuclear holocaust can be presented in any number of ways, but all of them would be only variations on a simple theme – the annihilation of the United States and its people. Yet while the immediate nuclear effects are great enough in a ten-thousand-megaton attack to destroy the country many times over, they are not the most powerfully lethal of the local effects of nuclear weapons. The killing power of the local fallout is far greater. Therefore, if the Soviet Union was bent on producing the maximum overkill – if, that is, its surviving leaders, whether out of calculation, rage, or madness, decided to eliminate the United States not merely as a political and social entity but as a biological one – they would burst their bombs on the ground rather than in the air. Although the scope of severe blast damage would then be reduced, the blast waves, fireballs, and thermal pulses would still be far more than enough to destroy the country, and, in addition, provided only that the bombs were dispersed widely enough, lethal fallout would spread throughout the nation. The amount of radiation delivered by the fallout from a ground burst of a given size is still uncertain – not least because, as Glasstone notes, there has never been a "true land surface burst" of a bomb with a yield of over one kiloton. (The Bikini burst was in part over the ocean.) Many factors make for uncertainty. To mention just a few: the relative amounts of the fallout that rises into the stratosphere and the fallout that descends to the ground near the blast are dependent on, among other things, the yield of the weapon, and, in any case, can be only guessed at; the composition of the fallout will vary with the composition of the material on the ground that is sucked up into the mushroom cloud; prediction of the distribution of fallout by winds of various speeds at various altitudes depends on a choice of several "models"; and the calculation of the arrival time of the fallout – an important calculation, since fallout cannot harm living things until it lands near them – is subject to similar speculative doubts. However, calculations on the basis of figures for a one-megaton ground burst which are given in the Office of Technology Assessment's report show that ten thousand megatons would yield one-week doses around the country averaging more than ten thousand rems. In actuality, of course, the bombs would almost certainly not be evenly spaced around the country but, rather, would be concentrated in populated areas and in missile fields; and the likelihood is that in most places where people lived or worked the doses would be many times the average, commonly reaching several tens of thousands of rems for the first week, while in remote areas they would be less, or, conceivably, even nonexistent. (The United States contains large tracts of empty desert, and to target them would be virtually meaningless from any point of view.)

These figures provide a context for judging the question of civil defense. With overwhelming immediate local effects striking the vast majority of the population, and with one-week doses of radiation then rising into the tens of thousands of rems, evacuation and shelters are a vain hope. Needless to say, in these circumstances evacuation before an attack would be an exercise in transporting people from one death to another. In some depictions of a holocaust, various rescue operations are described, with unafflicted survivors bringing food, clothes, and medical care to the afflicted, and the afflicted making their way to thriving, untouched communities, where churches, school auditoriums, and the like would have been set up for their care – as often happens after a bad snowstorm, say. Obviously, none of this could come about. In the first place, in a full-scale attack there would in all likelihood be no surviving communities, and, in the second place, everyone who failed to seal himself off from the outside environment for as long as several months would soon die of radiation sickness. Hence, in the months after a holocaust there would be no activity of any sort, as, in a reversal of the normal state of things, the dead would lie on the surface and the living, if there were any, would be buried underground.

To this description of radiation levels around the country, an addition remains to be made. This is the fact that attacks on the seventy-six nuclear power plants in the United States would produce fallout whose radiation had much greater longevity than that of the weapons alone. The physicist Dr. Kosta Tsipis, of M.LT., and one of his students, Steven Fetter, recently published an article in Scientific American called "Catastrophic Releases of Radioactivity," in which they calculate the damage from a one-megaton thermonuclear ground burst on a one-gigawatt nuclear power plant. In such a ground burst, the facility's radioactive contents would be vaporized along with everything nearby, and the remains would be carried up into the mushroom cloud, from which they would descend to the earth with the rest of the fallout. But whereas the fission products of the weapon were newly made, and contained many isotopes that would decay to insignificant levels very swiftly, the fission products in a reactor would be a collection of longer-lived isotopes (and this applies even more strongly to the spent fuel in the reactor's holding pond), since the short-lived ones would, for the most part, have had enough time to reduce themselves to harmless levels. The intense but comparatively short-lived radiation from the weapon would kill people in the first few weeks and months, but the long-lived radiation that was produced both by the weapon and by the power plant could prevent anyone from living on a vast area of land for decades after it fell. For example, after a year an area of some seventeen hundred square miles downwind of a power plant on which a one-megaton bomb had been ground-burst (again assuming a fifteen-mile-an-hour wind) would still be delivering more than fifty rems per year to anyone who tried to live there, and that is two hundred and fifty times the "safe" dose established by the E.P.A. The bomb by itself would produce this effect over an area of only twenty-six square miles. (In addition to offering an enemy a way of redoubling the effectiveness of his attacks in a full-scale holocaust, reactors provide targets of unparalleled danger in possible terrorist nuclear attacks. In an earlier paper, Tsipis and Fetter observe that "the destruction of a reactor with a nuclear weapon, even of relatively small yield, such as a crude terrorist nuclear device, would represent a national catastrophe of lasting consequences." It can be put down as one further alarming oddity of life in a nuclear world that in building nuclear power plants nations have opened themselves to catastrophic devastation and long-term contamination of their territories by enemies who manage to get hold of only a few nuclear weapons.)

If, in a nuclear holocaust, anyone hid himself deep enough under the earth and stayed there long enough to survive, he would emerge into a dying natural environment. The vulnerability of the environment is the last word in the argument against the usefulness of shelters: there is no hole big enough to hide all of nature in.

[end Schell]

______________

Light in the Darkness

1 Cor 7:29-31  But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none; And they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not; And they that use this world, as not abusing it: for the fashion of this world passeth away.

Heb 11:13-16  These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.

2 Cor 4:16-18  For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

Isaiah 26:20-21  Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.

This Isaiah 26:20 exhortation led Edward J. Young, in his commentary, The Book of Isaiah, to remark, “The locking of the doors suggests the determination completely to shut oneself from the outside world and to turn to God alone” (Vol 2, p 230 fn 47).  This in the 24:1-27:13 section depicting the final judging of the world by the LORD.  There will come a time for all of us when we must turn to God as the only source of salvation and comfort, as saints up through the ages have also done – not looking to any place or anyone in the world for help.

It’s a dark vision, I know – and if it is true (every person should decide for themselves if this is credible) what hope there is is in realms unseen, for what is seen will be unstable or destroyed.  Yet God will be with us without cease come what may.  My own thought is only a Pollyanna-type – or one seriously deceived in their eschatology – can dismiss the signs of the times we are in.  Where are those who, like the children of Issachar that came to David in Hebron to join his forces after the death of Saul, were said to be “men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do” (1 Chronicles 12:32)?  Who understands the times we are in, and what we should do?

The first thing to attend to – whether it will come to pass on this wise or not, for the end of the age will be tumultuous however it falls out – is to cultivate a close walk with the LORD.

Know your Scriptures, especially those that speak of His promises to be with His people.  These two brief papers from my Dropbox folder meant to be a help in this regard (I would encourage all to print them in hardcopy, as we should not take the continuing existence of the electric grid for granted):

Communion with God:  http://tinyurl.com/mqpenvv

God’s Presence Our Portion:  http://tinyurl.com/ljfsyk4

We should increasingly shut those doors which open to finding our comfort, entertainment, and pleasure from the world, and learn to enter that door which brings us to the throne of God, His mercies and His presence in our time of need.  There is nothing wrong at all with enjoying the world, for it is God who gives us all good things, yet we must learn to serve “the LORD [our] God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things” (Deut 28:47) even when there is scarcity of “good things” from the world, but rather bitter.  It may be we shall have to wait in hope for “the abundance of all things” in the Land of Promise after we cross chilly Jordan.  For there, in Celestial City, we shall lay eyes upon the Creator, our Redeemer and Friend, Jesus Christ.

Afterword

Below is a list of books (a couple of articles and one mp3 sermon series included) on Amillennialism and Revelation commentaries that are amil, plus one book on Daniel.  These men do not go as far as I do in specifically identifying Babylon and its destruction, but I have stood on their shoulders for my understanding.

I haven’t read Sam Storms’ new book through yet, but am perusing it.  His is primarily a refutation of the premil view (he also refutes postmil) and a defense of the amil.  I think it will be very good.

Riddlebarger’s two books (listed below) are both excellent; the one on antichrist is superb.

Venema’s Promise of the Future has replaced Hoekema’s The Bible and the Future as the eschatology textbook of choice in the P&R seminaries (so I have heard).  Both are excellent.  I think Venema’s up-to-date views make it preferable if one has to choose between the two.

Engelsma’s two lengthy articles on Amillennialism are outstanding.  The hardcopy book version of Christ’s Spiritual Kingdom is preferable.

The Revelation commentators listed are all amil, all of them in the camp of “eclectic” interpretive methodology, or “modified idealist”, per Greg Beale, who seems to be taking the lead in the field of Revelation studies at this time.  Also one mp3 lecture on interpretation of symbols by Beale using Revelation 11.

Still, the others are also very good.  Of especial note is Bauckham’s The Theology of the Book of Revelation – a smaller work of 169 pages – filled as it is with profound insights and observations.

For those unfamiliar with end-times studies I would recommend Dennis E. Johnson’s, Triumph of the Lamb, and William Hendriksen’s, More Than Conquerors, as worthy introductions to the subject.

Partial Bibliography for Revelation and Amil:

G.K. Beale, New International Greek Testament Commentary: Revelation; The IVP New Testament Commentary Series: 1-2 Thessalonians; Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament; Handbook on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament: Exegesis and Interpretation; The Use of Daniel in Jewish Apocalyptic Literature and in the Revelation of St. John; and John’s Use of the Old Testament in Revelation; Two Witnesses in Revelation, an mp3 lecture on understanding symbolism as used in Revelation 11.

Dennis E. Johnson, Triumph of the Lamb:  A Commentary on Revelation

Cornelis P. Venema, The Promise of the Future

William Hendriksen, More Than Conquerors:  An Interpretation of the Book of Revelation; and Three Lectures on the Book of Revelation

Richard Bauckham, The Climax of Prophecy; and The Theology of the Book of Revelation

Kim Riddlebarger, The Man of Sin: Uncovering the Truth About the Antichrist; and, A Case for Amillennialism: Understanding the End Times

David J. Engelsma, Christ’s Spiritual Kingdom: A Defense of Reformed Amillennialism (A shortened online version); and The Messianic Kingdom and Civil Government (online article)

Stephen S. Smalley, The Revelation To John: A Commentary on the Greek Text of the Apocalypse

Vern Poythress, The Returning King: A Guide to the Book of Revelation (online version)

Stuart Olyott, Dare to Stand Alone: Daniel Simply Explained

Samuel E. Waldron, The End Times Made Simple

Anthony Hoekema, The Bible and the Future

Simon J. Kistemaker, New Testament Commentary: Revelation

Arturo Azurdia, An Exposition of the Book of Revelation (81 MP3 sermons)

Leon Morris, The Book of Revelation (Revised Edition)

G.B. Caird, The Revelation of Saint John

Sam Storms, Kingdom Come: The Amillennial Alternative (he was premil, and now uses his old knowledge to expose its errors)

It is my prayer the LORD use this work to strengthen and prepare His precious saints for the days ahead, whether they linger or come soon.

Steve Rafalsky

February 2014