When one endeavors to study the prophetic topic of Revelation’s Babylon beyond what is commonly, truncatedly, presented and emphasized in SDA circles, namely Rev 17:1-9 & 18:1-8, it is transparently easy to see that much more than a religious aspect of Revelation’s Babylon is being taken issue with by God. This wider study involves, obviously, also studying the rest of Rev 17 & 18, (thus Rev 17:10-18 & 18:9-24). However a commonly neglected contributor to this study is the Old Testament background from which Revelation’s Babylon is drawn from.[1] As many, almost verbatim, quotations and allusions show, that, pointedly in the prophecy in Jer 51, God spoke of the vengeance that He would be taking upon His actually previously summoned king and kingdom of Babylon. Before the full and further prophetic issues in Rev 17 & 18 are discussed, and indeed in order to first have the proper Biblical background for that prophecy, the circumstances and (Theological) issues involved in the Jer 51 judgement of God need to be properly and fully understood.
Purposeful Babylon
The most glaring thing that strikes someone (or, at least honestly/candidly should) is, if/since it was God who through Jeremiah warned that Babylon was coming to utterly judge Judah for its sins (e.g, Jer 20:1-6) and if/since God had addedly (“counterintuitively”) instructed Judah to peacefully give in to Babylon (Jer 27:1-15), then why was He now, when that purposed judgement was accomplished, rather seethingly aiming to take great vengeance on Babylon (Jer 51). A simple answer that can be seen from the Biblical record, and shows that Babylon had done beyond what God had wanted her to do during this judgement of His people. However that honestly leads into the Theological questions (i.e., for those who have the Classical Foreknowledge view of God) of: ‘Didn’t God “see” this coming; that this would be the end result??’ and also ‘Since that clearly was not His will, why then didn’t He intervene to prevent these irreparable damages?’ Though in the Biblical “Foreplanning View”, the first Theological question/issue is easily and rightly resolved by the understanding that God did not expect that Babylon would act abusively, and to such an extreme; -and there are several points in the Jeremiah prophecies and ministry that bear this view out, however the second theological issue still remains...: ‘why didn’t God then intervene to stop those abuses.’ The answer to that second issue actually speaks to the great wickedness involved in Judah’s sins which made it that they were, while in their period of decreed judgement, beyond the protective power of God and were collectively left at the merciless whims of their capturing power.
Why then Babylon?
Those understandings then leads to the question of: ‘why would God choose Babylon at all to judge His wayward people?’ The simple Theological answer is: God wanted Israel to tangibly and firsthandedly see, from the world’s leading ruling power then, (with no sign of Babylon’s demise at all then), and in order to serve as an object lesson to them [Israel], just how bad things can, and will, get for them without Him, if He completely rejected them for them choosing to not live according to His laws and ways. In fact, as pointedly stated in 2 Chr 36:20-21; (cf. Lev 26:33-35, 43a); their actual, temporary deportation to another land was because they had systematically violated God’s socio-economic Sabbatical laws in regards to the land (Exod 23:10-11; Lev 25:1-7ff). Just by reading this sabbatical law it can be seen that it would fundamentally necessitate faith in God, and the Lev 25:18-22 promised ‘three-year harvest in the 6th year of a sabbatical cycle’ was manifestly something that would, and could, like the similar wilderness days miraculous blessing of the manna (Exod 16), indeed only be Supernaturally realized. That is, while allowing the land to periodically lie fallow would allow for its nutrients to naturally be replenished, the abundant/sufficient production of crops in the 6th year, to cover up to the 3 years’ needs was going to be supernaturally accomplished by God if His people were, in faith, obedient to Him. And while Israel was to always care for anyone in need on a lending basis (Deut 15:7-11), the provision here that allowed the poor to freely eat of what the land would produce during its sabbatical year meant that these destitute ones would not become indebted for this vital provision.
So it was because Israel had faithlessly chosen to not follow this socio-economic sabbatical law of God, that they were most crucially, physically and sovereignly dispossessed of the land that God had provided for them, and here, fittingly/punitively, became quasi-assimilated into one of the most evil kingdoms then, Babylon.
Socio-Economic Implications for Revelation’s Babylon
This OT Law & History background serves as a foundation for understanding the prophetic episode of Revelation’s Babylon.
Total Temporal Dispossession - Yes, as commonly expounded upon, the judgement brought upon Israel in Jeremiah’s time was also for religious violations such as idolatry and profaning God sanctuary, even not observing the Seventh Day Sabbath as it was required (see Neh 13:15-18), however in terms of the need for also a physical deportation from their land and to, of all places, abhorrent, world-ruling, Babylon, the pointed reason was for the non-observance of God’s sabbatical laws. (=Zech 7:8-14) And that was foundationally all due to a lack of faith in the promised provision of God in the sixth years. Manifestly the poor and needy were (effectively) also oppressed by them not being able to freely obtain provisions during that sabbatical year. And that neglect also constituted a violation of the socio-economic rest for all that was also a basis for the giving of God’s Sabbath to His enduring nation Israel (=Deut 5:12-15), reflecting, as with the World Creation basis, God’s memorializing seventh-day rest (Gen 2:3); and including also an ‘Authoritative Creation basis’ in regards to the fact that, as God Himself enunciated in Isa 43:15, as He was envisioning the future exodus/deliverance of His People then in Babylon (cf. Isa 43:14-21), (-if/when the would penitently ask, Isa 43:22-28, as Daniel non-presumably would, probably solely, thus, most intercessorily, humbly do (Dan 9:1-21)), that: ‘He is the “Creator”, (and thus “King”) of this nation of Israel’.
Importance of Socio-Economic Aspect - What is further interesting, is that Israel actually did not physically suffer during the ca. 490 years when they had not been observing the fallow-land stipulations of this law. There is no record of their crops or harvest (yet) suffering/failing for this. Furthermore, as it was the regular cycling of: six years of sowing and harvest & one year of being fallow that was most beneficial for the proper replenishing of the land, and not the allowing of it to lay fallow for 70 consecutive years, it can be seen that this was more than just a substantively needed judgement by God, but instead, indeed one to collectively account for every past sabbatical year when this law had been ignored. And God manifestly preferentially allowed this accumulated time to reach the symbologically significant number of "70"; and this had more widely involved ca. 490 years of probation (Matt 18:21-22; cf. Dan 9:24).
What would apparently come to occur in Israel, as seen in what is currently done in agriculture where only parts of one’s farmland is made to periodically lie fallow while the rest is productive, that Israel’s land was going to increasingly produce less and less crops to meet the needs of everyone as it became deficient in nutrients. So while some may be able to have enough to eat, there would however come to be more and more people in such vital need, until virtually, if not literally, everyone in Israel was vitally affected due to then completely depleted and barren farmlands.
To Avoid All Inequalities - The deliberate provision for the poor during this time also is not without great significance in this law, and together, the above two key points show that God was, in this law, equally looking out for the well being of everyone in Israel, both the, [since the land and resources of Israel had foundationally been distributed to adequately meet the needs of everyone (e.g., Num 26:52-56; 33:54)], (normatively) cared-for ones, and the (suddenly, incidentally) needy; and also was trying to avoid the arable land itself to increasingly become a ‘survival-of-the-fittest/strongest/richest’ stake, as surely strife, overall anarchy and bloodshed would come to exist in Israel in order to personally secure ever-decreasing, remaining productive farmlands.
Equal Duties and Responsibilities - Notice also that God did not counsel a ‘rotating lot’ plan for this fallow lot law, as it easily, and feasibly could, and “logically”, should, have been the case. Instead the whole land of Israel, i.e., all twelve tribes, had to simultaneously fully observe this law. This most evidently was to show that all of Israel had to collectively participate in this indeed pointed ‘needs relieving’ law.
A Consequential “Indebtedness” - The fallow land judgement also shows how, in God’s Israel, the sins of forefathers can, and does affect the children, as these descendants were now having to quite severely pay for the sins of their ancestors. (Cf. Lev 26:39).
All of these point on the related socio-economic aspects of God’s sabbatical law sequiturly show that the deportation of Israel into Babylon was pointedly for those socio-economic reasons. Therefore the “call of them” out of the land of Babylon (Jer 51:6, 9, 45, 50; cf. Isa 48:20; Zech 2:6-7 = Rev 18:4) exegetically is to be expected to also involve those vital, sabbatical socio-economic implications. Indeed, the only reason why Israel was in Babylon, and had to thus later be “called out”, was only because of those socio-economic sabbatical laws violations. So in understanding the topic of Revelation’s Babylon, one is not only to look at surfacely purely religious implications, but, as God Himself considers most crucial, also at sabbatical socio-economic ones. Not surprisingly, in Rev 18:9ff it is seen that Revelation’s Babylon also has great economic implications, through which she has come to reign Supreme, along with the kings of the earth. So those who are being called out of her, and thus back to God’s land of Israel, are also called to abandon those ‘drunkening and sensuous’ ways of this Babylon.
Other Background, Theological Implications
Before those economic implications in Revelation’s Babylon are looked at in greater detail, there are several key things to learn from the OT background of the Babylonian Judgement and Deportation.
Allowed Aberration
First of all, it is clear that it was God Himself who made Babylon successfully come onto the path of His increasingly wayward Israel. Obviously that was to effectuate due judgement, however as God did always intend to restore Israel from such a deportation judgement (see Lev 26:40-45), yet only if they became humbled (something that perhaps only Daniel came to do and thus, being ‘God’s needed intercessor’ in/for Israel (cf. Jer 5:1; Ezek 22:30-31; Isa 59:16 and this forum post), allowed for this promised restoration -Dan 9:1-23), and as with any non-terminal, but corrective judgement, the whole purpose is to provide the most likely, and best, way to produce such a change. So God Himself brought Babylon to destroy Israel, and then led many survivors of Israel captive in Babylon.
This understanding is key to Revelation’s Babylon, for while, as seen in prophetic Church History in Revelation 7 Seals (Rev 6:1-8:1), up through the second seal’s Red Horse period (Rev 6:3-4), it is Historically rightly understood to have applied to the persecutions suffered by the, up to then, still faithful Christian Church at the hands of pagans. However those persecutions suddenly ended when the State, in ca. 313 A.D., under Constantine, suddenly made Christianity a legal religion. However it is then that the Universal “Catholic” Church began to morph into Revelation’s Babylon as it began to religiously become mixed with worldly practices, beliefs and customs, and it is also then that a raising up of the Church’s leadership over the laity to a non-biblical status/level was made (i.e., the superiority of the priesthood, leading to the establishment of the Papacy), resulting in the laity becoming both spiritually, and then also physically, deprived as the Church made both: (1) the Word of God rare and inaccessible to them; and (2) then, based on faulty theology, that the lay person moreover had no means of verifying, also began to impose derived costly and spurious penances & indulgences upon the people. All of this Prophetically began to take place under the third seal’s Black Horse period (Rev 6:5-6), thus ca. 313 A.D. to ca. the 13th century A.D., when then the Church then began to confront reformatory oppositions to them with the sword.
A key point of difference between the Historical Babylon and its Prophetic depiction is that in the OT History, Israel was taken to the foreign power of Babylon in judgement. However it surfacely would seem that in the Prophetic scenario, NT Israel instead became Babylon, indeed as many reformers of that time rightly identified the Church then. It is however when the common notion of ‘Divine judgement for (common) sins’ is kept in mind here that one realizes that just as the summoning and destructions by Historical Babylon had been ordained by God to strikingly correct Israel of its rebelliousness and disillusion it the believed viability of living outside of God’s ways, Prophetic/Spiritual Babylon was “allowed” for similar reasons and purposes with NT Israel. Just like in the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32), God would allow, for a determined amount of time, NT Israel to follow and “play out” its preferred wayward course to a telling end so that, hopefully, they would tangibly see for themselves that God’s ways and laws are better. However that permitted waywardness was at quite a great cost to God’s faithful ones during that time (= Rev 6:9-11), not to mention the many Israelites that would be lost by becoming born, familiar, comfortable, and thus assimilated in/with this allowed Babylon.
So it was actually, always God’s prophetic plan to allow for a Babylon in prophetic/Church History, if only to help those who survived this “deportation” to see what disobedience to God’s law will result in. Still a prophetic call is given for God’s People to come out of her and return to Jerusalem, even though it, and its Temple, then lay in ruins.
So with this pertinent Biblical/Historical background in mind, a somewhat in depth study of the Rev 17 & 18 Babylon prophecy can now be done as follows.
REVELATION 17
Rev 17:1 - Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying, "Come here, I will show you the judgment sentence of the great harlot who sits on many waters,
judgement sentence - (Gr. krima) The angel’s mission here is to relate the ‘resulting sentencing’ of the “great harlot” (cf. Rev 18:20) and not the ‘“trial” process of this judgement’ (further discussed in Rev 18:10). But first, as This Babylon has not been priorly identified and discussed as such (i.e., a harlot) in the prophecies, he first goes through expounding on its identifying points.
Great Harlot - In the Bible it is repeatedly and consistently seen that a “woman” is symbolic of God’s People (OT) & Church (NT) (Jer 4:31; Eph 5:23-27, 32-33; 1 Cor 11:2; Rev 19:7; 21:2, 9-10ff [the common Jer 6:2 citation is grossly mistranslated in the KJV/NKJV, see instead NASB]. And along these symbolic lines, a harlotrous woman is also repeatedly and consistently used to describe the unfaithful people of God. (Hos 1-3; Jer 3:1-10; Ezek 16). And so this ‘great harlotrous woman’ is symbolically, defaulty understood to be an apostate manifestation of God’s People/Church. Indeed Num 15:39-40 pointedly shows that when God’s people entirely forget, or forget to do all of His commandments, and instead seek to do after their own heart, and what is best in their own eyes, then they are no longer holy to God, but instead are considered to be a harlot. So this “Great Harlot” must be a professed people of God who has chosen to not keep all, or none, of God’s commandments, and instead seek to do what she conveniently considers is best, yet all the while still claiming some sort of allegiance to God.
Sits on many waters - though this harlot sits on many waters, thus many various people groupings of the world (Rev 17:15), it is the “River” (= as discussed here, ‘religious grouping’, -next in importance/power among peoples to political groupings (= “Seas”)) Euphrates that is, as with Ancient Babylon (cf. Isa 45:1b), most pivotal to her livelihood, prosperity and security. So, as discussed in this post at Rev 16:12, simply drying up this single River is sufficient to spearhead the complete fall of this ‘Geo-City’.
Rev 17:2 - with whom the kings of the earth committed acts of harlotry, and those who dwell on the earth were made drunk with the wine of her harlotry."
Wine - In Luke 5:37-39, Jesus made the pointed metaphor involving new/fresh wine to symbolize His New Covenant teachings. (= Communion emblem in Luke 22:17-18, 20; 1 Cor 11:25; cf. Jer 31:31; Heb 8:8-12 ~ 2 Cor 3:6). So “wine” can be understood to be symbolic of the Gospel teachings of Christ. (= ‘what is to be carefully preserved’, along with the Holy Spirit, in Medieval Church History in Rev 6:6b). Of course, this wine, being new/fresh, was unfermented and thus non-intoxicating, which is why those accustomed to drinking old wine, if not fermented wine, did not want to drink it (Luke 5:39). So the wine of harlotry of this Woman is clearly teachings that are “intoxicatingly” opposed to Christ’s New Covenant Gospel message.
Drunken Behavior - Here it is distinctly seen that this harlot woman commits the acts of harlotry (=unfaithfulness to her husband Christ) with the kings/rulers of the earth, thus these are more political acts which are contrary to Christ’s principles, and as seen later, which result in producing much wealth, and then this forged illicit “wine” is obviously forced upon the inhabitants of the earth to make them “drunk”, which results in them becoming “praisingly/mindlessly boastful” (=Jer 51:7). Then, of course, as typical in such ‘forced and sustained intoxication’, she can then have, and continue to have, her self-gratifying way with them. [“Capitalism is the only hope of the world” has been the mindless echoing chant of virtually all of the world’s peoples and countries.]
Rev 17:3 - And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness; and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns.
(Harlotrous) Woman (= Church) - John is now seeing the woman of Rev 12:1-6 that had then fled in the wilderness for 1260 years (538-1798) while the Papacy wielded its persecutive temporal power against her. However this is a radically transformed woman than the pure woman (=Apostolic Church) that had fled to the wilderness. While those who had fled from the Catholic Church had been faithful ones, the organized Church that came out of that wilderness was no longer in the image of that prior pure woman.
The present, deeper (i.e., as time/history has advanced) implications of this symbol of the woman here is that this is actually is a leading out Protestant (and no longer Catholic) Church which has taken the place of that prior Catholic Church in that prophetic development. The possibility of that switch was actually implicitly included in what EGW was (directly) ‘shown’:
“I saw that the two-horned beast had a dragon's mouth, and that his power was in his head, and that the decree would go out of his mouth. Then I saw the Mother of Harlots; that the mother was not the daughters, but separate and distinct from them. She has had her day, and it is past, and her daughters, the Protestant sects, were the next to come on the stage and act out the same mind that the mother had when she persecuted the saints. I saw that as the mother has been declining in power, the daughters had been growing, and soon they will exercise the power once exercised by the mother.” {SpM 1.4} (Spalding and Magan collection)
So the woman here now is a “grown up” daughter of the past: =the Protestant Church. And, in turn, the daughters of that leading Protestant Church are all of the 30,000+ “sects”/denominations which have come from the once virtually united, Protestant Reformation Movement Church. So by then, the Catholic Church has technically become a (inherent pun-intended) “Grand”-Mother.
Also, the ‘drunkening of the masses’ is evidently also essential to maintain the “festal way of living” of this, now (Protestant) woman....And it is, as discussed just below, and also later (at Rev 17:11), in this seamless, deception entrenching and heightening reins take over by this now “grown up daughter” that she has begun to become a spitting “image” of her revived mother (=Rev 13:14) and which, by taking formal actions to empower that image will be ‘giving breath’ to it (Rev 13:15) =Rev 16:13-14, 16. See the detailed discussion on this in this exposition on the whole chapter of Rev 13.
History & Evolution of this Beast - It is also significant here to trace the past history/“evolution” of this Beast introduced here, the one having 7 heads and ten horns.
Dan 7 Beast - First of all, the mention of it having ten horns links it back to the “different, strong and terrible Beast” mentioned in Dan 7:7, which had ten horns, and historically was Pagan Rome. Dan 7:23-24 shows that those ten horns on the head of that Beast will themselves be distinct from that previously dominant Beast (Dan 7:19), as they would be ‘ten kings that would arise out of this kingdom’. These, of course, historically were the “barbaric” tribes that came to defeat and replace the world power of Rome in its Western Parts and ruled independently from 476-538 A.D. That is until the, ‘Little, but actually Larger-in-appearance, Horn” (Dan 7:8 & 20), though indeed, comparatively temporally smaller than other powers, itself having been only a religious power, came and established a “representatively sufficient” kingdom (= "7" horns) over the previous larger “total” (i.e., Eastern & Western) Roman empire (= "10" horns)[2] So the number 10 here prophetically is not literally quantitative, but symbolically qualitative. See the latest, most accurate Biblical&Historical studies on these Ten Horns and their exact (i.e. “quantitative”) identity in this dedicated post.
Rev 12 Beast - Now prophecies concerning this ten-horn Beast, thus ‘a kingdom composed of various other subdued kingdoms’, are restated in the New Testament, as this Beast indeed comes to war against True Movements of God. However firstly, it is revealed in Rev 12:7-9ff, which relates events that relatedly occurred before and after the advent of Christ, that the arch enemy of Christ (Michael) is (a “simple-looking”) “Dragon”, who is the Serpent/Devil/Satan. No mention yet, until the advent of Christ, of him having multiple heads and horn. But then in Rev 12:1-6, after the NT Church has been birthed (vss. 1-2). This Beast opposing power, first appearing in Heaven, is described as a ‘Dragon with 7 heads and ten horn and with 7 diadems on its heads’ (Rev 12:3). As the Devil now needed more than one ‘way of thinking’ to seek to defeat Christianity, this Beast is seen as having more than one “head”. So now, not only would the ‘Pagan Roman thinking’, which felt threatened by the Christian world view, be used to oppose the Church, -which resulted in physical persecution, but also other highly esteemed, ‘world ruling views and ways’ such as: culture, lifestyle, wealth, philosophies, etc., will be chiefly used to undermine the purity of the Church. This multi-faceted subversion gradually took a foothold within the Church and became most successfully achieved during the era of the Medieval Catholic Church.
Rev 13's First Beast {Cf. this presentation} - Indeed it is when the Catholic Church came to secure a temporal realm from prior parts of the Pagan Roman Empire, establishing the Holy Roman Empire, that it became most completely corrupt, as it then had temporal power to itself wage war against those within its jurisdiction which rejected its non-Biblical teaching. This “Beastly” era is described in the First Beast of Rev 13. That Beast is also said to have 10 horns and 7 heads, with 10 diadems, now on its horns (Rev 13:1) rather than its heads. Indeed the chief power of this Beast vs. God’s True Church was in the ‘(enforcing) temporal power’ it wielded (= ‘10 crowned horns’) more than merely its way of thinking (= ‘7 crowned heads’). Interestingly enough, the main “character” (= “name”) in its way of thinking, was an overarching “blasphemous” ideology. (Rev 13:1b).
At its root, the term “blasphemy” (Strongs #988) means “to slander”, which indeed involve ‘damaging the reputation, character and good name of another’ (cf. e.g, Eph 4:31; Col 3:8; 1 Tim 6:4; Jude 1:9; Rev 2:9). As such it is manifested in: ‘an (assumed) man claiming to be capable of forgive sins as God’ (Luke 5:20-21ff) or ‘being equal to God’ (John 10:24-39; Mar 14:61-64); and thus also, the “slanderous” claiming of a clear work of God’s Spirit as being that of the Devil (Matt 12:22-31). Relatedly, given the fact that God had “perfectly” veiled Himself in the Son of Man, it would actually be forgivable to say something “slanderous” against Him, than against the more clear demonstrations of God’s working through His Spirit (Matt 12:32); -albeit, only for ‘accidental slanders’ against the Son of Man, and not careless/indifferent ones. (Matt 12:33-37). In short, “blasphemy” is ‘anyone who resolutely/defiantly commits any sin in the light of clear warnings and knowledge,’ (which are communicated to the conscience by God’s Spirit) (e.g., Num 15:30; cf. Ezek 20:27).
(i) - ‘an encapsulating entity which mainly mirrored the culture, philosophies and ideology of Greece’ (= “body of a leopard”);
(ii) - ‘facilitating, and surfacely acceptable, means of going places and being established that mirrored the worship of the God-allowing Medo-Persian empire (= “feet of a bear”),
(iii) - however, like Babylon (e.g., Dan 2 & 3), it would be ‘legislatively dictating what this worship of God could subserviently consist of’ (= “mouth of a lion”). Not surprisingly this “mouth” only went on to legislatively express blasphemies (Rev 13:5-6), indeed just what it had been “thinking” in its heads.
(iv) So the Church that had been purposely established on Earth in the likeness and image of its Creator and Re-Creator Jesus Christ, had now instead become a monstrous and terrifying, untameable/wild “Beast” (in itself) on earth. (All contra Eph 4:14-16; 5:23)
Transference of power -Given the great potential success of this, actually self-composed Beast, the Devil saw that it would be more successful than his own prior external/paganistic attacks on the Christian Church (Rev 12:3-6, 13-17), and so he gladly gave it his own ‘power, throne and great authority’ to wreak havoc on earth. (Rev 13:2b).
First Beast Purposefully Divinely Permitted - As prophetically stipulated in e.g. 2 Thess 2:9-11 & Rev 8:10-11 (expounded within this post), and all consistently according to how God would deal, and indeed has dealt, with His unfaithful/apostasizing, paganizing, “awhoring” Israel in the past (Deut 4:28; 28:64), but all in the hopeful purpose that they would learn the lesson of the futility of living apart from, or in disobedience to, Him and His Righteous Laws, and would then return to Him, genuinely with all of their heart & soul. (Deut 4:29-31, e.g. Jer 29:10-20; cf. 1 Cor 5:5; Rev 18:2-4). And it is the actual direct Bible background for the characteristics of this First Beast in Rev 13:2a found in Hos 13:7-8 and its context, which confirms this permitting, and even orchestrating, hand of God in allowing this “Satanic takeover” of His now paganistically apostasized, yet still Name-professing, People.
In ministry, and through the prophet Hosea, God is trying to deal with a resolutely ‘awhoring’ People (cf. Hos 3). And by Hos 13, as every attempted remonstrating has failed to evoke any desire to repent in “Ephraim” (=10 Northern Tribes of Israel (vs. 2 Southern Tribes known as “Judah”)), God then resorts to His ultimate measure, which is to Himself, in “tough love”, act as a chastising, even destroying, enemy to His Unfaithful People. So in Hos 13:7-8, God states that He will become like:
(iii) - a lion/ness to His People, and who vindictively/j|z-ealously/protectively devours them
(i) - a leopard who slyly watches and lies in wait for the perfect opportunity to pounce
(ii) - a bear who encounters them for having robbed her of her cubs
(iv) - a wild beast tearing them up
All of these 4 character-istics are involved in the composite beast of Rev 13:1-10 which, by the authority of Satan, usurpingly, or really: electedly, assumes authority over the Church and People of God. And from the interpreting Biblical origins and understandings that have been stated above in regards to both these different animals, as well as the prior Kingdoms and Civilization traits they represented, it can here further be seen just how the composition of the Rev 13 First Beast will specifically underminingly affect God’s NT Israel/Church:
(i) - It inceptively was the incrementally gradual compromising and assimilating of the Christian/Catholic Church with Graeco-Roman pagan culture, which, “unsuspectingly”, came to, indeed like a sly leopard lying in wait, pounce on, and plunge, them into this downfall of utter apostasy towards God. And just like the body contains the functional organs critically vital to life, strip the Roman Catholic Church of all of these appended and derived Graeco-Roman paganistic beliefs/teachings and rites/practices (e.g. worship of idol, eternal soul and purgatory, eternal hell, Sun-day Sacredness, etc) and you’d effectively/actually have a Biblically Reformed Church body, pointedly if Christ and God, instead of the usurping Pope is made, and maintained as, its head. (Eph 1:22-23; 4:14-16; 5:23; Col 1:18; 1 Cor 11:3; cf. Matt 23:8-11).
(ii) - Any apostasy accomplishment by Satan here would have been short lived if its generational continuity was not secured, all along the lines of a bear who has been herself robbed of her children, not permitting another to have their own children. So here, this apostasy was perpetuated by involving the children as early, and as much, as possible in its ways, and this can be seen in how much emphasis the Roman Catholic Church places in both breeding and making good Catholics of children by parents...all starting with the unscriptural children baptism rite. Of course this is all done in the name of ‘saving the children’ from being lost and suffering (paganistic) Purgatory/Hell judgement. By such fearful and ruthless dogma from the Church against anyone who would leave its ranks, the chances of a next generation arising which would rebel against the Church, including along the commendable lines of Scriptural Reform, were greatly lessened. Thus the Catholic Church alone was likely to only grow and spread into future years.
And on a wider, and symbolic ecclesiastical level, the same “other (type) of children bereaving” was similarly accomplished by the Church, through its inculcated false teachings, to the point that even when a generation finally arose which broke away from the Catholic Church in Reformers and the Protestant Church who allowed for believer to freely worship God according to their conscience, -(thus fulfilling that symbolic “bear element” representative of Medo-Persia -which differed from its hegemonic predecessor Babylon by allowing Religious Freedom to all of its subjects), the offspring, =“daughters”, that was then produced in Protestants still continued to have the “harlot” forehead (cf. Jer 3:3) mentality & characteristics of their/the “Mother Church.” (Rev 17:5).
And this “Daughter Harlot Protestant” movement has indeed gone on to continuingly mirror the God-ward apostasy of their Mother (=Rev 13:14), now in regards to contra-God and anti-Sabbatical (=Capitalistic) socio-economic matters, which thus is having an even wider reach and deeper establishment (=“feet”) amongst the people of the Earth.
(iii) - Israel had rejected God as their King who would lead and protect them (1 Sam 8:7); and in their naturally ensuing misled and vulnerable apostasy, God would taunt them as to ‘where is their preferred other king now?!!’ (Hos 13:9-11). In the apostasy of the NT Church, it decided to assure the survivability of its preferred wayward way of doing things by, as symbolizing by the ruling lion and its mouth: enacting binding religious/worship laws which it would be ruthlessly enforcing by the sword. (Rev 13:7, 10) Babylon, symbolized by the lion, indeed also had sought to assure its blasphemous-survivability, even against the Word of God (Dan 2), by enacting religious laws enforced also by the penalty of death. (Dan 3).
Tellingly enough, if there is anything which more aided the Reforming of the Church, (however as well as founding atheism, as seen in the French Revolution), it was this use of authoritarian legislative, and coercive/penal physical, “devouring” force upon its subjects and against those who dissented with her.
(iv) - This indeed all just produce a wild beast which eventually self-exhausted itself...only to, as discussed next, be replaced by a deceptively seemingly better/tame lamb-like beast in the Second Beast, the United States,...which would actually still be doing the express will of the dragon (Rev 13:1, 11), thus actually worshipping Satan (Rev 13:4, 12, 16; 2 Thess 2:9-12; cf. Rom 2:8; 6:16)...
See much more on the meaning of the above symbolism in Rev 13:2 from it background context of Dan 7:4-6 in this post section.
See much more on the meaning of the above symbolism in Rev 13:2 from it background context of Dan 7:4-6 in this post section.
Rev 13's Second Beast {Cf. this presentation}- Then follows another Beast (Rev 13:11-18), (which is actually a mere “image” of that First Beast), however while seeming to be distinct, having initially different prominent features. It had managed to step in the place of this prior Beast because one of the heads of that First Beast had been slaughtered by a fatal wound. And so despite the fact that this First Beast had gone on to recover from its fatal wound (Rev 13:3-4), it was this Beast which now had the great, influential temporal power, however that First Beast regained its great religious influence. And through the image of the First Beast that the Second Beast had itself erected, it was also causing worship of the First Beast, and ultimately, the Dragon who was the originator of this authority (Rev 13:4, 12).
Interestingly enough, whereas the First Beast enforced its authority by ‘taking up arms’ in physical war, this second “mirroring” Beast achieves its ends merely by it having given “breath” (= life) to the image that it has made to the First Beast: ‘so that this image would of itself speak (= legislate), and thus “cause/make” that as many would not worship it may be killed. So while this Second Beast, with its ‘two, crownless, little lamb horns’ (Rev 13:11a), -thus made up of two ruling powers which are actually not ‘monarchially controlled by a single chief ideology’, thus: (1) a democratically-determined Free Government (as functionally accomplished in many possible, periodically ruling, representative political parties); and (2) a Freedom of Religion/Worship (as seen in its accepted, many, quasi-plethora, of denominations, which includes Roman Catholicism),[3] it however, and continuously/repeatedly, all during this time, (and not ‘only in the future’), as seen by the use a Greek imperfect tense, would still be ‘speaking as a dragon’. So what it would be causing its sustained Beast image to “speak” (= legislate) all of this time (Rev 13:15) would always be just what the Dragon/Devil himself would be saying.
–Now it is here in Rev 17:3, that this evolving, True Christianity-opposing, Devil/Dragon reflecting, Beast comes to find its ultimate form, thus forming the true/full Babylon that God’s people are to get out of (Rev 18). As stated above, John now sees a perverted form of the True Church of Christ. However this woman now also has temporal power through the “scarlet Beast” which it is riding upon, which indeed characteristically has the unmistakable associating identities of: “blasphemous (i.e., God-slandering) names”, “7 heads”, and “10 horns”.
Resulting Rev 17 Woman w/Beast - So with all of these explanations, it can be seen that this Rev 17:3 Woman and Beast is a furtherance of the Rev 13 Beast, which had been advanced by the Second Beast there. And while the descriptions in Rev 17 have been commonly claimed against the Medieval Roman Catholic Church as Babylon, the prophetic facts of the matter is that, just as the pure woman that had gone into the wilderness had been the Church being pursued by the Medieval Church, thus, generally speaking, the Protestant Church. And it is that Church that now comes out of this “wilderness” (which actually is then the inhabited land of North America, and most pointedly, the present United States = Rev 12:13-16), and when it comes riding out of that wilderness area, it is now also a temporal power, indeed just like Christian groups fled to the land of present day U.S. to flee Religious/Catholic Persecution, and then formed an initially, predominant Protestant Country: the United States of America.[4] (See more about the two “Dragon” Beast entities which are the symbological basis/background of this Woman w/Beast entity here.)
Twofold Corruptions - So logically and sequiturly speaking, as this ‘Woman and Beast combination’ = “Babylon” power; American Protestants, now comes to hold the religious and temporal sway of the prior ‘Holy Roman Empire’ manifestation of that power. And on top mimicking many of the “God-slandering” claims and practices of the Historical Babylonian Power (= Rev 13's First Beast), this Second Beast would also add its own Divine slanders. And that pointedly is in the Economic Realm, in its usurping of the True and Full Gospel of Jesus Christ with fully acted upon claims that ‘Capitalistic-living is God’s ideal will and way.’ However this “blasphemy” would only result in filling the earth with God-abhorring “abominations”.
Rev 17:4 - The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and of the unclean things of her harlotry,
purple and scarlet clothes - Quite interestingly enough, the understanding of this symbol is, jointly, two-fold. On one side, based on God’s description in Isa 1:18, the color scarlet/red itself is considered to be the color of sins, and is contrasted with the sinlessness/righteousness color of white. The color white for clothing is also representative of Biblical, grace&faith-based (i.e. Eph 2:8-10; Jam 2:14-26) good works (Rev 19:7-9; cf. Rev 3:4-5; 16:15).
However, on the “flip side” there is the clear usage of both scarlet and purple for clothing in the Bible that were to reflect great favor, wealth and luxury. As such they were used to luxuriously clothe rich people, which included monarchs (2 Sam 1:24; Psa 31:21; cf. Jer 4:30). That is also why Jesus was clothed in such colors by the, albeit mocking, Romans (Matt 27:28; John 19:2, 5; cf. Dan 5:29).
Relatedly there is also a theologically related usage of these two colors in God’s redemptive ministry work, as He made those colors to be a part of both the Tabernacle adornment (see in Exod 26; 27; 35; 36; 38) as well as for the Priest’s Vestments (see in Exod 28; 39). This is straightly seen to be reflective of the fact that the Tabernacle would be the place where sins would be dealt with and also by the fact that the priests would be involved in the ministry of taking away sins and also that God expected the very best of support and honor for this redemptive work from His people.
There is also a quite interestingly Theological reconciling purpose for this consistent dual use of this color. By making these luxurious, (but sin-symbolic) colors an integral part of the Sanctuary and priesthood, God apparently wanted to instill in Israel that true, just/honest, and thus lasting riches and glory in this fallen, sinful world would not be achieved without first dealing with the (interposing) presence of sin. (Cf. Mar 16:26|Mar 8:36). Indeed had Israel understood this, they would not have crucified Christ who, despite the fact that He was their great hope and Messianic King, literally the Crown Jewel of their temporal and religious expectations, He instead came as a poor, lowly, sin-bearer. (Matt 8:20) So the “luxurious but sinful” scarlet/purple vestments that were mockingly put on Jesus (who was indeed a Priest & King = Heb 6:20-7:1) by the Romans actually aptly depicted this Spiritual reality. That indeed was the vivid and pivotal reality at Christ’s Triumphal entry (Matt 21:1-11). Because of Israel’s persisted sins, they could not enjoy the Temporal glory that they greatly desired. (= the, to be cutoff, Messiah-King in Dan 9:25-27).
And on a practically applicable level, with the ‘love of money/wealth being the root of all sorts of evil’ (1 Tim 6:10), such as chiefly idolatry (Luke 16:13; cf. Exod 20:3), it can be seen here how the two are intrinsically linked as it was/is the love of money, wealth and gain that was/is at the root of the Apostate Babylonian System, -both in its Historical Phase (with the Catholic Church =Rev 17:4) and its Eschatological Phase ((Protestant) Capitalism =Rev 18:12, 16).
What is key to all of this, as brought out by Daniel Pel in his exposition on Rev 17 [27:48-31:18], is that the color blue, which, was also a very present color in the vestment of the priest and the material for the Sanctuary (see in above cited references), is missing from the colors of this ‘luxuriously reigning Woman’. As Num 15:37-41 points out that this color was symbolic of God’s commandments, and the blue tassel that all Israelites were there instructed to also wear was in order to keep them from forgetting to do all of God’s commandments, (an instruction that was given on the heels of God speaking of sacrifices for unintentional sins (Num 15:22-31, -and just after an incident where someone defiantly broke the Sabbath commandment (Num 15:31-36)), then it is seen that this Woman chose to leave this color out of her vestment. So this could represent several related things:
-Religiously/Spiritually, she could be assuming the function of a ministering (but OT-styled) priest/sanctuary of God, but, futilely, without paying attention to all, or none, of God’s Commandments. So she really was not forgiving any, or actual, sins. (cf. e.g., James 2:9-11; 1 John 3:4; Rom 3:20; 7:7).
-Temporally, she had achieved a quite wealthy and luxurious standard/status, as further seen in the added mentions of ‘adornments with gold and precious stones and pearls’, but all “harlotrously” living outside of God’s commandments.
So this Woman was dually acting as a spurious, lawless, sin-condoning Church who thus obtained great temporal riches outside of God’s ways and will. (Cf. Jer 4:30-31)
Reformation’s Touchstone - Of course the Historic Catholic Church did live in extreme luxury. In fact, the extorting and spiritually abusing methods that they used to amass this wealth, as seen in the theology for the sales of indulgences, was the watershed moment that cultimatingly brought about the birth of the Protesting Church, under Martin Luther, as his 95 Theses (see link there at bottom to full (translated) text) were pointedly against the thievery in this practice, as well as the underlying false theology that whitewashingly sustained it.
Woman’s cup - in the hand of this Woman is also a highly valued “gold” cup in which is found the “wine” of the ‘most abhorrent’ and unclean things of her ‘delighted harlotry.’ Thus it engages in this unfaithful-to-Christ living by most “delightingly”, even ‘feastingly,’ drinking the intoxicating wine of things that God abhors and considers to not be fit for various human consumption/interaction/utilization (= “unclean’).
“cup” symbol - the symbol of a cup itself seems to connote some kind triumph-celebrating ware. In Jer 51:7 shows that God also had used Babylon ‘as a cup’ towards ultimately triumphing ends. (Interestingly enough, athletes and sports teams usually are given a “cup” to crown a championship).
full of abominations.... - It is most sequitur and natural to readily, and indeed rightly, see, indeed from ample episodes in the Bible, that what God would (foundationally) consider to be “abominations” (i.e., most abhorring things to Him) would be in the area of sexual sin/perversion and idolatry (=here) (also/= lawlessness (=here) and spiritualism (=here))...and this “pompous/arrogant”, “blasphemous”, “unclean/filthy”, “harlot” certainly/evidently knows much about this...indeed ‘passing it around in that cup’. (cf. thisexplanation [39:20-42:07ff; 43:55-48:15ff] by Stephen Bohr on understanding what is in this cup). And the perfect historical/Biblical example of such “abominable conduct/character” is seen in the only cities which God (singularly), at least actively/pointedly/directly, “object-lessonly”, destroyed: Sodom and Gomorrah et al. (Gen 13:13; Jer 23:14; Isa 3:9; Jude 1:7; 2 Pet 2:6). Yet in Ezek 16:46-50, God knowingly states what was the “capital sin” of S&G. Beyond their notorious sin of sexual perversion, which was inherently non-natural (Rom 1:18-32), they actually may, as typically seen and “moronically”/“weak-willedly”, justifyingly claimed today (see here), may mostly/initially have chosen to act in these “inherently unnatural” ways because of various psychological, even (if scientifically actually proven to be true), epigenetical-skewing and deficiency; but the sin which God actionably laid as their “guilt” (Ezek 16:49a) was their socio-economic selfishness and neglect of those in need. (Ezek 16:49b). Indeed it has not been claimed that Israel itself, which in Ezek 16 is emblematically being pitted against Sodom, ever descended into, at least cultural/corporate/“pedestrian” homosexual sin, (-though this may have been inclusively going on in their idolatrous “high places”/temple cultus (Hos 4:11-14; Jer 3:2), but they did indeed do just like S&G in the area of socio-economic righteousness and justice. And God did take offense, and tangible judgement action against them, for those, indeed abominable/capital sins (Isa 1:9-17), even deeming/considering their level of abominable sinning to have been worst than S&G (Lam 4:6), -which is further demonstration that His likewise “guilting” of them was indeed in regards to such socio-economic waywardness.
full of abominations.... - It is most sequitur and natural to readily, and indeed rightly, see, indeed from ample episodes in the Bible, that what God would (foundationally) consider to be “abominations” (i.e., most abhorring things to Him) would be in the area of sexual sin/perversion and idolatry (=here) (also/= lawlessness (=here) and spiritualism (=here))...and this “pompous/arrogant”, “blasphemous”, “unclean/filthy”, “harlot” certainly/evidently knows much about this...indeed ‘passing it around in that cup’. (cf. thisexplanation [39:20-42:07ff; 43:55-48:15ff] by Stephen Bohr on understanding what is in this cup). And the perfect historical/Biblical example of such “abominable conduct/character” is seen in the only cities which God (singularly), at least actively/pointedly/directly, “object-lessonly”, destroyed: Sodom and Gomorrah et al. (Gen 13:13; Jer 23:14; Isa 3:9; Jude 1:7; 2 Pet 2:6). Yet in Ezek 16:46-50, God knowingly states what was the “capital sin” of S&G. Beyond their notorious sin of sexual perversion, which was inherently non-natural (Rom 1:18-32), they actually may, as typically seen and “moronically”/“weak-willedly”, justifyingly claimed today (see here), may mostly/initially have chosen to act in these “inherently unnatural” ways because of various psychological, even (if scientifically actually proven to be true), epigenetical-skewing and deficiency; but the sin which God actionably laid as their “guilt” (Ezek 16:49a) was their socio-economic selfishness and neglect of those in need. (Ezek 16:49b). Indeed it has not been claimed that Israel itself, which in Ezek 16 is emblematically being pitted against Sodom, ever descended into, at least cultural/corporate/“pedestrian” homosexual sin, (-though this may have been inclusively going on in their idolatrous “high places”/temple cultus (Hos 4:11-14; Jer 3:2), but they did indeed do just like S&G in the area of socio-economic righteousness and justice. And God did take offense, and tangible judgement action against them, for those, indeed abominable/capital sins (Isa 1:9-17), even deeming/considering their level of abominable sinning to have been worst than S&G (Lam 4:6), -which is further demonstration that His likewise “guilting” of them was indeed in regards to such socio-economic waywardness.
...And the reason for the inherently “guilt” for this type of sin being more condemnable/actionable than sexual, and even homosexual, sin, is that the Creator God may scientifically understand that degenerating genes, and/or the early childhood plastic psyche, may lead people, through unrestrained tendencies, to the extreme perversion of homosexual behavior and practice. So, though God does not condone people giving into these tendencies, such people may actually have a plausible, but false, (i.e., spurious), reason as to why they are/behave that way. But in the also abominable/selfishness area of “living and letting die”, which like homosexual sin, is, as discussed here, directly/inherently contributive to a culture of human-extincting death, (including, as seen with AIDS, from (the rapid spreading of) deadly sexual diseases), -indeed as one pastor put it: ‘easily within just one generation’, the current state of affairs which see people by the multiple-tens of millions, suffer and die from prevenatable, curable, and/or intentional/deliberate causes/actions is also a culture of death, and thus is likewise checked by God. Indeed socio-economic oppression and manslaying is easily more deadly than sexual/homosexual sinning. And in our world today, such socio-economic killings are being done in the name of a idolized economic system, namely the Protestant-birthed darling known as Capitalism, where people are left to suffer, die, and even directly kill as for abortions, not because there are not ample resources on this planet to abundantly meet the needs of all, including those who have been allowed to die, but merely because either procuring and making use of these resources is not according to the laughably fallacious, selfishness “ordering” tenets of this Evil system, -“championed” and propagated by (Protestants in/from) the United States of America!!
So all this to foundationally say, that, in that “golden cup” of this world-ruling/influencing/inebriating “harlot”, is not only to be found the various religious and behavorial “abominations” which are also proscribed in God’s Word, but also, and as God Himself has considered it, chiefly, in regards to socio-economic perversion, oppression and injustice!!!
Woman-Beast Identity - At this point, it is better, further, understood what had been introductorily stated in Rev 17:3.
Capitalism Unmasked - Ask the common person and the first thing that will come to mind as to “what has made America the wealthy and powerful, “superpower” nation that it currently is” and you’ll get the dogmatic, one-word answer of Capitalism. It clearly was not merely “Democracy” as there are many countries that are democratic, but not as wealthy. Instead it was indeed, key in the game of making money in this world, the full implementation of the Protestant-created economic system of Capitalism, and what made this fundamentally base system “stick”, especially amongst Christians, indeed despite its immediately recognized greed, selfishness, moral deficiency and ruthlessness, was the superimposed, whitewashing Protestant theology that it was squarely both God’s will for His People to become wealthy; and also the way that His favor on an individual would be revealed. (Ironically, but most significantly enough, this was in direct opposition to the Catholic view on both an individual grace/salvation and also their material prosperity). Not incidentally, this then led, like falling dominoes, to gradually accepting other related and self-needed economically advantaging evils such as native land grabs, slavery & segregation, economic-based wars, the neglect of the poor and needy, -all base and non-justified things that God indeed “abhors” and considers “unclean”.[6] Of course for this newly charted course to economic prosperity to work, trade with other countries, (which, particularly later on, also involve the outsourcing of work), had to be established with other governments. And so what began as an American phenomenon quickly spread, now literally throughout all but a handful of countries. Of course, as now clearly being seen, Capitalism, when purely and Laissez-Faire practised, and that to its inherent/inevitable pyramid scheme extent, indeed quickly reaches its limit of functionality, and those at the to increasingly can, and “lawfully” do, take a bigger share of the produced wealth. Those at the bottom are then left, like slaves, to merely eek out a subsistence income, and that while doing most of the wealth-producing work. So, as with the symbology in this prophecy, to get the masses to accept to be so exploited, they have to be made, and kept drunk with the flowing wine of this cup.
symbology of “gold” in cup - Interestingly enough, for Capitalism to thrive it has to discredit and destroy the elements of ‘faith and love’ in society. That is: ‘(man-ward) faith in fellow men’, to be instead replaced with a compliance-guaranteeing, consequential fetter (e.g., default, front-loaded (compounding) interest to encourage quick and full repayment). Indeed there is very little that is freely, “riskily”, left to ‘trust in another person’ in this system. Only seeing is believing.
Also to go is the notion of being truly loving, which involves ‘doing, even self-sacrificingly, all that is possible to help meet the needs of others. That Biblical trait is instead replaced with a worshipful notion of “individualistic self-love”.
Therefore with the notion of “gold”, as having been shown here from the SOP, to symbolically represent “faith and love combined”:
“The gold mentioned by Christ, the True Witness, which all must have, has been shown me to be faith and love combined, and love takes the precedence of faith. Satan is constantly at work to remove these precious gifts from the hearts of God's people. All are engaged in playing the game of life. Satan is well aware that if he can remove love and faith, and supply their place with selfishness and unbelief, all the remaining precious traits will soon be skillfully removed by his deceitful hand, and the game will be lost.” (2T 36, 37)
The Bible goes on to show that “hope” is inextricably link to this faith and love combination (1 Cor 13:13; cf. 1 Thess 1:3; 1 Thess 5:4-9; -see similar themes being prophetically involved in Rev 14:9-12; 16:19). Indeed “hope” is what results from the exercising of such ‘faith and love’, in God and/or in fellow man. So it is easily seen how the removal of this chief love trait comes to destroy “faith”, and then “hope”. The SDA Church is big on making the claim that ‘the Second Coming must soon occur because it is ‘the only hope for this world’’, and while that is ultimately, Spiritually true, God has unequivocally mandated His Church/Followers to model this chief element of love to the world. It is thus that both faith and hope can be also highly demonstrated to the world, all helping to produce the clear final Gospel testimony to the world. (Matt 24:14; cf. John 13:34-35; 15:12-13).
So it is conversely not surprising that Satan seeks to destroy love in both the Church and the world, and there is indeed nothing more capable of accomplishing this than the selfishness and unbelief that is foundational to the economic system of Capitalism. And since it is “drunkenedly” believed by the vast majority to be ‘the only way that a livelihood could be obtained in this “game of life”,’ people just fearfully, mindlessly and/or sheepishly go along with it. And there is nothing more deceptive than for the Church to be the propagator of this false theology, and this is what this ‘Woman riding on this, also wealthy (= scarlet), Beast’ has now come to do, and convinced, and/or intoxicated others throughout the world, to go along with it.
(fermented) wine for the masses - As the world is mostly democratic, Capitalism can actually easily be replaced with a Socialistic economy if people move to, indeed just as Social programs have been increasingly, democratically, largely “mixed in” and implemented in “Capitalistic” countries. So for the participation of the “kings” of the earth, thus the world’s democratic government, the People, who are the “electorate”, must indeed counterintuitively be seduced into supporting this spurious and whimsical system. And that is done with the selfish and covetous fairy tale that: ‘if you participate in this system, eventually you also will surely, and easily/naturally, make it rich’. However in the now clearly observable reality of diminishing, readily procurable, resources, (though this supply is circularly being capitalistically artificially restricted), it is here that Capitalism shows its true colors as everyone now still do as they had been conditioned, and thus continue to fend for themselves, not thinking about anyone else but themselves, and justifying this as ‘needing to insure their future livelihood.’ Of course that “future livelihood” is, at the very least, to be, as personally deemed valid, at its present status. And so, for the multi-billionaire, it is to continue to be at that multi-billion dollar level. And so it is the unempowered poor who are made to increasingly live with the diminishing rest of the pie.
Substitutiary Mission Accomplished - So while many such socio-economic abuses, borne out of theological heresy, were especially/paramountly seen in the Historical Catholic Church, the Protestant Church took this to indeed a whole new, advanced and more successful/widely accepted level through Capitalism. Thus it is the perfect entity through which Satan could successfully, and thoroughly, oppose and uproot God’s True Church and People, even now given them a comfortable, Jerusalem-substituting City as their new home, and that, imperceptibly so, for those who allow themselves to be drunken by the fermented wine in her passed around “golden” cup (cf. 1 Thess 5:4-9).
Rev 17:5 - and on her forehead a name was written, a mystery, "BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH."
mysterious name on the forehead - Science and the Bible reveals that the forehead is where the decision for subsequently acted out deeds are priorly rationally processed and congealed. So when it is said in the Bible that someone has some kind of forehead, it represents what they have resolutely decided to be. And so, most relatedly enough, in Jer 3:1-3, an unfaithful Judah is said to have chosen to have “the forehead of a harlot” because, despite its quite blatantly abhorrent behavior, and even many painful consequences, it has decided to ‘refuse to be ashamed’ and continues unabated in its shameful ways. Similarly, this Woman and Beast have rationally seen the abhorrence of her ways and the various global harms that it is causing, but it has instead chosen to not be ashamed and continue on this ungodly course. Thus its “character” is indeed shameless as Babylon of Old (i.e., as seen in Nebuchadnezzar’s resolute obstinacy in Dan 2-4 to continue to live in defiance of the authority of the powerfully manifested God of Heaven. (cf. Dan 5:20-21)). The behavior of this socio-economic harlot has indeed birthed similar harlots through the world, as Christians in other countries throughout the world also readily have adopted Capitalism. And thus this abhorrent lifestyle has spread throughout the world and adherents of Capitalism have come to indifferently, detrimentally cause and do quite abhorring wrongs in this world.
Mother of... the Abominations of the Earth - Indeed, as typically seen in Jer 46-51, of all of the judgement issues that God has with the various countries/societies in the world, Babylon’s own stand as His Chief Abhorrence. (See Jer 50 & 51 and cf. this post). Indeed an ‘all-ensuing evils, global mothering’ that is also done in/with Capitalism (= 1 Tim 6:10), which is, synonymous with covetousness (Heb 13:5; cf. EW 266-269), which in turn is idolatry (Eph 5:5; 5T 337.2-3), and, interestingly enough, on the same ‘“dangerosity” level’ as: ‘being addicted to wine’ (1 Tim 3:3).
Rev 17:6 - And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus. When I saw her, I wondered greatly.
Drunk with blood not wine - Oddly enough this woman is said to be drunk with the blood of the saints and witnesses of Jesus, and not with wine. It can here be seen that, like a cunning, profit-seeking, swindler, though this Woman is making others drunk with the wine in her cup, (See Rev 17:2; 18:3), she herself is not actually drinking this wine. She nonetheless is still said to be drunk, and that because of drinking blood of God’s righteous people. This most gruesome imagery here cannot be ignored, and Rev 16:5-6 shows that this is related to having persecuted and killed the saints and prophets of God.
So this woman is most satisfied with (simply) killing the faithful and righteous people of God, and as such, it is straightforwardly seen that she is a pawn of Satan himself, who ultimately has this great desire and objective. (Rev 12:4, 13-17). So while she drunkens the nations with wine, she herself prefers to be drunken with the blood of the righteous. And it is through her sustained “wine-drunkening” of the nations that her cherished “blood-drunkening” is realizable and maintained.
John’s astonishment - John indeed greatly wondered here because this wilderness woman was now doing the very thing that had forced her to go to the wilderness. It is now also deathly and vitally, albeit then, indirectly, standing against those who would live according to the Bible and Christ’s Full Gospel.
Rev 17:7 - And the angel said to me, "Why do you wonder? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns.
understanding specifications -John then has to be given pointed “hidden truths” to understand how this wilderness Woman & Beast is now just as corrupt as the prior manifestation of it (= Rev 13:1-10 - which was the Historical Catholic Church, and which in turn had previously been manifested in Pagan Rome (Rev 12:3ff))
Rev 17:8 - "The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to come up out of the abyss and go to destruction. And those who dwell on the earth, whose name has not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, will wonder when they see the beast, that he was and is not and will come.
First Beast Image - As seen with the Second Beast of Rev 13, it is responsible for the resurrection of the First Beast by forming an image to the defeated Holy Roman empire. It completes its doing so by given ‘breath/life to that First-Beast image it had made’, thus making it a living entity. (~ Gen 2:7) That past Beast is however itself not tangibly resurrected, but only present through now its ‘enlivened image.’ And so it is when the Second’s Beast image will be established that it will most exactly mirror that First Beast by making those who want to truly live according to the Bible, as mandated in Christ’s Gospel, to be put to death.
Giving Life to the 1st Beast Image - Currently this ‘Beast’ being referred to here in Rev 17:8 will be a ‘enlivened Image to the First Beast (538-1798 A.D.)’ of Rev 13. (See more detailed reckonings below in Rev 17:10). It is said that it “is not” i.e., in/from 1798 to 2011ff meaning that it is not in ‘full life vigor yet’. Indeed a (lifeless body) image to that First Beast has actually already been formed by the Second Beast, it is just that life has not yet been breathed into it. That is seen by the fact that although the same anti-Gospel, anti-Law and anti-Sabbath/Sabbatical Principles of God continue to reign supreme in Protestant Second Beast, people who since 1798 have not, and do not, want to live according to those ways can still outrightly live, and/or, maintain a sustainable living, thus not dying as Rev 13:15-17 prophesies. Indeed the global reach of this Beast’s enlivened image is not being enforcedly seen through the world and this ‘success while living without/outside of Capitalistic principles’ is most tangibly seen in countries that have chosen to not have a Capitalistic economy. (And if better management had been in place in those countries, they would be achieving, or have achieved, a much better quality of living. Indeed it was really mismanagement, due to internal corruption, that brought the U.S.S.R. to an end.) It is however when the world, led by America and other first world countries/economies will formally codify in law that ‘those who do not go along with Capitalism cannot buy or sell in any world markets, and are thus to be left to fend on their own, at their own life risk, that the First Beast will be revived through this image, for it is then, as with the abolishing of God’s Sabbath Commandments, that now God’s other sabbatical socio-economic laws (cf. Isa 58) will be officially also abolished and replaced with this Beast’s “Mark”. Indeed the focal sin of this (“Protestant”) Babylon is that, in their drunken mindless pursuit of individual wealth, they have chosen (contra e.g., Matt 25:31-46) ‘to neglect to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to deal justly, and to love mercy.’ (GC 654.1)
The “Perdition” Beast - 2 Thes 2:3-4 had stated that this lawless ‘in-the-place-of-Christ’ power would indeed be doomed to perdition/destruction. And it is in the similarly themed “perdition” episode with Judas (John 17:12), that the full meaning of this development is understood. Judas did not intend to maliciously “betray” Jesus. He just was seeking to “help” Jesus out, and by thinking that he knew better than Christ as to what the triumphing principles of His kingdom should be implemented, if it is to be successful, he acted upon those faithless, selfish and sin-ignoring beliefs.
Similarly this Scarlet Beast (= the Second Beast with its formed and enlivened First Beast image) have since the start been acting out of a Christ-opposing, non-loving, theology that ‘Capitalism is God’s very way, both Spiritually and Temporally’, and that despite the blatant fact that it promotes and practices a fundamental survival of the richest/fittest mentality which chiefly condones maintaining the overall livelihood through abortions, as well as letting millions of born people die prematurely of preventable and curable issues. And for various reasons of fanciful convenience, including sanctimonious “religious ones”, as with the belief of SDA’s that ‘the Second Coming is too close to do all that can be done to help those suffering and dying people’ (contra God’s sabbatical socio-economic principle in Deut 15:7-11), various groups of peoples, pointedly Christians, have chosen to indifferently ‘walk around these least of these and instead continue to go about their (actually basely, grotesquely mal-understood) “more important and superior religious duties/tasks.”’ (= Luke 10:25-37|COL 376-389).
And even when this First Beast`s Image will be brought to life and its economic dogma will be coercely implemented (Rev 13:15-17), it will be through an adamantly and/or resolutely maintained belief that this system is God’s will and, more tangibly, that opposing it and thus causing it to crucially lessen in value is actually life-threatening to them. Hence the legislative justification to pass formal laws and policies to oppose any who chooses to live outside of its ways, as the NJK Project will.
Like Judas, these (Christians) leader and followers of this Mark of the Beast movement will be acting faithlessly and rebelliously in regards to Christ and His Gospel in such economic matters, and pointedly, as discussed earlier, just like Ancient Israel chose to not have faith in God’s sabbatical 7th year rest law which resulted in their Babylonian deportation. Spiritual History has indeed repeated itself with this Revelation’s Babylon. (See more understanding on Rev 17:8 here.)
Abyssal Origins - The fact that this Beast will come from the abyss, shows that it is indeed inspired by Satan himself (through his demons -cf. Luke 8:31), with his post-Calvary, wrathful plans to actually completely doom and ruin this world, including all life on it, as Capitalism is actually increasingly doing. (Rev 12:12)
On a more hermeneutic symbolism level, since the Bible is clear that the “abyss” can literally be the “deeps of the oceans” (e.g., Gen 1:2; 7:11; 8:2; Job 38:16, 30; Psa 78:15; Jon 2:5; Isa 51:10; 63:13 (LXX); Luke 8:31, 33), and with waters in prophecy being a symbols of “peoples, multitudes, nations and tongues” (Rev 17:15), then it can be claimed, along with the understanding that this is the choice place for demons, that an “abyss” can be a symbol for the ‘deep/dark/base, demon-influenced, passions of human/peoples/countries’.
And so applying this understanding for “abyss” in the transpired, Historical fulfillments of (1) Rev 9:1, 2, 11 (discussed in here) and (2) Rev 11:7; it can be seen that both (1) the events of the rise of Militant Islam and (2) the French Revolution were both out of base passions of men and thus literally gave the devil and demons a place to inhabit. The same type of application checks out in the Eschatological interpretations and application of these prophecies. (See here for Rev 11).
And so applying this understanding for “abyss” in the transpired, Historical fulfillments of (1) Rev 9:1, 2, 11 (discussed in here) and (2) Rev 11:7; it can be seen that both (1) the events of the rise of Militant Islam and (2) the French Revolution were both out of base passions of men and thus literally gave the devil and demons a place to inhabit. The same type of application checks out in the Eschatological interpretations and application of these prophecies. (See here for Rev 11).
So this geo-religion beast power in Rev 17 would similarly, really originate out of the base living of humans, such as selfishness (e.g. 4T 384.3), covetousness (e.g. EW 266-269), greed (e.g. Luke 12:15), etc (see esp. the [full] MSDAOL discussion in here), and the Devil and his demons would endorsedly, indeed thus have a prime place to inhabit and establish their long desire rule which is based on such base traits (See DA 20.1-21.3). And also, with this understanding, Jesus’ counsel to ‘guard this spiritual abode in man less demons inhabit it’ (Matt 12:43-45), -with this human abode evidently being the other favorite place to (possibly) be (Matt 12:43), would thus Spiritually make even greater, tangible sense.
Rev 17:9 - "Here is the mind which has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits,
Needed Wisdom - the appeal to, in context, ‘end-time “wisdom”’ here surely is synonymous with the ‘borne out of righteous living’, “insight/wisdom” needed to unseal, and thus understand, eschatological prophecies, which had been spoken of in Dan 12:3-4, 10.[7]
Symbol of 7 Heads/Mountains - as discussed here, the symbolism of “mountains” involve ‘the most desired, conflictively, naturalistically-forged, also majestically visible, pinnacles in a land.’ It is where people ultimately desire to be established in a land in conflict, as this world intrinsically is, due mainly to its greater ability to be defended. In society today this is seen in reaching the peak of one’s environment, and in the economic world, which most everyone is affected by, this desired status, admiration and security is mainly achieved by becoming as prominent, valuable, and thus wealthy, as possible. So indeed in today’s Capitalistic world, the highest peaks are indeed the downtown skyscrapers that competing companies have erected as crowning symbols of their wealth, stability/vitality and power. Indeed this whole space is usually much more than a single corporation actually needs and most of the available offices spaces in those high rises are sold/rented off to other smaller companies.
So here the notion of a ‘way of thinking’ (= 7 heads) being synonymous with those ‘desired habitation and protection desired peaks’ (= 7 mountains), shows that this woman would establish its influence by seating itself upon those chiefly representative peaks found in its land. Thus it would “ideologically” (= heads) seat itself upon the chief mentalities in its land, and “tangibly” (= mountains) on the highest peaks of these ideas that can be found. And so, e.g., in the economic realm, it would ideologically take a seat upon a Capitalistic mindset, and also, tangibly, atop the most wealthy/powerful corporations.
on which the woman sits - The woman (=now the Protestant Church) is actually seated on a scarlet beast (Rev 17:3). So that beast is equivalent to the 7 mountains/kings, as later shown: = kingdoms. So this is the Protestant Church power sitting on a Beast (worldly power) which is made up of 7 mountains/kings/kingdoms. And technically speaking, contrary to the common interpretation for that statement, as seen here the Vatican itself, the seat of the Roman Catholic Church, is actually not seated/located on the Seven Hills of Rome, but the secular city of Rome, the capital city of Italy, is. So an identification with the Vatican here is not accurate. It is rather pointing to a worldly/secular power.
So since the 7 heads which are 7 mountains and kings/kingdoms, upon which the woman sits and is equivalent to the scarlet beast power, this is representing a Church seizing control of a secular power. Those 7 mountains are later, also “wisely”, identified.
on which the woman sits - The woman (=now the Protestant Church) is actually seated on a scarlet beast (Rev 17:3). So that beast is equivalent to the 7 mountains/kings, as later shown: = kingdoms. So this is the Protestant Church power sitting on a Beast (worldly power) which is made up of 7 mountains/kings/kingdoms. And technically speaking, contrary to the common interpretation for that statement, as seen here the Vatican itself, the seat of the Roman Catholic Church, is actually not seated/located on the Seven Hills of Rome, but the secular city of Rome, the capital city of Italy, is. So an identification with the Vatican here is not accurate. It is rather pointing to a worldly/secular power.
So since the 7 heads which are 7 mountains and kings/kingdoms, upon which the woman sits and is equivalent to the scarlet beast power, this is representing a Church seizing control of a secular power. Those 7 mountains are later, also “wisely”, identified.
Protestant Endorsement - For this woman to achieve and maintain its position as a wealthy and widely accepted ruling Church with temporal power, it indeed has to supportingly sit upon those mountains. Their identities are discussed with the further and fuller specifications in Rev 17:10.
Rev 17:10 - and they are seven kings; five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; and whenever it is that he may come, as it is necessary that he remain a little while.
Identities of 7 Heads-Mountains-Kings - The identity of these ‘representative desirable ways of thinking’ thus its “7 heads”, also functioning as as “kings”, (which are actually 7 king-doms since the four beasts in Dan 7:17 involved more than just 4 individual kings: (namely: Babylon: 2; Medo-Persia: 9; Greece: 5+; Rome:10+)), is seen from previously occurring Beast heads-kings-kingdoms (=Dan 7:17) in Bible prophecy. The first 4 of those Heads-Beasts-Kingdoms, though slained at God’s enabling (cf. Dan 2:21; Isa 45:1-2) were indeed said to have been allowed by God to (ideologically) survived for a pointed future purpose, in due time (Dan 7:12; cf. Rev 17:17). Thus they namely, firstly are: 1. Babylon (Lion - Dan 7:4); 2. Medo-Persia (Bear - Dan 7:5); 3. Greece (Leopard - Dan 7:6); 4. Pagan Rome (Non-descript - Dan 7:7); 5. Papal Rome (Little Horn (Dan 7:8). As Papal Rome came to an end in 1798, the sixth Beast that is ‘then “is”’, is Protestant|Capitalistic America, which indeed increasingly came to succeed in the combined Religious, Prosperity and Temporal, thus Globally most influential, position that the Medieval Catholic Church had achieved at its Zenith, indeed even ruling over sovereign kings. Then a heightened form of that sixth Beast will come to be when it breathes life into its already formed image to the First Beast. Then will the Rev 17's 7-Head & 10-Horn Babylon symbology be seen in its fullness.
The Sixth Head-Mountain-King-Kingdom - As normative with most world ruling kingdoms, they usually come to incorporate what they considered to be worthwhile from the kingdom they conquered and replaced, or simply past kingdoms. Without going into detail here, this was seen in the 4 world hegemony transitions from Ancient Babylon through the Holy Roman Empire. And even in the United States this similar development is seen. So this Woman (=Church) sitting on those heads=mountains=kings=kingdoms indeed has had to, respectively, select the various ideological/socio-economic/political traits that would help it to achieve this great Global influence and superiority. So it, i.e., currently Protestant|Capitalistic America, has explicitly and implicitly chiefly taken from these past “5 kings/kingdoms”:
1. Babylon - Satan-Inspired, Indifferent Divine defiance (cf. Isa 13:12-14ff; Dan 2-4)
2. Medo-Persia - State-checked Freedom of Worship (cf. Dan 6)
3. Greece - Democracy, Science, Culture, Humanism
4. Pagan Rome - Government, Militarism, Law and Order, Industrialism
5. Papal Rome - Religious Propaganda for Influence
And it has mergingly used all of these selected traits to conceptualize, implement, sustain and spread its Sixth Head-Mountain-King contribution which is (Protestant) Capitalism. However when this Sixth entity is to fully manifest itself as the 7th Head-Mountain-King, thus a seventh world ‘way of thinking’-‘Living/Surviving’-‘Ruling’, it is to keyly bring to life an image to the persecutively coercing 5th king, thus indeed enforcing this ‘way of thinking and living/surviving’ through its intertwined political arm, thus by legislation.
-Much more can be said here in regards to these selected traits found in the Sixth and then Seventh Head-Mountain-King. E.g., in regards to the, now culminating, transition from the Sixth to the Seventh eras; this is currently being seen, thus done, in the modern, second (i.e., post WWII) phase of Globalization (as now seen in e.g., EU; G-8, then G-20, then G-77/~132 Organizations) which in recent years have (neededly) sought to have more Economic emphases.
Thematic Sabbatical Implication - It cannot be ignored that it is when the Sixth Entity is about to see that its system is going to collapse, and that by having shown its true colors, that is then resorts to strong-arming measures, for a Seventh Entity. This parallels how God’s Sabbath, as also reflected in various spiritual and socio-economic Sabbatical principles is to take place after a sixth period. So to oppose this natural shifting to a Sabbatical Entity (i.e., the NJK Project) in the Seventh Period, this challenged Sixth Beast will take binding legislative measure to impose its own unbiblical, and thus spurious, Seventh Entity. It thus would be establishing a “Full Sabbath of God” opposing entity.
It is necessary... - As with the summoning of Ancient Babylon against His Israel, God has a grand purpose to fulfill in regards to now also the whole world, in allowing this Apostate power to become established. (Cf. Rev 17:17)
Rev 17:11 - "The beast which was and is not, is himself also an eighth and is one of the seven, and he goes to destruction.
The Full Babylonian Power - Manifestly, when the fullest symbolism of the woman sitting on a 7-headed Beast will be achieved, it will itself form a Beast of its own which will be an eighth Beast, thus a distinct eighth global power, having its own/distinct new “way of thinking” -i.e., a “New World Order”.[8] And this is apparently, as seen next in Rev 17:12, when the symbolism of the ten horns will fully come into place, thus when other ruling powers follow the lead of the Sixth-Seventh Beast, thus also passing anti-socio-economic sabbatical legislation in their countries. It thus will be most similar to the here fatally wounded 5th Beast’s Head, which historical was the Holy Roman Empire, and thus its way of thinking.
Beasts Ideologies in Conflict - It is also most significant to note that (currently) the Catholic Church, with its foundational Liberation Theology, is actually ideologically, categorically against the purposes and methods of (Protestant) Capitalism. Indeed its Popes and clergymen have not shied away from being outspoken against it. However Liberation Theology is still insidiously dangerous as it is seeking to inject Catholic Theology in the Political realm, which if it is, albeit, duly democratically established will then make Catholic Theology, and all that inevitably comes with it, the law and ruling policy of the land.
And even in the current division between Capitalists and Catholics, the Dragon’s objective are still achieved as both systems are contributively, respectively doing its will against God’s Full Sabbath Truth. In fact they are both insurance plans for the Devil for if either one fails, the other can take over to still accomplish his will of opposing anything that has to do with God’s Sabbath.
So for this outstanding Eight (= Fifth) Beast to “become one of the (later formed) Seven” it will require that it “comes around” and indeed also fully enjoin and support Protestant Capitalism to complete this intended economic, Global Babylonian Power. So it will have to either entirely give up, or adapt its current view of its Liberation Theology. However, as History has shown in the “Holy Alliance” of U.S. Capitalism and the Roman Catholic Church, also at the initiative, and main benefit of the U.S., to defeat a common Economic and Religious enemy in Atheistic Communism, of course for a jointly, yet differently, propagandizingly deemed ‘better good of mankind’, a similar Alliance will then also be formed, and now to seek to defeat the Capitalism and Catholicism opposing, Sabbatical Religious and Economic power of the NJK. It is thus that their Full form Babylon will seek to stand against the Divine, unfulfilled, temporal Israel of God Plan and compellingly seek to keep God’s professed/potential People from leaving Babylon.
The Reconciling Impetus - Indeed this is only the NJK’s impetus that will cause those two opposed, current global powers in their own realm, to join. SDA’s have the (Historical) prophetic understanding that the U.S. and the Vatican will join together to impose a Sunday Law, and that, in response to a society/world in civil chaos, however, as discussed in this post, without a Divine or Divinely-allowed super-natural element (i.e., found in the releasing of the 4 winds), there will never be this needed “overruling” impetus to democratically cause major Constitutional Changes in, first/chiefly the U.S. Legislator(s), and then the rest of the world’s countries’. Indeed to enforce Religion upon themselves, the populations in these countries will have to, by the vast majority, clear-mindedly think and believe that they are being directly judged by God and that those various disasters are no longer “natural”, but “supernatural”. (See GC 589-591ff and this forum discussion).
On the other hand, the Capitalistic economy, which is candidly known to be man-controlled, will, even if it were to collapse, not rationally lead to passing a Sunday Law. In fact, truly enforcing God’s Ten Commandments will actually only further destroy the Capitalistic economy as e.g., abortion, thievery and covetousness, which are fundamental to the success of Capitalism, will then be outlawed.
And contrary to current and common SDA pseudo-“prophetic” convictions, even if resulting societal chaos and anarchy would threatenedly seek to be instilled due to an economic collapse, the rational solution then will not be to ‘pass a (Religious) Sunday Law’. What will only be required then is that the already enacted criminal laws be more forcefully enforced, even in if through marshal law. However that still does not translate into rebuilding a collapse economy. Instead, as currently quite popularly manifest in (especially U.S.) political realms, stauncher Capitalism will instead be advocated. So only a clearly manifest “supernatural” action will engender a populous, explicitly religious, reaction, thus resulting in seeking to amend Constitutions and codify pointedly the first 4 of the Ten Commandments into civil society. And, as discussed in this post, a total economic collapse, vs. manageable economic recessions, even depression is probably one of the Four Winds that God is holding back until His Sabbath/Sabbatical Truth Sealing work is thoroughly done, in order to completely avoid such hysterical scenarios by those who think that their Capitalistic Economic is in any related way originated by/from God.
Diluting the Wine of Babylon - The anatomy of a typical Economic Collapse is very important here to clear away the religio-hysterical thinking of many. As seen in the 2008 “Great Recession” Financial Crisis, an economic crash occurs when future values are not what they were believed to be. (Indeed note the then populous rallying calls to “(merely) have confidence in the claimed/posited outlook of/for the economy.”) And as those future valuations were concretely infused in present markets, through indebtness, then the present society is then forced to live according to the means that it realistically can. (That is also why there is also a need for capital funds in banks during a crisis because of the now valueless loans that they have made.). The grand irony in all of this is that while this causes many job layoffs, as companies seek to survive, the whole crisis can be solved if all producing companies agreed to lower the prices for their products. And so we would go back to the days when e.g., a bus ride cost $0.25 or a loaf of bread cost $0.05, a gallon of milk cost $0.10, etc. It is only by companies that control a capital gradually increasing prices for intertwined reasons of maintaining profits or acquiring artificially limited/available supply, that prices have come to reach their exorbitant levels. So when an economic bubble bursts and people have to live as if they did not have a credit card, it is only what the economic reality should have always been and through corresponding commodity price lowering, the adverse effects of this return to reality can be avoided. But of course those who have invested in those producing companies will never accept to incur losses on their investment and therefore will prefer to downsize the company, while themselves gradually cashing out profits. Of course, their “justification” is that they themselves have to live, and other capitalist are also requiring them to meet their market prices to obtain their product. Clearly it is indeed their own welfare that they are chiefly concerned about, and not that of others, including the workers in the companies they own and/or have invested in. And of course, these capital funds controllers are merely wanting to maintain and improve their current level of living, which, if they have money to make, and freely control, investments (i.e., non-pension plan investments), means that they already are quite well off.
And so unpayable/unreasonable debt is always the cause of economic collapse resulting from incorrect economic speculations. So if these debts would produce insolvency, then, ultimately, the only realistic and problem solving solution will be to seek to make a countries population survive on its actual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) value. So for e.g., the United States, that will mean to pass legislation to have its citizen population of ca. 300 million on its ca. 14 trillion GDP, thus at a standard of ca. $47,000 per capita. Of course that will literally mean that the U.S. become completely Socialist, even Communist, and that is really the only crisis that is involved in the typical, man-made, Economic Crisis. All this to say that there is much more to be involved in a typical, man-made/controlled Economic Crisis to result in societal chaos, and only God’s “National Ruin” judgement, which are the full blown 7 Last Plagues, which occurs only after the Sabbatical Sealing is fully completed, will ever involve and produce the needed Supernatural impetus to resulting in the masses seeking to enforce Religious Laws.
It is tellingly not surprising that those in the SDA Church who “pregnantly” or “birthly” hold the “Babylonian” view that ‘final events must inevitably begin to unravel because of any mild economic downturn,’ are those who “vitally”/functionally rely upon the Capitalistic Economy for survival, i.e., e.g., in retirement pensions, or Church/ministry funding. And so if the economy lowers in value, causing them to experience personal and institutional financial hardships, or wipe out pension funds, as the SDA Church is, (through its own devoted capitalistic, individualistic and selfish mindset), investments-wise, greatly, pervasively, dependent upon, then “the world can only, surely be close to ending”, because they themselves, ‘God’s own “faithful” servants’, surely will not be able to survive if their Baal-like, all-providing economy cannot pull through. Talk about ‘snaringly coming to be “specially” deceived’ (EW 266-269)!!! And so, circularly, with this spurious belief, SDA’s thus, “self-survivingly”, think it best to disobey Jesus Christ and not to seek to help all those in need, but instead, as this snare of Satan has conditioned them to do, indeed look out first for themselves. And this is tangibly being done by indifferently ignoring those who are in need of even the very vital basics of life, as SDA’s in affluent countries don’t then mind still paying the individualism-based, disctatedly exhorbitant, Capitalistic prices to maintain their standard of living, and that, for much more than what they actually really need to live upon.
The Theological fact is that God will not allow people in the end to be tricked into accepting the Mark of the Beast, and that includes this hysterical Religio-economic belief. Instead these people will first have to take clear-minded actions in opposition to God’s Sabbatical will, including socio-economic ones, and then He will give these decidedly “Lawless ones” up to the delusion of/from their false beliefs, which Satan will then indeed seek to, even supernaturally sustain. (= 2 Thess 2:7-12). Punishing National Ruin, which is indeed much more than an Economic Crisis, will only comes after such deliberate and knowing National Apostasy.
This entire pivotal “Full Sabbatical” issue can, as done throughout this blog, hashed out in various pertinent ways, however those who fundamentally do not actually, truly, love their neighbor, nor, for that matter, God, to, even sacrificially, seek to do all that is currently possible to, at the very least, help preserve the very lives of those people in need, will rationally, and even Spiritually, never be able to even “see” the Biblical truth, and unequivocal mandate, in this Present Truth, Full Sabbath Seal of God, teaching. And while those people being daily slaughtered for such preventable causes, and that, mostly to Christless graves, will surely have applied a most gracious standard of judgement by God to them, as they indeed were not “rebelling” against, even potentially, clearly known and understood truths they knew. However, as seen e.g., in Matt 25:31-46, that conversely involves that those who had refused to come to their help, for whatever spurious reason they had conceived, will surely be held eternally accountable for this neglect. So really this call by Christ to help all of those in need, is actually eternally most crucial to those who are professing to be followers of Christ. (For more on this, see the various pertinent comments in this post which fundamentally involves this whole “Economy and Final Events” issue)
Rev 17:12 - "The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but they receive authority as kings with the beast for one hour.
A New World Order - Indeed, as mused in Rev 17:11, adding those 10 horns of power, thus 10 kings to the Woman and Beast imagery, produce a distinct kingdom power entity. And with ten being symbolic of a totality/completeness, it can be seen that this Full-blown Beast will now be a global geopolitical entity, and not be limited to one country (namely the United States). So then will be formed a New World Order encompassing all significant world powers, all to solidarily enforce Capitalistic principles upon all.
receive authority as kings - See the commenting here (and its asterisked (=“*”) note), in relation to Dan 2:41-43...
Indeed, unlike during their 1260 year (538-1798 AD) zenith reign of the First Beast during its Holy Roman Empire era (Rev 13:1-10), the world powers that its held sway over were monarchial forms of government. Hence the “(diadem/kingly crowns)” on those “10 horns” (Rev 13:1). -(And this was indeed a pivotal step up from the previous era of Satan’s world-conduced opposition to God’s people when it was ‘a perfect representation of ruling worldy/pagan ideologies’ (= “(diadem/kingly) crowns on those 7 heads” (Rev 12:3)) that led this charge, instead of now world rulers defaultly endeavoring to make this their mandate.) It was now, in a post 1798 AD era {see above at Rev 17:10}, when then, and more pervasively by now, -with, {as discussed above at Rev 17:3}, the Protestant & Capitalistic U.S. being the succeeding World Power (=“(Second) Beast”) to lead that Satanic charge (Rev 13:11ff), Democracy was the common form of government, hence ‘defaultly no (diadem/kingly) crowns on these 10 horns’ (Rev 17:3), that these world powers would (unofficially, -hence no need to ever wear “crowns”) revert back to ‘having and weildly “authority as kings”, -as if they were not really ruling over (Constitutional) Republics....(even the Pagan Roman Empire had been a Republic =Rev 12:3)...
for one hour - However as stated at the end of Rev 17:10, that New World Order will only endure for a short time, as God will then indirectly enter into direct judgement against it to both cause to disband it and protect His People who have refused to live according to its imposed ways. This time is here said to be one hour, and while this time element does not have specific value in post 1844 prophecies, it can still be thematically seen to be linked to the later mentioned, and more fully discussed “one hour” of decision-making trial” in Rev 18:10, 17, 19. So manifestly God is allowing this formation so that it can be transparently demonstrated to the whole world the utter spuriousness and futility of this Babylonian system, even if it is enforced by law, as ultimately, God Himself will bring about its downfall, as it now is standing in direct, rebellious defiance to God’s Throne while also being a life threat to His faithful People.
Rev 17:13 - "These have one purpose, and they give their power and authority to the beast.
U.S.-Led Coalition - This Holy Roman Empire-mirroring, global coalition, “Eighth Beast,” will however, deferentially and willingly, be under the leadership of Protestant|Capitalistic America. So the Eighth head here, the Roman Catholic Church, will indeed now cede it Liberation Theology for the U.S. Capitalistic Agenda instead, -most probably under the, already existing, merging banner of philanthrocapitalism.
And as already stated, since both the U.S. Capitalistic agenda and the Roman Catholic Liberation Theology one, both ultimately accomplish the Devil’s contra-Biblical Truth purposes, if it were to be that it is that this Eight Head manages to sway the U.S. to adopt and enforce its Liberation Theology agenda, (with all its involved Religious baggage, including Sunday Sacredness), it would, as previously stated, first require a concrete belief that God is directly taking judgement actions against them, even in economic matters, and also, in turn unBiblically mean that the Four Winds have already been released by God, then it can be seen that this Babylon prophecy can only be when fully accomplished, thus as done in the present Eschatological Wave of Bible Prophecies, an Economically-based power opposing God socio-economic sabbatical principles, and not a merely/overtly Religious one enforcing a Sunday Law.
Rev 17:14 - "These will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, because he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those who are with him are the called and choice ones and faithful."
War Against the Lamb - Evidently their single purpose is in order to defeat the, as detailed here, Rev 5 ‘temporally established little lamb which has 7 horns of power’. I.e., the NJK Project. However as relatedly described in Rev 19:11-16 when this war is fought (see here), the Biblical (“sword in mouth”) and “righteous” principles found in this little lamb’s Davidic Branch kingdom, will demonstrate that he is indeed ‘king of these kings’ (i.e., in the political/governmental realm) and ‘lord of these lords’ (i.e., in the socio-economic sphere) [cf. such temporal uses in e.g., Ezek 26:7 & Dan 2:37] as, pointedly, those Godly/Biblical “political and economical” ways overcome the base and earthly ones advanced by this opposing Global “Eighth Beast.” [“Heaven” in Rev 19, and elsewhere in prophecies of Revelation, can be (eschatologically) temporally, typologically symbolized in: ‘the place on Earth where God’s actual/full Gospel Truth/Will is being believed/done (= Matt 6:10; 3:2-3; 4:17|Mar 1:14-15).]
Manifestly it will be through this temporal Lamb power and those with him that the “one hour” trial of this Babylon power will take place. And when they have been overcome, by indeed the testimony of their Biblical and Godly ways, God will then interpose Himself to make sure that its due penalty for its sins of rebellion be poured out on this power.
choice ones - Unlike in the final outcome in Matt 22:14, these people are “called” because, -like the earlier “invited ones” in Matt 22:2-5, they are “choice ones” (=a Greek adjective). And here, these ‘called choice ones’ will have stayed with the Lamb because they are also “faithful”.... “faithful” in doing (see EW 15.2; cf. Rev 6:15-17|DA 825.4) the good/righteous “Full Gospel” works that the Lamb wants and loves to do. (=Rev 19:7-9). These are the Kingdom-establishing 144,000 (Rev 14:1-5|EW 15.1; cf. GC 426.2).
choice ones - Unlike in the final outcome in Matt 22:14, these people are “called” because, -like the earlier “invited ones” in Matt 22:2-5, they are “choice ones” (=a Greek adjective). And here, these ‘called choice ones’ will have stayed with the Lamb because they are also “faithful”.... “faithful” in doing (see EW 15.2; cf. Rev 6:15-17|DA 825.4) the good/righteous “Full Gospel” works that the Lamb wants and loves to do. (=Rev 19:7-9). These are the Kingdom-establishing 144,000 (Rev 14:1-5|EW 15.1; cf. GC 426.2).
Rev 17:15 - And he said to me, "The waters which you saw where the harlot sits, are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues.
Indispensability of “water” - this symbol had been stated in Rev 17:1 and through what it represents, it shows this woman comes to achieve her power by popularly appealing to the masses, which is indeed key in democratic societies and also, as recently seen, for dictatorship overthrowing revolutions. (~Isa 17:12-13a)
Rev 17:16 - "And the ten horns which you saw, and the beast, these will hate the harlot and will make her desolate and naked, and will eat her flesh and will burn her [] with fire.
Coming to their senses - When the eighth Beast coalition has lost its war against the little lamb’s kingdom, its joined to world kingdoms will realize that they had been grossly misled by, pointedly, this unfaithful Church which had led it to believe that its, now “morally reformed”, ways, of now, Philanthrocapitalism was best for them and their kingdoms/countries. And thus they will entirely abandon her thus causing her to be valueless (desolate), isolated and vulnerable (naked), thus taking away all that had previously served to make her the temporal superpower that it was. And they will themselves take measures that cause this Harlot to be begin to be burned.
Eat her flesh - Precursively related development as the similar Rev 18:2 “birds” implication. I.e., these kings will themselves, by their “desolating/abandoning” actions, cause this Babylon power to be exposed as a fraud.
burn her [] - Interestingly enough, as seen in Rev 18:9ff, they will only come to be absolutely shocked when they see that the fire that they themselves had kindled against her will actually consume her, and threatens to completely ruin them. So it is only then that they will choose to disband and stay away from this woman by resisting her seductions and/or refusing her intoxicating wine, both of which were key to them joining that Woman’s agenda.
Rev 17:17 - "For God has put it in their hearts to execute His purpose by having a common purpose, and by giving their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God will be fulfilled.
Merciful Sovereignty - All throughout these developments, it was God who was working out, behind-the-scenes, His object-lesson purposes by allowing this Religious Babylon aberration in order to most concretely/convictingly demonstrate to this world, and pointedly professed believers in Him living in this Babylonian power, that this way is definitely not His desired and righteous way, and that they should seek to leave this Babylon. (cf. King’s Jehu Baal Feast gathering in order to eradicate all Baal worshippers in Israel in one shot in 2 Kgs 10:18-28, 30).
fulfilling God’s words - As stated in Isa 46:9-11, God does indeed allow/guide earthly entities to, (and that actually freely, -for they really have the final choice), take actions that will come to fulfill His previously, even long ago, ‘declared, (presciently most fair and wise), plans’.
Rev 17:18 - "The woman whom you saw is the great city, which reigns over the kings of the earth."
City of Babylon Recreated - Just as the pure woman (= True Church of Christ) is, when it is perfected, “the bride, the wife of the little lamb”, -the Kingdom of God capital city, the New Jerusalem (Rev 21:9-10), the opposing harlot/apostate Church becomes the arch enemy of God’s People: headquartered in the empire capital city of this kingdom of Babylon, which is self-deludedly seeking to bindingly spread its ways and influence to all of the world’s countries.
It is most interesting to note that, in the destruction of Ancient Babylon, God had expressedly intended that it should never be recreated and populated. However Unfaithful Christians have managed to, most crucially, Spiritually do just that. And that is indeed most crucial in a Spiritual Realm because God’s Israel is in the New Covenant Spiritual Israel. So even if the City of Babylon in Iraq was ever rebuilt and populated, it actually would not be having an effect of God’s Israel. And to think that the fundamental reason why this 7-Head and 10-Horn, Babylon power has managed to be established is all because, as seen above in Rev 17:10, it allowed itself to have as its first head (=chief way of thinking) an “indifferent Divine defiance”. Indeed Protestant America began this path to becoming this ring leader in this Babylonian power, when it chose to have and implement an economic system which was clearly in ideological and practical opposition to Jesus Christ and His Gospel. Thus began the unfaithful and debauchery days of this Great Harlot leading to its final full blown “Great City Babylon” form.
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In the light of the exegetical understanding of who this Rev 17 Babylon pointedly is: Protestant U.S.-led Capitalism, its next spoken of ‘“Loud Cry” call out of it’, which is related to the Third Angel’s Message (8T 118.1-2), can be most accurately understood and heeded by all who it affects.
“Those whose faith and zeal are proportionate to their knowledge of the truth will reveal their loyalty to God by communicating the truth, in all its saving, sanctifying power, to those with whom they associate. Their lives of holiness and unselfish service will be in conformity with the vital principles of the kingdom of heaven. {8T 118.3}
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Revelation 18
The language in especially Rev 18 is most clearly drawn from the prophesying in regards to fall of Babylon in Jer 51. As stated before, there it is seen that this Babylon had actually been in God’s planning (Jer 51:7), a notion that is reflected in Rev 17:17 in regards to Revelation’s Babylon. And that is similarly for global object lesson reasons, to show to all of the inhabitants of the world that, here, despite the seeming greatness and rightness of this Protestant|Capitalistic Superpower, nothing, but full adherence to all of God’s laws and Sabbatical principles will prove temporally and Spiritually valid and acceptable in the end. So now, all of the rulers of the world are faced with the disastrous realities of this Babylonian system.
After several “(U.S.) Financial/Economic Panics” in 1792, 1796-97, 1819, 1825, 1826, 1837, 1847, 1857, 1866, 1873, 1884, 1890, 1893, 1896, 1901, 1907, 1910-11, as U.S. Capitalism writhingly, but obstinately began to grow, such inevitable, inherent adverse realities were then most severely seen in the 1930's during the Stock Market Crash and ensuing Depression, which went on to have global repercussions. It is then that Capitalism was most greatly diluted to produce what is known as a “Mix Economy” in order to try to tame the inherent self-destructiveness of this system. And then, after over ca. 70 years of comparative stability under this diluted Capitalistic system, with however several tweakings done during this time to take care of other surfacing destructive Capitalistic threats, its still detrimental, self-hindering realities most severely resurfaced in 2008 with the greatest Economic Recession since the 1930's. Again it was socialistic measures and implementations that prevented a much deeper Global Recession and Depression, and still to this day in late 2011, the global system is remains shaky, as seen in the Euro Crisis (the European Sovereign Debt Crisis) which already damaged and still reeling Western Europe economies just are not in a financial position to jump in and, as usual, socially quench, as solely due. All this to show that this most unbiblical system has long proven to be futile in terms of what an actual economy is supposed to do for all involved in it. Yet it is countries like America, led by majoritarily Right Wing (Protestants) Christians (e.g., the U.S. Republican & Tea Party) who will swear by the Bible that this system is God’s ideal for His people, and also for everyone one in the world. Indeed the imperialistic claim is that for it to thrive, all countries must staunchly operate by its dictates. And today, countries that prefer to use more socialistic means in certain economic areas are made to pay a tariff or trade partnership price in relation to the U.S.
Through such strong-arming measures is seen how a country, such as the planned NJK Project, that seeks to thrivingly live according to the Bible’s great Socialistic principles vs. the base, greedy, covetous, selfish, wasteful and ruthless ones of Capitalism, will surely be formally shunned at the strong-arming leading of the United States. As the foundational ministry of the NJK Project will be to provide life and a thriving, quality subsistence for also as much as all of the currently 65,000,000+ annually aborted infants, it is easy to see that (a) this will have some geo-economic impact, which will actually be more frightful for Capitalists than tangibly detrimental, and only will reduce their supporting economic circle when, as indicated above in the prophetic statement in Rev 17:16, other, particularly “sobering” poor country then rather seek to engage in more worthwhile trading with the NJK and even seek to emulate its Biblical, rational economic system (= Isa 2:1-2ff; 58:10, 14; 60:1-3ff; cf. Isa 45:14; 49:10); and thus (b) formal and tangible efforts will be made to oppose this ‘threatening” development.
Rev 18:1 - After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illumined with his glory.
Immediate Background to Loud Cry Message - The prophecy in Rev 18 is depicting events that take place when the eighth Beast has been formed, which as seen above is the union of the totality of Global powers under the pointedly religio-economic “leadership” of Protestant|Capitalist America, which by now itself had come to form an ‘iconic image’ to the First Beast (Rev 13:14ff) by causing the faithful followers of Christ who refuse to live according to the covetous and selfish principles that are still keyly present in that, even then, Philanthrocapitalism, to be, by law, barred from any commercial interaction and provision. It is thus that they make them to try to survive at the peril of the life for not going along with this now concretely codified, economic New World Order. And it is also then that they courageously engage in Loudly Speaking, Preaching and Living in Testimony against this anti Sabbatical movement, which all is done under the power of the Holy Spirit (7BC 980.3), in, as discussed here, both the full measure of the Early Rain and hole-filling, complimentary Latter Rain.
The Involved “Great Authority” - Most foundationally, succinctly said here, the “etymological”/lexically compositional roots of the word “authority” (Greek: exousia [Strongs #1849]) is two-fold with its root etymology as: ek-eimi “out of” [#1537] “what is/exists” [#1510] and then from the default usage of the resulting exesti [#1832] “what is lawful” or “lawfully permissible”. So the real source of “authority” for this word is from: “what (inherently) is” and/or “what is lawful/permissible”. Interestingly enough, as this authority is related to an Angel from Heaven, then this authority comes directly from God, (-the “I am that always existing one” of Exod 3:14 (see here)), which, for humans who many not have that direct (=prophetic) access, is nonetheless equally found in God’s Law.
Such a direct and/or derivable “authority” is actually merely a “lawful right to act” vs. “the independent, inherent “power” (=dunamis [#1411]) to effectuate the rightful act”. This distinction can be contemporarily illustrated in two ways. (1) In a modern civil judicial proceeding, winning a case is a completely distinct thing then actually collecting the judicially authorized award. Winning the case only gives the victorious party the “lawful right” to collect its award, but to actually do this collecting, other strong-arm measures, such as hiring a bailiff may be necessary if the other party is not voluntarily compliant. (2) “Lawful authority” may be comparable to having the key which unlocks a car’s ignition but the actual “power” which starts up the car is a completely different system. Without that power (e.g., a dead battery), having a key is quite completely useless.
So in Rev 18:1, the Angel, which further is generally representative of those who will be proclaiming that Loud Cry message, have a ‘Divine Right to Act’ as also reflected in/by God’s Law. In many substantive and prophetic (end time - Mal 4:4-6) ways, this all resembles the “calling” and ensuing action of Elijah who was the one who initiated his calling to the prophetic office and ministry by “reminding” God of His Lawfully due judgements for National Idolatry (=Deut 11:16-17) (See here; cf. in here). But, as it was the case with Elijah, the actual, needed “(supernatural) power” to validate that acted upon authority came from, and depended upon God.
And by this “Loud Cry” point in the Great Controversy, “Great Authority & Power” will indeed be needed to win as God’s faithful messengers then will be faced by both, an also religious opponent which has been given “great authority” (Rev 13:2), with which it has presumed to change God’s times and Laws (Dan 7:25), and which will passed on to the Second Beast of Rev 13, and all, in turn then be demonstrably validated by Satanic supernatural power (Rev 13:12-14; 2 Thess 2:7-12). The only safeguard against this ‘authoritative and powerful’ assault is a Sealing by God’s Spirit in the Truths of God’s Word (Eph 1:13; 4:30; LDE 219.4-222.1; Rev 7:2-3), all anchored by the all-encompassing Ten Commandment Law of God (cf. Deut 11:18); pointedly revolving around His Full Sabbath/Sabbatical stipulations. (Exod 20:8-11 & Deut 5:12-15)
Content of Loud Cry Message - This Fourth, Loud Cry Angel is, as discussed here, a return of the Second Angel, but now with added understandings as to what the sins of Babylon “fully” are. As seen here in Rev 17 & 18, these sins include more than just the violation of the letter of the law Seventh Day Sabbath, but also the violation of God’s sabbatical socio-economic principles. That latter implication is actually the main thrust of this re-established Babylon, and as with the Historical reason why Ancient Israel had been deported to the city of Babylon, it is pointedly the issues in those socio-economic sabbatical principles that is to be the gist of this ‘call out of Babylon’ so that God’s True and Faithful followers can return to God’s land of Israel and help to rebuild and recommission/repopulate His sacked Temple (=Biblical Religion) and Holy City (= Biblical Society), all of which, prophetically by then have started to be rebuilt by the 144,000.
The Great Multitude in Babylon - So while, as expounded on here, the Third Angel’s Message had been the ‘Full Sabbath of God’ Sealing Angel, working to seal the 144,000 (Rev 7:1-8), the work of this 4th Angel is instead the one which works to produce the “Great Multitude” (Rev 7:9-17). These ones are those who had been in this Babylon, (both then Christian and non-Christian, as this Babylon will actually not be imposing religious adherence to its constituents), but chose to heed this final warning message and came out of her suffering great tribulation (Rev 7:14).
Rev 18:2 - And he cried out with a mighty voice, saying, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird.
“Fallen, Fallen is Babylon” - The quite striking deliberate double mention that Babylon is Fallen, is thus linked directly to the similar double call in the OT Historical episode when God was trying to convince and rally His people to overtake Babylon (Isa 21:6-10), as they did for Canaan (Num 13:1ff), -indeed before it overtook them, as it eventually, and then justly/deservingly did. And so, as stated in Isa 21:9b; this double falleness was pointedly religiously seen in the fact that: “all the images of her gods are shattered on the ground”. Prophetically, this all transpires around the time when the second phase of Babylon (Rev 13's Second Beast) is about to form an idolatrous image to the first phase of Babylon (First Beast). And here, God is also trying to convince and rally His people to flee and thus assist in the overtaking of this, even also pre-emptively, i.e., before it manages to firmly establish that image.
So the ‘First “Falleness”’ of Babylon occurred with its First/Historical Phase, thus the Catholic Church which focused on the Religious aspect of the Mark of the Beast development. And the ‘Second “Falleness”’ of Babylon would occur when the United State, led by a Protestant leadership formed an image to the First Beast through economic measures. In early SDA History, this could have occurred in ca. 1888 when then Sunday Laws were being seriously considered in several State and the Federal legislatures. (cf. Rev 14:8). But as God’s people did not prove to be ready for the End, God caused that Religio-Economic wind, (and the others) to be held back. (See here). However since then, the sins of Babylon have been added to and compounded, and so its Secondary Falleness has made further inroads (see EW 277.1) and is now being seen in its most corrupt Capitalistic ways led by the United States and spread throughout the world. Even SDA’s have overwhelmingly bought into this lie and snare of Satan, as discussed below. And so the Rev 18:2 “lookout call” (=Isa 21:6-10) is an attempt of God to get His people to abandon and escape that spurious socio-economic system which greatly, hinderingly affects His Gospel Truth and pointedly undermines His socio-economic Sabbatical ways. (Cf. here).
Undercover Snare - The Devil seeing that he is about to lose his grip on Babylon due to the most clear Testimony of the now loudly proclaimed Three Angels’s Messages, (with the Third being most prominent; -cf. 7BC 980.3), and that despite his most formidable opposition power in this Babylon, the Devil has begun to resort to using various spiritualistic manifestations to keep the people in Babylon under deception. All of this in now allowed by God for duly impeaching judgement reasons (= 2 Thess 2:8-11). It is however important to note that in the present eschatological fulfillment wave of those prophecies in Revelation, the literalistic fulfillments, as stipulated in the SOP, will now rather come to be fulfilled under related, but more subtle and spiritual fulfillments. And so, as seen in EW 266-269, the cunning Devil will, as with Eve in Eden, instead rather seek to defeat God’s professed people through a more subtle deception than what they know to look out for. Yet they have been told enough to, if obedient, avoid falling for such a “blindsiding” snare. And so, as expounded on here, and as it was nonetheless stated/incorporated in the SOP, though most SDA’s have not given much perceptive attention to it, the crowning “Angel of Light” deception (EW 262-266; GC 588.1-5891ff; cf. GC 523.1-524.1) that fastens those who favored the Mark of the Beast in rebellion, actual can, and will, have a spiritual manifestation. This is seen in the following deeper understandings:
Spiritualism and the Mark of the Beast - The prophetic understanding of Spiritualism being keyly involved with the Mark of the Beast is actually rooted in the snaring lie that the Devil foundationally told to Eve, and that was that ‘despite the fact that she would be sinning against God by partaking of the forbidden fruit, she actually would not die, but would instead be enjoying a more happy and blissful life.’ In fact, as stated in the SOP (EW 148.2), his whole argument here was based on a “studied” belief/understanding that Adam and Eve would still be able to eat of the Tree of Life after sinning and thus be able to live eternally as sinners. Now while the understanding of the immortal soul can be remotely derived here, (if it is also Biblically understood that: ‘a person does not have a soul, but instead is a soul (= living being)), the basic fundamental understanding here indeed is, as also straightforwardly stated in Ezek 18:4, 20, that ‘the “person” who sins will die.’ That is ‘the sinning person cannot but pay this penalty of death’. (See Ed 227.5-228.2 [cf. Rev 11:8|Ezek 16:46-50, 51-52]; and this expounding GYC 2013 presentation (mp3) [25:19-41:11ff] by Stephen Bohr). So, getting right to the application point here, it is the involved fundamental religious tenet of Capitalism that both ‘God’s Ten Commandment Law and also His sabbatical socio-economic laws can be ignored and violated without any consequences in order to practice Capitalism, and moreover there will instead be a sure reward of both temporal wealth producing a “freer” and happier life, and that all through Divine approval and blessing.’ However just like Eve’s temptation. Though death and adverse consequences are not instantly seen by living according to Capitalistic principles, those detrimental consequence eventually do rear their “Beastly” heads. Indeed Eve also did not drop dead upon tasting of the forbidden fruit, but that did not alter the inevitable consequence. And indeed, as discussed here, just like the sinner must be made to die, by being barred access to the Tree of Life, because violence and death will surely be the end result of sin, God cannot accept the practising of Capitalism for His People because death also is its inevitable end result. So, as with the GC which allowed sinners to live their lives and tangibly demonstrate the consequences sin, God has similarly allowed the Babylonian system of Capitalism to play out in order to tangibly self-demonstrate its utter futility, moreoverly, particularly in a sinful world.
Spiritualistic Manifestations(=EW 262-266-269)
As it has been presented here from the testimony of the Bible and SOP, it is evidently a Biblical Truth/Reality that: ‘those who die a literal, or effective, “martyrs” death are, at some time soon after, resurrected and taken to heaven before the end’. As it was also stated at the end of that posting, this distinguishing understanding in regards to the teaching that ‘the dead defaultly remain unconscious/“asleep” in the grave until the final resurrection’ is manifestly key to not being deceived in the end when, as the SOP revealed, ‘Spiritualism will be used to mislead people into accepting Sunday Sacredness and the Mark of the Beast, with then demons appearing to people as their dead loved ones and claiming these things to be true’. (See LDE 156.3-157.4). In a literalistic fulfillment of this SOP prophecy, (i.e., exactly/literally as revealed in the SOP), in order to not be deceived here, one would simply have to know that the person appearing to them was actually just dead. However in a now, also, Biblically-substantiated, Spiritual [no (lexical) pun intended] application of this development, one now needs to know whether that person had died “naturally”, or by some form of martyrdom. So in order to validatingly differentiate between a possible apparition of a martyred, but now resurrected, person vs. a ‘naturally dead person’, (indeed as it occurred with EGW and her husband James (see RY 161.1-163.2)), one would have to clearly know that the person in question was indeed martyred for the cause of truth. And yet as seen with that case of James White, he was not literally, but merely effectively, martyred, by having, through much opposition and attacks, from even fellow brethren, sacrificed his health and thus very life, for the proper establishment and rapid advancement of the Remnant Church cause of God. And so it can easily get tricky as to who was “martyred” in death, and thus which apparition, vision and/or dream, which would involve such a dead person, is from God.
However, the fact of the matter is that, in this now Eschatological Wave of Bible and SOP prophecies, which have supercedingly replaced, -due to, as summarily listed here, the indifferently maintained and sustained, radically hindering (=1SM 121.1-122.3; cf. this post) shortcomings and deficiencies of the SDA Church, the, up to then (i.e., up to ca. 1996), unfolding Historical Wave of Bible and SOP prophecies; where now much Spiritually deeper applications of those prophecies are to be involved, with chiefly the deeper, socio-economic Truth of, and Implication in, God’s Sabbath (Isa 58), which all result in the Mark of the Beast involving adherence to Capitalism, there now will most likely, even surely, not be a literal fulfillment of: ‘demons appearing as dead people from heaven claiming that ‘Sunday is really the Biblical Sabbath and is kept in Heaven’. In such a literal context, an understanding of a distinct group of resurrected martyrs, one would be able to merely entirely reject any apparition of a dead person, but instead first ascertain whether or not that person was martyred, either literally or effectively. However there is a much deeper Spiritual application of this ‘naturally dead vs. martyred dead’ implication.
In the wider and deeper context of all that is involved in God’s Sabbath, it is now the effective opposing spiritual belief that ‘eventhough you may not live according to God’s sabbatical ways (i.e., helping those in need), you actually will not be condemned or reprimanded by God’. And as this wayward course is actually the identical evil course of the Atheistic and Secular World (cf. Rev 9:20-21), it is thus being said that: ‘no one who lives outside of God’s ways is reprimanded nor condemned by God’. The only thing that really matters to God is to “make money”. And so, Christians today, including SDA’s, religiously adhere to the system of Capitalism, despite the fact that it based upon base and evil traits, and results in, through its inherent survival of the richest/fittest/smartest/strongest self, the vast majority of the pain, suffering, death, including murders, such as in abortions, in the world today. And so you’ll find, e.g., a U.S. Republican claiming that they are a born-again Christian, and against abortion, even contraception, homosexual marriage, etc, yet they espouse a system that, if it had been left to it foundational Laissez-Faire ways, would have continued to let even more people suffer and die from preventable, curable and/or deliberate causes. Those staunch Christianity professors may claim that they are against abortion, yet they, in order to be most faithful to their system of Capitalism, would have, if not opposed by Biblically-correct, socially conscientious and Christlike caring people, removed all of the social safety nets which would have no doubt been even more needed to annually help ca. 1,000,000 more, and for a long time, dependent infant Americans, born due to non-abortions, and their caretaking families, survive, and left these children and families to fend for themselves, and, if the case is, also die. So people who delusionally, as if quite literally under a sorcerous spell (=Rev 18:23; 9:21; Isa 47:9-12ff) adhere to such a guilefully murderous (John 8:44) ‘doctrine of the Devil’ (cf. 1 Tim 4:1-2) that ‘living outside of God’s ways does not end up in death’, are indeed already being seduced and deceived by craftily concealed Spiritualism.
The general implication of that demonic teaching in turn also stands against the actually Biblical teaching that ‘those who instead sacrifice their very life for God and His cause, and as a result, die a martyr’s death, are resurrected and taken to heaven.’ That is because that demonic teaching is instead saying that: ‘sacrificially living for God is not really required since: ‘all and any of those who die in Christ have this immediate reward.’’ And so this understanding is applied in the tangible life by Christians not doing more than the bare minimum in their supposed Christian life. So it is no surprise that when a call is made to, pertinently enough, share or sacrifice in order to help those who are in need, including vital needs, these so-called Christians, including from the SDA Church, just say that this is not really required for them to be approved of by God and saved. In fact, in SDA circles, it is the Letter of the Law and, particularly the Sabbath that will be upheld instead, however, just like the wider Capitalism espousing Christian, they also do not care that, by taking this indifferent stance to those in need, they are violating the very Spirit of God’s Law, including the Sabbath (cf. here). They, and quite contrary to Christ’s unequivocal teaching (e.g., Matt 25:31-46), do not think that they have any required obligation and duty to those in need. And the fact of the matter is that such murderously and indifferently so, hateful people will actually not be saved. And since their revered course of life is condoning suffering, death and murder, they are actually effectively teaching that: ‘everyone, whether Christian or not, who lives outside of God’s Law and requirements, will not die, but end up in Heaven, even immediately upon death, thus, at the very least, as if they had been martyrs for God’. (=The entire Thomas Paine deception spoken of in EW 263.3-265.2). That is how “all of the world is aboard that Hell bound train conducted by Satan Himself” (=EW 263.1), a depiction which is concretely manifested today in the global adherence to Capitalism. However God is instead clear that only those who have given their life for either Him or others (=Matt 22:36-40) receive that immediate life reward, and will be the only ones to be saved in the end (cf. 16MR 34.1).
Mixed-Capitalism Heresy - On the flipped side a Laissez-Faire Capitalism ideology, we now see how a Mixed-Economy Capitalism (as e.g., in America, held by the U.S.’s Democratic Party in opposition to Republicans) is championed as the viable solution. And so most countries have indeed subscribed to this diluted system. It is even implicitly heralded as being Biblical and the system that is in accordance with the Gospel of Christ, by even non-Christians. However that is only, as with Satan’s original lie, a most deceptive half truth. “Mixed-Capitalism” is also not a viable option for God’s People.
And just like the miraculous powers in healing of diseases would be key to deceiving people to accept this “sinning person non-death” lie, it is along those same lines, often (circularly) claimed in defence of Capitalism that it actually saves and improves lives by generating the money to produce advance medicines, technologies and sciences. And so it is deemed worthwhile and even Biblical by many. This same belief is seen in even SDA Healthcare institutions where making money is considered to be paramount to helping all those in need of medical care. And so if a person is not insured or cannot afford to pay for their health services, especially in First World Countries, then they are not treated.
So it is now spiritually indeed through this “sinning person non-death” lie that the Devil will fool, even SDA’s into accepting the (“Fuller”) Mark of the Beast.
Babylon’s Deception Implements - In regards to the mentions of the deceptive things now in Babylon, it can be readily understood that: (a) the dwelling place of demons are the more direct, hands-on involvement of the Devil and his angels, albeit “undercover” so as to not awaken and scare away the Christians who are in this Babylon; and (b) the prison of unclean spirits refers to a pervasive and overt collection of an influence that are opposed to what God considers as acceptable. It is however the mention of ‘every unclean and hateful bird’ that is surfacely enigmatic. However, as related in this post, when it is naturalistically understood that a “bird” comes to symbolize a small but relatively quite formidable power, and that this is concretized today in most advanced technologies,[9] where it can be seen that, and related to what was stated above, those ‘unclean and also hateful birds’ refer to both ‘technologies, or the use of technologies, that oppose the purity and righteousness of God’ and also technologies that are “confined” to be used for ‘non-loving’ (= hateful) purposes. Indeed, they are used instead for paramount, money-making ends. And so despite the advances that Capitalism has (actually slowly, due to competition, rather than cooperation/collaboration) made in vital and life saving technology, these technologies are not allowed to freely “fly” throughout the world to help all those in need of it, but are instead, through this effective, actual “hate” of others, kept “imprisoned” within this Babylonian, Capitalistic System. And so millions have suffered and died, through mainly poverty, because they cannot afford the medicines, health services, vital technologies, etc, developed by profit-seeking Capitalists. So those “birds” are thus indeed either outrightly “unclean” or made “hateful”, and have collected and been confined in this Babylon.
Relatedly, despite the little lamb’s “warring implements” of “the word of God and righteousness” (Rev 19:11 & 15) used against this final global Beast power, it is a call to other flying birds, thus, ones distinct from those that are “imprisoned” in Babylon (i.e., the NJK’s independently developed and/or procured technologies), that will provide the finalizing blow to the leading Beast Powers. (= Rev 19:17-21). Forget ‘the emperor not having any clothes’ then, these leaders of the tri-part Babylon will instead ‘not be left with any flesh on themselves’, and thus all will see them for the merchants and peddlers of, not merely “lies”, but actually, murder, and ultimately, relatively prematurely for all, and even eternal, death! (=John 8:44; cf. 37-50)[10] As their above-discussed, foundationally relied-upon, spurious dogmatic “refuge” that: ‘one can ignore, as passé and not even true, what God had said in regards to socio-economic principles and righteousness, and not only live, but actually greatly thrive,’ (=Gen 3:1-7), will then be fully exposed, and completely swept away. (Cf. Ezek 13:1-16)
Indeed, thematically relatedly, the “flesh-eating testimony” spoken of against the idolatrous and arrogant rich in James 5:3b will here not be anything “fire-like”, but rather those ‘called upon “technological” birds’ in Rev 19:17-21 who will “show up” these Mark of the Beast World leaders, moguls, and enjoining public, by using those very same “technological birds” to instead glorious achieve Full Godly righteousness, both religiously as well as socio-economically, including fully meeting the needs of all those in need; -thus “testifying” that Babylon had indeed been harboring “hateful (contra. Matt 22:39-40) birds”!
Indeed, thematically relatedly, the “flesh-eating testimony” spoken of against the idolatrous and arrogant rich in James 5:3b will here not be anything “fire-like”, but rather those ‘called upon “technological” birds’ in Rev 19:17-21 who will “show up” these Mark of the Beast World leaders, moguls, and enjoining public, by using those very same “technological birds” to instead glorious achieve Full Godly righteousness, both religiously as well as socio-economically, including fully meeting the needs of all those in need; -thus “testifying” that Babylon had indeed been harboring “hateful (contra. Matt 22:39-40) birds”!
Rev 18:3 - "For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed acts of fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich by the power of her insolent luxury."
Harlotrous Gains - This statement emphasizes just how this Babylon acceded to its globally most influential, Superpower position, and the key to this rise is in the wealth-derived power she managed to generate by her insolent luxury. As this Babylon, and pointedly the Woman leading it, is the Protestant Church, her insolent harlotries are seen in the fact that she resolutely chose to ignore true Christian virtue and principle for the pursuit and gain of wealth, which in this world produces power. So, as with the “Unjust Steward” it has preferred to serve Mammon instead of God. (Luke 16:1-13).
Key “Democratic” Intoxications - Again in this verse is seen the progression that is fitting for a present day democratic context:
(a) First ‘the nations are made drunk’, and that by the “immoral passion” this Woman proudly promotes, - i.e., a passion to achieve the spurious “American Dream” that indeed swoons many of the world’s poor and needy to think that this is really and simply achievable by all who “serve”, and are faithful to, Capitalism.[11]
(b) Secondly, ‘the kings of the earth’, thus world government leaders are mostly democratically convinced (= ‘seduced’) to officially adopt this economic system, indeed, e.g., even in a politically non-democratic country such a China, and the recently “converted” Russia.
(c) And thus, thirdly, ‘the “merchants” (i.e., various business people) of the earth’, in those participating countries, are able to achieve great riches. It is indeed most notable that is only those “merchant” which are ever said to become rich by the “power” available in this affair. Not people in general, nor even kings. And that is exactly what is the case, as presently, in Democratic Capitalistic Countries. Indeed a government official that would have personally become rich while in office by the various business/trade deals it has made with other countries would actually be impeached, indicted and prosecuted for corruption. And so, while those government officials do live luxuriously while in office due to the higher tax revenues they can collect from booming economies mainly from western investments, they are themselves not personally rich from this commercialism. All that these kings have done is “commit acts of fornication” with this shameless harlot Woman/Beast’ and not personally enrich themselves as the merchants. And so, consequently, throughout Rev 18 (in vs. 11, 15, 19) it is consistently pointedly the case that it is those who are directly engaged in business who tangibly, pecuniarily, suffer from the fall of this Babylon.
Rev 18:4 - I heard another voice from heaven, saying, "Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues;
God’s Call - Evidently here this voice from heaven is distinctly the voice of God, personally calling out to ‘His people.’ (Heb 3:7-4:13; cf. John 10:16). Manifestly the angel’s only mission in this is to make the announcement that Babylon if Fallen, and, why, and, to what extent (vs. Rev 18:2). So each one in Babylon will have to personally decide whether to heed this voice of God or not, thus not ultimately putting them at odds with the announcing angel himself, but rather with their professed God. (cf. Rev 3:20 & 7BC 966.9-767.1).
A Final Plagues Precursor - As discussed in this post, the “plagues” (= blows/wounds) of God are to disillusion people against the strength and viability of the Beast power. As Rev 17 & 18 are linearly revealed after the chapters on the Plagues in Rev 15 & 16, it very well may be that in a merciful precursor, during a “little time of trouble” God will allow for a typological fulfillment of those ‘disillusioning wounds’ before this final call to come out of Babylon. Indeed it is significant that its is one of those ‘Plagues angels’ that comes to reveal how Babylon will be judged (Rev 17:1a). The prophetic understanding here is this typological plagues will transpire during the sealing of the 144,000, and that will serve to convince the Great Multitude to come out of this Babylon. And they will do so before the full blown pouring out of these “plagues” is done.
Rev 18:5 - for her sins have joined up to be as high as heaven, and God has remembered her injurious wrongs.
sins...as high as heaven & injurious wrongs - Just like the related little horn power had not only tried to wield its authority towards earthly realms but also heavenward, towards the throne of God (Dan 7:25; 8:9-11, 25.), this derived, “mirroring” power will reach its tolerated limit when it is sins will seek formally and coercively usurp the authority of God. And so it is that when this ‘Protestant|Capitalistic Global Conglomerate will formally enact anti-Sabbatarian laws, including and pointedly, those which seek to bindingly and vitally install/impose Capitalism for all, will its “sinning” be made to “reach” as high as heaven (cf. 8T 94.2) and God will repay her for her “injurious wrongs”.
The background of this statement in Jer 51:8-10 reveals that those wrongs had not been duly adjudged by God priorly because He was mercifully trying to heal this somewhat honestly misguided Babylon. (Indeed in the background OT account, as seen in Isa 13:1-14:23, God, since the days of (First) Isaiah (739-686 B.C. - (Isa 1-39)) did have capital issues against the kingdom of Babylon, yet the punishment there was postponed (Isa 13:22b), most probably because His own people were not acting any better, and that against more light, and so He fairly could not judge Babylon while sparing them.) But now, by taking resolute and formal actions, and that against clear light of wrong through especially the Third Angel’s message, to oppose His will and continue in its injurious ways, this causes God to “remember” those mercifully pendingly judgement-postponed, but actually impenitently persisted upon, related sins/wrongs of this system. However, temporally now most tangibly and urgently, God here has to intervene in order to also protect His now life-threatenedly cornered, faithful People.
joined up to be - By looking at the (LXX) Greek of the OT background passage in Jer 51:9 and the (NT) Greek for this alluded statement in Rev 18:5 it is seen that the notion of merely “reaching” up to heaven expressed in the OT text is not the pointed intention in the NT text. Indeed the Greek word in Rev 18:5 kollao has the literal meaning of “to glue together”, and is used in the Bible to indicate: ‘a joining or close associating together’. It is where we get our English word “collate” which means “to assemble in proper sequence” thus connoting ‘two or more things very similar to each other that are joined together to form a single, contributively furthering’ unit.’ So this could here be focusing on the fact that, while God had judged Historical Spiritual Babylon by removing it from authority in 1798, this Eschatological Spiritual Babylon has picked up where its predecessor had left off and continued these Heavenward sins. To the point where it now has reached Heaven by formally outlawing, at the penalty of death, the true, Full Sabbatical worship of God, and pointedly here, in its Godly socio-economic realm.
SOP View on Sins of Babylon - The Divine views given to EGW in EW 273.1-276.1 are quite pointed in showing that God considers the sins of socio-economic oppression as being the greatest sin of Babylon. In EGW’s days, this was manifest in the practice of slavery, particularly with the cloak of Christianity that was being sanctimoniously draped over it, however in our day, as discussed here, those enslaving methods have been replaced by Capitalism, which also has as its fundamental tenets: “selfishness, fraud, and deceit” and is also being cloaked as ‘ideal Christianity’. Given the way in which Capitalism is sanctioning the needless dying of people with preventable and curable causes, and even causing and condoning the deliberate murdering of infants through abortions, for mainly various socio-economic reasons, all contrary to God’s Isa 58 Sabbatical message, it will indeed be ‘more tolerable for heathens, papists’, and also slave owners than for the Capitalist today in God’s final vengeance upon this Babylon, which includes, through its worldly policies and endorsed capitalistic approaches/practices, most in the SDA Church today (=EW 273.2 = 54.2-56.2), for as e.g., seen here, SDA’s ministers similarly “take their texts from the Word of God, but preach smooth things.” (EW 273.1). That is all why ‘Jesus and the angels only look upon these in anger.’ (EW 274.1 = “the wrath of the Lamb” -DA 825.4 = Matt 25:40-46 = Zech 7:8-14 (cf. Ezek 8:18) = Rev 6:16; 14:10). As the communicating angel related in that revelation:
“The names of the oppressors are written in blood, crossed with stripes, and flooded with agonizing, burning tears of suffering. God’s anger will not cease until He has caused this land of light [i.e., the United States of America] to drink the dregs of the cup of His fury, until He has rewarded unto Babylon double. Reward her even as she rewarded you, double unto her double according to her works; in the cup which she hath filled, fill to her double.” (EW 275.2)
Indeed: “Nothing less than the whole armor of righteousness can enable man to overcome the powers of darkness [cf. EW 263-266ff] and retain the victory over them.” (EW 273.2a)
postponed judging - Given the understood Jer 51:8-10 notion of ‘granted mercy to this Babylon to see if it could be healed’, indeed just like a similar chance given to rebellious Israel, and thus mercy that is somewhat due; as God was now dually working to set up, and bring about, an Israel object lesson, and then punish if still due this utilized Babylonian power, it can be seen in this derived prophecy that God is now to pour out His judgement on this indeed resolutely and indifferently ‘mimicking’ Eschatological Spiritual Babylon, which indeed had much tangible Historical evidence to not continue to go down this path. Most condemning enough, it was because of the tyranny of the Historical Spiritual Babylonian power, the Catholic Church, that the United States Constitutionally incorporated its Freedom of Religion/Worship amendment right at its founding. So they are indeed most guilty for now also denying this right against what they now know to be the Truth, and here, when it comes to the also Divinely highly esteemed Truth of God’s Sabbatical socio-economic laws and policies. So though the Historical Spiritual Babylon was temporally removed from power in some effective judgement, they certainly had not faced the wrathful judgement (Rev 14:9-11) that this Eschatological Babylon will face, notwithstanding that this judgement will also affect all those who are now with, and have remained in, it (Rev 18:4). So it may be the Jer 17:9-10 principle that is here at work where God is allowing these spiritual Babylonians to freely and concretely demonstrate what their full intents and desires are in the face of all those past, and recognized warnings against this unbiblical course. And then they can be abandoned to the full measure of their True & Righteousness-rejecting ways to be then duly and fairly judged. (2 Thess 2:7-12)
Rev 18:6 - "Pay her back even as she has paid, and give back to her double according to her deeds; in the cup which she has mixed, mix twice as much for her.
give her back double - This double penalty is a most severe judgement, and it may justly reflect the fact that God, with this Eschatological Babylon, is actually also now fully judging the incorporated Historical Babylon, to which the Rev 13 Second Beast has made an image of, indeed as seen in Rev 17:11 with the “eighth” head of this Beast, which is the ‘forcefully imposed morality’ “way of thinking” of the wounded 5th head. And as seen in contemporary justice where Punitive Damages can be added in quantums of Compensatory Damages (e.g, double, treble quantums) for “criminalized” tortfeasing (i.e., acting in full knowledge of detrimental harm), the double penalty imposed by God here would be in the light that this Eschatological Babylon did indeed knowingly act in full, mimicking knowledge of Historical Spiritual Babylon.
Rev 18:7 - "To the degree that she glorified herself and lived sensuously, to the same degree give her torment and mourning; for she says in her heart, 'I SIT as A QUEEN AND I AM NOT A WIDOW, and will never see mourning.'
OT Background - This entire Babylon Judging episode is based on what God did to the Ancient Babylon, as recorded in Isa 47. (From Deutero-Isaiah’s prophecies (Isa 40-55)).
matching torment and mourning - the amount of ‘torture and loss’ here is to, at the very least, (that is before the doubling penalizing takes effect), to fully offset the wrongs and unjust gains that this system had made through her unbiblical ways.
sitting as a married queen - It is interesting here to see the notion of non entrenched power of this Harlot Woman Babylon (=Apostate Church). She says that she sits as a queen, when the actual realities is that she is not at all enthroned but has merely been allowed to sit on a Beast (earthly power/kingdom). And for a kingdom (the United States) that claims to have no ruling monarch, it is indeed quite strange that is letting a Woman, none the less, rule it as a de facto Monarch. So she is merely/assumedly functioning as a Queen by finding herself seated on this Beast, thus indeed effectively ruling it. She also is implying in that statement that she is currently married to a king, when the actual fact is that there is not king sitting next to her. Her actual husband-King is Jesus Christ (2 Cor 11:2), but she has chosen to unfaithful to him, as so she is assuming that through her acts of harlotries with other kings/world powers, she thus must be a monarch. This is how she is assuming that she will never be without a husband as she expects that there will always be at least another king in the world to “endorse” her, thus causing her to never see mourning, and thus continue to give her this assumed status.
However the wider fact of implication is that everyone is about to turn in horror against this spurious Religio-economic system. And even the seat given to this Woman by this Beast will come into play. And so indeed, America as a strictly Political entity (the thought of which would surely be condemned as heresy by many) will have to make a radical choice of whether or not to continue to so religiously espouse Capitalism or entirely shake it off its back, thus not allowing the unbiblical ideology of this Apostate Woman, who is claiming this to be the Gospel Truth, to guide and dominate it. Yet as the also royal and luxuriously clad Beast, i.e., also in “scarlet”, came to gain this luxurious wealth through the harlotries of this Apostate Church (i.e., the Protestant ideology of, and claims for, Capitalism), and did indeed willfully allowed her to become seated on its back, this separation is not likely to occur. And so it will suffer great loss in the judgement of this woman, and that mainly through the losses that will be incurred by also its own “merchants” who were also getting rich because of this Biblically illicit system.
Rev 18:8 - "For this reason in one day her plagues will come, pestilence and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; for the Lord God who executes her sentence is strong.
one day sentence execution - The implied swiftness in this judgement, (i.e., total destruction of a Superpower city) in “one day” (though not literal time), will indeed demonstrate that it is God Himself who is executing this sentence. Interestingly enough, in Capitalistic Investment markets it is easy to see how cataclysmic losses can be incurred in a day, with entire companies capable of suddenly collapsing, and that is due to an hysterical “Panic” of investors/traders. So for God to effectuate such swift and deep damage, He will simply have to instill and/or maintain this spirit of great fear amongst those who control this most significant funding part of Capitalistic economies.
Ironically enough Capitalists pride themselves that their system if “freely”, (and that whimsically), based on ‘what/how people want/choose to value companies, products and/or commodities’ instead of using a factual and scientific, true-costs approach to determine prices. So this spurious fundamental tenet will come to prove their self-defeating achilles heel as investors/traders then will hysterically no longer greatly value various goods and services.
It very well may be the realism of the NJK Project’s Economy, that will make these people realize the utter futility of their subjective and whimsical price setting, and cause them to, en mass, “dump” this system and their patent fictitious/fanciful pricing.
A taste of their own wine - Interestingly enough God will achieve this judgement by turning this system’s own revered “implements” against it. In the time of the Fall of Babylon in the days of Jeremiah, God, on top of having helped to lull Babylon into an increasing false sense of security, as He had indicated in Jer 50:39, apparently turned a drunken feast of Babylon into an unshakeable drowsy stupor (Dan 5:1ff; cf. Isa 45:1b), which resulted in Babylon falling without even a fight. The same thing is to occur with this Eschatological Babylon as God apparently will, as seen in Rev 14:9-10; 16:19) “wrathfully” mix in His own cup some kind of distinct, deep drowsing substance into the wine of Babylon, indeed a sort of flunitrazepam (a.k.a. “roofies”) which then allows God and/or others to do whatever He/they wants with the (deserving) drinker. (Jer 25:15-16ff; cf. Isa 51:17-23). As discussed here, the theological reality in this ‘cup of “passion”’ development, is that God will completely withdraw His Spirit here and no longer give any light of warning or wisdom to those who insist on following their paths of wrong doing, thus leaving them to fully incur all of the adverse and detrimental elements involved in this crooked course. (Jer 25:27-29ff; cf. 34:12-17ff)
And one has “successfully been made drunk” when they come to have absolutely no problem with the things about themselves which they know are wrong, and now, under this ‘new “spirit” influence and altered state of mind’, do like them. Indeed they just are now, inevitably/helpless, and quasi-resolutely so, just more of themselves, asis (always) was, -a state which they actually do much prefer, than having to “sober-mindedly” face/deal with reality and truth. (Isa 6:10; cf. 1 Thess 5:2-10; 2 Tim 4:1-5; 1 Pet 1:13ff; 4:7-10; 5:8-10).
As seen in this post under Rev 6:17's statement, and as also revealed above in Rev 17:17; God will also be, all in the context of His now ‘no longer merciful course’, and that “passionately” so,[12] in regards to this conglomerate Babylonian Power (=Rev 14:9-11), proactively acting to press out this wine beverage, from then ‘Babylon’s own ripe grapes’ (=Rev 14:17-22 = Isa 63:1-6), with which He will oversaturatingly drunken this power from his ‘feet deep/high’ vats of wine, pressed from the fruit of her own wickedness (=Joel 3:13), and that to its self-injuring utter demise. (Rev 16:19). Indeed those vats will be so high that, by being “up to the horse’s bridle” (Rev 14:20), even the horses, which, as seen here, is symbolic of the “Evangelistic/Militant” implement of a Church, will easily become drunk also by naturally drinking this ‘readily accessible, self-detrimenting, bloodily-intoxicating, booze concoction’ (cf. Deut 32:14), thus guaranteeing the just (Rev 16:4-7; cf. 17:6), easy defeat of that hapless army. (Isa 49:25-26; Ezek 39:19; cf. Deut 32:41-43).
And one has “successfully been made drunk” when they come to have absolutely no problem with the things about themselves which they know are wrong, and now, under this ‘new “spirit” influence and altered state of mind’, do like them. Indeed they just are now, inevitably/helpless, and quasi-resolutely so, just more of themselves, as
Indeed as any arresting police officer can testify, it is most telling and typical of a drunk person to be non-sequiturly and indifferently flippant and giddy about, even the most dangerous things that they are doing while under the influence, such as driving drunk. They also find things that are quite serious to be comical and hilarious. This is the exact opposite demeanor of those who will be ‘sighing and crying’ for the doomed state of the Church, i.e., in turn, first the SDA Church, and then, recursively, the wider Christian Church at large (Ezek 8 & 9), and these “careless and indifferent ones” (EW 271.1) will not be sealed with the Seal of God. (5T 207.2-212.4).
Rev 18:9 - "And the kings of the earth, who committed acts of immorality and lived sensuously with her, will weep and lament over her when they see the smoke of her burning|fiery ordeal,
smoke of her burnign|fiery ordeal - There indeed is ‘never smoke without fire’, however there more accurately is ‘never smoke with something “burning up/being consumed”’. So those kings will weep and lament over Babylon only when they pointedly see that it is not able to withstand the fire that has been ignited on her for the (“proofing”) fiery ordeal that she is made to go through (see above in Rev 17:16).
The applicability of this specifying point is seen in the fact that Capitalism, through its many downturns, damages, tangible wrongs and catastrophes, has already been exposed to various self-igniting “market” fires (economically a.k.a. “fire sales”), yet it has managed to survive them. However this lighted fire is one that will now tangibly consume her, and this will even shock those who had lighted it, these kings (Rev 17:16), by them having go away to get better value and prices (i.e., from, or in emulation of, the NJK’s Biblical economy).
Hence will be a typological “day and night tormenting” (= “torturing”) of this power and its continued adherents, in the presence of this ‘established little lamb power’ (Rev 14:10-11; cf. 19:19-21). Indeed the smoke involved in these related judgements will concretely signal to all that this Babylonian power has been irreparably affected, and it will apparently be only then that those kings will realize that they have reached a point of no possible “reassuring” soothing or overturning. (= Isa 47:13-14). Notice in Rev 19:19-21 that it is only the “two” (vs. 20) entities of the “Beast” (America) & its “False Prophet” (-apparently a heightened form of its controlling Apostate Woman, by then manifestly seeing ‘false, fastening visions’ from the Devil himself (Rev 18:2)*), that are thrown alive into the lake of, brimstone-stoked, fire.[13] The kings of the earth are instead slain by the sword (word of God), and, as discussed in Rev 18:2, already called and assembled birds have a feast on their flesh.
* Indeed, it is interesting to see how this “Woman”, which Historically was prophetically symbolically represented by “Jezebel” (Rev 2:20-23) during Revelation’s Fourth Series Era when that power, -the Roman Catholic Church was then deposed, did go on to effectively also (cf. 1 Kgs 18:22, 40; 19:1) established a false prophet entity, pointedly the dually reactionary Protestant-Capitalistic Church which, like the RCC had done with Rome, did go on to ‘ride the world ruling “beast” (=country) America’ (Rev 17:3). And as it is due with false prophets (cf. Isa 30:10; Ezek 13:1-16; 1 Kgs 22:12, 13; Luke 6:26) that Woman/False Prophet does biasedly reflect&influence the ones which have put her in this position.
And so, fulfilling to a “T” the indicators of a false prophet stated by Christ in Matt 7:15 by leading that Beast to express and fulfill the, “swindling” (1 Cor 6:10), antinomial/lawlessness (2 Thess 2:7; cf. Rev 2:14-16), even murderously persecutive, spirit of Antichrist (Acts 20:29-30), borne from the Dragon, Satan (2 Thess 2:8-10; cf. John 8:44), -which fundamentally is to ‘enslavingly’ remove one’s liberty to not transgress God’s Law (cf. John 8:31-36), while, all the while making it think to be/seem Godly and Christ-like. (=Rev 13:11ff “iconically” (=Rev 13:14ff) emulating Rev 13:1-10).
It is all just a calculated, subtle re-approach of Satan (=EW 266-269; cf. e.g., 1 Cor 5:10-11), but this time through less overt and explicit “dragon-like” features and appearances than what had been priorly used (in Rev 12:7-9ff; Rev 12:3-4ff; Rev 13:1-2ff versus Rev 17:3).
Rev 18:10 - standing at a distance because of the fear of her torment, saying, 'Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! For within one hour your “crisis” has come.'
“Woe, woe” - All pertinent/related things having been considered the double “woe” expressing here, as similarly done two times more in Rev 18:16, 19, is most likely a direct allusion to the “Second Woe” event described in Rev 11:14 which occurs at the end of that “Shaking” event, where God’s Church, led by its ‘deceived|corrupt|fallen “7000” leaders’ (=Isa 29) is most “naturally” in cahoots with the World all to take their revenge on God’s Two Witnesses (Rev 11:10; =LDE 173.5-174.2; 180.1-6), which all culminates in God executing His most wrathful, “world-stopping & overturning” judgements against all of these Mark of the Beast worshippers. (=Isa 30 - Psa 2|Rev 2:27; 5:9-10; 19:11-16)
Grand Deceiver Judged - It is interesting to see that God will focusedly, most severely, judge the instigator of this global apostasy system (cf. Rev 16:10-11). As already discussed, other participating kings/kingdom will suffer their naturally derived damages, but the main thrust of these, even “doubled” judgement will be on the Woman who had respectively ‘seduced and drunken’ these other ‘kings and nations’. (Rev 17:1-2). Logically, the only way that it was able to seduce and drunken these others was because it was being highly trusted. And that may be all because, (a) in regards to the Woman, it was an attractive one, as Protestantism is to some, and (b) in regards to the Beast, America, by having allowed itself to be so control by this women and her proposition for quick and ruthless wealth, for after all it was quite needy in its barren, newly-discovered world, start, a union which did result in luxurious living for both, then other world kingdom would have indeed been fooled into fully trusting her. After all, in her Religious “Gospel” professions, she seemed so benevolently and honestly-minded, along with her interlinked, “dreamy”, “individual prosperity and freedom” message. However it inceptively flawedly was “wealth and liberty” at the expense of its true Husband Jesus Christ and His actual Gospel. (2 Cor 11:2-4)
fear of her torment - The “torment” here is literally speaking of “torture”, and, as involved in any torture, the goal is to get the subject to confess/speak the Truth. And so the “torment” of this Babylonian power will in strict, and (Divinely) just, keeping, similarly be for the ends of getting her to confess, admit and/or self-reveal the Truth here, i.e., that ‘her peddled ways were not at all Godly as she fundamentally was claiming’. (Cf. the comment on Hell Fire’s torment in this post.)
Apparently the kings of the earth who are ‘standing at a distance for fear of her torment’ are avoiding being tortured themselves because they have already, to some degree, “freely” confessed this Truth, and had priorly abandoned this spurious system, however, as it is really the ensuing judgement that has befallen on this system that is convincingly keeping them from returning into partnership with her, and as that departure, as discussed in Rev 17:16 & 18:9, may have merely been out of economical logical and convenience, they indeed still have a pending just penalty to pay for their past supporting, and establishment-aiding, association with her.
...within... - This expression is in the Greek Dative case and is syntactically functioning as a “Dative of Time” to indicate ‘the time when the action of the main verb is accomplished.’ (cf. Wallace, GGBTB, 155)
“crisis” - This is a literal rendering of the underlying Greek word krisis which in Greek definition focuses on the precursory court session|trial|decision-making involved judging in a judicial process and not on the resulting sentence itself (= Gr. krima) -(explained in more detail within here; cf. SDABC 7:863; PDF p.6682). A good example of this distinction is seen in Rev 14:7 versus Rev 20:4, 12-13 with the occurrence of krisis in Rev 14:7 speaking of the Pre-Advent “decision making” phase of the Final judgement and Rev 20:4, 12-13 occurrences of krima being in the Post-Advent sentencing phase of judgement, during the Millennium (=GC 660.4-661.2).[14]
one hour - with the above specific understanding for “crisis”, the prior statement in Rev 18:8 concerning ‘destructions in one day’ is more precisely understood, as it is can now be seen that the “crisis” which will be the trial session of this Babylon will (figuratively) only take “one hour”, however the ‘sentence execution’ of that decision will itself transpire within “one day”. And as seen in Rev 18:17, that “crisis” which results in utter destruction occurs in the sudden ‘loss of value’ of prior highly valued items.
Rev 18:11 - "And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, because no one buys their cargoes any more--
cargoes affected - It is most significant to see here that it is pointedly global trade that is affected in this judgement. Even back in Bible times, there was no need to ship things across seas, by cargo, unless they were being sent to another country/kingdom. Using the seas to send commodities from one city in a country to another was very rare, if not non-existent, as it would be needlessly taking up maritime resources. Instead land routes using animal drawn wagons were used. And trading by sea, was mostly seen for supplying something that could not be produced/obtained in one’s own country. Otherwise, these cities within that country could have access to their country’s common resources and raw materials, to produce those items. So the focus here is pointedly on global trading.
Interestingly enough today, despite the world currently being in a “Super-Jumbo Jet Age”, the vast majority of global trade is still being done by cargo ships, whether it is for raw materials or produce goods, including the product of outsourced work. So this statement still finds most pertinent application today, and it is indeed economically most vitally important to e.g., the United States to maintain fluent and abundant global trading, including outsourced work. If those sources of supply are cut, then the U.S. would have to depend on its very limited domestic resources, and it is then that it can be seen how its economy would most rapidly come to a screeching halt, and notorious collapse.
Rev 18:12-13 - cargoes of gold and silver and precious stones and pearls and fine linen and purple and silk and scarlet, and every kind of citron wood and every article of ivory and every article made from very costly wood and bronze and iron and marble, and cinnamon and spice and incense and perfume and frankincense and wine and olive oil and fine flour and wheat and cattle and sheep, and cargoes of horses and chariots and (slaving) bodies and psyche of men.
Sectors targeted - every economic sector is indeed covered here from (and all, high end ones), namely: financial ones; various “building” materials; produced goods; foods; heavy duty “machinery”; and even ‘human labor and resources’ (See next comment). So a country deprived of this from trading will internally fend on its own to produce/provide them, or alternatively replace them, or simply go without them.
(slaving) bodies and psyche of men - A key “commodity” of this global trading are (a) physical bodies, no doubt for slave, or even hired (migrant), work; and also (b) the intangible “commodity” of the ‘worshipful devotion of men’ (= “psyche”) who are willing to stake/invest their ‘being/life’ (i.e., ‘the redeemable good in them’) to obtain the promised riches in this unbiblical enterprising (cf. Mar 8:36), no doubt in the process also tangibly sacrificially costing the lives of many of these people, as also seen today in “sweatshops”, and negligently hazardous work sites, where safe, healthy, and even sane, working conditions are neglected so that owners can maximize their profit. (Cf. Ezek 27:13).
willful deprivations - As these are all luxurious and costly items, the shunning of these by consumers, and thus abandoning by merchants, may indicate that a global Recession, even Depression, has been instilled, and people prefer to go without those superfluous items. And in order to aid the failing local economy, jobs will also no longer be outsourced to cheaper labor forces elsewhere, but kept at home. And to do this “labor repatriation”, it will have to be the desire of local needy workers, and not those outsourcing profiteering owners, that will be obeyed.
Rev 18:14 - "The summer fruit your psyche long for has gone from you, and all things that were luxurious and splendid have, of themselves, perished from you and men will no longer find them.
summer fruit your psyche - The expected fruits of the (conducive) summer harvest that they had been psychologically conditioned to mentally & bodily wholly believe in and trust (e.g., a.k.a. the “American Dream (for any and all)”) has not blossomed as so promised, and that for “unanticipated” adverse reasons during here (balmy) summer months.
have, of themselves, perished -Again here it will be “more than enough/needed”, luxurious living that will be affected in this Babylon judgement, and will actually be naturally discarded of as typical in severe Recessions/Depression. Indeed one of the chief tenets of Capitalism is that its adherents can have whatever they are willing to work to pay for. However now, they will be made to living merely according to their needs; and stop their previously unscrupulous and abusive exploiting practices.
Rev 18:15 - "The merchants of these things, who became rich from her, will stand at a distance because of the fear of her torment, weeping and mourning,
See comments in Rev 18:10.
stand at a distance - As typical investors do stay away from investing in a tanking economy. (Cf. Rev 18:17)
Rev 18:16 - saying, 'Woe, woe, the great city, she who had clothed itself in fine linen and purple and scarlet, and had been adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls;
Focus on “Great City” - The focus here is indeed squarely on the material wealth of this Babylon, which it amassed by perverted and anti-sabbatarian socio-economic, Capitalistic means which deathly neglected the world’s poor and needy who could not vitally compete or keep pace.
Derived Material Riches - Apparently, while this Woman clothed herself in luxurious clothing, her material adorning wealth of gold, precious stone and pearls, had instead been provided by other associates, probably as partnership gifts. In order to convince these others, she indeed had to look luxurious, hence her dressing up so. In history, it was indeed the apparent ready wealth that was being accrued by Protestant Christians, that convince other countries and peoples to also participate in this system, which thus served to more deceptively increase the material wealth of this Apostate Church.
Rev 18:17 - for within one hour such great wealth has been made desolate!' And every shipmaster and every passenger and sailor, and as many as make their living by the sea, stood at a distance,
has been made desolate - Exegetical studies show that the term “desolate” does not necessarily mean “physical destruction” but simply a loss in inherent/given value. (cf. Matt 23:38; Jer 4:27 (LXX)) So as much of this wealth is in hard commodities such as gold, silver, pearls, marble, iron, ivory, etc., which are deemed to be inherently valuable, these will become “desolate” by the sudden loss of those values ascribed to them. And in Capitalism, everything is whimsically priced according to ‘freely/desiringly-deemed market values’, and not according to concrete scientific data and information.
as many as... - More specifically here, this judgement will indeed affect global trade and all that is linked to it to make it function or profit from it.
Rev 18:18 - and were crying out as they saw the smoke of her burning|fiery ordeal, saying, 'What city is like the great city?'
Grand Object Lesson - When they see that this ‘Great Economic Superpower is atrociously failing its proofing fiery ordeal, and is being consumed, it will indeed cause the rest of the adoring world to see and know that if it could not make it, and continue to live according to its previous achieved standards, then there surely is no hope for them.
Rev 18:19 - "And they threw dust on their heads and were crying out, weeping and mourning, saying, 'Woe, woe, the great city, in which all who had ships at sea became rich by her valued|honored|respected|dear worth, for within one hour she has been made desolate!'
Alternative Search - Countries which had highly respected and valued, and thus quasi-blindly given the reins of their economy to this profiteering Babylon, by mostly selling off its various resources to it, to support its luxurious living and themselves gaining some lesser and cheapen financial wealth in exchange, will now hurtingly weep at the turn of events here. It will therefore have to adopt another system than this short-sighted Capitalistic one in order to even survive. And unless a Capitalistic mindset is totally abandoned, this urgent survival will not be done quickly enough, to the detriment people of many within its jurisdiction.
As typical, this suddenly failing of global trading will indeed much more affect poorer countries than richer, First-World, ones, because those richer ones have an market base that is sufficiently enough established and widespread to allow for adequate producing and buying within it. Still both rich and poor countries in this trading equation will correspondingly have to pay for the loss of this unequal exchange where rich countries could get cheap labour and production from those poorer countries, and poor countries could get a revenue from these financially prosperous markets. The whole blatant inequality faultline in this enterprise shows how illogical it was, and was indeed doomed to catastrophic failure. But of course, on one hand the profiteering capitalists really does care about such deemed far-off/long term implications, and the revenue obtaining poor capitalistic individual generally only care that s/he is making money to survive in, regardless of the source/means.
Rev 18:20 - "Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, because God has pronounced/adjudged judgment for you against her."
Due Justice - Indeed God’s faithful ‘Church members’, ‘Church leaders’ and ‘Prophets’ have tried throughout the years to stop and overturn the various abuses of Babylon, and thankfully, God will here intervene in due/full time to provide this long sought for justice.
Rev 18:21 - Then a Mighty Angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, "So will Babylon, the great city, be thrown down with violence, and so that it might not be found any longer.
Mighty Angel - Manifestly this is a special task for an angel from the select, presence of God Mighty Angels. (Cf. Rev 5:2; 10:1).
a millstone thrown into the sea - It is not coincidental that the imagery here echoes what Jesus had “recommended” in Matt 18:5-7, 10|Mar 9:42|Luke 17:1-2 to anyone who would merely ‘cause a little one to stumble’; -how much more for physically murdering them (abortion) or letting suffer and die from curable or preventable causes (cf. Matt 25:45-46). And for the future own good of all, this Mighty Angel, at God’s empowered directive, will fittingly execute this judgment to this ruthless and murderous Capitalistic, and moreover Christianity-claiming, Babylon. (Cf. Jer 51:63-64; [3SM 415.5]; see also the related comments here in regards to the Sixth Prophetic Era (i.e., Sixth Church/Seal/Thunder/Trumpet/Plague))
It is most significant that, as seen in Matthew documenting of Christ’s statement here (Matt 18:5-10), that in the midst of dealing with ‘causing little ones to (merely) stumble’, in Matt 18:8-9, Jesus makes His, probably most graphic and “violent”, statement of, if need be: ‘cutting off your foot, and/or hand, and/or plucking out your eye’. The fact of the matter is that this is contextually all “advised” in relation to ‘causing little ones to stumble’, as Jesus concludingly, pointedly resumes this topic in Matt 18:10. This radical view of Jesus to: ‘protect these little ones at all costs, even to the point of deliberate and irreparable violence to one’s own body, flies in the face of the common excuse for abortion which purportingly claims: “It’s my body”. Jesus, echoing the OT’s similar radical care for also the unborn, stated in Exod 21:22-25*, clearly does not endorse such a, actually scientifically false, rationale, and with the punishment for infringing here being Hell Fire. (Matt 18:8b, 9b).
*[Exod 21:22-25 is discussed in Part 2 (page 26ff) of the PDF forum reprints on this page.]
-with violence, and so that it might not be found any more - This Mighty Angel will do this throwing down with most striking, depicting force/violence so that this Babylon will addedly not be desired to ever be re-established. So here apparently is the doubling Punitive element in God’s judgement. Indeed just gently laying this great millstone above the waters would result in it still surely, but gently/silently sinking to the bottom, however that commissioned Mighty Angel, indeed wants to make a most striking point here by this chosen disposal method. And just like Ancient Babylon was never to be inhabited again, this Spiritual, Eschatological, Economic Babylon, and pointedly its sinful ways (~cf. Mic 7:19), will, through all of this, hopefully never sought to be re-established on earth again. Indeed a strikingly demonstrated spuriousness and futility of the whimsical Capitalist Economic, vividly exposing it as ultimately, utterly worthless, should produce this desired lasting effect. So there will not be a gradual, optioned considerate, easing transition away from this economic system, but an actually legal/permissible, most radical thrashing of it. It is indeed long overdue time to urgently implement a global economy that will rightly and adequately allocate this planet’s various available, especially vital, resources to, now, all 7,000,000,000 people on earth.
Rev 18:22 - "And, so that the sound of harpists and musicians and flute-players and trumpeters might not be heard in you any longer; and no craftsman of any craft might be found in you any longer; and the sound of a mill might not be heard in you any longer;
More Aimed at Consequences - The purposefully desired Punitive effects of the Mighty Angel’s forceful/violent judgement casting down in Rev 18:21 are further stipulated here and also the next verse. In all of this, the purpose is to literally wipe the smirk off the face of this wrong doer, and nothing like possibly forceful and swift and unrelenting, (indeed as an ever/only sinking millstone), execution of judgement to do so.
The Drunken Party’s Over - This is applicably indicating that the renown, and also globally exported, American cultural swagger will thus be silenced. That will be because the suddenly urged times will not be permissive/conducive to a spirit of partying and festivity. Indeed in a, moreover, sudden and severe, recession, the first economic sector to suffer it that of Entertainment. (Indeed in severe economic times, people in the entertainment industry are asked/expected to symbolically tone down their customary extravangant pomp and fanfare (e.g., in/for award ceremonies) so as to not ‘irritatingly “clash”’ with those hard times.) A secondary sector to greatly suffer is small business where indeed ‘people market their various mastered/niche crafts’. And as the mill represents a facilitating (powered) method for production, e.g., a flour mill, another sector to greatly suffer in a Depression are those similarly facilitating services (e.g., lawn care, “eating out”, private commuting). People instead resort to less costly, do-it-yourself, unassisted and even, unpowered, means.
These effects will be made to surely transpire as severely so then, and a great demonstration of this feasibility was seen in the Sudden and Severe Stock Market Crash in 1929, which caused the “Roaring 20's” to screetchingly come to a most depressive end. Indeed what great American thing came out of the 1930's.
Rev 18:23 - and the light of a lamp might not shine in you any longer; and the voice of the bridegroom and bride might not be heard in you any longer; for your merchants were the great men of the earth, because all the nations were deceived by your “drugging”.
Primitive Measures - The punitive carrying out of that forceful/violent casting down judgement will also cause that people will also either resort to, or be limited to, cost-saving measures as severe as only work when natural elements allow it, (as e.g., seen in very poor countries where there is no, or not enough, electricity). While this may seem preposterous today, even in conditions of a normative severe Depression, with the ending of global trade, which today also involves the importing of energy such as Crude Oil, even America may be forced to quite strict energy saving/rationing measures, or instead make drastic and widespread changes to be capable of using available renewable energy sources which, if not sufficient can cause power shortages. Ironically enough, this is a change that short-sighted Capitalistic pompously preferred to ignore and put off, as seen, even for, vital Global Warming issues.
voice of bridegroom and bride - As, at-odds-to-actual-love, as it is, people usually put off marriage until they are financially stable. On the other hand, there are many marriages which involve financial convenience by the cutting of several duplicate expenses (e.g., housing, heating, insurance, etc) through this marital joining. However since people do live together without being married, and also in most of those cases, mainly out of savings concerns, and also while a wedding can (profiteeringly) be quite a costly expense, this statement is apparently indicating that the common celebratory “joyful life” aspect prominently seen in marriages will also lose its prior “cheerfulness” and people will rather engage in, even informal/unofficial, legal unions, -if any sort of conjugal union at all, all out of a necessity to save money in those “swiftly imposed” hard times. [Cf. this 2017 report relating an empirical example/demonstration of such ‘wedding/marriage-sequitur’ correlations/developments in/from the, now ca. 7-10 year, Greece Economic Downturn.]
It can be seen that these, so punitively “doubled”, Divine judgements will be so deep-reaching that they will not only destroy unjust, luxurious gains, but also made to affect the almost basic “amenities” of an enjoyable life. So just like this Capitalistic system ultimately made those who could not compete init live at a very basic, subsistence, level, God will two-foldly work to “repay” this Babylon by also reducing it to this bottom-rung, basic life-scraping level. AMEN!! (~Rev 19:3-4)
great men of the earth - As indeed seen in today’s global economy, it is the wealthy people in the countries of the world who engage in such Global merchandising, obtaining many things which are not readily available in their own countries/economies. And many of them come to live at a much higher standard of living than their compatriots. So as it is that these global participants will scurrying cut trade relations with this Babylonian system, indeed as fast as it is rapidly sinking, those effects from this corresponding swift cutting off of Global trading will further complicate economic matters for Babylon.
nations deceived by your “drugging” - The commonly translated word “sorcery” is rather the word for administering a medicine or a drug to produce an altered state of mind. Medicinally, this would be sort of a painkilling numbing drug. But as such a mind-altering substance, it can also be used to produce the out-of-mind, and euphoric, effects associated with non-medicinal drugs.
This Babylon was able to achieve this fooling, global drugging through its wine of harlotry (Rev 17:2), thus through its: ‘this is God’s very will’ claims for its spurious economic system, and those in the world who came to drink this wine, probably not even expecting it to be fermented, coming from a supposedly Bible Christian, became drunk, and ended up mindlessly doing whatever this system suggested to her. And as previously stated, in a Democratic context, it was indeed the people, (who collectively form groups known as “nations”), that had to be pointedly drugged for this system to successfully take root.
Interestingly enough this same theme of “drugging”, along with similar contextual mentions of “plagues”, “fornication|immorality|harlotry” is mentioned during the events of the Sixth Trumpet Rev 9:13-21. The persisted wrong doing there (vs. 21) occurs just before the Mighty Angel with the Little Scroll next comes on the scene (Rev 10). Historically, this was the final stage period of the Medieval Church, and those also plague-judgements by God then on her ‘did not cause her to repent’ (Rev 9:21). Instead these evils continued and now are full-blownly revived in this Eschatological Rev 17-18 Babylon manifestation. So God now will also engage in judging this Babylon with plagues (= “wounding blows”), and this time will bring about her to due ruin.
There is also an Eschatological application to that 6th Trumpet, just before the Eschatological Events of the Little Scroll episode of Rev 10 & 11 begin transpire.
Rev 18:24 - "And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints and of all who have been slain on the earth."
Economical Murderer - again the saints and prophets of God who spoke up against this ungodly system were vitally affected, even killed by those who refused to hear those Biblical condemnation. And indeed, when it is factually seen how Capitalism is directly, and (mainly) indirectly, (i.e., in some avoidable way), responsible for virtually, if not literally, all of the untimely deaths (= “(sacrificially) slain”) people on the earth, it is seen how truthful this denunciation is. (=Jer 51:49). Even in Medieval times, the Historical Babylon was responsible for the hundreds of million is persecuted to death in the name of God, in a claimed need to “purify” God’s temporal realm. And while the gross apostasy of that Church thus prevented it from being the global life preserving and saving agent that God intended it to be, and was thus similarly indirectly responsible for all of the slain on the earth, this present Eschatological, Economic Babylon, which by now does have a global reach, is much more directly culpable for those untimely and needless global deaths. Her swift and severe judgements are therefore most deserved.
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Recapping Summary
-Revelation 17:8-18 speaks of a quasi-global, geopolitical coalition (= “10 kings”) with the Beast which she is riding vs. 7, (indeed a distinct entity from “the Woman”), which however is being controlled by Revelation’s Babylon, In Rev 18 it is seen that this previous Church and State cooperation is now quite perfectly fused together to jointly form Babylon, and in vss. 9-20ff it is seen that this had been a cooperation that had brought great economic prosperity. And all of this, as with the Ancient Babylon episode & God’s Israel, had actually been His purposeful, deliberate will (see Rev 17:17).
-While it is correct to understand the prophecy of Rev 17 to, though only partially, Historically apply to the Medieval Church, here in Rev 17, it is actually making a distinct/morphed, yet ideologically related and quasi-derived, Eschatological re-emergence. Also significant to the understanding here is its linear location in the prophetic timeline, as it comes to light after the judgement of the plagues (Rev 15 & 16) have been related. In fact it is one of those “plague angels” that now informs John about this woman & beast coalition. (Rev 17:1) (Correspondingly it is also one of the “plague angels” that shows John the Righteous counterpart to this ‘Great City Babylon,’ the “Holy City Jerusalem’ (Rev 21:9-10ff).)
-The prophetic indicators in Rev 17 show that this Eschatological Beast greatly resembles the Historical one, and it is here that is understood the ‘image to the first beast’ that comes to be made by the Second Beast of Rev 13, the United States. Whereas the actions of the First Beast were pointedly religious, though also affecting the temporal and physical life, the actions of this mirroring Second Beast will be pointedly economic, yet also affecting the Religious/Spiritual, and also physical, life.
-Also the chief affectation of the First Beast was in the ‘mark of its authority’ in religious matters, namely its change of the Seventh Day Sabbath to Sunday, the First Day. By this bold and widely accepted/respected, Ten Commandment, major change, it, self-admittedly, proudly thinks that it has a right to make any other “lesser” changes in religious matters.
-Similarly, the Second Beast has made a major change in regards to God’s Will and Law for His people. It has systematically replaced all of God’s still binding socio-economic Sabbatical laws and principles, which all have the purpose of meeting the needs of the poor (cf. Isa 58), with diametrically opposed greed, selfishness individualism and covetous quasi-laws and principles in Capitalism. It has even given it a religious authority which many adherents today of this system, adamantly and obstinately believe is the Biblical will of God. So, prophetically, it is no surprise that the re-manifestation of Revelation’s Babylon, when it is judged by God, results in great global economic overturnings.
-Indeed the United States has managed to spread the spurious (as transparently and objectively increasingly, concretely seen) belief that ‘Capitalism is best’ to virtually, the entire world. The handful of nations that have chosen not to go along with this system have been officially economically ostracized and indifferently left to ‘survive if they can’. All nations have sought to emulate the Capitalistic way in which the U.S. has made its economic wealth which in turn has permitted it to become a world Superpower. Yet, it is today becoming more and more, and quite painfully so, self-evident, at various levels, that this system is not at all sustainable, and to thrive, it must have a significant disparity between: the (profiteering) haves and the (exploited) have nots.
-As with God’s design and purpose in allowing the prominently Religious Babylon, which has a great impact on society, in order to show how the disregards of God’s Religious Laws will lead to naught, His design and purpose with this prominently Economic Babylon, which also has an impact upon society, is to now show that disregarding His sabbatical socio-economic will similarly lead to nothing worthwhile. So God is not merely concerned with Religious matters in this GC, but also with socio-economic ones. In fact as seen in the Sun vs. Moon symbolism, which respectively represent the Temporal Economy vs. the Religion one, the brightness of the moon is entirely dependent on the Sun’s. In the same, related way, in regards to man-ward interactions, the health of the Religious Economy is correspondingly determined by the state of socio-economic affairs.
From the fact that this end time judgement on Babylon is indeed to pointedly be economical, as seen in the distinct emphasis with its OT background of Jer 51 where the emphasis there is instead to physically destroy the city and its inhabitants (Jer 51:62); it is sequiturly understood that the “Loud Cry” call in Rev 18:4 (=Rev 14:8) for ‘God’s People to come out of her’, ultimately [i.e., in an Eschatological Wave of Prophetic Fulfillments], accurately, involves, -in connection with giving the warning of the (patent) way God has revealed that He will be overthrowing her (=Rev 18:6-8ff), abandoning her anti-sabbatarian Capitalist ways, (something that even, and especially, SDA’s need to do), to instead return to, and build up, God’s ruined Holy City and His Temple currently being downcast by this “Great City Babylon”, -which moreover is defiantly passing about its wine in God’s own Temple elements. (Dan 5:22-24)!
Notes
[1] Some examples are: (Jer 51:6 = Rev 18:4); (Jer 51:7 = Rev 14:8; 17:2, 4; 18:3); (Jer 51:8 = Rev 14:8; 18:2); (Jer 51:9 = Rev 18:4-5); (Jer 51:13 = Rev 17:1); (Jer 51:45 = Rev 18:4); (Jer 51:48 = Rev 18:20); (Jer 51:49 = Rev 18:24); (Jer 51:63-64 = Rev 18:21).
[2] History books will clearly show that there were more than 10 Barbaric Tribes/kingdoms that ruled independently in the previous territory of Rome, as indeed seen in the divisive arguments in SDA History in choosing which of those kingdoms should fulfill the statement of the 10 horns in Dan 7. Similarly, there were also more than three horns that were “uprooted” from the previous group of Pagan Rome replacing kingdoms. There is also the fact that this understanding of the Pagan Rome Empire is only limited its Western Part, however in 476 A.D. it did extend as far East as Palestine.
(Update: May 7, 2018): ...Well that which is said here above is my prior view on this “10 horns” symbolism, from a, comparatively now, cursory examination of the issue, in this post section on Dan 7&8, a more indepth research and detailed study of the issue has been done, and the result is an exacting and definitive understanding of then 10 kings/kingdoms which fulfilled this prophetic specification. So see that latest explanation for a more accurate explanation on this issue.
[3] Importantly enough, there is a more precise understanding that can be arrived at with the symbols of a Beast having ‘2 little lamb crownless horns’ on its head. [Cf. the Medo-Persia coalition which indeed consisted of a joint rule by two (previously) independent kingly powers -Dan 8:3, 20; cf. 21]. In the U.S., there functionally are really 3 ruling powers. The ‘mouthpiece’ of the nation is from its “head”, which is the Executive Presidency Branch. Then there is the Legislative Branch (Congress); and then there is the Judicial Branch. Really it is the Judicial Branch that is substantively reflective of the U.S. freedom of Religion as it determines what is morally right or wrong in regards to subjective issues. That is why the issue of ‘the religion of a Supreme Court Judge’ is such a major and prominent issue when initially selecting, and/or then confirming, them. So e.g., while there may not be a specific law permitting a practice, lifestyle, activity that is actually condemned in the Bible, as most prominently in the case of abortion, judicial decisions can effectively deem those practices as moral/lawful. And so it can be figuratively seen that the head of this Beast (= the Presidency/Executive Branch) is greatly controlled by those two powers.
“ I saw that the two-horned beast had a dragon's mouth, and that his power was in his head, and that the decree [Bill Signed into Law (and not vetoed) by President] would go out of his mouth.” (SpM 1.4a)
Indeed both the powers of the U.S. Congress and U.S. Judiciary ultimately, (at least in Law, i.e., as it has been Constitutionally arranged and codified), have the last “say/word” as to what the Executive Branch can (lawfully) do. So the head of this Beast can really only “speak”, and thus, do, what its two horns of power are permitting. Still as the “head” will ultimately determine where its (two) horns are pointed towards (cf. Dan 8:4, 7), indeed the “bully pulpit” of the Presidency can greatly sway both the Congress and Judiciary to follow its lead. Indeed that is why the Office of the publicly elected Presidency was created, -to functionally and prominently be the nation’s “Head of State” (= [International] Spokesperson) as well as its quite authoritative, and even defaultly binding, [Domestic] directional voice. In fact with the U.S. President Constitutionally having the default final say as to what becomes enacted as Law in the country, with only a then two-thirds super-majority vote by the (multi-partisan) Congress capable of overriding this veto; and conversely, with the President only needing a simple majority vote from Congress to have his own bills passed as laws, then, legislation wise, the Office of the President, made up of a singly deciding person, actually is, relatively speaking, more powerful than the 535-member partisan Congress. In fact the other major power of Congress to “declare war” can actually be, as it was done in the 2011 Libyan conflict, bypassed by an Executive Order, for at least sixty days, (which in the Libya case, that time was not even enforced through a posited loophole), by a President who deems a military action as nationally urgent and necessary. So the most powerful entity in that Second Beast is, constitutionally, the “Head of State” Office of the Presidency. (As one U.S. President has infamously said, and which has, much more than not, repeatedly proven to be the case, (most notoriously in the George W. Bush Administration): ‘If the President does it, that means it’s not illegal’.)
So the powers make up of the United States, the country that came to fill the, Great Controversy advancement-wise, most pivotal, Divinely-planned and orchestrated (cf. Dan 2:21) prophetic role of Rev 13:11ff’s “Second Beast Power”, interestingly compares with the little lamb mentioned in Rev 5 which itself has multiple, here 7 (also [albeit, themselves] crownless), horns ‘of power’ (Rev 5:6). As mentioned in this post, the idea of a separation of ruling powers seems to have originated with God as He was Nationally/Politically organizing His Israel, with different ruling powers being held by different tribes. So this Little Lamb power having 7 horns, thus 7 ‘separated ruling powers’ is indeed fully within God’s Will/Ideal. And by indeed having 7 horns, instead of the (joint) 2 of the Rev 13 Second Beast, it is much more “representative” in power of the constituents of its kingdom. Indeed, as seen in many scandals in, pointedly here U.S. Political History, a more perfect representation, and powers ‘checking and balancing’, would be effectuated if: (1) Law Enforcement powers (Department of Justice/FBI) where separate from the Executive Branch; (2) the Press had judicially binding fact finding/reporting power; (3) the two Chambers of Congress were not essentially simply replicates of each other.
So the powers make up of the United States, the country that came to fill the, Great Controversy advancement-wise, most pivotal, Divinely-planned and orchestrated (cf. Dan 2:21) prophetic role of Rev 13:11ff’s “Second Beast Power”, interestingly compares with the little lamb mentioned in Rev 5 which itself has multiple, here 7 (also [albeit, themselves] crownless), horns ‘of power’ (Rev 5:6). As mentioned in this post, the idea of a separation of ruling powers seems to have originated with God as He was Nationally/Politically organizing His Israel, with different ruling powers being held by different tribes. So this Little Lamb power having 7 horns, thus 7 ‘separated ruling powers’ is indeed fully within God’s Will/Ideal. And by indeed having 7 horns, instead of the (joint) 2 of the Rev 13 Second Beast, it is much more “representative” in power of the constituents of its kingdom. Indeed, as seen in many scandals in, pointedly here U.S. Political History, a more perfect representation, and powers ‘checking and balancing’, would be effectuated if: (1) Law Enforcement powers (Department of Justice/FBI) where separate from the Executive Branch; (2) the Press had judicially binding fact finding/reporting power; (3) the two Chambers of Congress were not essentially simply replicates of each other.
A setting up of such an ideal 7 Branch/Powers, all affecting/affected by a single “Head” (thus reflective of the 7 horns of the little lamb of Rev 5:6 [incidentally, best depicted by this drawing of this symbolic imagery (used in Net 2011's 6th presentation)])
has been done here for the government structure (see more here) of the planned Christian country, NJK, Project. The interlinked 6 governmental powers in that NJK structure, all under a 7th power of a Presidency, and in turn all subject to their highest and final oversight authority of a Monarchial “Head” of State which are, under the NJK Monarch level, representatively functioning as are modern day Governor Generals, such as, most notably, in the British Commonwealth, is all typologically fulfilling the SOP-revealed ‘7 Golden Crowns within a Crown’ (EW 53.1|281.1; cf. 12MR 249.3 & 16MR 34.2) to be worn by this Kingdom of God’s Davidic King who is also prophetically characterized as ‘one like unto a son of man’ (Rev 14:14).
As seen in prophetic symbology in Rev 5:6 & Dan 7:8, 20, the “eyes” are used to symbolize the “Spirit” of something, -and in those instances: those “horns” = ‘ruling powers’. Those “eyes”, as in nature, greatly shape the ‘views’ and “spirit” of an/its entity. Indeed Christ’s statement that ‘the eye is the lamp/torch’ of the body (Luke 11:34) was, not surprisingly, most insightfully accurate as a symbolism equation for the mention in Rev 4:8 ‘lamps = spirits’ and then Rev 5:6 that ‘eyes = (same) spirits’ show that all of these symbols are intrinsically associated. Therefore building on what was mentioned in this blog post concerning these 7 Spirits of the ‘temporally established, Davidic Branch (Isa 11:1-3a), little lamb = (NJK’s 7 Ruling Powers), these ‘Godly Spirits’ are involved in the responsibilities of those 7 ruling powers as:
(1) “the Lord (~prophesying|‘forth-speaking’)” (= Presidency) - {Num 11:24-29 (cf. Luke 10:1ff; 17-24); 1 Sam 10:6, 10-11|16:14-15; 16:12-13; 2 Sam 23:1-2ff; Isa 42:1-4|Matt 12:15-21 (=Luke 3:22); 61:1ff|Luke 4:18}
(d) As specified/emphasied in Isa 11:3a the ruler here will “delight in the fear of the Lord” Spirit which is the NJK’s Pastoral Power. And as it was priorly stated in the NJK’s Constitution, that Pastoral Power Branch is the only one of those 7 powers in which an NJK Monarch, pertinently here, an HC Princep, will be selecting the primary candidates for that Power’s election.*
* Interestingly enough, though exegetically not really/technically stated as such, the word translated “delight” in the Isa 11:3a (NASB) is/means literally “smell” (Heb: riach; =Strongs #07381a - cf. Amos 5:21; -the actual/default/technical/literal Hebrew word for “delight” is: chephets; =Strongs #02656: e.g., 1 Sam 15:22; Psa 1:2; 16:3; Pro 31:13; Eccl 5:4; 12:1; Isa 46:10; 53:10; 58:13), and as such could be correlated to the present day idiom: ‘sticking your nose in something’, i.e., ‘as if it is your business to do so’. Well given that the NJK will be a Theocratic/Religious Kingdom, it will in fact be its Monarchy’s ‘pertinent business’ to insure that, pointedly, the Spiritual, Pastoral Power is the most Biblical that it can be.
(1) “the Lord (~prophesying|‘forth-speaking’)” (= Presidency) - {Num 11:24-29 (cf. Luke 10:1ff; 17-24); 1 Sam 10:6, 10-11|16:14-15; 16:12-13; 2 Sam 23:1-2ff; Isa 42:1-4|Matt 12:15-21 (=Luke 3:22); 61:1ff|Luke 4:18}
(2) “wisdom” (= Judiciary) - {Deut 34:9; Jdg 3:10; Exod 28:3; 31:3; 35:3; Job 38:36; 39:17; Ecc 2:26; Dan 1:17, 20; cf. Isa 28:6; Mic 3:8}
(3) “understanding” (= People) - {normatively/commonly, externally|self-produced: 1 Kgs 3:7-12; Deu 4:5-8; Job 28:28; 38:36; 39:17; Dan 9:22; cf. Pro 3:5; 4:1-7; Isa 27:11; Dan 1:17, 20}
(4) ‘planning|purpose|counsel’ (= Public Ministers) - {cf. Isa 30:1-2; Psa 33:11; 73:24; Pro 19:21; Zech 6:13}
(5) ‘might|strength|courage’ (= Compliance [cf. here]) - {Jdg 6:33ff; 13:25; 14:6, 19; 15:14-15; Isa 28:6; Mic 3:8; cf. Ezra 10:1-4}
(6) “knowledge” (= Information|Press) - {Exod 31:3; 35:3; Num 24:16; Psa 19:1-2ff; 94:10; 119:66; 139:5-6; Ecc 2:26; Isa 53:11; Dan 12:4; Hos 4:6; 6:6; Mal 2:7}
(7) “fear of the Lord” (= Pastors) - {normatively/commonly, externally|self-produced: Exod 20:20; cf. Pro 1:7 & 9:10}
-A few notes:
(a) see conversely Isa 40:13-14 for God Himself having such distinct Spirits;
(b) Exod 31:3; 35:31 is an example that show that one person could be given multiple “Spirits”;
(c) The last six (sub-)powers (#2-#7) are deliberately stated in Isa 11:1-3a in related/reciprocal groupings, namely, the Spirits of:
[Group 1] #2 Wisdom (Judiciary) & #3 Understanding (People) - for wise living, legislating and (accepted) wise judging (when needed). (cf. Deu 4:5-8; cf. Psa 19:7).
[Group 2] #4 Planning|Purpose|Counsel (= Public Ministers) & #5 Might|Strength|Courage (= Compliance) - (Will) power and energy to faithfully/rightly carry out/comply with good Plans and Counsels.
[Group 3] #6 Knowledge (= Information|Press) & #7 Fear of the Lord (= Pastors) - The combining and calibrating of common/natural knowledge (e.g,, general education, science) with the knowledge of the Author of, and Power over, this “information”.
(d) As specified/emphasied in Isa 11:3a the ruler here will “delight in the fear of the Lord” Spirit which is the NJK’s Pastoral Power. And as it was priorly stated in the NJK’s Constitution, that Pastoral Power Branch is the only one of those 7 powers in which an NJK Monarch, pertinently here, an HC Princep, will be selecting the primary candidates for that Power’s election.*
* Interestingly enough, though exegetically not really/technically stated as such, the word translated “delight” in the Isa 11:3a (NASB) is/means literally “smell” (Heb: riach; =Strongs #07381a - cf. Amos 5:21; -the actual/default/technical/literal Hebrew word for “delight” is: chephets; =Strongs #02656: e.g., 1 Sam 15:22; Psa 1:2; 16:3; Pro 31:13; Eccl 5:4; 12:1; Isa 46:10; 53:10; 58:13), and as such could be correlated to the present day idiom: ‘sticking your nose in something’, i.e., ‘as if it is your business to do so’. Well given that the NJK will be a Theocratic/Religious Kingdom, it will in fact be its Monarchy’s ‘pertinent business’ to insure that, pointedly, the Spiritual, Pastoral Power is the most Biblical that it can be.
Also, a joint studying out of the symbolically-related elements in Rev 1:20b; 4:5 & 5:6 reveals that: (1) The “7 Lampstands” (= 7 Churches) (Rev 1:20b) which are in the Sanctifying Holy Place are to be ‘lighted up/enlightened’ by the fire of the “7 Torches” which are before the throne of God, thus in the Glorifying Most Holy Place, and which are His 7 Spirits (Rev 4:5), and (2) those 7 Spirits are then sent throughout all of the Earth (Rev 5:6), and that when they, as 7 Eyes, are then closely associated with the Little Lamb’s 7 Horns. This is all done in a temporal realization of the ‘Kingdom of God’; = the Church Triumphant. So though the previous 7 individual Lampstands (cf. Rev 2:5) have been directly substituted with those 7 concentrated Horns, “God’s Spirit” is still, and actually, more widely, then sent out throughout the earth. This thus most tangibly, thus fully and properly, accomplishes Matt 24:14's: ‘kingdom testimony to all (other) nations’.
This notion of ‘correct “Theological Views” (=7 Torches|Spirits|Eyes) leading to a proper Church (7 Lampstands) and Kingdom of God (7 Horns) Global Witness’, was actually drawn from God’s OT revelation through Zechariah (Zech 4) about His ‘Two (Israel) Witnesses to the World (i.e., a Biblical Religion and Kingdom modelling) to be accomplished by the newly established Joshua the High Priest (Zech 3:1-7) and Zerubbabel the first Restoration Governor (cf. Zech 3:8-10); -and all initiatingly done through th work of a priest-ruler (=Zech 6:11-13).
[4] Many SDA expositors present this fuller, more specific view of the Rev 17 Babylon. E.g., Daniel Pel [mp3] and Ron Clouzet in the recently presented NAD’s Net 2011 (Night #17), among others.
Related to this entire blog post exposition, see the 2009 Northwest Religious Liberty Association (NRLA), Prophecy Festival presentation by Alan Reinach entitled: “Economic Meltdown and Bible Prophecy, Making Sense of it All”, [website], who, to my knowledge amongst SDA expositions, rarely, rightly sees the undeniable/inherent Economic, Financial, and even U.S. Capitalism implications of Rev 18. (mp4 - stream) (mp3) [ca. 52:00ff].
[5] It is relatedly most interesting to see, as brought forth in the 10-20-12 sermon here entitled “Babylonian Confusion” [see at 13:54-20:37ff], (see also PP 118.4-5 & SDABD 797 “Nimrod”) that the “roots” of this now prophetic and symbolic Babylonian Power actually, most tangibly, go all the way back to the attempt by Nimrod to build a great city and tower in the plains of Shinar, all to (futilely) try to defy, oppose and overcome the word, will and power of God. (See Gen 10:6-12). Indeed the roots of this Babylon are clearly an evolution of that same spirit back then, and it also clear that all along it was Satan himself who was doing this purposeful inspiring, in order to, from those days right after the flood, have a “universal empire” which would “banish righteousness” from the Earth. As Nimrod was a descendant of the cursed son Noah, Ham, through his son of similar character, Canaan, (as God had psycho-genetically, prognosticatively observed (cf. Gen 16:10-12) that this manifested perverse character would most likely be perpetuated through his ensuing genealogical line), he was one of those descendants who had continued to manifest this perverse spirit and disposition towards God and righteousness, and so Satan chose to inspiringly work through him to try to establish, from the “confederating” city they were intending to establish there, and an ensuing (first ever) kingdom, a global empire which would promote this God-defying and usurping character and lifestyle. And so Satan has indeed always been trying to have this key, uniting, City-Empire on the Earth. And in Babylon, (which it can be argued that God actually tried, if at all possible, but indeed to no avail, to convert and save by allowing the Israelites to be made captive by it), whether Inspirational, Literal, or now Prophetic as manifest in the United States of America, Satan has managed to maintain that rebellious spirit to oppose the cause of Righteousness of God on Earth.
[5] It is relatedly most interesting to see, as brought forth in the 10-20-12 sermon here entitled “Babylonian Confusion” [see at 13:54-20:37ff], (see also PP 118.4-5 & SDABD 797 “Nimrod”) that the “roots” of this now prophetic and symbolic Babylonian Power actually, most tangibly, go all the way back to the attempt by Nimrod to build a great city and tower in the plains of Shinar, all to (futilely) try to defy, oppose and overcome the word, will and power of God. (See Gen 10:6-12). Indeed the roots of this Babylon are clearly an evolution of that same spirit back then, and it also clear that all along it was Satan himself who was doing this purposeful inspiring, in order to, from those days right after the flood, have a “universal empire” which would “banish righteousness” from the Earth. As Nimrod was a descendant of the cursed son Noah, Ham, through his son of similar character, Canaan, (as God had psycho-genetically, prognosticatively observed (cf. Gen 16:10-12) that this manifested perverse character would most likely be perpetuated through his ensuing genealogical line), he was one of those descendants who had continued to manifest this perverse spirit and disposition towards God and righteousness, and so Satan chose to inspiringly work through him to try to establish, from the “confederating” city they were intending to establish there, and an ensuing (first ever) kingdom, a global empire which would promote this God-defying and usurping character and lifestyle. And so Satan has indeed always been trying to have this key, uniting, City-Empire on the Earth. And in Babylon, (which it can be argued that God actually tried, if at all possible, but indeed to no avail, to convert and save by allowing the Israelites to be made captive by it), whether Inspirational, Literal, or now Prophetic as manifest in the United States of America, Satan has managed to maintain that rebellious spirit to oppose the cause of Righteousness of God on Earth.
Interestingly/Relatedly enough, when God later chose the righteous Abraham it was to, in His own corresponding way, establish through this founding single man: a city ((eventually) Jerusalem, cf. Heb 11:10), and then a people (Israel), and ultimately a Universal Kingdom (the Kingdom of God), which would opposingly fill the Earth with Righteousness. And God is still endeavoring to complete this redemptive plan, -just as Satan is working towards his own “lawlessness” (=2 Thess 2:3-4) end goal, -all culminating into the eschatological clash between Babylon and (the New) Jerusalem.
[6] Most crucial to what came to make America a global superpower is what keen historians/economists (see e.g., here) see as the ‘accidence of two worlds wars’ in the first half of the 20th century which America was not as catastrophically damaged, nor impoverished by, as other then ruling European powers (e.g., Great Britain and Germany). On top that, America came to greatly profit by those wars with countries investing their available funds into America’s great industrial plants. Indeed it is those investments by overseas allies that came to lift America out of the Great Depression. And it thus came out of the war as the world’s only quasi-intact economic power and has not (yet) looked back since.
[7] Indeed, in elaborated detail, this added qualifying comment clearly involves that even if an interpretation is given next, it will still require some wisdom to understand it. The only other time that such a wisdom statement was made in Revelation was for Rev 13:18 and the 666 number. As seen today most Christians have a literalistic interpretation of that prophetic statement and thus claim that people will be tattooed with the number 666 and/or anything with the number 666 is bad. However as SDA wider knowledge and experience about prophesy has led them to see, that 666 number is itself still encoded and only the title of the Pope as “Vicarius Filii Dei” (discussed/explained/documented here, here and here; -see also the discussion in this post at Rev 13:17-18) that best (i.e., thematically, substantively and technically) fulfills that numeric symbology. So similarly, for the identification in Rev 17:9-11, it will require “a mind of wisdom” to accurately figure it out.
* Still to formally come, yet making telling inroads today, as seen in the recent (11-18-2011) Vatican approved call to have a “Robin Hood” tax on Capitalism, which was readily seconded/applauded by the Occupy movement, and which, not surprisingly, is calling for ‘an “ethic of solidarity” among rich and poor nations for the global economy’, also omniously portending that ‘democracy itself, even in strong countries, is at risk.’ Indeed the (unhindered purposed/prophesied (Rev 17:17)) Masterminded aim of/(for) this Unrighteous/Unjust|Lawless side (2 Thess 2:12|Zech 5:8a; Gr. a-dikia (not righteous) -cf. Rev 3:14ff| a-nomia (no law) -2 Thess 2:7) is to keep Capitalism in power by any “appeasing”/“pill-swallowing” means. This diverting view therefore also comes to include a, ca. 40/60, “Mixed Economy” approach to dilute, and thus sustain, Capitalism, for it still falls way short of God’s Biblical Socio-economic ideal. (Indeed this approach with socio-economics, theologically corresponds to the spurious attempt to substitute the: ‘24-hour Worship and Rest of the Seventh Day Sabbath’ with the: ‘ca. one Worship Hour, and no rest, but instead self-gratifying leisure and recreation...on the first day, Sunday! (=Dan 7:25; Isa 58:13). As seen in the forum discussions linked on this page, see especially this discussion (PDF), even SDA’s (literally) religiously swear by and staunchly defend this now sparsely existing, spurious rebranded/recalibrated form of Capitalism. Relatedly see also the Capitalism supporting comments on this “SDA Sealing” blog post. As usual, indeed as basely conditioned to do, Capitalists, naturally, selfishly, thus “chiefly sinful” don’t bother to think further than themselves and today! (Cf. other such ‘circuitous, conscience-appeasing-while-flesh-gratifying’, “incorporative” forms of philanthrocapitalism such as U2's Bono[-who is a Christian Believer]’s “Product Red” , among others, branding; -as e.g., “perfectly” “non-sacrificingly”, “selfologized” here [24:55-25:44ff]; =Satan’s own inevitably bankrupt, Universe-ordering “self-ness” idea.)
[7] Indeed, in elaborated detail, this added qualifying comment clearly involves that even if an interpretation is given next, it will still require some wisdom to understand it. The only other time that such a wisdom statement was made in Revelation was for Rev 13:18 and the 666 number. As seen today most Christians have a literalistic interpretation of that prophetic statement and thus claim that people will be tattooed with the number 666 and/or anything with the number 666 is bad. However as SDA wider knowledge and experience about prophesy has led them to see, that 666 number is itself still encoded and only the title of the Pope as “Vicarius Filii Dei” (discussed/explained/documented here, here and here; -see also the discussion in this post at Rev 13:17-18) that best (i.e., thematically, substantively and technically) fulfills that numeric symbology. So similarly, for the identification in Rev 17:9-11, it will require “a mind of wisdom” to accurately figure it out.
Now it is consistent in the Bible that age typically provides such wisdom. That is seen in the symbol of white hair (e.g., Dan 7:9; Rev 1:14 = “one like unto a son of man”) (which was used by judges today to signify that they are wise). The reason why wisdom is associated with age is because an older person has more experiences and thus can make better/informed judgements later. Now, as stated in James 1:5, God can (supernaturally) give someone wisdom into/for something. That is what was done for Solomon at his request. (2 Chr 1:8-13|1 Kgs 3:7-9). And in Dan 12:3-4, 10, those who (lit.) are “wise” (=KJV; cf. Gen 3:6; Deu 32:29; Job 22:2; Psa 36:3; Pro 16:23; etc) would be able to figure out end time, sealed prophecies. (And in Rev 5:12 wisdom, among other things, is called for the little Lamb which was slained, which he manifestly uses to unseal that scroll in Rev 6.). All this to show that, as explicitly stated in Rev 17:9, it will require wisdom, which, in such spiritual matters, either comes from God, or through God-guided experiences, and not a straightforward application of “7 kings must be 7 rulers/popes” to figure out the meaning here. EGW makes an interesting related statement in regards to having understandings, through also Divine-led experiences, in Biblical passages:
As presented through different individuals, the truth is brought out in its varied aspects. One writer is more strongly impressed with one phase of the subject; he grasps those points that harmonize with his experience or with his power of perception and appreciation; another seizes upon a different phase; and each, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, presents what is most forcibly impressed upon his own mind--a different aspect of the truth in each, but a perfect harmony through all. And the truths thus revealed unite to form a perfect whole, adapted to meet the wants of men in all the circumstances and experiences of life. {1SM 25.4}
So just like the specified number of the beast, 666, in Rev 13:18 is not a literalistic application of that number, so isn’t the application of the stated elements of Rev 17:9-11.
This is all contrary to the surface/shallow “inexperienced/unwise” claim made by James Tierney in his interpretation of this chapter/prophecy here that:
“The bible never gives symbolic meaning to interpreted texts. Example; further in Rev 17 verse 10 [sic] says, "The waters you saw where the prostitute sits are peoples, multitudes, nations and languages", so the interpretation has been given. The waters are diverse peoples covering the whole world. So when in that same chapter the seven heads are seven hills and seven kings this cannot be interpreted symbolically because the interpretation is given.”
[8] It is interesting to see how those eight cited “heads”/‘way of thinking’, being those 8 distinct World Powers in History, have indeed sought to variously establish imperialistic or quasi-imperialistic New World Orders. In indeed seeking to unite world countries & peoples under their hegemony (= “Superpower” authority), each brought to the table a chief Ideology/Practice that it thought would best/most fairly realize this end; also preserving trace elements of “valid” ideologies and practices from past NWO realizations. And mind you, none of those Superpowers had malevolent intents, per se, even when forcefully establishing their power over other countries and people. They instead all thought that this was best for those other peoples and for the “peace” of the world, which of course would also/chiefly greatly benefit them. (E.g., now, the U.S. and its ‘freedom and democracy’ militaristic campaigns). This Historical NWO odyssey is succinctly summarily detailed in the following listing:
1. Babylon - Babylonian religious superiority, and thus religious intolerance and state worship.
2. Medo-Persia - Freedom, (albeit checked), of religion and worship.
3. Greece - Direct Democracy, Education and Liberalized Popular Culture
4. Rome - Representative Democracy and Militaristic Policing Security (a.k.a. the Pax Romana)
5. Holy Roman Empire - Variously, forcefully Imposed Christian Beliefs
6. United States - Individual Economic Prosperity through Capitalism
7. GeoPolitical World - GeoProsperity Through (Economic) Globalization
8. GeoReligious World - Geo “Social Justice” through Philanthrocapitalism*
Yet it is most significant to see that all of those New World Order attempts have come to fail because they would, either entirely, or in compromising parts, refuse to live according to (all of) God’s Biblical ways. And, interestingly enough, as these “unbiblical”, World-Ordering, Superpowers thus came to have an issue with God Himself, then He did in some directly acting or permitting means intervene to bring their, actually Divinely-allowed, World Hegemony to an end (Dan 2:21). This is namely:
1. Babylon - Arrogant refusal to acknowledge God despite His great manifestations in/to them. [e.g,. Dan 3 & 4] - (Isa 48:11; Dan 5:20-23; Jer 50 & 51)
2. Medo-Persia - Intellectual, and thus Physical Lethargic Slothfulness [Dan 7:5 versus 6] - (Pro 6:6-11; Ecc 9:10)
3. Greece - Humanistic Moral Degeneracy [cf. e.g., the Corinthians - 1 Cor 5] - (Matt 22:37-40)
4. Rome - Abuse of Power [Dan 7:7, 23; Luke 3:14] - (Matt 20:24-28; John 13:5-10)
5. Holy Roman Empire Also Divine-ward Arrogance & Heresy [Dan 7:8, 11, 20, 25] - (Isa 42:8; Matt 15:3)
6. United States - Greed [Rev 13:11ff] - (Pro 11:1-6)
7. GeoPolitical World - Profiteering despite now formal “neighborhood of countries” [Rev 17:17] - (Deut 15:1-6; Luke 12:15)
8. GeoReligious World - Selfishness also despite the “brotherhood of nations”, (the chief of sins) [Rev 18:2-3; 2 Thess 2:7-11] - (Deut 15:7-11; Acts 2:43-45; 4:32-35; 2 Cor 8:7-15) [again, the full/formal realization of this eighth power is still in the future, but is now increasingly, gradually coalescing**.]
** 2012 World Economic Forum Proposal/Plan - A most significant development in this ‘repacking/rebranding of Capitalism’ is the call of the annual World Economic Forum (WEF), for its 2012 meetings in Davos, Switzerland (see the keynote opening session here), to try to reform Capitalism, with their conference theme being: "The Great Transformation: Shaping New Models". Some people, are even more explicitly calling for Capitalism to be given a “moral” guide/head, - a vacant position that I am sure the Papacy would be glad to swoop in and fill. (And thus, contrary to Malachi Martin’s famous “Keys of this Blood” endgame scenario, Capitalism & Catholicism would have (compromisingly) found a way to coexist and share global hegemony. -Telling how Biblical Socialism was “demonized” by the aberration of Soviet-styled Communism; -a priorly defeated third player in Martin’s (‘insider’) New World Order prognosis.) The aim of these initiatives are borne out of a belief that Capitalism, as it is currently practised, is broken, and a new model/framework for it should be sought and implemented so that it can be a system which benefits all, and not only the rich and powerful. And as one person said: ‘Why should 5-6 billion Asians (i.e., all those living on the continent of Asia), not also live as the 1 billion Westerners?!’ Towards this end, it is also being advanced that foundational “capital” building blocks must now be primarily considered as innovative ideas, and not merely ‘hard/tangible capital’ as it has explicitly formerly always been, is. That would indeed level the playing field for many.
The “Catch-22” irony of this whole matter is that it would indeed actually be the element of (Biblical) morality that would better the system because selfishness, the chief of sins (4T 384.3; 7MR 232.4), is at the root foundational of Capitalism. Case in point: German Chancellor Angela Merkel [also chairwoman of the Christian Social Union (CSU), which mergingly includes the former Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD)], pointed out that the critical problem of 23,000,000 unemployed people in the European Union could conceivably be resolved if each of the EU’s 23,000,000 businesses hired one of those unemployed person. But of course, those businesses are not doing this because they are all individually concerned with maximizing their profits, or even just staying in business, and so cutting a position or two is seen as a “necessity” for them. As usual, there is to be no sharing in Capitalism, -yet Capitalism today, being a “Mixed Economy” at best, is crucially, inherently composed of 30-40% Socialistic Sharing!
What is most interesting about the appeal of the 2012 World Economic Forum, is that, in their Executive Summary for that meeting (see PDF here), they listed and described 4 Chief sub-themes for that proposed ‘“Roadmap” to New Models’. And these proposition actually directly compare to the 4 Faces (=4 Living Creatures) of the NJK Project (see here), which are its Religious/Biblical Foundation (=Psa 11:3 =The NJK’s “Mount Zion” -Psa 87:1ff = Rev 14:1ff). As such, the chief, and most crucial, difference between the WEF and the NJK is that the NJK’s 4 Chief Models are all aimed towards fully reflecting the will of God (=Rev 14:7), while those set forth by the WEF are aimed at serving the purposes of the Economy. In other words, the NJK Biblical model is because that is the expressed will of God, while the WEF model is because it is seeking to make “the economy” (= the (Capitalistic) Sun) work for them (= neo-sun worship (as discussed here on Ezek 8:16, this is also being done by the leading men of Judah, the leaders of the SDA Church).
The World Economic Forum’s 4 Chief Models, along with their desired objective, are (vs. the NJK’s 4 Faces):
• Growth and Employment Models - (vs. the NJK’s Man Face)
“The policy prescriptions, industry models and performance incentives that emerged from an era of consumption and debt-driven growth must be transformed to deliver quality growth. Growth that is sustainable, entrepreneur-driven and employment-creating should be the outcome of the rebalancing and deleveraging of the global economy. As traditional work opportunities decline as a result of production increasingly based on knowledge and ingenuity, individual entrepreneurship will become a critical factor for future job and growth creation.”
• Leadership and Innovation Models - (vs. the NJK’s Lion Face)
“The leading countries and global governance institutions of the Cold War era must create space for major emerging economies, private sector institutions and multistakeholder partnerships. These new actors should have the responsibility not only to address important global and regional challenges but also to introduce innovative solutions. The future will also show that younger and older generations will play a greater role compared to today. Thus, the rebirth of intergenerational responsibility must be embedded in leaders to avoid a future demographic divide.”
• Sustainability and Resource Models - (vs. the NJK’s Ox/Cherub Face)
“The realization that human activities have a major impact on Earth’s ecosystem must drive future changes in behaviour and policies. Our ecological footprint will have to be fully internalized in business models. A new mindset should drive collaboration and innovation among governments, industries and companies to ensure that future resource constraints do not lead to greater energy, food and water insecurity.”
-Ecology is being advanced as the new ‘moral imperative’ i.e., “god”, to dictate what right and wrong is.
• Social and Technological Models - (vs. the NJK’s Eagle Face)
“The next wave of technological innovation, particularly in life sciences, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence, will not just deliver productivity gains but will also transform us by adding new dimensions to our lives. At a societal level, the norms, behaviours and values that are protected and celebrated in the physical world are neither clearly established nor firmly anchored in the digital world. As the “Internet of things” that connects billions of sensors and devices becomes a reality, stakeholders should work together to safeguard the knowledge, data and networks that are critical resources for our future development.”
Do read about the NJK’s 4 Biblical Foundations as revealed in the teaching of the Four Living Creatures to see how the NJK’s and WEF’s models do indeed effectively compare, but most importantly, do contrast in ideological foundation, and why so. In short, the WEF’s ‘Capitalism Reform proposition/model’, while it most deceptively seems innocent enough, and even quite vitally necessary, is only a framework to further the work of ignoring/opposing the worship of the Creator God, and continuing the Mark of the Beast rebellion, especially when it will, by necessity, be given a “moral head” for guidance.
[9] A surfacely anecdotal illustration of this ‘power of (advanced) technologies’ in our day is seen in how recently developed social media networks such as (pun intended) “Twitter” have been quite instrumental in toppling several Middle East dictatorships by being able to allow for virtually uncheckable communications, which permitted also further revolting truths to be widely seen, which all help to sustain revolutionary demonstrations.
[10] Incidentally, a, (disclaimer:) Hollywood production that, I concede, has managed to, and that quite strikingly so, bring the point home of the whole ruthless absurdity of Capitalism is the 2011 (PG-13) movie In Time {Luke 7:31-35; Pro 8:1-36; cf. here} as it substitutes in its plot, time as a currency for money; and with, as seen in Capitalism, many people living in ghettos (thematically called “timezones”) literally having barely enough time to make it alive through another day (i.e., living day-to-day), while other filthy rich people, living in another, and “gated”, timezone have managed to amassed enough “time” to live (without aging) for thousands, even millions, of years. And moreover, as in Capitalism, it is the rich people who, and that calculatively so, determine what the ‘value of the time currency’ (= the cost of living) are, i.e., the ‘time cost & wages’ for various good, services and labor, as well as interest rates. And the real “kicker”, when comparing this fictional depiction to the real life system of Capitalism that it is quite openly and overtly, decryingly spoofing is that: people today ...even if they become filthy rich... still end up dying as anyone else!!
[10] Incidentally, a, (disclaimer:) Hollywood production that, I concede, has managed to, and that quite strikingly so, bring the point home of the whole ruthless absurdity of Capitalism is the 2011 (PG-13) movie In Time {Luke 7:31-35; Pro 8:1-36; cf. here} as it substitutes in its plot, time as a currency for money; and with, as seen in Capitalism, many people living in ghettos (thematically called “timezones”) literally having barely enough time to make it alive through another day (i.e., living day-to-day), while other filthy rich people, living in another, and “gated”, timezone have managed to amassed enough “time” to live (without aging) for thousands, even millions, of years. And moreover, as in Capitalism, it is the rich people who, and that calculatively so, determine what the ‘value of the time currency’ (= the cost of living) are, i.e., the ‘time cost & wages’ for various good, services and labor, as well as interest rates. And the real “kicker”, when comparing this fictional depiction to the real life system of Capitalism that it is quite openly and overtly, decryingly spoofing is that: people today ...even if they become filthy rich... still end up dying as anyone else!!
[11] As seen in this [10-26-11] The Rachel Maddow Show segment [ca. 23:00-33:00] this, it can surfacely/shallowly be claimed that U.S. Capitalism and its promised “American Dream”, ‘worked just fine up until ca. the 1980's when President Ronald Reagan’s Republican Economic policies favoring the rich caused the American Dream to no longer be within the reach of everyone as previously since the Post World War II, 1947+, era.’* (Which was actually, as commented on Rev 18:2, the era of a greatly diluted Mixed-Capitalism). That is the perfect example of how morality and religion is desperately seeking to be needfully mixed in with (Protestant) Capitalism. Indeed Capitalism was tamed for a while, until, in this increasingly ungodly recent era, people began to realize that they had absolutely no obligation to, effectively, live according to Biblical morals and principles, and not instead selfishly, greedily, and covetously, want and take as much money and wealth as they can; and indeed “fairly”, according to the guaranteed promise of American, in satisfactory pursuit of their happiness. [It was probably a wealthy lobbyist who, at some point suggested this to the Reagan Administration.] Nothing indeed illegal is being done in such individualistic pursuits. And so for things to actually change either such inherently “Religious/Christian morals” will have to be outrightly, and enforcedly, “imposed” in Civil Government [not likely for both Constitutional and Money in Government reasons]; or the people in America would have become truly-converted (i.e., “born from above”) Christians, and then would, justly, democratically implement this morality. And in such a latter case, the sequiturly deemed only valid solution then would be, in now our present world of increasingly diminishing and limited resources, to straightly, completely replace Capitalism with even full-blown Communism [also not likely to happen for (fallen) Human Nature reasons]. So this Babylon is, as prophesied, “doomed” to continue on its increasingly “drunken” course and inevitably, eventually judged for this. [Nonetheless: Jer 18:7-8: e.g., Jon 4:11]
Indeed the apt prophetic/Spiritual involvement in this development is that, like any respectable person who drinks alcohol, the intention usually is not to get completely drunk. However, and in especially festive and party atmospheres, as particularly, the “unregulatedly prosperous” late 1980's on have come to spuriously be, when the wine starts to incessantly flow, (as this Satan-controlled Woman surely wants to abundantly make it so), people increasingly become more inebriated, and then, most typically, end up doing what they restrainedly never intended, which actually indeed is just a release and/or accentuation of what they had been restraining. The only remedy then is to stop taking in more wine, sober up, and then teetotal the fermented wine, even beer or wine coolers, of this purposely mischievous, deceptive and demon-possessed Woman; drinking instead for the pure and unfermented wine of Christ’s Gospel Truths. Yet Christians, and even SDA’s [see e.g., comments and discussion links in this post’s comments], moronically, mindlessly, generally, and at least “medicinally”, strongly advocate to instead ‘take in (at least a little of) this Woman’s fermented wine.’ (Hence the chief, and thematically-recurring, impeaching “thesis” of this post.).
* Cf. a similar 10-04-11 Morning Joe ‘recently skewing income disparity’ presentation [ca. 15:00-23:00] by American Economist Jeffrey Sachs.
On the parallel, quasi-alternative side is the sanctimonious claim, particularly in the aftermath of the 2008 Great Recession and the way in which it was “repaired”, by the bailing out the “too big to fail” private investment firms/banks, that, as stated by 2012's Republican Presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman (see here at ca. 16:00 | policy), “Capitalism without failure is not Capitalism”. Of course, as is the conditioned norm with such (Right Wing) Capitalists, the full implication of such expressed (socio-)economic tenets is defaultly and/or actually/really not thought through. On the fundamental side, if the government is not going to bail out any, then even small, bank, and as a larger firm/bank means more profits for owners/investors, then what right does the government have to limit what size a bank owner, or ‘colluding’ bank owners, want to establish their firm. It is here outrightly actually suppose to be the market, and not the government that decides how big this bank will be accepted to be. The only policy that the government can make on such private companies is that they will indeed not bail any bank, whatever its size out. And so, at the other “functional” side, such a claim is mainly, actually, intrinsically, fully involving that: ‘for Capitalism to thrive there must always actually be fully-incurred failure’. Thus: “failure” without any socio-economic safety net, nor rescue plan, at all. And that of course is not merely only for “too big to fail” companies, (as if socio-economic history is now to be reset from the Fall of 2008), but also, indeed in order to be ‘equally fair’, also for private citizens.
And so, indeed “True Capitalists”, are longingly yearning for the ‘boom and bust’, 1930's and before, days of Laissez-Faire Capitalism!! And if everyone then is indeed suppose to ‘fully, themselves, look out for themselves’, thus also in terms of Healthcare, Pensions, Disability, Unemployment funding (indeed why needlessly pay into (for others) the social safety net of Insurance), then company owners, (usually, mostly shareholders who are looking to maximize their profits), will similarly be seeking to procure both their personal “happiness”, as well as their Personal-Social Security. Inevitably the only socio-economic “synergy” in this Laissez-Faire scenario will be the continual, and actually, tangibly most detrimental and non-productive, striking strifing between owners and employees, moreoverly, surely tangibly confronted by a third tier of the rest of the public who are being denied indispensably needed products and services. And most ironically enough, the only way in which this will all work out, indeed with workers capable of striking until they get whatever revenue/working conditions demands they are making, is when owners/shareholders and workers will come to agree to equally share a companies profits, including salaries, amongst them. Indeed why settle for less with such successfully wieldable ‘capital procuring power’. It can easily become the “Dream” of anyone to make enough money to, at least, be able to afford whatever luxurious thing they want.
However the realistic fact is that, as it nearly occurred in most clear (Socio-Economic) history, those who directly control the various capital here, thus owners and (especially wealthy) shareholders, will come to make poor dependent employees cave in and accept whatever meagre and (literally, physically leading to) “bare-bone” salaries, and perhaps bonuses, they deem fair to give them, for again, especially in the current (Biblical) morality-shunning, unscrupulous 21st century age, (not to mention that, e.g., many jobs today can actually easily be automated, and those owners would then much rather invest in the development of more performant, much-less-demanding/“unpredictably-unstable”, computer software and/or robots, than hire a person), will be to ‘take it or do leave it (and croak)’, indeed as there will then also be a very long line mobbing throng of people behind that “choosy” person who will instead gladly take that low paying job.
Why go down such an animalistic, strife-filled route instead of acting as intelligent and rational humans and thinking, and also sharing/caring for each other, indeed to the benefit of all. Manifestly God did indeed presciently know, and that from the start of the Great Controversy’s chief issue (PP 33.1||GC 678.3), that such a ‘loveless and selfish’ course which is pointedly going against His ‘Law of Love’ (Matt 22:34-40; DA 641.3) was ultimately, completely futile and utterly detrimental.
[12] Most crucially related here, it is commonly assumed that if God is not manifesting overt displeasure at a course, that those engage in it actually, even self-professingly, know to be unbiblical and unrighteous (cf. John 9:39-41), such as with the many, standing abominations in the SDA Church, that this is because ‘God is not seeing any of such things as being against His will’, when the actual, Spiritually deep fact of the matter is that God’s “passion” (a.k.a. “wrath”) has already long been kindled against that group (cf. Isa 28:7-13), thus namely in regards to the SDA Church, as it was presented here, definitely by June of 1999, (see here), and He Himself is no longer acting to guide these now deliberately/indifferently wayward ones off of their wrong course, but is silently leaving them on that course so that they will reap the whirlwind of what they have been sowing (see Heb 12:5-8; Psa 94:12-13; Isa 28:13; 5T 207.3-4; 211.3-212.4; cf. Hos 8:5-7ff); and/or much, much worse (for any paramilitary or military entity knows that the most successful subversive plan, especially to covertly self-defeat a formidable opponent, is the one that is most credible, and thus largely true), pointedly for those who are even more closely professing to be His followers, but are still rebelling against His will, He then is, indeed as now an “enemy” (Isa 63:10), is acting to provide these spurious claimant with veiled/opaque answers/guidance, which they non-ashamedly (e.g., Jer 3:3)/“flint-facedly” (Ezek 3:9), affrontedly (e.g., Jer 3:4-5) and pompously (Ezek 13:1-16), “naturally” (1 Cor 2:14; cf. 3:7-18) misclaim, misunderstand and misapply to their own self-destruction as they seek to understand them through the false prism of their cherished idols. (=Isa 42:14-17; Ezek 14:1-5) In fact, so as to not awaken the saving perception of those who are under this ‘innocuous silently dooming judgement’ (cf. EW 55.1-56.1), God actually still answers their prayers which are in His will, and will actually only contribute towards His final, total victory over them, and yet He also does so ‘merely according to their (little) faith.’ (cf. James 4:2-4) And so these drowsed ones thus continue to think that everything is “A-Okay” until they end up smashing head long into the non-reminded-of wall that was always ahead. (Isa 42:13-17 & this “wall” is the Amos 7:7ff “adamant wall” established by God, out of a most severe judgement, in the midst of His professed people.) And that is why there patently is a “gnashing of teeth” reaction in such ‘last-minute-realization’ judgements (Matt 8:10-12; 13:30, 40-42, 47-50; Matt 22:1-14; 24:45-51; Luke 13:23-30), -which is a psychological and emotional sequencing mixing of nervous shock, spiteful (out)rage and sorrowful despair, when, as seen e.g., in the context of Matt 25:30: it is suddenly revealed what the real character of their Master actually was, which these wicked ones had thought they had figured out based on the projections of their own slothful and selfish ways (Matt 25:26-27).
[12] Most crucially related here, it is commonly assumed that if God is not manifesting overt displeasure at a course, that those engage in it actually, even self-professingly, know to be unbiblical and unrighteous (cf. John 9:39-41), such as with the many, standing abominations in the SDA Church, that this is because ‘God is not seeing any of such things as being against His will’, when the actual, Spiritually deep fact of the matter is that God’s “passion” (a.k.a. “wrath”) has already long been kindled against that group (cf. Isa 28:7-13), thus namely in regards to the SDA Church, as it was presented here, definitely by June of 1999, (see here), and He Himself is no longer acting to guide these now deliberately/indifferently wayward ones off of their wrong course, but is silently leaving them on that course so that they will reap the whirlwind of what they have been sowing (see Heb 12:5-8; Psa 94:12-13; Isa 28:13; 5T 207.3-4; 211.3-212.4; cf. Hos 8:5-7ff); and/or much, much worse (for any paramilitary or military entity knows that the most successful subversive plan, especially to covertly self-defeat a formidable opponent, is the one that is most credible, and thus largely true), pointedly for those who are even more closely professing to be His followers, but are still rebelling against His will, He then is, indeed as now an “enemy” (Isa 63:10), is acting to provide these spurious claimant with veiled/opaque answers/guidance, which they non-ashamedly (e.g., Jer 3:3)/“flint-facedly” (Ezek 3:9), affrontedly (e.g., Jer 3:4-5) and pompously (Ezek 13:1-16), “naturally” (1 Cor 2:14; cf. 3:7-18) misclaim, misunderstand and misapply to their own self-destruction as they seek to understand them through the false prism of their cherished idols. (=Isa 42:14-17; Ezek 14:1-5) In fact, so as to not awaken the saving perception of those who are under this ‘innocuous silently dooming judgement’ (cf. EW 55.1-56.1), God actually still answers their prayers which are in His will, and will actually only contribute towards His final, total victory over them, and yet He also does so ‘merely according to their (little) faith.’ (cf. James 4:2-4) And so these drowsed ones thus continue to think that everything is “A-Okay” until they end up smashing head long into the non-reminded-of wall that was always ahead. (Isa 42:13-17 & this “wall” is the Amos 7:7ff “adamant wall” established by God, out of a most severe judgement, in the midst of His professed people.) And that is why there patently is a “gnashing of teeth” reaction in such ‘last-minute-realization’ judgements (Matt 8:10-12; 13:30, 40-42, 47-50; Matt 22:1-14; 24:45-51; Luke 13:23-30), -which is a psychological and emotional sequencing mixing of nervous shock, spiteful (out)rage and sorrowful despair, when, as seen e.g., in the context of Matt 25:30: it is suddenly revealed what the real character of their Master actually was, which these wicked ones had thought they had figured out based on the projections of their own slothful and selfish ways (Matt 25:26-27).
Ironically, and most interestingly enough, in the “Time of Jacob Trouble” occurrences, which of course transpired with the Historical Jacob, and also with Christ in Gethsemane, and is to be the experience of the faithful ones in the Church (EW 272.1), it then seems that God is has become an avenging enemy who is entering into judgement with them for their sins, -sins which they have actually incurred in the course of zealously endeavoring to do all that they can to fully accomplish God’s will (i.e., Jacob’s desire to obtain the Esau-despised Blessing, and not likely to obtain it by explaining this to Isaac since Isaac almost obliviously preferred (the first-born) Esau (Gen 25:23b, 27-28); Jesus allowing Himself to become a sacrifice for Man’s sins, the faithful ones in the Church resolutely desiring to live by the Higher standard set forth by the True Witness (EW 270.2)), however God was/is during these times, Personally, mentally and physically preparing His faithful ones for the then Satan-led ordeal that they will have to face next (i.e., Jacob confronting the murderously-intentioned Esau; Jesus facing the direct assaults of Satan on the Cross; and the 144,000 vs. the desperate Babylonian system) (cf. EW 283.2 & 21MR 326.2). And so trying to determine what “God’s will” is by merely looking at surface/peripheral appearances, and not by evaluating the substantive issues involved, and in regard to who is actually fully/really/truly endeavoring to do God’s expressed will, will lead many to cry out and believe that there is “Peace and Safety”, in i.e., the present/popular state of the Church, when really there is nothing but decreed judgement and its looming utter destruction. (Ezek 13:1-16) This “quiet” and even, comparatively “prosperous” time is merely God’s lulling peace before the desired windstorm, indeed all calculatedly to keep this Apostate Church lulled in its sleep until it is way too late. (Ezek 7:20-27). No need looking for a new (Prophetic) word from God to correct what has already been clearly declared to be the wrong course. (Lam 2:9b)
[13] Cf. the SOP’s, worldly (a.k.a. Babylonian) cities-destroying, “Ball of Fire vision in 11MR 361.1-362.2 which the Lord, the Master Self-Exegete, pointedly based on: (1) Isa 29:19-24, which from vs. 19 is pointedly dealing with a reversal of situations for the socio-economically oppressed, afflicted and needy, -deliberately not (here) including the inherently “miraculous” healings of the ‘deaf and blind’ of vs. 18, and all in the context of a reassuring promise being made to God’s faithful Jacob (= prophetically Jer 30:7) who is warring against a rebellious Judah (Isa 29:1-16ff); and (2) Isa 30:8-15 for the ensuing actions of this rebellious Judah in choosing to formally trust and rely upon the atheistically worldly (= Egypt) methods of oppression and guile (= resolute Capitalism adherence) for its shelter and survival (vs. 12) instead of heeding God’s peaceful solution (vs. 15).
[14] It seems quite significant to note that ‘decision making’ judgement is spoken as “an hour” (Rev 14:7; 18:10). This thus may further add to the understanding of the “half-hour” mentioned in Rev 8:1 as a halved/partial judgement for the Second Coming postponing reasons discussed in this post, causing time to continue and the (Eschatological) Trumpets sequence to transpire in order to both “judge” and “militate” against the cause that delayed that prior Second Coming, and uproot and replace it.
(By the way, John 5:29 “decision making judgement” is exegetically, accurately speaking of: ‘... the resurrection out of/derived from/dependent on [previously arrived at] decisions’. [= “ablative genitive of source” -cf. Wallace, GGBTB, 109-110]).
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