Once again, I have found an expression of some of my thoughts and just what might really happen or be about to happen as the world we know finds its Prophetic end?
Steven Collins tells the story very well, read enjoy and ponder the truths he has written.
IS "BABYLON THE GREAT" ABOUT TO FALL…
…USHERING IN A GLOBAL "BEAST" SYSTEM?
October, 2008
Steven Collins
The 17th and 18th chapters of Revelation contain a prophecy about the fall of "Babylon the Great" in the latter days. Babylon the Great is identified in Revelation 18:3 as an alliance of the "kings of the earth" with the "merchants of the earth." The "kings of the earth" are governmental / political leaders in the global public sector and the "merchants of the earth" are business / financial leaders of the global private sector. It is easy to identify this alliance in the modern world. This biblical prophecy also foretells that this global world system will collapse at some point in the latter days. This article examines the possibility that we are seeing this prophesied collapse unfold before our very eyes. Indeed, this article will propose a surprising, possible fulfillment of this prophecy which Christians have overlooked. If this fulfillment scenario is correct, we are much near the end of this age than any of us have realized.
Babylon the Great, as prophesied in the Bible, is the globalist financial / political system known as western capitalism. There is no other alternative. The "merchants of the earth" is a phrase which, though penned almost 2,000 years ago, aptly describes the global, multinational corporations now dominating world trade. Revelation 18 prophesied these latter-day "merchants" would have a global customer base (i.e. "merchants of the earth"). Revelation 17-18 predicted that multinational corporations, in league with the world's political leaders, would come to dominate a global political / economic system in the latter days of our age. This prophecy has been literally fulfilled in our time.
The Apostle John lived in a low-tech era when he wrote this prophecy. John also penned prophetic words in Revelation 9 about global world wars at the end of our age in which he described visions of jet fighters, helicopters and tanks with difficulty given the low-tech language of his time: flying "locusts" with "breastplates of iron" and incredibly loud noises coming from their wings as well as armored "horses" with "breastplates" which issue "fire" out of their mouths (verses7-10, 17-19). Let's be consistent and realize that John was also describing the latter-day global economy and high-tech world of modern finance in Revelation 17-18 in the low-tech language of his day.
The world has been traumatized in recent weeks by wildly-gyrating markets in equities, currencies and commodities, a global credit crisis, collapses in the housing and auto markets, unprecedented "Depression-era" bailout plans, etc. Most accounts attribute the origins of this global crisis in financial markets to the collapse of the sub-prime lending market in the USA and the resultant devaluations of all structured "investments" based on the US mortgage market. Since Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae debt and mortgage-backed securities were owned by many nations, the problem quickly became a global one. Indeed, it is getting worse. The first link below relates that Taiwan wants to dump its holdings of Freddie and Fannie debt. If even allies don't want to hold federally-guaranteed US debt, it is a very ominous sign indeed. Entire nations are pleading with the IMF for financial rescues. The US Fed and Treasury are trying to bail out/rescue the US banking system, huge insurance companies (like AIG), provide short-term credit to commercial borrowers and even California for a time considered asking for billions from Uncle Sam to bail it out of its budgetary misery. One wonders how long global equity markets must plunge before there is a coordinated, global stock market shut-down.
Media reports focused overwhelmingly on two leaders trying to manage / manipulate world markets in a way to keep the entire debt-based system of global finance from going irreversibly over a cliff. Those persons were Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Ben Bernanke, and US Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson. Jointly, they quick-talked the US Congress into granting Sec. Paulson a $750,000,000,000 bailout fund, and warned that if Congress didn't approve the bailout bill, it would result in a global credit crisis and collapsing stock markets around the world. Congress did what Bernanke and Paulson demanded and what happened? A global credit crisis and collapsing world stock markets occurred anyway! As some observers have noted, this hasty action "bailed out" not the American nation or its taxpayers, but rather the Wall Street tycoons whose reckless financial innovations caused the problem! To put this in Revelation 18's context, Babylon the Great's "merchants" convinced a complicit White House and Congress (Babylon the Great's "kings") to rescue the "merchants of the earth" from the consequences of their own actions while sticking innocent taxpayers with the bill.
Bernanke and Paulson are the dominant American faces of "Babylon the Great," the financial system foretold in Revelation 17-18. Sec. Paulson (dubbed "King Henry" on a recent Newsweek magazine cover due to the king-like powers granted to him by the US Congress) epitomizes the "kings of the earth" (the political side of the world economic system) and Fed Chairman Bernanke epitomizes the "merchants of the earth" (the Federal Reserve Board is actually a private bank whose shares are owned by a select group of global banks). Revelation 18:3 accurately foretold "all nations" would belong to this end-time, global economic system, and that the political leaders would be so "in bed" with the economic/financial leaders that it uses the term "fornication" to describe their relationship. Indeed, it is hard to identify where the public sector leaves off and the private sector begins! Sec. Paulson, now representing the political side of the alliance, was formerly the CEO of Goldman Sachs, one of the primary beneficiaries of Paulson's and Bernanke's actions in world markets. The Treasury official designated to manage the $750 billion bailout fund was also a former executive of Goldman Sachs. The private and public sectors are all but merged, just as Revelation 18 prophesied.
Readers send me a variety of internet links and some are cited in my blog commentaries. The second link below is more "edgy" and "irreverent" in tone than I usually cite, but I have included it for your information. If even a fraction of the scandalous, financial double-dealing and deceit alleged in this link is true, one can see how corrupt the modern financial system of "Babylon the Great" really is. Revelation's prophecy foretold that this system would be corrupt. Revelation 17:3-5 states that Babylon the Great's system is "full of names of blasphemy…the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth."
It has been reliably reported that Bernanke's and Paulson's interventions staved off a global collapse of world financial markets in September, 2008 (remember this date for later!). However, their actions / interventions have been unprecedented and increasingly desperate. Will these efforts succeed in saving the modern global economic system known in the Bible as "Babylon the Great" or have they merely delayed a pending collapse? Revelation 17-18 prophesy that "Babylon the Great's" system will collapse during the latter days, but the Bible doesn't give a date for that event. However, given the severe paroxysms now occurring in the global financial markets, are we now witnessing the prophesied collapse of Babylon the Great? Certainly, the current global system could rescue itself and continue on for a longer period of time, but it is also possible that we may see the fulfillment of one of the climatic prophecies of the book of Revelation.
The global financial/economic system is named after Babylon the Great in the Bible because its financial institutions began in ancient Babylon. The beating heart of the modern financial system is the banking industry, which creates money "out of thin air" and then loans it into existence, charging interest to those who borrow the very money which previously didn't exist. Via the modern fractional reserve banking system, banks serve as "money multipliers." Those wishing more documentation about how ancient Babylon invented the banking system can read my article What Kind of Captivity?, available at this website. The ancient Babylonian banking/financial system was prophesied to become so "Great" at the end of this age that it would dominate "all nations" (Rev. 18:3). This has also literally come to pass in our modern world.
I used to think that Babylon the Great's system would collapse when Jesus Christ returned; however, I now see that a literal application of Bible prophecy allows for an earlier fulfillment. Revelation 17:3, 9-18 indicate that a latter-day "beast" power with "seven heads and ten horns" will emerge and turn wrathfully against Babylon the Great's system--"burning it with fire" (Rev. 17:16). This has to happen prior to the return of Jesus Christ because after the beast power overthrows Babylon the Great, it later makes war against the Lamb (Jesus Christ) at his return and is, itself, "overcome" by the Lamb's army (described in greater detail in Revelation 19:11-21).
After Revelation 17 prophesies that Babylon the Great's global system will unravel in the latter days, it also foretells that it will be replaced by a new global, "beast" system. The next chapter, Revelation 18, describes in detail how Babylon the Great's system will collapse. Let's examine Revelation 18's prophecy about the collapse of Babylon the Great's by plugging modern events and high-tech, financial realities into this prophecy.
Before beginning, I will acknowledge that I first heard elements of the scenario I will now describe from someone who broached initial speculation about it 6-7 years ago. I think he was a Messianic rabbi, and I wish I could offer due credit to him, but I can no longer recall his name as we lost contact years ago. Given that the modern financial system is, as of this writing, teetering on the precipice of collapse, this scenario can be fleshed out and is worthy of consideration.
Revelation 18:2 proclaims "Babylon the Great is fallen, is fallen." It is intriguing that the phrase "is fallen" is stated twice. The fall of Babylon's global system in the latter days will begin with two great "falls" or "collapses." Babylon the Great's system dominates world trade (Rev. 18:11-19), and on September 11, 2001, the "Twin Towers" of the World Trade Center were hit by airplanes in an epic terrorist attack. These two behemoth towers, the symbols of global world capitalism, collapsed "live" on TV, shocking all the world. Revelation 18:10, 17 & 19 add that this "desolation" will occur "in one hour." The Twin Towers did, indeed collapse within "one hour" of each other. The number "seven" is often significant in biblical contexts. The current global crisis in stock, commodity and credit markets was unleashed upon the world in September, 2008, seven years after the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11/01.
Many media articles have noted the lavish, self-indulgent lifestyles of the CEOs and top executives of global multinational corporations and the politicians who wallow in the "campaign contributions" given to them by the agents of the global corporations. Revelation 18:3 & 9 prophesy that the "merchants" of the earth will be "waxed rich though the abundance of [the system's] delicacies" and that the "kings" of the earth "lived deliciously" off this system. Many articles have documented a serious "wealth disparity" as greedy Wall Street CEOs sucked mega-millions for themselves out of the very companies they destroyed with reckless financial practices. They even shamelessly gave themselves "golden parachutes" worth more millions from failed companies even as stockholders and investors lost almost everything. Recent media stories focused on the grilling given by Congress to the CEO of Lehman Brothers whose executives gave themselves millions in "bonuses" as their company went bankrupt. AIG, an insurance company receiving approximately $85 billion in a bail-out, lavished a half-million on insiders at a posh resort even as they pleaded poverty to the government. Many nations have been "stuck" with unmarketable and devalued securities which they bought from Wall Street's "merchants." In foreign nations and even on "Main Street" in the USA, palpable fury is growing toward the self-indulgent leadership of Babylon the Great's corporate and political system.
Revelation 18:8 says these two great "falls" will be linked to "one day," and something vital will be "utterly burnt with fire." Can we link one single "day" to the two collapses foretold in Revelation 18:2? Yes! The phrase "9/11" has been embedded in the minds of everyone on earth as the "one day" when the Twin Towers, symbols of Babylon the Great's global financial/commercial system, experienced two great "falls" as they collapsed within "one hour" while being "utterly burnt with fire." Was this all coincidental or were the events of 9/11 the literal fulfillment of Revelation 18's prophecy?
Revelation 18:17-19 prophesy that these catastrophic two "falls" must occur in a seaport city, and New York City is a seaport city as well as a global commercial center. Revelation 18:17-18 refers to the anguish as the "smoke of her burning" could be seen by shipmasters in merchant ships in the harbor of the "burning" city. If you recall photos of the massive clouds of dust which enveloped all surrounding buildings in the immediate aftermath of the two collapses of the Twin Towers, it actually appeared that the entire city was enveloped in smoke when viewed from vessels off Manhattan. This viewpoint from sea-level is the very one described by John in Revelation 18.
Revelation 18:12-14 prophesy that Babylon the Great's global trading system involves the merchandising of all manner of goods and services. It mentions finished goods, commodities, precious metals and "chariots and slaves and the souls of men." Consider these low-tech words in a high-tech application. "Chariots" would mean cars, trucks, SUVs, etc. "Slaves and souls of men" can mean the prostitution trade, but it has a much more salient application in our high-tech era. Consider the term "slaves" as applied to the millions of modern "debt-slaves" in Babylon the Great's debt system.
In recent years, those who took out mortgages, car loans, student loans, and credit card loans had these debts repackaged into collateralized (or "securitized") investment vehicles by greedy Wall Street brokers eager to gain fat commissions by selling these now obviously-risky instruments. Officials in lax regulatory agencies and ratings agencies facilitated this process. Everyone who owed these debts had their "souls" traded and re-traded to faceless investors in many nations. Millions of people's future income-streams were "bought and sold" (as debt-slaves) on high-tech Wall Street markets and John likened this to the slave trade that he could describe in the vocabulary of his time. An incredible array of investments, goods, services and commodities were literally "bought and sold" (i.e. "traded") on Wall Street, the COMEX or in the World Trade Center of New York City, the seaport city where the two great falls occurred within one hour on one singular day in history. What more is needed to fulfill this prophecy?
Interestingly, Revelation 18:23 foretold that Babylon the Great's insiders would "deceive" all nations via "sorceries." The Greek word translated "sorceries" is "pharmakeia," from which we derive the word "pharmaceuticals" or "pharmacy." The Greek word literally means "enchantment with drugs" (Young's Analytical Concordance to the Bible, see "sorcerer," p. 916, subhead 8). This prophecy can mean actual drug addiction among the Wall Street Whiz Kids who invented these "deceitful" investment options, but there is another high-tech possibility. It is well-known that Big Pharma is one of the largest industry groups on Wall Street and one of the largest givers of campaign contributions to the "kings of the earth" (the elected officials of the USA) who then "return the favor" by passing laws benefiting Big Pharma (the Medicare Part D program, denying Medicare the right to buy drugs in bulk at discount prices, denying the right of the public to discharge outstanding medical bills in bankruptcy procedures, etc.). Big Pharma is, according to some articles I've read, one of the largest (if not the largest) purchaser of advertising time on American TV. Big Pharma is one of the largest industry groups in the modern capitalistic system of Babylon the Great, but Big Oil, Big Auto, Big Defense Contractors, Big Etc. all benefit copiously from a complicit Congress which dispenses official favors to the industry groups which give huge campaign contributions to members of Congress. All of this affirms the accuracy of Revelation 18's prophecy that the political and corporate leaders at the end of our age will be "in bed" with each other to mutually enrich themselves. The extent to which Wall Street and the US Government have "merged" via the recent mega-bailouts is depicted well in the following political cartoon by Jack Ohman of the Oregonian, which I saw reprinted in the October 18, 2008 issue of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
More of Steve's writings are available at http://stevenmcollins.com/
