EAR (18 Feb 2024)
"GINO - BABYLON'S FUTURE DESTRUCTION"


 

Hi John and Doves,

Gino (31 Dec 2023)
"
RE: EAR: 12:22:23: Babylon… 8th iteration of the beast"

BABYLON IS FALLEN, IS FALLEN, THAT GREAT CITY (fivedoves.com)  EAR 22.12.23

THE MYSTERY OF THE EIGHTH ITERATION OF THE BEAST (fivedoves.com) EAR 22.12.23

GINO - REGARDING AN ISLAMIC ANTICHRIST (fivedoves.com) EAR 22.12.23

Gino (21 Jan 2024)
"
RE: EAR: 01.14.24: harlot woman & mystery of the woman… 7th & 8th head"

A Harlot Woman sits on the Scarlet Beast (fivedoves.com) EAR 01.14.24

THE SEVENTH and EIGHTH HEADS ON THE BEAST (fivedoves.com) EAR 01.14.24

Hi Gino,

BABYLON’S FUTURE DESTRUCTION

Thanks for your kind comments regarding my letters about the great City, Mystery Babylon, and about the 7th & 8th iteration of the God-opposing beast entity that is occurring in our time. I may put all that information together in a book soon, so there is no misunderstanding over where and what the harlot represents today… especially since I believe Babylon’s destruction is near at hand… and the people of God are warned to come out of her…’ and to stay ‘far off’ from her forthcoming destruction (Rev. 18:4; 17:10, 15, 17).

The plagues that overtake the City in one day are described as death, mourning and famine as she is consumed by fire, for mighty is the Lord God who judges her. (Rev. 17:8) Mystery Babylon is thus represented as a God-opposing religious entity/spirit―located in a great wealthy and luxurious city in the wilderness―and it was/is by her magic spell all the nations were led astray. In her was found the blood of prophets and of God’s holy people, of all who have been slaughtered on the earth (Rev. 18:23b–24). Since she is seated on the beast that has had multiple iterations we may presume that her evil existence and prolonged persecution of God’s people has continued since antiquity.  

Gino, you might have gathered by now―from my writing―that I do not subscribe to an individual antichrist ‘personwhose body is supposed to rise from the dead in the last days (as per the Left Behind ‘fiction’ books)! Although the early Church may have applied this information to Nero and the Roman Empire and its various Emperors (via the 6th head on the beast), it didn’t happen! Today, this description must be applied to the seventh iteration of the beast, the Ottoman Islamic Caliphate (Rome’s successor that had not yet come, Rev. 17:10), and its leader/Caliph (Sultan), whose existence and names were written out of history in 1922–24―both Caliphate and Caliph―after the 7th head/Caliphate received a mortal wound by the sword/war in 1918, during World War I. [1]

NB. It was not only the 7th head/Caliphate that was mortally wounded (made to be deceased), but the Caliph’s ‘position’ within the Caliphate was also disestablished and the Caliph’s ‘title’ ceased to exist!  There was no heir to the Caliphate at that time, and the Ottoman territories were subsequently divided up into 10 smaller SUNNI Arab nations: Republic of Turkey, Syria and Lebanon (via French mandate), Iraq, Palestine and Transjordan (via UK mandate), Hejaz & Nejd (became Saudi Arabia), Yemen, and Arab States (UAE).  Note: SHIA Persia/Iran was not part of the Ottoman Empire.

Thus, after a 90 year hiatus of non-existence, the ‘Caliphate’ (via ISIS) suddenly came back to life in 2014, and it was given ‘authority’―from the Quran and the SUNNI Salafist teaching [ex. Saudi Arabia]―to ‘continue for 42 months’ in like manner as its predecessor, to behead people! [2] (Rev. 6:9–10; 13:5; 20:4)

In addition, and in support of my reasoning, the Apostle John considers such an individual/antichrist to be a rumour that the people of his day had heard about.  John does not reinforce that rumour: rather he diverts it to describe a deceptive spirit that denies God as ‘Father and Son’. (See my letter to Donna Danna regarding why the 7th head on the beast was/is a territorial area of land on which an ideological and militant ‘revived’ Islamist Caliphate (Empire) would be based, and why it needed to be given an ‘additional mouth’ so it could spew forth its particular blasphemous dogma against God via its spokesperson/Vizier/Caliph, Rev. 13:5–6).

As the Apostle John says, even for today…

Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour.  

Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son.

But every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist.

(1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3.  2 John 1:7)

John states that anybody who refuses to acknowledge that Jesus Christ is the Son of God in the flesh is deceived by an ‘antichrist spirit’ that has been in the world since his day!  This scriptural passage can hardly be applied to the Catholic Church, as some believe (or even to Rome after AD 380 when Theodosius made Christianity the State Religion)!  BUT there are about 1.2 billion Muslims living during this century who do meet John’s parameters for antichrist-deception and unbelief!  Thus, the latter day (last hour) origin of the deceiving antichrist spirit, and its most obvious public declarations―contradicting that Jesus Christ is the Son of God―are brazenly written on the walls in the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem; the Temple Mount (Mt. Moriah) being the very place where God chose to put His name and make it His dwelling place (Gen. 22:1–2, 4, 9; Deut. 12:5; 1 Chr. 21:18, 22:1; 2 Chr. 3:1).

So, instead of God’s name, the translated inscriptions from the Quran (written in the Dome of the Rock), refer to Allah the god (whom some believe is the moon god called Sin) who is worshipped by Muslims, are quoted:

There is no god but God. He is One. He has no associate.

The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only a Messenger of God,

God is only One God. Far be it removed from His transcendent majesty that He should have a son. His is all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth.

It befitteth not (the Majesty of) God that He should take unto Himself a son.

There is no god but God. He is One. He has no associate. Say: He is God, the One! God, the eternally Besought of all! He begetteth not nor was begotten.

There is no god but God. He is One. He has no associate. (repeated 5 times) [3]

 

I wonder what the Apostle John would have thought about these declarations today, knowing that 1.2 billion souls were being deceived in this manner, solely because of the Quran that was birthed in Mecca by Muhammad. For this reason I don’t think there is any longer ‘a mystery’ regarding the religious harlot called ‘Babylon’ who is also portrayed as that ‘Great City’ that made the inhabitants of the earth drunk through her fornication (idolatry), i.e., worshipping false gods, and through her blood lust, i.e., she was drunk from persecuting the saints and killing the martyrs who worship the only true God YaHWeH! (Cf. Rev. 14:2; 15:19; 17:2, 4–6 with Exodus 20:3–6.) This God-opposing, deceiving, antichrist spirit is now centred in the ‘latter day’ great city of Mecca that is located in the Saudi Arabian desert/wilderness, where her presence is hidden among seven mountains (Rev. 17:9).

The author of Revelation may have had the City of Rome in mind when he wrote his book, but his use of the word mystery has certainly established ‘fruitful grounds’ for an alternative interpretation of Babylon’s location in the end time!  Thus, following a sudden short declaration about her destruction―contained in a single verse in Rev. 14:8, and again in a single verse in Rev. 16:19―the rest of Babylon’s end time identity is not enlarged upon until chapters 17 and 18 where the Angel focuses John’s attention on her relationship―with the kings and merchants of the earth―with the saints and martyrs she has killed―and with the beast with seven heads and ten horns that she sits on and dominates.

It is not Rome who reigns over the Kings of the earth today (Rev. 17:18); Rome has no adequate military power unless anyone deigns to think the 130 strong Gendarmerie Corps of Vatican City, and the 135 Swiss Guards in the Vatican Army are a formidable force! The Vatican has the World’s smallest army, and it surely bears no resemblance to the end time armies mentioned in Revelation (e.g., the Angel-Kings’ armies from east of the Euphrates, which number 200 million, when a third of mankind is killed in a war that lasts for an hour, a day, a month and a year (Rev. 9:13–21; 16:12), which involves the kings of the earth and of whole world, who are gathered to fight the battle of Armageddon (Rev. 16:14), viz., kings, generals, the mighty, the flesh of all people, free and slave, great and small, who are gathered to fight in a battle where the birds are invited to feast on the left-overs! (Rev. 19:17–21)

Matthew Henry: Re Babylon: She is named from her place of residence―Babylon the Great. But that we might not take it for the old Babylon literally so called, we are told there is a mystery in the name; it is some other great city resembling the old Babylon. 

Consequently, that Great City is a New Testament phenomenon that is prophesied to exist in the wilderness in the end time―cohabiting with the beast (cf. Revelation 17:3–18 for the angel’s retrospective explanation). This not Rome in Italy, but Mecca in Saudi Arabia, which has a likeness to ancient Babylon through her idolatry, through her harlot daughters who have spread her idolatrous religion throughout the world, through her commerce and merchandising via Middle Eastern oil, and the rather obvious fact that Muslims throughout the world bow down five times a day toward Mecca and the Kaaba in worship of Allah.

Compare the description of Mystery Babylon in Rev. 18:2–24 with the destructive prophetic pronouncements made against ancient Babylon in Isaiah 13, 19, 21 and 47; Jeremiah 1 and 51 (to name just a few), which may yet be fulfilled. The ‘utter destruction’ of ancient Babylon never happened at the hands of Elam and Media (now IRAN) as prophesied in Isaiah 13:17, 21:9, because in Daniel’s time (539 BC) Cyrus II, (King of Media-Persia) took Babylon by surprise… and it became a capital of the Achaemenian Empire. In 331 BC Babylon surrendered to the Macedon-Grecian Army, and it was in Nebuchadnezzar’s Palace in 323 BC that Alexander the Great died. It was not until the reign of the Seleucid Dynasty’s many Greek rulers that Babylon eventually fell into disuse as a Capital and it was abandoned. It was finally sacked by the Parthians during the 2nd Century and it never recovered. Many people thought Saddam Hussein would resurrect Babylon (to its former glory to fulfil their end time prophetic hopes), and although he tried, it didn’t happen. Instead, what remained of the crumbling ancient city of Babylon was further damaged when it was used for a military camp by US forces in April 2003–2005.

Conversely, in Mecca, the stupendous building expansion of the Great Mosque and adjoining facilities, which has been ongoing since 1985 to meet the needs of the 2 million Muslims who visit the holy site during the annual Hajj and Umrah pilgrimages, has totally changed the size and character of the ancient pagan idolatrous worship centre.  Mecca | History, Pilgrimage, Population, Map, & Facts | Britannica  Mecca’s phenomenal growth in the last three decades includes sky-scrapers, hotels, and one of the largest and tallest buildings on earth, the Makkah Royal Clock Tower. Abrāj al-Bayt | Tallest Building, Shopping Mall & Hotel | Britannica

How the religious harlot/spirit called ‘Babylon, the Great’ moved from Chaldea/Mesopotamia to Mecca in Saudi Arabia was probably via the 360 idols and images that had been collected from around the Middle East and Asia by the Arab Polytheists who had deposited them in the Kaaba in Mecca long before Muhammad decided to clean them out and worship one god he called Allah!  It should be noted that there is no official recognition of any historical connection to the building of the Kaaba in Mecca, with Adam, Abraham or Ishmael, as taught via Islamic dogma; but there is a pre-Islamic historical connection between the Kings of Babylon and the Hejaz coastland.

The northern part of the province was occupied as early as the 6th Century BCE, when the Chaldean kings of Babylon maintained Taymāʾ as a summer capital.

Hejaz | Mountains, Map, & Province | Britannica

The words of scripture imploring believers in God to ‘Flee from Babylon’ and ‘Come out of her My people’ (Isaiah 48:20; Rev. 18:4) may even refer to greater Mesopotamia:  i.e., present day Syria and Iraq where the Babylon Empire originally existed, and where the US has constructed military bases that are presently suffering rocket and drone attacks by IRAN’s proxy ‘non-state terrorist organisations.

NOTE: Both Jerusalem and Mecca lie within a 2,000 km range from IRAN’s Nuclear site at Bushehr, and both cities can be reached by Iran’s longest-range missile called Kheibar, which carries a 1,500 kg warhead. Its name references an ancient town in Saudi Arabia, (Khaybar) where Muhammad defeated thousands of Jews.  

Thus the Old Testament judgments against Babylon, which were to be carried out by a multitude of nations that destroy the whole land on the Day of the Lord, which darken the stars, sun and moon and shake the heavens and the earth, appears to cover a very large area, rather than just a city of 760 km2 in a desert location. Furthermore, the description given in Jeremiah 1 and 51 of Babylon’s destruction bears some similarities to a meteor strike or nuclear explosion… described as a destroying wind, to winnow her, she is suddenly destroyed, her smoke rises to heaven to the skies, there are waters in the heavens, vapours, lightning and wind etc.

Consequently, although ancient Babylon (which Cyrus the Persian King took by surprise) only fell into disuse and rubble over many years, the final judgment of its name-sake―Mystery Babylon―appears to have been delayed until the end-time (Revelation 14:8: 18:2, 10 and 21). While Babylon’s destruction was originally prophesied by Isaiah 13:1–14:22; 47:1, 14, and Jeremiah chapters 50:1–51:64, the punishment meted out in the end-time appears to be directed at the ‘virgin daughter of Babylon’ (Isaiah 47:1; Psalm 137:8) so this would refer to a descendant daughter of ancient Babylon, who has inherited the sins of the idolatrous Mother (Rev. 17:1–6). Her punishment seems to be in retribution for the destruction of Solomon’s Temple, and for her idolatry in opposition to the worship of God, i.e., For God has put it into their hearts to fulfill His purpose, to be of one mind, (i.e., to destroy Babylon), until the words of God are fulfilled (Rev. 17:17).

Maranatha,

EAR