Latest / The Remnant Radio's Podcast / Who Is Babylon the Great? Rome, Jerusalem, or America?

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Who Is Babylon the Great? Rome, Jerusalem, or America? · The Remnant Radio's Podcast

• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Wonderful World Around Radio.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: In this program, we're talking about Babylon the Great.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to be an exciting program.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: You guys stay tuned.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't know how great she is.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: She's kind of a weenie, but uh today we're talking about what the Bible has to say about Babylon.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be an exciting program.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: We're uh talking about Michael's book, The World Made Right, his book on Revelation, that is actually released at the time of the release of this video.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you guys can go check out the link in the description if you want to go pick up that book for yourself.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we do a lot of fun dives into the program, but if you're wanting something a little bit more exhaustive that walks through it really sequentially, I'd encourage you to go pick up his book in the link of the description.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Without further ado, the man, the myth, the legend, the man of the hour, Michael Roundtree.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about Babylon today.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us a little bit about what we have to look forward to.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's a lot of debate about Babylon, like a lot of things in the book of Revelation.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Is this totally a symbol?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Is it literally?
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and if it and even amongst symbols, it's like, what is it a symbol of?
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh it's one of a few enemies of the people of God in the book of Revelation.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: You have the dragon, then you have the beast of the sea.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: We've talked about him, we've talked about the beast of the earth, also called the false prophet, and then you have Babylon, and those are the chief enemies, and they're demon armies and other things too, evil angels.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but these uh these are the primary enemies of the people of God.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh try to unpack what that means, and uh, and so I think that's uh that's gonna be a fun conversation, Josh.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, uh, what verses of scripture are going to bring up Babylon the Great?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we've got all these Old Testament references to Babylon, we've got the New Testament references in Revelation to Babylon, uh, and there is a great mystery, if you will.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: See what I did there?
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, on who Babylon is.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Is is Babylon Jerusalem?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Is it the Roman Empire?
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Is Babylon America?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, my money's out for America.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: We're doing some pretty wild stuff.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: But hey, you you tell me what's your take on who Babylon is.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's gonna take a little bit of time to unpack that.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I may not answer the full answer immediately.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but let's start with the passages.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: So we have Revelation 14, where Babylon is introduced, and she's introduced falling.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, wait, who's Babylon?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: She's she's fallen.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't even know she rose.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how the angel pronounces it in Revelation, I believe it's 14, 8.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so we so we're introduced to Babylon in chapter 14.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, even a little bit before that, there's a slight mention in chapter 11 uh by the moniker Great City.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: And we'll have to talk about that a little bit because it seems to be talking about Jerusalem there, uh, because it refers to the place where our Lord was crucified, that great city.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: So some people say Babylon is Jerusalem.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then you get to chapter 14, doesn't really give any further detail about what Babylon is, just that she's falling.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that'll become a theme of the coming sections because you get to chapter uh 16.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there you see revel uh you see the bulls of wrath poured out.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: We see Babylon associated with a city and the cities of the earth, and there's a giant earthquake, and the Euphrates dries up, and uh the which is interesting in itself, and we can talk about that, that and whether it's literal, whether whether it's symbol.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I've kind of played my cards on on this kind of thing.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: I tend to think things in Revelation are symbolic because I think that's how apocalyptic literature is usually meant to be understood.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: So uh it doesn't mean there's nothing literal, like the seven churches were literal, but even there there was a symbolism, and go back and watch that episode.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you see Babylon in Revelation 17, she's allied with the beast, she's writing a scarlet beast, and so the the alliance between beast and babylon is really key for understanding.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: Then we'll see uh the beast turns on Babylon.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and so you you have Babylon falling in 14, then in 16, once again, she's falling, and then in 17, she's being attacked by the beast.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: The evil turns on itself, then in 18, she falls again.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: Lots of Babylon falling.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, and that feeds into chapter 19, which is the wedding supper of the lamb, and uh, and that is sort of like the counterpart of of Babylon is really leading into New Jerusalem.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, so there's lots of passages that we could dive into a little bit deeper, Josh.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, your take on on some of this, uh you you say uh you you lean more figurative with it, but Babylon was a historic place in the Old Testament prior to the book of Revelation, right?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like this was a great enemy of God.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you might even be able to go back to Genesis and talk about the Tower of Babel.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: There seems to be association, even if it's not a literal empire, because that clearly crumbled to pieces.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then we have uh the Babylon that we know of historically that had these great beautiful gardens and uh you know, this place that Israel was brought into captivity under.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: When we think of Babylon as a I think that's what causes us to think of Babylon as a local place, is because in the Old Testament it was a physical local place.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um but yet some have argued that, to your point, that maybe it's a more empire thing.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's more of a kind of scoping uh power and it's a symbolic picture of the kingdoms of the earth.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um but but I mean there's a total uh school of scholarship that looks to who who's the Middle Eastern guy who tried to rebuild Babylon?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh like it's like modern-day Iraq.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like I mean, there's a whole bunch of like uh different schools of thought on this.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Can you unpack the the various views uh before we kind of get into your specific view of of what Babylon is?
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, you bring up one of them, and when Saddam Hussein was in the height of his power and there was the big conflict with uh United States of America, you saw a lot of renewed discussion around literal Babylon being renewed and uh Book of Revelation predicting this and so on.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, but I would view all the enemies of God, the beast of the sea, the beast of the earth, the uh and and Babylon is all transhistorical, trans uh, trans, but it goes across time and place.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, but on the literal, I think that if we look at Jeremiah 51, it rules out a literal interpretation because Jeremiah 51, 26 says of Babylon that no stone shall be taken from you for a cornerstone.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: And 51.64, thus shall Babylon sink.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: And and those are just portions of it, but it is indicated in these chapters that Babylon would never rise again.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so any future expression of Babylon is likely symbolic.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: Furthermore, the symbolic understanding was under like it was interpreted this way, even outside of apocalyptic literature.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: 1 Peter 5 13 refers to, quote, she who is at Babylon.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, everybody knew in context that Peter was talking about Rome, and so they would refer to Rome as Babylon.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think a symbolic reading of Babylon makes a whole lot of sense.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think a literal reading is close to impossible if we take Jeremiah out of his word.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: And and so the most literal interpreters, interpreters should be consistent, and if they're consistent, then they would interpret Jeremiah's prophecy of a literal, irreversible destruction of Babylon, the literal Babylon, to be literal and that it will never rise again.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: But they seem to understand that as symbolically, and Revelation is literally, and I, in my opinion, that's uh that's inconsistent.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: And and also when we look at Babylon, uh if you look at like Jerusalem, we should probably read that one.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Revelation 11.8.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: If we look at a Revelation 11.8, symbolism is already in play.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so it'll say, and and their dead bodies, that is the two prophets, will lie in the street of the great city, which on elsewhere describes Babylon.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: The great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: So it's talking about Jerusalem.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: Jerusalem as the great city, which elsewhere is clearly Babylon, but then he says it's symbolically also called Sodom and Egypt, two godless places.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so you can see that he's already working with symbolism there.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: So it shouldn't surprise us to consider the great city of Babylon symbolic here.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: In addition to that, now the person who wants to say, ah, well, that's very clear where the Lord was crucified.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: Jerusalem is the great city.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think that is too narrow.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: I don't see any way in which that can comply with uh Revelation 17, 18, which says, the woman that you saw is the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: In what world does did Jerusalem have dominion over the kings of the earth?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that's hard to imagine being said in that day while John was writing of Jerusalem.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: And are we to imagine some like future rise of Jerusalem?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I think that's a stretch.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: And and so I don't think the Jerusalem one really holds up.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: Symbolism is already in the context.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then if we look at Revelation 16, Revelation 16, notice how broad this designation uh appears to be.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: The uh sixth angel, verse 12, poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: Now, Babylon, literal Babylon originally sat on the river Euphrates.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: So that that's key to understanding here uh to prepare the way for the kings from the east.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I saw coming out of the mouths of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet, unclean spirits like frogs.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's the Armageddon passage.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: The sixth bull, the waters of the Euphrates dry up.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the thing to understand about that is that actually did happen in history.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's how Cyrus invaded literal, uh, literal Babylon back in uh back in the sixth century BC was through drying up waters.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: But here we see the drying up of uh of the Euphrates once again.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a a callback to what literally happened.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: But we know from Revelation 17 that the many waters that the harlot Babylon sits on are symbolic of many people's tongues and nations.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: So it's so it's actually people.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: So the sixth bowl seems to represent the drying up of Babylon's support.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's how Greg Beale and David Campbell take it, among many others.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so you have the drying up of Babylon's support, which does agree with Revelation 17, where the beast will turn on Babylon and attack her.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: We'll need to talk about that later.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but then in the so now that Babylon's support is dried up, in the seventh seventh bowl, uh it all comes out.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: The seventh angel pours out his bowl into the air, a loud voice uh came out of the temple from the throne, saying, It is done.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: And there were flashes of lightning, rumbles, rumblings, peals of thunder, and an earthquake such as there had never been since there uh since man was on the earth, and so great was the earthquake.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Here's the key the great city, that's Babylon, was split into three parts, and the city of the nation, cities of the nations fell, and God remembered Babylon the Great.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's the connection with great city.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: Babylon the Great, by the way, is what Babylon is called in Daniel chapter four.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so Joshu mentioned like their prior iterations of Babylon.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: We have the book of Daniel under Nebuchadnezzar and his successors, and then we have all the way back to the Tower of Babel, and that's playing on a big image of even what cities represent in the Bible.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I believe that's really what Babylon is getting at.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, call it the city of man.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it says, and every island fled away, and no mountains were to be found, and great hailstones fell, and the plague was extremely severe.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: So this is like the last of the uh of the plagues, and it's poured out on Babylon.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so all when it talks about the great city, but then it says all the cities of the earth, it it appears to me that Babylon is not just any one city, that it's related to all the cities, that there's this theme throughout the scripture where the city of man, um that's a theological label, where the city of man represents the culmination of civilization and culture.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's in human history godless.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: The first city was built by Cain, the murderer.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, scholar, Bruce, Old Testament scholar Bruce Walkie talks about how he names the city after his son.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's a symbol of its man-centeredness.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: But you see in the city that uh that Cain's descendants who live in that city develop music and metalworking.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's a center of great culture and development.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then that takes us into Revelation or sorry, Genesis chapter 11.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: They say, Let us build a city.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: So they build a city, but also a tower.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: Cities and towers were all thought in the uh in the ancient Near East to be the intersection of heaven and earth, the meeting place of the gods.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so, and so city, temple, like it is like religious, but it was also uh civil, uh, is in civilization.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so all of that is culminating.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so you have like where in Genesis 1, God's image builders were to subdue the earth and make the whole earth look like him, what you see is that godly godless civilization does the opposite.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: And cities, while there is some goodness and there is some like culture and civilization isn't in itself bad, when mankind comes together, it tends toward a Tower of Babel type of situation.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: It turns toward a Nebuchadnezzar type of situation.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so when Peter calls Rome Babylon, he has that history of cities in mind that that Rome was sort of like the mother of all prostitutes, the Babylon that out-babylons everybody.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Joshua mentioned, like, I've got my money on America.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: I do think that America out-babylons everyone else right now because our culture affects other cultures like nobody else.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: And you could pick a city, call it LA with Hollywood, call it New York City.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: And the way our culture affects others, I think this is really the meaning of city.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's culture, it's civilization.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: And and so I uh I love this definition from Sam Storms.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: He talked, uh, I quoted in my book.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Babylon is the symbol of human civilization with all its pomp and circumstance or organized in opposition to God.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: And he goes on from there to expand on social, intellectual, commercial, political, and religious life, a world system of unbelief, idolatry, and apostasy that opposes and persecutes God's people.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: So uh so I think Babylon captures all of that.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: Babylon is distinct from the beast, and we can talk about that too, but I've been talking for a little while now.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I feel like produced any questions for you, Josh.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you did you did.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I kind of want to circle back to, well, partially, this is an apologetic, and I'm throwing a curveball at you, Michael.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't discuss this earlier, but it just struck me just now when you talked about Revelation and you talked about the kings of the earth.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was Revelation 17, 18, dominion over the kings, this great city.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you go, well, that's not Jerusalem.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's just say Nick Fuentes entered the chat, he would go, Yeah, it is Jerusalem.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like uh the the kind of alt-right folks that would jump in on board with this and say, Yeah, Israel's got their their little cronies all over the place and they're manipulating and pulling the puppet strings of nations.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't think that's a view that you hold, but because it was uh phrased in this way that say that, okay, uh Israel is not ruling the nations, I I I think America is a much better uh descriptor of that when we think of we've exported abortion and uh adult-like entertainment, we've uh we've created the insessual desire for uh uh the the trafficking that's happening across the world because we've polluted people's minds with the content we've produced online.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I I I look at America as exporting the wine of sexual immorality that the nations have gotten drunk on, uh, the military-industrial complex making war across the world.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: I I just go, man, that's such a better and then the way that we enforce our will upon kings, like it's not discreet, it's very overt.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but maybe you would want to weigh into you know, the folks who are claiming, and you and I are not mega political, so if you want to punt, I can edit this out.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: But that that idea of like uh Israel is kind of controlling everybody, that's a it's a it's a real thing that people want to know about.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I would love to know the way Israel was controlling Nero or any of the uh the Roman Caesars, like like like Fuentes, yeah.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: Really, please inform me how Israel was controlling the Roman Empire.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: Wild for anyone to make that argument.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: So here's the thing Revelation uh 11, 8 does indicate that Jerusalem was Babylonian, if you will.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and in fact, even in Revelation chapter 2, where one of uh the church in Thyatira, where it's influenced by the teachings of Jezebel, a lot of commentators will say things like, Jezebel is like the envoy of Babylon.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, Babylon Babylon's influence begins to infect the church.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: Here's here's my problem.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: So it infects the church, it infects Jerusalem.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then we saw in that context there was a symbolism to it.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's Sodom and Egypt are also pulled in.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: But to limit it to just Jerusalem is insane.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: There's no world in which back now, if somebody wants to get into all conspiracy theory about Israel's pulling strings behind the scenes and the whole world is manipulated by Natan, Natan, Netanyahu, whatever.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, no, I I don't buy that.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think that it's hey, I'm not even gonna go down that rabbit trail.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, but here's what I would say is that there's no world in which we can limit it to Jerusalem.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: Do you really think the seventh bowl of wrath, the one after which God says it is done, and he pours it out on Babylon?
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: Do you really think the climactic fireworks show of human history where the age culminates and comes to its end just on the brink and the edge of Christ's return is God destroyed one city in the Middle East called Jerusalem?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: You really think that's what it's about?
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: It actually literally says the cities of the earth in association with the great city.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: This is a system, it expand expands to all cities.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: This argument would completely ignore what John in Revelation is tracing with cities all throughout the scripture.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: And by the way, that plays into New Jerusalem too, the whole civilization and culture, it plays in there.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna have to talk about that.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: But but this is the problem with how people read Revelation, is they're they try to like pick a point on the map.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: I have no problem, no problem at all saying that Jerusalem and Israel, even today, has Babylonian tendencies.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, look at the things that they've done on LGBTQ, etc.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I have no problem tracing Babylonian influence there, nor do I have a problem tracing in the United States of America or the European Union or Russia.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like this is everywhere.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: Babylon space uh spans across time and space.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: It goes back to the to the beginning with the Tower of Babel, and even in seed form with Cain in his first in the first city.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so we just absolutely can't limit it to one city, one nation, one epoch.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: It spans all of those things.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: And John's writing to seven literal churches who existed back then, and he's not saying, hey, someday Babylon's gonna come back at the very end of history, and it has complete like no relevance to you, seven churches.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: Forget about it, it's really not important to you, but some future generation is gonna have to deal with Babylon.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, Babylon was right then and there in their time, and and it wasn't just Jerusalem, it's not just Jerusalem in the book of Revelation, it spans across the cities of the earth.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I just think it's way, way overly limiting, which is the same problem for literal Iraq, uh, a literal place in Iraq.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's the same problem for anyone who tries to pick a singular city.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have a problem with someone saying this city's more Babylon than any other.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's fair, but I don't think you can pick one and say that's the whole thing.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: Christians everywhere are having a to war against Babylon's influence.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's a system.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we have to look for.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh is a system, not just a city.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: I like that because you're like it's it's trans local, like it's it's outside of just one specific region.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's trans temporal, I think was the word you were looking for earlier.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: It spans.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just trying to not say it's trans.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I understood.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: I understood.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but but like it, but that it that it spans a a large period of time.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so to think of Israel, you know, one might be real tinfoil hattdy and go, Israel's controlling the world, then it's like fine.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we'll we'll grant you that, but like it can't be the picture here because it means they would have to been controlling the world since the time of John.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because again, this is an epoch, this is a a period of time, this is a a kingdom of darkness sort of motif.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: And with that in mind, what do we miss in the book of Revelation if we think it's one specific city, if we're looking for a specific place on a map, opposed to a a system, uh, an epic.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what's the what's the specific thing that we're missing when when we read it that way?
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think what we're missing is that Babylon can influence us.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: Because if it's just for some future people.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: Or if it's just for one specific place and I don't live in that place, then I don't even need to worry about Babylon.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: But the whole point, I mean, largest point of revelation is we need to we need to be mindful of all of these enemies.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: We need to be mindful of Babylon's seduction.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: We need to be mindful of the beast's persecution.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and of course, Babylon persecutes too, although the way I say it in my my book is she persecutes like she kills the saints but with a velvet glove.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: And my my point there is that she's not uh she's not forthright about uh uh in the same way that the beast is, but anyway, we can get into that if we want.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: But uh the point being, uh I think the major thing, the reason she's a harlot is she spreads her sexual immorality to the ends of the earth.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: And that sexual immorality, it speaks of compromise.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so a harlot, you pay money.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, hopefully you don't literally do this, but though you you know how the transaction works.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody pays money, yeah.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody pays money, and in exchange they get sexual services.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that we should limit, you know, Jack Deere used to teach this there's going to be a wave of sexual immorality that'll come across the earth at the end of the age, and he would point to these verses about um the sexual immorality of the harlot.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: And and I don't take that to be literal sex, or at least I wouldn't uh I wouldn't make it just sexual immorality.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: The the point of revelation, and and by the way, I think, yes, last day is immorality, absolutely, but I I wouldn't go to verses in Revelation for that because the the point is that the that the kings of the earth are in bed with the harlot.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: There's a compromise at play.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're giving something in exchange for the favors that they receive.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and that brings us into Revelation 17, the alliance between the beast and the harlot.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think these are overly blended sometimes, they're very closely related because Babylon the harlot rides the back of the beast, but they're not exactly the same because the beast will ultimately turn on the harlot.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there are examples of this throughout history.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think there will be a culminating uh expression of this, but the but they're not exactly the same.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I think we have to be careful to distinguish those and to come back to your question.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: If we over-locate, over-specify where and what Babylon is, we won't be ready because a major aspect of revelation is uh the harlot is she is seductive, and she uh and she gives people there's a maddening wine of her adulteries.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so people people drink, there's a there's a pleasure, and it and it speaks of uh the devil's appeal to our lust, the devil's appeal to compromise, the compromising influence of culture.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: Think of the way governments can reprogram you through their hijacking of social media companies and and putting in their own biases and influencing entire uh it's like a giant psy hop in lots of ways.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying like they have total control, but they do control, and this is documented.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and so you you look at that influence, you you look at the influence.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, like in the 1950s, uh look when it came to movies, like they wouldn't even have I I think it was the 50s, maybe it was the 40s, but I think it was the 50s.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's like there there was this marked moment where like a male and a female couldn't even sit next to each other on a bed, and well, we've gone well past that.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: Babylon's continuing growing influence seduces people so that the things that we said were outlandish years ago, decades ago, today we completely tolerate and we're desensitized to sexuality.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, things that were called pornography, we just call TV.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's Babylon's seduction, and it's her influence.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: And the point is that we fall prey if we're not on our guard for Babylon's influence.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: No, that that that checks out.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you mentioned earlier the language of city versus in city being a like a a bad thing, and I think I picked up on that city versus garden motif, because in the beginning you have a garden.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the garden is a walled and enclosure, it is a temple complex, it is a garden, it is a place where man is to live in fellowship with God, but then they get kicked out of a garden, and what you see is the descendants of Adam producing a city, a fortified space.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we see that right around that same time people are inventing items of music and and and instruments to play upon, uh which gives you this picture of protection, safety, uh, communal living, and one might speculate even some kind of worship there with the language of music being integrated as if they're trying to rebuild something identical.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: And and with that picture, you've got the old picture, the original picture, garden and city, the very new picture and revelation of garden and city.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: Would you kind of like unpack that picture for us and what cities are are representing here, or if cities should be uh taken literally?
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Should should you leave Oklahoma City and and meet me out here in the outskirts of Ada, Michael?
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, or uh is this a uh prophetic picture that we're supposed to be picking up on?
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I I don't think I'm moving to Ada anytime soon.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think cities are beautiful and good in the sight of God.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: Cities are also wicked and corrupt in the sight of God.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: So there is a duality in it.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I love one of the things I love about the scripture is is how many different kinds of threads you can follow throughout the whole scripture.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: You can follow a temple thread, you can follow a the thread of like bloodshed and priesthood, you can follow the uh uh mess lots of messianic threads.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: One of them is cities, and so I kind of alluded to this, but it's worth unpacking the story of cities from beginning to end of the Bible.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: Genesis 128.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's often called by theologians the cultural mandate.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: Let us make man in our image.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: And what is man in the image to do to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and to subdue it?
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, in short, to make the earth look like God is in charge.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: GKL G G.K.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: Beale's book, The Temple, uh, what is it called?
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: The Temple and Its Mission, a Temple and Church, something like that.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: One of the best theological books.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, and he talks about this that it's like God gave them this head start with Eden, but they were essentially supposed to Edenize the whole world.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: They were essentially supposed to take that head start and spread it.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: And part of that would be in the establishment of cities, the the further development of culture and civilization.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's why theologians will call Genesis 128 the cultural mandate.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so, and so cities had all the potential for being good.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: And and there is a goodness to cities, like the God sees culture as a good thing.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: And when we uh, you know, like Revelation chapter seven, we actually maintain the diversity of our ethnicities and our languages.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's actually a beautiful thing that we have that.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: And and cities are beautiful too.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: And we especially see that by the end of the Bible.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: But from the beginning of the Bible, we see that things go south real quick.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: The fall of man in Genesis 3, and then you have uh, and then you have Cain's city in Genesis 4, where there is the good, there's the cultural development, uh uh, but there's uh there's there's also centeredness of it to refer to Bruce Walkie's take on Genesis 4.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then as you follow it, Genesis 11, uh, city's not good again, you follow it again a little bit late, just a few chapters later in Genesis, and you start to see Sodom and Gomorrah and the five cities there.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, man, what is happening with cities?
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: Cities are just keep being destructive, destroyed.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then every time man seems to gather together, it's for corruption.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, beautiful things still happen there.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: There's still technological advances that happen there.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: Pretty much any invention that's ever benefited mankind, it doesn't happen in Bubbo's backyard, usually doesn't happen in Ada.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: I love you, Josh.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: It usually happens in a city center where people are pooling their resources for good.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: So there's there's good and there's evil, but then you know, you take it through Israel's history and through the nations surrounding Israel.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: And if you look up, just do a search on the word cities throughout the Bible, you'll see a lot of passages where God is pouring out his wrath and his judgment, like he'll judge a nation by judging the cities of that nation.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's like I will destroy the cities of Judah, and and you'll see like and screech owls will appear, and jackals, and it's like animals start to inhabit the city as God destroys those cities in judgment.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so, but you but Ezekiel makes an interesting promise in Ezekiel 37.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's the the same chapter 36, it's the same chapter where he talks about, I'll take your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: And he's talking about a new covenant era where we'll be given the spirit and corporately through covenant be given uh a new heart and uh and be born again.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I believe it's talking about, the corporate born-again experience uh for the people, anyone who has their faith in Jesus.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, but anyway, as he's prophesying about that day, he says that like if you keep reading just a little bit, so if you just keep reading into Ezekiel uh 36, what you see is these people with brand new hearts will rebuild the ancient ruins.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so the way God expresses his heart for the city in this age is by remaking the people who live there, so that our God-honoring contributions to cities actually can bring about change so that the city of man isn't just pure evil and selfish ambition and all of these things.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: So Ezekiel's foreseeing that day.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then it's interesting when you read in the book of Acts, you see Paul going, you know, he has this dream of a Macedonian saying, Come over here and help us.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: But the Macedonian, like there are lots of places in Macedonia.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: This is a region, think of it like a state.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: But he chose Philip, uh uh he chose Philippi, a leading city of that district.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: Paul's missionary strategy was to reach cities because even though they spread corruption, when people's hearts are remade there, they spread the gospel.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's also what beauty to cities.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so the letters of your New Testament are mostly written to churches located in cities where the apostle Paul planted churches.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so Ezekiel 37 began its fulfillment in that age.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's how I or in this age, but beginning after Christ rose, poured out a spirit, and uh, and born-again church members started contributing to godly society.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: I tell a story in my book about how it wasn't Augustus Caesar, but Augustine who ended up bringing about change in the Roman Empire.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: When August saw, and I got this from Carl Zimmerman, a Harvard sociologist, Augustus foresaw, hey, a man shortage is going to make this too hard, maintain our empire.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: And he tried to motivate people to have babies and all the same kind of things we're dealing with today in modern societies, but nothing worked.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: But then August Augustine comes along, and this is actually Carl Zimmerman, makes this comment, and I give him credit in my book, but uh he says it wasn't Augustus, but it was Augustine who brought change to the empire through his teaching on family and on sexual morality.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: Again, this is Ezekiel 37 in action, it's remade people remaking cities, exactly as God intended back in Genesis chapter one.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the day, the bride will uh the at the end of the day, it's not until Jesus comes back where that's really complete.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where we get into New Jerusalem, who is the counterimage of Babylon.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: My last section of the book is called A Tale of Two Cities.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's and it's these two images that really stand in contrast.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's the city of man and the city of God.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think we have to take a much more holistic uh approach to understanding these two.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and yeah, to come to come back to just the original question.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: You were talking about the garden city.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's essentially what New Jerusalem is portrayed as, because it has uh the tree of life there, but it's more like trees of life, and their leaves are for the healing of the nation.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: There's that we see like river in uh in the Garden of Eden, the river of life in Revelation 22.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so there are these parallels, and so you see garden and city, and it's like this melding of nature and culture, and there's there is an inherent beauty in both that is restored in the new creation.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that's all part of the biblical story of cities.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: And just incidentally, Jesus Christ was crucified outside of the city gates.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: The city rejected our Lord, but Jesus rose again and he rebuilds the city, that is the city of God, and uh Jerusalem below will perish, Jerusalem above will not.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: Man, I I think that's fantastic.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's really good.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean to undermine anything that you've just said, but um Blake Shelton did come out of Ada, Oklahoma.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Jesus was Jesus born in a big city.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: Was Jesus born in a big city?
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: No, I don't think he was does Ada have signs everywhere like Shelton came from here.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: Did John the Baptist was he ministering in a big city?
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: No, it was in the wilderness.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's neither here nor there.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't matter.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'll let I'll let it slide.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's been small cities.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: I did not say God.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: I heard it.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: I heard you say it ministers in cities.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: I I heard you say it in the it's on the record.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh people can back up the tape and watch it.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um obviously I could adjust.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: The Apostle Paul should have planted his church in in backwood villages instead of city centers, you're right.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: He that's where he meant to be.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: He should have picked a different place in Macedonia.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's a kingdom mission.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, listen, I'm not saying we both think that Paul was not a perfect person.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it he he can make mistakes.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: He should have gone to Ada.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: Probably.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, let's let's keep going.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, cuz we I digress.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let's talk about this image because we've got the the Babylon.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um and Babylon seems to be a beast-like being, yes.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: And the woman is riding this beast.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh make sense of some of that for us.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh to make sense.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: Is that yeah, is that the best of the thing?
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't say Babylon.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't use the term Babylon to describe the beast.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I I want to maintain distinction between Babylon and Beast.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: Let me read a few verses from Revelation 17.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: So this is one of the seven angels who had the seven bulls says, Come and I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and so you're already starting to see something of the alliance there.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: There's there are kings, so think nation states and their leaders somehow compromising with Babylon.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: And with the wine of whose sexual immorality, which I would I would say it's all the immorality of compromise by these kings of the earth.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's not a news story that politicians are full of compromise.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: The dwellers on earth have become drunk.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: With throughout Revelation, dwellers on earth doesn't speak to your geography, it speaks to those who are uh who don't dwell in heaven, Revelation 13.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: That is, as believers, our citizenship is in heaven.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: Unbelievers, their citizenship is on earth.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: They're called earth dwellers in Revelation.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: And the this angel carried John away in the spirit into a wilderness, recalls Ezekiel, uh, where that happens.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads uh and ten horns.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: The beast did, but she was sitting on the beast, the beast was scarlet.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so we've already seen the beast, but last time the beast was uh or the beast wasn't scarlet, or at least it didn't mention that.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: What we did see of the dragon in Revelation 12 was that the dragon was scarlet.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so the the beast is portrayed as scarlet here because of its association with the dragon.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so the devil, uh, just as we saw the devil empowering the beast of the sea and the beast of the earth, the devil is empowering harlot Babylon.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so uh, well, actually, and this beast here, so it's technically scarlet beast, not scarlet Babylon.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it had seven heads and ten horns.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: We've seen that before, too.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet and adorned with golden jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: Stop there for a moment.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's an economic dimension to harlot Babylon that has to be addressed at some point.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: Revelation 18 addresses the economic fall of Babylon.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: I I call it uh the climax of God's fireworks show uh becomes an economic collapse that makes the Great Depression look rosy, look rosy.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's something like how I worded it in my book.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_01: People overlook this, but God expends a whole chapter and then some of his last book of the Bible, right toward the end of the Bible, talking about a giant economic collapse.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, here she has all of these wonderfully rich materials, gold and purple and scarlet.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: But from her gold cup, it's full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: So she's spreading her her immoralities and compromise to the end of the earth, especially with the focus on politicians.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and on her forehead was written the name of mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of prostitutes and of earth's uh abominations.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of saints and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: So John marvels, and the angel's like, I actually don't marvel, she's not really good.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it and later it'll it'll talk about this calls for mind of wisdom.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_01: The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated, and they are also seven kings.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and we talked about that in a different episode.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so, can we talk about the the alliance between Babylon and Beast?
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, or Josh, have I started down a different path?
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: Now I've kind of forgotten what your question was.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: Help me out here.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, my primary question was I mean, you're you're still on the right track because I was asking, hey, are beast and babylon the same thing?
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you were like, I actually think they're distinctly different, but um, in talking about them being distinctly different, you can still talk through their relationship.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's totally appropriate.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, to be able to talk about their differences, we uh we really kind of have to define each.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: So we we defined Babylon as uh is essentially a system, civilization, culture.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: The beast we've defined as an episode uh in a prior episode, while it can have a culminating manifestation in a final antichrist figure, and I do think that's true, as well as his empire.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think we can limit it to one epic or one person, and uh and so the beast of the sea broadly is empire, and so what we see is that godless culture is hoisted up by godless empire, and so to think of a Roman analogy, uh if we are to imagine the city of Rome as being the epicenter of Babylon, like out Babylon'd everybody else, right?
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: If we think of Rome as being the epicenter, the New York City or the LA of its day, and and it could have relevance that she's seated on a beast that is portrayed as having like being a so having seven heads, which are also seven mountains.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the angel interprets that for us and says the seven mountains are seven kings, which does invite reflection in terms of the governmental aspects uh of it.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: But uh a lot of interpreters understand the seven mountains to recall the seven hills of Rome.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh, you know, in the in ancient times they worshipped Rome as a goddess, which is interesting because Revelation 18, John will write a funeral dirge, a eulogy for uh essentially Rome, but although Rome doesn't exhaust it.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh the city of Rome is hoisted up, like its culture is promoted by this imperialistic empire.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: So as uh as Caesar's armies are going out and they're conquering these foreign lands, they're bringing the wealth of the nations home, and it's building up Roman culture and Roman civilization, and certainly even especially Rome itself.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_01: Craig Keener talks about the inequitable trade practices and how how Rome would benefit, they would triumph, and they would tax, and they would tribute, and and all of this would just pour in, and so Rome would get rich.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so, in this way, harlot Babylon, the culture, the civilization is hoisted up by godless empire.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: And the point I make in my book is that it's always been this way.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like, there's no great empire where this alliance just doesn't exist, and that it that's also true of the United States.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_01: We cannot ignore the fact that uh like we like to say, oh, we're not imperialistic, we don't, you know, we would never like take somebody out and just you know, we we we're always like just for peace and democracy.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_01: Rome said the same thing.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, hey, we're just spreading peace.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: They called it the Pax Romana, uh, and you know, the Roman peace.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, Tacitus said Rome, Rome creates a desert and calls it peace.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's what that's what we all do.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: We lie about the reasons we're going to war.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: We say it's all for good, and we're spreading democracy, and we're doing all these wonderful things for the world, and the world just couldn't exist without us dropping bombs on a whole bunch of people and a whole bunch of different nations, etc.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: This is probably the most controversial part of the book.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_01: I love my nation, I'm a patriot, all the things, but I want to allow the uh the images of Revelation to speak to us.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think it allows for this idea that there's some human civilization that somehow escapes this uh this godless, corrupt culture that is hoisted up by godless empire.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: Now, as it relates to like our individual military servicemen, I think they're all heroes.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I think them when I go to restaurants, uh, but I still think imperialism is alive and well in the world today.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's still alive and well in the United States.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I do think that marriage between Beast and Harlot exists today.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it spreads across the whole world.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I put an example here.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_01: This is just to get it out of just like this is not, I don't think Revelation was written about America.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think it again, trans local, trans historical.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_01: Let's pick the British East India Company and the Crown.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I write here.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_01: One supplied the money, the other, military power and legitimacy.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: The alliance enriched them while India paid the price.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's barb Babylon's harlotry as a deal.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, okay, that actually wasn't my book quote.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_01: Here's my book quote.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_01: It was a marriage of convenience.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_01: The company kept money flowing, the crown supplied legitimacy and cover.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_01: Kings and companies lie in bed together.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_01: This is the economics of empire.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I have a whole chapter in my book devoted to the economics of empire.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_01: And John has in Revelation 18, where he lists out it's the longest list in antiquity of imports, which culminates in uh in bodies, that is, human souls.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, that's how he culminates the list.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like you get through this long, boring list.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like, why is he going?
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: He's actually criticizing Rome's inequitable trade practices, the way uh, the way their imperialism facilitated the uh the sapping of resources from all the other nations for their own selves.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: Kings would uh basically make deals, enriching themselves, taking care of themselves, they're in bed with the harlot.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: They're benefiting, that's foreign nations to Rome, even they're benefiting from their alliances with the Roman Empire, and yet their people are suffering.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: We see the same thing happening today.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: You look at China, the Belt and Road Initiative.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: We could go on and on.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_01: Every empire does this.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so, uh, and so, in summary, if harlot represents culture and civilization, the whole system of that beast represents especially imperialism and uh an empire, and one hoists up the other.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: John's critiquing it in the Roman day, but it goes beyond Rome.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's been every empire that's ever existed.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_00: Super helpful.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you walk through some passages here in like John 17, this passage that John 17, Revelation 17 that John writes.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's a passage about the judgment of the prostitute, right?
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: And but that passage it goes into great detail about describing the beast.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: Why is it describing the beast in such great detail in a passage that's entirely about judging the prostitute?
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because it wants to make sure that we don't the two reasons.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: One, it wants to make sure that we don't underestimate this alliance.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because, like, for us as uh as believers in the West, like it's easier for us to identify beast, easier, because you know, we had this history with communism and there was this big war, we uh and we saw how totalitarian governments were persecuting Christians and so on, like, ah yeah, beast, that's really bad.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: But we thought we were safe because you know, Babylon, that's just some future city, doesn't even apply to us.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and and yet Babylon was alive and well here in the United States, and so uh, and so I think it's important to understand the distinction between the two.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_01: And part of the way you understand is by it is by understanding how these ally with one another.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: The other is that the beast ultimately turns on Babylon.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_01: So Babylon falls in Revelation 14, she falls in Revelation 16, she falls again in Revelation 17, she falls again in Revelation 18.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: This is a big deal.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's another reason why we can't just limit this, like as if the whole book of Revelation was just written about one city, Jerusalem, where most of us don't live.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's much bigger.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but the the beast turning on Babylon is really a big deal.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: I should probably read that now.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, Revelation 17, I want to say it's verses 16 through 18.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna start at 15 just to uh validate something I said earlier.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_01: The angel said to me, The waters that you saw where the prostitute is seated are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_01: So already it's like uh just as Bab Babylon 1.0, like the original, was destroyed when the literal Euphrates dried up.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_01: Now the symbolic Euphrates dries up, the support of the people dries up for the Babylonian system.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it says the ten horns that you saw, uh, they and the beast, so that's the the kings who allied with the beast and the beast himself will hate the prostitute.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: So uh these imperial powers, these political entities will turn on culture.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting, civilization, interesting.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_01: They will make her desolate and naked and devour her flesh and burn her up with fire, for God has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose by being of one mind and handing over their royal power to the beast until the words of God are fulfilled.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_01: This is from um British scholar.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, his name is uh G.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: B.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: Caird.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: He says, the savaging of the whore by the monster and its horns is John's most vivid symbol for the self-destroying power of evil.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's exactly what is taking place.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes God judges evil with evil.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_01: That appears to be exactly what's happening here.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_01: Now, uh there is a case in the near con in the nearish context, depending on when one thinks Revelation was written, uh, but still, first century, uh, during the year of four emperors, this was a really chaotic time, AD 69, uh, competing military factions began to fight for control.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and so Roman armies were literally destroying Roman cities.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: They were tearing down and burning their own civilization and culture, because if another rival potential emperor is over that city, well, they're gonna take it out.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so Rome's devouring itself.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's one picture of what it could have looked like in history.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_01: Another one, it's just interestingly named Nero's Decree, although far removed from literal Nero.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's what that's what it was called when uh when Hitler ordered, is everything was falling apart in 1945.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_01: He ordered the destruction of Germany's transportation, communications, supply infrastructure.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_01: Why to keep it out of enemies' hands?
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_01: So Hitler literally required and decreed the destruction of German cities and all that makes like culture and like everything that makes it work, the the supply lines, the communication lines, tearing down all the infrastructure.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because, well, if I can't have it, neither can you, right?
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like he's uh and so these could be the kinds of pictures of what John has in mind, the self-destroying power of evil.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas at one point, as Hitler's going out and he's conquering all these foreign lands, Germany's getting richer.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's feeding the war machine, it's feeding the luxury of German citizens, as they're able to uh to have all of these resources that are brought in from other lands, but then there reaches this point where Ger where Germany's on his last leg, and Hitler says, All right, Nero's decree, I'm taking you all out.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so the alliance that was so working originally suddenly doesn't work.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a picture of what it might have looked like, and I think this is a big part of what Revelation 17 is trying to accomplish.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_01: One, to help us distinguish between beast and harlot, and two, to help us clearly envision the demise of the harlot.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and interestingly, it's it's not the harlot doesn't like die or go away because Christians finally took over the world.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, that's kind of uh how a lot of people will view it is that like Christianity is just gonna spread and we're gonna gradually take over all the institutions.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_01: And you have different versions of this.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_01: You have the uh the charismatic version and the seven mountains of influence, and they'll actually point to Revelation 17, where oh, she's sitting on uh on seven mountains.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_01: These are the seven mountains of cultural influence, and one's family, and one's media, and one's government, and you know, and they they have all that that's not it's explicitly not what the seven mountains are in Revelation 17.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_01: It says they're kings.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_01: And if kings, like only one of the mountains that the seven mountains guys refer to, government, would even apply here.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_01: The rest of them not not that.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_01: So this idea is like, not I'm all for like let's influence culture and let's let's get Christians in political office, let's get Christians everywhere, let's get them a media, let's get them, let's let's infiltrate, let's spread the gospel through every means possible, all in favor of that.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_01: But the command in Revelation 18, 4 is come out uh to cr to my people, it says, come out of her, oh my people.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_01: That is come out of Babylon, uh, lest you share in her plagues.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think we are called to Christianize Babylon.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, let's spread the gospel, but uh, but at the end of the day, Babylon's getting judged.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and I don't I don't see a world where we Christianize Babylon.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_01: Beast is going to turn on Babylon, Babylon's going down, so we need to get out of Babylon, which is not Christians retreat.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_01: We we should probably talk about that a little bit more.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_01: There's a there's a way to retreat and there's a way not to, but I I would not interpret the Bible like some of my, especially Postmill brothers, uh, as well as some of the um charismatic Dominionists.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I don't believe that the world is going to be essentially Christian by the time Jesus comes back, or that all of our institutions are going to be essentially Christian when Jesus comes back.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I I don't see that.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're describing the fall of the prostitute and the beast.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if we walk through this kind of in a linear progression throughout the book of Revelation, in chapter 14, Babylon Falls, at least proclaims, then it shows that judgment in chapter 16, describes the beast turning on the woman in 17, and then everyone mourns the destruction of the woman in 18.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_00: Are all of these to be understood as separate subsequent falls or like falling over and over again?
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_00: Is it because I mean I don't think this is the answer, but like, is it because Babylon's rising and falling and rising and falling and rising and falling?
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_00: Or um i is this have to do more with the kind of zoom in, zoom out picture that we're getting in the book of Revelation?
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I would say kind of zoom in, zoom out, but probably even a little better, just different camera angles of the same thing.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_01: And John will do this repeatedly.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Jesus almost like right on the brink of returns in Revelation chapter six.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_01: Then he for sure all the way returns in Revelation chapter 11, and then he returns again in Revelation 19.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_01: Are we to envision like three separate returns or two and a half?
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_01: No, Christ returns once.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so what's happening here, scholars call this, uh call this recapitulation.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_01: In my book, I call it instant replay.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_01: Instant replay gives us access to truth that we didn't have before the day of instant replay.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's how it operates in the sports world.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's how it's operating in the camera lens of Revelation.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_01: He's showing us the truth from different angles.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_01: So, Revelation 14, the emphasis is on the verdict pronounced by God.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like even before Babylon really even gets started, it's already decided, Babylon, you're going down.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_01: So that's Revelation 14.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's just announcing a verdict.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_01: Revelation 16 is going to portray the judgment as uh cosmic upheaval, the earthquake and giant hailstones and uh cities of the earth.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like this is much, much bigger than anyone's city.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_01: This is cosmic.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's the climax of God's final firework show, is the judgment of the city of man of Babylon.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's trying to emphasize the cosmic dimensions.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_01: Revelation 17 is trying to emphasize the uh the political alliance dimensions, the political dimensions.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_01: So Babylon herself, she's not like quote, political, but she is in bed with the kings of the earth.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_01: She is in bed with the politicians.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_01: Politics is nasty, and it always has been.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_01: And uh the devil has his hand in it.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_01: Gosh, there's so much I could say on that.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, but a part of it here is the compromise with the kings of the earth.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's it's showing us that that compromise, people are gonna be drunk on it, and they're gonna think this is just such a wonderful deal.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_01: But there is a hangover and it is serious.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's Revelation 17 is the self-destructive power of evil.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_01: So, whereas in 16, it's like God is pouring out plagues, Revelation 17 shows evil is really turning on itself, but even behind that, God is the one who puts it into the heart of the beast and its horns, the kings of the earth turn on Babylon at the last minute.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then Revelation 18, uh, if if 17 focused especially on the political dimensions, and uh Revelation 18 is especially on the economic dimensions.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's you got the sailors, the merchants, I I call and the kings, I call them the power brokers uh who sell their soul for a cut of the deal.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so Revelation 18 systematically works through those, and John's trying to show the dehumanizing economy of the city of man.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_01: And uh in in my book, I quote from the Oliver Anthony music the uh the I've been selling my soul, you know, or working all day, however the song goes.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_01: But um anyway, I quote from a section of it because that's essentially what Revelation 18 is.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a it's a prophetic song, it's a funeral dirge for Babylon, and particularly the economic system that's only working for a handful of people at the tippity top who are willing to sell their soul.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it and it talks about just the dehumanizing effect of this.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_01: I quoted earlier from that long list of cargoes, I think it was 27 of them, and it finishes with bodies, uh, that is actually like the English Standard Version will say slaves, that is human souls.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_01: But slaves, like the literal rendering would be bodies, and but everybody knew that Rome didn't import carcasses, they imported labor.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so by including this giant list and then putting slaves last and qualifying it with that is human souls, is John's way of sh of saying, like, hey, the economic system of this world is rotten, and at some point in history, like it gets so rotten, God throws it out like a bad apple.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like it is going to be now.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think there are iterations of this throughout history, and I mean we can look at various massive economic collapses.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_01: I do think there is a culminating one just before the return of our Lord, and so there's an economic dimension.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so to answer your question, Josh, all of these different falls of Babylon emphasize from different camera angles the multifaceted influence and corruption of Babylon and the multifaceted judgment of God that not one aspect of it will go unpunished.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_01: The religious, the political, the economic, everyone's gonna pay the piper if they partner with Babylon.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's the message.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_00: Michael, we are at uh the hour mark, so we've got to wrap this program up.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_00: But I feel like there are some stuff we didn't touch on that you're probably gonna want to put a little bow on.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_00: Is there any anything that you feel, and this is pressing on me, something we didn't touch on that I absolutely need to say before we wrap things up?
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, well, I think, Josh, to answer your question, I might just actually quote from a portion of my book.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's right after I talk about the contrast between Augustus and Augustine.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a commentary on can we Christianize Babylon and what does Christian influence look like in the world in light of the fact that God tells us, come out of her, oh my people.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so I try to speak into that contrast a little bit and try to bring light to it.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_01: So here's what I write I say, Christians have improved society over the centuries, but anytime we've mistaken the city of man for the city of God, we have destroyed ourselves.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's one thing to infiltrate Babylon with gospel truth.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's one thing to redeem segments of society, it's one thing to challenge worldly power and institutions like the two witnesses, but it's an altogether different thing to Christianize Babylon by pursuing worldly power or brandishing its weapons.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_01: As C.S.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_01: Lewis observed during Europe's unraveling, this has never flourished.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_01: Here's a quote of Lewis.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_01: If we had foolish unchristian hopes about human culture, they are now shattered.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_01: If we thought we were building up a heaven on earth, if we look for something that would turn the present world from a place of pilgrimage into a permanent city, satisfying the soul of man, we are disillusioned and not a moment too soon.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_01: Western civilization is unraveling.
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_01: Our disillusionment is a gift.
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_01: Babylon's influence is too great, and the beast's alliance too strong for the bride of Christ to remake the world apart from the return of her groom.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever we contribute to the renewing of cities will endure not in the city of man, but in the city, but in the eternal city of God.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_01: At best in this age, we fulfill Ezekiel's prophecy partially.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_01: Ultimately, we are not called to Christianize the harlot, but to depart from her.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_01: In the meantime, the church must resist Babylon's seduction and allow God to shape her by covenant love.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_01: Seven little churches on the edge of empire carry all the light that's needed.
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so a couple of things I just want to say, maybe in conclusion on that.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_01: I am not saying that depart from Babylon means we just forget about Christian influence, all become monks and nuns and uh and just hope and pray for the best.
• 1:04:04
  SPEAKER_01: No, let's absolutely infiltrate the world with gospel truth, but let's also understand that Babylon is going to be judged.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_01: Depart from her is mostly ethical and moral.
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but in the meantime, we're actually supposed to physically stay put, be where we are, renew our city, but also understand Ezekiel's prophecy about rebuilding cities is fulfilled partially in this age.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_01: I believe it's fulfilled ultimately in the coming down of New Jerusalem.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_01: And when we when we talk about the new heavens and the new earth and new Jerusalem, we'll talk some more about that.
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_01: That is a hopeful counterimage to Harlot Babylon.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_01: All uh the lust and the seduction and the immorality and the compromise, uh, all the pain that Babylon causes is completely inverted in the counter-economy of the city of God in New Jerusalem.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh what I to kind of follow Richard Bacham on this, when New Jerusalem comes out of heaven uh for the people of God, I I don't take that as being like this ex-nihilo creation, like, oh, God's like, all right, you guys screwed up your cities, I'm gonna destroy them all, and here's mine.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think it's exactly like that.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I don't think we can divorce New Jerusalem from the meaning of cities all throughout the Bible.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_01: This is the culmination of uh of the cultural mandate.
• 1:05:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so the way I would interpret that is while I do believe per Hebrews 11, there is a city of God in heaven right now, uh, at the same time, I think that what is being pictured in Revelation 21 is that godly contributions toward the city of God throughout history.
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_01: We talked about Augustus, whatever you're doing in your city, you're feeding the or the feeding the orphans, you're serving your church, you're teaching the Bible, you're caring for kids, whatever it is that you're doing, those deeds live on.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_01: Revelation or Matthew chapter 18, the smallest cup of water given to one of these little ones will be remembered.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_01: The smallest act for the smallest person is remembered in eternity.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so I do think the city of God is it is our godly contributions toward uh toward building up and supporting our cities and uh and God's work in the world.
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so I do think there is a sense in which that lives on.
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_01: I know that'll be controversial, but read my book, and it's actually uh a lot of scholars view it this way.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh more than I can really expand on today, but we'll talk about it a lot more when we discuss the new Jerusalem, new heavens and new earth, all of that in Revelation 21 to 22.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_01: The main thing I want to leave us here with is just hope.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's uh well, really warning and hope.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_01: Warning, Babylon's real, her seduction is real.
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_01: Don't pigeonhole her to one time and one place.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and and so be aware of that, resist the harlot, okay, and her seductions.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then on the other hand, have hope.
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_01: This rotten economic system, uh, this uh this world of political compromise, religious compromise, and all the things that are so painful and so frustrating to so many of us.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_01: Something better's coming.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_01: Stay faithful.
• 1:07:09
  SPEAKER_01: Every deed uh that you every deed that you live out in the name of the Lord Jesus will be remembered in eternity, and I believe will contribute to the eternal city of God.
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good way to end it.
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'll end it.
• 1:07:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is my closing thought.
• 1:07:25
  SPEAKER_00: For people who didn't know, I have been urging Michael to name his book, Resisting Horrors and Slaying Dragons, because I think it would have sold better.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, a world made right.
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_00: A world made right is a fantastic title, but mine was more epic.
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_01: You'll let us know in the comments what you think about that.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_00: For sure, tell us in the comments.
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, actually, you know, speaking of comments, speaking of comments, someone said I need to mention this.
• 1:07:52
  SPEAKER_01: There is an audiobook if you want to go audio to all you listeners out there.
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_01: I I did record the the audiobook, I think it's like 11 hours or something like that.
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_01: So on one time speed.
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh at Josh's rate, that's only like three hours.
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think what we should do is we'll we'll do a poll in the video because we can do that now on YouTube.
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_00: You guys can vote.
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_00: What is what is the better title?
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_00: That would be funny.
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_00: It would, you know, we need to do it.
• 1:08:20
  SPEAKER_00: Small town Ada, you know, we we we can we have good ideas too.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_00: But Michael thinks he's big city boy, and you know, okay.
• 1:08:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, anyway, guys, thank you so much for tuning into this episode.
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see you guys next time.
• 1:08:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for tuning in.
• 1:08:32
  SPEAKER_00: Michael, I always learn a lot.
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for uh contributing to the program, man.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_00: Appreciate you.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_00: Guys, we'll see you next time.
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_00: Peace out.