Mar 27, 2006

The United States of Babylon: Are We Really Who We Think We Are, The Good Guys?

An Eschatalogical Inquiry

I. Introduction:

I am introducing a topic that is neither for the dismissive nor for the faint of heart. To effectively consider this topic, may require that you step back from your patriotism (or blindness) to your home country, and to take an objective and unbiased look at the recent trends, events, behaviors and actions taken by the United States of America in the Middle-East and around the world.

As you read and consider this topic, keep in mind that the prophet Jeremiah was at one time considered a traitor by his own countrymen. Jeremiah's prophecies differed from the favorable prophesies given by those false prophets in Jerusalem, who prophesied deliverance and victory against the invading armies of Babylon (when God had spoken emphatically through his prophet Jeremiah of a completely different outcome). For God showed Jeremiah that Judah would be conquered, and Jeremiah was to warn his fellow-countrymen that remained, that they were not to resist, or to flee to Egypt from their invaders; instead they were to surrender to the will of their captors, in effect the plan of the Almighty God.

Blind loyalty is a condition of citizenship in most countries of the world, the United States is not unique in that regard. A citizen must take an oath and maintain his or her pledge of allegiance, otherwise they will be considered, as Attila the Hun was by the first Roman Empire (we appear to be the second one), a traitor. It was considered treason for Jeremiah to encourage his fellow-countrymen to surrender to the will of an opposing country; when in actuality what Jeremiah was actually telling his countrymen was to submit to the will of God, and not to blind-patriotism or false prophesies. We have received a healthy dose of the same throughout American history.

Today, we are not being asked in the United States to surrender to the will of an invading country that is bent on conquering the United States. Instead, we are being told (in a totalitarian manner) and conditioned to believe that we must submit to an internal system whose ideas, beliefs and ideals are at times at odds with the ideas, will and established laws of the almighty God. In effect, the United States of America, has made it's laws, ideas and ideals superior to those of the Almighty God. If we continue to place the ideals of the United States above the supreme knowledge, the will of God and His eternal plan; and if we continue to support or give in to the misguided leadership and mis-direction of the Spirit that is driving our nation (claiming to be under God), it's policies and it's leaders, we will continue to be a rebellious and blasphemous nation that is in jeopardy of swift retribution and divine peril at the hands of the Almighty God.

I ask you to immerse yourself then in humility and divine teaching (not mine but by the Spirit and the Word), as you consider this topic. And keep in mind the origins and legacy of this system that was born out of rebellion, and established by self-governing (not divinely governed) invaders, enslavers, murderers, separatists, racists, John Adam's capitalists, whoremongers, child-molesters, adulterers and genocidal tax-evaders, who at that time and throughout America's history had no qualms about calling themselves Christians, and they have no qualms about calling themselves Christians today.

For if we believe the scriptures, that there are unseen spiritual forces that inspire and drive human forms of governments and systems, then what behind-the-scenes force is driving the American mission of greed, debauchery, crime, hegemony, globalization-americanization, militarization, world-domination, pseudo-christianity and white supremacy? Even some of you, for decades, have blasphemously referred to the the United States of America as The Superpower!

II. Citizens of Heaven First or Citizens of The Earth:

I believe that Christians must first be citizens of heaven. Citizenship in any country or kingdom must be viewed as secondary, as one's loyalty must be to the ordinances of heaven and the Kingdom of God, first.

Therefore I am first a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven, that spiritual kingdom where God is the supreme potentate. He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, just as he will show himself to be when he will comes to execute judgment, blessings and vengeance, and to rule over all of nations of the earth. His laws come first.

And like the late Queen Victoria of England, who once said, "I would like to live until the Lord's return... because I would like to lay my crown at His feet", I too look eagerly forward to that day when every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

III. The United States's Occupation of Near Babylon

Today's topic came about as a result of a discussion that I had with my brother, Rev. Ben Solomon, a couple of weeks ago. During one of our regular cyberspace bible discussions, he raised what was for me one of the most compelling questions that I have received in a long time. He asked, what does it really say (keeping biblical eschatology in mind), given that the United States is occupying Iraq, or if you will give a little license, occupiers of Babylon? Other questions arose during our discussion, e.g., Has the United States been unveiled? Is the United States of America, the Babylon of the apocalypse? Are the united states, good guys, or bad guys?

Most Americans will admit, at least in private, that the administration willfully attempted to mislead the country with respect to its reasons for attacking Iraq. In fact, there is a myriad of evidence to support that conclusion. It was always the intent of the current administration to attack Iraq they simply needed a pre-text, and let us not forget that America has had a military presence in Iraq since Desert Storm, reportedly, to protect the no-fly zone.

When the United States was attacked on '911', some have argued a tactical, and others a strategic mistake by the Taliban. Why the latter? Because it gave this administration the license that it needed to do what it had wanted to do all of the time, attack the sovereign nation of Iraq. Now lets make no mistake about it, Saddam's administration has not been a paragon of virtue itself, but on the other hand, neither has the United States, nor has the United States ever been.

President Bush and members of his administration skillfully tied 911, terrorism, Iraq, and other states of the purported axis of evil all together. However, as evidence has shown, Iraq was to be the first to go, as far as this administration was concerned. To counter the lies of this administration, I had to remind my friends and foes alike that it was not Iraq that attacked the United States. I pointed out, before Michael Moorer did, that the people who attacked the United States, i.e., the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, et al, came from Afghanistan and they were mostly of Saudi Arabian extract.

Some replied, well are you then saying that attacking the United States was okay, they were playing the patriot card against me? However, I did not hesitate to reply in this manner, i.e., if it was wrong for the individuals who attacked our sovereign country to do so, why was it okay for the United States to launch a pre-emptive attack against a sovereign nation, murdering,innocent men women and children? I also asked them to compare the numbers, approximately 2,000 Americans killed and more wounded, but approximately 100,000 Iraqis killed, and another 200,000 wounded, not to mention destruction of real and personal property. One young man responded, with regard to the latter, that we have to shown them, the Muslim word, that you don't mess with the United States of America.

His comments made me think of what I heard my parents say, and what was confirmed in history books that whites did to blacks in the post, antebellum and slave south. It was not uncommon that if one black got out of line, one or more blacks were visibly punished and even murdered, just so you could keep the others in line. Oh, and just as it is now, no white person ever went to jail for that. I actually found myself defending the rights of foreigners, who were defending themselves against the hegemony, and I must not fail to mention, the atrocities being levied against their nations by my own country 'tis of thee.

The fact is that the United States acted, as it has done throughout its history, invading a sovereign nation, murdering, maiming, wounding, destroying, occupying and taking whatever it wanted and imposing its own form of leadership or control. For the life of me I cannot understand why the other nations of the world stand back and do nothing! And what is even more disturbing, are those Americans who know exactly what the United States is doing, and has done in the past, yet they say nothing. Even worse, they have become like their leaders, they rationalize and justify wrong-doing, some even experience a sense of pride in their country kicking some butt every once in a while. It makes you wonder how someone can say, I am proud to be an America, when America murders innocent people.

What spirit are we of, I have often wondered? For what drives America, in my opinion, is the same thing that motivated the Babylonians, self-interest. And how often do you heard the term self-interest being bandied about in America? How many of you honestly believe that the United States was merely trying to enforce United Nation's Security Resolutions 1154, 1284 and others, given that the United Nations acted in violation of the will of the United Nation's itself. Its like something that Jesus once said, i.e., "If Satan cast out Satan...". Saddam, was a long-time friend of the United Sanctions. We now know that the United states supplied Iraq with chemical weapons and intelligence information against other countries who were enemies of the United States of America.

The scriptures ask, where do wars come from and why is there fighting among you. It answers itself by saying, that you have not, so what do you do, you fight and take it. Although President Bush tries to sell Americans on the nobility of this fight and occupation in Iraq, we know that it is self-interest and not the interest of the Iraqi people that President Bush or others who support this madness have in mind. People, I do not believe in any way that the actions taken by the United States are noble.

And what is almost as sad as all of the lives who were destroyed in Iraq, is the number of religious organizations and leaders in this country who not only sanctioned but encouraged the President's behavior, the church is truly in bed with the politicians. I witnessed so many church leaders being trotted in and out of Washington to confer with Mr. Bush on the proposed war, most gave their consent. I wondered again, scripturally, was there one Prophet Micaiah, in the bunch, who would seek to hear from heaven and then confer with the President? (See II Chronicles 18:3-7). We have been warned about the Priests and Kings being in bed together.

IV. Recent Geopolitcal Changes

In 1983, during the east-west cold war period, I predicted and shared with a friend that the United States and the U.S.S.R. would soon be on friendly terms and working together and on the same side of many issues that would face the world. He laughed! Yet I recall the day that Mikhail Gorbachev drove down Palm drive and on to the campus of Stanford University, in the early 90's. Having gone through a rigorous security check, I stood in the crowd and snapped Mr. Gorbachev's photograph, as he strolled past us by.

Let's review some of the recent significant changes that have taken place during the past two decades.

1. The United States occupation of the middle-East (practically sitting in the
capitol of ancient Babylon),
2. The break up of the Soviet Union (well maybe).
3. The neutralizing of the Warsaw Pact(well maybe), several of those countries are
now aligned with the USA and NATO.
4. The opening up of the Berlin wall.

V. The USA, An Instrument of God? Read Habakkuk, Chapters 1 and 2.

The United States took the credit for all of these recent changes, therefore some will say that the united states of America are the good guys, being used by God, used, as predicted in biblical prophecy. Some saw the United States, being used to accomplish God's will against the atheist and socialist nations of the world.

However, are we the good guys, or does the world have, as I feel, something new to worry about? Given the behavior of the USA lately, I believe that it might be the latter. God once used the Chaldeans to punish Israel, see Habbakuk 1:12- and 2:2-20.. He also used Babylon, seemingly to organize the world of nations, however, he later punished both the Chaldeans and the Babylonians for their own indiscretions.

When you step back from the claims made by Americans, one can easily get a different picture of the United States of America. The U.S. is a country that was born in rebellion, just as Satan rebelled against God, the early colonists rebelled against England. To form a self-governing society sounds okay, but is it really okay? The colonists would tell you that they wanted to get away from an oppressive monarchy, that over-taxed their citizens, and stifled their creativity. Besides that, in the new world the colonists would experience freedom to do as they pleased, worship as they pleased, and to pursue any opportunity that they envisioned.

But what Spirit truly motivated the colonists? It involved, I believe, a principle that is inconsistent with the plan of God. I call that principle, The Principle of the Self. Why? After conquering the land and the natives, genocide; crossing the oceans to bring laborers to work the land, slavery; soon after the colonists were able to form their own colonial government. The laws that were instituted were in favor of only a privileged few, i.e, white racists, who did not want to pay their taxes. The form of self-government that the colonial government envisioned was truly a government of self, and its benefits were reserved only for a few. Women, blacks, children and others minorities were excluded.

Under this form of self-government, the self-governing decided that a system of slave labor and servitude was acceptable. The only rights that these individuals had, was the right to work. In some instances, indentured servants could pay their debt and acquire their freedom. But slaves, mostly black, would never be emancipated if these self-governing individuals had their way.

Self-government turned out to be selfish government, and there was plenty of that. In fact that spirit lives on in America today. Explorers came to this country for selfish reasons. They murdered for selfish reasons, mostly for self gain. There was plenty of land so they took as much as they wanted in deference to those who had preceded them. Soon they violated the slave women and slave girls, raping and molesting them at will. Selfishness resulted in law that stripped any one, other than white males from a modicum of freedom.

What do we have today as a result of this spirit of selfish government. We have greed, corruption, grafts, unequal distribution of wealth, power and land in the hands of a privileged group. We have class stratification and a lack of health care for the poor. We have the largest incarceration rate for any of the so-called developed countries of the world. And the problem of selfishness has gone beyond the reach of America's shores. America exploits and manipulates other nations in order to control their resources. America constantly ignores the will of not only its own people, but those of the 180 countries of the United Nations. America recently launched a pre-emptive strike against the sovereign nation of Iraq. America, for selfish reasons and in deference to the will of the United Nations, has occupied that once sovereign nation.

America has a terrible record on the foreign stage. America has been in the bed with some of the worst of the worst for years, e.g., The late Shah of Iran, Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, Papa Doc Duvalier of Haiti, the leaders of the racist white regimes of South Africa, even Sadam Hussein who they currently have under house arrest in Iraq, and these are just a few of the ones that we know about.

Our leaders lie to us, our priests and ministers are involved in scandal after scandal. The land is filled with licentiousness, debauchery and depravity. Costs are rising in deference to those cannot afford it. The television and airways are filled with sexual materials, nude women, and salacious sexual behaviors. Selfishness has resulted in Americans even challenging the things of God. One often hears the phrase in American, who says that I can't, or why can't I, even what's wrong with it?

It is very difficult to believe that the United States is the nation that the Lord is using to accomplish his will, unless he is using the United States as he used the Chaldeans in the bible to punish Israel (see my comments below). This is not a new spirit in America, but finally it has been brought out into the opening, with Americans breathing open defiance of anything and anyone. We witness the spirit of rebellion in our homes, at work, at church and even while attempting to navigate America's highways.

In my view America has to be one, if not one of the most, depraved nations on the face of the earth. In my view, the United States is the number one terrorist nation in the world with its vast spy networks who listen in and spy on not only foreigners but its own American citizens. The USA destabilize nations and economies of the world. The USA even takes down leaders in other countries that it no longer agrees with, e.g., names like Aristide,Milosevic, Noriega, and Hussein quickly come to mind. Other nations have warned President Bush recently about the arrogance of the United States and his own person behavior, some explaining that you are acting like Hitler.

A corrupt nation like the United States continues to use whatever resources in its power to design the world and most recently outer space, in the manner that it feels it should be. The United States is not concerned with God's plan for the world, the earth and humanity. Instead, like Nimrod of the scriptures, the same Nimrod who set out to build a tower unto Heaven, the United States has built it towers, its space shuttles, and in much the same manner as was down in Babel. But remember, the Tower that Nimrod erected was brought down just as the towers of the World Trade Center, symbols of America's economic might and control of the world economy were brought down.

And with respect to those who lost loved-ones in New York, Washington DC or in Pennsylvania, I really do not mean to be insensitive to your losses. But I have to remind you of what scriptures say, "That whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap". Many of America's losses, for which you shared disproportionately, came about as a result of the evil deeds and interference of the United States in the affairs of sovereign nations around the world. Perhaps God was using the Taliban in Afghanistan, in order to wake up the United States?

The United States labeled the 911 attackers as terrorists, just as they labeled the citizens of Iraq who fought for their own self-determination against an invading army and country. It is difficult to believe that the same Americans who espouse democratic values and liberties for all, actually have denied those same rights to other people and other nations around the world, not to mention those who have been denied those same rights in the United States of America, particularly it's black citizens. President Bush in defending Israel said, that anytime that a nation is being attacked by an enemy, it has the right to defend itself. Certainly the people of Iraq, have the right to defend themselves against the invading United States military, and in no way should these people experience what so many experience who have fought for freedom (remember Dr. Martin Luther King was labeled a communist by our government), and be called terrorists. The people of Iraq have the right to defend themselves.

VI. Where is the USA in Nebuchadnezzar's Vision: Read Daniel Chapter 2

Again, recall the empires and kingdoms of Nebuchadnezzar's dream that was recorded in the book of Daniel. Did any of you ever imagine that the U.S.A. could actually be the last Babylon with its vast religious, political, commercial power and influence over all other nations on the planet? Did any of our biblical eschatologists tell us that the USA would one day be sitting practically in the Seat of Babylon?

What does globalization (the euphemism for Americanization), hegemony, commerce, trade, nation and empire building have to do with the apokalupsis? What role does the United States actually play in the apokalupsis? What does the USA have to do with the mark of the beast? Why does the center of world trade, once symbolized by the World Trade Center complex, sit smack dab in the middle of the U.S.A? Why do all nations come to feed here? Why does the spirit of murder rest so strongly in the USA? Why is the USA always so willing to use its military might and the threat of the use of military force to inveigle others into accepting the American view of the world and how things should be done? In fact, why is America, our country, the number one terrorist nation in the world?

VII. The Three Tenses of Biblical Prophecy

When we consider the 3-tenses of prophecy, and whether the prophesy is local, universal or ultimate, we know that Babylon was not just a place in history. The spirit of Babylon lives on in religion(s), in politics and in nations. Given the significant role that the U.S.A. has played in geopolitical history for the past century, there can be no way that the U.S.A. was overlooked in Nebuchadnezzar's vision. Who are we really, and what role do we really play, one has to ask?

VIII. Should we be concerned about American Power?

Keep in mind what the scriptures say, i.e., that Righteousness exalts a nation, and sin is a reproach to any people. From a Christian perspective, I have been concerned about the direction that this nation has been taking for about 30 years now. We claim to be a Christian nation, yet we don't obey the things of God. We use the term Christianity to define ourselves, but isn't it more of a political definition than a spiritual one?

Finally, keep in mind that the dragon/beast was to rise up out of the sea. Our form of government and its leaders, are not monarchical or dynastic, instead through the election process this Republic rose up out of the sea (of people).

Summary: We could ask even more pressing questions about 666 and the Anti-Christ, and if either relates to our country but I will leave you to ponder that yourself. Keep in mind that the U.S.A. controls worldwide commerce and trade, and in order to do business one must be a part of the G8 or be sanctioned by the USA, just ask Cuba if that is not the case? And keep in mind that the US has the power equivalent to all 180 of the other nations in the United Nations organization. As I shared with a public television talk-show nemesis of mine, it wasn't only Iraq who ignored the wishes of the United Nations, so did the United States.

In Conclusion: Has God exposed the true Babylon of the end times, i.e, the United States of America, a nation that claims to be a Christian nation, claiming to be an angel of light? I have wondered, for a long-time, whether we are one of the good guys, or simply a nation being used by God in the manner that he used the Chaldeans to punish those nations (including Israel) that did not obey his well. Keep in mind that after he used the Chaldeans to accomplish his will with Israel, he turned around and punished the Chaldeans.

It seems to me that it is with our mouths that we worship him but our hearts are truly far from him. Our true motives, seem to be the acquisition of power and wealth, the maximization of profits, and maintaining status and control of international commerce and a supreme place in the world, i.e., The American Idol. I have not read anywhere in scripture where this was the plan of God for any nation or any people.

The scriptures in Ephesians 5:10-12, tell us to "Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil... For we wrestle...against powers, against the rules of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places". I believe that America has truly become, the American Idol, both to itself and the world, and that its leadership is being controlled by a dark spiritual power [See Daniel chatpers 9, 10 and 11], and as a result, the United States of America and its secular and its spiritual leaders are leading the world away from the principles of God, rather than towards them. I believe that America, with all of its waywardness and misdirection has become the latest Babylon!

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