Beginning with the first city built
by Cain in Genesis, God runs a thread all through Scripture showing that cities
are built as the embodiment and expression of man’s rebellion against God.
“The city represents man’s attempts
to get away from the curse brought about by his own sin,” explains Preacher Richard
Jordan. “It’s a monument to man’s attempts to raise a monument to his own
self-sufficiency; his desire to do it his way.
“You find different cities expressing
different aspects of this rebellion. Babylon, for example, encompasses all of
what the city represents, and in the Tribulation period is going to take up ALL
of the things that are expressed by the city, bringing to a crystallized form
the conflict between the satanic policy of evil and God’s program.
“In Genesis 9, God instructed Noah
and his sons to “scatter and replenish the earth,” but the response from the
post-Flood inhabitants became, ‘No, let’s make us a name lest we be scattered
abroad; let’s build a city in rebellion to what God told us to do.’
“The building of the city of Babel
by world ruler Nimrod, a grandson of Ham, followed the curse God placed upon
Noah’s son, Ham, and his descendants. Babel was actually an attempt to escape
that curse.
“As ruler, Nimrod worked to bring
untamed man under a yoke of bondage, and the spirit of Nimrod is the spirit of
conquering force and craft and skill.
“Nimrod rules across the earth from
this city, and out of that land goes forth Asher and Nineveh. In other words,
man goes out from Babel and puts the spirit of Nimrod to work by building more
cities.
“Now the city is the center from
which war and conquest is waged. Urban civilization becomes a warring
civilization. In Daniel 1, Daniel’s carried away into the land of Shinar into
Babylonian captivity. In Genesis 14:1, Abraham delivers Lot from Sodom.
“While Babylon represents a system
for the expression and philosophy and program of the Adversary, Jerusalem
represents God’s system of righteousness, but it also represents man’s failure
to meet up to that standard because the law brings bondage, hence there has to
be a new Jerusalem, a new covenant, a new way when God will do for man—and for
the universe itself—what man could never do for himself.”
*****
Church steeples and obelisks
originate from the Tower of Babel, showing yet another example of how
thoroughly Satan’s religious system permeates our world.
“The Tower was part of the city,
and literally it was the symbol of the purpose and the enterprise of the city
which was to seize for themselves what belonged to God. Who owns heaven? That’s
His dwelling. The whole issue here is the deification of the creature.
“The city codifies and gives
collective force to humans, bringing that ‘I’ Complex—that independent spirit
of rebellion—into a mass.
“There
are only two times in all of human history when the whole world knew God. One was in the Garden of Eden
and the other was after the Flood when it was just Noah and his family.
“The problem isn’t that man can’t
know God; it’s that they willfully walk away from God. So, the problem isn’t
the heathen who don’t know; the problem is that what they do know, they reject.
“Romans 1 goes back historically to
Genesis 11 and it doesn’t say that the people didn’t glorify God; they just
didn’t give Him the supreme position as God Almighty.
“It’s the theology of a humanistic
system to elevate man. They’re exalting themselves, and their whole goal is to
change the glory of the uncorruptible God, and to deface and defy Him because
they’re ‘so wise.’ They can do it themselves. They know better than God so
they’re going to do it their way.
"The result is Romans 1:24-25: ‘Wherefore God
also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to
dishonour their own bodies between themselves. [25] Who changed the
truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the
Creator.
“You know, the greatest judgment
God could ever give a person over to is just to leave him to himself. What the
world out there calls sophistication and liberation more often than not is just
testimony to the fact God just left them to themselves to bear the bitter consequences
of their own sin all by themselves with no restraint.
“The product of Babylon is
uncleanness. If you don’t live in line with God, you’re unclean. I call you to
notice they worshipped and served the creature MORE than the Creator. It isn’t
necessary to completely throw God out and Babylon doesn’t do that. They just
worship their own will more. They don’t give Him top billing.
*****
“What Revelation 14:8 tells us
about future Babylon, she’s fallen but not before she’s made all the nations
‘drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.’ Revelation 17 and 18
represent the two great chapters about the fall of Babylon.
‘The details are held until there
for a very special reason. The Antichrist is going to use Babylon’s system of
Baal worship during the tribulation. Now, its modern manifestation among Christendom is embodied in Rome and
the Protestant churches that are sympathetic to the Roman system.
“The Antichrist uses the system of
Baal worship to rise to power, sitting on the great whore, but once he’s in
power, he destroys her because it stands in his way.
“The reference to the kings of the
earth and merchants in Rev. 17:18—it’s a political system that dominates the
governments of the earth and every area of life, commerce and the economy. It’s
a universal worldwide dominion. This system goes out and engulfs everything.
“Today, the battle is not in the
physical realm—taking a physical city here and a physical city there. Today, we
battle in a spiritual realm and we do it by working by faith.
“But the forces that are opposing
themselves are the same and in the final culmination. . . You see, the reason
the last seven years of that 70th week of Daniel . . . the
reason all the conflicts of the ages crystallize themselves in that one period
of time in the Tribulation . . .
*****
*****
“When Revelation 19 uses the word
‘hallelujah’ that’s the first time that word ever appears in the Bible. The
host of heaven is shouting ‘hallelujah’ as a result of Babylon sinking down and
being destroyed. It doesn’t come any sooner. Not until Babylon’s gone does
heaven cry ‘Hallelujah!’
“You see, one day God’s going to
purge this earth, and righteousness is going to reign from the city of
righteousness, New Jerusalem. Revelation 3:12 calls it ‘the city of my God.’
“In the Millennium, they’ll have
that wonderful city. Revelation 20:9 calls it the ‘beloved city.’ Revelation 21:10
calls it ‘that great city.’ There’s Jerusalem. There’s where God is dwelling
and that city is going to take charge. It’s exciting to me to know God’s going
to purge this earth of all rebellion and establish a city from which His
righteousness reigns.”
(new article tomorrow)
No comments:
Post a Comment