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Moving to new location; Babylon under new management

We are moving to a temporary office space located about 2 blocks away. I have gotten a PO Box and have made arrangements for the post office to forward all mail to the box number. I don’t remember the long number at the moment, because the office is completely disrupted, but I will post it when I can. Whether you use the old address (6201 Univ. Ave. NE) or the box number, your mail will get to us either way.

I’m hoping that by tomorrow my computer will be hooked up at the new office space and that I will be able to post the next weblog from there.

This week has turned very hot here in Minnesota. The temperature hit 100 degrees (F) yesterday, and the humidity made it feel like a sauna. The weather forecast says that this heat will continue today and tomorrow. This makes our move more stressful. Still, it beats Texas, where it was 120 degrees in Dallas.

The Fall of Babylon

On the world scene, the news is all bad for the Babylonians and is all good for Kingdom people. The main thing I must stress is that in the original pattern, Babylon was taken intact, and the only casualty in the biblical record (Daniel 5) was the king of Babylon himself. Babylon was taken because they had a liquidity shortage between the 2 banks of the river Euphrates.

I have been teaching this for many years but was unsure how this would play out in modern history. We just know that the sixth angel was to pour out his bowl of wine upon the river to prepare the way for the kings from the east (Revelation 16:12). That angel has done his job masterfully, and we will soon see Babylon come under new management.

King Cyrus of Persia, you recall, was a type of Christ (Isaiah 45:1). He took over Babylon and put his father-in-law (Darius the Mede) in charge for the next few years while he continued his conquests. These were the two kings from the east at that time.

Back in the 1990’s, when it first occurred to me that Babylon fell intact, I had to reconcile the apparent contradiction in Revelation 17 and 18, where Babylon seems to be destroyed. Likewise, because Jericho is another prophetic type of the overthrow of Babylon, the question I had to wrestle with was how Babylon could be taken intact and yet still be destroyed like Jericho.

Recall from the book of Joshua that the Israelites marched around the city once each day for six days blowing trumpets, and then on the seventh day they marched around the city seven times. This set the biblical pattern seen in the book of Revelation, where we see the seven trumpets. The seventh trumpet consists of seven bowls of wine leading to great earthquake that splits Babylon into three parts and ultimately destroys the city.

All of this follows the biblical pattern of the feast of Tabernacles, where they were instructed to pour out a drink offering of wine for seven days during Tabernacles. These bowls of wine signified judgment upon Babylon. The seven trumpets are the seven months leading to the feast of Tabernacles, because they used to blow a trumpet at the sighting of the new moon (month). Each trumpet, then, signaled the start of a new month, and the seventh trumpet was sounded on the feast of Trumpets. Within the seventh month was the feast of Tabernacles, wherein they poured out the seven drink offerings (wine).

So the book of Revelation speaks of 7 trumpets (months) and 7 bowls (days of Tabernacles).

What Will This Collapse Look Like?

We may see an earthquake marking the fall of Babylon, or this may simply refer to a political and economic earthquake that dislodges the Babylonian political and financial structure. Time will tell. The point is that Babylon is now a world-wide system, not located in a single place on earth. So it is hardly likely that a physical earthquake could collapse this spiritual city.

Today’s “city” is a system, not a city with literal walls and buildings. We take note that New York has its “Wall Street,” symbolizing the walls of Babylon, and City Bank plays its role as well. I expect to see these representatives of Babylon collapse in some way, without destroying the infrastructure of the planet itself.

In my view God destroys Babylon without devastating the world itself. By taking Babylon’s assets and resources under His own management, He will inherit the nations, rather than destroy them. If Babylon were to be destroyed in the way that many expect, billions of people would die through violence, starvation, and disease. No amount of preparation could insulate us from its effects. If the entire monetary system were to collapse—with nothing to replace it—the ensuing chaos would hardly be conducive to a Kingdom takeover.

So I am much more optimistic about the future, even though it is clear that there will indeed be some chaos—especially financial and banking chaos. Transitioning from one age to another always involves some disruption and chaos. But my main focus is on the rise of the Kingdom, not upon the fall of Babylon per se.

In the midst of this, I expect to see a great outpouring of the Spirit take place, in order to awaken those who think they are “woke.” This outpouring will not only empower the righteous but will also cause the unrighteous to repent.

What, then, will we see in September-October as the new Hebrew year begins? What will the world look like by the time of the feast of Tabernacles? What will we talk about during the coming conference in October?

We will see.