iamlamad said:
Thanks for answering, Fred. I wished I could agree with you, but I cannot.
First, who really is "Mystery Babylon?" If we could only believe John - he TELLS us. It is "That great city," and on another place he tells us the "great city" in his mind (and the Holy Spirit's) is the city where our Lord was crucified: Jerusalem. It is not difficult to understand why God would call Jerusalem "Mystery Babylon:" it will be from Jerusalem that the Beast and False Prophet will deceive the entire world. So God is really telling the Jews to get out of Jerusalem before the end of the 70th week, when Jerusalem will be surrounded by enemies and burned.
There is one reason why the rapture will be when it will be: God's wrath is coming and the rapture will pull the church out just before wrath. God is not going to be setting any appointments for us with His wrath.
Of course you do, I understand. I have heard of many interpretations, and never any saying this thing. But how do they know what is right? There are connections people make, that has been done from hundreds of years ago, and what is seen is imposed on the symbolism of the prophecies. In this way, people including religious leaders did not recognize Jesus was and is the Christ, the promised Messiah, for not matching their expectations of the coming Messiah.
Their are things said in the Revelation about Mystery Babylon to help recognize it. The great city is a flimsy basis in itself for deciding the meaning. Yet, what is the greatest city? Maybe not one city, maybe the great mass of cities. The real description of Mystery Babylon at length, for a basis, is in Revelation 18.
"For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury." "Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues."
“And the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her, for no one buys their merchandise anymore: merchandise of gold and silver, precious stones and pearls, fine linen and purple, silk and scarlet, every kind of citron wood, every kind of object of ivory, every kind of object of most precious wood, bronze, iron, and marble; and cinnamon and incense, fragrant oil and frankincense, wine and oil, fine flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and bodies and souls of men. The fruit that your soul longed for has gone from you, and all the things which are rich and splendid have gone from you, and you shall find them no more at all. The merchants of these things, who became rich by her, will stand at a distance for fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, and saying, ‘Alas, alas, that great city that was clothed in fine linen, purple, and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls! For in one hour such great riches came to nothing.’ Every shipmaster, all who travel by ship, sailors, and as many as trade on the sea, stood at a distance and cried out when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, ‘What is like this great city?’ "
What one city has this description of characteristics? Not really one city, but very many cities. It is almost universal in history. And then only one city is meant in prophecy, and all the others have no consequences?
As others use bases of other things to impose on symbols of prophecy, I do that with what many preach now anyway, that we can see prophecies becoming fulfilled in the news. But many are not seeing that much of the news. I still know very many sites I could show of the issues there are, even from cities of civilization generally, that civilization cannot continue on with, even for many decades still. There would be collapse coming anyway, though this is not addressed in mainstream news, let alone focused news of right-wing media.
There are many, not a few, issues that are critical, with all the exploitation, just as Revelation 18 mentions, and with resources being used up, and very critical environmental problems that are going to have tremendous effect on the society of people here. And we are part of the contributes to the issues while we are are still living in cities with the same expectations of standards of others.
- Current CO2 Level: 413.03 ppm (~143 ppm higher than pre-industrial level, 1.63 ppm higher than this time 1 year ago)
- Species Extinctions: 200 per day
- Wealth Inequality: all-time high. Richest 1% have roughly 50% of all wealth. Poorest 50% have around 1% of all wealth.
- Racism: average U.S. household, net wealth in 2013—white family $117k, Latino family $2k, Black family $1.7k.
- Oceanic Dead Zones: 500+ and expanding, now larger than Europe
- Deforestation: 250 trees are cut down per second
- Desertification: 8 acres are desertified per minute
- Soil Erosion: 5 tons of soil is destroyed per second, primarily by agriculture
- Industrial Toxins: now found in every mother’s breast milk, on top of Mount Everest, in the deepest parts of the ocean, and at the North Pole.
