Babylon Cliff Notes

Post 093

Required reading: Daniel 2 through 5

Trying to include in a blog all that I have learned over the last 2 years of deep study, is of course impossible. Trying to streemline it so that the message remains in tact is a work all its own.
My focus in this blog was to reach those who do not have a churched background.
I have been working diligently to avoid the hand waving religious mumbo jumbo and express my views with reason which can be tracked through logic and documentation.
Of course my blog is faith based. That is after all the intent.
And so you can understand my strong reluctance to publish my last post.
How do I document here, years of study to logically and rationally arrive at such a dramatic statement?
I have no idea!
But here is what I have discovered; Daniel wrote down the important basics. But he did not try to document the volumes of verification through years of study.
He did not profess himself to be a prophet. He was just a guy, following the LORD, and in his study he ran across some great stuff written by the prophet Jeremiah.
This information was there for anyone to find if they would just take the time to study, and spend time listening to God. But they didn’t, he did. So he wrote down what he learned.

Frankly I did quite poorly in my schooling of History.
The names and dates and locations seemed to be snatched out of the air with no connection to anything I could relate to.
I simply could not remember a date in time which had no meaning to me.
So hear me when I say; I understand your inability to grasp, or to even care about the history I must try to feed you, but if you want more explanation behind my previous post, including documentation, this is the best I can do here in a blog post.
If ever I actually get my book published, the information and documentation is enormous, and growing daily!
Much of what I want to post I don’t because the documentation would be impossible to provide here. And now I know why my history teachers resorted to tossing me names and dates and locations to memorize for a test! They had simply given up trying to cover so much material to make the dates important to me.
Knowing this great hurdle, we still must have some basic background which is pivotal to my previous post in order to authenticate its validity.

* * *
Titanic

If I was trying to describe in detail how a great ocean liner will sink after striking an iceburg, what comes to mind?
The Titanic.
So with that knowledge I don’t have to go into great lengthy explanations.
With a single word, an entire event comes clearly to mind because you are already familiar with the story. So I can begin my intended point without all the lengthy background.

If I use the word Babylon you should also have an entire deep understanding of an event pivotal to world history, both past and future. But you don’t.
Now how can I give you the needed 18 hour mini series in this blog post? It simply cannot be done. But you need it. and for that I am sorry.

If you are familiar with the Babylon history and prophecy, you can go to the head of the class and I encourage you to skip down to; The Question Begs.

For the rest of you, the Cliff Notes of the Cliff Notes will have to do in the pinch, but don’t for a second think you can pass the test just by reading such a short overview of a very complex and intriguing story. My fear is that it will just be so much useless trivia to your mind, that it wont stick.
There will be plenty of holes, but I assure you, the research is valid.

Cliff Notes of the Cliff Notes

Facts you will just have to accept for now:
• The Nation of Jews called Israel is the center focus of the entire bible, Old and New Testament, and therefore center of all world history, both past and future.
• The Bible should be viewed from an eastern frame of thinking, not a western. Example: concepts are understood to be cyclic, not linear. (more later)
• Christians are the people whom accepted the “Messiah to the Jews” which the Jews rejected. Jesus was not an American.
• America is the Church age Christian image of Israel. NOT the replacement. (cyclic concept, not linear)
• The Babylonian captivity is a key event in biblical history and prophecy.
• God chose Abraham, a faithful man, to begin the nation of Israel, whom God chose to be his main focus.
• He gave them title to their land whose borders are recorded in great detail in the Old Testament. Note: there is no other nation in history whom got title deed right from God.
• God pre-told them their entire history through many prophets, and guaranteed them a place in history clear up to the end of everything.
• He warned them if they turned from him he would send them into captivity for 70 years, at the end he would return them to their land. (Jeremiah 25:11-12, 29:10)
• They turned from him, and King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came and hauled them away to Babylon as slaves.
• In time Nebuchadnezzar died, and his (grand)son Belshazzar became ruler of Babylon.
• After the 70 years were nearly up, Daniel was reading in the Scriptures and did the calculations shown in Jeremiah. And realized the 70 years of captivity was about up. (Daniel 9:2) And sure enough, on the day pre-appointed by God, the king of Persia came and conquered Babylon. The Job was so slick and easy that not a shot was fired, and most the people had no idea they had been conquered for several days.
• Daniel met the New king Cyrus*1 as he came through the gates of Babylon in 539 BC, and gave to him the scroll of Isaiah which was written about 210 years previous. In that scroll was a letter to Cyrus from God himself. (Isaiah 44:24-45:14) foretelling his deeds, then telling him to release His people. *2
• The king was so taken, that he wrote a decree which freed the Jews, and actually financed their return to Jerusalem to re-build their destroyed temple which fulfilled the prophecy.
• There were several major prophesies given during this captivity, related to the entire scope of world history. These prophecies link Babylon in the cycle of prophetic events.

OH there is soooo much that needs to be included here, but we will just have to try and stuff it in as we go.
There are so many sub-plots that reach all over it is impossible to do this story justice.
Like why do we celebrate Christmas on December 25th? *3
Or how we can know for sure the world will not end in 2012
But staying on target I want to focus on these two kings of Babylon; Nebuchadnezzar, and Belshazzar.

* * *
The Two Kings

Nebuchadnezzar was the most powerful king of his time, ruling the entire known world related to his kingdom.
His kingdom Babylon was centered in a city of Iraq with the same name Babylon, only a few miles south of present day Baghdad. (go Google Earth it!)
It is important to understand that he had no regard for the God of the Jews, they were just a small nation of people to the west of his kingdom that after conquering them like every other nation, they chose to rebel against him.
He tried 3 times to make them submit with yearly tax and a variety of rulers, but they would have none of it in spite of the prophetic warning of Jeremiah, so he burned their city, and their temple, and carried them back to Babylon as slaves.
He had no idea he was acting out the plan of God which God had prophesied before it occurred.
Then Nebuchadnezzar had a dream and the short of it is that Daniel told him the meaning. (Daniel 2:31-45) This dream is a prophecy of world dominate kingdoms from that day until the end of the world.
Daniel 2:47 “The king answered unto Daniel, and said, Of a truth it is, that your God is a God of gods. And a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing thou couldest reveal this secret.”
OK fine. Seems like an easy sale to be honest, until you realize that the king refused to tell anyone his dream. Now Daniel was able to tell him his dream and interpret it! This king was impressed.
But being a king, and being a pagan king used to worshiping multiple gods, he pretty much did as he wanted. So he confused the fact that God had made him king (Daniel 2:36-38) with the feeling of self accomplishment, and he built a huge statue of himself, we can only imagine as a twisted memorial to the dream.
And another significant miracle plays out (Daniel 3:1-27) at the end of which the king again recognizes; “…and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who hath sent his angel, and delivered his servants that trusted in him, and have changed the king’s word, and yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any god, except their own God.” And he made a decree that nobody could speak anything amiss against the God of these three guys on whom the miracle was performed. (Daniel 3:28-29)

We really are making a point here, so hang on.

Then Daniel 4 begins as the King Nebuchadnezzar writes a decree:
“Nebuchadnezzar the king, unto all people, nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth; Peace be multiplied unto you.
I thought it good to shew the signs and wonders that the high God hath wrought toward me. How great are his signs! And how mighty are his wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion is from generation to generation.” And he goes on to describe yet another miracle of God.
The short version is, he again had a weird dream, and Daniel (now master of the religious group) interpreted the dream.

The basics of the dream; (Daniel 4:1-27)

Even after being shown several times that his kingdom was a gift from God who performed great miracles for him in order to make the point clear; who God is, Nebuchadnezzar could not let go of his pride in thinking he had built a great kingdom by his own hand, which of course according to mans understanding he did.
So, God foretold him that he would go insane, and be put out in the woods where he would live and act like an animal for 7 years.
At the end of the 7 years, his sanity would return and amazingly he would again re-claim his kingdom.
Ok this is pretty hard to pull off! Who in the real world would let an insane man, even though recovered, take back his kingdom? But he did not take it by force; “and my counselors and my lords sought unto me; and I was established in my kingdom…” Daniel 4:36

Ok Quick recap:
• This king was shown several significantly great miracles and signs which caused him to recognize The God of gods.
• He let that recognition slip a few times and was reminded by more miracles.
• Finally he was warned in a prophecy that due to his failure to honor God as his kingdom maker, he would loose his kingdom, and wander lost for 7 years, then be returned to his former kingdom.
• And the events played out as prophesied.

* * *

Belshazzar then assumes the kingdom. (Daniel 5:1)*4
He has a drunken party and “commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein.” Daniel 5:2

“They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, and wood, and of stone.” Daniel 5:4
He only forgot fiberglass and plastic because they hadn’t been invented yet.
(Of course I’m jesting, this specific list has prophetic connotations)

“In the same hour came forth fingers of a man’s hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king’s palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. Then the king’s countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another.” Daniel 5:5-6 (in other words; he wet his pants)
So the king goes to great lengths to find somebody who could interpret the writing on the wall, and eventually got ahold of Daniel who said;

“O thou king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom, and majesty, and glory, and honour: And for the majesty that he gave him, all people, nations, and languages, trembled and feared before him: whom he would he slew; and whom he would he kept alive; and whom he would he set up; and whom he would he put down.
But when his heart was lifted up, and his mind hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him: And he was driven from the sons of men; and his heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild asses: they fed him with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven; till he knew that the most high God ruled in the kingdom of men, and that he appointeth over it whomsoever he will.

And thou his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this; But has lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou, and thy lords, thy wives, and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them; and thou hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy breath is and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified:

Then was the part of the hand sent from him; and this writing was written….and this the interpretation of the thing:
MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it.
TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.
PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.” Daniel 5:18-28

“In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain.
And Darius the Median took the kingdom…” Daniel 5:30-31

Quick Recap:

• Belshazzar became king.
• He got drunk at a party and decided to mock The Living God, by publicly treating his holy vessels with contempt, while praising the gods of other nations.
• Immediately the judgment of God convicted him and sentenced him.
• That same night he was killed and his kingdom ruled by the king of another empire entirely.

* * *

The question begs;
Why did Nebuchadnezzar get so many chances to goof up,
got a prophecy foretelling his fall, and the promise he would be restored,
But Belshazzar got no miracle warning,
no second chance,
and no promise of restoration?

The answer to this comes clear when you recognize they are a prophecy, a prototype as it were, of the lives of the Nations of Israel, and America.

Nebuchadnezzar as shown by the book of Daniel represents the nation of Israel.
Israel was established by God himself.
She had lots of miracles showing her that God is the God of gods.
She went through times when she recognized this, and times when she forgot.
And she was reminded by more amazing miracles.
Finally she was given a prophecy that due to her stubborn sin, she would be cast out of her kingdom as slaves for 70 years. At which time she would be returned to her kingdom. (Jeremiah 25:11, 29:10)
And so she was.
This same cycle or pattern is played out yet again, when she rejected her Messiah, and was cast out of her kingdom to wander the wilderness of the world for the designated period of time now identified as the pause between the 69th and 70th “weeks of Daniel” (Daniel 9:24) after which time, her kingdom would be restored to its former glory.
Who would have guessed this period would have lasted 2000+ years? But looking back now we can see this is scripturally sound.
Although this scenario has not come to full completion yet, all the elements are right on schedule significantly identified by the creation of the Nation Israel on the specific day of May 14, 1948.

Belshazzar got no such miracles for that purpose. He was supposed to have learned who God is, from the events in Nebuchadnezzar’s life. God required him to know his history. The Book of Daniel identifies him as the Son of Nebuchadnezzar, perhaps only because there is no word in ancient Chaldean for grandson, but perhaps also that the prototype representation can be made. It seems apparent that Belshazzar knew Nebuchadnezzar in his latter years as he assumed the throne about 15 years after Nebuchadnezzar died. So we can comfortably assume that Belshazzar was personally familiar with the letter of Nebuchadnezzar written in Daniel 4 describing his prophecy, the loss of his kingdom, and his restoration, and giving God the glory. In the like pattern Israel had been dispersed before America appeared, but America personally saw the miracles of the re-creation of the nation Israel, and the miraculous success of the 6 day war, and other struggles sure to seal her doom.
This might sound trivial, but the many accurate parallels add confirmation that the one is intended by God to represent the other. So the wording of Daniel, and the history of events make this idea fit these representations.
The nation of America is to Christians what Israel is to Judaism. In essence America is the daughter of Israel because our laws and faith are rooted from the Same God generationally removed. That is God’s Son Jesus through the New Testament.
In this way, we know that America is held accountable to know the History of our mother Israel. Like Belshazzar, America is just a shirttail relative to the promises given to our predecessor.
Our founding fathers did know this and conducted our nation accordingly. Only one generation ago nearly every child was sent to church and learned the old bible stories of God's miracles for Israel. The burning bush, the Red Sea crossing, the Plagues of Egypt, the columns of smoke and fire, etc.etc.etc.
Today we have forgotten, just as Belshazzar did.

Note too that Belshazzar chose to throw a party and get drunk, a serious national tendency for America, and he chose to praise the gods of gold, silver, brass, iron, wood, and stone.
America has turned the Holy God of the Jews, into a common vessel for our pleasure, and in our intoxication with our self righteous sins, we choose instead to praise as gods our wealth, our stuff of value, our economy. Can you see this representation by the list of Belshazzar? but the sin is still greater than this. (more later)
“Who cares if the guy running for office is for abortion? As long as he promises to fix our economy!” “I hate my job, but the money is good”
There is far more detail in this historical narrative to show the pattern, but this is enough for now.

and finally we get to the confirmation of my previous post;

Once Belshazzar had publicly mocked the God of gods and praised other gods, the writing appeared on the wall sealing his doom, and in the same night he was gone, and his kingdom ruled not by just the next guy, but by another empire entirely.
The old world empire of Babylon was gone, and the new world empire of Persia had come.

It is a fascinating study to learn how the Persians diverted the river, and slipped under the brass gates to take the city. Isaiah 44:27, 45:1 and the historians; Josephus and Herodotus.

How does this translate to America’s demise?
If this prototype is correct, we can expect that America will fall in a way represented by the events recorded of Belshazzar.
America has been given no scriptural promises of captivity and restoration. Like Belshazzar, we get no second chance.

* * *
Here is my hypothesis of interpretation:

The waters of the river which are dried up in the Isaiah 44:27 prophecy, is the river which ran through Babylon. Cyrus's general Darius diverted, or “dried up” the river in the night in order to slip his troops under the two leaved brass gate. That water was both the life blood of the city, and its protection. Without it the city would fall.
The life blood of America has been its faith. It’s foundation upon God. History shows this to be so, and we have seen the nation shrivel and grow weak and sickly as the waters of faith are dried up.
We might go so secular as to say the waters represent our Constitution. Because our constitution was created from our values of faith as I have adequately showed in previous posts, the results are the same. But I actually see the constitution as the city walls. virtually un-defeatable. The weakness is in the gate.
With the waters dried up, the enemy has slipped quietly unnoticed under the wall in the void and completely avoided our two leaved brass gate, because we are intoxicated with our luxuries and pleasures. We simply are not paying attention.

The Two leaved brass gate of Isaiah 45:1-2 represents our two governing parties; Democrats and Republicans represented in our House and Senate. Brass in scriptural prophecy represents the idea of democracy, or the peoples rule. The waters of our faith is what keeps the enemy from breaching our gates, but with the water diverted (or subverted) the gates are powerless and completely ineffective as the enemy just crawls under.
Glenn Beck has been warning of this for some time.
Our nation is only secure when both parties are working as one unit as two leaves of one gate, but even then only if the waters of our faith is kept flowing.
The separation of Church and State as is understood today, is our own people now throwing sandbags into the river before it makes it to the kingdom because we are so confident in our gate! Yet our gate today is so corroded and twisted I wonder how it still hangs on its hinges!
To stop the flow of faith because our confidence is in the gate of our congress, is here pictured as foolish as it sounds. But this is exactly how Babylon was conquered, and exactly how America will fall.

I will loosen the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates, and the gates shall not be shut.” Isaiah 45:1
Loosening the loins is a polite way of saying; They soiled themselves. But in this verse the implication is not out of fear of the conquering enemy. It was God, by the writing on the wall showing him his judgment, that made Belshazzar soil himself.
We often use crass language as this to indicate; “some one really messed up” “That guy soiled his own lunchbox.”
This verse suggests God himself will cause these kings to act foolishly to their own shame and undoing. It appears this shameful conduct will be the vehicle to open the gates for the enemy, not by the enemy.
The stopping up of America's waters began in earnest when in 1963 the Supreme Court ruled to remove our God from our Public Institutions.
This represents the American decline into Marxism better than anything I could think of. Progresivism has already overtaken our nation’s government through her people, evidenced by the incredible foolishness of our Congress passing foundation altering bills without even reading them. What better phrase could the observing world utter than; "They really soiled themselves this time."

Darius did not need the gates open to conquer the city, the gates were opened later to Cyrus the king upon his formal arrival a few day after.

And soon we will run to fling open the gates so that the entity of Progressivism can be welcomed properly as represented by Cyrus marching in to the city already taken.
But wait!
Progressivism is represented by Darius who slipped through the void left by our lack of faith.
so What does Cyrus represent?
We don't know, he hasn't arrived yet, but by this we can know that progressivism is only the General of the conquering entity. (more on this thought in the next post)

The plural “kings” confirm not just one. And of course we know that it is directly referring to the many kings of nations which Cyrus conquered.
But the concept of cycles allows us to see the application of this whole story, as it Applies to America, but the application must actually fit correctly.
The problem is that America doesn’t have kings.
So who is it that “rules” America? She is ruled by her many citizens. Americans have long been proud to be called “sovereign” as in; “I am a sovereign American.”
In this way, it is no stretch to say this historic event is a prophetic representation meaning the American people will actually soil themselves and open the gates by their own volition, and once opened they will not be shut again.

All this fits the events of our nation being quietly and subversively over taken by a completely different ideology, because our protecting faith has dried up through our own slumber and the sneaky action of the enemy. i.e. our media, our education system, our judicial decisions, globalism, corruption etc.
Even our enemies of the past have foretold how they would take America “without firing a shot.”*5
The conquest of our nation will be so slick and easy that Americans will not even know we have been conquered. And only after a short period will the actual ruler of the new government appear on the scene as a formality only.

* * *
It is for this among other reason that I think America will be surprised at the outcome of the November vote.
We will have thought sure we would be successful, but the ballot boxes will show our defeat. And the wind will be permanently knocked out of our sails, we will scratch our heads wondering how it happened.
We will think it was just another election gone bad, and not even know they have taken our nation from us.*6

Old America will be dead, and a new era will begin.

I have found only one element of the Belshazzar narrative which fully baffles me.
That is the appearance of the fingers of a man’s hand writing the judgment on the wall. (Daniel 5:5)
This should be acted out in some way in America’s demise, to fully fulfill this representation. The act of writing the trial and sentence is what loosened the kings loins. I cannot place this with accuracy yet, as our congress is already smelling pretty ripe. Perhaps there is yet an event of God that will actually make this soiling occur.
I am still searching for a clear explanation.

OK, there is also this last bit. and that is I openly confess that I have no scriptural support for stating our demise is to occur on November 2 beyond a vague insertion into a complex timeline of last days events as shown in the scriptures. I feel strongly that I got that straight from the LORD, but having occupied my time with developing this background I have not been working on validating this concept yet. As indicated above we will not actually recognize our end for some time afterwords anyway. Only the alert will see the signs.
The fulfillment of these events is sure. Only the timing is arguable.
Without clear scriptural support, I freely admit I have really stepped out on a limb here regarding the event occurring at this election.
None the less, the information without a specific date is quite sound. and at this point I am already sorry I published the previous post.
Frankly the LORD has been very quiet today as I have developed this post.
As my title states; I don't claim to know all the answers!

* * *
Finally,

There is one evidence yet, that clinches the claim of my last post.
And at the end of this entire blog, while you sit there finishing this reading,
Your casual, careless thought has remained; “Well we have 15 more days to see if he is right.”
Is this the heart of repentance?

"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever.” - Thomas Jefferson

The Alarm clock on God’s Justice is ringing loudly!

* * * * * * *

*1 Who is Cyrus?
The discovery of verified history is a bit difficult as the biblical narrative sticks with the important parts and leaves the rest alone. Cyrus was the Persian king, Darius was his uncle and general. Darius took Babylon according to Daniel, then a few days later Cyrus marched into the captured city according to secular history. Not long after, Darius became king of Persia. This detail has helped dissenters agree that Daniel had to have been there physically to observe these events.

*2 Josephus - “The Antiquities of the Jews” book 11 page 343
This is verified by the now explainable letter of Cyrus we find in Ezra 1:1-6
as well as confirmed by the The Cylinder of Cyrus now held in the British Museum.

*3 To get the basics see; “The Star of Bethlehem” DVD www.http://bethlehemstar.net
These wisemen from the East are concluded to have originated from Babylon because while there Daniel became master of the seers in the time of Nebuchadnezzar. (Daniel 5:11) It was during this time that Daniel had the opportunity to instruct the seers in the prophecy of the coming Messiah as seen in the stars, only hinted at in Revelation 12:1
A virtually must see DVD!

*4 Again scripture leaves out insignificant data, there were a few kings between Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar, which would only add confusion.

*5
although I am presently unable to locate the specific quote regarding taking America without firing a shot, the following quotes clearly indicate the intent which meets the expectation of the way Belshazzar’s Babylon fell.

When we hang the capitalists they will sell us the rope we use.
Joseph Stalin

I once said, "We will bury you," and I got into trouble with it. Of course we will not bury you with a shovel. Your own working class will bury you.
Nikita Khrushchev Speech in Yugoslavia, Aug. 24, 1963

The press is our chief ideological weapon.
Nikita Khrushchev

"We can't expect the American People to jump from Capitalism to Communism,
but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of Socialism,
until they awaken one day to find that they have Communism."
Nikita Khrushchev

“The American Southwest seems to be slowly returning to the jurisdiction of Mexico without firing a single shot.” Excelsior the national newspaper of Mexico.


*6 "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." Josef Stalin