-------------------"Babylon the Great"
--------------------------------------By Thomas Ivan Dahlheimer
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-----In the book of revelation the word of God prophecies the violent fate of "Babylon the
-----Great". "Babylon the Great" is this wealthy, worldly, immoral, corrupt, apostate,
-----formerly Christian civilization in which we now live. Western nations, the nations
-----which are manifesting this civilization, have become, as it were, a "Great Harlot"
-----(Rev.17:2), "which has corrupted the whole world." (Rev. 17:5)
-----Pope Benedict XVI said: "Today, nations once rich in faith and vocations are
-----losing their own identity under the harmful and destructive influence of a certain
-----modern culture." This comment was made during a Mass at the start of a
-----month-long synod of Roman Catholic bishops from around the world, come amid
-----growing concern about the decline in church attendance and interest in religion
-----in many Western nations.
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-----In the distant past, the people of Israel also apostatized from the laws of God,
-----to embrace practices of idolatries and fornication. In Ezekiel, Chapter 16,
-----the prophet describes how God raised Israel into a beautiful woman, adorned her
-----in silk and precious stones, and placed a splendid crown upon her head. However,
-----she becomes a great harlot. The metaphorical parallel of the apostate Israel, to an
-----apostate Christianity is obvious. This passage even predicts the future apostasy
-----of Christianity. "Those who quote proverbs will use this proverb against you: 'Like
-----Mother, like daughter'." (Ezek.16:44). Christianity IS that daughter!
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-----In the same way that God portrays Israel in Ezekiel 16, he portrays Christianity in
-----Revelation Chapter 17. Both are his chosen people who have abandoned his laws to
-----become great harlots: dressed in silk or scarlet, adorned with precious stones.
-----Western Civilization has definitely become a corrupt and powerful influence of
-----scandal, immorality to the whole world, which make it "Babylon the Great". This
-----corrupt formerly Christian civilization has literally intoxicated the whole world
-----with the spirit of fornication with it's tantalizing, decadent allure." (Rev.18:3)
-----The western nations of the Christian religion have scandalized the whole world!
-----They have indeed led the whole world astray! (Rev.18:3)
-----The main idea of Adam Smith, the founder of unrestricted capitalism, was the idea
-----that the individual's pursuit of self-interest should be regarded as the main
-----foundation upon which society benefits as a whole. This is perhaps the central
-----premise of his book, The Wealth of Nations. Prior to the Enlightenment, avarice,
-----or greed, was viewed with contempt as one of the seven deadly sins, but Adam
-----Smith, buttressed with the work of Mandeville, Hume and other avowed atheists,
-----paved the way for greed to be viewed as a natural, and even as a positive thing.
-----This change in values was perhaps one of the most important and profound changes
-----that helped to overthrow Judeo-Christian morality as the foundation of Western
-----civilization.
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-----During a mass at Yankee Stadium, Pope John Paul II said: "It is not right that
-----the standard of living of the rich countries should seek to maintain itself by
-----draining off a great part of the reserves of energy and raw materials that are
-----meant for the whole of humanity." In the summer of 2004, Pope John Paul II
-----lectured American bishops about how their people were "hypnotized by materialism,
-----teetering before a soulless vision of the world." And Time Magazine reported
-----that: "In 1979, Pope John Paul II bluntly compared Americans to the rich man in
-----the Bible story who is dammed for all eternity after a life spent feasting - contentedly
-----oblivious to Lazarus, the beggar who longed for the scraps from the table."
-----In the book of revelation, chapter 17 verse 4, the Word of God says: "And upon
-----her forehead [was] a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE
-----MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH." America's
-----apostate Christian culture is the mother [or, biggest and most influential] of the
-----Western nations' apostate Christian cultures. The other Western nations are
-----America's harlot daughters. All together, they make up the Great Babylonian
-----Harlot System.
-----In the Bible symbolic "Babylon" means Rome. However, Babylon the Great
-----is no particular Christian Church. It is Christian culture as a whole. It is seated
-----on Rome, only because the Roman Church is the mother of all Christianity. It is
-----definitely not the Roman Catholic religion, but rather of all apostate Christian
-----culture. The vast majority of Catholics and Protestants of Western nations share the
-----guilt of participating in the sins of this scandalous, decadent civilization. True
-----Christians should take no part in the immoralities of this corrupt culture - or they
-----will soon have it's punishments to bear in full rigor! (Rev.18:4)
----- A
VATICAN APPROVED prophetic message from are Lady of
Akita: "If mankind
-----does not repent, and the sins of the human race continue to increase in number and
-----severity, the Eternal Father will inflict a terrible chastisement on all humanity. It
-----will be a tribulation worse than the deluge (of Noah), such as no one has ever seen
-----before. Fire shall fall from heaven that will annihilate a great part of humanity. The
-----survivors will find themselves so desolate that ... the only consolation that will remain
-----will be prayer and the SIGN left by Christ himself."
-----Concerning the "great tribulation" that will occure at the end of the age and the "SIGN"
-----that will appear after the tribulation, the Word of God says: "It will be a day dark with
-----clouds, the end of an epoch for the nations." (Ezek.30:3) "Immediately after the distress
-----of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give her light. The sign
-----of the son of man will appear in the heavens." (Matt. 24:30)
-----When Pope John II was a Cardinal he wrote: "We are now standing in the face of the
-----greatest historical confrontation humanity has gone through. I do not think that
-----wide circles of the American society or wide circles of the Christian community
-----realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church
-----and the anti-Church, of the Gospel versus the anti-Gospel."
-----In many ways, the West is exactly the horrid moral influence which the Arab countries
-----claim it to be. Unlike in Western "Christian" nations there is not a bar and liquor
-----store on every city block in the metropolitan areas of the Moslem nations, nor are there
-----any abortion clinics. These Moslem nations are NOT Babylon the Great - but they are
-----symbolized as the "Beast" that will burn Babylon to the ground. (Rev.17:16) God will
-----use them to fulfill his purpose." (Rev.17:17)
-----These Moslem nations do serve the "Beast"! (Rev.17:16) The "Beast" is symbolic of
-----all civilizations in which false religion has held total dominion. (See: Rev. 17:10)
-----Scripture says that "The Beast" will be used by God, (Rev.17:13) to do his work
-----unto the destruction of the modern day, apostate Babylon the Great. (Rev.17:17)
-----"Babylon will be hurled into the sea like a giant millstone!" (Rev.18:21)
-----
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-----Thus, the mysterious intention of God consists in the sudden global catastrophes in
-----which God will come like a thief, and in the mysterious divine interventions by
-----which He will save the world from total destruction.(Matt. 24:22)
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-----Sorrowfully, mankind continues to indulge itself as a culture steeped in the
-----mockery of God, and unprecedented sexual decadence. Perhaps worse for the modern
-----generation, the Catholic priests themselves have become a great scandal for the whole
-----world. Many of those who were appointed to protect and to teach God's people in the
-----Catholic Church to lead pure and saintly lives, turned their holy station into an
-----"abomination of desolation". From the pulpit many became cowards. In recent
-----decades, priests rarely spoke to the faithful about effective prayer, or true holiness.
-----They almost NEVER clearly taught about sin, or of the necessity for Christians, especially
-----teenagers, to lead lives of purity. Rather, they universally adopted a preaching style that
-----was vague and secular in tone.
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-----While they seemed to be concerned with "love for one another", they disregarded the
-----necessity of frequent confession, or prayer, or chastity. For the most part, the Catholic
-----clergy itself lost the sense of the importance of consciously striving to remain in a state
-----of grace.
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-----Today, the secular news continues to report the horrific sexual abuses which the Catholic
-----clergy has perpetrated upon innocent children, or upon others whom they were appointed to
-----guide and to protect. This apostasy within the Catholic Church, bodes ill for the fate of
-----civilization itself. So grievous is the apostasy of the entire Christian culture, that
-----the pope was impelled to consecrated it, and the coming age, to the protection of
-----the Immaculate Heart of Mary. He did this in Rome, on Oct. 8, 2000 in a Collegial
-----Consecration in union with all of the Catholic Bishop's of the World.
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-----The last time, (1987) the pope named a special "Marian Year" - the Berlin
-----Wall fell within the year. Within a decade of consecrating the world to the Immaculate
-----Heart of Mary the whole communist block crumbled into rubble.
-----This generation, so steeped in sin, now faces the tribulation worse than the deluge.
-----"The day of wrath is coming to root out the sinners from the earth. On that day, the
----- sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give her light." (Is.13:10)
-----Today, the nation of Israel is assembled together in this post-christian civilization,
-----after having been scattered among every pagan country. It has been called into the
-----reckoning of "the times and dates decided by the Father's authority." (Acts 1:7,
-----Ezek: 38, Romans 11:23-32) Mankind will soon be facing the greatest period of distress
-----since nations first came into existence; the greatest tribulation that has ever been since
-----the beginning of the world, or ever will be! This tribulation will mark the "end of the
-----age of gentiles", the conversion of the Jews (Romans 11:12), and by the end of the "great
-----tribulation" the Roman Catholic Church will have merged and become one with the Eastern
-----Orthodox Church, and they together as the one ture church of Christ will have fulfilled
-----their mission of establishing peace and justice throughout the world, Christ's Kingdom will
-----have been made completely ready for Him, and then Jesus Christ will come to rule and
-----reign on earth.
-----The final outcome of the "great tribulation" will be triumph for the Church! "Rejoice
-----heaven! Celebrate her downfall all you saints! The Lord has given judgment for
-----you against her. Like a boulder, as a great millstone will she be hurled into the
-----sea. So shall the great Babylon be cast down!" (Rev.18:20) "I heard the voices of
-----a huge crowd, answer: Alleluia! The reign of the Lord, our Almighty God has begun!"
-----(Rev.19:7) "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our God, and of his
-----Christ!"(Rev.11:15)
-----"Babylon the Great" will suffer a similar end as did the atheistic empire of Communism:
-----and with a similar speed. But, the end of this epoch of Babylon the Great, this apostate
-----Christian culture, will not be gentle. "Flee out of her my people, do not share in her sins
-----or have her punishments to bear. Every one of her orgies and her shows will be matched
-----by a torture or a grief. In a single day, in a single hour - she will be burned right up, for
-----God has condemned her." (Rev.18:8)
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-----If humanity radically repents in the near future, the "great tribulation" will be avoided
-----and the Church will go forth victorious and be successful at evangelizing all
-----nations to the Church by way of its ecumenical movement within the newly established
-----age of globalization.
-----movement, including success associated with the joint declaration titled: "Evangelicals
-----and Catholics together: The Christian Mission in the 3rd Millennium", the Lutheran-
-----Catholic Joint Declaration of Justification, the Lausanne Covenant, a Convent that
-----declares that Anglican, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Evangelicals, Orthodox and Pentecostals
-----believe in the six saving acts, the Incarnation...the Cross...the Atonement...the
-----Resurrection...the Ascension...Pentecost...and the Second Coming and that therefore these
-----Churches should unflinchingly stay together in their Christian mission to win the world for
-----Christ. And the Catholic Church's ecumenical movement has also been making successful
-----advancements in respect to its effort to evangelize people of the Eastern religions. -----Father Thomas Keating is a Trappist monk and internationally renowned leader of a
-----worldwide prayer/meditative movement. Through the late 1960s and early 1970s, Father
-----Keating and two other monks met with Buddhist and Hindu teachers in an effort to
-----understand the mass defection of young Catholics at the time, people drawn in part to
-----the East's meditation practices. Their research led Keating, then an abbot at a
-----Massachusetts monastery, to begin unearthing a similar meditative method based on the
-----Christian tradition. -----Father Keating is now the leading figure in an interdenominational movement to revitalize
-----the Christian contemplative practice known as "centering prayer." Keating is known for
-----his avid and unusually open-minded interest in the contemplative and meditative practices
-----of other religious traditions. He has met and studied with spiritual teachers from a variety
-----of Hindu and Buddhist lineages and helped to create the Snowmass Interreligious
-----Conference, at which teachers from different traditions meet regularly to compare views
-----and ideas, and to evaluate objectively the benefits and drawbacks of their respective
-----practices. -----In the 1960s Father Keating invited the great Zen master Roshi Sasaki to lead retreats at
-----the abbey. At the time, he thought, surely there must be a precedent within the church for
-----making such simple but powerful spiritual techniques available to lay people. After Father
-----Keating's meeting with the great Zen master he and his Trappist brother Father William
-----Meninger began teaching a form of Christian meditation, a form similar to Buddhist
-----and Hindu meditative methods, which has grown into the worldwide phenomenon known
-----as centering prayer. -----Hopefully, after the Catholic Church merges and becomes one with the Eastern Orthodox
-----Church the Church's ecumenical movement, within its globalization mission, will be
-----successful and the "great tribulation" will be avoided.
