NOTES ON THE FALL OF BABYLON THE GREAT: DONALD TRUMP AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IN GOD’S CROSSHAIRS – (WITH VIDEO)

1. THEOLOGY

“The burden against the Wilderness of the Sea.

As whirlwinds in the South pass through,
So it comes from the desert, from a terrible land.

A distressing vision is declared to me;
The treacherous dealer deals treacherously,
And the plunderer plunders.
Go up, O Elam!
Besiege, O Media!
All its sighing I have made to cease …

For thus has the Lord said to me:
‘Go, set a watchman,
Let him declare what he sees.’

And he saw a chariot with a pair of horsemen,
A chariot of donkeys, and a chariot of camels,
And he listened earnestly with great care.

Then he cried, ‘A lion, my Lord!
I stand continually on the watchtower in the daytime;
I have sat at my post every night.

And look, here comes a chariot of men with a pair of horsemen!’
Then he answered and said,
‘BABYLON IS FALLEN, IS FALLEN!
And all the carved images of her gods
He has broken to the ground.

 Oh, my threshing and the grain of my floor!
That which I have heard from the Lord of hosts,
The God of Israel,
I have declared to you.” – ISAIAH 21:1-2, 6-10, NKJV

NOTE. This Word was shared with me by Rozlyn Downer around 4 am (Mtn. Time), Thursday October 10, 2024.

KEY TERMS:

• “WHIRLWINDS.” ‘Cuwphah’ [כְּסוּפ֤וֹת]: “From a primitive root meaning, ‘To snatch away, to terminate;’ lit., ‘a hurricane, storm or tempest.’” WEBSTER (1828). “A violent wind moving in a circle, or rather in a spiral form, as if moving round an axis; this axis or the perpendicular column moving horizontally, raising and whirling dust, leaves and the like [‘as with a tornado’].”

• “DISTRESSING.” ‘Qasheh’ [קָשָׁ֖ה]: “From a primitive root meaning, ‘To be dense, tough, or severe;’ to be cruel, fierce, hard; to be churlish, obstinate, harsh, or violent; intense, relentless, vehement; esp. toward a people of stiff neck [rebellious]; rigid; not mild or indulgent; grave; sober [‘in the extreme’].”  

• “FALLEN!” ‘Naphal’ [נָֽפְלָה֙]: “A primitive root meaning, ‘To cast down, to cease or die;’ to be overthrown, made to rot, slay; to overwhelm [or be overwhelmed]; to lie prostrate [as if dead]; to be unseated; by imp., to strike down a Goliath; also implies, ‘by fire from heaven, go to [utter] ruin or perish.”

• “THRESHING.” ‘Medushshah’ [מְדֻשָׁתִ֖י]: (A unique word used only here). “Lit., ‘A downtrodden people;’ to separate grain from (a plant), typically with a ‘flail’ or by the action of a revolving mechanism; from the Latin, ‘flagello,’ – ‘to beat or whip, to flog;’ from ‘flagellum,’ a whip, scourge or flail;  to strike, to lay on a stroke, or perhaps from the same root as lick and lay.” DK:  Depending, either ‘Toward New Life,’ or ‘Toward Final Death.’

QUOTATION.  “‘A Divine ‘Punishment’ is also a Divine ‘Gift,’ if accepted, since its object is Ultimate Blessing, and the supreme inventiveness of the Creator will make ‘Punishments’ (i.e., changes of design) ‘produce a Good not otherwise to be attained’” ― J.R.R. TOLKIEN, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Edited by Humphrey Carpenter, 1981; edited

COMMENTARY.  “The Destruction of BABYLON, so often prophesied of by Isaiah,’ was typical of the Destruction of the Great Foe of the New Testament Church, foretold in The Revelation. To the poor, oppressed Captives, it would be welcome news; to the proud Oppressors it would be grievous. Let this check vain mirth and sensual pleasures, that we know not in what heaviness the mirth may end.

‘Here is the Alarm given to BABYLON, when forced by CYRUS [539 BC, aided by the Jews]’ … Babylon’s Idols shall be so far from protecting her, that they shall be broken down. True Believers are the Corn of God’s floor; Hypocrites are but as Chaff and Straw, with which the Wheat is now mixed, but from which it shall be separated.

‘The Corn of God’s Floor must expect to be threshed by afflictions and persecutions.’ God’s Israel of Old was afflicted. Even then God owns, it is His still. In all events concerning the Church, past, present, and to come, we must look to God, who has power to do any thing for His Church, and grace to do every thing that is for her good.” – MATTHEW HENRY, Exposition on the Old and New Testaments, 6 vols., 1708-1710; edited

II. TEACHING

‘THE JUDAS EFFECT:’ How Evangelicals Betrayed Jesus for Power (2024).  “In 2016, AMY HAWK was a hyper-patriotic, Jesus-loving, white, evangelical, Church-attending, and ministry-leading wife and mom living in a small town in the Pacific Northwest. She came into the election determined to vote Republican, but when she saw the video of DONALD TRUMP mocking a disabled journalist, she hurled herself off the Trump Train and never looked back. Shunned by some in her conservative evangelical community, her world was shattered and her faith tested as she was forced to reevaluate the Christian institutions she devoted her life to. 

Disoriented and confused by the Church’s embrace of a man who is the Antithesis of Jesus, Hawk turned to the Scriptures for answers. Part Bible study and part personal faith journey, The Judas Effect is about the selling out of Christian values for political gain. It’s about how, buoyed by Trumpism, the message ringing from Church bells across America has morphed from ‘Goodwill toward men’ to ‘It’s us against them.’ By sharing her own faith crisis, Hawk casts a Vision for the Evangelical Church that steers us away from Judas’s Power Lust, toward a Christ-Centered Mission of servitude, humility, compassion, and kindness.” – Book Promo; edited

DK: THE FIRST CANARY.’ “All faculty Contracts and Letters of Agreement at Liberty University are issued annually. The issuance of these annual documents, however, does not create any expectation of continued employment beyond the effective dates of either. All notices of non-renewal or termination shall be communicated by the Provost and Chief Academic Officer.” – Issued March 2016; At the directive of JERRY LAMON FALWELL JR., President, for failure to support the presidential candidacy of DONALD JOHN TRUMP.

Summary “Execution.” It was issued despite a ten-year run as a full professor with an almost perfect 5-Star Rating from students (See Rate My Professors). This is small harbinger of what is coming to America under the Darkness of a Second Trump Presidency:

‘The American Reich [Empire]!’

JUDGMENT MUST COME. America is well Beyond the Crossroads having entered squarely into the very Center of GOD’S CROSSHAIRS: “A pair of fine wires or lines crossing at right angles at the focus of an optical instrument or gun sight, for use in positioning, aiming, or measuring.”

I am penning this Commentary the morning after I had the distinct privilege of meeting Amy Hawk in an online Video Conference with two other new friends who, like us all, have been similarly “Betrayed by the American White Evangelical (and Pentecostal-Charismatic) Church,” leaving us all in a spiritual shambles and isolated from the steady joy of true Christian fellowship in a local church.

As you can see a bit more clearly now, it is OUR STORY as well. Indeed, it is the Story of the True Remant Church and all of America! Too, it thrusts us at nearly light speed straight into the Historic Maw of what has become a CHURCH GONE ROGUE, ripped from her secure tethers to the Rock from which she was ostensibly hewn. More bluntly:

She has Rejected the True Christ for the Antichrist in the form of Donald John Trump. Selah.

AMERICA AS BABYLON THE GREAT. I have previously detailed the arguments for America as fulfillment of the Last Days Babylon entity, largely through the work of DR. STEVEN ANDERSON. He is a conservative Baptist pastor and theologian who does yeoman’s work on constructing a Biblical Rationale on why the United States of America is almost undeniably the Babylon the Great described in the Book of Revelation, Chapters 17-18.

Tragically however, he is a member of the Far Right who wages war against the Political Left instead of the rise of the Christian Nationalist Reich. Just as he was taught, I must presume, at Dallas Theological Seminary where he earned his Ph.D. degree. This dark vein of Doctrinal Heresy is everywhere beloved, infecting virtually all of White Christian institutions, against which we do daily Spiritual Battle.

Thus do I turn to a better reasoned Biblical scholar writing under the name of – wait for it – “TRIGGER” (Th.M. and M.A. in Theology, Duke and Fuller, respectively), Pseudonymity being a requisite of the New America we see bursting forth everywhere. His article I reviewed once before is titled, “Is America a ‘New Israel’ or a ‘New Babylon:’? Knowing the Difference Makes All of the Difference” (Sites Duke, January 16, 2017; edited

• INTRODUCTION. “As a practicing Christian, there are few seasons in America more dangerous for the life and witness of the Church than a Presidential Election Cycle.  Every four years latent disagreements turn into a Religious Civil War with Christian sisters and brothers turning against one another.  Many line up in Camp Republican, while others march to Camp Democrat.  Religious Conservatives speak and act as though God is on their side.  And though Liberals may not be crass enough to say the same thing back, but what they say and do suggests they are thinking it.  In all of this, both sides make missteps in the way they engage with each other and the broader society in governmental politics.”

• ERRATUM. “While I could offer myriad critiques of the ways Christians politick in America, perhaps one of the most significant mistakes made is the most subtle: Using the Wrong Scriptural Metaphor to understand the relationship between the Church and the United States.  Bluntly speaking, too many Christians either tacitly or explicitly assume that the U.S. is like a ‘New Israel,’ a Christian Nation, when in reality the better metaphor is ‘America as Babylon.’  Operating in the wrong metaphor frustrates Christian expectations and hopes for the land they live in and also leads to us at times harming our neighbors who have different beliefs, values, and perspectives from our own.  Of course, seeing this land as a place for a Christian Country is as old as the early European settlers.”

• MYTHOLOGY. “The view of America having a ‘Special Destiny’ before God can be seen in the earliest days of the English Puritan Colonies on the East Coast.  In 1630, the first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop, famously described their new endeavor in a sermon he wrote on the ship Arbella while heading to the New World.  He referenced a phrase from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, saying, ‘For we must consider that we shall be as a citty upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.’  Winthrop immediately went on to describe the wager before the New Colony explicitly in the Covenantal terms applied to Israel in the Old Testament in Deuteronomy 30: ‘If you as a people are faithful to God’s Commands in Scripture, as a people you will prosper; if you are disobedient as a people, I (God) declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess’ (Winthrop intentionally Re-words the end of this Scriptural quote, taking out the Jordan River verbiage replacing it with, ‘the good land whither we pass over this vast sea to possessit’).” DK: ‘Even Winthrop lied!’

• IMPLICATIONS. “This sense of America having an Israel-like calling from and relationship with the Judeo-Christian God is something that has held, going into the Creation of the United States and beyond.  It is not uncommon for Evangelical Christian leaders to speak of America as a “Christian Nation” and to desire that the leaders they vote for reflect their particular values and social agendas; the interests here are not just in how various people’s churches exist, live, and function in society, but whether Christians values, perspectives, and interested get to remain those of the State. Fearing the growing Secularization of U.S. Society, such Christians not only want to ‘Make America Great Again,’ but to lead it back in line with God’s call to be a faithful society.  In election years, this means finding and choosing leaders that will reflect and assert their social moral values as particularly understood in Christian Tradition.”

• FOUNDING. “There is just one problem with the Model of the United States as a New Israel or as a Christian Nation: ‘America’s Founding Documents make such a Model unintelligible.’ Plainly Stated: Nowhere in the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution does it state the purpose and call of the United States of America as being to recognize and worship Jesus Christ as Lord of the Universe and as the Second Person of the Trinity.  Nor do these Documents reference that the Cause of this New Government is to proclaim and embody the Good News of Jesus Christ and His Kingdom on this Earth.  Given that Thomas Jefferson was a Deist who famously made his own version of the New Testament that cut out all of the miracles and supernatural elements within it, his references to a ‘Creator’ and ‘Providence,’ point more to a ‘Generic God’ than one that resembles the God of Christian Faith.  Jefferson aside, having myriad Christians involved in the Founding of the country or having a populace that was or still is largely Christian does not make the U.S. government or its interests ‘Christian.’ One can argue that Christian-influenced ethics and concerns influences the Nation as its beginning and still hold sway, but ‘Christian-influenced’ and ‘being Christian’ are not the same thing.  ‘The United States is something else.’”

• CIVILITY. “Such a Model is not a call for Christians to withdraw from political or social engagement in America.  In a Pluralistic Society such as ours, it is simply the recognition that America invites us to the political table, but that table is not ours or something that we should try to use to coerce others to worship our God.  It is a Secular Table that invites us and many others to it.  And as long as we are allowed at that Table and are not asked or expected to violate what God calls us to as a people, then we should be there with everyone else. Perhaps one of the better Scriptural Paradigms for this is the Book of Daniel.  In it, the Prophet Daniel and Shadrach, Mishach, and Abednego, all were Judahites that had been forced to go to Babylon. The head of the Babylonian King Nebechadnezzar’s palace selected them to be educated and in order to serve in the Pagan king’s court (1.3-7).  Though they were not in a country of their own that they controlled, they did get training and tried to serve the royal court to the best of their abilities.  ‘In this, they did not abandon their identities as Judahites and their worship of their God.’  When the King’s orders and decrees functionally asked them to abandon who they were for the State’s way, they did not. In several instances in the Story, Daniel and his compatriots were threatened with death for not betraying their convictions and were miraculously saved from death each time.  In all of this, they were able to serve and try to help the larger, foreign land that they were in without trying to take it over or even avoid the consequences of sticking to their convictions when those went against their host culture.  ‘To use a Christian cliché: They were able to be in Babylon without being of Babylon.’”

• KINGDOM. “Because Christians already have a King and are a part of a political body (The Church) that determines and instantiates how they should live in the world with one another as well as others, they cannot claim the United States of America with its Enlightenment values as something of ultimate importance or that it is of Jesus.  In a society like America where there are large numbers of Christians living with and among people of all kind of creeds, beliefs, and philosophies, this should ideally help mitigate some of the difficulties of not agreeing in important ways of constitutes ‘The Good Life.’  For instance, though Christians can continue to argue with each other about the legitimacy and morality of committed same-sex relationships in the Church, when The State determines that it cannot and should not exclude gay and lesbian couples from entering into the same contractual relationships that come with legal benefits and responsibilities as heterosexual couples do (i.e. a marriage license), that should not be particularly problematic for the Church … The State allowing gay marriage is the same as it is allowing marriage for heterosexual couples, which is to say in both cases it is: ‘An Act of Babylon.’”

• FUTURE. “Undoubtedly the next four years [2017-2021] in the U.S. will be full of argument and acrimony when it comes to politics.  As far as Christians go, I fear the infighting that will occur will make the Bush and Obama years look like child’s play [Jan. 6, 2021].  Perhaps one of the saddest parts about that will not be the ‘Disagreeing’ (disagreements are a normal part of community life), but the character, harshness, suspicion and cruelty of ‘How’ the Disagreeing will take place. My hope is that during this time, though, there will be voices in the Church that will both argue for Civility and remind one another that any great hope placed in a Government for bringing ultimate Change or Justice is a misplaced and idolatrous hope. I am in no way suggesting that churches should not call governments to do right or not call out wrongdoing. I am simply saying that in doing so we need to be aware of whom we are dealing with and to temper our expectations accordingly (‘Better’ is worth striving for even if ‘Perfect’ is not a possibility). Governments can do plenty of good in the world and should be asked and compelled to do so.  But they will always only be bandages–even if some are really good ones–in a world that cannot help but continually cut itself. Any ‘Ultimate

Healing’ will only come from Somewhere/Someone else and that healing and its Proclamation are the Church’s first obligation to embody and proclaim.  In the case of America, Christians will only do this well when they acknowledge and accept that they are ‘Resident Aliens’ within America, not synonymous or coterminous with it.”

DK’S TAKE. Beloved, those Christians who are fervently working to “Make America Great Again” are on a dangerous Fool’s Errand. Why? Because they are laboring and now more and more, fighting, perhaps with guns, to Make something “Great” that never existed! America was NEVER CHRISTIAN, my friends, a discovery I have only made in the last five years or so.

We Conclude with the rather Drastic Implications of these Revelations in the final section to follow.

III. LAST THOUGHTS: THE DESTRUCTION TO COME

As many of you know, I am a staunch fan of the journalism I find in The Atlantic monthly online magazine. This time is no exception. I tie this all together with a brief excerpt from the pen of TOM NICHOLS, professor emeritus of national-security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College. Just published this month, his piece is titled, appropriate to our discussion:

“THE MOMENT OF TRUTH” – with the running Drop Head, “The Reelection of Donald Trump Would Mark the End of George Washington’s Vision for the Presidency—and the United States” (November 2024 Issue; edited).

Here is his rather terrifying THESIS, though I strongly urge you to read the essay in its powerful entirety.

“Last November, during a symposium at Mount Vernon on Democracy, JOHN KELLY, the retired Marine Corps general who served as Donald Trump’s second Chief of Staff, spoke about George Washington’s historic accomplishments—his leadership and victory in the Revolutionary War, his vision of what an American President should be. And then Kelly offered a simple, three-word summary of Washington’s most important contribution to the nation he liberated.

‘He went home,’ Kelly said.

The Message was unambiguous. After leaving the White House, Kelly had described Trump as a ‘Person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about.’ At Mount Vernon, he was making a clear point: ‘People who are mad for power are a mortal threat to Democracy.’ They may hold different titles—even ‘President’—but at heart they are Tyrants, and all Tyrants share the same trait:

‘They never voluntarily cede power!’ …

Trump is the man the Founders feared might arise from a mire of Populism and Ignorance, a selfish Demagogue who would stop at nothing to gain and keep power. [George] Washington foresaw the threat to American Democracy from someone like Trump: In his Farewell Address, he worried that ‘Sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction’ would manipulate the public’s emotions and their partisan loyalties ‘to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.’”

CODA. The Subtitle of my first book, The Sixth Seal (2017), I wrote: “A Pre-Wrath Commentary on the End of History as We Know It.” Beloved, we are there, seven years later, in the Fall of the Year of our Lord, 2024. I agree with the prophetic surmise of Professor Nichols:

Should Donald John Trump Return to the Presidency, I expect the American Order and subsequently, the International Order, to be utterly destroyed in no more than seven more years. Why? Because the Scriptures are clear:

The Historic Intersect of Antichrist and Babylon the Great shall ignite the utter Destruction of America, the Nations, and the Return of Christ to Rapture His Church.

Now then beloved, now then all your Christian Pastors and Teachers and Leaders – Take that to your Prayer Closets for further instruction. I have done my best to provoke your obedience to it.

Whether by Prayer, by Politics, or by Persuasion – We RESIST ANTICHRIST, as an overt measure of our Love for THE TRUE CHRIST!

Selah.

YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/0HL-0BFJnyo