[audio: https://conspiracyclothes.com/nowheretorun/audio/twtrtb2.mp3]
I talk about some more scriptural evidence for the theory and answer some emails from listeners about it.
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24 thoughts on “NTR – More Thoughts on the Woman that Rides the Beast”
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Fantastic work in the last two podcasts. I have been reading a lot in the last month about the harlot and the beasts from various “alternative” bible prophecy sources. They had all contributed greatly in part, but I was still not satisfied with the conclusions of who the harlot was. It is easy to run with Rome(Catholic church), but just as easily disqualified. Economically hard to find any other city than NYC, but cannot be supported at all with sound scripture. I was eager to hear part 1 but not completely persuaded with your presentation of Jerusalem. After hearing part 2 and looking up the high priestly garments of purple and scarlet, and other points you made, I’m now convinced that your presentation makes the best logical, biblical sense without any stretching and straining. Thanks for your hard work. These last 6 months seem to have shown great progress in a greater revelation of what has been hidden in plain sight since Hal Lindsey got everyone stirred up in the 70’s. Thanks. Hope to meet you sometime soon as I am local to Nashville.
Great work Chris! I appreciate you pointing to the fact that these prophecies are yet future. I would however not discount the possibility of the Roman Catholic Church being moved from Rome to Jerusalem and having a role to play. The ruling over the kings of the earth I do see as yet future! Again thank you for your hard work and study time.
Well, I must say I am now a little more confused by your response… You seemed to be suggesting that I was allegorizing or “spiritualizing” scripture simply because I mentioned that if Babylon were Jerusalem, then it would probably have to become (at some point) the economic center of a global economy….
I guess I just don’t see where I am “spiritualizing” any of the following verses in ch. 18, but instead I’m actually just taking them at their plain face value…
“The kings of the earth committed adultery with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries.”(vs. 3)
“Give her as much torment and grief as the glory and luxury she gave herself.” (vs. 7)
“The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no one buys their cargoes anymore….” (vs. 11)
“All your luxury and splendor have vanished, never to be recovered. The merchants who sold these things and gained their wealth from her will stand far off, terrified at her torment.” (vs. 14, 15)
“In one hour such great wealth has been brought to ruin!” (vs. 17)
” “‘Woe! Woe to you, great city, where all who had ships on the sea became rich through her wealth!” (vs. 18)
I don’t know, it almost seems like you got so excited about the parallels in your “word search” between the items listed in verses 12-13, and the items used in the temple, that somehow you want to make that THE solitary, definitive meaning behind all of chapters 17 and 18… While I agree there are probably some meaningful connections to be made there, we simply cannot ignore the overwhelming descriptions attributed to “Babylon the Great” as an economic powerhouse that lives in incredible luxury… Despite all the parallels with items used in temple worship, we must admit that the “merchants of the earth” are not going to grow rich simply by providing the things used in the temple. (How much incense do you think they would need!?) Also, when it lists “horses and carriages; and bodies and souls of men”, this would seem to include things that are beyond what is used in the temple, would you agree?
If we are being completely literal, and not “spiritualizing”, then how else are we supposed to understand where it says, “The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no one buys their cargoes any more”..? To me, “no one” means NO ONE…
But beyond all this, I also don’t quite understand why overall you seem to be pushing back against anyone who would make a connection between the “great city” and any sort of broader system… This, again, is not necessarily a case of people “allegorizing”, but is simply an acknowledgement of basic facts. Cities are not merely comprised of buildings, walls, streets and people. They are systems of cooperation, whereby the inhabitants agree on a singular system of trade (money), system of rule (government), and system of supply (infrastructure). Cities, by enlarge, are not “self-existent”, in that they rely on a wider swath of land or sea (or both) to provide food, water and materials. They cannot be regarded apart from their function as hubs of trade and commerce. Such a hub is exactly what I see being described in Rev. 17 & 18, and so whatever city is being talked about (and I agree that there is much evidence to suggest it is they physical location of Jerusalem), we MUST admit that it also describing some sort of a broader system as well…
D,
Its obviously an economic powerhouse! But it is an economic powerhouse because the world will believe that God now sits in the temple and is incarnate on the earth, and all the stuff associated with that madness. it will be a time of unequaled idolatry and prosperity.
To say we must have already seen this particular powerhouse in action, is not taking it at face value, It is obvioulsy associated with the Antichrist’s kingdom. especially in the context of the book of revelation where almost everything in it is a future event.
Chris,
Ok! Then I guess we are essentially describing the same thing in the end, but somehow we were talking past each other for a little bit…
I’m not sure though why you’d think that I was saying that we have already seen this “powerhouse in action”… I wasn’t trying to say that, and if I miscommunicated then I apologize…
I wouldn’t be so quick to mock the partial preterist position Chris, there are some very respected bible teachers like R.C Sproul, Hank Hanegraaff and Steve Gregg who hold to variations of it. I was hoping you had studied it more and could give some detailed feedback, but your responses confirm the fact that, in your own words, you haven’t even “given it the time of day”. The charges of spiritualising verses away “just because you don’t like it’s futurist implications”, making a text “say whatever you want it to say”, and not taking verses consistently (as the futurist is supposed to) are shallow objections indeed.
In any case, are you sure the futurist position is as consistent as you make out? On what grammatical basis do we say that Jesus’ “this generation” in Matt 24 is any different than Jesus’ “this generation” of Matt 23, or indeed in the rest of Matthew? On what basis are we justified in inserting hidden gaps of thousands of years into numerous Old Testament prophecies (most notably in the book of Daniel), gaps that aren’t even hinted at in the text itself, gaps that weren’t “discovered” by the Church until Darby came along in the 1800s? Why do futurists feel they can re-interpret some of the imagery in Revelation and not the rest, yet all the while retaining the honorific distinction of somehow remaining literal? (Think of Revelation’s locusts supposedly being Apache attack helicopters, or the 200 million horsemen being a literal 200 million man army from China, but not real horsemen riding real horses)
Why do we presume, as modern 21st century Western readers, that flamboyant prophetic imagery and deliberately cryptic apocalyptic symbolism should be taken literally in the first place? The more I study how NT writers, the early church, and even Jesus himself applied prophecy, frankly the more sure I am we’ve taken a wrong turning somewhere. I suppose the advantage of futurism is that no matter how strange the symbolism, it can always be thrown into the future and never disproven.
With regard to the woman that rides the beast, I still lean towards the preterist view that I suggested before, that the beast is Rome and that Israel, as typified by Jerusalem, is the harlot employing it for her own ends – the persecution of the saints. Chris has made the case for Jerusalem, while the identification of the beast as being seven hills/seven kings would have clearly been understood by 1st century Christians as describing the pagan Roman system ruling them. I just don’t see any reason to jump to the future on this one – the references to “all the world” or “all the kings of the earth” seem to be standard hyperbole used frequently in the bible, while the imagery of self-sufficient wealth and haughty abundance is lifted straight from Ezekiel’s description of Tyre’s downfall. Lets not forgot that Israel wasn’t exactly destitute among the nations – she sat on the trade corridor between Europe, Africa and Asia, profiting greatly from the merchants that passed through her. Even Josephus describes the wealth that came from sea merchants flowing into Jerusalem before it’s fall, when it was quite literally totally destroyed as this prophecy predicts.
And that’s not to mention the many time indicators that events are “about to take place”, “coming quickly”, “at hand”, “soon”, “at the door”, “this generation” etc, which seem to necessitate historic fulfilment soon after the prophecies were made. Ironic how it’s actually the futurist who ends up allegorising/minimising these time references – goes to show how false the supposed “literal vs allegorical” dichotomy is.
Scotty…
So, has this happened yet? “For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again. If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.“?
Or this? “At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.“?
When Rome destroyed the temple in 70 A.D., did it threaten the existence of all human life on the planet? Did Jesus come down? Did the nations of the earth mourn? Did the angels already gather the elect…???
Maybe the historians just forgot to include those bits…
You tell me D. The problem we have is that both Jesus and the NT writers clearly thought something hugely significant would happen within their lifetimes:
“You shall not finish going through the cities of Israel, until the Son of Man comes.” – (Matt. 10:23)
“And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Truly I tell you, all this will come on this generation.” – (Matt 23:35-36; said only a few verses before Matt 24)
“Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” – (Matt 24:34; said after your two quotes, D)
“These are the days of vengeance, in order that all things which are written may be fulfilled.” – (Lk. 21:22)
“From now on, you [Caiaphas, the chief priests, the scribes, the elders, the whole Sanhedrin] shall be seeing the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.” – (Matt. 26:64; Mk. 14:62; Lk. 22:69)
“Daughters of Jerusalem, stop weeping for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.’ Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.'” – (Lk. 23:28-30; Compare Rev. 6:14-17)
And that’s just for starters; many, many more examples could be given. How do you get around so many clear statements by Jesus indicating the timing of his “coming”, whatever that even means? Pull a sleight of hand and unnaturally make “generation” mean “race”? Try to throw “this generation” into the far flung future, totally disconnected from what his disciples were asking about in the Olivet discourse (“when shall these things (temple being torn down/end of the age) be?”)? Invoke the ever-handy though usually arbitrary dual-fulfilment principle? Even so, how do you get away from the sheer emphaticness of Matt 24:34-35?
What’s more, when Luke 21 is read side-by-side with Matt 24, it sounds all the more like 70AD is in view. Luke seems to interpret some difficult Hebrew idioms for his Gentile readers and so ends up sounding least end-of-the-worldy. We might have to shift our understanding of what’s meant in Matthew – i.e, what is the “end of the age”? The end of the world, or the end of God’s dealings exclusively with Israel, shifting from the Old covenant to the New? Is it tribes of the Earth mourning, or tribes of the land (Israel)? (The Greek word “ge” can mean either) Is it angels gathering the elect from all the world, or human messengers (preaching the gospel to the world, still ongoing today)? (The Greek word “angelos” simply means “messengers” – supernatural angels are inferred from context).
Remember that Matthew is by far the most thoroughly Jewish of the gospels, steeped in OT imagery, idioms and allusions. We should be very careful in how we understand it.
As I’ve said to Chris privately, I’m not dogmatic on any eschatalogical position, and I still have huge questions myself, but it is a very serious issue that needs hard and honest thought. At stake is the very integrity of Jesus Himself. If you’re willing to grant a major portion of the Olivet Discourse, and by extension Revelation, happened in 70AD, then that makes you a partial preterist…which is roughly where I am currently.
Hi guys.
I am sorry, I am not into all of this as much as you are.. Still, a couple of month ago, I came across this lad here (see youtube link).. We is talking about revelation 17, too. Seems to be quite knowledgable. Can anybody maybe comment on that. He does not seem to share the same opinion; though, like Chris, he’s coming right out of the “Truth Movement”.. This is quite confusing for me
Sorry for spaming.. If there is no interest, just ignore the post.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Christinjapan#p/u/2/22Suh-MQ1zk
Hey Kevin. I too came across this Youtuber about a year ago. At the time I was a dispensational futurist, so a lot of what he suggested I just dismissed out of hand. Looking back now after having researched these issues some more, I think he is right in some points but goes too far in others.
The harlot certainly seems to be Jerusalem as has already been argued for here. Whether it’s historic or yet future will depend on your eschatalogical view – leaning towards partial-preterism myself, I’d say it’s historic Israel in the first century.
The beast he doesn’t really touch on other than to say it’s Satan. Certainly it’s Satanically empowered, but as I’ve already suggested here, I think first century Caesar/Rome is in view. The seven hills being Rome, the seven kings the emperors from Julius Caesar to Galba, with Nero being the sixth that “now is”, while the ten horns are possibly the ten senatorial governors that oversaw the ten provinces of the Roman Empire under Caesar. Much more could be said for this view, but I’m already rambling. 😛
Personally I think he reads too much into the “hour” linkage. Just because there’s scriptural precedent for the use of a certain word or phrase, it doesn’t mean they’re necessarily connected. An hour is just a short amount of time, whether it’s “the hour of darkness” or ten kings who reign for “one hour”. In this case I don’t think they’re linked – to say the ten horns are spiritual rulers seems a little too abstract…what’s the point in mentioning ten specifically if we can’t identify them in the real world? Besides which, Jesus overcoming them is spoken of in the future tense from the time of John’s writing. One partial preterist interpretation is that these ten horns did receive power during the Roman civil war, when the centralised power of Caesar was missing (after Nero’s suicide and just before Jerusalem’s destruction).
The mighty angel in Rev 18 being the devil also seems kind of spurious, at least to me. This angel is coming out of heaven, with great authority, pronouncing God’s message of destruction on Babylon. Doesn’t seem like a job for the devil. At other times in Revelation the devil is clearly identified as the dragon, or the beast, so a huge shift in symbolism here seems unlikely. This angel doesn’t seem to play a big part either – he’s quickly followed by “another voice from heaven” in vs 4, and “a mighty angel” in vs 21, never to be seen again.
I don’t tend to buy the whole conspiracy thing either. Revelation is a very difficult book to understand on any eschatalogical scheme; I don’t think conspiracies need to be invoked to explain people’s confusion over it. That said, sensational interpretations DO tend to be more popular than others, of that there can be little doubt.
I admire him for thinking for himself though, especially when it cuts against popular thought. That’s my 2 cents anyway. Hope that helps dude.
The beast is the nations of the world. the harlot is the empire of false religon. God(Yaweh or Jehovah) will put it in the nations heart to turn on the harlot, which u depicted. For more details on this e-mail me back, also e-mail me for the biblical backing on this and for questions. I will gladly explain them.
Sorry guys I didn’t leave my e-mail >.<. Anyways not trying to spam this is pertaining to this thread. So I will be specific and link this page to you, explaining more in detail of what I mean.
http://www.watchtower.org/e/kn37/article_01.htm
I haven’t read all the comments, but what about Zechariah 14?
“8 On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea [3] and half of them to the western sea. It shall continue in summer as in winter. 9 And the Lord will be king over all the earth. On that day the Lord will be one and his name one. 10 The whole land shall be turned into a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem. But Jerusalem shall remain aloft on its site from the Gate of Benjamin to the place of the former gate, to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the king’s winepresses. 11 And it shall be inhabited, for there shall never again be a decree of utter destruction. [5] Jerusalem shall dwell in security. 12 And this shall be the plague with which the Lord will strike all the peoples that wage war against Jerusalem: their flesh will rot while they are still standing on their feet, their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths. 13 And on that day a great panic from the Lord shall fall on them, so that each will seize the hand of another, and the hand of the one will be raised against the hand of the other. 14 Even Judah will fight at Jerusalem. And the wealth of all the surrounding nations shall be collected, gold, silver, and garments in great abundance. 15 And a plague like this plague shall fall on the horses, the mules, the camels, the donkeys, and whatever beasts may be in those camps. 16 Then everyone who survives of all the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Booths. 17 And if any of the families of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, there will be no rain on them. 18 And if the family of Egypt does not go up and present themselves, then on them there shall be no rain; [6] there shall be the plague with which the Lord afflicts the nations that do not go up to keep the Feast of Booths. 19 This shall be the punishment to Egypt and the punishment to all the nations that do not go up to keep the Feast of Booths. 20 And on that day there shall be inscribed on the bells of the horses, “Holy to the Lord.” And the pots in the house of the Lord shall be as the bowls before the altar. 21 And every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holy to the Lord of hosts, so that all who sacrifice may come and take of them and boil the meat of the sacrifice in them. And there shall no longer be a trader in the house of the Lord of hosts on that day.”
According to Zechariah, Jerusalem will be inhabited again. In the Millennium, the nations must go there to worship the King. Since Revelation 18 and 19 suggest that this place will remain desolate, as well as the prophecy against Babylon in Isaiah 13 (which has much of the same language and takes place during the Day of the Lord) then this place cannot be Jerusalem. Just because Antichrist goes into the temple and declares himself to be God, does not mean this will be the center of reign. That’s a big assumption not based on the text. We must remember the midrashic hermeneutic principle, with the types of Antichrist seen as a pattern leading up to ultimate fulfillment. Antiochus Epiphanes did not reign from Jerusalem. Also, remember that Rome burned under Nero (another type of Antichrist) and this is reminiscent of Revelation 17:16.
Derek, Zechariahs main concern in his prophecy is Jerusalem indeed! His book was in part to encourage people to continue its rebuilding, and to let them know that it had a glorius future, and it does. But I believe what is in view in here is the “New Jerusalem”
Compare this passage about new Jerusalem:
with Zecheriah:
.
The issue people have trouble with is solved if you have a bible that shows you where the original paragraphs begin and end. That way you can see when there is a shift from one subject to another. For example it is abundantly clear that the first part of Zech 14 is speaking of the future Day of The Lord, spoken of in Revelation. Examples include:
But at some point he jumps to a future Jerusalem, as evidenced by the earlier quote about the river and there not being day or night.
Im sure you would agree, and therefore the millineal Jerusalem is not in view here, in fact Zecheriah skips that time period altogether, and it makes sense that he does if his puropse is to tell of the future of the city.
But the one problem I had with this is what follows:
Now if this was chronological then I am totally wrong, but if you look at this in context and ask yourself who are “all the people that have fought against Jerusalem” you will find that he is referencing now the earlier part of this prophecy:
Which is clearly premillinal. Again it is obvious if you have a NKJV or NASB which shows where the orginal paragraphs are, you will see that there is a sharp change between verse 11 and verse 12…
verse 11 ends with peace forever, verse 12 is back in the day of the lord (the time of jacobs trouble)
Thanks for responding Chris. I can certainly follow the logic there, but doesn’t Zech 14:16-21, which is clearly Millennial, pose problems here?
I dont think so. It seems to be bringing more clarity on the earlier issue about the Day of the Lord at that point. This pattern is seen in Daniel 7 , Matthew 24, and Revelation, where an overview is first given and then it goes back to fill in some of the details and give specifics.
I’m speaking specifically about the warning of no rain for those who do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the Lord.
Oh I would say its not clearly pre-millennial. In fact most scholars of all kinds agree that there will be sacrifices made in the millennium, as per Ezekiel 40-48, but only that they would be in memorial to Christ in a sense, not as the OT sacrifices which were looking forward to Christ. Sounds weird I know, but as I said it is still widely understood.
So if its happening in the millennium, I dont see why it shouldn’t happen in the New Jerusalem.
Would love to chat with ya on this and the Pre-Wrath Rapture sometime. You have really got me flippin’ through the Scriptures. 🙂
Scotty – (sorry this is so late, but here ya go…)
What’s the difference between “partial preterist” and someone who believes in “dual fulfillment”? Seems like more or less a semantic difference in the end…
And in a weird way, it makes sense that Jesus’s response to questions about the “End of the Age” would have a dualistic answer, because in that sense he would be more or less describing the the end of both “ages”, first, the age of God working primarily through Israel, and then ultimately the “church age” coming to it’s conclusion… If that is so, then the events of 70 A.D. would effectively serve as a “type and shadow” of the more larger scale events that will happen when the Anti-Christ enthrones himself over the entire world, and seeks to destroy the true temple of God, which is us, the believers in Jesus, who are the all the “temple” of the Holy Spirit…
I will admit I have wrestled over what the term “this generation” must mean in all of this. Even though you seem to think that the word “generation” must mean the people living in that particular time period, I have to admit I think there is something to be considered in possibly looking at it as meaning “lineage”, or something similar… Obviously, Jesus did not return in time for Caiaphas and the priests to see Him sitting on the clouds in their temporal life times, so in the end, it definitely poses some difficult questions…
And finally, while I agree that when the disciples approached Jesus before the Olivet discourse and we’re asking him about the temple being torn down and Jesus’ return, they most likely thinking solely in temporal, immidiate terms, the notion that Jesus answered their questions “dualistically” would make sense, if we acknowledge that perhaps they were really asking questions that were “dualistic” in nature, without even realizing it themselves… Although they clearly seemed to assume they were asking about things that were immidiate in their fulfillment, they inadvertantly were touching upon things that encompassed a much broader scope. So, Jesus answers both, but leaves a seeming amount of ambiguity in all of it…
This really frustrated me for a number of years, but now I have more peace about, because in the end I don’t really worry about trying to figure out things like what the “abomination of desolation” is ahead of time. I have confidence that the amount of information God has given us will be totally sufficient so that when it appears, we will recognize it…
Jesus’ answer to the temple question is found in Luke 21, but not in Matthew 24. The key is “now when you see…” In Matthew 24, it’s the abomination of desolation, which hasn’t happened in exact fulfillment. In Luke 21, it’s “Jerusalem surrounded by armies,” which did happen and the Christians got out because of this teaching. Biblical prophecy is a pattern. The answer is partial patterned fulfillment with an ultimate futuristic fulfillment. I can understand why some believe these things happened in the past, because as a pattern, some of those things did. But, “not a single word of God falls to the ground.” – A.W. Pink. If every single detail was not fulfilled, then there remains an ultimate fulfillment. Those that maintain only a historical hermeneutic will not see the entire picture.
If I’m not to late…
what’s the deal with Revelations 16:15 where it seems in the middle of bowl judgments God indicates he’s going to be coming as a thief in the night. This is clearly after God’s wrath has started. It certainly doesn’t sound like the second coming since that’s not exactly going to be a secret since there are plenty of signs and wonders going on with increasing intensity. Curious about your perspective Chris. Thanks – Greg
Hi Mr White..
Is here an electronic copy of this available?..