End Time City of Babylon (iii)

One of my interests has been to keep up with new technologies and inventions, and this includes the abilities of nations to build completely new cities from scratch, cities which will be marvelous to behold. They will become what we call "mega cities." In an Internet article titled "Why Hundreds Of Completely New Cities Are Being Built Around The World," by Wade Shepard (See here), by Forbes web site, we have these comments about this modern day phenomenon (emphasis mine). He begins with speaking about a totally new city recently built in China called "Songdo," and says:

"Everything about Songdo is artificial. It is a built from scratch, “city in a box” that was purchased by the South Korean government for $40 billion and erected like a pop up tent over the past 15 years. Even the ground that the city is built upon was nothing but soggy marshes leading out to the Yellow Sea hardly half a generation ago."

Rather than overspending on rebuilding old cities, many nations see it more economical to build entirely new cities which incorporates modern technology into every aspect of the city's infrastructure. Like Jesus said about repairing old clothes, so the same with repairing old cities. 

"No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse. Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.” (Matt. 9: 16-17 nkjv)

Investing too much money on old cities cost far more than building new cities and often the money spent on the old cities only makes the cities look worse, like new pieces of cloth on old garments, etc.

Shepherd says further:

"In this era of compulsive new city building, Songdo has oddly become a new normal...Literally, hundreds of entirely new cities have been sprouting up across Asia and Africa since the early 2000s...have dumped billions of dollars into developing new cities from the ground up."

We could write several chapters on this phenomenon but that would be getting sidetracked too much. Needless to say, the new world city of Babylon will not only be a city built by the wealth and know how of a single nation, but will be a city built by the wealth and expertise of all the nations. 

Seiss continues:

"The city here described is pre-eminently, if not exclusively, a commercial city, — a great commercial city, — a mart of nations. There is nothing military, nothing ecclesiastical, nothing educational, alluded to in the account; everything is commercial, or merged into the one idea of exchange, trade, and what relates to mercantile aims and accumulations. Ships, merchants, commodities, are the main subjects of the description. And when this city falls, it is “the merchants of the earth” that “mourn and weep over her,” and with them such as are most concerned with commerce, — “every ship-master, and everyone who goeth by sea, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea,” for “all who had ships in the sea were made rich from her costliness.” The lamentation is of the same character as that over the fall of Tyre (Ezekiel 26:15-18), and we know that Tyre was the great mercantile metropolis of its time; therefore this city must also be a corresponding commercial center. It cannot, therefore, be Rome, for Rome never was a great center of commerce. In all the Bible we never read of “a ship of Rome,” or of one sailing from or to Rome. It cannot be Paris for similar reasons. It might be London, New York, or San Francisco, but there is nothing whatever in the account to fix the picture on either of them, whilst none of them could become so independent of all government but its own, as indicated in this case. The land of Shinar is named as the locality in the old prophets, and the particular city of that land, in its own proper name, is given by John as the subject of what he describes. And such is the location of that city politically, geographically, and in all the qualities of accessibility, commercial facilities, remoteness from interferences of Church or state, and yet centralness with regard to the general trade of the whole world, as to point it out above any other known as the elect spot for just what is predicted of this great city."

Of course, as we have said before, where the rich and mighty assemble to conduct business is also the place where they will meet to have fun. So, not only will end time Babylon be a commercial city, but will be a city where people live and where there are all kinds of pleasures, much like Las Vegas. In the coming new Babylon there will be the largest and most modern airport and other transportation avenues. It will also no doubt have no power lines as Tesla's idea of wireless electricity is utilized (as it now is already in some places). 

Seiss continues:

"Even apart from the direct Scriptural prophecies and implications on the subject, the prospect is as they represent. The whole world is rapidly developing a system of things which, in the ordinary working of human affairs, must inevitably result in something of the kind. In what, indeed, does the mightiest and furthest reaching power on earth now already center? A power which looms up in all lands, far above all individual or combined powers of Church, or state, or caste, or creed? What is it that today monopolizes nearly all legislation, dictates international treaties, governs the conferences of kings for the regulation of the balance of power, builds railways, cuts ship-canals, sends forth steamer-lines to the ends of the earth, unwinds electric wires across continents, under the seas, and around the world, employs thousands of engineers, subsidizes the press, tells the state of the markets of the world yesterday that everyone may know how to move to-day, and has her living organizations in every land and city, interlinked with each other, and coming daily into closer and closer combination, so that no great government under the sun can any longer move or act against her will, or without her concurrence and consent? Think for a moment, for there is such a power; a power that is everywhere clamoring for a common code, a common currency, common weights and measures; and which is not likely to be silenced or to stop till it has secured a common center on its own independent basis, whence to dictate to all countries and to exercise its own peculiar rule on all the kings and nations of the earth. That power is COMMERCE; the power of the ephah and the talent — the power borne by the winged women, the one with her hand on the sea and the other with her hand on the land, — the power which even in its present dismemberment is mightier than any pope, any throne, any government, or any other one human power on the face of the globe. Let it go on as it has been going, and will go, in spite of everything that earth can interpose to hinder, dissolving every tie of nationality, every bond of family or kindred, every principle of right and religion which it cannot bend and render subservient to its own ends and interests; and the time must come when it will settle itself down somewhere on its own independent base, and where Judaism and Heathenism, Romanism and Protestantism, Mohammedanism and Boodhism, and every distinction of nationality, — English, German, French, Italian, Greek, Turk, Hindoo, Arab, Chinee, Japanee, or what not, — shall be sunk in one great universal fellowship and kingdom of commerce."

It is amazing that Seiss could have said this in the late 19th century. It is much easier to see these things now in the 21st century. "Globalism" and the interdependency of nations economically was not then as great as it is today. Even today there is so much agitation over tariffs and trade wars. Not only that, but the United Nations was not even in existence in Seiss' time.

Seiss continues:

"And when it once comes to that, as there is every prospect that it will, for Providence in judgment for the greed and covetousness of men will prosper it, filling the wings of the women with the winds of heaven, where on earth is the spot so suited to the purpose as that where the first city this side the flood was built? There is the great navigable river, emptying out into the open sea, whose waters lave every country and island most filled with the treasures of the far East. From thence there are almost level avenues for railway lines to Egypt, Smyrna, and Constantinople, connecting with Vienna, Paris, and London, for some of which the Turkish Sultan, it is said, has granted Firman, and which Western Europe in its own defense will presently be compelled to construct. There could all the great mercantile combinations unite in one common center, with no other power on earth to interfere with them. All the considerations which bear on the question speak for old Babylon."

Again, today's context makes what Seiss here says even more evident. There is more progress towards having a uniform system of weights and measures, supply chains, trade routes, etc. 

Seiss continues:

"And with a world-wide commercial organization thus established on its own independent base, with the great mercantile houses of England and her colonies, of the Americas, of the other countries lining the Mediterranean, of the maritime and monetary centers everywhere, represented in corresponding houses there; with the ships, and passengers in ships, congregating in and about the Euphrates as the central exchange of the world; and with the gold-kings, money-lords, and merchant princes of the earth, thus combined without regard to creeds or nationalities in the one great interest of regulating and managing the commerce of the globe, it is easy to see how every feature in the Apocalyptic picture of Babylon would be filled out. Her merchants would thus be the great men of the earth. Her chief purchases would necessarily be as here described:

(1) the most precious and valuable metals; 

(2) the costliest articles of clothing, ornaments, and display; 

(3) the most rare and sumptuous of furniture and materials for it; 

(4) precious aromatics, spices, and ointments; 

(5) the finest of eatables; 

(6) the most luxurious of equipages, chariots, and horses; and 

(7) slaves and attendants necessary to the maintenance of the style and grandeur going along with such wealth, consequence, and power."

We are living in the day when Babylon will be built as the most magnificent and luxurious commercial city and center will be built. It is one of the things that must occur before Christ returns. 

Seiss continues:

"The city would thus literally be “clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stone, and pearl,” creating a market for the skill and most excellent products of the whole world, enriching artisans, ship-masters, ship-owners, ship-senders, and all the traders in these things in all nations. Kings of the earth would thus naturally find it their interest and their delight to be on good terms and friendliest intimacies with a power so much wider and greater than their own. Governments would have to throw their influence in its favor, legislate out of the way what it wishes away, direct their policies according to its desires, and make war and conclude peace as it dictates, as is even now already largely the case, for commerce is the law-maker of the world. The purse-strings of the nations would thus be in the hands of a universal independent power, whose ban would be worse than the Pope’s edicts of excommunication in the Middle Ages; and to make war with it would be to make war against the allied world. All the kings of the earth would thus necessarily become participant in everything belonging to the system, the very organization of which is the utter negation of all distinctive creeds, and the complete abrogation of all religious and moral laws which stand in the way of its purposes."

Seiss said these things seemingly as a prophet. He said it long before globalism came about in our time. He said it in a time when the technology and other advances in science were in their infancy. In fact, no great city of Babylon could have been built in his day as the knowledge and means for doing so did not then exist.

Seiss continues:

"And thus also the old harlotry would necessarily be the chief spirit of the whole thing. Zealous and earnest worship there would needs be, but a worship concentrated upon the ephah and the talent; a worship which makes temples of banks, and warehouses, and exchanges, and pleasure parks; a worship not of the sun, or moon, or stars, or emperors, or popes, but of pounds, and francs, and piastres, and dollars; the worship of greed, and epicurean luxury; the worship of Mammon perfected, and overriding and supplanting all other devotions; the perpetuation and crown of the great moral defilement of the ages, only taking to the souls’ embrace and into the place of God the meaner object which the divine word stigmatizes as “filthy lucre.” Covetousness is idolatry, and a form of it which is the root of all evil; and here will be covetousness, deep-wrapped in the embracing arms of its god, and dazing and defiling the world with the glory and grandeur of its abominations."

Yes, "covetousness is idolatry" as Paul said. (Col. 3: 5) Jesus taught that Mammon was the "money god." (Matt. 6: 24; Luke 6: 13) Paul also said that "money is the root of all evil" and this will be superlatively true in the world at the time of the end and Babylon will epitomize that fact. (I Tim. 6: 10) The words highlighted above in red are eloquent in their description of the idolatry of greed, avarice, and covetousness. To the seventh church addressed by Christ in the Apocalypse, Laodicea, Christ described this very condition when he said:

"Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked— I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see." (Rev. 3: 17-18 nkjv)

We are, as many bible teachers have affirmed, in the "Laodicean church age." 

Seiss continues:

"Such would Babylon be under the suppositions to which I have alluded, and such is the Great Babylon of these chapters in its final outcome. Is it not reasonable, therefore, to believe that this is the way in which this prophetic description is to be realized?"

I certainly believe so. 

Seiss continues:

"Besides, it would be a strange thing if Babylon were to be the only exception to the general revival and renewal which is to come to the long desolations of the East in general."

Again, Seiss seems a prophet. But, in reality, he rather had foresight of unfulfilled prophecies.

Seiss continues:

"I conclude, then, that such a great commercial city, different from all that now exist, will yet be, and that it will be old Babylon rebuilt. When the New Jerusalem, the Lamb’s Wife, comes down out of heaven from God, there is every intimation that it will be stationed over the old Jerusalem. And when the wisdom, progress, and harlotries of this world come to their final culmination and embodiment in Great Babylon, there is corresponding reason to believe that it will be centralized upon the very spot where it first started, and meet its ultimate doom in the selfsame locality in which it was born."

Amen.