9-7-23 Building Back Babel

Building Back Babel - Pete Garcia and Lee Brainard - https://www.rev310.net/post/building-back-babel I'm pretty sure there are some Dave Ramsey fans in my reader base, but I've got to admit, I am not a fan. So if you're all about the baby steps, this might not be your kind of article. However, I will say that fiscal wisdom is a biblical principle, however, it's not the only biblical principle. We need to be good stewards of the things God has given us, but I think many people start off wanting to do the right thing but then get caught up in the façade that what they're building here now is going to last. Speaking of biblical principles, is building wealth here on earth really what Christ called us to do? “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. Matthew 6:19-20 So why am I soured on old Dave you ask? Well, I can tell you, it's not personal. Neither is it his financial advice, which is actually quite good. Rather, it is his willfully ignorant attitude about the real threats we face as a nation, and the late prophetic season we happen to find ourselves. In my opinion, if you are still following any kind of long-term financial planning in the year 2022, it is a bit like polishing the door knobs on the Titanic after it already hit the iceberg. Yes, we don't know the day or hour of the Rapture, but with skyrocketing national debt. our fiat currency in an irreversible collapse, the insane amount of nuclear saber rattling, and the plethora of existential threats coming at us from every direction, things are not looking up for the nation. I know we are living in an increasingly complex time and sound financial guidance about being debt free is almost a necessity these days. But we literally have the fate of western civilization balancing on a knife's edge, and Dave's still acting like it's 1992. Look, I'm not bashing Dave Ramsey personally, nor his financial wizardry; I'm simply writing about the smug/dismissive attitude he has toward current events and bible prophecy. It's a general normalcy bias sentiment held by far too many pulpits across our once-great nation. It is indicative of the reality that modern, westernized, mainstream Christendom has become far too comfortable in this world and planted its roots far too deep for its own good. The House Always Wins I don't care if you're a dirt poor Christian with every credit card maxed out, or a graduate of the baby-step millionaire program, let us never forget that the earth is presently under the strategic and tactical control of our great adversary, Satan (1 John 5:19). This whole world is becoming increasingly geared toward making the Christian either compromise or be crushed underfoot altogether. There is no warm, safe, middle ground on this spiritual battlefield. No velvet-padded fences to straddle. We are at war, and if your goal is to live a soft, comfortable, trial-free life, then true, biblical Christianity is not for you. Furthermore, if you are not being attacked and afflicted by your enemy on a regular basis, you might want to stop and ask why. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Ephesians 6:11-13 I wonder what financial advice Dave Ramsey is going to give his audience when our government begins mandating/implementing stakeholder capitalism and ESG rules across the board? When you look it up, note the focus on the environment (think Climate Change) and the insistence that corporations must align their values with social norms and values (this is central to ESG). Well, what are our social values today, and can the Bible-believing, born-again Christian go along with things like abortion on demand, the LGBT and anti-nuclear family agenda, gender ideology, critical race theory, historical revisionism, and the outright contempt for the entirety of the Judeo-Christian worldview? This is but a taste of what is already in motion. Let's say that you followed all of Dave Ramsey's financial advice over the years and got out of debt, paid off your house, created a retirement nest egg in 401Ks, and even created some generational wealth to pass on to your grandchildren. Then one day, a government official notifies you that you violated the new hate speech laws because you posted Scripture on your social media. You either recant or face the full weight of the government. Do you risk everything you spent your life building, or do you kneel? What would Dave's advice be then? (See the difference between the two examples of Chick-Fil-A and the Colorado Christian Baker). If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. John 15:19 The whole 'go along to get along' mentality may have worked in the past, but the closer we draw to the end, the more brutal the wake-up is going to be for many. You cannot both love the world and love God at the same time (Matt. 6:24). We are too close to the finish line now and Satan is furiously pulling out all the stops. If you are Christian now and you think you are winning in this world, you aren't. This is because the system is rigged. It's as my good friend Tyler says, the house (Babylonian system in this case) always wins. At least for now. The Matrix However, before I go any further, let me just say what this article is, and what it isn't. Although I opened with a salvo on the 'Dave Ramsey eschatological misgivings,' this article is not about his smugness regarding Bible prophecy. He is simply a byproduct of this commercially saturated age within which we live. Neither is this a "let's bash modern western Christendom" obloquy either as if it was our fault for when and where we were born. Nevertheless, our wealth has clouded this generation's judgment and produced a Laodicean generation unlike any before it. This article isn't even really about the wily machinations of evil men, although they are a part of it. It's far more expansive and comprehensive than that. What we are addressing today is the subtle process of Luciferian acclimatization that seduces men to embrace this world. In this seduction, the normalcy bias sets in and blinds men to the reality of the nature of their plans, and of the world to come. This Luciferian agenda superimposes a worldview upon even the best of us, deceiving us into believing that this is all there is and that we should invest everything we have into this life. It does this, while simultaneously, desensitizing our spiritual nature and dimming our perspective on the nature of eternity. It's like having a digital simulation pulled over people's eyes and they are now blinded to how temporary this world really is, and that our only hope of salvation is through Jesus Christ. Building Back Babel Now the whole earth had one language and one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. Then they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth. Genesis 11:1-4 The tower of Babel is a familiar story to this audience, as many (including myself) have written often of it. For all my speculative projections over the years on this subject as to the who, what, when, where, and why, something caught my attention rather unexpectedly. Was the tower originally built solely as a projection of pride for the despot Nimrod? Was its construction, more esoteric in nature, as many have speculated to be a stargate into the heavenly realms? Or was its construction more pragmatic as to escape a potential future flood? Perhaps it was all three. Now there is no doubt as to what they were attempting to build, i.e., a massive ziggurat-type structure that reached into the heavens. Furthermore, there is not much debate as to the nature of this endeavor being something God was not pleased with (given the judgment of the dispersion). However, Scripture tells us precious little as to what the phrase let us make a name for ourselves actually meant. Does it mean they (the post-flood descendants) were all attempting to spite God collectively by building this gargantuan megalithic structure? What if it wasn't spite that drove them to construct the tower initially, but fear? The fear of being forgotten. The fear of scattering to the four winds and letting history wash away the memory of them just as thoroughly as the flood waters had their forefathers. This seems more in keeping with why they didn't scatter immediately after departing the ark to "multiply and fill the earth" as they had been instructed by God in Genesis 9. Presumably, Noah and family did what everyone else would have done in their situation upon leaving the ark. They traveled south to a more suitable region to live and most likely settled in the Khabor River Triangle (modern-day Syria). Nevertheless, it would take time to replenish their numbers. Even after a hundred years, a generous (yet realistic) birth rate of 3.2% would still only put their population under 200 people. As their elder, Noah would most likely have been their "king" with his three sons being the chief princes that ruled under him in this new world. But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. Genesis 11:5-6 As time passed (around 400 years by reasonable estimates), the number of Noah's descendants began to swell in the hundreds of thousands, and the memory of the great deluge drifted further from their collective memory. However, it's not hard to imagine that generation would want to build some kind of memorial or monument to mark them as the first civilization of this new world order. They didn't want time or history to forget them or forget what had happened. Either way, let's assume for the time being that their motivation for beginning the tower was not originally intended to spite God. However, as is the case in most human endeavors, even the most well-intentioned projects get hijacked and corrupted along the way. Thus, the Bible notes this occasion in Genesis 11, not as a quaint story to satiate our curiosity, but as a cautionary tale of what is to come. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth. Gen. 11:7-9 The Antichrist Archetype Nimrod, according to ancient testimony, led the world in rebellion against the true God. The testimony is nearly universal that Nimrod inspired and led the tower building. And the testimony is nearly universal that the world at large joined him in this endeavor. The question in my mind isn't whether this endeavor was viewed by God as a manifestation of the Nimrodian spirit (what we now know as the Babylonian spirit). That isn't up for debate. Nimrod is a type of the antichrist. And his rebellion is both the pattern and the typology for the rebellion of the last days. The question is, what percentage of the world's population joined in this effort on the same apostate page as Nimrod, and what percentage joined in this effort because they believed the positive spin that presented the tower project as something good and positive for mankind, something that had mankind's survival and blessing in mind? Nimrod and his henchmen knew the real score. But they rallied the misguided world to their cause with a plausible platform that was promoted with soundbites and altruisms. I think we see an analogy in our day. There are a handful of New World Order (NWO) elites, the deep state, and their henchmen, who know the real score. They are raging in intentional rebellion against the living God. But the world at large goes through life largely blind, taking up the messages and agendas of the last-days Babylonian religion with varying degrees of misguided altruism and ethics. For large-scale unity, there has to be some low-grade common denominator. Mutual hate, mutual fear, and mutual enemies are common instances. The cry of the last days seems to be "save the planet" and "tolerance." Both causes, at first glance, have a ring of nobility about them, and unless folks dive into the inner workings of these causes, it may escape their attention how diabolical they are. It is difficult to read between the lines and discern what the ostensible motive of the masses was in Nimrod's day. To preserve the human race? To preserve their memory? To erect a memorial? To promote unity? But we don't actually have to plumb their motive. We only have to realize that they were persuaded by the same kind of layered deception that deceives men today. It should be noted that joining the NWO bandwagon on the basis of misguided altruism doesn't remove guilt, but it does mitigate it. All who are unsaved have Satan as their father. This does not imply that they are carbon copies of him. This only implies that they have been molded by him rather than by God. Ditto for those that joined the Nimrod bandwagon. In a nutshell, Nimrod's motive was full-on evil. The movement and effort as a whole is characterized as evil. But the masses were drinking the deceitful kool-aid which recast the act of rebellion in an acceptable light. We don't know what this light is, but we know this is how Satan works from watching him work in our own day. The truth is, the Babel dispersion was a judgment, but it was also heavily laced with divine grace. It was a mixture of judgment and grace, similar to God putting Adam and Eve out of the garden. It was judgment to put them out. But this judgment was heavily lined with grace. Had they eaten the fruit of the tree of life while in their fallen state, their future would have been miserable. Likewise, the judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah was a grace or gift for the cities around them, especially the nation of Israel, which was still in the loins of Abraham. All of God's judgments come with silver linings for His redeemed. The tower of Babel is no exception. However, knowing the craftiness and wickedness of Satan, God knew how vulnerable mankind was had they remained united as one people, one culture, and one language. He knew Satan would take advantage of this unity and would quickly seek to bring the whole world under his subjugation through a man (e.g., Nimrod)...a man beholden to Satan himself. We see this playing out even in our own day. In order to do that, Satan would need three things. The right technology The requisite level of global unity and moral ambiguity The perfect crisis Mankind went nearly six thousand years moving at the speed of horse, and it's only been in the last two centuries we have seen technology skyrocket (literally) across every domain. We've also seen humanity embrace humanistic philosophies that put much daylight between man and God's word, so much so, that humanity is increasingly blinded to the truth. So what is the crisis du jour? It began as global cooling, and then the world warmed up. Then it was global warming, and the earth cooled down. The big lie then became the 'catch all' climate change, brought about by fossil fuels (oil and gas) and our "carbon footprint." Yes, carbon. The building block of all life on planet earth. The same gas we exhale in our breath. Yes, fossil fuels which our entire world economy is currently operating on. This is what globalists want to tax (carbon) and destroy (fossil fuels) to bring about a digital new world order they can control with 100% cruel efficiency. What will make you mad, is that we could have already had free, clean energy a century ago, but Satan evoked supernatural levels of greed, pride, and corruption amongst the 19th and 20th-century "robber barons" (Thomas Edison, J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, etc.) which effectively bankrupted and canceled an inventor like Nikola Tesla before this technology could be given to the masses. Interestingly, Tesla (1856-1943) lived at the same time when God was stirring the Jewish people (Zionism) to return back to their land. Conclusion Satan is the god and ruler of this world. His ambition is not the blessing of mankind but the ruin of mankind. Yes, science and technology are gifts from God. But the technology that prevails in the world is that which is most easily and profitably exploited by the few at the expense of the many. Make no mistake, the trajectory of technology in the current day is not for the blessing and freedom of mankind, but for the enslavement and destruction of mankind. In Revelation 18, we find an interesting description of the Beast kingdom's economic priorities and how it rank-orders its precious commodities from most valuable to least. “And the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her, for no one buys their merchandise any more: merchandise of 1) gold and silver, 2) precious stones and pearls, 3) fine linen and purple, 4) silk and scarlet, 5) every kind of citron wood, 6) every kind of object of ivory, 7) every kind of object of most precious wood, bronze, iron, and marble; and 8) cinnamon and incense, fragrant oil and frankincense, 9) wine and oil, 10) fine flour and wheat, 11) cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and 12) bodies and souls of men. Revelation 18:11-13 (my emphasis) Although Satan is a defeated foe in the very literal sense of the word, he is still a very dangerous foe that we must contend with in the time we have left here. The Apostle Peter wasn't just fear-mongering when he said that Satan goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). Satan really does, and he is really good at sifting believers like wheat. Even the strongest of us over the course of history have been laid low by the schemes of the devil at times. So when we look back through history and see how things have come to be, we should take note that Satan has not put all of his eggs in any single basket. From our perspective, he's already lost the war. However, for whatever reason, he still believes he has a chance, or he would have given up long ago. And in his mind, he wouldn't risk winning a few battles, only to lose the war. He's playing to win and he doesn't care who he kills or what he destroys to avoid the fate that awaits him. Given that reality, he has spread the spirit of antichrist far and wide, and everyone who is not born again is swept up in its net. Source: https://thehayride.com/2020/11/facebook-will-put-you-in-jail-for-commenting-on-the-great-reset/ Scripture gives us the big picture outline of how things would become, but much of the lesser details are simply left for the respective generation(s) to figure out. For example, "wars and rumors of war" is a pretty vague statement. But when we see all of what takes place to get to that stage (i.e., the off-chance assassination of Franz Ferdinand by an unhinged anarchist) that would ultimately trigger two world wars, and give rise to one of the most maniacal regimes in history (and the death of almost 100M people) are simply left for that generation to see unfold. Satan is busy building back the global empire he once held under Nimrod. However, we worship a God who exists outside of time and space and is not bound by it. Therefore, when God declares the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:9-10), we can trust that implicitly. So here are the global trends that the Bible states, will come to pass in the last days that every Christian (even those fully invested in this life) would do wise to heed. We see Satan building back his kingdom in these six areas: Globalization via regionalization: The world continues to embrace globalization through institutions like the United Nations, World Economic Forum, and about thirty other transnational organizations (Rev 13:7) Global currency: The world continues to march toward a single world currency most likely because the current global reserve currency (the US Dollar) collapses; (Rev 13:16-18) Global religion: The world moves toward a single world religion through the UN, the Vatican, and dozens of transnational interfaith and ecumenical organizations (Rev 13:4, 8, 15) Antisemitism: The rising global animosity towards the nation of Israel is demonic in nature, and is close to reaching a fever pitch; (Zech. 12:2-3, 14:1-2, Matt. 24:15-22, Rev. 12, 16:12-16) Apostasy: Satan is fully invested in trying to corrupt the Church. Thus, we see the state of modern Christendom apostatizing under the corrupting influence of the world and its hopeless addiction to this present darkness (Matt. 24:4, 11, 24; 2 Peter 2-3; 2 Tim. 3:1-9; Jude; Rev. 3:14-18; Rev. 13, 17) The Global leader: The popularity of the celebrity leaders and the rise of a single world leader after the Rapture of the Church. We've seen it already numerous times in the past three centuries with the likes of Napoleon, Hitler, Mao, and Obama. We are being prepped to embrace it again through the use of mass media and propaganda (Daniel 8:23-25, 9:27, 11:35-45, Rev. 6:1-2, 13) Satan very much wants to revive another man like Nimrod, and he will. Satan will blend his supernatural power into technology, to woo the masses and deceive them into again, blindly following this man to their own destruction. He is making universalism the appeal to all nations and causes, so much so, that nations are even now, attempting to unshackle themselves from their home nation-states to embrace a new global government in order to "save the planet." Meanwhile, the modern churches are asleep at the wheel with men promising them normal is coming back and to plan for the next fifty years, completely blind to the times in which they live. Yes, the world is building back, but not better, but Babel.