Sid: Joel Richardson, there’s some terms that we read about-Mystery Babylon, Great Harlot. You’ve connected the dots in a way I have not seen before. Tell me who Mystery Babylon is. Is it Rome, New York City?
Joel: Well, Mystery Babylon is probably indentifying this mysterious woman in Revelation 17 and 18. It’s really one of the greatest mysteries of Bible prophecy. Rome, New York City, the United States-these are all suggestions that have been put forward as theories. Some people say it is the summation of all the false religions systems down through history. The key to unlocking the identity of the Mystery Babylon is found in a really strange place. It’s in the last chapter of the first epistle of Peter. The clue that we find there is that Peter was actually in Rome at the time that early church history is thoroughly consistent and universal with the idea that Peter was in Rome. Writing from Rome he said, “The church that is in Babylon.” He used the word Babylon and applied it to the city of Rome. What we learn from that is when we see and understand the simple story that is laid out in Revelation 12, 13, 17 and 18, it’s a story of seven world, biblical, and historical empires that have been empires that have all carried a satanic and anti-Semitic and later an antichrist spirit. Each one of these empires have been the primary empires down through a biblical and world history that have sought to destroy the Jewish people. That story is told where this beast is sitting before the woman in the book of Revelation, and this woman is Israel. She’s about to give birth to a male child Who is the Messiah. This beast which is satan wants to devour Israel. He wants to devour the Messiah to thwart God’s plan for the ages through the Messiah. Satan’s primary tool down through the ages has been this series of world-pagan empires-these anti-Semitic empires. Babylon was the city that was the spiritual and financial capitol of ancient Babylonia. That was one of these beasts-these satanic empires of history. In the first century, when the epistle of Peter was written, the Roman Empire was the beast empire of that time. In Revelation 17 we see that Rome was the empire that was the sixth in the list of empires. The city of Rome was spiritual and financial capitol of the Roman Empire. We have this pattern which is simply to say that Mystery Babylon is the reigning spiritual and economic capitol of whichever beast empire is dominant in the earth at this time, and as I discussed in the DVD series, the beast empire of our day that follows after the pattern of all of these previous pagan empires is the Islamic Empire.
Sid: In your teaching you explain, why it can’t be a lot of the other places that people said from scripture, but now the big question is, “Where is the capitol of that empire.”
Joel: This comes across as novel to most people when they first hear it. But I think that you’ll agree that after it’s expounded, it made more sense than anything I had ever heard. The reason is, Sid, is that Revelation 17 and 18 gives us numerous criteria to identify Mystery Babylon, and of the different suggestions that you’ve mentioned that have been popular in the church through recent years and down through history, all of them meet some of the criteria, but none of them meet all the criteria. All these theories have a few significant problems. However, the identification that I’m about to mention doesn’t have any problems. It matches all of the criteria to a “T.” If we agree that the primary anti-Semitic, antichrist empire of the earth today is the Islamic Empire, then we ask, “What is the spiritual and financial capitol of that empire?” The question that I like to ask people is, “Were do 1.7 billion people pray five times a day toward a particular city in the earth?” That city is Mecca. Mecca is the greatest city of idolatry that the world has ever seen.
Sid: That’s in Saudi Arabia.
Joel: That’s the spiritual capitol, and beyond that Saudi Arabia unequivocally is the greatest financial source of terrorism and radical Islam throughout the earth beyond any other nation. Saudi Arabia is the nation that has funded the spread of Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and all these various groups. They pay for the Islamic centers, mosques, and the midrosis, they raise up radical hate preachers, they send them out as missionaries, they fill the mosques with the radical anti-Semitic literature that has the Saudi Arabian’s signature in the books. The city of Mecca is the womb from which Islam burst forth into the earth, and today Saudi Arabia is still the spiritual and financial womb of all of the radical Islam.
Sid: Out of curiosity, who would you say these one and a half billion people are praying to? Who are they praying to five times a day facing Mecca?
Joel: There’s two ways to answer that question. First of all I would say that if you’re worshipping any other god other than the God of the Bible, then you are committing idolatry.
Sid: Yes, but they say allah is god. It’s just the Arabic name for god.
Joel: Nowhere in the Bible is God ever referred to by the name of allah. The Bible does tell us the name of Abraham Isaac and Jacob. That is Yahveh. It’s very clear when He appeared to Moses in the desert, He said, “Yahveh is the name that you shall tell them. I am the One that sent you.” The fact of the matter is that allah, the god of Islam, is just one more manifestation of ancient Near Eastern, astoral, and war deities. There are numerous. There’s Zen; there’s Marduke. These are all the gods that were worshipped by the pagan people of the desert. Today, the god of Islam is just one more manifestation of satan who is trying to masquerade as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Sid: You may not be able to answer this question but how did a man that I believe id a born-again Christian that was president of the United States, President Bush take the montra, “Islam is a peace-loving religion”? I don’t see anything in their history that’s peace-loving.
Joel: The way that I always answer that is that I always say, “Unfortunately, in that case President Bush was being a much better politician than he was being a good theologian or good Christian. Some people would say that they understand why he was doing that, but personally as a Christian I would never openly declare such a lie.
Sid: Joel, I’ve often pondered. Why does someone like President Bush who I believe is a born-again Christian, constantly feed us the line that Islam is a peace-loving religion? As I study it’s history, I don’t see anything peace-loving about it. I see the opposite of peace-loving, but then when I started watching your four-session and two DVDs on understanding the times, and I saw how the long family relationship of both Bushes with the Saudi royals, I began to understand how the Great Harlette is Saudi Arabia. You point out masterfully in your DVD teaching about people like President Obama and the money he got from the Saudis and Jimmy Carter and the money he got from the Saudis.
