People who don’t think the Bible has merit must find it disconcerting that so much of world events point to Israel and the Arabs’ hatred of the Jews.

This is an ongoing conflict the Bible lays out starting in Genesis with Abraham’s two boys—Ishmael and Isaac—and continues through the rise of the Assyrian Antichrist in the Book of Revelation and his world rulership headquartered in a rebuilt Babylon.

“God’s purpose with Israel is connected with His purpose for the universe and that’s why He says in Jeremiah 31 that to do away with the nation Israel you’ve got to get rid of the ordinances that keep heaven working and the earth in place,” said my pastor, Richard Jordan of Shorewood Bible Church, Rolling Meadows, Ill. (www.graceimpact.org) , in a Bible study just last week. “To get rid of Israel, you’ve got to get rid of the universe.

“That means that all this stuff (from theologians) about God being done with Israel— replacing it with the Body of Christ—won’t work. For God’s purpose for national Israel to go away, He’d have to get rid of man and the universe. As long as the world is still here, God’s purpose for Israel is still in existence.”

With news headlines now focused on the possibility of an all-out war in the Middle East, it’s incredible to note that, according to Bible prophecy, there will be at least three multi-continental wars focused on this same part of the world before the Second Coming of Christ.

As Jordan points out, “All that’s keeping the Middle East from blazing into such end-time prophetic events is the ‘dispensation of grace,’ and as long as the ‘dispensation of grace’ (outlined by the Apostle Paul) is going on, the end-time events aren’t going to take place over there because God is withholding them; He has a purpose that keeps those things back.”

Today, God is pouring out only His grace (as opposed to His wrath set for release in the upcoming tribulation period) in His offer of complete forgiveness of sins and eternal life to anyone—Jew and Gentile—who simply places their faith in His Son and what He accomplished for them at Calvary.

“All this sensationalism that’s created by prophecy preachers who take the Word of God and try and make you think that what’s happening today is (in fulfillment of end-times prophetic events) just brings the Word of God into reproach and disfavor by sensationalizing things that aren’t what the Bible teaches,” says Jordan. “It unnerves Believers, gets them upset and diverts them away from what they ought to be focused on.”

Hailing from Syria, the Antichrist will be a sort of second coming of Nebuchadnezzar, the great king of the Babylonian empire from 605-562 B.C., who demolished the city of Jerusalem and its Temple built by Solomon, deporting Israel’s population into exile in Babylon.

In the late 1990s, Time magazine had as a cover story, “The New Nebuchadnezzar,” which told of how Saddam Hussein, who named Nebuchadnezzar as his idol and role model, was conscious of his heritage dating back to when Nebuchadnezzar, responsible for the famous hanging gardens, made Babylon the glory of the kingdoms.

“With Nebuchadnezzar begins the ‘times of the Gentiles,’ and with the Antichrist those times will come to a culmination,” explains Jordan. “Gentile dominion of the earth will end with the Antichrist as the last Gentile ruler, and Christ will come back and establish His kingdom, and the nation Israel will be the ‘head of the nations and no longer the tail.’ ” (Deut. 28:13)

From the Book of Daniel, we see Nebuchadnezzar literally takes and assimilates parts of Judaism into the Babylonian religion, mixing them all together. This is exactly what the Antichrist will do.

Since Babylon was original founded by Nimrod in Gen. 10, beginning with the Tower of Babel, its intent was to be a centralized political, commercial, economic and religious system designed to thwart the purpose of God. What started with Nimrod found

its crystallization with Nebuchadnezzar.

Currently, the Iraq city of Hilla is built on the site of ancient Babylon. In fact, stones from ancient Babylon have been used in construction of buildings in Hilla, and even in Baghdad structures. The stones have the ancient inscriptions of Babylon on them.

As I wrote about before on this site (To read, scroll down to “Mall at the End of the World,” dated April 22, 2006), future Babylon will be a mighty super-power in world events.

The Antichrist will use the governments, the banking system and the commercial system to achieve world political dominion from Babylon. Literal Babylon will become the commercial center of the world.

“In Revelation 18, you’ll see it has to do with the merchants, the merchants, the merchants,” says Jordan. “In verse 12, it talks of ‘the merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble.’

“You see, the Antichrist uses the commercial system built up by the wealth and the system that he’s developed. We can understand that today. Look at the dependence the world has on that part of the world simply because of oil.

“Imagine getting everybody—the conservatives and the liberals and all the rest—

agreeing. You know why they’d do that? The way to get America to do that is you kick them in the pocketbook.”

Talking about “mystery Babylon’s” reigning religious system, Rev. 17:4-5 reports, “And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:

“And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”

“When it talks about all the riches of her garb—the clothes, the ornamentation—that demonstrates her wealth; what attracts the nations to her,” says Jordan. “She’s the mother. She’s the source, the one from whom the abominations emanate. She’s the mother of harlots. She isn’t just a harlot herself, she produces offspring; systems that prostitute themselves just as she does. That issue of abominations is the issue of religious idolatry. This drunken harlot is going to be a world religious center where all the false systems will flourish and center.”

What theologians have incorrectly taught for centuries is that this religious system laid out in Rev. 17 is about the pope and the Roman Catholic Church.

“The pope isn’t the Antichrist; the pope would never turn and destroy his own religious system—he would use it to exalt himself because that’s what it does,” says Jordan. “Now, you understand why Roman Catholicism got involved, though. You go back and begin with Nimrod in Gen. 11, and study Baal worship through the Old Testament, and you’ll see 30-40 characteristics of what Baal worship is. If you take those characteristics and look around you today, you know what you find? The Roman Catholic system. There’s no question it’s the modern-day manifestation of Baal worship; the religion of Babylon.”

There’s also no question that when the Apostle Paul relays his own information about the Antichrist in II Thes. 2:8-10, there’s a fit with the Pentecostal/Charismatic religious movement.

Paul writes, “And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:

“Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,

“And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.”

“Baal worship is the vehicle the Antichrist uses to ride to power, and then he turns and has his cohorts destroy it,” explains Jordan. “Why? Paul says he ‘opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped.’ That’s not just Almighty God, that’s all the other idols that call themselves God. He’s going to throw down that polluted Baal worship system; the Babylonian religion that Nimrod established in Gen. 11 is polluted. It’s had the religions of the world amalgamated with it as Nebuchadnezzar did in Daniel 1, when he brought some of Judaism into it as he did all the other pagan religions. The Antichrist will have none of it.

“When he gains power he’s going to say, ‘No, I am God,’ and all these other gods are simply going to acquiesce under him and he’s going to abolish all other religions, having all of the idolatrous religions of the world converge into the sole worship of the Antichrist. Now you understand it’s never hard to get somebody who worships an idol to let it go and worship another idol if the other idol can do more for them.”

As Paul tells us, the Antichrist will go into the Holy Land, sit himself on the temple he caused Israel to rebuild, and declare himself to be God. (II Thes. 2:4). Literal Babylon will once again become the seat of Satan.

“The Antichrist will come and they’ll all worship the lie,” says Jordan. “They’ll get rid of the polluted Baal worship system and restore Babylon back to its original pristine purity, if you want to call it by that word; meaning it’s purity of corruption that it originally was. It’ll go back and all this system that’s been amalgamated, and taken all the different views of men, will converge into the one ultimate form of the lie—the Antichrist.

That’s how that’s done. That’s where that leads to.”

What’s fascinating is that the only time the word “Alleluia,” or “hallelujah,” appears in the Bible is in Rev. 19, when John writes about the final destruction of Babylon and the Antichrist with the Second Coming of Christ.

“The word ‘Alleluia’ is not found anywhere previous to that and then it appears four times in one little chapter,” says Jordan. “You know when the Bible gets to shouting, ‘Alleluia!’? When Babylon is gone!

“Then God says, ‘Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth’! That’s when the Bible gets there and not before. Until then, the ‘times of the Gentiles’ are going to run this planet. They run the commercial, political, governmental authorities of this world. Don’t let yourself get caught up in being so traumatized by the events of this world that it neutralizes your service to the Lord.”