My downstairs neighbor (from when I lived at 48^th and 10^th in Manhattan) almost always has travel slides for me when I drop by. He’s been about everywhere there is to go in the world—most recently Peru, Brazil, Holland, Romania, Poland . . . On 9/11, he was actually on a beach in Tahiti.

When I stopped the other afternoon for an impromptu visit, he had more than 800 digital shots waiting from his excursion the other month to Machu Pichu. He’s an excellent photographer and the spectacular views—combined with his innate ability to capture the native peoples in their natural states—made for a great hour-and-a-half of computer sightseeing.

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I was heating water for a cup of herbal tea the other evening from my friend’s loft in SoHo when I studied anew a row of old postcards from Israel (where he has a permanent residence in Tel Aviv) pinned above his kitchen sink. One of them is of the Kalaat Namrud Fortress in Upper Galilee.

In a way, it looks very similar to Machu Pichu. Of course, both these sites are classic pagan Baal shrines that hearken back to Nimrod. Namrud, in fact, is just a different spelling for Nimrod.

As Bible scholar Noah Hutchings writes in his 1998 book Daniel the Prophet, “The ancient mount of Nimrod still stands near the site of Nineveh and Birs Nimrud, the Temple of Nimrod. Other historic sites which were named after Nimrod have been located.”

From the Bible, we know Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon was a revival of Nimrod’s Babel and represents the same religious/political system that will extend out to the Second Coming.

Jordan summarizes, “Folks, there’s a church in the tribulation that’s identified in the Bible as ‘mystery Babylon the great.’ The religion that starts back in Babylon at Babel in Genesis 11 goes all the way through the trib and is the church of the Antichrist. Paul says ‘the mystery of iniquity doth already work’ and, folks, it hadn’t gone out of business today. It’s still there.”

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Shinar is the old word for Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar’s god goes by the name of Bel, also called Baal. Other names are Marduk and Merodoch. Nebo was one of the gods Nimrod worshipped from Babel and Nebuchadnezzar’s name actually meant “the prince favored by Nebo.”

Hutchings writes, “These names of religious significance carried over from ancient Babel offer substantiation to the belief that Babylon was actually a revival of the program which started at Babel for man to join Satan in his rebellion against the Most High God in the heavens.”

“When God stopped the building of the Tower of Babel, it is evident that He did more than divide the speech of the people into many languages. He also divided their intellect and talents according to the races.

“Even today there are degrees of intelligence and occupational aptitude that are common to each race. Thus, after Babel, God made it difficult for the various races to get together again and pool their resources, intellects and talents . . . ”

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Crucial to understanding Israel’s institution of Baal worship, and its subsequent Babylonian captivity, is the knowledge that in 975 B.C.—at end of the reign of Israel’s third king, King Solomon—the nation was split in two by a dark, deep rebellion.

Suddenly, there were two separate empires—Israel, the northern kingdom composed of 10 tribes, and Judah, the southern kingdom made up of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin.

“The northern kingdom apostatized more than the southern kingdom, and for almost 300 years there was civil strife as king after king sat upon the thrones of both Judah and Israel,” explains Hutchings. “Finally, God could look no longer upon the sins of Israel and He turned his face from them as the Assyrian Empire conquered and ravaged the land, even from Dan to Bethel.

“A remnant of the ten tribes of the northern kingdom escaped into Judah; thousands were taken into captivity to Nineveh, and aliens were imported by the Assyrians to mix with those remaining in the land. This was done by the enemy so that Israel might be destroyed as both a country and a people.”

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Judah’s fall to Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon was actually prophesied by both Isaiah and Jeremiah.

Hutchings writes, “The fall of Jerusalem recorded in Daniel 1:1-2 was the first time Jerusalem was taken by Nebuchadnezzar. Twice the city revolted, but each time it was captured and the city was dealt with more harshly.

“The Temple of the Lord had been profaned with idols, and God allowed the Babylonians to completely destroy it. The destruction of the Temple and the carrying of the holy vessels back to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar indicated that the promises of the covenant had been set aside.”

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God, from the beginning, made a provision to keep the 12-tribe kingdom of Israel from being divided by requiring that every Jewish male travel to Jerusalem (Israel’s “headquarters”) three times a year to worship.

The northern kingdom (established by Solomon’s servant Jeroboam) subverted this godly intention by setting up a competing local church.

The strategic thinking was, as Jordan explains, “Nobody’s gonna want the political hassle—getting a passport, currency exchange, visa—so we’ll set up a religion up here for us just like they got down there in Jerusalem, and we’ll imitate it; we’ll copy it.”

Just like in Exodus 32, they instituted Baal worship, this time setting up a golden calf in Dan and Beersheba. It was this whoring after other gods that led God to eventually destroy them.

As I Kings 12: 25-32 reports, “Then Jeroboam built Shechem in mount Ephraim, and dwelt therein; and went out from thence, and built Penuel.
[26] And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David:
[27] If this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and they shall kill me, and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah.
[28] Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
[29] And he set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan.
[30] And this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan.
[31] And he made an house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi.
[32] And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. So did he in Bethel, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made: and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made.”

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Jordan says, “Did you know that 13 times your Bible calls him ‘Jeroboam, the son of Nebat’ who made Israel to sin? Thirteen in the Bible is the number of rebellion. (Genesis 14)

“Now, what would the faithful believers in that northern kingdom do? You’d leave; migrate down south. I mean, if the worship of God was important to you, and you believed that you if didn’t go down there to that Temple you were displeasing God, what would you do?

“The faithful remnant in all of those 10 tribes in the north migrated and settled in that southern kingdom, so that when that northern kingdom was taken away there were representatives of all 12 tribes in that southern kingdom.

“What Jeroboam was worried about is, ‘If my men keep going down there to Jerusalem three times a year hearing the Word of God preached to them, what’s going to happen? They’re going to say this political division is wrong! God intends it to be one nation and they’re going to come up here and wipe me and my government out and make Rehoboam king again!’

“So what he does is he takes counsel—he goes and gets himself some advice. And brother you talk about some counsel—he really gets some. Watch what happens: ‘Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.’

“Now, ain’t that a pill?! He says, ‘Look at those two calves and say, Here’s your God, Israel!’ You know what he’s saying? He’s saying, ‘Baal brought you out of Egypt.’ They know God Almighty did, but he says, ‘This is the Lord!’ He’s saying, ‘Baal is Jehovah!’

“You remember when we studied over there in Ezekiel 1 and 10 and I tried to show you how those calves over there are associated with the cherubim who’s Satan? The reason they make a golden calf instead of a golden horse, or something else, is because it’s a calf of an ox there, and an ox has horns on his head like that, you know.

“So everybody goes around today like this you know and when you want to take somebody’s picture, you put your fingers up like that and you got the devil with the horns on his head and all that business, you know.

“That stuff is associated with the devil, and when you study about the gods in the Bible and Satan, you always start with the issue of the cherubim who has the face of an ox and the face of a calf.

“That’s the reason over there in Genesis 3, when it says Satan ‘was more subtle than all the beasts of the field’ . . . and people say, ‘See, that’s how scientifically inaccurate and dumb your Bible is because those poor people back there didn’t know the serpent was a reptile!’

“Well, that just shows how far behind you are, fella, because those people knew that that was no snake talking to them anyway! You’ll see all these artists with a snake running around talking to Eve but any second-grader knows better than to believe a snake can talk!”

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Jordan continues, “You know how you know Herbert W. Armstrong is wrong about ‘British Israelism’—the (bogus doctrine) that says Britain and the U.S. make up part of the 10 lost tribes of Israel? What that comes from is the assumption those 10 lost tribes had to go somewhere.

“Armstrong looks for the 10 lost tribes in Europe, Germany, England, Netherlands, Holland, the United States. You know where Jesus Christ went to look for ‘the lost sheep of the house of Israel’? Palestine.

“Now who you reckon knows where they are—Jesus or Herbert? The Apostle Paul, in the book of Acts, talks about 12 tribes being present here with us. You see, they’re in the land—the representatives are there! The distinction between Israel and Judah is a political distinction—it’s not a racial distinction. The citizens in the kingdom of Judah began to be called Jews.

“You’ll hear people take that term Jew and try to make out like, ‘Well, if you weren’t from the tribe of Judah, you weren’t really a Jew’ and that kind of thing, but that’s just foolishness. It’s a political distinction, not a racial distinction.

“So when Nebby takes them away, he recognizes that the people he’s taking into captivity are the nation Israel—all of the nation is represented there.”

(Editor’s Note: To be continued . . . )