End-Time Insights

In Second Thessalonians , Paul addresses rumors and claims that the “ Day of the Lord has set in ." False information about the “ arrival ” of Jesus was disrupting the Assembly, and this disinformation was being attributed either to a “ spirit ,” word ( logos ), or a letter “ as if from ” the Apostle Paul and his coworkers.

Babylon is called the “ Land of Shinar ” in Daniel , a link to the Tower of Babel incident in Genesis and the founding of the original imperial city in Mesopotamia. The same story is alluded to in Chapter 3 when the Babylonian king gathered all the nations of his realm to pay homage to the great and “ high ” golden image that he built in the “ Plain of Dura .”

The “ Beast ” is a single history-spanning entity that has existed since the dawn of human civilization, beginning when Babel “ SET UP a high tower to make us a name, lest we be scattered upon the face of the earth .” That incident is alluded to by Daniel when describing how Nebuchadnezzar subjugated Jerusalem and took the “ vessels of the house of God into the land of Shinar to the house of his god .”

End-Time “ Babylon ” sits on the same beastly entity that John saw “ ascending from the Sea ” in Chapter 13, but it combines the four “ Beasts ” of Daniel into one final malignant creature bent on destroying the saints. In Chapter 17, its “lineage” and inevitable destruction are described with language from Daniel’s vision of the “ Little Horn ” and the “ Fourth Beast .”

Jesus is the one who unveils the Mysteries of God, and only he is qualified to reveal the nature of the “ unseen God .” In him, all the promises of God find their substance. He is the interpretive key that unlocks the Hebrew Scriptures and provides the correct understanding of Bible prophecy, and this is especially so in the Book of Revelation where the sacrificial “ Lamb ” reigns over all things.