Below is an article — “Yet More Prophecy Being Fulfilled”. It is a comment from God’s Word on a recent news report which is a revelation of one of the latest developments in man’s depraved departure from God.
I read in my Bible this morning: “Then came Shemaiah the prophet to Rehoboam, and to the princes of Judah, that were gathered together to Jerusalem because of Shishak, and said unto them, Thus saith the LORD, Ye have forsaken me, and therefore have I also left you in the hand of Shishak. Whereupon the princes of Israel and the king humbled themselves; and they said, The LORD is righteous. And when the LORD saw that they humbled themselves, the word of the LORD came to Shemaiah, saying, They have humbled themselves; therefore I will not destroy them, but I will grant them some deliverance; and my wrath shall not be poured out upon Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak. Nevertheless they shall be his servants; that they may know my service, and the service of the kingdoms of the countries,” 2 Chronicles 12:5-8.
I noted how God’s servant was ready to give God’s Word in the midst of a national crisis. Preachers today would need to realise that God expects them to pronounce His mind and will in a day of confusion and calamity. Silent pulpits are not God’s will!
This article is an applying of God’s Word to events of today.
I trust it is a blessing.
Sincerely in Christ’s name,
Ivan Foster
Yet More Prophecy Being Fulfilled
“And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all. And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee; and the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived. And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth,” Revelation 18:21-24.
The following headline appeared in a newspaper just a few days ago. Little did the reporter, or indeed the people she wrote about, realise that they were fulfilling just what the Bible tells us will be a feature of the final lawless days of this age!
Troubling rise of the ‘silver snorters’: Treatment for over 60s cocaine users has shot up in the last year. Patients as old as 90 have been going to hospital after using the class-A drug.
What the headlines tell us is that drug-taking has become endemic, encroaching even upon the ranks of the elderly!
The general public, certainly the city dwellers, have become used to the miserable sight of the wretched drug-addict, usually lying helpless, under the miserable influence of that taken in pursuit of escaping life’s miseries!
That it should now involve that section of society which one would expect to be above such a destructive indulgence is alarming. It will add to the incidents of crime and to the financial burden on the NHS.
Above all, it denotes the demise of any fear of God and regard for His Word amongst a section of society where it might have been expected!
The report states: “The number of pensioners being treated for cocaine use has shot up in the past year, shocking new figures have revealed. Patients as old as 90 have been turning up to hospitals after using the class-A drug, many of whom would have suffered seizures and overdoses. Over-60s were admitted 540 times, according to data obtained by The Sun, with the number including 85 patients aged 70 to 79, 11 in their 80s and three nonagenarians.
Experts have said the figures show a worrying trend around drug abuse affecting all age groups and parts of society. While City workers and partygoers have gained a reputation for using the substance, an increase in older users has seen those affected dubbed ‘silver snorters’ in recent years.”
But as I say, God’s Word has told us that such would be the case in the last days.
The passage from the Book of the Revelation, quoted above, depicts God’s judgment falling upon the, yet to be rebuilt, city of Babylon. It will be the political, religious and mercantile citadel of the Antichrist referred to in Revelation 13.
* It should be noted that the Lord will overthrow the power of Antichrist suddenly and completely, verse 21.
* The ‘festivities’ which before marked the city and the industries and the productions by craftsmen will utterly cease, verse 22.
* All normal activities of life will end, verse 23.
* The merchants of Babylon, reputed as great men, are blamed for the deceptions that went out to all nations, verse 23.
* God’s search reveals the criminal activities which emanated from this evil city and it will stand guilty of all the cruel persecution of God’s people throughout the ages, verse 24.
I wish particularly to consider the last part of verse 23.
“Thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.”
The Greek word in the original text, translated as ‘sorceries’, is from a very suggestive Greek word. The word is ‘pharmakeia’. I am sure that it will be immediately recognised as similar to the word from which we get ‘pharmacy’!
‘Pharmakeia’ means ‘the use or the administering of drugs and that to promote idolatry’. So, one of the main evil influences that will flow out of the capital of the kingdom of Antichrist is a spirit of deception which is aided by the use of drugs!
I say we are seeing this beginning to take place before our eyes! The last section of society we might expect to see engaged in drug-taking are the elderly and the retired; yet there is growing evidence that this final section has become involved in this mad craze!
The young have long been seen to be ‘hooked’ on drugs. Our newspapers report how the ‘young professionals’ have also succumbed to drug addiction. Now it is ‘pensioners’, as the newspaper report puts it.
Drugs are resorted to in the human beings’ search for a measure of peace and joy of which all have been deprived by sin. Where once the blessed news of Christ crucified provided for poor, lost, sinful man’s need of reconciliation with God and the resultant joyful comfort that flowed from that experience, that blessed relief has been rejected. As Jeremiah recorded in his day, sinners are charged by God with a forsaking of Him. “Thou hast forsaken the LORD thy God, when he led thee by the way? And now what hast thou to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the waters of Sihor? or what hast thou to do in the way of Assyria, to drink the waters of the river?” Jeremiah 2:17-18. The waters of man’s devising, or drugs, as it is in this case, can never give to the soul that which the water of the gospel gives. As the Saviour said to the woman of Samaria, who was at the well to collect water, “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life,” John 4:13-14.
That ‘water’ has been rejected by nations that in the past tasted of its delights and now they seek out every foul well and stream of perverse pleasure in their quest for satisfaction and comfort.
The growing lengths to which drug taking has been embraced by society and the voices raised to make the taking of more and more drugs legal, is evidence of society’s departure from God. The outlawing of highly addictive drugs, taken chiefly to produce a false sense of euphoria, was a direct impact of the Word of God upon society in former times. Thanks to ‘modernism’ and ‘liberal theology,’ which promoted a rejection of the Word of God as the ‘only rule of faith and practice,’ we find that it has become normal for that recently deemed evil now to be considered the norm!
Consider how that the murder of the unborn by abortion, the abolishment of capital punishment for murder, the moral perversions of sodomy and lesbianism and the other moral deviancy that goes under the pseudonym of LGBT+, have all been embraced and legalised in our nation, and you will see just where the nation is going and by whose hand it is being led!
The spirit of that prophesied in Psalm 2 is abroad. “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us,” Psalm 2:1-3.
Modern legislation in the United Kingdom has been designed to ‘break’ free from the ‘bands’ of God’s law and to ‘cast away’ the ‘cords’ God has placed upon our nation.
This newspaper report simply signals that yet another of society’s barriers has fallen to the devil’s deceptions.
The spirit of ‘antichrist’ has ever been at work amongst men since the fall of Adam. That is why the city in which it will be finally and fully manifested at the end of this age is charged with being guilty of “the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.” Babylonianism, another term for Antichristianity, is seen to be active from the very early ages. We find mention of it in the first ‘universal’ rebellion, recorded in Genesis 10, when there was a defying of God’s command given to Noah and his sons. “And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth,” Genesis 9:1.
Rebellious man had his own ideas. “And the whole earth was of one language, and of 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. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth,” Genesis 11:1-4.
That defiance of God took place ‘in the land of Shinar’, Genesis 11:2. That is another name for Babylon. The judgment that fell upon the rebels is stated for us in the verses 5-9.
“And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.”
Here is the first mention of ‘Babel’ or ‘Babylon’, which means ‘confusion’. The Babylonians were scattered abroad “upon the face of all the earth”. It is their influence that has given rise to every false religion across the world wherever they went. There will be a uniting of those falsehoods again one day and a uniting of them in the future Babylon.
A main source of this assembling of all people under the ‘flag’ of the Antichrist will be the ‘merchants’, who will be considered to be ‘the great men of the earth’ and who will use ’sorceries’, ‘enchantment by drugs’, to achieve their purpose.
The above newspaper report merely tells us of the latest ‘recruits’ beguiled by the merchants of deceit, about whom God’ has spoken in the portion we have studied, back some 2000 years ago in the last book of the Bible!!
Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)
12th November 2023