[Play “Imagine” by John Lennon.]
Wow. Sounds like “Heaven on earth,” doesn’t it? “Nothing to kill or die for” … “No need for greed or hunger/A brotherhood of man” … “Imagine all the people/Living life in peace … Sharing all the world … And the world will live as one” (www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/johnlennon/ imagine.html#). It could be … depending on who’s in charge.
What John Lennon is attempting to describe in his song “Imagine” is world peace and world harmony … a world where there are “no countries.” In the kind of “globalism” or “universalism” that he describes, where there may be no countries but … humans being what humans are … there will no doubt be a ruler or a group of rulers, amen? History is filled with attempts by powerful countries and powerful leaders to create the kind of world that John Lennon dreamed about … including the Bible. Let’s take a brief look at how they turned out.
One such leader with dreams of global power and world domination would be “Nimrod.” According to Genesis 10:8, Nimrod was the son Cush, making him the great-grandson of Noah. Genesis 10:9, describes Nimrod as “a mighty hunter before the LORD.” When we hear that Nimrod was a “mighty hunter,” you probably picture someone that hunts and kills animals. A more accurate picture would be that of a great warrior who hunted and captured people and regions and united them under his control. The Bible says that his kingdom included “Babel, Erech, and Accad, all of them in the land of Shinar. From that land he went into Assyria and built Nineveh” (Genesis 10:10-11). The name “Nineveh” means “seat of government” (www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Nineveh.html) … which we would describe in today’s language as a “capital.” According to the Bible, Nimrod was “the first to become a mighty man” (1st Chronicles 1:10).
The thing about power is that it attracts people. According to the Bible, Nimrod’s “seat of government” attracted people to Shinar. As Shinar’s population and Nimrod’s power grew, an idea began to develop: What if we ruled the whole world? “And they said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.’ And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:3-4).
That’s how it starts … with a need for protection, for self-preservation. The idea of building a city with a tower that reached to heavens was to make a name for itself … a name that sent a message, a name that commanded respect … even fear, perhaps … but definitely one that created an image or a sense of power … like Washington, DC, New York City, London, or Moscow.
Shinar’s power was its growing numbers and its technology. They had developed a technology for making bricks that were hard as stone and they could make a lot of them … instead of making walls of clay or having to carve them out of stone. Even today we have this desire to build towards heavens and are impressed by those who build them.
In the late 1920s, car mogul Walter Chrysler decided to build the world’s tallest building as a, quote, “monument to me” (Andrews, E. 10 Surprising Facts About the Empire State Building. www.history.com; August 27, 2018). Of course, the name of the building was … and still is … the “Chrysler Building” in New York City. General Motors executive John J. Raskob and former New York Governor Al Smith decided to build an even taller building … and the race for glory and prestige was on. When Chrysler found out that the Empire State Building was going to be a thousand feet tall, he added a stainless steel tower on top of his building to make it 1,048 feet tall. Not to be bested, Raskob and Smith added more floors. In the end, the Empire State Building won, reaching 1,250 feet. It remained the world’s tallest building for nearly 40 years … until that honor was taken by the first World Trade Center Tower in 1975 (Andrews, Ibid.).
Anyone know what or where the world’s tallest building is today? It’s the Burj Khalifa building in Dubai. Built in 2008, it is 2,217 feet tall and is listed as the “greatest engineering achievement” in the world (Cary, Z. Top 15 Tallest Buildings in the World. Earth & World, January 20, 2021).
The Tower of Babel was meant to be a symbol of Nimrod’s power … which reached to the heavens. The symbol was meant to impress, to intimidate, and to draw people to it since it could be seen from a great distance. The residents could look to their walls, to their great numbers, and to the great Tower of Babel and feel safe … “otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:9) … which is exactly what happened when God put a stop to what they were doing. The residents of Shinar and Nineveh had good reason to fear being broken up and scattered as it would leave them vulnerable to the same kind of power-hungry tribes and nations who, like them, had a desire to conquer and absorb their neighbors in attempt to do what Nimrod did … build a global empire.
The destruction of the Tower of Babel did not put an end to Nineveh’s lust for power and world domination. Shinar was conquered by the Assyrians, who kept Nineveh as their capital or “seat of government.” Excavation of ancient Nineveh has confirmed the Bible’s description that it took three days to walk from one end of Nineveh to the other (Jonah 3:3). The Assyrians were a “fierce and cruel nation who showed little mercy to those they conquered” (GotQuestions.org/Assyrians). In 703 BC, they conquered and destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel … and they, in turn, were conquered and destroyed by an alliance between the Medes, Babylonians, and Scythians (GotQuestions.org, Ibid.).
Nineveh and the Assyrian empire were destroyed and replaced by a new capital and a new empire called “Babylon.” The name “Babylon” means “Gateway to the Gods” or “Gateway to Heaven” in Babylonian. “The rulers of Babylon doubtless called their city the ‘gate’ of the gods in the sense that they chose to think of it as the place where the gods consorted with men, to order the affairs of earth” … “but the Hebrews derogatorily associated it with balal, a word in their language meaning ‘to confuse’” (BibleAsk.org). It’s also where we get our word for “babble.” As all of this suggests, language and communication have a great deal to do with the ability to build and maintain an empire … as we shall see.
When Babylon invaded the southern kingdom of Judah in 605 BC, it was being run by a new king … Nebuchadnezzar … who also had dreams of world domination … literally. In the Book of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar had a disturbing dream and demanded that his magicians and advisors interpret it for him. The only problem was … they first had to tell him what the dream was before they could interpret it. Needless to say, they couldn’t do it … except for one divinely inspired young man who had been taken prisoner when the Babylonians sacked and destroy the city of Jerusalem … and his name was, of course, Daniel.
Daniel starts out be explaining to King Nebuchadnezzar that the only reason that he knows what Nebuchadnezzar’s dream was was because the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob revealed it to him. “No wise men, enchanters, magicians, or diviners can show to the king the mystery that the king is asking, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and He has disclosed to King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen at the end of days” (Daniel 2:27-28). He then describes what Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream or vision:
“You were looking, O king, and lo! There was a great statue. This statue was huge, its brilliance extraordinary; it was standing before you, and its appearance was frightening. The head of that statue was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. As you looked on, a stone was cut out, not by human hands, and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, were all broken in pieces and became like chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found” (Daniel 2:31-35).
Daniel then interpreted the dream for Nebuchadnezzar:
“… you are the head of gold. After you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours, and yet a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over the whole earth. And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron; just as iron crushes and smashes everything, it shall crush and shatter all these. As you saw the feet and toes partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom; but some of the strength of iron shall be in it, as you saw the iron mixed with clay. As the toes of the feet were part iron and part clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle. As you saw the iron mixed with clay, so will they mix with another in marriage, but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay ... And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall this kingdom be left to another people. It shall crush all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever … The great God has informed the king what shall be hereafter” (Daniel 2:39-45).
I believe that this is just as much a message for us today as it was for King Nebuchadnezzar, and this is how we interpret King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream today. The “head of gold” represents the Babylon Empire … the “head” of nations or a confederation of nations … and King Nebuchadnezzar is the “golden” head of the Babylonian Empire. The “chest and two arms” made of silver represent the Mido-Persian empire that would rise up, defeat Babylon, and replace it as the next ruling empire. The stomach and thighs are made of bronze and represent the Greek empire of Alexander the Great and the Seleucid rulers after him. They were crushed and replaced by the “iron” legions of Rome, signified by the statue’s legs of iron. The final kingdom or empire, signified by the feet made of clay and iron, has yet to arise but when it does, it will signify the end of times described in John’s revelation or vision on the Island of Patmos.
In Nebuchadnezzar’s vision, he saw a “stone, cut out, not by human hand” that struck the feet of the statue and smashed it into dust that was carried away by the wind (Daniel 2:35-36). Well … let’s see. God “smashed” the budding Ninevite Empire by destroying their ability to communicate with each other. God then used the Assyrians to “smash” the Ninevites … He used the Babylonians, Persians, and Scythians to “smash” the Babylonians, and so on.
The final empire will truly be a “global” empire. We often refer to Rome or England as world powers but they weren’t truly “world” or global empires. True, the Greeks and the Romans conquered, subdued, and control huge areas, but they didn’t control China or Russia. They didn’t control most of Africa. They didn’t control North or South America … and, in fact, didn’t even know they existed. At one time England could boast that the “Sun never set on the British flag” … and it is true that they and other countries like Spain and France had conquered and controlled a great deal of the known world at that time … but they still didn’t control or dominate the entire world and all its people … which is what makes the final empire so frightening because they will … and, if what’s happening today is any indication … it will be done without firing a shot or going to war. If Nebuchadnezzar’s vision is accurate … and seems to be so far … then the final empire will be made up of a mixture of iron and clay … a confederation of stronger and weaker nations, representing the 10 toes of the statue. Does that mean that the confederation will be made of up 10 countries? Perhaps. I think the toes symbolize the fact that the confederation will be made up of very distinct nations who are joined together to form a foot … one giant foot that can go anywhere that it wants and stomp and kick and destroy anything or anyone that gets in its way, amen?
Let me give you a terrifying example. Have any of you ever heard of “UN Agenda 21”? I doubt it. You can still find articles about it on the internet but you won’t be able to find the original document … not on the internet nor on the United Nation’s official website. According to UN Agenda 21, developed by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Division for Sustainable Development, as part of a sustainability policy, by the year 2030, all the world’s wealth and power will be consolidated under the UN’s authority. You might have heard officials in the World Health Organization or the Center for Disease Control use phrases like “new world order” and “one world government” … I have. Some of the things discussed in UN Agenda 21 are: a global currency, a central bank, the end of national sovereignty, mandatory vaccines, universal basic income … any of this sounding familiar yet … micro-chipping people, the end of fossil fuel, and a drastic reduction in the world’s population. “A non-governmental organization called the International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives, ICLEI, is tasked with carrying out the goals of Agenda 21” (Liam K. What Is Agenda 21? Depopulation Of 95% Of the World By 2030. Waking Times News, May 11, 2017). I suggest you Google “ICLEI” and educate yourself. According to their own website: “Local Governments for Sustainability is a global network working with more than 2500 local and regional governments committed to sustainable urban development. Active in 100+ countries, we influence sustainability policy and drive local action for low emission, nature-based, equitable, resilient and circular development” (https://icleiusa.org; emphasis theirs). You might want to also Google “United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD)” as well.
God’s description of the statue’s feet in Nebuchadnezzar’s vision is actually very fascinating and possibly relevant to what we’re seeing develop today. God said that the feet were a mixture of iron and clay. If you try to picture the statue, you picture the legs of iron going down and mixing with the clay that make up the feet. There seems to be a clear demarcation between the head of gold, the chest and arms of silver, the midriff and thighs of bronze but there is a fading into or blending between the legs of iron and the feet of clay.
So, let’s think about this image for a moment. The Assyrian Empire … conquered and replaced by Babylonians. The Babylonians conquered and replaced by the Mido-Persians. That was the pattern back them … conquer, destroy, and replace. But we begin to see a change in the pattern between the Greek and Roman empires. Rome rose up and replaced … a better term might be “took over” … the regions controlled by Greece but they still kept the language and the much of the culture and blended it with their own. Just as the people in Shinar all spoke one language, so did the countries that made up the Roman Empire. Yes, they all spoke their own languages … and there were many of them … but all trade and government communication was done in koine Greek … a kind of patois or basic Greek. Our New Testament is written in both koine and high Greek and was written during the time of the Roman occupation. Philosophy and arts, even the religion of the Romans, was a blend of Greek and Roman culture and theology. The Greek god Zeus became the Roman god Jupiter or Jove … the Greek sun god Apollo remained the Roman sun god … the messenger of the gods and the god of war for the Greeks was Hermes, who was called “Mars” by the Romans … and so on and so on down the list of Greek and Roman gods.
The Greek and Roman empires are gone … but not completely. The area of Western Europe is still seen as a kind of collective area or region. Their influence is still felt in Western Europe, from our philosophy, our worldview, to our form of government which was carried across the ocean to a new continent that the Greeks and Romans didn’t even know existed. Even our language contains many, many words that have Greek and Roman roots.
Let’s look at a model of the statue’s feet that exists today called the EU or “European Union.” Now … through Daniel, God said that the iron and clay represented a “marriage” between them. We hear the word “marriage” and think of the binding together of a man and a wife. We might assume that the “marriage” that God describes in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream as one between, say, royal families much like they did in ancient and not-so-ancient times. But the word “marriage” actually means the binding together of many, many different things. Bronze, for example, is the marriage or binding together of copper and tin.
You might say that the European Union is a marriage or alloy of a number of weaker and stronger countries that are both independent and yet, like the fingers of a hand or the toes of a foot create a “union” or marriage of countries that work together for their mutual and collective benefit. I believe that we are beginning to see this taking place on a global level.
Now, before we bring in the stone that will smash all of these empires, we need to bring John’s vision in because it fills in what Nebuchadnezzar saw in his vision. In his vision, John sees a dragon waging war against Heaven (Revelation 12). When the dragon … or Satan … is defeated and thrown to earth, he … the dragon … gives some of his power to a creature that John calls the “beast.” John describes the “beast” as having “ten horns and seven heads” (Revelation 13:1) … the heads and horns represent countries and crowns or governments. “And the dragon gave [the beast] his power and his throne and great authority. … In amazement the whole earth followed the beast. They worshiped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, ‘Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?’ … Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. It was given authority over every tribe and people and language and nation, and all the inhabitants of the earth will worship it” (Revelation 13: 2-4, 7-8).
The “beast” gives rise to a second “beast” who had “two horns like a lamb” (Revelation 13:11). Hum … there is another Lamb in Revelation … one that sits on the throne of God. Who could that be? The Lamb of God … who has seven horns. The false lamb of the beast will only have two horns but it will still have enough power to deceive and fool the world … or most of it. We know this beast by another name … the “Antichrist.” Christ is the slaughtered Lamb of God with seven horns … the Antichrist is the son of the dragon with two horns. It will exercise “all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and it [will make] the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast” (Revelation 13:12).
This “false prophet” or “Antichrist” will perform great signs and will deceive the inhabitants of the earth, including bringing peace on earth … the kind that John Lennon imagined in his song. But that “peace” will come with a price. It will require everyone, “both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell who does not have the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name” (Revelation13:16-17).
Oh, my. Oh, my, O my. We’ve got a little foretaste or foreshadowing of this happening already. [Hold up vaccination card.] Yikes! We’ve been hearing a lot about “vaccine passports” and “vaccine mandates” lately, haven’t we? My, my. Hum … anyone who doesn’t have a vaccine card or passport can’t enter stores or restaurants in some countries like Australia and France … and in some parts of our country, like New York City, as well. More than 100 staff members at Houston Methodist Hospital were fired for refusing to get vaccinated for COVID-19. They went to court but the judge sided with the hospital’s right to terminate their employment (Francis, M. Nurses fired for not getting COVID-19 vaccine explain their rationale. Yahoo News, July 2, 2021).
Many nurses and hospital workers in New York State have either been fired or quit over the vaccine mandate. St. Barnabas Hospital in Bronx, NY, for example fired “scores” of workers after they refused to comply with the state’s new vaccine mandate. “The nearly 100 employees were suspended without pay and given a week to show proof or face termination” (Campanile, C., Hicks, N., & Hogan, B. NY Hospitals Remove Hoards of Anti-Vax Workers Who Defied Mandate. The New York Post, September 28, 2021). An article in Business Insider boasted that “Major players in the airline industry, medical industry, and education system have each threatened to fire employees who refuse the COVID-19 vaccination. So far, the vaccine mandates have been a rousing success at boosting vaccination numbers” (Hall, M. Major Industries are Firing Few Employees for Refusing the COVID-19 Vaccine. Business Insider, October 4, 2021). Gee … you think? Faced with the possibility of not working, getting paid, collecting unemployment or being able to buy groceries or put gas in the car or take your family to the doctors? Whichever side you’re on or the rational for this severe of a response, it sounds eerily like what we read in Revelation 13 … “so that no one can buy or sell who does not have the mark … who can fight against it?” (Daniel 13:17).
And if that doesn’t get your attention, how about this headline in USA Today: “You will get chipped — eventually.” “It will happen to everybody,” says Noelle Chesley, 49, associate professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. “But not this year. … Maybe not my generation, but certainly that of my kids” (Graham, J. You will get chipped – eventually.” USA Today, August 10, 2017).
This is how one author described it:
“The ‘Antichrist’ will rebuild the ancient city of Babylon for his world capital and he will be on the verge of uniting the armies of the world in a last great attempt to destroy God’s chosen people, the people of Israel. He will globalize the economy, forcing everyone to be ‘chipped’ in some way with the ‘mark,’ … In that period of time, if you don’t join the globalization program, the program of the Antichrist, you will be either outright killed, or more likely be starved. Widespread persecution will spill the blood of thousands upon thousands of believers … and more blood will be spilled in the wars that will be waged in the effort to unify nations and destroy the Jewish people. And just at that moment … just when it looks like there’s no hope … when you look at it from a human perspective and say, ‘Israel is toast! It’s over!” (Jeremiah, D. Globalism – An International Prophecy. Sermon. October 3, 2021.) … guess what?
A “stone” will be cut out, not by human hands, and it will strike the statue on its feet of iron and clay and break them into pieces and the wind will carry them away so that not a trace of them will ever be found and the “Stone” will take over the whole earth (Daniel 2:34-35). Daniel says that the Antichrist’s reign will only last a week. “He shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall make sacrifice and offering cease; and in their place shall be an abomination that desolates, until the decreed end is poured out upon the desolator” (Daniel 9:27). Remember the “Tribulation”? It is supposed to last how long? Seven years. How many days in a week? Seven. Here is one of those scriptures that could support the notion of a mid-Tribulation because Daniel says that the time of the Antichrist will be three-and-a-half days. In Revelation, John says that the reign of the Antichrist will be 42 months … which equals six years. In either vision, the point is that the reign of the Antichrist and his world domination will only last a very short time compared to the global empire that will replace it … one that will last a thousand years.
Then … and only then … will we live in the kind of utopian empire like the one John Lennon described in his song “Imagine.” The world will not be ruled by a Nimrod … it will not be ruled by a Nebuchadnezzar … not by a Caesar … not by a Napoleon or Putin or Xi Jinping … Trump or Biden or Boris Johnson or Google or Facebook but by the “Stone” that the builders rejected … Jesus Christ!
So, what should we be doing until all of this happens? Praying and worshipping. “In uncertain times,” says one pastor and author, “we can either worry or we can worship” (Jeremiah, Ibid.) … and I would suggest the later. The more you worship the LORD the less you worry about the things that you don’t understand because, if He is in charge … and prayer and worship remind us of that … then what have we to fear, amen? As God told us through Nebuchadnezzar and John’s visions, the most powerful empires on the earth will eventually turn to dust and be blown away like the “chaff of the summer threshing floors” (Daniel 2:35).
We should also keep doing what Jesus has already started … spreading the Good News … that He will come again and establish a kingdom here on earth that will last a thousand years. During that time, all the nations and all the people of the world will come to Jerusalem, the capital of Jesus’ empire. His earthly Temple will the most beautiful building on the face of the earth and it will be filled with the glory of the LORD. A deep and mighty river will flow from underneath the Temple and turn the desert into a garden paradise where fruit trees will provide fresh fruit all year long. The Antichrist was only able to establish a peace between Israel and her Arab neighbors … no mean feat … but Jesus will broker peace between all the nations of the earth. We may think that this is Heaven on earth, but this will only be the beginning. After the Millennium, the old universe will be rolled up like a scroll and tossed away and we whose names are in the Book of Life will be ushered into a new Heaven and a new earth and the celestial city of New Jerusalem.
We have the capacity to actually do what the people tried to do on the plains of Shinar – to send our voices out into every corner of the globe and reach every single person living on it, amen? Billy Graham went from peaching in revival tents, to thousands in stadiums and arenas, to billions over the internet. We may not be able to reach as far as Billy Graham but we can reach out to every person living in our little corner of it, amen?
I want to close with a story about what you can do with a little bit of toothpaste. Mengi was a prisoner in a North Korean labor camp. Upon her release, she defected to China in the hopes of making her way to South Korea. While in China, she was turned into the Chinese authorities and sent to prison. It seemed like her plans of ever reaching South Korea were over.
When she was escorted to her prison cell she saw the words “Jesus Christ” written on the wall in toothpaste. Curious, she began asking the other inmates what those words meant. She was pointed towards some Christian inmates who explained to her who Jesus Christ was and shared the Gospel with her … and Mengi was born again. After she was released from prison she reached her final destination … South Korea … where she was trained to be an evangelist by “Voice of the Martyrs.”
As the hymn “Let There Be Peace on Earth” says, let it begin with us. It only takes a spark or some toothpaste, amen? Be that spark, my friend.
