DROWN THE HARLOT OR BEL AND THE DRAGON

KEY VERSES: The sea is come up upon Babylon: she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof. 44 I will punish Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he hath swallowed up: and the nations shall not flow together any more unto him: yea, the wall of Babylon shall fall. And it shall be, when thou hast made an end of reading this book, that thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of Euphrates: And thou shalt say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I will bring upon her: and they shall be weary. Thus far are the words of Jeremiah. (Jer 51:42,44,63-64).

  Harlots, in the Bible; are people, cities, nations, or religions that fornicate against God – in His face – so to speak: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Exod 20:3). The transliterated Hebrew is “’Acher ‘elohiym paniy,” meaning “Other gods in God’s face.” The preposition “in” is presumed from the context, as is “God’s”. The God of Babylon was Bel; he was transformed over time by the Babylonians from Bel-Marduk from their pantheon of gods into the god of creation. He was THE “god” in God’s face.
  “In God’s face” can be taken two ways: (1) As another god alongside God in the proximity of God’s “face,” or any other God who steals Yahweh’s identity as perpetual Existence and the Creator. The Babylonians created Bel in seven days with their ritual (From the Chronological Study Bible, page 763):

(1)    (Day 1) Marduk’s Temple prepared.

(2)    (Day 2) Priest washing on the second day, consecrating themselves to Marduk.

(3)    (Day 3) Three craftsmen made things from wood, representing evil.

(4)    (Day 4) The story of Marduk in the process of creating was recited.

(5)    (Day 5) Marduk’s temple’s walls were consecrated by waters from the Tigress and with tree sap, a sheep slaughtered and its head and body thrown into the Euphrates River.

(6)    (Day 6) The idols – two wooden images – were made for Marduk.

(7)    (Day 7) On day seven and thereafter through day 12 there were songs, dancing, feasts, and then the idols returned to their temples. Bel rested.

  It is uncanny how the creation of Bel-Marduk each year mocked God Creating everything in the beginning only. Perhaps the three evil things of wood are misrepresentations of evil as good in irreverence to the Tree of Life. Could it be that the evil represented by Bel-Marduk was the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life? (1 John 2:16) – the three characteristics of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? I contend that Bel-Marduk was another “god” in God’s face whose tree or doctrine was The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Therefore, Bel’s of all ages represent the Serpent in his tree. Bels (Baalim) are those that are false gods in God’s face. Nebuchadnezzar made a statue of himself in God’s face, and he was cut down to a mere beast who grazed like oxen.
  Judas Iscariot is considered as Jesus (Isa) by many Muslims. Satan entered into Judas. Judas was another false god in God’s face. Judas “wore” the face of God when Muslims considered him to be their Jesus.
  This background is given so that the reader understands that Bel is the Serpent, Bel is Baal, Bel is Venus, Bel is Judas, and Bel is “the harlot Babylon” mentioned in John’s revelation at the end of time. Bel is Satan. Cleansing water is his “krypton,” like Superman’s, but in the end, fire will end the Devil.
  Mankind was taken out of the Garden of Eden and deposited in the outside world. It seems that afterward, Heaven on Earth was no longer pertinent and the Garden was concealed in the unseen. (I believe the natural and the unseen coexists and death translates the living to the places of the dead, or from the seen to the unseen worlds. As such, possibly the Garden of Eden is still on its foundation in Jerusalem, and as the harlot Babylon, will be consecrated by fire and become the City of God which scripture calls New Jerusalem (Rev 21). (That is speculation, but you must admit, it parallels scripture.)
  After the Garden was safe from the world, people became evil, and God provided a generous supply of water to re-consecrate the Earth. After the waters of Noah’s time resided, the world was regenerated, not perfect like the Garden of Eden, because Satan (Bel) had merely had his head held under the “waters.” He was not yet dead. The New Earth will not be consecrated once for all time until Satan is out of the picture forever by fire!
  The world was destroyed by water in Noah’s time. In Jeremiah’s time, Babylonia whose great city was the harlot Babylon was destroyed by a “sea” (from the key verses). The waves of that “sea” washed Babylon from the face of the Earth. It is to be noted, that just as Jeremiah prophesied, to this day in 2019, Babylon remains destroyed and uninhabited. It died as it suffered desolation. The present-day world will become desolate as well in the end (Rev 21).
  The northern kingdom of Israel had been destroyed as a warning to the Hebrews. Thereafter, all that remained of the Israelites were the Hebrew language and a remnant of them, the Jews, (two of the twelve tribes) in Judah. Shortly thereafter, Judah did not hearken unto God. “She” hearkened unto Babylon just as Adam hearkened unto the defiled Eve (Gen 3:17), and the sons of God hearkened unto the daughters of men (Gen 6:2) before the flood.
  Hence, there was an island as such – the city Jerusalem – in the flooded world whose remnant escaped the flood waters of the Media-Persian Empire who came on horses to save the damned! (As the one on a horse will save Christians in the end.)
  Ironically, it was not the remnant who remained in Jerusalem who were preserved, but the dispersed living in Babylon. God had brought righteous men to the harlot Babylon (personified much in the same way as the harlot Rehab who saved them long before.) The harlot Babylon kept them safe until God’s time was ripe. Cyrus and his allies saved the day, and the Jewish remnant. Cyrus’s armies were the “flood waters” whose waves drowned the Babylonians. That is symbolic of Hell for the wicked Babylonians, and Heaven for the few righteous Jews.
  Then, after isolated from the harlotry in Jerusalem for seventy years, a remnant; thanks to Cyrus, Darius, and God; were saved from Evil-Merodach and his god, Bel. The harlot Babylon was drowned, and Jerusalem replaced the harlot as harlot. With that rationale, I submit that “the harlot Babylon” of the end-of-days is not Rome, but Jerusalem. I believe that God will wash the harlot with fire, and “she” will have a new countenance as the City of God – His faithful wife!
  Therefore, the demise of Babylon is representative of another chance for the Jewish people, and it will suffice until Jerusalem becomes the whore to the extent that God will wash her with fire. Babylonia is symbolic of the world. The flood waters of the Medes and Persians was not water at all, but perhaps the barbs of Median arrows and finally with the Greek Fire of Alexander the Great. Babylon represents the evil world whose gods are any Bels who wear God’s face. Ironically, who wears God’s face? Jesus is the “face of God.” Who else? Sinners wear a false face “as gods” (Gen 3:5).
  In order to be saved from all Bels, then those who call themselves Christians, must worship God’s Face (Jesus) and take off their arrogant masks. Humble people will clean off the façade by washing in Living Waters – the Spirit of God emanating from His fountain, Jesus. Bel or the Dragon will be humiliated as was Evil-Marodach and Bel long ago in Babylon.
  With all that explained, the point is that the end-of-days will be much like the end of Babylon. Just a remnant of the faithful in Babylon were saved, but none others, even in Jerusalem. God will not come to the Jews but the Jews to God for he calls them even from the past. A remnant of 144,000 (Rev 7) of them will be saved, not those in Jerusalem (two tribes), but from all the twelve tribes scattered by Babylon throughout the world!
  Babylon's demise typifies the end-of-days; we should learn by their mistakes:

And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.  Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double. How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her. And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning. (Rev 18:1-9).