It’s been said that nations derive their income from taxing their citizens whereas empires derive their income from taxing nations.  Where the US is concerned, this taxation has come in the form of an inflated dollar, caused by the monopoly it has enjoyed where the purchase of oil is concerned.

In 1972 President Nixon made an agreement with Saudi Arabia that in return for a pledge of security and protection the Saudis would influence OPEC to accept only dollars for the purchase of oil.  This has required nations to maintain larger supplies of dollars then they normally would have, increasing the world wide demand for dollars.  A year earlier, Nixon had taken the dollar off the gold standard.  Now he was saying that while they could no longer expect gold for their dollars they could buy oil with them.  This allowed the dollar’s value to fluctuate according to demand, instead of being fixed at the rate of $35 per ounce of gold.  As the law of supply and demand took effect, the dollar’s value relative to other currencies increased.  The US then used these inflated dollars purchase goods from other nations.  The effect of all this was that the US has been able to purchase as much as $1.25 worth of goods for every dollar it spends.  In this way, the US has collected its tax from the nations of the world.

As we all know from our our personal finances, what begins as a bonus can soon become a requirement if we’re not careful.  So has it been with the US economy, until now we can only make ends meet if we continue to collect this �tax� by keeping the dollar monopoly on oil purchases.

About 17 months ago I first wrote that Iran was going to break this monopoly by offering to accept payment for its oil in other currencies.  Its customers would no longer be required use dollars to purchase Iranian oil.  I said that if Iran could pull this off, the nations of the world would no longer have to maintain a large supply of dollars, but would begin selling them off in exchange for other currencies.  As this happened the law of supply and demand would begin working against the dollar causing a decline in its value.

The thing that makes all this so confusing is that currencies no longer have absolute values like they did in the good old days.  Back then all the currencies of the world derived their value in comparison to the dollar which derived its value in comparison to an ounce of gold which was fixed at $35.00.  When the dollar went off the gold standard we were left with only relative value based on supply and demand.

When Iran began accepting other currencies the dollar’s monopoly was broken and its value began declining.  The Euro benefited most from this and as an example of Iran’s success, in October of 2003 you could buy 1 Euro for $1.19. By the end of 2006 it took $1.31 and on Oct. 11, 2007 one Euro cost  $1.43.

Iran hasn’t done this alone, but certainly started the attack against the dollar. Russia, China, and Venezuela have all helped out. And recently Japan’s three largest refineries announced that they’ve begun paying for Iranian oil in Yen. Some are calling this the currency cold war, saying that what America’s enemies couldn’t do militarily, they’ve begun to accomplish in the financial markets. China alone holds 1.3 trillion in US dollar assets.  Dumping these assets is being called China’s nuclear option because of the devastating effect it would have on the US Economy. Recently China and Japan led one of the biggest sell-offs of US dollar assets in history.

Financial experts warn that the dollar is still over valued and will likely face further adjustments, and the head of the International Monetary Fund warned of an abrupt fall in the dollar’s value due to a growing lack of confidence in the US currency.  Honestly we can’t blame Iran alone for our situation.  Our staggering debt load, the spiraling rate of home mortgage foreclosures, the War on Terrorism and our general credit crisis have all contributed. And the rate of our moral decay has certainly disqualified us from receiving any help from God.

America has recovered from financial difficulties before, and may well do so again.  And certainly there’s no immediate fear that we’ll go to bed one night with money in the bank and wake up the next morning to find that it’s all worthless.  But never before has America had an enemy like Iran, whose president is admittedly orchestrating world-wide chaos in an all out attempt to hasten the return of  al Mahdi, his Messiah.  Never before has any national leader said that he’d gladly sacrifice his country and his people in such a pursuit.  And the only obstacle standing in his way is the USA.

There’s no prophecy in the Bible that points to an end times conflict of such proportions as that which is looming between Iran and the US. But there is one that pits Iran against Israel, and many think that it’s just over the horizon.  Even the secular press in Israel has begun to sense it, saying the next war will be the Gog-Magog war of the Bible.  The only thing preventing an attack on Israel is the fear of US retaliation.  Something has to be done to get  us out of the way, and soon.

The US government has just imposed even more stringent economic sanctions against Iran, a move that Iranian officials say is tantamount to a declaration of war, and obligates them to respond.  Will they cripple us militarily through a series of attacks against our forces in the Middle East?  Or will they break our national will with devastating terrorist attacks here at home?  Or beat us financially, by destroying our currency?   We’re clearly vulnerable on all these fronts.

Or will the King of the Universe decide that America’s �15 minutes of fame� is up and suddenly strip our  country of its Christian component leaving countless military and civilian leadership and support positions vacant, rendering the country confused and leaderless?

One of these options will likely take place soon, since America plays no obvious role in End Times prophecy.  Even those who see us there, see us as Mystery Babylon, destroyed in a single day, in one hour.  We are not specifically listed among either the participants or the observers in Ezekiel’s battle.  Our presence cannot be detected among the forces of the Kings of the North or the South, nor do we appear with the Kings of the East.  And there is no King of the West.  It’s truly remarkable that a nation having enjoyed the power, the prosperity, and the influence of the US is primarily distinguished at the End of the Age by its absence.

And so the future will not be like the past, and life doesn’t just go on.  We who are believers must finally and unreservedly shift our allegiance to our coming King, and make ready our place in His Kingdom, the one that will never be destroyed nor will it be given to another people.  It will crush all those other kingdoms and bring them to an end.  But it will itself endure forever. (Daniel 2:44)

See, I will stir up against them the Medes, who do not care for silver and have no delight in gold.  Their bows will strike down the young men; they will have no mercy on infants nor will they look with compassion on children.  Babylon, the jewel of kingdoms, the glory of the Babylonians’ pride, will be overthrown by God like Sodom and Gomorrah.  She will never be inhabited or lived in through all generations; no Arab will pitch his tent there, no shepherd will rest his flocks there. (Isaiah 13:17-20)

According to a Newsmax.com report I received recently,  U.S. ally Turkey and U.S. arch-enemy Iran have formed a military alliance to drive separatist Kurds from bases in northern Iraq they have used since 2004 to launch guerrilla operations inside Iran, rebel leaders told Newsmax at a secret base in the Qandil mountains.

I first wrote about this three years ago.  It’s been a problem waiting to happen since the outbreak of the war in Iraq.  The Kurds are descendants of the Medes, an Indo-European people who were joined by the Persians in their successful effort to overthrow Babylon and establish them selves as a world power in the 6th century BC. The Persians, while joining mid-campaign, eventually became the more dominant partner in the coalition, but together the Medes and the Persians reigned for over 200 years until Alexander the Great defeated them.

The original ancestor of the Medes was Madai, the 3rd son of Japeth, a son of Noah. After the confusion of tongues at Babel he migrated north and east into the region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea where Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Armenia, and Georgia all join today.  Locals call this area Kurdistan, or land of the Kurds.  Mosul, a prominent city in Iraqi Kurdistan, was known in Biblical times as Nineveh.

Turkey has been a resolute opponent of granting the Kurds a national homeland because much of the land they would occupy is in Turkey, with some in Iran and Iraq as well.  In fact, Turkey thinks it owns the land currently occupied by the Iraqi Kurds, including the rich oil fields there, claiming that their ownership dates back to the days of the Ottoman Empire.  The Iraqi Kurds have been very helpful in the US war with Iraq and have gained influence and autonomy as a result. In fact, the President of Iraq is currently Jalal Talabani, head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and the first non-Arab to lead an Arab country. Remember, the Medes were descendants of Madai, son of Japeth.  That makes them Caucasian, not Semitic.

I guess you can understand why Turkey is less than thrilled with all of this. Having gone to war to prevent Kurdish autonomy in the past, are they now supposed to be happy about the likelihood of  a whole country run by Kurds right next door?  The unthinkable result in Turkish minds is that the Kurds will become an independent nation, taking a bunch of Turkish land in the process.

Iran, who also has a considerable Kurdish population, shares this fear and is only too happy to help make a bigger mess for the US in Iraq, especially since the Kurds have been successfully preventing Iranian and al Qaida fighters from crossing into their part of Iraq.  So, beginning a few months ago a coalition of Turkish and Iranian troops have been entering Iraq to do battle with Kurdish separatists in the Qandil Mountains.

US officials have urged Turkey not to send in more troops and have appealed for a diplomatic solution. The Kurdish self-rule region in northern Iraq is one of the country’s few relatively stable areas and the Kurds are a longtime ally of the US.

By the way, relations between Turkey and the US faced further strain after a UScongressional committee voted to  accuse Islamic Ottoman Turkey of genocide against Christian Armenians during the First World War.  Turkey denies that the 1.5 million deaths constituted genocide, saying the toll has been inflated, and those killed were victims of civil war and unrest that killed Muslims as well.

Turkey claims that the forced relocations of ethnic Armenians were not intended to eliminate them and have threatened both to deny the US access to its bases in Turkey and to cross the border into Iraq with a massive force they’ve built up on their side if the resolution passes.  This caused Pres. Bush to publically criticize the congressional committee, saying there are more important things to do than alienate our only real Moslem ally in the region.  Since then Democratic defections have caused the leadership to re-think its strategy and the bill may not come out of committee after all.

What’s The Point?

I offer this background so you can see three prophecies all edging closer to fulfillment in these events.  First, Turkey and Iran are becoming allies, opening the door for Turkey’s coming entry into  the Moslem coalition of Ezekiel 38.  As western powers have snubbed or offended Turkey, Iran and Syria have both become closer allies to this overwhelmingly Moslem NATO member.  Turkey’s defection to the Moslem coalition is one of the few remaining pre-conditions for Ezekiel 38 to be fulfilled.

Second, we see the descendants of the ancient Medes coming back onto the world stage to fulfill the prophetic destiny that Isaiah and Jeremiah foretold for them.  This tells us that the Kurds are not going to go away, but in fact will become a stronger force to be reckoned with in the Middle East.

Third, and the focus of this study, we’ll see that their destiny is to be God’s agency for the never before fulfilled judgment against Babylon at the End of the Age.

By now we all know that Babylon was never destroyed in the way Isaiah and Jeremiah described when the Medes and Persians took the Kingdom in 538 BC. When Darius the Mede assumed the throne  in Babylon , he did so without having fought a battle for the right.  The Medo-Persian armies had snuck  into the city by diverting the River Euphrates and crawling under its gates to capture the mighty fortress without throwing a spear or swinging a sword.  And yet Jeremiah said that the Babylonian army would be completely destroyed, falling down slain, fatally wounded in the streets of Babylon (Jere. 51:3-4) and “her thick wall will be leveled, her high gates set on fire.  The peoples exhaust themselves for nothing,  the nations’ labor is only fuel for the flames.”  (Jere. 51:58) The use of the plural for nations in this verse conveys the idea that multiple countries were involved in building the city, another clue that Jeremiah wasn’t talking about the Babylon of his time, but of a future one.

Speaking of Babylon’s destruction, the Lord had Isaiah say,

Listen, a noise on the mountains, like that of a great multitude! Listen, an uproar among the kingdoms, like nations massing together! The LORD Almighty is mustering an army for war. They come from faraway lands,  from the ends of the heavens—the LORD and the weapons of his wrath—to destroy the whole country.  Wail, for the day of the LORD is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty. Because of this, all hands will go limp, every man’s heart will melt.  Terror will seize them, pain and anguish will grip them;  they will writhe like a woman in labor. They will look aghast at each other, their faces aflame. (Isaiah 13:4-8)

This sounds more like 21st century weaponry.  I’m told that a neutron bomb will melt flesh right off the skeleton while the victim is still standing.  Perhaps this is what Isaiah saw.

Never Again

Isaiah said that Babylon would never be inhabited again after being judged, and Jeremiah repeated the pledge seven more times. Yet Babylon has been inhabited and is today.  There must be a future role for the Great City, and it must be a major one to merit six chapters of the Bible.  Isaiah 13-14, Jeremiah 50-51 and Revelation 17-18 all speak of it.  Isaiah 14 tells us why the city is so important. It’s because the real King of Babylon is Satan himself.

Isaiah 13-14 is a 2 chapter oracle about the destruction of Babylon, some of which we’ve highlighted above.  But Isaiah 14:4 says, “You will take up this taunt against the King of Babylon” and from there on things get personal.  In verse 11 he says, “How you have fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning” and then lists the five boasts that Lucifer made in his rebellion against God.  It’s one of only two glimpses the Bible offers into this mysterious event that many scholars believe preceded Adam’s creation.  The other is Ezekiel 28:12-19 where Lucifer is called the King of Tyre.  Both end in his utter defeat.

There are more good reasons to believe that the Babylon spoken of in these prophecies is an End Times city in Iraq, not the USA, and that it will be destroyed by the Medes, or rather their modern counterparts the Kurds.   The Medes are mentioned in Isaiah 13:17 & Jere. 51:11, 28 as being involved in a destruction of Babylon that’s never happened in history and will result in the eternal desolation of Satan’s headquarters on Earth.

Although many nations will be involved, only the Medes are mentioned by name, and both Isaiah and Jeremiah were speaking of them in regards to the city in modern Iraq.  Referencing the time as “The Day of the Lord” Isaiah called Babylon “the jewel of kingdoms, the glory of the Chaldeans’ pride” (Isaiah 13:19)  (The Chaldeans were the people of the southern regions who founded and controlled the Babylonian Empire.  Some believe that Kuwait is the nation now occupying the land of the Chaldeans, and that this was the basis for Saddam Hussein’s claim to Kuwait in the invasion that prompted the first Gulf war.)

Jeremiah went even farther.  He used two cryptograms (code words) to authenticate his description, also in the context of the End Times.  There are several instances of Hebrew code writing in the old Testament.  They typically substituted the last letter of the 22 letter alphabet for the first, the 21st for the 2nd, the 20th for the 3rd and so on.  Jeremiah’s two cryptograms can be found in Jere. 51:4 where Leb Kamai is code for Chaldea and in Jere. 51:41 where Sheshach is code for Babylon.  I believe he did this to make it unmistakably clear that he was referring to and end times version of Biblical Babylon.  How Satan will restore this now largely ceremonial city into the capitol of Earth at the end of the age is a matter of much speculation, some of it skeptical.  For now what we know from Isaiah, Jeremiah, and John is that he will.

I say that because some of the language John used in Rev 17-18 is almost certainly taken from Isaiah and Jeremiah.  In Isaiah 13:21-22 Babylon is called a haunt for jackals, owls, and hyenas, words that in Hebrew describe demons as well as unclean animals.  Compare that with Rev. 18:2. With a mighty voice he shouted: “Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!  She has become a home for demons and a haunt for every evil spirit, a haunt for every unclean and detestable bird. Or how about Isaiah 47:7-9 where the Lord accused Babylon as saying “I am the eternal queen … and not a widow,” and said she would be destroyed in a moment, on a single day.  Compare that with Rev. 18:7-8.  In her heart she boasts, ‘I sit as queen; I am not a widow, and I will never mourn.’ Therefore in one day her plagues will overtake her.

Jeremiah called Babylon a gold cup in the Lord’s hand who made the whole Earth drunk.   He said the nations drank her wine and went mad, and she would fall suddenly. (Jere. 51:7-8)  Compare that with John’s words in Rev. 17:4 & 18:3.  She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries.   For all the nations have drunk the maddening wine of her adulteries.   All three of these prophets were describing the same place. While the US certainly deserves and may well receive the judgments described here, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and John were all describing the fall of Biblical Babylon.

Through the Kurdish involvement in the Iraqi War, the Medes have stepped out of history and onto the world stage once again, and another player in the End Times Scenario is taking its place.  One day soon, the King of the Medes will again lead a vast army against Babylon, and this time her destruction will be complete, and the Lord’s words will be fulfilled.