There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. (1 John 4:18)

There’s lots of fear mongering going on today. The word “monger” originally referred to a trader of commodities, but today it’s more often used to describe a person involved in something petty or contemptible.

You don’t have to look very far to find someone who’s only too willing to inform you about all the things you should fear, whether it’s financial collapse, food shortages, killer diseases, or the government secretly planning to lock you up in the FEMA camps they’ve been building so they can force you to take the mark of the beast.

Books and videos explaining signs from God that foretell of coming judgments are guaranteed to sell even if they are not always accurate in their interpretation of His word. This is because all around the world there is a growing expectation of judgment.  Paul explained that even those who have no knowledge of God’s law intuitively know right from wrong (Romans 2:14-15), and even the most casual observers are beginning to sense that things are going wrong.

I don’t know of a single nation that’s being blessed today.  All are in some stage of the end times judgment that will culminate in the fulfillment of Jeremiah 30:11 when the Lord will completely destroy them. Only Israel is guaranteed survival and even they will endure some very difficult times first.

We recently compared current events in the world with the “birth pangs” Jesus described as indicators that the end of the Age was drawing near.  We saw evidence that these indicators are steadily becoming more frequent and more intense as the time for the Second Coming approaches in the same way birth pangs become more frequent and more intense as the time for the delivery of a new life approaches.

Many Christians are still deeply immersed in the world, and even though they are born again, the fearful attitudes of their unbelieving counterparts have begun occupying their minds as well.  What with the evening news, the internet, radio and TV talk shows, and what passes for secular entertainment these days it’s no wonder.

Don’t Let It Get You Down
The Bible warns us about letting the fears and uncertainties of this world infect our minds. In Matt. 6:25-34 Jesus repeatedly said, “Do not worry.”And in Matt. 13:22 He said the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of worldly wealth could stunt the growth of His word in our hearts and make us unfruitful.  He said we should expect trouble in this world but to take heart because He has overcome the world (John 16:33).  And about the times we’re in, He said,  “When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:28).

Notice that Jesus didn’t tell us to take heart because He would give us the strength to overcome the world ourselves.  He said to take heart because He has overcome the world. And He also said seeing the signs of the approaching End Times should cause us to stand up and lift up our heads because our redemption is drawing near.  One of the great promises of the Bible is that we don’t have to be overtaken by events in this world, but can remain above them.

But because of our fallen nature, this doesn’t happen automatically. Our natural tendency is to mirror the attitudes of the world around us.  We learn very early in life that this is how we get the people around us to accept us, and acceptance is one of our most basic human needs.  That’s why so few of us are truly individuals. We’ve been working to fit in with the world around us since we were little children. By the time we reach adulthood it has become second nature to us. Most of us never come to understand that we are who we are primarily because we’ve learned to reflect the attitudes and habits of people whose acceptance has been important to us.

Becoming born again doesn’t automatically change us, especially if we are still immersed in the same society. In its newness, evidence of our faith will show itself in the way we talk and act.  But if the company we keep doesn’t approve, we’ll soon learn to keep that part of ourself private.  It’s a price we pay for acceptance.

Many Christians discover that living out their faith requires developing a whole new set of friends, but even then they often become the same kind of Christian their new friends are.  Ever notice that in congregations who believe in prayer languages, just about everybody has one? But in those who don’t  believe in prayer languages no body has one.

The same is true when it comes to legalism, baptism, prophecy, different schools of theology, etc.  A person’s position on any of these points will usually mirror the position of the church they attend. And it’s not because they went looking for a church that teaches a particular doctrine.  Most of us didn’t know what to believe when we first started going to church, and the vast majority of us never check to see if what we are being taught is true.  We believe it because the the people who have accepted  us into their midst believe it.

Acceptance Trumps Knowledge
This is because the need for acceptance trumps Biblical knowledge. The Bible only teaches one view on all these things and if everyone relied on the Bible to help them form their beliefs there wouldn’t be all these different denominations. This was Paul’s point in 1 Cor. 3:1-9.

Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings?

What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.

The problem is most of us don’t rely on the Bible to inform us. We rely on what other people tell us.  Because of that we can never be certain that what we know is true, and our uncertainty is the open door to our mind that fear walks through when things start to get scary.

Don’t conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind (Romans 12:2).

You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;  to be made new in the attitude of your minds;  and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness (Ephes. 4:22-24).

Paul was speaking here of allowing the Holy Spirit to begin His regeneration process in our minds. Being transformed and being made new in the attitudes of our minds are not things we do, they’re  things He does. Our participation in the process involves reading God’s word and letting the Holy Spirit confirm the truth of it in our minds.  Jesus said the Holy Spirit would guide us into all truth (John 16:13). God’s word is the only source of that truth.

But many believers omit the step of reading God’s word.  As a result they are left with only their feeling that the truth has been spiritually revealed to them.  People like this have a zeal without knowledge, something Proverbs 19:2 says is not good.  I can’t count the number of e-mails I’ve received from people excitedly claiming that the Holy Spirit had revealed something new to them and they’ve decided to share it with me.  Usually I discover after a few minutes of study  that what had been “revealed” to them is in direct contradiction to what the written word says.

Most people don’t realize that our minds can be tricked into thinking we’ve received something from the Holy Spirit when it’s actually coming from a different source altogether.  When we omit the step of reading God’s word we’re removing the confirmation step from the regeneration process, which can easily retard our spiritual growth and even result in believing a false teaching.

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ (Colossians 2:8).

I’m convinced that Paul was not just talking about sources from the unbelieving world here.  Listening to a pastor or teacher without confirming that what he says is consistent with God’s word is one of the most common ways of having a false teaching planted in our minds.  This is why Paul commended the Bereans for confirming everything he taught them by searching the Scriptures daily (Acts 17:11). In failing to do so we run the risk of simply exchanging a secular man made tradition for a religious one.

What Does The Bible Say?
Jesus said there will be trouble in this word but to take heart because He has overcome the world (John 16:33). He said when the particular trouble the world is experiencing right now begins to take place we should stand up and lift up our heads because our redemption is drawing near (Luke 21:28).  He said because we’ve  kept His command to endure patiently He will keep us from the hour of trial that’s coming upon the whole world to test those who live on the Earth (Rev. 3:10). He said He will come back and take us to be with Him so that where He is we will also be (John 14:2-3).

Paul said Jesus will rescue us from the coming wrath (1 Thes. 1:10).  He said we who are alive and are left will be caught up (raptured) to meet Him in the clouds and we will be with the Lord forever (1 Thes. 4:17).  He said to encourage each other with these words (1 Thes. 4:18). He said events leading up to the end of the age should not take us by surprise (1 Thes. 5:4), and that we are not appointed to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through Christ our Lord (1 Thes. 5:9).

If you’ve only heard these things from the mouths of men then you can’t be sure they are true, and you’re fair game for the fear mongers who delight in shaking the confidence of the uncertain.

But if you have read with your own eyes the verses from which these statements come, and know them well enough so you can easily find them in your Bible, if you have asked the Holy Spirit to confirm the truth of them and believe in your heart that they apply to the times ahead, then you have protected yourself from all the fear mongering that abounds today.

You know that these promises do not necessarily exempt you from any persecution or trial between now and the day He comes to take us, but you know you are a child of God (John 1:12-13) and because of that you can continue to endure patiently.  Since you believe He left, you know He will come for you.  When He does He will take you to His Father’s house, and you will dwell in the house of the Lord forever (John 14:2-3).

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)

If you’ve been following the news in the Middle East, you know the Kurds are having a very difficult time lately.  Although the majority of Kurds are Muslim, the Islamic State considers them to be idolatrous and has threatened them with extinction.  An example of their plight is the city of Kobani on Syria’s border with Turkey.  Surrounded on three sides by IS fighters, the Kurdish city desperately needs help.  But Turkey, whose army is camped just across the border on Kobani’s fourth side, won’t help because, for reasons you’ll see below, they don’t like the Kurds.  And since the Kurds have been on Syria’s side against IS other countries won’t help for fear of inadvertently helping Syria. This is the latest in a long line of struggles the Kurdish people have endured in their effort to reclaim the national identity and homeland they had in ancient times.

The Kurds are the modern  descendants of the Medes, an Indo-European people who were joined by the Persians in their successful effort to overthrow Babylon and establish themselves 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 converge 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. You may remember how the Kurds held off the Islamic State in the battle for the Mosul Dam this past summer.

Turkey has been a resolute opponent of granting the Kurds a national homeland in Kurdistan 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.

What’s The Point?
The Kurdish army, called the Peshmerga (those who confront death), is a fearsome fighting unit, and with modern arms, enough ammunition, and some training could probably defend themselves against the Islamic State.  But they are struggling from the lack of these things because their neighbors are afraid they might become too strong and win their long and hard fought battle to regain their homeland. This is something that no one else wants, no matter which side they’re on.  In fact, WND is reporting that Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the US have all agreed to let Kobani fall to the Islamic State, putting 160, 000 Kurdish people at risk of massacre, rather than coming to their aid.  They clearly don’t want an independent Kurdistan, primarily because its historical lands sit atop rich oil reserves that Turkey, Iraq, and Iran want for themselves.  These countries have reportedly agreed to let the Islamic State solve their Kurdistan problem, thinking they can deal with IS later.

The purpose of this study is to show that no matter what the odds are against them, the Kurds are not going to disappear from the world stage.  We know this because 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 Babylonian Kingdom in 538 BC. When Darius the Mede assumed the throne in Babylon, he did so without having fought a battle for the right. A contingent of the Medo-Persian armies had slipped into the city at night after Cyrus the Persian diverted the River Euphrates far upstream.  With the river reduced to knee high depth they crawled under the bronze bars that descended into the river to keep the city secure, and opened the gates for the Medo-Persian armies to capture the mighty fortress without throwing a spear or swinging a sword.

(This was foretold 150 years earlier in a prophecy from the Lord in Isaiah 44:27-45:3  which describes the manner in which Babylon would be taken and even mentions Cyrus by name. Before he was born, Cyrus was chosen to be the one who would free the Jews from their 70 year captivity in Babylon.)

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 continuously inhabited and is so 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. 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. Isaiah 14:11 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 in Ezekiel 28:12-19 where Lucifer is called the King of Tyre. Both foretell of his utter defeat.

There are more good reasons to believe that the Babylon spoken of in these prophecies is the End Times city in Iraq, 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 an 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 speaking of the same place, and describing something that hasn’t happened yet.

Those who say the restoration of Babylon will require billions of dollars and many years have not considered that its preparation has been under way for several years now. For example, if you take a close look at the dimensions and capabilities of the US embassy in Baghdad you will see how easily it could be converted into a world governmental headquarters.  With a compound covering 104 acres, it is the largest and most expensive embassy in the world, and is nearly as large as Vatican City.  Babylon is only about an hour away by car.

In addition, one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces sits on a hill overlooking ancient Babylon and has been completely restored as a hotel and tourist destination. It could easily house the anti-Christ and his entourage.  And there are several large military installations nearby as well.  In short, preparing Babylon to become the capitol of the world won’t take anywhere near as long as most people think.  And remember, this is Satan’s city on Earth.  Therefore we should realize there will be supernatural power at work in the rebuilding process as well.

But here’s the take away from this commentary.  Through the Kurds, 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.