We find the answers in the book of Daniel to the question: “What is going on in our world today?” We live in the times that Daniel saw in his dreams and visions. God showed him the future, and we are seeing it in the present.
How Have We Been Invaded?
Nikita Khrushchev’s words give us a clue…
From 1953 to 1964, Nikita Khrushchev was the Russian Premier. The height of the cold war and the nuclear arms race was heating up. He was an animated leader who hated the west. He is remembered for addressing a group of 1500 western ambassadors gathered in the Polish Embassy in Moscow, declaring these words, “We will bury you!”
Everyone at the time thought he was threatening nuclear war. However, what he really meant was, “We don’t have to go to war with the United States. We will conquer the U.S. without ever firing a shot.”
- Essentially, he was saying there would be a collapse of the U.S., and we would be invaded from within.
From the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, we can see communism is a failure and economic freedom is a winner.
However, 65 years later, Khrushchev’s words had a prophetic ring.
We live in a time where we are watching the collapse of a civilization. Historically, the United States, a western civilization, was built upon a Judeo-Christian worldview and values. However, in the last 10 years, we’ve seen this worldview and values begin to shift and change.
We see an invasion happen from within… If we, as a nation, can be led away by idolatry, we fall into captivity. This has been the enemy's plan from the beginning. We don't have to be invaded from the outside if we give ourselves over to the enemy. This destroys us from the inside.
What Is Going on in Our World Today?
Again, we find the answers in the book of Daniel. As a culture, we are coming into a Babylonian worldview and set of morals. We live in a time of moral, spiritual, and theological anarchy. This can be summed up from what is written in the book of Judges…
- “In those days, there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”—Judges 21:25 (emphasis added)
As we study the book of Daniel, we find it is more relevant to us than ever before. As a nation, the walls have fallen, the foundation has eroded, and we are similar to Daniel in 605 B.C.
If you want to see where God is going, look at where He has been. God is a god of patterns.
He doesn’t want us to guess at what He’s doing. He gave us the Bible to reveal Himself, not hide Himself. So if we want to understand what is going on in our world today, take a look at where we’ve been.
Here’s a pattern revealed in the Bible…
- A godly nation…
- … that turns to idolatry…
- …eventually goes into captivity.
This is what happened to Israel, Daniel’s nation. Once a godly nation, Israel believed in the one true, and living God of Heaven, set apart from the pagan neighbors and nations around them.
Know this, God’s plan all along through the Jewish nation—a godly nation set apart for His purposes—was to save all the nations of the world.
But, after hundreds of years, Israel—once a godly nation—turned to idolatry. They began to look just like the surrounding nations, worshiping other gods.
So then, the takeaway for Israel at this time in history gives us a pattern for today…
- When a nation that was once godly turns to idolatry, God warns this will lead to captivity.
This is where we are as an American society. We’ve gone from spiritual apathy to a place of spiritual complacency, which eventually leads to spiritual anarchy, and we end up in spiritual captivity.
This is the progression of nations.
This is the progression of individuals.
God wants us to see the past so that we can understand the future, and most of all, so we can make a difference in the present.
Babylon Today
What does this mean if we see Daniel's nation in a similar situation as ours today?
Daniel was a teenage boy who was taken into Babylonian captivity. Daniel was thrown into the lion’s den well before the event recorded in the book. He was thrown into the Babylonian culture—a worldview that is anti-God—intended to consume him.
Babylon is the origin of all counterfeit and pagan religions from antiquity to the 21st century. All false religions are traced back to ancient Babylon.
Babel and Babylon
In Genesis 10, we are introduced to Nimrod, a descendant of Noah. In chapter 11, we read the story of the tower of Babel—Nimrod’s kingdom. Nimrod means “rebel” in Hebrew. We discover this is exactly what he did. He desired to build a tower to make a name for himself, building a city with its tops in the heavens—in essence, to rebel in the face of God.
He ultimately wanted to be a god, rather than worship the one true God.
God said this…
- “And the Lord said, ‘Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.’”—Genesis 11:7
God personally came down to put an end to this insurrection and rebellion.
We have come full circle, right back to where we were at the tower of Babel.
In Revelation 17, the apostle John writes that toward the time of the end, there will be a universal religion with roots that trace back to Babylon…
- “And on her forehead a name was written:
MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT,
THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS
AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS
OF THE EARTH.”
—Revelation 17:5
John calls this end-time religion a “harlot.” Once a Christian nation, a godly nation, is now prostituted with the enemy’s lies. There is a mixture of truth with pagan lies in the Church today, influencing our nation.
We are living to see the emergence of this end-times religion… Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots, and the Abominations of the Earth.
Babylon the empire died long ago, but the spirit of Babylon is alive and well in the 21st century.
Taking a Look at Daniel
Now, circling back to Daniel, we see he is taken into captivity and immersed into Babylonian culture, yet he does not compromise his faith.
This is true for us today. We live in a culture that reflects Babylon, which is why we look around and hear what sounds more like babbling (or Babel) than it does the Bible.
It feels like this world is upside down. But we must remember that the kingdoms of this world will fall, just as Daniel saw. We can live with certainty in these days of great insecurity. God knew exactly what would happen and what He would do—He would bring out a remnant who would one day return to Jerusalem. He will bring a remnant who will stay focused on Him as their authority and not compromise.
He will indeed establish a Kingdom that will be without end. We can be certain of this.
Discover more about the book of Daniel and how it applies to today’s world. Get our FREE Daniel Bible Study here!
