Sid Roth

SID: Hello. Sid Roth here with Joel Richardson. And Joel, the Book of Revelation uses a term, “Mystery Babylon”. What is Revelation talking about?

JOEL: Mystery of Babylon, this is one of the, really the great final frontiers of Bible prophecy, one of the greatest mysteries. In a nutshell, Babylon is essentially the spiritual and economic fountain that will give birth to the greatest false religion that the world has ever known. So the Book of Revelation tells a story. It tells a story about a woman, that’s Israel, and she’s about to give birth to a child, that’s the Messiah, and it’s through this woman and this child that the entire world will find redemption. But before the woman, desiring to devour the woman and the child, is the dragon. That’s Satan. And his method throughout history to come against Israel has been a series of empires. They are anti-Semitic. They are anti-Yawistic. They are anti-Messiah, anti-Christ, if you will. And it’s through these empires throughout history that Satan has, he’s had his strongholds in the earth. So we had ancient Babylon. We’ve had Rome. Today the empire in the earth that is reigning is the Islamic empire. That is the premier anti-Semitic–

SID: But wait a second. Most people think that this Mystery Babylon is Rome.

JOEL: Exactly. When we look at Revelation 17, it says, that the city sits on seven hills, which are also seven heads, also seven kings. Mountain. It’s actually not hills. It’s mountain. Mountain is a common biblical motif for a kingdom or an empire which corresponds to kings. And when we look at history we see that the Roman Empire was the sixth empire, the sixth empire of biblical history that persecuted and tried to destroy the Jewish people. Islam is the natural successor that fulfils the pattern of all of the previous empires. It is the greatest, most powerful anti-Semitic, anti-Yahwistic force that the world has ever seen.

SID: Okay. You just did a tremendous Bible study, because I’ve read it, identifying from the Bible that Mystery Babylon is Saudi Arabia. Now another name for Mystery Babylon is the Great Harlot. And the Bible talks about those that are going to commit fornication with her. Who is Mystery Babylon?

JOEL: Fornication needs to be understood in the simple terms of idolatry. It is false worship. It is any worship that is attributed to any other god other than Yahweh, the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Not Allah, not the god of Islam. Two very different gods. Saudi Arabia is the premier fountain. It is the location from which Islam was birthed into the world. And today when you say what is the premier export of Saudi Arabia, people say oil. The fact is its primary export is Islam. It’s ideology. So fornication is the exportation of false religion. Saudi Arabia is not only an economic manipulator in the earth by literally pouring millions of dollars into the back pockets of world leaders and using their money as a powerful anti-Semitic lobby–

SID: All right. Let’s just take our most recent presidents. Why don’t you start with Carter and work up. Very quickly, how has Saudi Arabia swayed their thinking?

JOEL: When you look at the donations that former President Carter received, it’s in the tens of millions, and that’s all we know.

SID: Tens of millions?

JOEL: Tens of millions of donations to him personally.

SID: From Saudi Arabia. Is that why he comes out with books that are so anti-Semitic.

JOEL: That are brazenly anti-Semitic, accusing Israel of being an apartheid nation, accusing them of essentially being the modern Nazis of the earth.

SID: But what about Bush?

JOEL: George Bush, Sr., George Bush, Jr., they have deep historical relationships with the Saudi princes. Ambassador Bandar, close personal friends. So you ask, why is it, a lot of Christians would say, why is it that President Bush, supposedly a born-again believer, would come out and say that Islam is a religion of peace and a great religion? We know that’s not true. Well perhaps it has to do with the fact that he’s received tens of millions of dollars from the Saudis.

SID: Okay. But President Obama certainly hasn’t.

JOEL: Well history shows that President Obama received substantial funds from the Saudis through an intermediary that actually financed his education at Harvard and Columbia University, and so he’s just got in. Most of the presidents are receiving the funds after they get out. He already has received quite a substantial amount of money. We look at Clinton. Just before the election they had to open up their donations: over 30 million from Saudi and Gulf Arabs. That money has an affect. People don’t give millions of dollars away for no reason.

SID: Okay. What about, you mentioned universities. Why are all of these great universities, like Harvard and Georgetown, and others, putting up great buildings of Islamic study, bringing in top Muslims to speak on their campuses? Harvard, why would they do that?

JOEL: $20 million.

SID: Twenty million? From who?

JOEL: $20 million. Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, one of the most wealthy men in the world, poured 20 million into Harvard, 20 million into Georgetown to essentially create Islamic propaganda study centers. And then he had the gall to come to Harvard and lecture the United States about our need to be more tolerant. This coming from a prince who comes from a nation that will not allow a simple church, synagogue to be built in their country, where Christians and Jews can’t openly practice their faith, he comes to the United States and lectures us we need to be more open to Islam.

SID: Okay. We know who Mystery Babylon is. What about a term referred to in the Book of Revelation as “The Beast”? What is the Beast?

JOEL: The Beast and the Harlot, the beast and Babylon, have this very interesting relationship. It’s kind of like the Lone Ranger and Silver. They’re riding and steed. They go together. But then we see that the Beast turns on and devours the woman. The Beast is essentially the End Time revived empire, the revived coalition or union of nations that will then turn on the woman, that’s Saudi. In the end it says they will burn her fire.

SID: You know, I saw your identification of who the beast nations are, and even more important, who is the chief of the beast nations. You’ll be shocked. Don’t go away. We’ll be right back after this word.