Laws Can Have
Unintended Consequences
“Men
worshiped the dragon [the
devil] because he had
given authority to the beast [Babylon],
and they also worshiped [obeyed]
the beast and asked, ‘Who is
like the beast? Who can make
war against him?’”
- (Revelation 13:4, insertion
mine)
The Bible predicts a
day is coming when God will send a
sequence of judgments on the world.
The Bible also predicts that mankind
will respond to God’s wrath with
a series of “well-intentioned
laws” and unintended
consequences will follow. The beast
mentioned in the text above is called
Babylon in the book of Revelation.
Babylon will be a crisis government
that will spring to life shortly
after God’s judgments begin.
While the entities that will develop
into Babylon already exist today,
Babylon will not form until
God’s time arrives. Many people
do not anticipate the coming crisis
that will have no equal in scope or
scale since Noah’s flood.
God’s coming judgments will
devastate the world and it
infrastructures. The deaths of 1.75
billion people and the smoldering
ruins of thousands of cities will
force world leaders to respond to the
reality that there is an Almighty God
and He is very angry with mankind.
Rising from the “sea of panicked
humanity,” the beast (Babylon)
represents mankind’s global
attempt to appease God so that His
wrath will end.
How the Beast
Forms
Governments are
sometimes illustrated in Bible
prophecy as beasts because beasts
will do whatever is necessary to
survive. When the political leaders
of the world experience God’s
judgments, they (like everyone else)
will be filled with terror and panic.
Fearing that more judgments will
follow, world leaders will tell the
world’s religious leaders to
find a solution that will stop
God’s wrath. I believe religious
leaders will gather at a world
council to determine the best
possible way to appease God so that
His wrath will cease. Their options
will be limited and they will
conclude that one organization having
worldwide authority will be
necessary. This “crisis
government” (the beast, Babylon)
will examine each nation and dictate
to its national leaders what is
“acceptable and unacceptable
behavior” in God’s sight.
The world’s religious leaders
will reason that if sinful behavior
provoked God’s wrath to break
out, then righteous behavior should
appease God and stop His wrath. Even
though this solution will appear
logical to most people, there will be
huge problem. Because the world is
religiously diverse, various nations
will direct their citizens to appease
God in different ways. For example,
the mandated solution for Moslem
nations will be different than the
mandated solution for Catholic
nations. The beast’s duplicity
– one worldwide organization
attempting to appease one angry God
with different laws in different
nations – explains why the beast
is called Babylon.” Babylon
means confusion.
Martial Law
Will Terminate Individual Rights
God’s coming
judgments (the first four trumpets
described in Revelation 8) will
devastate the infrastructures of the
world. This devastation will
necessitate martial law. Governments
will suspend constitutional rights
and civil jurisprudence will be
“set aside until the crisis is
over.” Historically, martial law
has been a tool used by nations to
(a) suspend individual rights, (b)
concentrate executive power, (c)
expedite decisions, and (d) implement
laws that are thought to be necessary
for the survival of the government.
Anarchy flourishes where there is no
government, so marital law is usually
justified as the best way to maintain
any semblance of order in a crisis.
At first, Babylon (the beast) will
not dissolve the government
structures of the nations. Instead,
each nation will implement its own
version of martial law and the
leaders having executive power will
submit to Babylon’s directives
out of fear for the next event. There
will be no need for constitutional
amendments or popular vote. The
political leaders will submit to
Babylon’s demands because
survivors will be highly motivated to
appease Almighty God so that His
judgments will cease, and the leaders
will not want to offend God any
further. The Bible is clear that
civil authorities will carry out
Babylon’s demands without
resistance. “….and
the world wondered after the beast.”
(Revelation 13:3)
Babylon will organize
as a result of a world crisis of
terror, destruction, and anxiety.
Political and religious leaders of
the world will have good intentions.
After all, what would be more
effective in appeasing an angry God
than outlawing behavior that God
condemns? In their rush to appease
God’s wrath, Babylon will make
and enforce laws that will have
unintended consequences. Many
innocent people will be hurt by
Babylon’s laws, and it will be
these good people who will be the
ones who obey God’s commandments
and hold to the testimony of Jesus.
After the worldwide
government of Babylon establishes
martial law and begins to function,
the devil will arrive and take over
Babylon’s leadership. He will
turn the organization into a
malicious beast. Absolute power
corrupts absolutely. The devil
himself will give Babylon
extraordinary power and authority.
“…The dragon
[the devil] gave the beast
his power and his throne and great
authority.” (Revelation
13:2, insertion mine) Lucifer has a
plan. Once God’s wrath is
released and the beast is born, the
devil will make Babylon into his hand
puppet. “And the dragon
was wroth with the woman, and went
off to make war with the
remnant of her seed, which
keep the commandments of God, and
have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”
(Revelation 12:17, KJV, italics mine)
To change conduct that
is offensive to God, the only tools
that religious and political leaders
can use are legislation and
punishment. Babylon will create many
laws which the nations of the world
(functioning under martial law) will
implement and enforce. Civil
authorities will arrest and impose
severe penalties on anyone breaking
the laws. Their justification will be
simple: “We have to do whatever
it takes to avoid making God
angry.” God will allow Babylon
to gain control over the nations
without firing a single bullet. The
political leaders will fearfully
submit to Babylon’s directives
in hope that compliance will end
God’s judgments. This process
explains how and why the topic of
worship will become an inflammatory
matter all over the world. A time is
coming when mankind will attempt to
appease God through worship and by
outlawing sinful
behavior, but the
unintended consequences of these laws
will be to persecute the saints
– the remnant of the woman who
obey God’s commandments and hold
to the testimony of Jesus.
History
Repeats Itself
When Justinian I (A.D.
483-565) became the ruler of what
remained of the Roman Empire in A.D.
527, he aspired to rebuild and
restore the empire to its former
glory. The empire was in shambles and
faced extraordinary challenges. We
can learn about Justinian’s
efforts by examining the laws he
created. Laws are created by those
who have the power to resolve
problems, and Justinian’s laws
reveal the problems he faced and his
ambitions. In fact, Justinian’s
codex (his laws) reveals an emperor
who was convinced that Christianity
could unify a fractured empire.
Historians say that
Rome fell for many reasons, but four
elements came together in a
“perfect storm” and brought
down the empire. First, there was a
loss of respect and confidence in
Rome’s leadership. Second,
economic problems and lack of funds
decimated Rome’s military.
Third, demographics changed. Tribal
nations became populous, powerful,
and assertive. Finally, the spread of
Christianity was unstoppable.
Christianity undermined Roman
authority because Christians would
not worship Caesar as God and the
relentless persecution of Christians
only caused Christianity to flourish.
When these four elements are merged,
the reason the old Roman Empire fell
is rather easy to understand.
When Justinian came to
power, Europe and northern Africa had
splintered into tribal nations and
the city of Rome had been pillaged
and burned just fifty years earlier.
Western civilization was fragmented
by religion, ethnicity, culture, and
language. Justinian knew that he
could not directly impose Roman
authority on the tribal nations that
had pulled apart. He did not have the
military might to force them into
submission. However, Justinian
believed there was an indirect way to
unify and rebuild the Roman Empire.
About A.D. 533 he created this law:
Everyone under the jurisdiction of
the empire is required to be a
Christian.
Justinian believed
that Christianity would help unify
the Roman Empire and compared to
other religions, Christianity was a
good thing. Christianity exalted
honesty, integrity and it had one
Supreme God (unlike the polytheistic
religion of the Romans). When
Justinian imposed his demand that
everyone under the jurisdiction of
the empire must be a Christian, he
also bequeathed authority to the head
of the Christian Church at Rome (the
pope) to determine who was a
Christian and who was not. (This was
a political solution that would later
prove to be disastrous.) The pope
could not implement Justinian’s
law in A.D. 533 because three tribal
nations (the Ostrogoth’s, Heruli
and Vandals) were waging war against
his authority. These tribal nations
were opposed to certain religious
views which the pope had endorsed and
they wanted to kill the pope for
corrupting the Christina faith. To
make matters worse, Justinian’s
law and his deference to the pope
made the tribal nations furious.
A series of deadly
battles took place between 534 and
537 and eventually, the Heruli and
the Vandals were uprooted. In A.D.
537, the Ostrogoth’s set siege
to the city of Rome in hopes of
starving the city residents and
capturing the pope, but
Justinian’s general, Belisarius,
arrived and broke the siege. So, Pope
Silverius escaped without harm. After
the rescue, Belisarius discovered
correspondence indicating that pope
Silverius had been secretly
negotiating with the Ostrogoth’s
to end the siege and Belisarius was
outraged. Belisarius removed
Silverius as pope and demoted him to
the position of monk. This happened
in March, A.D. 537.
When Belisarius
removed Silverius from office,
Belisarius appointed Vigilius to be
the next pope. About a year later, in
A.D. 538, Pope Vigilius began to
exercise authority that previous
popes did not have. As you might
expect, Vigilius abused his enormous
power and over time, the Roman
Catholic Church dominated all of
Europe! Justinian created a law that
had unintended consequences for 1,260
years! Even then, the devil made a
hand puppet out of the Roman Catholic
Church. He took control of it through
the Church and found a way to
persecute God’s people. “When
the dragon [the devil] saw
that he had been hurled to the Earth
[cast out of Heaven on Resurrection
Sunday], he pursued the woman
[the people of God] who had
given birth to the male child
[Jesus in 4 B.C.]. The woman
was given the two wings of a great
eagle, so that she might fly [escape]
to the place prepared for her
in the desert, where she would be
taken care of for a time, times, and
half a time [1,260 years], out
of the serpent’s reach.”
(Revelation 12:13, 14, insertions
mine)
This time period of
1,260 years mentioned in Revelation
12 ended on February 20, 1798 when
General Berthier, obeying orders from
Napoleon, entered Vatican City and
arrested the pope on the grounds that
the pope refused to renounce temporal
(civil) authority over Europe. On
March 7, 1798, Napoleon’s army
entered Rome and established the
Roman Republic. The civil power of
the papacy was finally broken in
Europe. When we understand the
history of these events in 1798, we
can see that Lucifer began chasing
God’s people in A.D. 538. Using
the Roman Catholic Church as a hand
puppet, John saw in vision that the
devil chased the woman into the
wilderness for 1,260 years and
history affirms that “the
persecuted” eventually became
“the persecutors” of the
woman.
We Are Living
During the Intermission
The Bible indicates
there are two periods of persecution
for the saints with a short
intermission in between. The first
period of persecution lasted 1,260
years. (A.D. 538-1798) The second
period of persecution lies just ahead
and it will last forty-two months. We
are living during the intermission
(1798 to the present). Many people
believe there will be a
pre-tribulation rapture and they will
escape the Great Tribulation, but the
Bible does not teach this. Instead,
it teaches that God has – and
will – permit His people to be
persecuted! Consider these three
reasons. First, persecution purifies
the church (the body of Christ).
Nominal Christians cannot endure
persecution. Second, persecution
matures the faith, our love for God,
and our love for those who suffer for
His sake. Third, persecution causes
God’s children to “hunger
and thirst” after the
Word of God. No martyr
ever went to the stake ambivalent
about right and wrong. When a person
is threatened with suffering and
death because of his determination to
uphold God’s Word, the Word of
God becomes his bread and water.
Think about this: If salvation comes
through faith in God, then faith has
to be tested to determine if we are
faith-full. History will be repeated.
Bible prophecy leaves no room for
doubt.
Larry Wilson
