Sid:  Joel Richardson, there’s some terms that we read about-Mystery Babylon, Great Harlot. You’ve connected the dots in a way I have not seen before. Tell me who Mystery Babylon is. Is it Rome, New York City?

Joel:  Well, Mystery Babylon is probably indentifying this mysterious woman in Revelation 17 and 18. It’s really one of the greatest mysteries of Bible prophecy. Rome, New York City, the United States-these are all suggestions that have been put forward as theories. Some people say it is the summation of all the false religions systems down through history. The key to unlocking the identity of the Mystery Babylon is found in a really strange place. It’s in the last chapter of the first epistle of Peter. The clue that we find there is that Peter was actually in Rome at the time that early church history is thoroughly consistent and universal with the idea that Peter was in Rome. Writing from Rome he said, “The church that is in Babylon.” He used the word Babylon and applied it to the city of Rome. What we learn from that is when we see and understand the simple story that is laid out in Revelation 12, 13, 17 and 18, it’s a story of seven world, biblical, and historical empires that have been empires that have all carried a satanic and anti-Semitic and later an antichrist spirit. Each one of these empires have been the primary empires down through a biblical and world history that have sought to destroy the Jewish people. That story is told where this beast is sitting before the woman in the book of Revelation, and this woman is Israel. She’s about to give birth to a male child Who is the Messiah. This beast which is satan wants to devour Israel. He wants to devour the Messiah to thwart God’s plan for the ages through the Messiah. Satan’s primary tool down through the ages has been this series of world-pagan empires-these anti-Semitic empires. Babylon was the city that was the spiritual and financial capitol of ancient Babylonia. That was one of these beasts-these satanic empires of history. In the first century, when the epistle of Peter was written, the Roman Empire was the beast empire of that time. In Revelation 17 we see that Rome was the empire that was the sixth in the list of empires. The city of Rome was spiritual and financial capitol of the Roman Empire. We have this pattern which is simply to say that Mystery Babylon is the reigning spiritual and economic capitol of whichever beast empire is dominant in the earth at this time, and as I discussed in the DVD series, the beast empire of our day that follows after the pattern of all of these previous pagan empires is the Islamic Empire.

Sid:  In your teaching you explain, why it can’t be a lot of the other places that people said from scripture, but now the big question is, “Where is the capitol of that empire.”

Joel:  This comes across as novel to most people when they first hear it. But I think that you’ll agree that after it’s expounded, it made more sense than anything I had ever heard. The reason is, Sid, is that Revelation 17 and 18 gives us numerous criteria to identify Mystery Babylon, and of the different suggestions that you’ve mentioned that have been popular in the church through recent years and down through history, all of them meet some of the criteria, but none of them meet all the criteria. All these theories have a few significant problems. However, the identification that I’m about to mention doesn’t have any problems. It matches all of the criteria to a “T.” If we agree that the primary anti-Semitic, antichrist empire of the earth today is the Islamic Empire, then we ask, “What is the spiritual and financial capitol of that empire?” The question that I like to ask people is, “Were do 1.7 billion people pray five times a day toward a particular city in the earth?” That city is Mecca. Mecca is the greatest city of idolatry that the world has ever seen.

Sid:  That’s in Saudi Arabia.

Joel:  That’s the spiritual capitol, and beyond that Saudi Arabia unequivocally is the greatest financial source of terrorism and radical Islam throughout the earth beyond any other nation. Saudi Arabia is the nation that has funded the spread of Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and all these various groups. They pay for the Islamic centers, mosques, and the midrosis, they raise up radical hate preachers, they send them out as missionaries, they fill the mosques with the radical anti-Semitic literature that has the Saudi Arabian’s signature in the books. The city of Mecca is the womb from which Islam burst forth into the earth, and today Saudi Arabia is still the spiritual and financial womb of all of the radical Islam.

Sid:  Out of curiosity, who would you say these one and a half billion people are praying to? Who are they praying to five times a day facing Mecca?

Joel:  There’s two ways to answer that question. First of all I would say that if you’re worshipping any other god other than the God of the Bible, then you are committing idolatry.

Sid:  Yes, but they say allah is god. It’s just the Arabic name for god.

Joel:  Nowhere in the Bible is God ever referred to by the name of allah. The Bible does tell us the name of Abraham Isaac and Jacob. That is Yahveh. It’s very clear when He appeared to Moses in the desert, He said, “Yahveh is the name that you shall tell them. I am the One that sent you.” The fact of the matter is that allah, the god of Islam, is just one more manifestation of ancient Near Eastern, astoral, and war deities. There are numerous. There’s Zen; there’s Marduke. These are all the gods that were worshipped by the pagan people of the desert. Today, the god of Islam is just one more manifestation of satan who is trying to masquerade as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Sid:  You may not be able to answer this question but how did a man that I believe id a born-again Christian that was president of the United States, President Bush take the montra, “Islam is a peace-loving religion”? I don’t see anything in their history that’s peace-loving.

Joel:  The way that I always answer that is that I always say, “Unfortunately, in that case President Bush was being a much better politician than he was being a good theologian or good Christian. Some people would say that they understand why he was doing that, but personally as a Christian I would never openly declare such a lie.

Sid:  Joel, I’ve often pondered. Why does someone like President Bush who I believe is a born-again Christian, constantly feed us the line that Islam is a peace-loving religion? As I study it’s history, I don’t see anything peace-loving about it. I see the opposite of peace-loving, but then when I started watching your four-session and two DVDs on understanding the times, and I saw how the long family relationship of both Bushes with the Saudi royals, I began to understand how the Great Harlette is Saudi Arabia. You point out masterfully in your DVD teaching about people like President Obama and the money he got from the Saudis and Jimmy Carter and the money he got from the Saudis.

Sid:  My guest, Joel Richardson, takes a subject that most Christians will readily admit they don’t understand the end times. They don’t understand the book of Revelation. They put the whole thing on a shelf. My guest has been raised up by God to make the complex mysteries simple. Joel Richardson, because tied in with the end times is the religion of Islam, there have been numerous death threats. I can’t even tell people where you live. Is that correct?

Joel:  Yeah. I’m ok with the Midwest, but beyond that when people ask me where I am I say, “I’m in my secret bunker.”

Sid:  Ok let’s get right to the meat. I am fascinated with the information you have on our president, our former presidents, especially Jimmy Carter, but let’s get to something even more important than that because they’ll get the CDs that you have. They’ll get the DVDs that you have. Tell me a bit, I’ve never heard of this before, this treaty that throughout Muslim history show a pattern of what went on but will go on in the United States. I can’t understand how you can know this. Our state department and our administration doesn’t know this, because if they knew what you are about ready to state publicly on the air, they would never be trying to orchestrate peace agreements with the Palestinians in Israel. Tell me a bit about this treaty.

Joel:  The treaty that you mentioned is called the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah. Really what I often say is that if you want to have a basic understanding of Middle Eastern politics, and the Palestinian issue, you have to understand this treaty and it’s role in Islamic history. Unfortunately, our president administration has said, “The present issue in the world with terrorism is not related to Islam. It is merely a reaction against imperialism.” But again unless we get into Islamic theology, the religious doctrines of Islam, we’re going to miss this basic fact and it’s affect on the Middle East and not the only the Middle Eastern politics but Biblical prophecy. As the story goes, Mohammed had been kicked out of Mecca. He and his very small band of Muslim followers had moved to a nearby city of Medina, and Mecca was the religious capitol of the region. Every year the surrounding pagans would all make pilgrimage to Mecca to worship their various gods at the kaba (the cube in the middle of Mecca).

Sid:  What do you mean “the cube in the middle of Mecca”?

Joel:  The kaba is the shrine. The kaba in Arabic simply means “the cube.” It’s a black cube that is a building and that is literally the shrine that throughout the earth everyday 1.7 billion Muslims bow five times everyday towards Mecca. They pray toward the kaba, and that’s the shrine that sits in the middle of the haram sharif. That’s what they call the noble sanctuary in the middle of Mecca. During the time of Mohammed it was filled with idols so this was a shrine that was pre-existent to the religion of Islam. Mohammed told his small band, roughly a thousand people, that they were going to make pilgrimage that year. They were trying to self-fulfill this prophecy. They were approaching Mecca; they came to a place called the Spring of Hudaibiya. The most powerful tribe of the region was the Carashis. The Carashis stopped Mohammed and his men at the spring and really abused Mohammed in front of his men, mocked him quite a bit. They said, “No, you’re not going to make pilgrimage, absolutely not, but we will make a treaty with you.” This treaty has come down in Islamic history as the Treaty of Hudaibiya. They said, “From now on, if any of your men want to leave Islam, you have to let them go, but if any of our people want to convert to your group and become Muslims, you have to send them back. For the next ten years, we will have a ceasefire. You will not attack us; we will not attack you. Next year, well let you come back; you can make a pilgrimage.” The next day all of Mohammed’s men were really upset, because he was looking like a false prophet. Mohammed said that that night allah had given him a revelation. He said that this was a great victory because he realized that the most powerful tribe in the region had agreed not to attack them. Over the next two years, Mohammed began attacking a series of Jewish villages plundering, raiding, pillaging, and massacring these villages. He said to the people, “If you will join in these raids from now on, you get your percentage of the plunder, booty, women, and slaves.” Within two years as Mohammed became a pirate of the desert he went from a thousand men to roughly ten thousand. The Muslims were larger than the Carashis. He broke the Treaty of Hudaibiyah. He came and invaded Mecca. He conquered the Carashis, and he was now the undisputed leader of the entire region. Muslims today believe that Mohammed was the perfect man and perfect example for all Muslims to follow. Today all Muslim politicians and leaders, look to this example of making a treaty when you are weak in order to gain strength, in order to reload, in order to gain strategic dominance over your opponents.

Sid:  Use a modern-day example of Yasser Arafat. How did he use that treaty?

Joel:  This is going back to the eighties. Arafat had made a significant treaty with Israel. Many from the Israeli Left were very excited about this. They were talking about moving towards peace. Then Arafat was speaking before a group in South Africa. He spoke in Arabic. To the people in Arabic he said, “Listen as far I’m concerned, this treaty is just like the treaty that Mohammed himself engaged in with the Carashis. This is no more or less than the Treaty of Hudaibiyah. We will use this treaty in our onward march towards Jerusalem. What Arafat didn’t know was that someone was recording this speech. When it was translated, he was caught openly admitting that he had not literally entered into any desire for peace.

Sid: Fast-forward. President Obama, the state of Israel, and the Palestinians. What is going on when the Palestinians say, “We want a small portion of the land for ourselves”? Do you believe that for one minute?

Joel:  They call it the two-state solution. This has been something that has been pushed from the Bush administration and the Clinton. Everyone’s failed. Obama’s picking up the baton, and he’s going for the two-state solution. He’s pushing the Israeli government to go for the same thing. Netanyahu is potentially open to discussing such a thing. Within the very charter of Hamas and all of the various political leaders even the Palestinian side of the West Bank they all have history of openly stating the fact that they want to see the annihilation of the state of Israel. So while they may enter into a treaty, on order to get confession in order to see Israel give confessions and come their way, their ultimate goal is always to see the destruction of Israel.

Sid:  But wait a second. The U.S. will back Israel up. So they’ll never be able to get more than just the Palestinian state. Uh oh. Maybe that’s why our military is being weakened, and they know that.

Joel:  Absolutely. There’s no question that those in Israel on the right who refuse to even discuss a two-state solution, who are determined to be strong to make Israel’s military strong in order to rightfully defend themselves, they are on the position of right. History has born out the fact that when you have a nation of people…..

Sid: But listen. Our state department knows what you’re saying. Why are they still proceeding forward? Our administration knows-whoops we’re out of time.

Sid:  Joel is a nice Catholic from Boston, and it’s a hot day. There’s a tent meeting. A revival is going on. Now Joel is not interested in spiritual things. He just thinks that maybe he can go in that water and cool off. Is that really the way it was Joel Richardson?

Joel:  Everything except for the good before Catholic. I was raised Catholic fairly nominally. By the time that I was nineteen, which is when I came to the Lord, I was very far even from my Catholic roots. When I was nineteen, a friend of mine and I had driven from South Boston to the suburbs of Memphis, TN. It was just one street over from Elvis Presley Blvd. We pulled up to a grocery store, and in the back of this field next to the grocery store was a big old southern holiness tent revival. It was a hot day in the end of August. We had a little truck with no air conditioning. When we pulled in I had the bright idea to get baptized and cool off. My friend thought that that was a good idea. The end result was that we found the preacher. It was in between services. This was a revival that was going on for a few days. We got baptized, and of course we stayed for the meeting. There were various individuals that knew that we didn’t belong there. We had long hair at the time. I was a little South Boston hippy drug addict I guess you could say. They began trying to minister and witness to us. As the meeting went on, numerous people were being touched by the Holy Spirit. Different people were being healed. I’ve always been a skeptical individual. I was watching this and there was one gentleman who really caught my attention. He was an older gentleman who went up and he said that he had been blind most of his life. Even from a distance you could tell that his eyes were sort of white, blue, gray. He didn’t have pigment in his pupils. As the preacher prayed for him, he asked the man if he could see. Very hesitantly the man said that he thought he could a little bit. Instead of giving testimony and jumping up and down, he walked off stage and wandered out into the cars. They were all parked in the field. I followed him.

Sid:  Why?

Joel:  I was curious. I wanted to see. It was my opportunity to interview someone who said that they were being healed. He caught my attention. You could tell that he was looking around, and that he himself was pretty mystified. You could see the look of shock on his face. Something had happened. As I walked up to him, he was fifteen yards off kneeling down in the grass, I could hear sobbing and weeping like a little baby. This gentleman was probably in his sixties. I walked up and began to ask him what was taking place. He sort of interviewed me a little bit. He said that he had been blind his whole life. He could see for the first few years as a child. His hand reached up to the sky. He was just praising God. He was just weeping and he said, “Right now, I can see the stars.”

Sid:  That had to have such an impact on you, and then, that very same evening, were you saved?

Joel:  I was saved. I knew at that moment that I had to take all that was taking place seriously. I knew that no matter how much I would like to write it all off as fanaticism, I knew that something had taken place. This man was being genuine. As I went back into the meeting, the preacher was reading from the gospels. He was reading from the sermon of John the Baptist. He said, “The ax at the root of the tree has already been laid. Therefore bear in keeping with repentance lest you be cast into the fire.” At that moment, the Holy Spirit confronted me and He told me, “If you don’t repent of your entire life, your entire life is a lie. If you don’t repent tonight, right now, if you don’t completely give Me your life, you will spend eternity in hell. You will go to hell.” My response, which shocked me, was, “Absolutely. You’re right. My entire life is a lie. If I don’t repent I will end up going to hell and deserving it.”

Sid:  You know what is so obvious to me? You were set up by God, Joel. Then you became a believer. You were minding your own business in a large meeting of about seven thousand people. The prophet, who was speaking, calls you out. What does he say?

Joel:  Fast-forward several years, and my wife and I are sitting in the back of a very large auditorium. He calls both of us out. He told me that because of my faithfulness in my season of waiting on him in intercession, the Lord is going to release me into revelation and He’s going to essentially download revelation from His heart and mind to mine. He’s going to begin opening up the scriptures. This is tied into another prophecy that my wife had received that she would marry someone with new insights into the end times and that I would actually release revelation concerning the end times.

Sid:  Now you are actually doing this right now. Are you as amazed as the people you talk to of this revelation you’ve been getting? Because it’s different than most people that are teaching end times.

Joel: To a degree it is. One of the things that I continually hear as people read or listen to my material, is they say, “I had a dozen ‘aha’ moments.” I always respond by saying, “Me too as I’m writing.” Winston Churchill said, “If you want to learn about a subject, then either write a book or teach about it.” When you take the time to prepare, pray and study, when you seek the Lord in order to teach others, you yourself are taught in the process. In the process of putting so much of my material together, I have also had numerous “aha” moments.

Sid:  It must just pop out like a revelation. I know when this happens to me, I’m as mystified as excited as the people that hear it.

Joel:  I’ll tell you something personal, Sid. When I was a child, I had a repeated dream throughout my childhood. It was that I would discover a secret panel in the house that I grew up in. I would discover a secret room. I would always wake up from this dream with this intense sense of excitement that I had lived in this house my whole life, but I had never known that there was this secret room in my house. As I become an adult, I still have the dream, but it’s changed. Since becoming a believer, I have a dream that as I’m reading the Bible, I open up the Bible and I find a new book. I say, “Wait a minute. Where’s this book been? I’ve never seen this book.” As I begin reading it, it’s exciting, and there’s this energy on me. Every time I have that dream, it usually follows that as I begin opening up the Bible, I’m not literally finding a new book, but it’s as if the Lord’s opening up His books that are already there. He’s releasing understanding and revelation.

Sid:  I can tell you, Joel, that as I watch your DVD series, I am so excited the way you unfold and tie in end time Bible prophecy with current events. You have facts about who is the great harlot. You have facts about who is Babylon. You kind of connect the dots of things that we know the ingredients of, but you put together. As a matter of fact even before we share anything, I’ve got to ask you this question. I know no one knows the day or the hour that the Messiah is going to return, so I’m not stupid enough to ask you that question, but based on the information that you have in these DVDs, could everything occur in your lifetime?

Joel:  Personally, I absolutely believe that if I should live long enough that absolutely, the Lord will return in my lifetime. I do believe that He’s at the door, and I believe that we need to be about the work of the Lord as a result.

Sid:  Now you have spent over a year in the Middle East in Egypt, Jordan, and Israel. You must have had a fit when President Bush kept referring to Islam as a peace-loving religion.

Joel:  Yeah as the great religion and the religion of peace, I carry a very hard message.

Sid:  Our time is up. Trust me, if you like end time prophecy, you will love these four sessions on two DVDs called “Understanding the Times” for a donation of thirty dollars.

SID:  Hello Sid Roth your investigative reporter here with Doug Jones and are you ready have you got that switch of faith turned on even now?  But the question is posed Doug; it’s one thing to preach it, it’s another thing to teach it, but it is more important to live it. Question: have you ever been sick?

DOUG:  Sure.

SID:  And have you practiced what you are preaching and seen results?

DOUG:  Yes sir, very much so. We are people who are belief governed we are to live by what we believe. And that doesn’t mean we don’t go to doctors we need to make that clear, and that does not mean that we do not corporate with the medical science, with the medical field that we do not in many times take the operation. That does not mean anything about that at all.  No time does the Bible ever say that taking medication or going to doctors or cooperating with the doctors is a sign of doubt and in belief. And so in many cases it is going to be medical science and your faith working together that creates the changes in our lives. And I run into a lot of people that think that going to doctors taking medicines, just shows a lack of faith. It is not a sign of lack in faith. The Bible says that if you have the power in your hand to do good and you hold it well then that is wrong. And so if we have the power to cooperate with the doctors then cooperate with the doctors, but in the meantime keep the switch of faith turned on.

SID:  Now you also said that there was a third ingredient and that is rather than making it a formula, yielding to the Holy Spirit in each specific instance.

DOUG:  Yes,

SID:  What do you mean by that?

DOUG:  We need to be led by the Spirit of God, the Spirit of God can guide you through passages that what will I call, “tweak” your beliefs; causes your beliefs to be more fined tuned.  Many times the Spirit of God will direct you; maybe through a teaching or maybe through a tape or maybe through a pastor that can bring you to the point to where you need to be. The Spirit of God, the Bible says in John 14 and John 16, will guide you and lead you into all truth. He will teach you all things, so we need to be sensitive to the Spirit of God.

SID:  Speaking being sensitive to the Spirit of God, I tell you right now that the Spirit of God is increasing your faith to believe, there is a healing anointing that is going to pour out of your television, get ready get in place, Doug pray.

DOUG:  Father in the name of Jesus, we just thank you father, that you have supplied healing on us through the death burial resurrection father through your son and through his crucifixion the healing power of God was made available to man kind. Because you knew that we were going to need healing long before we ever knew that sickness could be acquired. And so father we thank you that in Jesus name as we pray that the healing power of God is being administered to everybody, to every single individual that needs healing we thank you father…

SID:  Doug, I just feel that I have to interrupt you right now and I just want you to take your hand and put it on your body because he is going to because the Bible says that those that believe in the name of Jesus will lay hands on the sick and they will recover. Will, will, will!  Go ahead continue.

DOUG:  Yes and so in father Jesus name we just thank you that your healing power is administered now and we command every body to be healed from the top of  their head to the soles of  their feet, the healing power of God be administered to your body. And so because we believe that we received when we prayed, father we thank you  for your goodness, we thank you father that it is working mightily within each body and father from this point on we believe that we received we believe that we are recovering now in the name of Jesus. And father we thank you for those things giving you the glory and giving you the praise because each day will be a better day. Each day father will be a pain free day, and father we thank you that in Jesus name that your power is at work within our bodies in the name of Jesus amen.

SID:  And for those that did not have the instant manifestation, tell them what to do between now and the manifestation occurs look in the camera and tell them.

DOUG:  Believing that we are receiving when we pray, Mark 11 verse 24, with the spirit of Thanksgiving, father thank you that your power is at work within my body, every time that you think of it, it maybe when you take that medicine out of the cabinet you know take your daily dose, it maybe when you take the shot, it maybe when you walk into the doctors office every time you think of it say with your mouth let your words be heard. Paul said I believed and therefore I have spoken.  We also believe and therefore speak.  It is time to get to start speaking what we are believing.  We believe that we receive the power of God is working mightily and father we believe were we have conquered the whole fancier confession until you are satisfied with the fruit produced.

SID:  You know of the things that Doug and I are so excited about that yes God’s laws are true God’s words are true, but you can’t approach it legalistically you have to approach it in the Spirit and yield to the Spirit of God. And that is why I have to yield to the Spirit of God right now and tell you that there are people who have hearing problems ringing in the ears any type of hearing difficulty you are being healed right now. There are people with horrible horrific neck and back problems if you will bend over move your head you will see, Doug one of the most exciting miracles that you have see in healing school tell me about it.

DOUG:  I suppose probably the most exciting one was a lady, this one was through a word of knowledge a lady had a tumor on her back about the size of an egg, and through a word of knowledge that was called out and she was healed instantly.

SID:  Now did anyone see this happen?

DOUG:  Some ladies took her back and  found that it was gone, absolutely completely gone, and so that was a tremendous blessing, tremendous miracle, but that is once again the gift of healings, we have had many people that believed that they have received held fast of  their confession of faith and healed of cancer many of them. And so the issue is once again you hold fast with the word of God, you operate within the word of God, and results will occur it’s when we start getting so taken up with our problems, that we become distracted with our problems that we become a hearer of the word and not a doer. I will never forget I was teaching a healing school one day and I had drawn a mountain on the chalkboard and I was taking with Mark 11:23, speak into your mountain. And the lord said to me he said there are people in this room that are so taken so captivated by  their mountain, they forgot what I told them to do about  their mountain.

SID:  How about you, is that you? You are so captivated by your symptoms, well let me tell you something a Greek scholar recently said something to me that was so exciting, were the word of God says if you believe you will receive, the word receive in Greek actually means something stronger it means take. If you believe then you should do what I told you at the top of the show, reach your hand into the visibly realm and take what is rightfully yours, what our messiah died for why for only one reason he loves you he calls you special he calls you a man a woman with destiny, with purpose see you have been called to the kingdom for such a time as this. And he not only wants you to walk in divine health he wants you to lay hands on the sick and have them walk in divine health why? Because a miracle demands the fact that God had shown up and demands the confrontation of will I continue to be a sinner, and live with the devil, or will I repent of my sin and say I am linking with you Jesus the choice is yours, choose this day with whom you will serve. Serve the living God.