For Americans, the most memorable event of the year 2005 was probably the destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, which occurred on August 29, 2005. President Bush called it “that great city” a number of times. This is biblical terminology for Babylon in Rev. 18:19,

¹⁹ And they threw dust on their heads and were crying out, weeping and mourning, saying, “Woe, woe, THE GREAT CITY, in which all who had ships at sea became rich by her wealth, for in one hour she has been laid waste!”

We knew immediately that this was a type and shadow of the overthrow of Babylon, as well as the city of Tyre, another commercial city that was “destroyed in the midst of the sea” (Ezekiel 27:32). See also Ezekiel 26:12, where it says they will “throw your stones and your timber and your debris into the water.”

New Orleans has been the home of the Southern Decadence festival (each Labor Day week end), as well as Mardi Gras in February, both of which are well known for their public displays of immorality. In fact, the Southern Decadence festival was interrupted by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

A month later, we went to Denver for our 2005 Tabernacles conference. We had been led to hold this conference at the DoubleTree Hotel, not knowing that this hotel chain was headquartered in New Orleans. When I walked into the hotel, the first thing I noticed was the hotel restaurant, the Lafitte Restaurant, featuring “Real New Orleans Food.”

I thought to myself, “It looks like we're in New Orleans. This is going to be interesting.”

Just before the conference began, we got a telephone call from my son back home, who told us that a huge storm (and probably a tornado) had just deposited a large tree in our living room. Well, that was certainly no reason to cancel the conference, so we told him we would see him in another week. Essentially, we were “homeless” while we were in New Orleans (in Denver).

We immediately saw the connection and could sympathize with the homeless people in New Orleans. The main difference was that we were not devastated over it, because we knew that this was part of the revelation process. It had not occurred outside of God's control.

Incidentally, the destruction of our house turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Since our house was 19 years old, it needed a new roof, new carpeting, and a new deck, as well as a paint job. We had no money for these things, but because of the situation, the insurance company paid for $70,000 worth of restoration, including replacing all of the work that needed to be done.

We had already received divine revelation that the theme of this conference was going to be about receiving the nations as our inheritance. Psalm 2:8 says,

⁸ Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as thine inheritance, and the very ends of the earth as thy possession.

The prophetic picture that we were getting was that our earthly inheritances were being devastated, but that God had a greater inheritance for us. In receiving this greater inheritance, we would lay claim to the nations for the Kingdom of God.

The previous year, on Ascension Day, May 20, 2004, Vanita had gone to Denver to search for her father's inheritance. Many years earlier, her father had owned a gold mine, which he lost in the 1960's for lack of funds to develop it properly. Vanita had grown up at this property in the mountains, and so she was returning after 40 years to find the inheritance. She was unable to locate it, however.

Vanita returned in 2005, not only to find the lost inheritance, but also to attend our conference in Denver. This time she was able to locate the property, as if to say that the overcomers would indeed find their lost inheritance.

So on Sept. 22 we became “homeless.” It was precisely 490 days after Vanita had failed to find the inheritance on May 20, 2004. The number 490 is the number known as “Blessed Time.” (See Secrets of Time.) Because the insurance company paid for nearly all of the restorative work, the destruction of our house was turned into a blessing.

On Sept. 25, the last day of our conference, Lori walked up to me in the restaurant and informed me that the organizers of the Southern Decadence festival were meeting in a conference room directly above our own meeting room. I was puzzled as to how she knew this. She told me that she had recognized them because she had been one of these organizers prior to her deliverance from Baphomet on June 24, 2004. They had called her months earlier, asking her to come to New Orleans for the festival in 2005, but she had refused on the grounds that she was now a Christian.

Lori said further that if she had accepted their invitation, she would have died in the flood caused by Hurricane Katrina. The DoubleTree hotel in New Orleans was flooded out, and two of the organizers were killed by this hurricane.

So in the meeting that evening, we were led to pray that God would bless them, knowing, of course, that God's definition of “blessing” found in Acts 3:25, 26 was that God would turn them from their iniquities.

The next day, Sept. 26, 2005, we drove over the mountains from Denver to Grand Junction, Colorado to pour out the sixth bowl of wine (and water) on “the River Euphrates” (Rev. 16:12). The name “Euphrates” means FRUITFUL. It is similar to Ephrata or Ephraim (Fruitfulness). We were led to pour out the sixth bowl of wine on the Colorado River in the town of FRUITA. The word spoken to the river at that occasion was “BE DRY.” Revelation 16:12-14 reads,

¹² And the sixth angel poured out his bowl upon the great river, the Euphrates; and its water was dried up, that the way might be prepared for the kings from the east. ¹³ And I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs; ¹⁴ for they are spirits of demons performing signs, which go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them together for the war of the great day of God, the Almighty.

When Medo-Persia overthrew Babylon in the days of Daniel, the Persian army diverted the waters of the Euphrates, drying up the river. The troops took the city by marching in on the dry river bed, after the priests betrayed the city by opening the iron gates that spanned the river. This established a historical precedent, and so Revelation 16 speaks of the overthrow of modern Mystery Babylon in the same terms. It is symbolic this time, of course, but one must look at the original historic event as a pattern for the overthrow of modern Babylon.

The River Euphrates was the life blood of Babylon. It was Babylon's “fruitfulness.” Modern Babylon is no longer a mere city, nor even a regional empire. It is now a global system, whose “Euphrates” is money (liquidity). Pouring out the bowl of wine upon the Euphrates signified divine warfare upon the money system of globalized Babylon.

There is now a liquidity problem in Babylon, and according to Revelation 16, this is sure to lead to “the war of the great day of God, the Almighty.”