Revelation Said “CITY.” So I Tried to Break My Own Theory.
I woke up with a question that threatened my entire America-as-Babylon argument — and the answer led straight to Washington, D.C.
I should probably have been working on WritersFreak.com this morning.
Instead, I spent hours arguing Bible prophecy with artificial intelligence.
Welcome to my life. 😂
I woke up exhausted from a dream that I believe came from the Spirit of God.
You don’t have to believe that. In fact, don’t believe anything I’m about to write because I had a dream.
Check the Bible.
Try to break the argument. That’s exactly what I did.
In the dream, I was shown the continent of Africa and nations including Kenya, Egypt and Ethiopia. Then I was shown the United States and its individual states.
The question was incredibly simple:
“How are these different?”
My immediate thought was obvious.
Those are separate nations. These are states inside one nation.
Then came the question that woke me up:
Why, then, does Revelation call Babylon a CITY?
And suddenly I had a problem.
I DON’T LIKE BROKEN CODE
I wrote Wicked Darkness: Johnny’s Survival Guide to the End Times arguing that America is Babylon the Great described in Revelation.
The book stacks a lot of bricks to make that case.
- Daniel.
- Rome.
- The fourth beast.
- The little horn.
- The iron and clay.
- Israel.
- The Beast.
- The merchants.
- The military power.
- The enormous wealth.
- The kings of the earth.
- The religious hypocrisy.
- The warning for God’s people to come out.
- The woman who says she sits as a queen and will see no sorrow.
- Her sudden destruction immediately before the final judgment of the Beast system.
I’m not rebuilding the entire argument here.
That’s what the book is for.
But there was one line of code that bothered me:
CITY.
Revelation 17:18 says:
“And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.”
Not nation. Not federation. Not superpower.
City.
If I am going to spend an entire book arguing that Bible prophecy is precise, I don’t get to look at an inconvenient word and say:
Close enough.
That’s not how I view Scripture. That’s not how computer code works either.
- One missing bracket can wreck a program.
- One wrong variable can produce the wrong output.
The computer doesn’t care how sincerely you believed your code should work.
And if Revelation says CITY, then CITY has to resolve.
Otherwise I have a bug.
THEN I REALIZED REVELATION ALREADY SHOWS US HOW THIS WORKS
This may be the part I had overlooked the longest.
Revelation itself tells us that a woman can represent a city while the city represents something much larger than streets, buildings and municipal boundaries.
Look at Revelation 17.
John sees a woman.
The angel says:
The woman is the great city.
Now jump forward to Revelation 21.
An angel tells John that he is going to show him “the bride, the Lamb’s wife.”
What does the angel show him?
Holy Jerusalem — a city.
- Woman.
- Bride.
- City.
- People.
- Kingdom.
Revelation itself is comfortable moving between those images.
So maybe my mistake was assuming that if America is Babylon, every characteristic of Babylon has to fit geographically inside one municipal boundary.
It doesn’t.
The city can represent the seat and identity of a much larger civilization, people or governmental system.
And once I saw that, another historical example became embarrassingly obvious.
ROME WAS A CITY TOO
Bible scholars have connected Revelation’s Babylon imagery with Rome for centuries.
I don’t think they were necessarily wrong.
I think they were early.
Rome was a city.
The Roman Empire obviously was not.
- Egypt wasn’t inside the municipal boundaries of Rome.
- Britain wasn’t inside Rome.
- Spain wasn’t inside Rome.
The Roman armies, trade, taxation, government and political authority reached across an enormous empire.
But there was still one city sitting at the center of it.
Rome.
So when somebody says:
“Revelation says Babylon is a city, therefore America can’t possibly be Babylon,”
I think we’re asking the wrong question.
The Roman Empire didn’t have to fit inside Rome.
Rome was the seat of the empire.
The prophecy doesn’t say the empire has to fit inside the city. Rome didn’t.
And that’s when the answer to my problem finally clicked.
If America is the final Babylon in the prophetic system I describe in Wicked Darkness, then America doesn’t have to somehow become a city.
Babylon needs a seat.
And America already has one.
But before we get to Washington, there is one more reason the Rome connection matters.
THEY WEREN’T NECESSARILY WRONG — THEY WERE EARLY
And this is where Daniel becomes incredibly important.
When early Christians looked around at Rome and saw Revelation’s Babylon, I don’t necessarily think they misunderstood what they were looking at.
They were living in the legs.
They could see Rome.
What they could not see was where the iron would eventually go.
Daniel himself didn’t completely understand the visions he was given.
He says:
“I heard, but I understood not.”
And God’s answer wasn’t: Try harder, Daniel.
He was told:
“Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.”
That’s Daniel 12.
Think about what that means.
The man receiving the prophecy didn’t completely understand it — and he was explicitly told the words were sealed until the time of the end.
The Babylonian Empire existed when Daniel received the prophecy.
Rome existed when Revelation’s first readers read John’s words.
America didn’t.
Washington, D.C. didn’t.
Satellites didn’t.
Nuclear weapons didn’t.
Artificial intelligence didn’t.
A globally connected financial and communication system didn’t.
Daniel had the code.
History had not supplied all the variables yet.
That’s why recognizing Rome in Revelation does not require me to stop at ancient Rome.
Rome can be a legitimate manifestation of Babylon and still not be the final manifestation described at the end of the prophecy.
The iron didn’t disappear.
It kept moving down the statue.
The people living under Rome could see the legs.
The question for those of us living much later is:
What do the feet look like?
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Not New York City.
New York is enormously important to American and global finance, commerce, media and culture.
That fits plenty of the commercial imagery surrounding Babylon.
But New York does not rule the United States.
- California doesn’t answer to New York.
- Texas doesn’t answer to New York.
- Florida doesn’t answer to New York.
- Neither do the other states.
The governmental seat of the United States is somewhere else.
And here is the part that made me laugh when I finally looked at it carefully.
The Constitution actually uses the word:
SEAT.
Article I, Section 8 provides for a federal district that becomes the “Seat of Government of the United States.”
Not one state among the other states.
A separate federal district serving as the national government’s seat.
That’s Washington, D.C.
I didn’t invent the word seat to make my prophecy argument work.
It’s sitting there in the Constitution.
FIFTY STATES — ONE NATIONAL SEAT
The United States contains fifty states with governments, legislatures, governors, courts and substantial powers of their own.
But they are joined under one federal constitutional system.
And sitting outside those fifty states is the nation’s governmental seat.
Washington.
- Congress operates there.
- The executive branch is centered there.
- The Supreme Court sits there.
- National laws are enacted there.
- Federal money is appropriated there.
- National military policy is made there.
- Foreign governments send their ambassadors there.
- The President exercises Commander-in-Chief authority from there.
- Congress possesses the constitutional powers to declare war and raise and support armies.
And then there is the Supremacy Clause.
It doesn’t mean Washington has unlimited authority or that states possess no sovereignty.
It means that within the federal government’s constitutional sphere, the Constitution and valid federal laws are the supreme law of the land, binding state judges even when state law conflicts.
That’s important.
Because we’re looking for a city whose governmental authority radiates far beyond the city itself.
Rome did that. Washington does that.
IF YOU WANT TO SEE THE DIFFERENCE, LOOK AT THE DRAFT
There is one historical example that makes all this much less theoretical.
Military conscription.
Under the Articles of Confederation, the central government depended heavily upon the states for military forces.
The Constitution changed that structure and gave Congress power to raise and support armies directly. Constitution Annotated notes that the Confederation Congress could not raise armies directly and depended upon the states to supply them.
Then came World War I.
The federal government instituted compulsory military service.
The Supreme Court upheld Congress’s constitutional authority to impose a nationwide draft in the Selective Draft Law Cases.
Think about what that means practically.
A young man might live two thousand miles away from Washington.
His state has its own government.
- Its own governor.
- Its own legislature.
- Its own laws.
But his state could not simply declare:
“Washington called him into the military, but we’ve decided he’s staying here.”
Why?
Because national military authority doesn’t originate in that state.
It originates in the federal government.
And where is the seat of that government?
Washington, D.C.
Again, I’m not saying Washington controls every aspect of life in every state.
I’m asking the narrower question Revelation forced me to ask:
Where is America’s seat of national power?
That one isn’t difficult.
AND THEN THERE’S ALL THAT ROME SITTING IN WASHINGTON
This gets almost comical.
America didn’t merely inherit parts of the Western political world that developed out of Rome.
We built our governmental capital to look like it.
Walk through Washington.
- Columns.
- Domes.
- Temples.
- A Senate.
- Classical architecture everywhere.
The Architect of the Capitol says Capitol Hill’s defining neoclassical architecture was inspired by ancient Greek and Roman public buildings. The Capitol Rotunda was intended to recall Rome’s Pantheon, and the Supreme Court building drew upon the form of a classical Roman temple.
I am not saying architecture proves America is Babylon.
It doesn’t.
- Neither does having a Senate.
- Neither does having a Commander in Chief.
- Neither does Washington, D.C.
These are bricks.
And one brick isn’t a building.
THE IRON NEVER DISAPPEARED
This is where the larger argument in Wicked Darkness matters.
Daniel 2 gives us an image composed of successive kingdoms.
Gold.
Silver.
Bronze.
Iron.
Then something changes.
Iron mixed with clay.
I count that as the fifth human kingdom in the image — distinct from Rome while still emerging from and containing the iron of Rome.
Same ancestry.
Different final configuration.
Daniel’s fourth kingdom doesn’t simply vanish and get replaced by something unrelated.
The iron continues into the feet.
But now something else has been mixed into it.
Part strong.
Part broken.
Divided.
Unable to completely hold together.
And the Stone doesn’t strike Nebuchadnezzar’s golden head.
- It doesn’t strike Persia.
- It doesn’t strike Greece.
- It doesn’t even strike the iron legs.
It strikes the feet.
That’s where the program ends.
And I don’t think we’re at the end yet.
REVELATION 18 IS THE CRASH LOG — NOT TODAY’S NEWSPAPER
This distinction matters.
When I say America is Babylon, I am not saying every sentence in Revelation 17 and 18 has already reached its complete fulfillment today.
It hasn’t.
We are watching the system develop.
We’re in the feet.
The iron and clay are here.
But the final Babylon described in Revelation reaches a fullness that has not happened yet.
And Revelation tells us where it ends.
Babylon says:
“I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.”
Then her confidence is obliterated.
- Death.
- Mourning.
- Famine.
- Fire.
The kings and merchants watching are stunned by the speed of the collapse.
Revelation repeatedly emphasizes the suddenness:
One day. One hour.
The system everybody assumed would continue does not continue.
That’s the crash log.
Not the newspaper we’re reading this morning.
WHY I CALL IT ROME 2.0
People sometimes hear “Rome 2.0” and think I’m saying ancient Rome somehow literally moved to America.
No.
I’m talking about continuity.
Daniel’s iron didn’t disappear.
The fourth beast produces what comes afterward.
The little horn emerges from that system.
The final kingdom grows out of what existed before it while becoming something different from the thing that produced it.
- That’s how empires work.
- That’s how systems work.
- That’s how software works.
You don’t have to reinstall version 1.0 for the code inside it to survive into version 2.0.
As I wrote in Wicked Darkness:
“Rome was never really buried. It just slipped off its sandals, laced up some wingtips, and headed West.”
That’s the argument.
- Rome transformed.
- Rome divided.
- Rome mixed.
- Rome digitized.
- Rome with satellites.
- Rome with nuclear weapons.
- Rome with artificial intelligence.
- Rome with programmable money.
- Rome with global communications.
- Rome with technology Caesar couldn’t have imagined.
Rome 2.0.
AND AMERICA HAS ANOTHER STRANGE CHARACTERISTIC
America doesn’t merely possess extraordinary military, financial, technological and cultural influence.
America wraps its national identity in God-language.
- In God We Trust.
- One Nation Under God.
- God Bless America.
That doesn’t legally make the United States a Christian church or an officially established Christian nation.
But you cannot honestly tell America’s story without acknowledging the biblical and Christian language embedded throughout its national history and identity.
And Revelation doesn’t call Babylon merely powerful.
It calls her a harlot.
That’s another much larger argument in my book.
But it matters because Babylon isn’t simply another pagan empire doing pagan things.
- She presents one thing while sleeping with the world.
- She rides the Beast.
- She becomes drunk on power.
- She enriches the merchants.
- She lives deliciously.
And then God says something extraordinary:
“Come out of her, my people.”
God has people inside her.
Again — another brick.
THIS MORNING I FOUND ONE MORE
That’s all this post is really about.
One more brick.
I didn’t wake up this morning trying to find another reason America must be Babylon.
I woke up with what looked like a reason that my argument might be wrong.
The code I built might break.
The angel didn’t say nation.
He said:
CITY.
And if I claim God’s prophetic Word is precise, I have to take that seriously.
So I started pulling on the thread.
A woman can represent a city.
Revelation itself proves that.
A city can represent the seat and identity of something vastly larger than its geographical boundaries.
Rome proves that.
America is a union of states with one specially established governmental seat outside those states.
The Constitution proves that.
That seat is Washington, D.C.
And suddenly the line I thought might be broken executed just fine.
DON’T BELIEVE ME BECAUSE OF MY DREAM
I mean that.
I believe God woke me with the question.
That’s between Him and me.
- You weren’t in my bedroom.
- You didn’t see what I saw.
- You didn’t hear what I heard.
And God doesn’t need you to believe Johnny Boyd had a dream in New Mexico to make His Word true.
So forget the dream if you want.
Run the code.
Read Daniel. Read Revelation.
Try to break the sequence.
- Ask why the iron continues into the feet.
- Ask why the Stone strikes the feet instead of Rome’s legs.
- Ask why another horn emerges after the ten.
- Ask why Babylon rides the Beast but is not identical to the Beast.
- Ask why God’s people are told to come out of her.
- Ask why she believes she will see no sorrow.
- Ask why she is destroyed suddenly.
And ask the question that woke me up this morning:
If Babylon is America, why does the angel call her a CITY?
I think I finally know.
The Roman Empire didn’t have to fit inside Rome for Rome to reign over it.
And Babylon doesn’t have to fit inside Washington either.
Washington only has to be Babylon’s seat.
And sitting right there in America’s founding document is the phrase I somehow never thought to connect to Revelation:
“Seat of Government of the United States.”
That’s either an extraordinary coincidence—
or it’s one more line of code doing exactly what it was written to do.
I’m not asking you to take my word for it.
If I’m wrong, find the broken line.
I’d rather have the truth than protect my theory.
But if the line isn’t broken?
Then maybe I didn’t find a bug in my Babylon argument this morning.
Maybe I finally debugged it.
