An instructive allegory concerning the towers build and the nature of God's Kingdom.
I'm afraid you either get it or you don't.
The tale is one of battles between kingdoms, deception, betrayal, and steadfastness.
It's an amazing battle because many of the people fighting in it, don't actually understand who or what they're fighting for.
The battle is between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Satan.
The Kingdom of Satan is not the City of Man.
The City of Man is a composite with members of both God's Kingdom and Satan's.
The Kingdom of God is not of this world, it's King is in Heaven. We are pilgrims or even insurgents. We're not trying to change the City of Man into the Kingdom of God. That would impossible. Only the King of the Kingdom of God can do that.
The Kingdom of Satan is trying to manifest itself by taking over the City of Man by transforming it into a Pseudo-Kingdom of Heaven…a satanic version of Chiliasm.
Satan succeeds every time, but there are these Heavenly Insurgents he can't seem to destroy. So rather than destroy, he deceives them and convinces them the Kingdom of God really isn't in heaven. You can have it here…just change the City of Man into the Kingdom of God. The Insurgent Bride should not marry a King which they cannot see. Instead marry a king that you can…you can have it now.
But he deceives them….what they get is not the Kingdom of God…but a Pseudo-Kingdom of Heaven.
The means for accomplishing this goal is to turn their affection from the King they cannot see, throwing aside the staff and cloak of the Pilgrim People….the bride moves in with the king of the City of Man, becoming a harlot, and together, a joint project, they begin to try and transform the City of Man into the Kingdom of God.
This project is the Tower of Babel. So there they are, the harlots, the former Pilgrims labouring on the tower and the faithful Pilgrims/Insurgents are down on the ground shouting up to them, trying to warn them. The king of the City of Man can climb and build quickly…in some ways he's slowed down by his harlot Roma who still can hear some of the Pilgrims down below. But in time, the voices grow faint.
Then when they get to the top, they do not find the Heavenly King, the object of their desire, but they find a Deceiver, a many headed Hydra who has many towers such as this… one who tries to pretend like he's the Heavenly King. The Deceiver enthrones the king of the City of Man, Augustus and the king becomes one of the heads. They embark in conquest, building their tower ever higher, crushing other smaller towers around them. The harlot Roma is beautiful and entices others to come and join with them.
The harlot is drunk, life at the top of the tower is good, but there are these Pilgrims who won't go away and be quiet. Their voices drive the harlot mad and so she asks her lover, Augustus, the king of the City of Man, one of the hydra heads, to silence the Pilgrims.
"What do they say?" asks the king, the hydra-head with a crown.
"I don't know" the harlot Roma replies. "I can't understand them anymore. They live in the shadow of our tower and they won't look up here toward the top and see how desirable we are and worship with us. Others see them looking elsewhere and some are distracted and are looking away as well."
"We must destroy them," says the king. And so they wage war on the Pilgrims who die and those who escape hide in dens and caves.
Then one day a daughter of the harlot climbs down off of the tower. The king and the harlot-mother are dismayed.
"She's joined with some of those Pilgrims, she listened to their words and has left us," cried the harlot mother.
"Well" said the king, "once she leaves, she can't really come back. She'll taste their bread and wine and our dainties will no longer entice, and behold she has changed her clothes. She is dressed in white. Her name is Protesta"
"What shall we do?" cries the harlot-mother Roma. "Others too will leave."
"It’s too late for her, she has wed one of the Pilgrims," says the king. "She's defiled. Look she is with child and gives birth to daughter. She is fair and growing."
"Quick, send one of the princes of the tower, one fair and strong, one wise who will tell this grand-daughter of that which her mother left behind."
So, the prince Theodos went out, and told the fair Pilgrim maid named Geneva of the great tower from which he came. He told the maid, her mother, Protesta, now dead, had left the tower to marry the Pilgrim. She heard his tales and desired the tower which her grandmother Roma had helped build.
"But I cannot come in and be part of the tower," the maid Geneva protested. "My father is a Pilgrim, and you say my harlot-grandmother Roma will not be able to stand the sound of my voice. You say my voice is strange."
"You have eaten the Pilgrim bread of your father, thus your voice is strange. They thought for me to bring you back, but you cannot come now. ….We could build a new tower," says the prince Theodos. "I think your voice would change when you have ascended."
So they began to build, but the harlot-grandmother Roma and the king Augustus were angry and warred against them. Pilgrims came out from the cave and tried to warn the maid that she was doing the same thing her grandmother did. But they saw the maid Geneva had already put on the clothes of a tower-builder. She wore beautiful robes and jewelry but the Pilgrims were dismayed. She looked like her harlot-grandmother. But the maid-harlot wore robes and jewels that were fashioned like that of the Pilgrim people. Some began to look on her with desire for she was fair and enticingly dressed. She and Theodos were building a mighty tower.
Some of the Pilgrims cried to their brethren…."No, don't look at her. She's becoming just like her harlot-grandmother!"
"No," said some of the Pilgrims who loved the maid-harlot. "We are tired of the caves and of shouting from here on the ground to the people in the towers. We want our own tower, and look her clothes are fine, but they are Pilgrim clothes, not like the harlot-grandmothers."
So now many Pilgrims followed the maid-harlot Geneva and the few who were left on the ground wept. For they saw the fair maid taken away and they knew what would happen. The hydra-king Augustus and the grandmother-harlot Roma warred on the maid-harlot Geneva and the prince Theodos, but could not defeat them. Their new tower was too strong. The prince and the maid-harlot reached the top, and the prince Theodos became a hydra-king as well. The maid-harlot saw the body of the hydra was above their tower and the tower of her harlot-grandmother and many more towers far away, some old and some new across the many lands and people of the earth. But she didn't understand. The prince Theodos had been wrong, her voice had not changed and she was still able to call from time to time to the Pilgrims below. Many heeded her call and joined with her tower. The Pilgrims grew fewer and fewer and they were punished when they did not obey Geneva the maid-harlot…They were not even tempted by the beauty of Roma the grandmother-harlot. She was now old. But they did not like to be in the shadow of her tower either. It was dangerous because of the war.
The people of the two towers grew tired of the war, as did the Pilgrims. Many stones fell from above and caused them injury. The harlot-queens were fair and kept seducing the men of the towers to go and fight. In growing anger toward the harlots, the people of the towers picked a new prince. This prince grew very strong, slew the hydra-kings and cut off their heads. He was called Voltaire. He joined the towers, became an even greater hydra-head king…the main hydra body didn't seem to care if it lost heads. It just grew new ones.
Voltaire, the new hydra-king of the two towers found the whores to be dirty, listened to them for awhile and then put them in jail together. The harlot-maid Geneva and the harlot-grandmother Roma had always hated each other because of what the maid's mother Protesta had done…leaving the first tower. But now they became friends and cried out from their cell to the other men in the now Twin Tower as well as to the Pilgrim's on the ground. But the men of the towers no longer found the harlots desirable and would not listen. They grew tired of their voice and in time asked the new hydra-king Voltaire to make them be quiet. He began to hurt the harlots.
The harlots cried to the Pilgrims on the ground. "Help us!"
"Don't your remember?" cried Roma the harlot-grandmother, "long ago I was a Pilgrim just like you."
"So was I," cried Geneva the maid-harlot. "Not that long ago…look I wear Pilgrim clothes! Help us."
But the Pilgrims had peace. The new king Voltaire of the Twin Tower didn't know who they were, but he saw the Pilgrim clothes were something like the maid-harlots, but the king did not understand. The Pilgrims had not made war on him, but somehow the harlots had once been Pilgrims. And the Pilgrims were stealing men from the towers…men were going down and no longer looking up.
So the king in his rage and confusion began to kill the harlots and attack the Pilgrims.
"Why are you attacking us," asked the Pilgrims.
"You dig in the shadow of my tower. You must being trying to undermine it. My men leave and come and help you," replied the king.
"We are making a garden. Do not fear for your throne from us. We belong to the Kingdom of God. We don't want your throne."
"But the harlots, they were like you," answered the king.
"But they left us."
"Worship me and come into the tower and I will leave you alone," replied the king.
"No," the pilgrims answered. "We will leave if you wish, but we will never come into your tower."
The king Voltaire now in great anger began to harm the Pilgrims once more. The dying harlots cried out, "See, see, we warned you. The only way to stop him is to build a new tower. Help us and we'll help you."
Some Pilgrims listened, desiring Roma and Geneva, and some, a remnant did not. Many of them died and others hid. The king of the tower fought with other towers for many years. The Pilgrims lived in hiding, listening to the dying cries of the harlots from above. Men sometimes snuck out of the tower and joined the Pilgrims. Some came from other towers in far away lands and joined the Pilgrims. The Pilgrims warned that one day soon….the King, the true King would come and destroy all the towers, the hyrdra-kings, the harlots and those who followed them.
"All the followers will be destroyed?" asked the new men from the towers who had joined with the Pilgrims.
"Yes, all."
"But what of these," asked the men, pointing to a group of Pilgrims who were wounded and grieved. They had fought in the long wars.
"These are the Pilgrims who are wounded."
"Why did the fight in the wars?" asked the men from the tower.
"They heard the voices of the harlots and fought for their causes against Voltaire the hydra-king. They thought since the harlots were once Pilgrims, it was the right thing to do. They thought Pilgrims should live in a tower. Their wounds are poisoned and they are in misery for they desire the harlots of the towers, especially the maid Geneva. But the poison has blinded them. They cannot find their way to the Pilgrim garden of peace, nor can they find their way back to the Tower. They dwell here with us…outside the towers, but they are in misery for they want the harlots, especially the maid."
"When the True King comes," asked one of the new men from the tower. "What will he do with these men who are still Pilgrims, for they dwell yet in your land, not in the towers. But they desire the harlots. Whence do these belong?"
"It will be for the king decide. Lo, he comes."