Who Were the Legions of Rome?

Titus

Many people are of an opinion that "the" significant prophetic passage concerning the "antichrist" is the last portion of Daniel 9, and specifically verse 26. 

Not only that, many prophecy prognosticators believe this demonstrates that "the" antichrist is man that will come from a "revived" Roman Empire headquartered somewhere in the EU or Rome itself.

In my Scripture studies I found it is understandable how a casual reading of Daniel 9:26 could lead one to such a conclusion of chaos and confusion because the context of history has been forgotten. 

To get a handle on context consider the Legions of Rome.

If we just dig in a bit and do some homework with reality, we can understand just who the so-called "Roman" legions were that attacked and burned Jerusalem and the Temple to the ground in 70 AD.

You may be surprised when your eyes are opened to the simple truth and that truth may direct you to a clearer understanding of Zechariah 12 and the abomination of desolation Daniel writes of as well as the identity of Mystery Babylon and in the end, perhaps who or what Gog and Magog is.

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This is important because Bible believers should be concerned about an anti-messiah antichrist "spirit" that 1 John 4 tells us was alive and well some 2,000 years ago. If you ask me, John used the word spirit in his warning ten times for a good God reason and there's much more behind the scenes of visible reality that what we can see.

As for history, most people assume that the foot soldiers, the Legions of Titus that murdered the Jewish people, destroyed Jerusalem and ultimately toppled the stones of the Temple to the ground in 70 AD were Roman soldiers. 

You may think of them all as the Italian tough guy centurions we have all seen in the "Jesus" movies.

Because of that, we picture the Legions of Titus as men clad in Roman centurion helmets wearing lorica segementata (personal armor), along with a red cloak and tunic while carrying a decorated metal shield and sword. 

After all, they are called the Legions of Rome aren't they?

Roman history tells us a different story.

The local recruits, the foot soldiers that attacked and burned Jerusalem in fulfillment of Yeshua's words in Luke 21:20 were not from Rome, and you don't need to believe me, check out what scholars and historians have to say about the facts of just who they were for yourself!

Once the historical record clears up the perception in your own mind, Daniel 9:26 will drive a wedge of doubt for a revived "one world" Roman Empire and all of those EU "antichrist" book selling theories.

Don't stop reading now, give history a chance to open your eyes and consider what really happened in 70 AD and let the truth give you insight into what is happening today in and around Jerusalem!

This post has been updated from the original in 2008, because once you realize just who those "Legions" really were, you will begin to see significance in the Arab Spring and the Palestinian bid for UN status, because the world's goal is to divide Israel for peace, and the hidden reality is tied to the rebellion of Esau with his marriage to Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael:

"Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan-aram to take a wife from there, and that as he blessed him he directed him, “You must not take a wife from the Canaanite women,” and that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and gone to Paddan-aram. So when Esau saw that the Canaanite women did not please Isaac his father, Esau went to Ishmael and took as his wife, besides the wives he had, Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Nebaioth." Genesis 28:6-9

The one world order over the nations that oppose Israel is an oppressive, evil plan that spawned years before Esau and it needs to be understood. Not only that...

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A revived Ottoman Empire caliphate  is the story line in today's headlines  birthed when the serpent deceived Eveand manifested when Cain murdered his brother Abel.

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Extreme and radical Islam and its call for jihad and death to bring about a restored Islamic caliphate state governed by the closed society of Sharia law is part and parcel of a revived antichrist spirit arising out of Mecca's Kaaba stone worship.

"What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has been already in the ages before us." Ecclesiastes 1:9-10

Instead of an errant EU storyline pointing to the Vatican's obelisk, as you will see this verse from the wisdom of Solomon directs us to a Middle East "antichrist" spirit that has been there all along since the days of Noah and Nimrod.

It was reincarnated in the 7th century and morphed in a new form that opposes the Bible with the Qur'an and its Hadiths that continue pressing toward the ultimate evil goal of wiping the Jewish people not only off the Promised Land but off the planet.

This dark plan showed up again in Hitler's Mein Kampf.

It's a confederacy spirit against God's chosen and its described in Psalm 83. 

That Psalm is a song written by Asaph. He was the Levitical song and band leader for the service of the house of Almighty God appointed by King David. Asaph's instrument was the cymbal and his 12 prophecies are recorded in the book of Psalms.

It's time to hear his cymbals sound out from his last prophecy and you can find the sound in Psalm 83. 

It reveals the stated goal of radical jihad to terrorize and destroy the Jewish people. 

After all, if you destroy the root first, the branch dies too.

The grafted in branch is Christianity.  

Ever since 9/11 you should see that there is an evil empire, the end game has a goal, the "universal caliphate," a government intertwined in the the religion of Islam over the ummah (community) led by a Caliph under Sharia law based on the Qur'an and the Sunnah (sayings of Muhammad).

Today the Roman Empire's local "Legions" are still made up of recruits from the Middle East infested with an ancient antichrist spirit, but there will be revived Roman Empire because the beast has morphed.

There is no doubt that Roman rule was significant 2,000 years ago across the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea and the Middle East. By the way, the name Mediterranean is derived from Latin and it means "in the middle of the earth."

Yet, ground zero is tiny Israel, and its surrounded by Islam and it's expanding, headed west.

Today, Muslim infiltration by immigration has had a huge impact on a majority of Europe'e major cities because the nations have opened up borders and that's important because of what really happened at the Tower of Babel. 

Speaking of borders, consider France. Their government now supports the recognition of a Palestinian State with French goal to divide Israel to appease the immigrants. One day they will likely make the goal formal by casting a vote at the UN Security Council to do away with "negotiations" for peace whether based on pre-1967 borders or not. 

Spanish and Russian leaders are also openly backing a Palestinian State "without negotiation" and recent headlines tell us Sweden, Portugal, Norway, Malta, France, Belgium and Luxembourg support the two state goal.

However, the U.S., Germany, Italy, Holland, the Czech Republic as well as Bulgaria have said they still oppose a U.N. move to declare a Palestinian State.

At least for now...

As the controversy for Zion intensifies, hold on and be a watchman as planet earth groans in birth pangs.

The thing people miss is the fact that Rome invented the term Palestine, its Latin, not Arabic. 

After the fall of Jerusalem, a Roman decree renamed the land Palestinia to claim the territory and there was not Palestinian on the planet. 

Judea was the only name for the land of Israel during the height of the Roman Empire's occupation, but it was changed to degrade the Jewish people that opposed the Roman invasion. Palestinia obviously derives from Philistia, from the territory of the Philistines that also fought against the Jewish people. 

The name Palestine has simply morphed a map from the days of Roman destruction. 

Today, the use of the name Palestine remains anti-Israel and its from an antichrist spirit.

So, its time to open your Bible from the days of Babylon to find out why.

Let's zero in on verse 26 of Daniel chapter 9. Begin by looking at the time. The clock context is "after threescore and two weeks" and let's slow down to read because it's not so easy. We have dig in to see the light and timeline of the Scripture:

"Know and understand this: 

From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven 'sevens,' and sixty-two 'sevens.' 

It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. 

After the sixty-two 'sevens' the Anointed One will be 'cut off' and will have nothing." Daniel 9:25-26

Fast forward to Daniel 9:27...

And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

Different interpretations have been suggested by some seminary grads on verse 27, one is an opinion that has enjoyed a widely accepted view, at least here in North America. That angle states that the verse 27 prophecy is about a future antichrist that will lose the battle of good vs. evil in the end.

Yet, in context this portion of the prophecy is speaking of Jesus (Yeshua), the Anointed One. 

Jesus the Jew is Yeshua the Messiah, He is the "one" who was “cut off” at the Roman crucifixion before the Temple was destroyed just as the prophet declared. The covenant that started in Genesis 3:15:

"And I will put enmity

Between you and the woman,

And between your seed and her seed;

He shall bruise you on the head,

And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

From the middle of that week of Yeshua's Passover cross and life offering for blood atonement, the prophecy jumps forward 40 years to Titus' military leadership during the destruction of the Temple, “the sanctuary” in Jerusalem in 70AD just as Yeshua said it would:

"You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for [those things] must take place, but [that] is not yet the end." Matthew 24:6 

"The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed." Daniel 9:26-27

What tDanile is conveying is absolutely paramount in terms of identifying the war heritage of the "peoples" and the "nations" representing the 'end days' antichrist empire that arose some 600 years after the desolation and destruction of Jerusalem by the local Legions of Titus.

Thanks to the historical research recorded by others, let’s look further at the Roman record:

In 70 A.D., four Roman Legions under General Titus attacked Jerusalem, the result of which was the destruction of the altar and as Yeshua put it, His "Father's House". If we just look at the people groups in these four "legions" that destroyed The Temple, we can see these same people are the fathers of "the people" in the end... who follow the “ruler who will come” and defile Jerusalem, the place of God's name and the name is not Allah!

It is easy to see how someone could read this verse and conclude history does repeat and that an antichrist would be born to become a furture leader of a revived "Roman" world, but this is not the case as 1 John 4:3 tells us plain as day the antichrist spirit was alive 2,000 years ago. 

The conclusion on Rome is based on the out of context premise that the people who made up the Roman "Legions" that desecrated and destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple were all - Roman citizens...

Wrong. They were not.

The truth is, there's much more to the story than what is usually told today if we just look at the historic record. What seems apparent is not what happened when we go to the history books and skip traditional religious conjecture.

If you will just do some homework, you will quickly find that the people who made up the "leadership" of the "Legions" were Roman, but those foot soldier legions that attacked, destroyed and burned down Jerusalem were not citizens of Rome.

The "legions" were not Italian Centurions. They were the ancient enemies of the Jewish people.

They were the same nations that Joshua was told to drive out of the Promised Land. 

They were recruited by the Romans from the nations that surrounded Judea at that time and many remain there today.

Why did they join the Roman Legions? 

By their service in the Roman military, they would be paid to as soldiers and eventually become Roman citizens. We can see this in the historical record at www.roman-empire.net.

The realms of so-called 'client kings' were largely seen as an extended part of the Roman empire. Very often these royal houses owed their authority to Rome. As part of the arrangement between Rome and the client kingdoms, the kings had to provide troops for Roman campaigns. It was therefore not uncommon for the troops of such client kings to fight alongside Roman forces in battle against the enemies of Rome.

The 70 AD reality is that Titus' army in Judaea was accompanied by local forces of Agrippa II (Palestine), Sohaemus (Emesa) and Antiochus IV (Commagene). Some of the troops from these client kingdoms form the area today known as "The Levant" were even trained in a fashion similar to that of Roman Legions, in order to be more effective on the battlefield when working in union with real Roman forces.

For instance, the annexation of Galatia as a Roman province brought the thirty cohorts of King Deiotarus under Roman command and saw them formed into a Roman Legion (Legion XXII). Though this was clearly an exception. The vast majority of troops from annexed client kingdoms became auxiliary forces.

Let's examine exactly where Titus' "Legions" hailed from, and more history is needed:

As we know, in 70 A.D. Titus was the Roman General who sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple rebuilt by Herod. Historical records tell us Titus' four Legions surrounded Jerusalem. There were three Legions on the west side of the city and the fourth Legion approached from the Mount of Olives from the east. General Titus was quite crafty in that he put pressure on the food and water supplies by allowing thousands of observant Jewish pilgrims to enter the city to celebrate the Passover that year, and then he refused to allow them to leave. 

Many fought hard against the Legions. At one point, Titus was nearly captured, but in the end, much of the population was killed, dispersed or enslaved. Jerusalem, was significantly broken and the Temple was destroyed. The Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus gives us his own account of this event:

"Early in this year Titus Caesar, who had been selected by his father to complete the subjugation of Judaea, and who had gained distinction as a soldier while both were still subjects, began to rise in power and reputation, as armies and provinces emulated each other in their attachment to him. The young man himself, anxious to be thought superior to his station, was ever displaying his gracefulness and his energy in war. By his courtesy and affability he called forth a willing obedience, and he often mixed with the common soldiers, while working or marching, without impairing his dignity as general. He found in Judaea three legions, the 5th, the 10th, and the 15th, all old troops of Vespasian's. To these he added the 12th from Syria, and some men belonging to the 18th and 3rd, whom he had withdrawn from Alexandria. This force was accompanied by twenty cohorts of allied troops and eight squadrons of cavalry, by the two kings Agrippa and Sohemus, by the auxiliary forces of king Antiochus, by a strong contingent of Arabs, who hated the Jews with the usual hatred of neighbors…" —Tacitus The History New Ed edition Book 5.1 Editor: Moses Hadas, Translators: Alfred Church, William Brodribb (Modern Library; New York, 2003)

There are a few important pieces of information that Tacitus tells us. 

The first is that the Roman "Legions" were accompanied by “a strong contingent of Arabs, who hated the Jews with the "usual hatred of neighbors”. The Jewish historian Josephus also records that many other kings and their armies from the immediate nations that surrounded the land of Israel accompanied the Roman Legions as they went on to attack Jerusalem:

"So Vespasian sent his son Titus from Achaia… to Alexandria, to bring back with him from thence the fifth and the tenth legions, while he himself, when he had passed over the Hellespont, came by land into Syria, where he gathered together the Roman forces, with a considerable number of auxiliaries from the kings in that neighborhood." —Flavius Josephus The Complete Works of Josephus, The Wars Of The Jews Or The History Of The Destruction Of Jerusalem Book III, Chapter 1, Paragraph 3

Let's look further where Josephus specifies not only the names but also the numbers of the client king legion warriors who were willingly recruited to join in the attack against the Jews of Jerusalem:

"Malchus also, the king of Arabia, sent a thousand horsemen, besides five thousand footmen, the greatest part of which were archers; so that the whole army, including the auxiliaries sent by the kings, as well horsemen as footmen, when all were united together, amounted to sixty thousand, besides the servants, who, as they followed in vast numbers, so because they had been trained up in war with the rest, ought not to be distinguished from the fighting men; for as they were in their masters’ service in times of peace, so did they undergo the like dangers with them in times of war, insomuch that they were inferior to none, either in skill or in strength, only they were subject to their masters." —Flavius Josephus The Complete Works of Josephus, The Wars Of The Jews Or The History Of The Destruction Of Jerusalem Book III, Chapter 4, Paragraph 2

Another important piece of information can be gathered from both Josephus and Tacitus. It is precisely which Legions of fighting men were involved in this attack. These were:

• Legion XV Apollinaris
• Legion V Macedonica
• Legion XII Fulminata
• Legion X Fretensis

What is so important to understand here is that under Roman rule, joining the army was a both a duty and a distinguishing mark of Roman citizenship. Caesar's promise was that by serving 15 years in a Legion, you could become a full-fledged "Roman citizen" — a privilege that was passed on to your children. 

Further, during the first century, when a Legion was based in a particular province, the foot soldiers were recruits from the occupied area.

The point of course, is that the Roman Legion warriors were not yet citizens of the Roman Empire as many assume — it is easy to forget that the Roman Empire was not at all Roman.

Simply put, Roman Legions were local recruits from the kingdoms and provinces where Roman garrisons were located.

The Legions stationed in the Middle East were the Arab and Syrian peoples of "The Levant." 

The Levant is the Eastern Mediterranean, a geographic and cultural region today that consists of Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Iraq and parts of Turkey.

Commenting on the predominant Syrian make-up of the Roman Legions, the Jewish historian Josephus says:

"The greatest part of the Roman garrison was raised out of Syria; and being thus related to the Syrian part, they were ready to assist it." —The Wars of The Jews: History of the Destruction of Jerusalem By Flavius Josephus Trans. William Whiston BOOK II: CHAPTER 13 Paragraph 7.

Knowing the great hatred that the Syrian’s had for the Jews of Jerusalem, Josephus recounts that the "Syrians and Arabs" who were camped outside of the city of Jerusalem disemboweled over two thousand Jews who had escaped the city in order to search for any gold that the Syrian Arabs thought they may have swallowed:

"The multitude of the Arabians, with the Syrians, cut up those that came as supplicants, and searched their bellies. Nor does it seem to me that any misery befell the Jews that was more terrible than this since in one night's time about two thousand of these deserters were thus dissected." — The Wars of The Jews: History of the Destruction of Jerusalem By Flavius Josephus Trans. William Whiston BOOK V: Chapter 13: Paragraph 4.

It is pretty amazing that the so-called “Roman” soldiers that destroyed Jerusalem were Arabs and Syrians. It's like rebranding Judea and Samaria today as Palestine, it not. The fact is that Titus conveyed a status on them calling them Roman soldiers. 

In fact, Josephus records the name of the first Legion soldier to attempt to break the wall of the Tower of Antonia in Book IV - The History Of The Destruction Of Jerusalem. 

His name was Sabinus, and here's the account after the Syrian man heard Titus make a challenge for the Legions to make a suicide attempt against the wall:

"Upon this speech of Titus, the rest of the multitude were affrighted at so great a danger. But there was one, whose name was Sabinus, a soldier that served among the cohorts, and a Syrian by birth, who appeared to be of very great fortitude, both in the actions he had done, and the courage of his soul he had shown; although any body would have thought, before he came to his work, that he was of such a weak constitution of body, that he was not fit to be a soldier; for his color was black, his flesh was lean and thin, and lay close together; but there was a certain heroic soul that dwelt in this small body, which body was indeed much too narrow for that peculiar courage which was in him.

Accordingly he was the first that rose up, when he thus spake: "I readily surrender up myself to thee, O Caesar; I first ascend the wall, and I heartily wish that my fortune may follow my courage and my resolution and if some ill fortune grudge me the success of my undertaking, take notice that my ill success will not be unexpected, but that I choose death voluntarily for thy sake."

When he had said this, and had spread out his shield over his head with his left hand, and hill, with his right hand, drawn his sword, he marched up to the wall, just about the sixth hour of the day. There followed him eleven others, and no more, that resolved to imitate his bravery; but still this was the principal person of them all, and went first, as excited by a divine fury. Now those that guarded the wall shot at them from thence, and cast innumerable darts upon them from every side; they also rolled very large stones upon them, which overthrew some of those eleven that were with him.

But as for Sabinus himself, he met the darts that were cast at him and though he was overwhelmed with them, yet did he not leave off the violence of his attack before he had gotten up on the top of the wall, and had put the enemy to flight. For as the Jews were astonished at his great strength, and the bravery of his soul, and as, withal, they imagined more of them had got upon the wall than really had, they were put to flight. And now one cannot but complain here of fortune, as still envious at virtue, and always hindering the performance of glorious achievements: this was the case of the man before us, when he had just obtained his purpose; for he then stumbled at a certain large stone, and fell down upon it headlong, with a very great noise. Upon which the Jews turned back, and when they saw him to be alone, and fallen down also, they threw darts at him from every side.

However, he got upon his knee, and covered himself with his shield, and at the first defended himself against them, and wounded many of those that came near him; but he was soon forced to relax his right hand, by the multitude of the wounds that had been given him, till at length he was quite covered over with darts before he gave up the ghost. He was one who deserved a better fate, by reason of his bravery; but, as might be expected, he fell under so vast an attempt. As for the rest of his partners, the Jews dashed three of them to pieces with stones, and slew them as they were gotten up to the top of the wall; the other eight being wounded, were pulled down, and carried back to the camp. These things were done upon the third day of the month Panemus [Tamuz]."

This old account mirrors today's Islamic jihadist  martyrs that attacked New York, but who attack the Jews of Israel ever since 1948. "Pay for slay" today is nothing new despite what you make think. 

Just like the PA today that funds pensions to Arab families killing Jews, the Romans paid their local recruits seeking citizenship for their service to the Emperor.  

The radical Palestinian Islamist group Hamas justifies suicide bombings with its 1987 charter. That jihad creed quotes the Qur'an and a Hadith calling for the murder of Jews to hasten the Day of Judgment. 

No need to believe me, read it for yourself. Yale University has a copy online.

When we look back at the four Roman Legions that were under Titus' command during the siege against Jerusalem, we must see that the local legions haven't gone away after after all.

Even the conflict between Turkey and Israel that started over the Gaza flotilla incident, history comes alive, there's nothing is new under the sun. 

That fact leads us to the backstage of evil. 

There's a reason the book of Revelation is chock full of warning against Babylon the great, but don't get confused its not just a warning against an ancient city or a tower made by men. What's behind the scenes in Noah's world and what really happened in Nimrod's day is important.

Before we explore that, let's don't abandon the Legions led by General Titus during the Jewish-Roman war just yet. The reason is the Roman legs of iron and those local legion feet are linked to Daniel's explanation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream of a massive statue. Daniel 2:40 says the fourth kingdom will be "strong as iron" and will "break and smash all things." Rome was the most militarily dominant power the ancient world.

Let's look at the names and the locations of their garrisons recorded in the history books:

1) Legion X Fretensis (Syria), 2) Legion XV XV Apollinaris (Syria) 3) Legion XII Fulminata Melitene (Eastern Turkey Syria) and 4) Legion V Macedonica (Moesia Serbia Bulgaria).

Four Legions were involved in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. 

One Legion in particular went through the wall breach and set fire to the Temple. It was the Legion known as "X Fretensis" or the 10th Legion. It was this particular Legion that history records as having actually pulled down the entire Temple as they made the Temple Mount their new military base of desolation. 

In fact, Legion X Fretensis stayed there for a couple of hundred years after the destruction. They didn't bother to tidy of the stones they tossed off. You can go to Jerusalem today and still see them below the southern walls each weighing 2-3 tons.

With the facts in stone, anyone should be able to conclude that the people who actually destroyed the Temple and Jerusalem were not men of Rome, but ancients of the Middle East. They were not Italians, they were the locals from Syria, Eastern Turkey, Arabia and Egypt whose hearts and souls were infested like the legion Jesus cast from a man into a herd of pigs.

You can read about that in the Gospel of Mark.

Study Mark 5:1-20, in this account, Jesus encounters a man possessed by demons in the region of the Gerasenes. Guess what, the demons identify themselves as "Legion" and Jesus commanded them to leave the man. They begged to be sent into a herd of pigs nearby, and Jesus agreed. The demons enter the pigs, which then rush down into the sea of Galilee and drown.

There's more to the story than meets the eye so we'll explore that later.

Before that, we can learn more about the iron clad Romans as they played their legion role in war and desolation from the Jewish historian Josephus:

"So Nero esteemed these circumstances as favorable omens, and saw that Vespasian’s age gave him sure experience, and great skill, and that he had his sons as hostages for his fidelity to himself, and that the flourishing age they were in would make them fit instruments under their father’s prudence. Perhaps also there was some interposition of Providence, which was paving the way for Vespasian’s being himself emperor afterwards. 

Upon the whole, he sent this man to take upon him the command of the armies that were in Syria; but this not without great encomiums and flattering compellations, such as necessity required, and such as might mollify him into complaisance. 

So Vespasian sent his son Titus from Achaia, where he had been with Nero, to Alexandria, to bring back with him from thence the fifth and. the tenth legions, while he himself, when he had passed over the Hellespont, came by land into Syria, where he gathered together the Roman forces, with a considerable number of auxiliaries from the kings in that neighborhood." —Flavius Josephus The Complete Works of Josephus, The Wars Of The Jews Or The History Of The Destruction Of Jerusalem Book III, Chapter 1, Paragraph 3

"But as to Titus, he sailed over from Achaia to Alexandria, and that sooner than the winter season did usually permit; so he took with him those forces he was sent for, and marching with great expedition, he came suddenly to Ptolemais, and there finding his father, together with the two legions, the fifth and the tenth, which were the most eminent legions of all, he joined them to that fifteenth legion which was with his father; eighteen cohorts followed these legions; there came also five cohorts from Cesarea, with one troop of horsemen, and five other troops of horsemen from Syria. Now these ten cohorts had severally a thousand footmen, but the other thirteen cohorts had no more than six hundred footmen apiece, with a hundred and twenty horsemen. 

There were also a considerable number of auxiliaries got together, that came from the kings Antiochus, and Agrippa, and Sohemus, each of them contributing one thousand footmen that were archers, and a thousand horsemen. Malchus also, the king of Arabia, sent a thousand horsemen, besides five thousand footmen, the greatest part of which were archers; so that the whole army, including the auxiliaries sent by the kings, as well horsemen as footmen, when all were united together, amounted to sixty thousand, besides the servants, who, as they followed in vast numbers, so because they had been trained up in war with the rest, ought not to be distinguished from the fighting men; for as they were in their masters’ service in times of peace, so did they undergo the like dangers with them in times of war, insomuch that they were inferior to none, either in skill or in strength, only they were subject to their masters." —Flavius Josephus The Complete Works of Josephus, The Wars Of The Jews Or The History Of The Destruction Of Jerusalem Book III, Chapter 4, Paragraph 2

Using the NASB Bible translation, let's take a look back at Gabriel's words to Daniel at the conclusion of chapter 9 in verses 25-29 and insert the context of historic reality. Daniel chapter 9 deals with a restoration preparing the place of Messiah's trial, the distress on the city and its people before the end of Jewish life in Jerusalem until 1948.

Let's see what Gabriel told Daniel about the appointed decree from Heaven and its timing hundreds of years before it happened based with bracketed historic events in Jerusalem:

"So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree [by King Artaxerxes to Ezra] to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince [Yeshua-Jesus] there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks [7 shâbua 49 years + 62 shâbua  434 years = 483 years total]; it will be built again [walls of Jerusalem rebuilt by Nehemiah] , with plaza and moat, even in times of distress [the time of distress when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite against Nehemiah as well as Tobiah the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arab]. Daniel 9:25-29

If you question the plaza and moat reference, you need to know in Nehemiah’s day (mid-5th century BC), Jerusalem featured prominent plazas (public squares) and a massive moat that significantly shaped the city’s defense. The Bible mentions public the plazas during Nehemiah’s day. The most famous was the square in front of the Water Gate. Nehemiah also mentions a square at the Ephraim Gate.

Nehemiah 2:8 describes a fortress called the Birah (translated as the "citadel" or "castle"). This sat at the northwest corner of the Temple Mount. To protect the fortress from northern attacks, the ancients cut a fosse (a dry moat or ditch) into the bedrock. This moat separated the fortress from the higher ground to the north, forcing any attacker to climb down into a "kill zone" before reaching the walls. This feature was the precursor to the later Roman Antonia Fortress.

The prophecy is real, proven by the place. By the way, we need to look behind the scenes of the times of distress. What drove the evil Horonites? 

They were from Bethoron. They worshipped Horon their Canaanite god. 

Today, in Israel, the two Palestinian Muslim villages of Beit Ur al-Foqa‎, "Upper house of straw" and Beit Ur al-Tahta‎, "Lower house of straw" preserve part of the original Canaanite names for Upper and Lower Bethoron.

Who influenced the Ammonites? They worshipped Milcom, also referred to as Molech or Moloch in some Biblical contexts. Geshem was chieftain or "king" of the Qedarite Arabs. Based on archaeological evidence and historical context, Geshem and his people primarily worshipped the goddess Atarsamain, her name translates to "The Morning Star of Heaven." 

While the Bible notes Geshem as a local troublemaker, archaeology has revealed he was a significant historical figure and believe it or not, he has a connection to Herod, the Idumaean king that restored Jerusalem. 

In the 1940s, a cache of silver bowls was found at Tell el-Maskhuta in Egypt (ancient Pithom). One bowl bears an Aramaic inscription that tells us what was unseen about Geshem: "That which Qaynu son of Gashmu [Geshem], King of Qedar, brought as an offering to Han-Ilat" (the "goddess").

Found in Han-Ilat (Alat) another inscription shows that Geshem's family worshipped Han-Ilat, who was later identified with the Greek goddess Aphrodite and before that, guess who? The Babylonian goddess Ishtar. Geshem's pagan identity made him an unnatural rival to Nehemiah, a servant of the Almighty. As the king of Qedar, Geshem's influence stretched from eastern Egypt across the Sinai and into southern Judah and Jordan. 

Now you know what you didn't know about the times of distress.

After the Babylonians first destroyed Jerusalem, the Qedarite Arabs moved into the southern territories (the area that became Idumaea) and many Arabs remain, driven worshiping Molech but Islam's Allah.

Next is Daniel chapter 9...

"Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off [crucifixion] and have nothing, and the people [Arab, Syrian, Egyptian and other Roman Legion recruits] of the prince [Titus, the son of Vespasian) who is to come will destroy the city [Jerusalem] and the sanctuary [The Temple]. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined [desolation for Jerusalem and as you will see for Rome as well].

Don't let the flood reference throw you off. 

From a purely military perspective, the Roman advance under Titus shared several characteristics with a flood. We already know the Roman war machine utilized four legions. Like a rising wave of water, they moved from the north, consuming Galilee and the Perea before pooling down around the walls of Jerusalem and building a dam if you will. 

To ensure no one escaped and no supplies entered, Titus built a massive siege wall (a circumvallation) around the entire city in just three days. This effectively "dammed" people in the city, trapping the population inside to be "drowned" by famine and strife. When the Romans finally broke through three walls, the soldiers poured into the narrow streets like water through a burst levee, destroying everything and everyone in their path.

Flavius Josephus, who was present at the siege, reveals more about that flood in The Wars of the Jews, Book 6 as he describes the Roman entry into the city using language that evokes imagery of a horrific flood you may have never imagined. He notes that the soldiers "poured into the streets" with such volume that the blood of the slain literally extinguished the fires in some houses.

Gabriel explained more in Daniel 9:27...

"And he [Yeshua-Jesus] will make a firm covenant [the covenant of eternal life over death] with the many [believers] for one week [The lamb of God was inspected 4 days in Jerusalem, then Yeshua-Jesus arose on the third day], but in the middle of the week [Passover crucifixion day] he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering [Sacrifices and offerings were suspended in time in 70AD with the Roman destruction of the altar at the Temple];

And...

and on the wing of abominations will come one [Titus] who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction [still seen today as archeologists dig through the ruins], one that is decreed [recorded in recorded in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21] is poured out on the one who makes desolate." [God placed His name in Jerusalem and chose The Temple Mount, for the sake of His name He will also not let one that desolated Jerusalem and its people go unpunished].

The words "poured out on the one" are a key to history here. 

To get the picture, we need to go back and consider what eventually happened to Titus after his "Legions" destroyed Jerusalem, some 600,000 people, the Temple and the Altar of God where Titus as an act of abomination and desecration made sacrifices to the Roman standards in the Temple court.

Much like Sodom and Gomorrah, destruction and desolation soon literally poured out on the Roman Empire. In God's world, what goes around comes around.

Here's the story, Titus returned to Rome in June of 71AD. He became emperor after the death of his father Vespasian in 79AD. Titus ruled the Roman empire, but his reign ended most abruptly. We all know he died, but many may not have put it all together.

Everyone has heard about the famous Mount Vesuvius. It is one of the most infamous volcanoes on planet Earth, and due to its location it was one of the most dangerous. Get this, it erupted in 79AD, the same year Titus became Emperor. In fact it erupted in the first month of his reign.

The eruption of Mt. Vesuvius buried  not only Pompeii but the cities of Herculaneum, Oplontis and Stabia underneath volcanic cinder and hot ash that preserved the scene and the ruins of Pompeii and its inhabitants much like the stones in Jerusalem are proof positive of Titus' destruction. 

Get this because its important in the end...

The Roman temples including those of the pagan's gods Jupiter and Neptune were burned yet preserved as evidence, but they were there hundreds of years before the Roman Empire showed up. In the 6th century BC, the god Rome knew as Apollo was one of the most important "imported" deities in Italy.

Before the Romans he was adopted with immense fervor by the Etruscans, who called him Aplu (or sometimes Apulu). In the Etruscan Disciplina (their religious books), Aplu was one of the few gods besides Tinia (Jupiter) who was in charge of thunder.

The hot ash thundered and embedded the temples for the world to see... frozen in time, effectively "fossilized" by the fire of judgment. In Pompeii and Herculaneum, several major pagan temples were buried under layers of ash and pumice, preserving their altars, statues, and ritual tools.

In ancient time volcanoes were thought to be controlled by the underworld gods. So, it seems they destroyed themselves.

One ancient Canaanite deity was known as Horon.  

This Canaanite god was known as the god of the underworld. Horon became known as Pluto and Pluto was the brother of Jupiter and Neptune. Bottomline, Horon was the hell in a hand god of the "underworld."

Amazingly, the volcano's last underworld eruption was in 1944. 

That's the same year Hitler ordered the deportation, imprisonment and murder of some 600,000 Hungarian Jews, so the question is who or what possessed Hitler's soul? I don't know, but within a matter of months in 1944, Auschwitz-Birkenau became the site of horrific mass murder not unlike what occurred in Jerusalem in 70AD.

As to Emperor Titus, within the first year of his reign in Rome... disease, pestilence and a three-day fire erupted again and destroyed large portions of the capital city of the Roman Empire.

Eleven years after destroying Jerusalem, Titus suddenly and mysteriously died in 81AD at age 42. Historians think his demise may have been from sexually transmitted disease acquired from his lover Berenice, the sister of Julius Agrippa II who was married three times prior to moving in with Titus.

So how should we consider these things?

There is a common teaching and principle found throughout the Bible that starts in Deuteronomy 19 and it is repeated in Matthew. It is the principle that truth requires the testimony of two or three witnesses.

“so that every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.” Matthew 18:16

In this case, we have some very solid historical witnesses that have come forward to testify today and knowledge has increased.

Surely, the testimony is established.

We must know too, Daniel set the pattern for us in seeking out what Almighty God has to say. If we are to understand the Bible and what it says about the future of our world, we must "diligently" study God's Word and just like Daniel with constant prayer and fasting asking for insight, understanding and revelation. 

In turn, God promises to do His part and answer with help from our comforter, the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit of God will enlighten us and open up the Scriptures concerning today's world events if we ask.

Daniel experienced mystery, paradox and distress of what Almighty God's messenger showed him. Daniel was sickened for many days. Perhaps he saw Hitler or the end-time revival of an evil empire like the Ottomans now reborn with radical Islamic jihad hell bent on spilling innocent blood. 

Despite what Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says, the Holocaust did happen and Iran's Ayatollahs want to repeat the chaos.

We cannot dispute history. If we do, we can never know what's next as we live in the latter days as the the book of Daniel calls it.

Everything ties directly back to the events of 70AD and today's modern Haman's who speak in the vehement, vicious legacy of Hitler and Titus. 

In 2007, I read a report from Associated Press that states:

Israel’s end is near, says Ahmadinejad. Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said the world would witness the destruction of Israel soon. This has been reported even by the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

It is a fact that the "Roman" Legions were the Middle East people groups that have hated Israel and sought to wipe them off the map.

THEY ARE HERE TODAY surrounding Israel with hatred and a death wish from Iran.

It is true the Legions were "led" by their Roman military leader Titus and it is true the men of the middle east attacked the city and Sanctuary of our living God, the very same Temple where the tribes of "all Israel" worshiped at the Temple Mount. 

But, what role do "Legions" have in future prophecy?

Let's go back to Daniel 9:26. The word translated into English as "prince" is the Hebrew word "nagiyd". This word means leader or captain.

As we know, Titus surrounded Jerusalem with his Legions known as V Macedonica (their emblems were the bull and the eagle), XII Fulminata (their emblem was a thunderbolt), XV Apollinaris (their emblem was an image of Zeus) on the western side and as noted X Fretensis, a fourth legion was on the Mount of Olives to the east (their emblems were a bull, the animal of their goddess Venus and a wild boar).

Emblems or symbols of God's creatures are important in prophecy. Just read the book of Revelation for the proof of the beasts and the dragon. Since emblems are very important in prophecy, we need to know there is an initial "clue" given by Daniel and it has to do with the Greeks!

To get the picture, we have to know Daniel described the "beasts" and the timing of their empires. This takes a bit more explanation, but if you will bear with me, please consider this question... 

What people group, what kind of empire beast has controlled the Temple Mount after the Roman empire's occupation?

History is quite clear on the answer, since the 6th century, Allah's people have controlled the Temple Mount. 

Islam's empire is thought to have been kicked off by a man in today's Saudi Arabia. His name was Muhammad and his legacy is Islam and the Qu'ran. The last beast empire arrived on the scene some 600 years after Rome's destruction.

The truth is there's Salah prayer five times a day atop the Temple Mount that desolates prayer for the Jewish people as well as those that follow the Jewish Messiah. 

In the beginning the subtle deceiver called a serpent (נָחָשׁ"nachash") was allowed in the garden. Today, he is still there, this time disguised by some as a religion of peace with a false prophet and a call to prayer desolating the Temple Mount, the place Almighty God chose to put his name 

The good and evil conflict remains. In its Islamic form Jerusalem became the hotbed of controversy during the first Islamic invasion of the city around 637-638AD. At the time, Jerusalem was under the control of the Byzantine Empire (the Greek-speaking eastern half of the Roman Empire), which had only recently reclaimed it from the Persians.

Arab forces led by General Abu Ubaidah surrounded Jerusalem. The Byzantine Patriarch of Jerusalem, Sophronius, realized the city could not hold out. However, he refused to surrender the city to anyone but the Caliph in charge. The second Caliph, Umar ibn al-Khattab, traveled from Medina to Jerusalem to personally accept the surrender. He entered the city not as a conquering warrior on a warhorse, but reportedly on a camel.

Umar issued a protection decree known as the Pact of Umar that guaranteed the safety of the Christian population and ensured that churches would not be destroyed or converted into mosques. Umar famously refused to pray inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre so that his followers wouldn't later claim it as a mosque. Umar also allowed Jews to return to Jerusalem to live and worship, ending a centuries-long ban imposed by the Byzantines. 

When Umar entered the city, he found the Temple Mount being used by the Byzantines as a trash dump. He helped clear the debris and built a simple wooden mosque on the site, which was later replaced by the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock as a monument to Muhammad. 

Today, the Dome the Temple Mount serves as an abomination of desolation to prayer to the LORD God of Israel.

The Dome of the Rock construction began in 688 AD and after three years it was completed in 691 AD and in a unusual way it has a calendar year connection with the book of Daniel when we realize the Dome of the Rock is tied to the "abomination of desolation" noted in Daniel 12:11-12 and repeated in Matthew 24:15 and Mark 13:14.

Let's look at Daniel's original words, there we see that ימים “yom” like a time period can carry more than one meaning such as “days” or “years” so how "might" the timeline prophecy of 1,290 days plus 45 days for a total of 1,335 days fit into historical events in Jerusalem?

Back to the golden dome... 

An inscription on the Dome of the Rock establishes its completion as 691 AD just 55 years after the Muslim armies invaded Jerusalem. Daniel's prophetic timetable noted in Daniel 12:11-12 potentially reveal something significant about the year 681 AD as well as the measure of years up to 2016 that may be critically important, because if we add 1,335 years to 681 AD we arrive at the Jubilee Year of 2016. 

It seems this timeline will prove critically important to Jerusalem.

If we consider the dates and Daniel's numbers, could there be a God calendar tie to the coming Jubilee Year with the Dome of the Rock atop the Temple Mount?

I don't know, only God knows! 

But I think we have a clue, so we need to watch. And as we do, perhaps we should consider what can be seen  on the right side of the southwest wall of the Dome of the Rock embedded in the marble's shadow pattern. Visitors often mention seeing a shape which some describe as spooky or ghostly. 

It's bizarre. Check it out.

It is just a coincidence? I don't know, but the fast is it's there in the stone.

As noted, only a Muslim prayer to Islam's Allah is allowed atop the Temple Mount as Jews are relegated to a small plaza below the Temple Mount along the Western Wall. Incredibly, you can be arrested if you move you lips to pray to the LORD God of Israel atop the Temple Mount, but that will change.

For now, those prayers are like an abomination to the people of the book, aka the Bible. The prayers that are allowed include some hands that shed innocent Jewish blood with a heart that devises wicked imaginations, mischief, a false witness, and sows discord from those that follow the Qur'an.

Please read Proverbs 6:17-19. 

As you do, you need to know that today, on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeated his Haman generation false witness storyline that 9/11 was a top secret plan designed by the U.S. government as a pre-text to Middle East military invasions.

These lies are an abomination. 

For me, 9/11 was a wake up call to study the mysteries in the book of Daniel.

The 9/11 disaster is also a wake up call to witness the truth and light of Almighty God's love for the Muslim people and to pray for their redemption, but many have hit the snooze button on the Great Commission and are asleep waiting for a rapture ride before some EU anti-christ shows up. 

If we step back and look at history closely, the book of Daniel ties many of the prophetic time lines given by Gabriel to the exact time line of the advent of Islam and construction of the Temple Mount.

During the last 1,300 years, Arab-Muslim domination of Jerusalem, the land of Israel and the Middle East for that matter has seen a lot of violent rage. Whether Shia or Sunni, most Muslims believe a man called Isa will return to kill Jews and Christians that do not convert to Islam, but Muslims need Jesus too, not Isa.

We must consider the Bible and historical facts that are plainly before us. If we do, we can learn that the end-time "beast" that surrounds and opposes Israel's existence is a revived version of the Ottoman Empire that took control of Jerusalem.

Why revived?

During World War I, when the head of the Ottoman Empire's "leopard" beast was seemingly destroyed, the Armistice of Mudros was signed on October 30, 1918. It brought what seemed to be an end to Ottoman Caliphate rule. That empire was injured like death, but now is revived and the head of the beast is in Haman's Persian homeland... Iran.

A revived beast was foretold by Daniel and later by John (in Revelation). So eyes wide open... what exists behind radical Islamic terror? It is as if the beast has been resurrected just as the prophecies tell us and the EU antichrist storyline with a rapture ride is a diversion that puts us at the wrong place on God's prophetic map. 

The Bible is about Israel and the nations surrounding it like the ancient foes and terrorism in all forms of radical Islam cannot be ignored. That has become abundantly clear since 9/11 as Islam's influence across Europe and even in the U.S. has grown exponentially out of its Mid East tentacles infiltrating The West. 

The spots of the leopard have been seen, but the beast behind the scenesis still invisible to those that ignore the Bible. After all, like that stone on the Dome if the Rock, the leopard beast has natural camouflage, but can be seen if we look.

The Middle East Islamic empire is seeking to be revived and a small part of the revival can be seen it in the Arab Spring. We can see it too in the globalist plan of The Quartet of nations that seek to divide Israel with a Palestinian state despite the fact they already have one call Gaza that's ruled by Hamas madmen of the Muslim Brotherhood that came out of Egypt.

Islam's dark side of religious empire has two parts like the toes of iron and clay described by Daniel. They are Sunni and Shia and they look to be an integral part of the the imagery in Daniel account of Nebuchadnezzar's old dream. 

Islam is new, but it isn't. It arose out of the Roman-Byzantine empires and it is the Islamic one world "religion-government" that shares a goal of death to the Jews and a unified Caliphate under Sharia Law.

The Ottoman beast it "seemed" was slain on March 3, 1924, when the first President of the Turkish Republic abolished the Caliphate led by the Ottoman Turks, but its body has been revived in the form of a fourth leopard beast religion:

"And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by [the means of] those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live." Revelation 13:14

This radical revival started in earnest during the 1940's when the Muslim Brotherhood stirred things up in Egypt, and now an antichrist spirit is turning into a powerful, dark extra-political religious force before our eyes, leading a campaign of violence and attack as the head of the beast headquartered in Tehran seek to destroy the Jewish people and wipe them of the map.

Not only that, te beast turned against Egypt's second President. His name was Gamal Abdel Nasser. 

During the 1948 Arab War against the State of Israel, Nasser served as an Egyptian officer in a battalion that fought against Israel but eventually his hard heart softened. So the beast tried to kill him in 1954, but failed when Mahmoud Abdel Latif, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, fired eight shots at Nasser from a distance of about 25 feet and missed. Nasser responded and declared the Muslim Brotherhood illegal and arrested some 60,000 radicals condemning most of the evil leaders to death. 

When Nasser died of a heart attack on September 28, 1970, Sadat became the acting President within hours, as dictated by the Egyptian Constitution and soon President Sadat released the jailed members of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1971. 

Two years later, Sadat launched a surprise attack on Israel during Yom Kippur. It earned Sadat the title "Hero of the Crossing." In a move that shocked the world, Sadat realized that endless war with Israel was draining Egypt. So, in 1977, he flew to Jerusalem to speak to the Israeli Knesset—an unthinkable act at the time. Later he signed the Camp David Accords with Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter. 

Egypt was then kicked out of the Arab League for "betraying" the Palestinian cause, but Egypt was officially readmitted to the Arab League in May 1989. It was a gradual process led largely by Hosni Mubarak, who took over after Sadat's assassination and worked to mend fences without abandoning the peace treaty with Israel. The thing to see here is that in radical Islam, they kill one another.

On October 6, 1981, during a parade celebrating the 1973 war, Sadat was assassinated by Islamic extremists, members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad who were furious over the peace treaty. This allowed the Jihadists to widen their influence and spread darkness across the Middle East and into Gaza with a new name... Hamas.

Their death ideologies to destroy Israel quickly spread and were adopted in 1979 in Iran where their death to Israel goals flourish under the leadership of Iran's Ayatollah Supreme Leaders.

What has happened in Egypt in the Arab Spring is a lesson we must not forget. Part of that lesson is that Egypt spawned the Pharaoh that "knew not Joseph" that enslaved Jacob's descendants.

The beast behind the scenes has been around a long time and the dark influence of radical evil is revived and it's incredibly made up of infighting Sunni's and Shiite's. The kingdom that Daniel described as the mixed feet of "iron and clay." 

Like iron and clay, Sunni and Shiite do not really mix, they fight as the two feet of the "beast" religion of Islam that don't really mix.

Ever since the Arab Spring violence erupted, radicalized Islam has become a hate filled geo-political-religious beast that is different from any other seen before. It has arisen as the fourth beast that is like no other, dreadful, terrible and potentially two billion strong!! The people of Ishmael and Esau that are declaring holy war "jihad" against Israel surround and attack the people of Judah and Benjamin in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria for no cause other than beast like hatred.

 Some experts say that 10% of the Muslim population 2 billion are radicalized terrorists hiding in plain sight. If accurate, that just so happens to a legion of "200 million" people that want to do nothing but behead Jews and Christians, the people of the book with the sword of radical Islam destroying the little Satan and the big Satan. 

It just so happens that an army consisting of 200 million soldiers is described in the Book of Revelation, specifically in Revelation 9:16 and the book also describes this with a likely link to Sadat's assassination:

"And there went out another horse [that was] red: and [power] was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword." Revelation 6:4

Many biblical scholars argue the description is clearly not human. Since the four angels leading the army are released from the "great river Euphrates" (a symbolic boundary between the Roman Empire and the "Eastern" threats) and the horses have lion heads and snake tails, it is interpreted as a demonic invasion. In this view, the number 200 million represents a "myriad of myriads"—an unimaginably large, overwhelming force of spiritual evil.

But that is not the end of the story:

"He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints." Revelation 13:10

Since September 11, 2001, a global state of emergency action has been declared in every airport because of radical Islamic terror groups that seek to meet their end with the sword and be greeted by 72 Houri—beautiful, celestial beings created by Allah specifically to reward their martyrdom heroics. The focus is on sexual reward and its a perversion as old as Jezebel.

Jezebel was the daughter of Ethbaal, the King of the Sidonians of Tyre and Sidon. She was a devout worshiper of Baal the storm god and Asherah the fertility goddess. After marrying Ahab, she didn't just practice her religion privately; she established it as a state-sponsored cult in Israel, building a temple for Baal in the capital city of Samaria and she famously sought to eliminate the worship of the Almighty God of Israel, ordering the execution of His prophets. This led to her legendary rivalry with the prophet Elijah.

The Allah Akbar terror threat remains and it is real, and if you need a reminder, try walking into any airport and skip past the TSA line, your next home will be a jail cell.

Radical terror is spreading as the goal of a caliphate run by Sharia law is being adopted. 

Don't believe me?

On September 15, 2008 Fox News reported that the Britain adopted Sharia Islamic law within the country's High Court civil system. You need to know that and never ignore what is really happening behind the scenes around you.

Let's see how Daniel described his vision of the fourth beast:

"After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it [was] diverse from all the beasts that [were] before it; and it had ten horns." Daniel 7:7

Dreadful and terrible with ten horns. 

The Bible provides three specific characteristics of these "Ten Kings" that any candidate must eventually fulfill:

Late Bloomers: They "have not yet received a kingdom" during the writing of Revelation but receive authority for "one hour" alongside the Beast.

Unanimous Intent: They have "one purpose" and will give their power and authority to the Beast.

The Final Battle: They will "make war against the Lamb," but the Lamb of God that seeks to provide life and the gospel of God will triumph over them.

Did you know that Sharia law can deadly, aka dreadful and terrible demanding beheading?

Sharia law contains punishments for specific offenses, including capital punishment, which can include beheading for serious crimes. For other crime there's amputation such as cutting off hands or feet, and for lesser crimes, beatings and flogging.

The Mid-East, now more than ever in these latter days is the vortex of the rising threat and chaos that the Bible speaks of. Radical Islam is raising its head and horns as we are living in the last days before the return of the Jewish Messiah Yeshua.

Not only that, today the Spirit of God is calling believers to Torah before the return of Messiah.

And as Richardson explains in his first book, "AntiChrist, Islam's Awaited Messiah", most of us in the "west" do not live in world with such stark chaos or do we look forward to worshipping the "Mahdi" like the Shia Twelvers of Iran. They believe that the Mahdi is the twelfth Imam, a guy by the name Muhammad al-Mahdi, who went into occultation and is expected to return and convert the world to strict Sharia law and if you don't convert, no problem you will be beheaded by Isa (Jesus).

One name the Bible makes reference to is one called "the Assyrian." If you ask me he sounds like the Mahdi, an Assyrian that will attack to seek to control Jerusalem and the Temple Mount just as the Ottoman Turks did for 400 years. After all, the mosques are already there and "the land" is surrounded by a Psalm 83 coalition of Islamic nations with the spirit of antichrist.

I mentioned Richardson's book, not to promote it, but because it calls for a great commission witness to Muslim people.

Muslims need Jesus. 

Yet, Richardson counsels that the Imams, Mullahs, Sheiks and Ayatollahs will give their allegiance to their "Mahdi" vision and we can see that in Iran's leadership that kills its own people if they don't foolw thier Sharia rules. I've corresponded at length with Mr. Richardson and his goal is to shout out with a call for others to witness the love message of the gospel of the Kingdom of God to Muslim people.

That's mine too.

Almighty God will show great mercy on many of the people of Ishmael and Esau. I believe this will be the same great demonstration of the love shown to Hagar and her son Ishmael. After all, Almighty God saved Ishmael from death in the desert, so Almighty God will reach again out to save the descendants of Ishmael  and you can be a part of taking back the nations under demonic influence and control because Hagar's story is proof of God's immeasurable love and mercy for Ishmael. 

I think this is one of the key reasons why many Christian organizations (such as Uncharted Ministries and Transform Iran) report that thousands of Muslims are encountering a figure they identify as Jesus in their dreams. There people often describe a radiant man clothed in brilliant white. He frequently speaks words of peace, calls the dreamer by name, or says phrases like "I am the Way" or "Follow me."

This phenomenon is so consistent that some researchers call it the "Isa Dream" prompting them to seek out a Bible (the Injil) to explain the vision. Some estimate that nearly one in four that have turned away from Islam in the 21st century cite a dream or vision as a primary factor. 

Joel 2:28 is the most famous promise in the Bible regarding dreams. It suggests that in the "last days," spiritual communication through dreams will become widespread:

"And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions."

The Bible is chocked full of dreams as well as admonishment to protect and care for widows and the fatherless. It is one of the great commands of our Creator and I think it has a link to Ishmael.

Remember this too, we have a great command from God to share Him with the world and His Kingdom to come that will take the planet back. The"mountain" of God will fill the whole earth and it will be comprised of all nations.

With that background, let's read again from Daniel about that statue dream and those strange beasts:

"Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed together, and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; the wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found. And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth." Daniel 2:35

"These great beasts, which are four, [are] four kings, [which] shall arise out of the earth. But the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever. Daniel 7:17-18

"I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them; Until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom. 

Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces." Daniel 7:21-23

Today's news tell us: 

"International reaction was almost uniformly negative last week when news broke that Britain had officially granted Muslim Sharia courts permission to rule on everything from divorce to domestic violence. 

After all, in its strictest form, Sharia law requires the stoning of women accused of adultery, and the execution of converts from Islam, among other draconian punishments for offences that aren’t even considered crimes in the West. In the U.K. and abroad, pundits and politicians denounced Britain’s capitulation, but only one elected official responded with a daring proposal aimed at preventing Sharia law from gaining such a foothold in America."

In fact, a couple of years ago, U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo proposed a “Jihad Prevention Act” that “would bar the entry of foreign nationals who advocate Sharia law [and] make the advocacy of Sharia law by radical Muslims already in the United States a deportable offense.” In his official announcement on September 18, 2008, Tancredo observed: “This is a case where truth is truly stranger than fiction. Today the British people are learning a hard lesson about the consequences of massive, unrestricted immigration.”

Yet recently, in the U.S., our own Treasury Department announced that they will teach a seminar on "Islamic Finance" to U.S. banking regulatory agencies and that Harvard University's "Islamic Finance Project" will coordinate the training for Sharia banking. 

You can learn more about Harvard's Islamic Finance program here. This is important, please search the facts out on your own. The beast of Islam is spreading its tentacles. It's as if the clerics are shouting westward ho!!

We must understand the implications. 

If you will spend time in Daniel 7 you'll realize that the three beasts described represent the invasions and history of the land of present day Israel are driven from by disaster and death, the realm of the dragon. 

Invasions by the Babylonians, the Medo-Persians and the Roman Empire once dominated the Middle East and Israel.

Yet since WWI and WWII have you noticed the fourth beast of Daniel 7 is not an EU beast. but a Mid-East beast?

I get it, I once thought that a revived Roman Empire was on the way, but 9/11 woke me up. 

Many like me thought the European Union will reveal "the beast" and that the WEU nations will rise in Europe like the ten kings of Daniel 7, but Daniel tells us something we need to know... knowledge will increase and it has since 9/11.

Innocently, many still fall for the EU beast storyline. 

The great deceiver haSatan has done everything he can to set up a path of deception to point us to Rome so that we will be caught off guard. But after much prayer, we must all look at the Bible with the same Hebrew eyes, context and location in which the scrolls were written.

Not only that, there is a reason the Hebrew language is being restored as God promised and knowledge will increase so that we can understand His voice in the Bible:

"I will restore unto them a pure language" Zephaniah 3:9.

I got this from Rodrigo Silva: 

"When we get to Revelation chapter 13, we see that the fourth beast of Daniel is described by John as having seven heads and having ten horns. Now think about it; if the beast that John saw was like a leopard (Grecian Empire), had the feet of a bear (Persian Empire) and the mouth of a lion (Babylonian Empire), does that beast represent any Western power or confederacy of nations such as the European Union?

If we prayerfully focus on the Bible and on history while we ignore prejudice whatsoever, we will notice that the beast of Revelation 13 is the rise of Babylonian, Persian and Grecian Empires "combined together" into a geopolitical mega later day empire which will cover the Middle East region from Turkey in the West all to way to Pakistan and Afghanistan in the East encompassing all the Islamic-Arab world under its religious-political dominion today."

Take a look at a map of these Middle East empires and try visualizing them together as a single map. You will notice that the Middle East is the center of this kingdom which gives rise to the latter-day spirit of antichrist. 

As I began to search the Scriptures with the help of the Holy Spirit and some world maps everything about the Legions of Rome began to fit like a glove.

God says something very interesting in Isaiah:

"Remember the former things of old: for I [am] God, and [there is] none else; [I am] God, and [there is] none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times [the things] that are not [yet] done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure" Isaiah 46:9-10

In this passage, God says that He declares the end from the beginning. In effect, the future is already revealed in the past. Prophecy is circular in form, not linear as we think it to be. The Hebrew word translated as "beginning" in Isaiah 48 is the word re'shiyth. Guess what the book of Genesis is called in Hebrew? You guessed it! It is re'shiyth! 

This gives us some insight into the future, for God said that the end is already declared in re'shiyth, that is, in "the beginning."

We know from Bible prophecy that the major theme of "the end" is the end of the exile, a monumental struggle between Israel and the nations that oppose her that are driven by metaphysical realities of the antichrist spirit and human dilemmas.

The antichrist spirit lives in a beast government-religion based in the Middle East filled with the Legions of Titus.

Since God told us in Isaiah that the end is already declared,  we have a vivid picture of what is occurring now and what will transpire  soon. In Genesis, we find that the struggle is not between Israel and an European confederacy, not between Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Netanyahu, but the struggle is behind the scenes, evil vs good.

In Genesis, we find that struggle manifests between Isaac and Ishmael, between the descendants of Jacob and Esau. A struggle ultimately between Almighty God and Allah. President George Bush once said they were the same but George was dead wrong, deceived because he did not look behind the curtain.

We can find in Genesis that the center of anti-God religious government included Nimrod, the founder of Assyria and Babylon (Genesis 10:8-12). Nimrod was the one who organized a rebellion to bring the gods down to earth. The goal was not to ascend to heaven. Ziggurat towers weren't built to do that. The Mesopotamians believed that built "artificial mountains" so the gods would have a place to descend and dwell among the people. The ziggurat of Ur is the best-preserved example still standing today, and don't forget Almighty God called Abraham out of Ur right after Babel for a reason.

You can read about the babel that started in Shinar in Genesis 11. It is the southeastern region of modern day Iraq where ancient the tower was built and Babylon is the very place that our valiant military troops are still located today to ward off evil in Iraq. 

Is it a coincidence that the anti-christ spirit like the king of Babylon (Isaiah 14:4; 14:25; 30:30-33 is called the Assyrian? 

Is it a coincidence that evil has returned to its own base in the land of Shinar (Zechariah 5:5-11)? Is it a coincidence that Iraq has been and Iran is now is the center of global news today? (See Revelation 18). 

More from Mr. Silva:

"The amazing thing is that the major theme of struggle and tribulation between Jews and Arabs is confirmed throughout the rest of the Bible. The Old Testament prophets mentioned every single one of Israel's last days enemies by name. Zechariah and the prophet Joel referred to them as Israel's "surrounding neighbors" or "the people round about".

The great prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Obadiah, and Ezekiel gave us their names:

-Babylon - Iraq (Isaiah 13-14, Jeremiah 5-51)
-Assyria - Assyrians of Northern Iraq and Syria (Isaiah 14:25, 30:30-33, Zephaniah 2, Micah 5)
-Edom - Jordan and Arabia (Isaiah 21, Jeremiah 49, Ezekiel 35)
-Moab - Jordan (Isaiah 15, Jeremiah 49)
-Ammon - Jordan (Jeremiah 49)
-Damascus - Syria (Isaiah 17, Jeremiah 49, Amos 1, Zechariah 9)
-Gaza and Philistines - Palestinians (Isaiah 14:28-33, Jeremiah 47, Joel 3)
-Egypt (Isaiah 19, Jeremiah 46)
-Tyre - Lebanon (Ezekiel 28, Joel 3)
-Magog, Meshech, Tubal, Togarmah and Gomer - Turkey (Ezekiel 38)
-Persia - Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan (Ezekiel 38)
-Arabia - Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (Isaiah 21, Jeremiah 49)
-Ethiopia - Sudan (Isaiah 18)
-Libya (Ezekiel 38)
-Elam - Iran (Jeremiah 49)

All these nations literally surround Israel today and something unseen is driving their hated of Israel.

Of all these, perhaps God Magog is most famous. Many arm chair prophecy teachers insist Gog Magog is Russia, these are the same people that say the Pope and the EU hold the clues to the end time identity of the antichrist, but they are wrong as they wait for the Gog Magog war to start any minute despite the fact Revelation 20:7-10 tells us:

"And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever."

Rome stopped killing Jews long ago. Mecca warrants the Biblical criteria of the anti-messiah religious system deceived by Satan and his minions.

Believe it or not, the Middle East map we have today did not exist before World War I.

It looked like this:

But what about God and Magog?

The Schaff-Herzog Encyclopaedia of Religious Knowledge, places the location of the land of Magog in the area between ancient Armenia and Media the area of the Muslim nations of Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Turkistan, Chechnya, Turkey, Tajikstan and Dagestan.

Its time to open our eyes, we may have insisted that the beast will be a confederacy of European nations, but now we MUST acknowledge that God has not changed His mind ("I change not") when he spoke against Babylon, Assyria, Arabia, Persia, Damascus (Syria) and even Gaza.

God means what He says about these places.  He does not point West nor allude to the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Greece or the USA in the end. He points us all to the East to the world now infused with Islam.

The radical Muslim world the key and Jerusalem is front and center because it a burdensome stone:

“Thus says the LORD 'Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling to all the surrounding peoples, when they lay siege against Judah and Jerusalem. And it shall happen in that day that I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all peoples; all who would heave it away will surely be cut in pieces, though all nations of the earth are gathered against it'” Zechariah 12:2-3

Look at that Hebrew word "earth" in Zechariah, verse 3: it is "erets" and it means: "land, country, territory, district, region or tribal territory."

Who wants to heave away Jerusalem today? 

The most vocal now that Arafat the Egyptian that called himself a Palestinian is dead is Iran’s Supreme Leader, but there will be others to follow him that will surely be cut in pieces.

Now read this verse:

"... And it shall happen in that day that I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all peoples; all who would heave it away will surely be cut in pieces, though all nations of the region are gathered against it'” Zechariah 12:3:

Almighty God wants us to look to Jerusalem now and just who those nations are and what evil forces influence them and I have the heart to let you know Almighty God was not using code words for the battles we will soon see and not see.

Israel's struggles have been and are with the descendants of Ishmael and Esau who gave birth to the people driven by evil who did and do oppose the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob until the very end.

The Bible describes a king of fierce countenance, a man of sin, the son of perdition, a man of lawlessness, a king who speaks blasphemies against the God of heaven, the king who seeks the help of god of war. He is called "the Assyrian" for good reason.

Some say that antichrist means "in place of Christ." The context where the word appears speaks about a deceptive evil force influencing people who deny Messiah.

Let's see how Scripture defines the term:

"And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it. For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an anti-christ." 2John 1:6-7

So let's ask a question, who is in total opposition? The answer is found as the Muslim world believes in another Jesus, a prophet called "Isa" that will come with the Mahdi to behead those that refuse to line up and pray to Allah.

Isa to the Muslim mind is only a prophet, the son of Mary who never died for the sins of mankind, who is not the Son of God and they beleive he will return to the earth as a prophet to help the Mahdi, the 12th Imam destroy the people of "the book" (the Bible). 

If you consider yourself one of "the people of the book," it is time to be a watchman over Jerusalem.

The Islamic belief in a man called "Isa" is in total opposition to the reality of Messiah Yeshua that came not to kill but to give life.

The deceiver haSatan "believes" God and  because of that Satan recreated his own counterfeit religious-political system to try to wipe the Jewish state "off the map" from the river Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea.

It will not happen.

There is no doubt, Islam denies the real Messiah of Israel. You can read their anti-christ inscription on the abomination of desolation because Islam has inscribed them on dome at the center of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem where only prayer to Allah is allowed today. SEE THEM HERE FOR YOURSELF.

I encourage you to look, if you do not - you may NOT understand how to be a witness to the gospel truth of the Messiah of all Israel to all nations.

Islam teaches: 'Fight those who believe not in Allah and his apostle, nor acknowledge the religion of truth [even if they are] people of the book [i.e. Jews and Christians] , until they pay with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued [enslaved] ''(Sura 9:29).

''Fight and slay the pagans (i.e. non-Muslims) wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them and lie in wait for them in every stratagem; but if they repent ... then open a way for them (Sura 9:123).

Now consider this phrase from the Hadith (the sayings of Muhammad), the second most important piece of Islamic literature after the Koran: "The Hour (last day) will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. ‘O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.” (Sahih Al-Bukhari, vol. 4, b. 52, Hadith # 177).

The Bible says that an anti-christ people will seek to destroy the people "Israel" from the face of the earth as it points to the unseen dragon.

Destroy Israel and its people is very thing that terrorist extremists have been trying to accomplish for years, yet many are still blind to this reality and expect some European devil to rule the world. You might say: Wait a minute, Adolph Hitler was from Europe, not from the Middle East and he tried to destroy the Jews. That is true, but many don't know the truth that Islam was behind the scenes as a part of Hitler's "final solution"! 

Research and check this out for yourself, just search the history of Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. Al-Husseini sought Hitler's support for Arab independence from British rule and expressed his opposition to a Jewish homeland down the road. Hitler assured the Mufti that Germany’s goal was "the destruction of the Jewish element residing in the Arab sphere."

Today, Arab leaders share Hitler's goal. Men like Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah will meet their end in violence, according to Nasrallah: "If the Jews all gather in Israel they will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide."

The events predicted in the Bible about the final struggle of evil vs good is becoming a reality before the eyes of the world today, but many hate the Jewish people and forget all about 9/11 becuase they are deceived and under the drug-like state of the dragon. This fact is in the news each and every day as Jerusalem is raised to prominence in the headlines and antisemitism is the result with a call to divide Jerusalem. 

Many in the world have let the deceiver in to toss them a curve ball.

When we take God's word for what it is through the lens of Hebraic eyes, when we see the Bible names the people against Israel today, we must know that Almighty God is very clear about his message for the end times. 

The LORD gave us the names of the nations under the authority of darkness, He gave us their geographic locations of dominion and after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, He gave the Jewish people Israel tp prepare it for Messiah's return whether they know it or not.

And with the help fo the book of Daniel, Zechariah and Revelation He gave the countries, the religious fanatics and the gods behind the scenes to be involved in the final conflict.

The nations are named in the prophets and and they are in the Middle East nations, the same geographic location where things went wrong for humanity just as Genesis tells us they did. Almighty God points out the players in the final drama are descendants of Isaac and Jacob now struggling against the descendants of Ishmael and Esau -- but there is hope and promise for the planet and the nations under demonic control.

To learn more about Islam, Ive watched a man called Al Fadi He's a former radical Muslim terrorist who turned over his life to the King of the Jews. He's now on a mission to tell Muslims the truth about Islam. 

Look for his story on the Stakelbeck report from CBN TV. You can view all episodes of Stebelbeck on Terror here.

It is time to know Almighty God did not forget to tell us who the real enemies are, both seen and unseen. We must look to "the beginning" and listen to what the LORD has been saying all along.

My prayer is that if you are a "seeker" of truth or one who wants to teach Bible prophecy is that you will find the truth and tell it like it is. It's never too late to step back and read God's message for these last days from a Biblical perspective, and forget preconceived Western presumptions from deception. 

After all, the Bible is not about Washington D.C. or the Vatican, it's about Jerusalem! It always has been and always will be.

As promised to Daniel, ... over time Almighty God has allowed knowledge to continue to increase about His Word. God's Word is not so mysterious as we may have first thought when speaking about the nations that oppose Israel. 

Like God says in His word, the enemy is surrounding Jerusalem.

Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem, the descendants of the Legions of Titus remain against her and they are growing. Europe is changing, the world is changing and not for the better. It is time to wake up to share the gospel message with everyone including the legions of Titus, the nations of Ishmael's and Esau's descendants.

What does this all mean? 

It's time to repent and return to Almighty God's voice, return to hear and do His word and walk in His image in the faith of His Kingdom path. It's time to ready your lamp for your assignment to be a light to the world. 

It means we all need to know "Who is the One Called Jesus.

Consider a prayer... Please, God guide me by your Spirit as to what I should hear and do.

Stretch out your hand, and take from the tree of life, and live God's way.

Open a Bible, read it, listen to God's voice and do Yeshua's teaching about the forever jots and tittles He spoke of in the Sermon on the Mount and taught every Sabbath. 

You can learn how the things which are written in the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings are all concerning Messiah and you can teach others to live life like Jesus in God's way:

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 

For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." John 3:16-17

Today is the time, open your eyes if you're dead in your own valley of dry bones.

Look up and you'll recognize Messiah from Abraham's promise passed on to Isaac and Jacob as written by Moses in the Torah. You can see Him too in the Prophets too.

Repent and walk on your Emmaus Road with Messiah. Study the Scriptures and pray. They are filled with how we are to do life God's way in the Kingdom, and tell others about Him. 

Be a gatekeeper until the house is complete.

Shalom.