Titus |
Many prophecy prognosticators also believe this demonstrates that "the" antichrist will come from a "revived" European Roman Empire, from 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 confusion. However, if we just dig in a bit and do some homework with historic reality, we can see just who the so-called "Roman" legions were that attacked and burned Jerusalem in 70AD.
You will be surprised when your eyes are opened to the simple truth and that truth will direct you to a clearer understanding of Zechariah 12, the abomination of desolation Daniel writes of and the identity of Mystery Babylon as well as Gog and Magog in the end.
This is important because all Believers should be concerned about an antichrist movement, an antichrist "spirit" that 1John 4:3 tells us was alive some 2,000 years ago in the Middle East.
Most people naturally assume that the foot soldiers, the Legions of Titus that murdered millions, destroyed Jerusalem and ultimately the Temple in 70 AD were Romans soldiers, the Italian tough guys we have all seen in the "Jesus" movies.
Because of that, we picture the Legions of Titus as men fully clad in a Roman centurion's helmet and lorica segementata (personal armor), along with a red cloak and tunic carrying a metal sputum shield and sword. After all, they are called the Legions of Rome aren't they?
History tells us a different story.
The foot soldiers that attacked and burned Jerusalem in fulfillment of Yeshua's words in Luke 21:20 were not from Rome so the real message is this: don't believe me, check out what scholars and historians have to say about the facts for yourself!
Then, once the historical record is clear in your own mind, Daniel 9:26 will drive a wedge of doubt for a revived "one world" Roman Empire and all of the EU "antichrist" theories.
Please don't stop reading now, give history a chance to open your eyes and consider what really happened in Jerusalem 70AD and let it give you insight into what is happening today!
This post has been updated from the original study in 2008, because once you realize just who those "Legions" really were, you will begin to see the big time significance of the Arab Spring, the Palestinian bid for UN status, the world's goal to divide Israel for peace and the reality behind the rebellion of Esau.
A revived Ottoman Empire, a caliphate born of Ishamel
is the story line in today's headlines
but it was birthed when Cain murdered righteous Abel.
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 a part of the antichrist spirit arising straight out of Mecca's Kaaba stone.
This dark plan has manifested in the Koran and Hitler's Mein Kampf.
It is the people of the Koran that have come up against Israel in the latter days with an Islamic confederacy spirit described in Psalm 83. This song was given by Asaph. He was the Levitical song leader for the service of the house of God appointed by David. His instrument was the cymbal and he prophesied under the direction of the king. His 12 prophecies are recorded in the psalms of the Bible.
It's time to hear his cymbals in his last prophecy in Psalm 83. We can see it in the goal of radical Jihad to terrorize the Jewish people and destroy Christianity as well. After all, if you destroy the root first, the branch also dies.
You will see that this evil empire has the goal of a "universal caliphate," a government intertwined in Islam over the the entire ummah (community) led by a Caliph under the Sharia law which is based on the Qur'an and the Sunnah (sayings teachings of Muhammad).
Today this empire's "Legions" are made up of people from the Middle East, NOT a revived Roman Empire nor religious leadership from the Vatican.
There is no doubt that Roman rule was significant 2,000 years ago across Europe and the Middle East.
Today, with exception of tiny Israel, Islam is the Middle East.
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 confusion. However, if we just dig in a bit and do some homework with historic reality, we can see just who the so-called "Roman" legions were that attacked and burned Jerusalem in 70AD.
You will be surprised when your eyes are opened to the simple truth and that truth will direct you to a clearer understanding of Zechariah 12, the abomination of desolation Daniel writes of and the identity of Mystery Babylon as well as Gog and Magog in the end.
This is important because all Believers should be concerned about an antichrist movement, an antichrist "spirit" that 1John 4:3 tells us was alive some 2,000 years ago in the Middle East.
Most people naturally assume that the foot soldiers, the Legions of Titus that murdered millions, destroyed Jerusalem and ultimately the Temple in 70 AD were Romans soldiers, the Italian tough guys we have all seen in the "Jesus" movies.
Because of that, we picture the Legions of Titus as men fully clad in a Roman centurion's helmet and lorica segementata (personal armor), along with a red cloak and tunic carrying a metal sputum shield and sword. After all, they are called the Legions of Rome aren't they?
History tells us a different story.
The foot soldiers that attacked and burned Jerusalem in fulfillment of Yeshua's words in Luke 21:20 were not from Rome so the real message is this: don't believe me, check out what scholars and historians have to say about the facts for yourself!
Then, once the historical record is clear in your own mind, Daniel 9:26 will drive a wedge of doubt for a revived "one world" Roman Empire and all of the EU "antichrist" theories.
Please don't stop reading now, give history a chance to open your eyes and consider what really happened in Jerusalem 70AD and let it give you insight into what is happening today!
This post has been updated from the original study in 2008, because once you realize just who those "Legions" really were, you will begin to see the big time significance of the Arab Spring, the Palestinian bid for UN status, the world's goal to divide Israel for peace and the reality behind the rebellion of Esau.
"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 28:6-9A one world order is an oppressive, evil plan that spawned with Esau and it needs to be understood.
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 a part of the antichrist spirit arising straight out of Mecca's Kaaba stone.
"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 1:9-10Instead 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 the Middle East "antichrist" spirit that has been there all along, resurrected in the 7th century in a new form that opposes the Bible with the Koran and continues pressing toward the ultimate goal of wiping the Jewish people off the Promised Land and eventually the face of the Earth.
This dark plan has manifested in the Koran and Hitler's Mein Kampf.
It is the people of the Koran that have come up against Israel in the latter days with an Islamic confederacy spirit described in Psalm 83. This song was given by Asaph. He was the Levitical song leader for the service of the house of God appointed by David. His instrument was the cymbal and he prophesied under the direction of the king. His 12 prophecies are recorded in the psalms of the Bible.
It's time to hear his cymbals in his last prophecy in Psalm 83. We can see it in the goal of radical Jihad to terrorize the Jewish people and destroy Christianity as well. After all, if you destroy the root first, the branch also dies.
You will see that this evil empire has the goal of a "universal caliphate," a government intertwined in Islam over the the entire ummah (community) led by a Caliph under the Sharia law which is based on the Qur'an and the Sunnah (sayings teachings of Muhammad).
Today this empire's "Legions" are made up of people from the Middle East, NOT a revived Roman Empire nor religious leadership from the Vatican.
There is no doubt that Roman rule was significant 2,000 years ago across Europe and the Middle East.
Today, with exception of tiny Israel, Islam is the Middle East.
Today, the Muslim infiltration has had a huge impact on a majority of Europeans because they did not protect their borders.
Just consider France as their government supports the recognition of a Palestinian State at the UN Security Council. Such as move would do away with "negotiations" for peace based on pre-1967 borders like those recently re-proposed by President Obama. 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 that the two state goal as well.
However, the US, Germany, Italy, Holland, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria have said they oppose a U.N. move to declare a Palestinian State.
At least for now...
When the controversy for Zion intensifies, hold on and be a watchman as the Earth groans in birth pangs.
The thing many people miss is that Rome invented the term Palestine. After the fall of Jerusalem, Roman decree renamed the land Palestinia. Iudaea (Judea) was the 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 Roman rule. Palestinia obviously derives from Philistia, from the territory of the Philistines that fought against the Jewish people. Today, the name Palestine has simply been extended from the West, from the days of Roman rule and destruction. Today, the current use of the name Palestine remains anti-Israel.
Its time to open your Bible.
Focus on verse 26 of Daniel chapter 9. Begin by looking at its immediate context "after threescore and two weeks" and slow down as you read because it's not easy, you have dig in to see the light of Scripture:
But this portion of the prophecy is speaking of Jesus (Yeshua), the Anointed One. He is Messiah, He is the 'one' who was “cut off” at His crucifixion before the Temple was destroyed just as the prophets declared. 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 jus as Yeshua said it would. Let's read:
Thanks to the historical research recorded by others, let’s look further into the Roman record:
In 70 A.D., four Roman Legions under Roman General Titus attacked Jerusalem, the result of which was the destruction of the altar and as Messiah Yeshua put it, His "Father's House" which was The Temple. If we just look at the specific people groups from these four "legions" who destroyed The Temple, perhaps we can see these same people may be the fathers of "the people" who will in the end... follow the “ruler who will come” and defile Jerusalem, the place of God's name YHVH. Yes, the Holy name is YHVH, not Allah!
It is easy to see how someone could read this verse and eventually conclude history does repeat itself, that the antichrist could one day be the leader of a revived "Roman" people, but this is not the case of Scripture as 1John 4:3 tells us of the antichrist spirit that was alive 2,000 years ago. The modern conclusion of Rome is based on the premise that the people who made up the Roman "Legions" that desecrated and destroyed The Temple were after all - Roman citizens, right?
Wrong. They were not.
The truth is, there is more, much more to the story here than is usually told from many pulpits today - if we just look at the plain record. What seems apparent in a casual sermon is not what actually happened when we go to the history books and skip traditional conjecture.
If you will just do some homework and research, you will quickly find out that while the people who made up the "leadership" of the "Legions" were indeed Roman, those foot soldiers that actually attacked, destroyed and burned Jerusalem were not citizens of Rome, in fact they were not from the lands of today's EU. The "legions" were not Europeans at all, they were the ancient enemies of the Jewish people, the same nations that Joshua was told to drive out of the Promised Land. They were recruited from the lands of the Middle East that surrounded Judea at that time and they remain there today.
Why did they join the Roman Legions? By their service in the Roman military, they would become Roman soldiers and eventually Roman citizens. We can see this in the historical record at www.roman-empire.net.
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:
However, the US, Germany, Italy, Holland, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria have said they oppose a U.N. move to declare a Palestinian State.
At least for now...
When the controversy for Zion intensifies, hold on and be a watchman as the Earth groans in birth pangs.
The thing many people miss is that Rome invented the term Palestine. After the fall of Jerusalem, Roman decree renamed the land Palestinia. Iudaea (Judea) was the 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 Roman rule. Palestinia obviously derives from Philistia, from the territory of the Philistines that fought against the Jewish people. Today, the name Palestine has simply been extended from the West, from the days of Roman rule and destruction. Today, the current use of the name Palestine remains anti-Israel.
Its time to open your Bible.
Focus on verse 26 of Daniel chapter 9. Begin by looking at its immediate context "after threescore and two weeks" and slow down as you read because it's not easy, you have dig in to see the light of 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 9:25-26While different interpretations have been suggested by various scholars of this declaration, for a moment let's stick with the interpretation that has enjoyed the most widely accepted measure of acceptance so far in the West, at least here in North America. That interpretation states that this prophecy is about an antichrist.
But this portion of the prophecy is speaking of Jesus (Yeshua), the Anointed One. He is Messiah, He is the 'one' who was “cut off” at His crucifixion before the Temple was destroyed just as the prophets declared. 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 jus as Yeshua said it would. Let's read:
"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 9:26-27What this prophecy is conveying is absolutely paramount in terms of identifying the heritage of the "peoples" and the "nations" representing the 'end days' antichrist empire that arose some 600 years after the desolation of the Temple and the destruction of the Old City by the Legions of Titus.
Thanks to the historical research recorded by others, let’s look further into the Roman record:
In 70 A.D., four Roman Legions under Roman General Titus attacked Jerusalem, the result of which was the destruction of the altar and as Messiah Yeshua put it, His "Father's House" which was The Temple. If we just look at the specific people groups from these four "legions" who destroyed The Temple, perhaps we can see these same people may be the fathers of "the people" who will in the end... follow the “ruler who will come” and defile Jerusalem, the place of God's name YHVH. Yes, the Holy name is YHVH, not Allah!
It is easy to see how someone could read this verse and eventually conclude history does repeat itself, that the antichrist could one day be the leader of a revived "Roman" people, but this is not the case of Scripture as 1John 4:3 tells us of the antichrist spirit that was alive 2,000 years ago. The modern conclusion of Rome is based on the premise that the people who made up the Roman "Legions" that desecrated and destroyed The Temple were after all - Roman citizens, right?
Wrong. They were not.
The truth is, there is more, much more to the story here than is usually told from many pulpits today - if we just look at the plain record. What seems apparent in a casual sermon is not what actually happened when we go to the history books and skip traditional conjecture.
If you will just do some homework and research, you will quickly find out that while the people who made up the "leadership" of the "Legions" were indeed Roman, those foot soldiers that actually attacked, destroyed and burned Jerusalem were not citizens of Rome, in fact they were not from the lands of today's EU. The "legions" were not Europeans at all, they were the ancient enemies of the Jewish people, the same nations that Joshua was told to drive out of the Promised Land. They were recruited from the lands of the Middle East that surrounded Judea at that time and they remain there today.
Why did they join the Roman Legions? By their service in the Roman military, they would become Roman soldiers and eventually 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.Let's examine exactly where Titus' "Legions" were from, but first, a little more history is needed:
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.
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:
The point of course, is that although many of the Roman Legion warriors were citizens of the Roman Empire, it does not follow that they were men from Europe as many naturally assume. For some reason, possibly due to the fact that the capital of the Roman Empire was in Rome — and thus in Europe — it is easy to forget that the Roman Empire also included a vast portion of the "client kingdoms" of the Middle East as well.
Because most of the Roman soldiers were recruited from the kingdoms and provinces where their garrisons were located, the legions that were 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 Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and part of southern Turkey.
Commenting on the predominant Syrian make-up of the Roman Legions, the Jewish historian Josephus commented:
When we look back at the history of the four Roman Legions that were under Titus' command during the siege against Jerusalem, we must see that the soldiers were home grown in the Eastern portion of the Roman Empire and were primarily from Syria and eastern Turkey.
When you consider the recent conflict that has arisen between Turkey and Israel over the Gaza flotilla incident, history comes alive becuase nothing is new under the sun.
Let's look again at the four Legions that were led by General Titus during the Jewish-Roman war and consider the names and the locations of their garrisons as recorded by history:
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 took the Temple Mount as their new military base. In fact, this Legion stayed there for a couple of hundred years after the great destruction.
With the facts, anyone can easily conclude that the people who actually destroyed the Temple and Jerusalem were not men born of Rome, but men of the Middle East recruited for destruction. They were not Europeans, they were the people groups that lived in Syria, Eastern Turkey, Arabia and Egypt during the first century.
We see the pattern in Ezekiel, Daniel 8 and Daniel 11, so once more the Bible has led us to the same geography, the Middle East NOT the EU.
We can learn more from the Jewish historian Josephus:
We need to also consider the events and just who the people really were [my comments are bracketed]:
Then...
Much like Sodom and Gomorrah, destruction and desolation were soon literally poured out on the Roman Empire. In God's world, what goes around comes around.
Titus returned to Rome in June of 71AD. Later, 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 the story, but many may not have put it 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 is certainly one of the most dangerous.
It erupted in 79AD, the year Titus became Emperor. In fact it erupted in the first month of his reign.
The eruption of Mt. Vesuvius buried the cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Oplontis and Stabia underneath volcanic cinder and hot ash that preserved the scene and the ruins of the city of Pompeii and its inhabitants. All the pagan Roman temples including those of the false gods Jupiter and Neptune were burned and destroyed in Pompeii. The evidence is still there for the world to see... frozen in time.
In ancient time volcanoes were thought to be controlled by the underworld gods. The ancient false Canaanite deity was Horon. Is there a link to Horon? Perhaps, this false Canaanite idol was known as the god of the underworld and transposed through time, became the Roman god Pluto and had the same identity as Horon. Pluto was the brother of Jupiter and Neptune and a so-called god of the "underworld".
Amazingly, the volcano's last eruption was in 1944, the same year that Hitler ordered the deportation, imprisonment and murder of some 600,000 Hungarian Jews. Within a matter of months in 1944, Auschwitz-Birkenau became the site of another horrific mass murder not unlike what occurred in 70AD in Jerusalem.
As to Titus, within the first year of his reign in Rome... disease, pestilence and a three-day fire once again destroyed portions of the capital city of Rome.
Desolations? Titus suddenly and mysteriously died in 81AD at age 42, perhaps from sexually transmitted disease acquired from his lover Berenice, the sister of Julius Agrippa II who was married three times prior to living with Titus in Rome.
So how do 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.
We must know too, Daniel set the pattern for us in considering the Word of God.
If we are to understand His Word and what it says about the future of our world and lives, we are to "diligently" study His Word with constant prayer and fasting asking for insight, understanding and revelation. In turn, God promises to do His part and answer with help from The Comforter.
I say this because I believe that He will enlighten us and open the Scriptures concerning today's world events.
Daniel experienced the mystery, paradox and distress of what God showed him. He was sickened for many days. Perhaps he saw that anti-messiah will come from the same place that the Legions did that destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD and the the end-time revival of the Ottoman Empire as radical Islam jihad hell bent on spilling innocent blood. After all, Islam is the only religion that barbarically and ruthlessly beheads others which is a sign of the end-time beast.
Despite what Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says about the holocaust, we cannot dispute history. If we do, we can never know reality or our future.
The information shown in this important video report ties directly back to the events of 70AD and today's modern Titus who speaks in the vehement legacy of Hitler. 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 actually the middle east people groups that have hated Israel.
THEY ARE THERE TODAY surrounding Israel.
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, YHVH. The same Temple where the tribes of "all Israel" had worshiped at the Temple Mount. But what role do the men of the "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, the leader, 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 the goddess Venus and a wild boar).
Emblems or symbols of God's creatures are important in prophecy so I have listed them here. Since emblems are very important in considering prophecy, we need to know there is an initial "clue" given here, and it has to do with the Greeks!
To understand, we have to know how Daniel described the Greeks if we are to understand the "beasts" of Daniel's prophecies 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 empire has controlled the Temple Mount following the Roman empire's occupation?
History is quite clear on the answer, since the 6th century, Muslim people have controlled the Temple Mount. The Muslim empire was started by a man in today's Saudi Arabia. His name was Muhammad and his legacy is Islam, the empire that arrived 600 years after Rome's destruction of the Temple.
By God's providence, which allows mankind the choice of good and evil, the choice to serve Him or not, The LORD allows false-god prayer at the Temple Mount today. The the choice of good and evil remains at the end as it was in the beginning.
In the beginning the subtle deceiver, the serpent (נָחָשׁ"nachash") was allowed in the garden. Today, he is there again, this time disguised as a religion of peace with a false prophet and a call to prayer only for Islam atop the Temple Mount. This all began during the first Islamic invasion of 638AD. As a monument to Muhammad, the Dome of the Rock was built on the Temple Mount and today it serves as an abomination of desolation to prayer to The LORD Y-H-V-H.
Dome of the Rock construction began in 688 AD and after three years it was completed in 691 AD.
Today, there is desolation atop the Temple Mount. Desolation of Jewish or Christian worship, desolation of prayer and the desolation of God's name Y-H-V-H.
Instead the name of another appears at the Dome. Because of this we must consider: is the Dome of the Rock related to the abomination of desolation described in Daniel 12:11-12?
If we read Daniel's words we will see the word “yomim” translated as both “days” and “years” to reveal God’s prophetic timetable. With days and years, how might the prophecy of 1,290 days plus 45 days for a total of 1,335 days fit into historical events and prophecy in Jerusalem?
An inscription in the Dome of the Rock establishes its date of completion as 691 AD some 55 years after the Muslim armies captured Jerusalem. Daniel's prophetic timetable appears to possibly reveal significance about the year 681 AD as well as the measure of years coming in 2016. Just five years away, 2016 may me critically important, because if we add 1,335 years to 681 AD we arrive at the Jubilee Year of 2016. Perhaps this time will be critically important in regard to Jerusalem.
If we consider the dates and Daniel's numbers, could there be a tie to the coming Jubilee Year and the Dome of the Rock atop the Temple Mount?
Only God knows! I do not have a clue, but we need to watch. And as we do, we might just consider the image that appears on the right side of the south exit of the Dome of the Rock in the marble's natural pattern, It's a bizarre shadow image. Use CTRL+ on your computer keyboard to zoom in at the image link. It is just a coincidence? I don't know, but it's there.
In case you didn't know, by law today only a Muslim's 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, it is illegal to even move you lips to pray to Y-H-V-H the LORD God of Israel at the location of His Temple.
Today's prayers to another are an abomination to the people of the book, aka the Bible. The prayers that are allowed by law include a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that sheds innocent Jewish blood with a heart that devises wicked imaginations, mischief, a false witness, and sows discord.
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 tired false witness storyline that 9/11 was a complicated plan designed by the U.S. government as a pre-text to Middle Eastern military invasions.
Sound familiar? These lies too are an abomination.
If you ask me, 9/11 was a wake up call into the mysteries in the book of Daniel and to those that believe the Word of God.
The 9/11 disaster is also a wake up call to witness to the Muslim people and to pray for their redemption, but many have hit the snooze button and still sleep waiting for a wake up call from an EU anti-christ that only lives in a vivid imagination. If we 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 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 been violent, but we are not to hate Muslims.
Muslims need Jesus, not Isa.
Whether Shia or Sunni, Muslims believe Isa will return to kill Jews and Christians that do not convert to Islam.
During World War I, when the head of this 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 and domination across the Middle East.
We must consider the Bible AND the historical facts that are plainly before us. If we do, we can learn that the end-time "empire" that will surround and oppose Israel is a revived version of the empire that succeeded the Roman empire in Jerusalem, the same empire that was injured like death but now revived. This was foretold by Daniel and later by John (the Revelator). Eyes wide open... it is worth repeating, it's Islam and it has been resurrected just as the prophecies tell us!
The EU prophecy storyline puts us al at the wrong place on God's prophetic map. The Bible is about Israel and the nations around it.
Fundamentalist, radical Islam cannot be ignored. That has become abundantly clear since 9/11 as Islam's influence in Europe and the U.S. has grown exponentially out of its Mid East roots. The spots of the leopard have been seen, but this beast is still not seen by many that ignore the Bible due to the natural camouflage of the leopard beast.
The Middle East Islamic empire is seeking to be revived.
A small part of the revival can be seen it in the Arab Spring. We can see it too in the global plans of The Quartet of nations that seek to divide Israel for Islam.
Islam's empire of Sunni and Shia is an integral part of the book of Daniel. Islam succeeded the Roman-Byzantine empire and it is the Islamic one world "religion-government" that shares a goal of a unified caliphate.
The Ottoman head, it "seemed" was slain on March 3, 1924, when the first President of the Turkish Republic abolished the institution of the caliphate led by the Ottoman Turks, but its body has been revived in the form of a fourth leopard beast, radical Islam:
This was seen this weekend with the attack on the Israeli Embassy in Cairo.
The 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 officer in a battalion that fought against Egypt. The beast tried to kill him in 1954 but failed. Nasser responded and declared the Muslim Brotherhood illegal and arrested some 60,000 people, condemning its leaders to death. But President Sadat released the remaining members of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1971. This allowed them to widen their influence and spread darkness across the Middle East.
Their ideologies to destroy Israel quickly spread into Iran where their goals flourish today in the leadership of Iran's Ayatollahs.
What has happened this year in Egypt in this resurrection is a lesson we must not forget. That lesson is that Egypt spawned the Pharaoh that "knew not Joseph." He was the Pharaoh that enslaved the Jacob's descendants.
This radical empire that is made up of the infighting Sunni's and Shiite's. This is the same kingdom that Daniel described as the feet of "iron and clay." Why? Like iron and clay, Sunni and Shiite do not mix, they fight, and they are the two feet of the "beast" of Islam.
Since the violence that erupted in Egypt, radical Islam has become again a political-religious beast that is different from any other seen before. It has re-arisen as the fourth beast that is like no other, dreadful, terrible and potentially two billion strong!! These people of Ishmael and Esau are declaring holy war "jihad" and they surround the people of Judah and Benjamin in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.
Some experts say that 10% of the Muslim population are radicals. If accurate, that just 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.
Radical Islam is spreading. The goal of a caliphate run by Sharia law expands globally each day. 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 this and never ignore what is happening around you.
Let's see how Daniel described his vision of this fourth beast:
Did you know that Sharia law, the only law of Islam demands beheading?
As described by Joel Richardson in his first book, "AntiChrist, Islam's Awaited Messiah", most of us in the "west" do not live in an atmosphere of "martyrdom." So, we must remain focused on those that do face the daily potential of horrific terror mentioned in Revelation and pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
The mid-east, now more than ever, is living with the rising threat and chaos that the Bible speaks of. Radical Islam is raising its head as we are standing in the last days before the return of the Jewish Messiah Yeshua.
Today, the Spirit of God is calling believers to His Torah before the return of Messiah.
And as Richardson explains, many people in the Mideast may one day be faced with one choice to worship the "Mahdi."
The Bible calls him the Assyrian. Perhaps, it will be an Assyrian that will once again seek to control Jerusalem and the Temple Mount just as the Ottoman Turks once did. 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 described in the Bible as a part of this final beast empire.
I have mentioned Richardson's book, not to promote it, but because it calls for a witness to Muslim people. Muslims need Jesus. Richardson counsels that the Imams, Mullahs, Sheiks and Ayatollahs will give their allegiance to their "Mahdi." I have corresponded at length with Mr. Richardson and he will be coming out with a new book soon and others will follow with an eye on Israel, the Middle East and Messiah with a call to witness the message of the gospel Kingdom to Muslim people.
God will show great mercy on many of the people of Ishmael and Esau. I believe this will be a great demonstration of the love God has shown toward all men including Hagar's son Ishmael. After all, God saved him in the desert, so He will reach again out to save he people of Ishmael and you can be a part of His lovingkindness. In fact, the story of Hagar is proof of God's immeasurable love and mercy.
God went to her in the desert to encourage her after she and Ishmael were disowned and tossed out of the care of the family of Abraham. I believe that this is one of the key reasons that the Bible is full of admonishment to protect and care for widows and the fatherless. It is one of the great commands of our Creator.
Remember this too, we have a great promise from God to share. It is about His Kingdom to come. This "mountain" will fill the whole earth and it will be comprised of all nations.
With that background, let's read again from Daniel:
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. 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 has arrived and is spreading.
We must understand the implications of its Sharia law. Why? Perhaps many have spent time in Daniel 7 and know that the three beasts he describes represent the occupational invasions and history of the land of present day Israel. These were the Babylonian, Medo-Persian and Grecian Empires which once dominated the entire Middle East.
Now many of us in the West since WWI and WWII have watched the fourth beast of Daniel 7 come out, and due to our post-Hitler focus, we have mis-understood thinking that the the horns represent a revived Roman Empire. I certainly have made this assumption - at least in my pre 9/11 past. Many like me have said that the European Union is "the beast" and that the 10 WEU nations will rise in Europe to be the 10 kings of Daniel 7, but Daniel is the one that tells us something critical: knowledge will increase.
Innocently, I repeat that... innocently many believe in an EU beast. Why wouldn't they? The great deceiver haSatan has done everything he can to set 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 and mindset in which the scrolls are written.
There is a reason the Hebrew language is being restored as God promised, it is so we can understand His voice in the Bible:
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 future kingdom which will give 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:
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. Another major theme is that the antichrist spirit will arise from a beast government-religion.
Rest assured that this government-religion will be 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 in the not too distant future. 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 indeed well defined.
In Genesis, we find that struggle is between Isaac and Ishmael, between the descendants of Jacob and Esau! A struggle ultimately between YHVH and Allah. George Bush once said they were the same, they ARE not! He was wrong.
We also find in Genesis that the center of this anti-God religious government is created by a king in the authority of Nimrod, the founder of Assyria and Babylon (Genesis 10:8-12). Nimrod was the one who organized a political and religious system in the land of Shinar (Genesis 11). Shinar is the region of modern day Iraq where ancient Babylon existed. The very place that our valiant military troops are still located today. Is it a coincidence that the coming anti-christ spirit is like the king of Babylon (Isaiah 14:4), the Assyrian? (Isaiah 14:25, 30:30-33)
Is it a coincidence that this religion and government 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 now is the center of Global news today? (See Revelation 18). More from Mr. Silva:
Of all these, perhaps God Magog is most famous. Many arm chair prophecy teachers insist Gog Magog is Russia, these are the ones that subscribe the Pope and the EU to the end time identity of the antichrist, but they are wrong. Rome stopped killing Jews and Protestants long ago. Only Mecca warrants the Biblical criteria of an ant-messiah religious system.
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 tie 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 Muslim world is the key and Jerusalem is front and center because it a burdensome stone:
Who wants to heave away Jerusalem today? Perhaps the most vocal now that Arafat is dead is Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but there will be others to follow him.
Now read this verse:
Israel's struggles have been and are with the descendants of Ishmael and Esau who gave birth to the people who would oppose the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob until the end.
The Bible describes a king of fierce countenance, a man of sin, the son of perdition, a man of lawlessness, the 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 people who deny Christ, Messiah as God incarnate in the flesh.
But let's see how Scripture defines the term:
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 teach 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.
This belief in a man called "Isa" is in total opposition to the reality of Messiah Yeshua (Jesus) because of the teaching of a "book" known as the Koran.
The deceiver haSatan "believes" God and because of that haSatan has created his own counterfeit religious-political system to try to wipe the Jewish state "off the map" between the river Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea.
It will not happen.
There is no doubt, Islam denies Messiah. You can read their anti-christ inscriptions, the abomination of desolation because Islam has already 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 at them, if you do not - you may NOT understand how to be a witness to the gospel truth of the Messiah of all Israel.
Islam also 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.
This is the very thing that extremists have been trying to accomplish for so long, yet many are still blind to this reality and expect some European devil to accomplish this. You might say: "Wait a minute, Adolph Hitler was from Europe, not from the Middle East and he tried to destroy the Jews." That seems reasonable, but many don't know the truth that Islam was behind Hitler's "final solution"! Research and check this out for yourself.
Today, Arab leaders like Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah say: "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 are becoming a reality before the eyes of the world today. This fact is in the news each and every day as Jerusalem is raised to prominence in the headlines. Yet many in the Western world have let the deceiver toss us a curve ball to the fact that the Bible must be read through the lens of Hebraic eyes.
When we take God's word for what it is, when He names the very people against Israel today, we must know that God is very clear about his message for the end times. He gave us the names of the nations, He gave us the geographic locations and even with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, He gave us the countries and the religious ethnic groups to be involved in the final drama because He has declared all to His prophets.
These nations are specifically named in the prophets as Middle Eastern nations, the geographic location God points to is the Middle East and the ethnic groups mentioned by God as the players of the final drama are the descendants of Isaac and Jacob now struggling against the descendants of Ishmael and Esau -- but there is hope and promise!
To learn more about Islam from Al Fadi, a former radical Muslim turned Christian who's now on a mission to tell Muslims the truth about Islam. Watch this Stakelbeck report from CBN TV. You can view all episodes of Stebelbeck on Terror.
It is time to know God did not forget to tell us who the real enemies are. We must look to "the beginning" and listen to what God has been saying all along.
My prayer is that if you are a "seeker" of truth who studies or one who teaches Bible prophecy is that you will find truth. It is not too late to step back and read God's message for these last days from a proper perspective, and forget preconceived Western presumptions. After all, the Bible is not about Washington D.C. or the Vatican, it's about Jerusalem! It always has been.
As was promised to Daniel, ...time 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.
In Messiah's brotherly love, pray for the Peace of Jerusalem, the descendants of the Legions of Titus remain against her and they are growing. As you will see in this video, Europe is changing, the world is changing. It is time to wake up to share the gospel message with the Legions of Titus, the nations of Ishmael's and Esau's descendants.
It means we need to know "Who is the One Called Jesus.
Shalom.
"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 3Let'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 2Another 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 ApollinarisWhat 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 then became 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, it got all of its recruits it needed directly from that area.
• Legion V Macedonica
• Legion XII Fulminata
• Legion X Fretensis
The point of course, is that although many of the Roman Legion warriors were citizens of the Roman Empire, it does not follow that they were men from Europe as many naturally assume. For some reason, possibly due to the fact that the capital of the Roman Empire was in Rome — and thus in Europe — it is easy to forget that the Roman Empire also included a vast portion of the "client kingdoms" of the Middle East as well.
Because most of the Roman soldiers were recruited from the kingdoms and provinces where their garrisons were located, the legions that were 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 Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and part of southern Turkey.
Commenting on the predominant Syrian make-up of the Roman Legions, the Jewish historian Josephus commented:
"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.Again, knowing the great hatred that the Syrian’s had for the Jews of Jerusalem, Josephus elsewhere recounts that the "Syrians and Arabs" who were camped outside of the city of Jerusalem actually disemboweled over two thousand Jews who had escaped the city in order to search for any gold that the Arabs thoughts 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, but the majority of the “Roman” soldiers that destroyed Jerusalem were Arabs and Syrians despite the fact that Titus conveyed the status of Roman soldier on them. 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 heard Titus make a challenge for the Legion men 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.The account mirrors today's jihadist Islamic martyrs that have attacked not only New York once, but daily against the Jews of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria over the past 25 years. The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas justified suicide bombings with its 1987 charter that quotes the Qur'an and a hadith calling for the murder of Jews to hasten the Day of Judgment.
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]."
When we look back at the history of the four Roman Legions that were under Titus' command during the siege against Jerusalem, we must see that the soldiers were home grown in the Eastern portion of the Roman Empire and were primarily from Syria and eastern Turkey.
When you consider the recent conflict that has arisen between Turkey and Israel over the Gaza flotilla incident, history comes alive becuase nothing is new under the sun.
Let's look again at the four Legions that were led by General Titus during the Jewish-Roman war and consider the names and the locations of their garrisons as recorded by history:
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 took the Temple Mount as their new military base. In fact, this Legion stayed there for a couple of hundred years after the great destruction.
With the facts, anyone can easily conclude that the people who actually destroyed the Temple and Jerusalem were not men born of Rome, but men of the Middle East recruited for destruction. They were not Europeans, they were the people groups that lived in Syria, Eastern Turkey, Arabia and Egypt during the first century.
We see the pattern in Ezekiel, Daniel 8 and Daniel 11, so once more the Bible has led us to the same geography, the Middle East NOT the EU.
We can learn more 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 3Using the NASB Bible translation, let's now take a look back at Gabriel's words to Daniel at the conclusion of chapter 9 in verses 25-29 and consider the reality: Daniel chapter 9 deals with Messiah's crucifixion before the end of the Jewish occupation of Jerusalem from its destruction by the "Legions" in 70 AD.
"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
We need to also consider the events and just who the people really were [my comments are bracketed]:
"So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree [given 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 [49 years + 434 years = 483 years]; it will be built again [the 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 oppressed Nehemiah]. Daniel 9: 25-29It is VERY important to note that the Horonites were from Bethoron. They worshipped the Canaanite god, Horon. 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 name for the towns of Upper and Lower Bethoron.
Then...
"Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off [crucifixion] and have nothing, and the people [Arabs, Syrians and Egyptians] of the prince [Titus] who is to come will destroy the city [Jerusalem] and the sanctuary [The Holy of Holies - The Temple]. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined [desolations for Jerusalem and as you will see for Rome].Daniel goes on...
"And he [Yeshua-Jesus] will make a firm covenant [the covenant of eternal life] with the many [believers] for one week [Passover 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 [Yeshua-Jesus is the ultimate offering. Sacrifices and offerings were suspended in time in 70AD with the destruction of the altar of the Temple];And...
and on the wing of abominations will come one [Titus] who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed [decreed by Messiah and recorded in Matthew 24] , 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 offends Jerusalem go unpunished].The words "poured out" are a key description here. To understand, 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 to the Temple and God, made sacrifices to the Roman standards in the Temple court.
Much like Sodom and Gomorrah, destruction and desolation were soon literally poured out on the Roman Empire. In God's world, what goes around comes around.
Titus returned to Rome in June of 71AD. Later, 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 the story, but many may not have put it 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 is certainly one of the most dangerous.
It erupted in 79AD, the year Titus became Emperor. In fact it erupted in the first month of his reign.
The eruption of Mt. Vesuvius buried the cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Oplontis and Stabia underneath volcanic cinder and hot ash that preserved the scene and the ruins of the city of Pompeii and its inhabitants. All the pagan Roman temples including those of the false gods Jupiter and Neptune were burned and destroyed in Pompeii. The evidence is still there for the world to see... frozen in time.
In ancient time volcanoes were thought to be controlled by the underworld gods. The ancient false Canaanite deity was Horon. Is there a link to Horon? Perhaps, this false Canaanite idol was known as the god of the underworld and transposed through time, became the Roman god Pluto and had the same identity as Horon. Pluto was the brother of Jupiter and Neptune and a so-called god of the "underworld".
Amazingly, the volcano's last eruption was in 1944, the same year that Hitler ordered the deportation, imprisonment and murder of some 600,000 Hungarian Jews. Within a matter of months in 1944, Auschwitz-Birkenau became the site of another horrific mass murder not unlike what occurred in 70AD in Jerusalem.
As to Titus, within the first year of his reign in Rome... disease, pestilence and a three-day fire once again destroyed portions of the capital city of Rome.
Desolations? Titus suddenly and mysteriously died in 81AD at age 42, perhaps from sexually transmitted disease acquired from his lover Berenice, the sister of Julius Agrippa II who was married three times prior to living with Titus in Rome.
So how do 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 18:16In this case, so far we have some very solid historical witnesses that have come forward to testify today. Surely the testimony is established.
We must know too, Daniel set the pattern for us in considering the Word of God.
If we are to understand His Word and what it says about the future of our world and lives, we are to "diligently" study His Word with constant prayer and fasting asking for insight, understanding and revelation. In turn, God promises to do His part and answer with help from The Comforter.
I say this because I believe that He will enlighten us and open the Scriptures concerning today's world events.
Daniel experienced the mystery, paradox and distress of what God showed him. He was sickened for many days. Perhaps he saw that anti-messiah will come from the same place that the Legions did that destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD and the the end-time revival of the Ottoman Empire as radical Islam jihad hell bent on spilling innocent blood. After all, Islam is the only religion that barbarically and ruthlessly beheads others which is a sign of the end-time beast.
Despite what Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says about the holocaust, we cannot dispute history. If we do, we can never know reality or our future.
The information shown in this important video report ties directly back to the events of 70AD and today's modern Titus who speaks in the vehement legacy of Hitler. 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 actually the middle east people groups that have hated Israel.
THEY ARE THERE TODAY surrounding Israel.
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, YHVH. The same Temple where the tribes of "all Israel" had worshiped at the Temple Mount. But what role do the men of the "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, the leader, 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 the goddess Venus and a wild boar).
Emblems or symbols of God's creatures are important in prophecy so I have listed them here. Since emblems are very important in considering prophecy, we need to know there is an initial "clue" given here, and it has to do with the Greeks!
To understand, we have to know how Daniel described the Greeks if we are to understand the "beasts" of Daniel's prophecies 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 empire has controlled the Temple Mount following the Roman empire's occupation?
History is quite clear on the answer, since the 6th century, Muslim people have controlled the Temple Mount. The Muslim empire was started by a man in today's Saudi Arabia. His name was Muhammad and his legacy is Islam, the empire that arrived 600 years after Rome's destruction of the Temple.
By God's providence, which allows mankind the choice of good and evil, the choice to serve Him or not, The LORD allows false-god prayer at the Temple Mount today. The the choice of good and evil remains at the end as it was in the beginning.
In the beginning the subtle deceiver, the serpent (נָחָשׁ"nachash") was allowed in the garden. Today, he is there again, this time disguised as a religion of peace with a false prophet and a call to prayer only for Islam atop the Temple Mount. This all began during the first Islamic invasion of 638AD. As a monument to Muhammad, the Dome of the Rock was built on the Temple Mount and today it serves as an abomination of desolation to prayer to The LORD Y-H-V-H.
Dome of the Rock construction began in 688 AD and after three years it was completed in 691 AD.
Today, there is desolation atop the Temple Mount. Desolation of Jewish or Christian worship, desolation of prayer and the desolation of God's name Y-H-V-H.
Instead the name of another appears at the Dome. Because of this we must consider: is the Dome of the Rock related to the abomination of desolation described in Daniel 12:11-12?
If we read Daniel's words we will see the word “yomim” translated as both “days” and “years” to reveal God’s prophetic timetable. With days and years, how might the prophecy of 1,290 days plus 45 days for a total of 1,335 days fit into historical events and prophecy in Jerusalem?
An inscription in the Dome of the Rock establishes its date of completion as 691 AD some 55 years after the Muslim armies captured Jerusalem. Daniel's prophetic timetable appears to possibly reveal significance about the year 681 AD as well as the measure of years coming in 2016. Just five years away, 2016 may me critically important, because if we add 1,335 years to 681 AD we arrive at the Jubilee Year of 2016. Perhaps this time will be critically important in regard to Jerusalem.
If we consider the dates and Daniel's numbers, could there be a tie to the coming Jubilee Year and the Dome of the Rock atop the Temple Mount?
Only God knows! I do not have a clue, but we need to watch. And as we do, we might just consider the image that appears on the right side of the south exit of the Dome of the Rock in the marble's natural pattern, It's a bizarre shadow image. Use CTRL+ on your computer keyboard to zoom in at the image link. It is just a coincidence? I don't know, but it's there.
In case you didn't know, by law today only a Muslim's 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, it is illegal to even move you lips to pray to Y-H-V-H the LORD God of Israel at the location of His Temple.
Today's prayers to another are an abomination to the people of the book, aka the Bible. The prayers that are allowed by law include a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that sheds innocent Jewish blood with a heart that devises wicked imaginations, mischief, a false witness, and sows discord.
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 tired false witness storyline that 9/11 was a complicated plan designed by the U.S. government as a pre-text to Middle Eastern military invasions.
Sound familiar? These lies too are an abomination.
If you ask me, 9/11 was a wake up call into the mysteries in the book of Daniel and to those that believe the Word of God.
The 9/11 disaster is also a wake up call to witness to the Muslim people and to pray for their redemption, but many have hit the snooze button and still sleep waiting for a wake up call from an EU anti-christ that only lives in a vivid imagination. If we 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 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 been violent, but we are not to hate Muslims.
Muslims need Jesus, not Isa.
Whether Shia or Sunni, Muslims believe Isa will return to kill Jews and Christians that do not convert to Islam.
During World War I, when the head of this 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 and domination across the Middle East.
We must consider the Bible AND the historical facts that are plainly before us. If we do, we can learn that the end-time "empire" that will surround and oppose Israel is a revived version of the empire that succeeded the Roman empire in Jerusalem, the same empire that was injured like death but now revived. This was foretold by Daniel and later by John (the Revelator). Eyes wide open... it is worth repeating, it's Islam and it has been resurrected just as the prophecies tell us!
The EU prophecy storyline puts us al at the wrong place on God's prophetic map. The Bible is about Israel and the nations around it.
Fundamentalist, radical Islam cannot be ignored. That has become abundantly clear since 9/11 as Islam's influence in Europe and the U.S. has grown exponentially out of its Mid East roots. The spots of the leopard have been seen, but this beast is still not seen by many that ignore the Bible due to the natural camouflage of the leopard beast.
The Middle East Islamic empire is seeking to be revived.
A small part of the revival can be seen it in the Arab Spring. We can see it too in the global plans of The Quartet of nations that seek to divide Israel for Islam.
Islam's empire of Sunni and Shia is an integral part of the book of Daniel. Islam succeeded the Roman-Byzantine empire and it is the Islamic one world "religion-government" that shares a goal of a unified caliphate.
The Ottoman head, it "seemed" was slain on March 3, 1924, when the first President of the Turkish Republic abolished the institution of the caliphate led by the Ottoman Turks, but its body has been revived in the form of a fourth leopard beast, radical Islam:
"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 13:14This Muslim 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 extra-political religious force before our eyes, leading a campaign of violence and attack.
This was seen this weekend with the attack on the Israeli Embassy in Cairo.
The 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 officer in a battalion that fought against Egypt. The beast tried to kill him in 1954 but failed. Nasser responded and declared the Muslim Brotherhood illegal and arrested some 60,000 people, condemning its leaders to death. But President Sadat released the remaining members of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1971. This allowed them to widen their influence and spread darkness across the Middle East.
Their ideologies to destroy Israel quickly spread into Iran where their goals flourish today in the leadership of Iran's Ayatollahs.
What has happened this year in Egypt in this resurrection is a lesson we must not forget. That lesson is that Egypt spawned the Pharaoh that "knew not Joseph." He was the Pharaoh that enslaved the Jacob's descendants.
This radical empire that is made up of the infighting Sunni's and Shiite's. This is the same kingdom that Daniel described as the feet of "iron and clay." Why? Like iron and clay, Sunni and Shiite do not mix, they fight, and they are the two feet of the "beast" of Islam.
Since the violence that erupted in Egypt, radical Islam has become again a political-religious beast that is different from any other seen before. It has re-arisen as the fourth beast that is like no other, dreadful, terrible and potentially two billion strong!! These people of Ishmael and Esau are declaring holy war "jihad" and they surround the people of Judah and Benjamin in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.
Some experts say that 10% of the Muslim population are radicals. If accurate, that just 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.
"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 6:4But that is not the end of the story of the Legions of Rome:
"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 13:10Since September 11, 2001, a near global state of emergency has been declared because of Islamic terror groups. The danger becomes greater each day, if you doubt it try walking into an airport and skip the TSA line.
Radical Islam is spreading. The goal of a caliphate run by Sharia law expands globally each day. 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 this and never ignore what is happening around you.
Let's see how Daniel described his vision of this 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 7:7Dreadful and terrible.
Did you know that Sharia law, the only law of Islam demands beheading?
As described by Joel Richardson in his first book, "AntiChrist, Islam's Awaited Messiah", most of us in the "west" do not live in an atmosphere of "martyrdom." So, we must remain focused on those that do face the daily potential of horrific terror mentioned in Revelation and pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
The mid-east, now more than ever, is living with the rising threat and chaos that the Bible speaks of. Radical Islam is raising its head as we are standing in the last days before the return of the Jewish Messiah Yeshua.
Today, the Spirit of God is calling believers to His Torah before the return of Messiah.
And as Richardson explains, many people in the Mideast may one day be faced with one choice to worship the "Mahdi."
The Bible calls him the Assyrian. Perhaps, it will be an Assyrian that will once again seek to control Jerusalem and the Temple Mount just as the Ottoman Turks once did. 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 described in the Bible as a part of this final beast empire.
I have mentioned Richardson's book, not to promote it, but because it calls for a witness to Muslim people. Muslims need Jesus. Richardson counsels that the Imams, Mullahs, Sheiks and Ayatollahs will give their allegiance to their "Mahdi." I have corresponded at length with Mr. Richardson and he will be coming out with a new book soon and others will follow with an eye on Israel, the Middle East and Messiah with a call to witness the message of the gospel Kingdom to Muslim people.
God will show great mercy on many of the people of Ishmael and Esau. I believe this will be a great demonstration of the love God has shown toward all men including Hagar's son Ishmael. After all, God saved him in the desert, so He will reach again out to save he people of Ishmael and you can be a part of His lovingkindness. In fact, the story of Hagar is proof of God's immeasurable love and mercy.
God went to her in the desert to encourage her after she and Ishmael were disowned and tossed out of the care of the family of Abraham. I believe that this is one of the key reasons that the Bible is full of admonishment to protect and care for widows and the fatherless. It is one of the great commands of our Creator.
Remember this too, we have a great promise from God to share. It is about His Kingdom to come. This "mountain" will fill the whole earth and it will be comprised of all nations.
With that background, let's read again from Daniel:
"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 2:35And judgment will certainly come as foretold by Daniel:
"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 7:21-23Today'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. 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 has arrived and is spreading.
We must understand the implications of its Sharia law. Why? Perhaps many have spent time in Daniel 7 and know that the three beasts he describes represent the occupational invasions and history of the land of present day Israel. These were the Babylonian, Medo-Persian and Grecian Empires which once dominated the entire Middle East.
Now many of us in the West since WWI and WWII have watched the fourth beast of Daniel 7 come out, and due to our post-Hitler focus, we have mis-understood thinking that the the horns represent a revived Roman Empire. I certainly have made this assumption - at least in my pre 9/11 past. Many like me have said that the European Union is "the beast" and that the 10 WEU nations will rise in Europe to be the 10 kings of Daniel 7, but Daniel is the one that tells us something critical: knowledge will increase.
Innocently, I repeat that... innocently many believe in an EU beast. Why wouldn't they? The great deceiver haSatan has done everything he can to set 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 and mindset in which the scrolls are written.
There is a reason the Hebrew language is being restored as God promised, it is so we can understand His voice in the Bible:
"I will restore unto them a pure language" Zephaniah 3:9.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 future kingdom which will give 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 46:9-10In 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. Another major theme is that the antichrist spirit will arise from a beast government-religion.
Rest assured that this government-religion will be 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 in the not too distant future. 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 indeed well defined.
In Genesis, we find that struggle is between Isaac and Ishmael, between the descendants of Jacob and Esau! A struggle ultimately between YHVH and Allah. George Bush once said they were the same, they ARE not! He was wrong.
We also find in Genesis that the center of this anti-God religious government is created by a king in the authority of Nimrod, the founder of Assyria and Babylon (Genesis 10:8-12). Nimrod was the one who organized a political and religious system in the land of Shinar (Genesis 11). Shinar is the region of modern day Iraq where ancient Babylon existed. The very place that our valiant military troops are still located today. Is it a coincidence that the coming anti-christ spirit is like the king of Babylon (Isaiah 14:4), the Assyrian? (Isaiah 14:25, 30:30-33)
Is it a coincidence that this religion and government 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 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 very names:
-Babylon - Iraq (Isaiah 13-14, Jeremiah 5-51)All these nations literally surround Israel today.
-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)
Of all these, perhaps God Magog is most famous. Many arm chair prophecy teachers insist Gog Magog is Russia, these are the ones that subscribe the Pope and the EU to the end time identity of the antichrist, but they are wrong. Rome stopped killing Jews and Protestants long ago. Only Mecca warrants the Biblical criteria of an ant-messiah religious system.
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 tie 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 Muslim world is 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 12:2-3Look at the 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? Perhaps the most vocal now that Arafat is dead is Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but there will be others to follow him.
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 I have the heart to let you know He was not using Middle Eastern nations as code words for modern European nations.
Israel's struggles have been and are with the descendants of Ishmael and Esau who gave birth to the people who would oppose the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob until the end.
The Bible describes a king of fierce countenance, a man of sin, the son of perdition, a man of lawlessness, the 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 people who deny Christ, Messiah as God incarnate in the flesh.
But 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 1:6-7So let's ask a question, who is in total opposition to Him as the incomprehensible "God in the flesh"? This is exactly what many in the Muslim world declares. They believe in another Jesus, a prophet called "Isa."
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 teach 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.
This belief in a man called "Isa" is in total opposition to the reality of Messiah Yeshua (Jesus) because of the teaching of a "book" known as the Koran.
The deceiver haSatan "believes" God and because of that haSatan has created his own counterfeit religious-political system to try to wipe the Jewish state "off the map" between the river Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea.
It will not happen.
There is no doubt, Islam denies Messiah. You can read their anti-christ inscriptions, the abomination of desolation because Islam has already 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 at them, if you do not - you may NOT understand how to be a witness to the gospel truth of the Messiah of all Israel.
Islam also 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.
This is the very thing that extremists have been trying to accomplish for so long, yet many are still blind to this reality and expect some European devil to accomplish this. You might say: "Wait a minute, Adolph Hitler was from Europe, not from the Middle East and he tried to destroy the Jews." That seems reasonable, but many don't know the truth that Islam was behind Hitler's "final solution"! Research and check this out for yourself.
Today, Arab leaders like Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah say: "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 are becoming a reality before the eyes of the world today. This fact is in the news each and every day as Jerusalem is raised to prominence in the headlines. Yet many in the Western world have let the deceiver toss us a curve ball to the fact that the Bible must be read through the lens of Hebraic eyes.
When we take God's word for what it is, when He names the very people against Israel today, we must know that God is very clear about his message for the end times. He gave us the names of the nations, He gave us the geographic locations and even with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, He gave us the countries and the religious ethnic groups to be involved in the final drama because He has declared all to His prophets.
These nations are specifically named in the prophets as Middle Eastern nations, the geographic location God points to is the Middle East and the ethnic groups mentioned by God as the players of the final drama are the descendants of Isaac and Jacob now struggling against the descendants of Ishmael and Esau -- but there is hope and promise!
To learn more about Islam from Al Fadi, a former radical Muslim turned Christian who's now on a mission to tell Muslims the truth about Islam. Watch this Stakelbeck report from CBN TV. You can view all episodes of Stebelbeck on Terror.
It is time to know God did not forget to tell us who the real enemies are. We must look to "the beginning" and listen to what God has been saying all along.
My prayer is that if you are a "seeker" of truth who studies or one who teaches Bible prophecy is that you will find truth. It is not too late to step back and read God's message for these last days from a proper perspective, and forget preconceived Western presumptions. After all, the Bible is not about Washington D.C. or the Vatican, it's about Jerusalem! It always has been.
As was promised to Daniel, ...time 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.
In Messiah's brotherly love, pray for the Peace of Jerusalem, the descendants of the Legions of Titus remain against her and they are growing. As you will see in this video, Europe is changing, the world is changing. It is time to wake up to share the gospel message with the Legions of Titus, the nations of Ishmael's and Esau's descendants.
What does this all mean?
It's time for you to repent and return to God's voice, return to hear and do His word and walk in the faith of His Kingdom path so that you can ready your lamp for your coming assignment.
It means we 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.
It's time to repent and return to God's voice, return to hear and do His words and walk in the faith of His Kingdom path so that you can ready your lamp for your assignment.
Stretch out your hand, and take from the tree of life, and live forever.
Open a Bible, read it, listen to God's voice and do Yeshua's teaching about the forever jots and tittles.
You can learn how the things which are written in the Torah, the Prophets, and the Psalms are concerning Messiah and you can teach others to live life like Jesus, it's love 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 and the Writings.
Repent and walk your Emmaus Road with Messiah. Study the Scriptures He taught every Sabbath that are filled with doing life God's way in the Kingdom, and tell others about Him. Be a gatekeeper until the house is complete.
Shalom.
3 comments:
Thanks mate, people don’t like their theology and eschatology boats rocked. Don’t get discouraged by the silence. You’re on the right track. Always studying, seeking, and asking with a desire to hear my friend’s (Holy Spirit) teaching and leading.
God’s peace from Michae, a brother in the journey
I atm a brother who has worked in the Balkans for thirty years and found your article while going through google. I was not disappointed in your scholarly work however I am surprised by the lack of comments I found on this page. You are a wonderful commentator of end days prophecy and I thank you for putting Historical and Biblical narratives in such marvelous parallel to one another. Be Blessed, Chris Dakas
I had heard Middle East countries were soldiers for the Romans in a bible study https://www.faistudios.org/ and immediately had to research it.
Thanks you for providing all the historical Research. Makes so much more sense in light of current world affairs.
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