In previous commentaries we have looked separately at the prophetic issues facing today's Egypt as well as Syria. Two years ago I began to look at a prophetic connection The Oracle of Damascus. So now it is time to turn our attention to Iraq and the land of Nineveh and Mesopotamia the "so-called" cradle of civilization.
who plots evil against the LORD
and devises wicked plans."
In my Scripture studies I found the prophet Nahum the Elkoshite wrote those words and they describe the evil coming forth in Iraq, specifically the land of ancient Nineveh in the northern plains.
I encourage you to read and carefully study Nahum's words on the evil plots and wicked plans facing Nineveh before you read on:
Until recently, in fact, only within the last 50 years, archeologists have uncovered evidence documenting the history of the Babylonians of the ancient Nineveh Province. This is significant. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia:
"Of all the Minor Prophets the Book of Nahum has received the greatest and strongest light from the discoveries of the last half-century. The exact location of Nineveh, its fortifications, some of its palaces, its means of defense, its invincible kings, its armies, its amusements, its libraries, and its indescribable cruelty are now known."Today, the vision of Nahum is seen in the headlines of every newspaper on the planet. Jonah, the book of the prophet to Nineveh says: "And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." Jonah 3:4
The modern battle for the ancient land of Nineveh along the Euphrates River arrived in the headlines in December 2013 when clashes began between the extreme terror militias of the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham (ISIS) with Iraq's government security forces in the ancient plain where Jonah journeyed at God's command to preach repentance in Nineveh, the home of the ruthless Assyrians.
The virulent story if ISIS also follows the message of Jeremiah 51 like a flashback to the Biblical description of the Euphrates as a destroying wind we now call ISIS. In January 2014, radical ISIS' Sunni militants captured the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah. The city of Fallujah is the site of one of America’s bloodiest battles in the Middle East just ten years ago at the Battle in Fallujah.
ISIS has now brought the Anbar Province under their black flag of death. Nineveh remained safe in Jonah's day when God saw how they listened to Jonah and turned from their evil ways, in His mercy, God relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened, but now unrelenting evil has come back to the area and Jonah is missing.
The ISIS leadership wants to regenerate the Caliphate from the Ottoman abyss and establish their own devil's brand of Sharia Law that opposes the mercy and lovingkindness of our Creator.
ISIS seeks to accomplish this in the same way the ancient Assyrians attacked and captured the northern tribes of Israel cutting them out of the Promised Land and scattered them across the planet. The Assyrians attacked Jerusalem too, but they failed as king Sennacherib attacked king Hezekiah of Judah and lay siege to Jerusalem, but failed according to Isaiah, 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles.
Archeological evidence of the attack remains today as the stones still cry out about the siege as shown by the archeology of Sennacherib's Stele, Hezekiah's Tunnel and the Siloam inscription beneath the ancient city of David next to the Temple Mount:
"It was Hezekiah who blocked the upper outlet of the Gihon spring and channeled the water down to the west side of the City of David. He succeeded in everything he undertook." 2Chronicles 32:30Today, ISIS is a ruthless, savage beast led by a harlot religion opposing the God of Israel in an unthinkable dark Jezebel spirit carrying out acts of terror, violence, rape, mutilation, destruction, death and beheading against the many different people groups in the wilderness of Nineveh much like the words of Revelation portray. Take a careful look at this passage from Revelation 17:1-6:
"Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and talked with me, saying to me,“Come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, With whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication.”The ISIS abomination attacked Nineveh like a seven-headed beast a month ago on June 4th led by the Jezebel spirit of death as they had murdered, ravaged and robbed. It just so happens that the first ISIS attack occurred on Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks, the day many in the West know as Pentecost putting the golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of their fornication in full view of the planet opposing the ten words of God's covenant given at Mount Sinai: "Thy shall not kill."
So he carried me away in the Spirit into the wilderness. And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication. And on her forehead a name was written:
MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I marveled with great amazement."
Two days later, the U.S. military started our bombings alongside the nations of Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan.
Who is this evil beast we call ISIL or ISIS with radical Islamic jihad guiding their rampage?
ISIS stands for The Islamic group of Iraq and Syria. In the Middle East they are known as Da’ish or Daesh. Some call them ISIL which is the acronym for “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant." The Levant goes back the the caliphate that existed in 1200 AD, but if we look back to Genesis 15:16 we see a group called the Amorites and an iniquity time frame is given.
Here God tells Abraham something few Biblical scholars seem to address: "And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
Consider this: why did God tell Abraham that his descendants must return to the land? Because of the depravity of the Amorites. Yet, here's the thing, the King James translation does not give the full depth of the Hebrew word meaning. Verse 16 with the Hebrew words says this:
"But in the "fourth generation" [ rĕbiy`iy רְבִיעִי dowr דּוֹר] they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full [shalem שָׁלֵם]."
According to Strong's Lexicon "Rĕbiy`iy" means fourth, "dowr" means period of time and shalem means complete. The words were given to Abraham 4,000 years ago. Is that the message?
I do not know, but according to the Ancient History Encyclopedia:
"The Amorites were a Semitic people who seem to have emerged from western Mesopotamia (modern day Syria) at some point prior to the 3rd millennium BCE."
"The Amorites first appear in history as nomads who regularly made incursions from the west into established territories and kingdoms. The historian Marc Van de Mieroop writes:
The Amorites were semi-nomadic groups from northern Syria, whom Babylonian literature described in extremely negative terms:
The Amorite, he is dressed in sheep’s skins;Van de Mieroop and others point out that 'Amorite’ may not have originally referred to a specific ethnic group but to any nomadic people who threatened the stability of established communities.
He lives in tents in wind and rain;
He doesn’t offer sacrifices.
Armed vagabond in the steppe,
He digs up truffles and is restless.
He eats raw meat,
Lives his life without a home,
And, when he dies, he is not buried according to proper rituals.
Even if this is so, at some point, 'Amorite’ came to designate a certain tribe of people with a specific culture based on a nomadic lifestyle of living off the land and taking what was needed from the communities they encountered. They grew more powerful as they acquired more land until finally they directly threatened the stability of those in the established cities of the region."Sounds eerily familiar to today's headlines doesn't it?
"According to the Jewish Encyclopedia:
To the apocryphal writers of the first and second pre-Christian century [the Amorites] are the main representatives of heathen superstition, loathed as idolaters, in whose ordinances Israelites may not walk (Lev. xviii. 3). A special section of the Talmud (Tosef., Shab. vi.-vii. [vii.-viii.]; Bab. Shab. 67a et seq.) is devoted to the various superstitions called "The Ways of the Amorites." According to the Book of Jubilees (xxix. [9] 11), "the former terrible giants, the Rephaim, gave way to the Amorites, an evil and sinful people whose wickedness surpasses that of any other, and whose life will be cut short on earth." In the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch (lx.) they are symbolized by "black water" on account of "their black art, their witchcraft and impure mysteries, by which they contaminated Israel in the time of the Judges"."
The Amorites were from Syria, they were "an evil and sinful people whose wickedness surpasses that of any other."
Black flag ISIS is led by a beast-like man by the name of Awwad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri al-Samarra, but that is not his real name, he is a deceiver. Al-Baghdadi was arrested by U.S. Armed Forces in Iraq ten years ago and held at the Camp Bucca detention center under the name Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim al-Badry. He was released in December 2004 and took on the name Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, The first Abu Bakr was Muhammad’s father-in-law and he was the first Caliph of Islam, that's the name Awwad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri al-Samarra took as his own. The first Abu Bakr was deceiver as well and had another name, it was was Abdullah or Abul-Kaaba. Abul-Kaaba as in the Kaaba, the black stone that pre-dates Islam.
The Kaaba was the site of the pilgrimage of the Nabateans, the Kaaba held the 360 idols of the Meccan false-gods that were adopted into Greco-Roman culture. Dushara, the chief god of the Nabataeans can still be seen today carved in stone at Petra formerly known as Raqmu the 4th century BC capital city of the Nabataean Kingdom.
Since the black flags of ISIS began to fly along the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, the locust swarm of evil now called ISIS or ISIL have germinated death and destruction first in Baghdad and then they moved into in Syria in 2013 destroying everyday life in the Levant. In January, ISIL turned against al-Qaeda and expelled Jabhat al-Nusra from the Syrian city of Ar-Raqqah.
Three weeks ago Al Jazeera released this headline: Sunni rebels declare new 'Islamic caliphate':
"In an audio recording released on Sunday, the group formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant declared its chief, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, "the caliph" and "leader for Muslims everywhere".Al-Baghdadi now wants to be known as "Caliph Ibrāhīm." Al-Baghdadi promotes ISIL's radical butchery, torture and enslavement in a demonic-like manifestation of darkness that mirrors the spirit of the Amorites of Nineveh.
"The legality of all emirates, groups, states and organisations becomes null by the expansion of the caliph's authority and the arrival of its troops to their areas," said the group's spokesman Abu Mohamed al-Adnani. "Listen to your caliph and obey him. Support your state, which grows every day.''
The group announced that it was now called the "Islamic State". According to the statement, the new caliphate stretches from Iraq's Diyala province to Syria's Aleppo.
"The Shura [council] of the Islamic State met and discussed this issue [of the caliphate] ... the Islamic State decided to establish an Islamic caliphate and to designate a caliph for the state of the Muslims, said Adani.
"The words 'Iraq' and 'the Levant' have been removed from the name of the Islamic State in official papers and documents."
An official document was also released, in English and several other languages.
It describes Baghdadi as "the sheikh, the fighter, the scholar who practices what he preaches, the worshipper, the leader, the warrior, the reviver, descendant from the family of the Prophet, the slave of God".
It urges Muslims to "gather around your caliph, so that you may return as you once were for ages, kings of the earth and knights of war."
Al Jazeera's Imran Khan, reporting from Baghdad, said that a caliphate was effectively an Islamic republic led by one leader, regardless of national boundaries."
Daniel 7:23-25 warns of ten horns and that one much different will arise as a fourth generation that will subdue. Could this be the fourth generation?
"Thus he said: 'The fourth beast will be a fourth kingdom on the earth, which will be different from all the other kingdoms and will devour the whole earth and tread it down and crush it. 'As for the ten horns, out of this kingdom ten kings will arise; and another will arise after them, and he will be different from the previous ones and will subdue three kings. 'He will speak out against the Most High and wear down the saints of the Highest One, and he will intend to make alterations in times and in law; and they will be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time."From what we have seen today in Nineveh, there are three persecutions in Babylon: Jew, Christian and peaceful Shiites as both men and animals flee in the north from destruction.
Genesis 15:19-21 gives us a list of ten names tied to Euphrates River and the Amorites show up at the end of the list...
"In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites." Genesis 15:19-21It's as if the ancient Amorites have morphed into Al-Baghdadi's warriors.
The headlines have been full of the news of four blood moons appearing at Passover and Tabernacles.
Should we take note that the evil and Amorite-like horrors seen in Nineveh, Iraq have emerged in the headlines IMMEDIATELY after the April 14th Passover red moon eclipse in April 2014? I don't know.
The may be no connection, but it seems that truth is stranger than fiction, check the initial news sources for yourself and look at the timelines as ISIS seized large swathes of territory in Nineveh, Iraq. And just of three days ago, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi appeared around the world's news sources as a self declared Caliph as he leads a group of young locusts that seeks to destroy just 60 days after the first Passover eclipse.
Could this just be a coincidence or should we ask, is it possible that ISIS may play an Amorite like role in a 4,000 year old message given 80 Jubilees ago regarding the incomplete iniquity of the Amorites? Like I said, I don't know,but they seem to give us a shadow picture of God's prophetic word to Abraham and a tie to the fourth generation of Daniel 7:23:
"And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” Genesis 15:16
Now, ISIS seeks to engage the West's "War Against Terror" that was declared by President George Bush in his address to a joint session of Congress and the American people on September 20, 2001. By the way, that message was delivered 7 days before Yom Kippur that year. In that speech, President Bush said:
"The terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics; a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam.ISIS has been born out of al Qaeda's radical jihadist Islam that looks like the evil of the ancient Amorites.
"The terrorists' directive commands them to kill Christians and Jews, to kill all Americans and make no distinctions among military and civilians, including women and children."
"Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated."
Like Bush said, the terrorist agenda does not end with the Taliban. Today, over 70% percent of all global terror events and deaths occur in Taliban strongholds like Pakistan and Afghanistan but terror now extends into Iraq and Syria as well as northern Nigeria where Boko Haram ravages Christians in grave tribulation.
The depravity of the Amorites is seen in the jihad evil of Islam and a self-proclaimed Caliphate now beheads people in Nineveh.
For years we have seen the headlines of the nations that seek the destruction of Israel. The most vocal is Iran. This evil will ultimately seek to wipe Israel off the map - while engaging in horror against any that oppose them along the road to Jerusalem.
Jeremiah, another ancient prophet like Nahum, wrote of how a nation would attack the ancient land of Babylon:
This is the word the LORD spoke through Jeremiah the prophet concerning Babylon and the land of the Babylonians: A nation from the north will attack her and lay waste her land. No one will live in it; both men and animals will flee away. For I will stir up and bring against Babylon an alliance of great nations from the land of the north. They will take up their positions against her, and from the north she will be captured.
Babylon must fall because of Israel's slain, just as the slain in all the earth have fallen because of Babylon... That is something we have to stop and consider in light of the Amorites. And we need to watch the words of Jeremiah as ISIS destroys:
Revelation teaches us with a lot by symbols, like these.
One is a swarm of locusts that are seen to coming of an abyss during the fifth trumpet judgment (Revelation 9:1-3). Verse 9/11 says the angel or leader if you will over them is called Abaddon (the Destroyer). He too is described as a king. Abaddon the king angel of the Abyss in command.
ISIS has become possessed by a deadly, demonic spirit.There's one "like" Gog as their leader Bakr al-Baghdadi heads a youthful group of demonic infested locust-like armies. ISIS is filled with the dark spirits of evil manifested in their destruction and death as they pride in beheading people.
The word of God seen in Ezekiel 38:15-16 tells us that the youth of many other nations will join the armies of Gog and Magog, and altogether they will come from the north to eventually invade Israel.
Without question, we are now approaching the end of the age noted by the prophets as the sun is setting some 6,000 years from Adam's time in the garden. HaSatan knows that his time is short (Revelation 12:12), and the evil factions of the black flag of the demonic realm know that the time of Yeshua's return as King is near for Israel.
Jeremiah, another ancient prophet like Nahum, wrote of how a nation would attack the ancient land of Babylon:
This is the word the LORD spoke through Jeremiah the prophet concerning Babylon and the land of the Babylonians: A nation from the north will attack her and lay waste her land. No one will live in it; both men and animals will flee away. For I will stir up and bring against Babylon an alliance of great nations from the land of the north. They will take up their positions against her, and from the north she will be captured.
“Then heaven and earth and all that is in them will shout for joy over Babylon, for out of the north destroyers will attack her,” declares the LORD. “Babylon must fall because of Israel's slain, just as the slain in all the earth have fallen because of Babylon” Jeremiah 51:48-49Did you see that?
Babylon must fall because of Israel's slain, just as the slain in all the earth have fallen because of Babylon... That is something we have to stop and consider in light of the Amorites. And we need to watch the words of Jeremiah as ISIS destroys:
"Therefore, behold, the days come, that I will do judgment upon the graven images of Babylon: and her whole land shall be confounded, and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her." Jeremiah 51:37In the Septuagint, the original Greek translation of the Hebrew Tanakh, there is a reference to one called Gog in Amos. There Amos says that Gog will be leading a young, devastating swarm of "locusts”:
"Thus the Lord GOD showed me, and behold, He was forming a locust-swarm when the spring crop began to sprout..." Amos 7:1This is referring to a host that will arise in "the Spring", an army of evil as shown in Ezekiel’s prophecy. An army that seems to come up out of nowhere to destroy. An army full of young men mysteriously motivated by Satan as if they are demon possessed.
Revelation teaches us with a lot by symbols, like these.
One is a swarm of locusts that are seen to coming of an abyss during the fifth trumpet judgment (Revelation 9:1-3). Verse 9/11 says the angel or leader if you will over them is called Abaddon (the Destroyer). He too is described as a king. Abaddon the king angel of the Abyss in command.
ISIS has become possessed by a deadly, demonic spirit.There's one "like" Gog as their leader Bakr al-Baghdadi heads a youthful group of demonic infested locust-like armies. ISIS is filled with the dark spirits of evil manifested in their destruction and death as they pride in beheading people.
The word of God seen in Ezekiel 38:15-16 tells us that the youth of many other nations will join the armies of Gog and Magog, and altogether they will come from the north to eventually invade Israel.
Without question, we are now approaching the end of the age noted by the prophets as the sun is setting some 6,000 years from Adam's time in the garden. HaSatan knows that his time is short (Revelation 12:12), and the evil factions of the black flag of the demonic realm know that the time of Yeshua's return as King is near for Israel.
Sunni and Shi’a attack each other as they struggle against each other. Their focus for control is to the East over Babylon, the home of Nimrod. A Gog-Magog spirit is spreading in Syria to the North and Gaza in the South.
Ultimately, they will attempt to oppose the Anointed One, Yeshua and His sword of truth.
Despite the words of the Koran and the Hadiths, the one Islam calls "Isa" in Arabic will NOT come to destroy the Jewish people as the executioner of the Mahdi. He will come to save them. The heavenly reality of fiery judgment will eventually fall on Gog-Magog and the armies with him as shown in Ezekiel 38:22-23 and in Revelation 16:14-21.
Radical Islam will then come to learn that the Elohim God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of Israel is not Allah:
"And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone. Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I AM Y-H-V-H."But before this revealing to many nations, Revelation tells us about Jerusalem: "the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell".
Here, it is very possible Revelation 16 is referencing the facts on the ground today that the city of Jerusalem is divided by three religions with conflict over Messiah: Judaism, Islam and Christianity.
Not only that, the UN seeks to make Jerusalem an international city and separate it from Israel dividing. The division of Jerusalem has a global impact in Revelation 16:19... "the cities of the nations fell."
This is epic.
As the world seeks to divide Israel, they unwittingly are bringing crisis on themselves leading us to the future of Daniel's vision seen thousands of years ago:
"In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia, a revelation was given to Daniel (who was called Belteshazzar). Its message was true and it concerned a great war. The understanding of the message came to him in a vision. At that time I, Daniel, mourned for three weeks. I ate no choice food; no meat or wine touched my lips; and I used no lotions at all until the three weeks were over."I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future," perhaps Habakkuk wrote of this sweeping ruthlessness as well. The prophet's name literally means to “wrestle.” We see the warning seen in Habakkuk 1:1-7:
On the twenty-fourth day of the first month, as I was standing on the bank of the great river, the Tigris, I looked up and there before me was a man dressed in linen, with a belt of fine gold from Uphaz around his waist. His body was like topaz, his face like lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and his voice like the sound of a multitude.
I, Daniel, was the only one who saw the vision; those who were with me did not see it, but such terror overwhelmed them that they fled and hid themselves. So I was left alone, gazing at this great vision; I had no strength left, my face turned deathly pale and I was helpless." Daniel 10:1-8 (NIV)
"Now I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future, for the vision concerns a time yet to come.” Daniel 10:14 (NIV)
“Look at the nations and watchAs a watchman we have to be aware. Over the last 100 years, seminary teaching has led to pulpit preaching of replacement theologies laced with a rapture escape hatch. Yet, when you look at the Scriptures and the words of Yeshua, we find a different story.
and be utterly amazed.
For I am going to do something in your days
that you would not believe,
even if you were told.
I am raising up the Babylonians,
that ruthless and impetuous people,
who sweep across the breath of land
to seize dwellings not their own.
They are a feared and dreaded people;
they are a law to themselves
and promote their own honor."
Many declare that the fulfilment of the storyline of Daniel 8 was wrapped up by Antiochus Epiphanes despite the fact that Daniel was told it is a prophecy for the "end days".
The end days description means we can know that the conflicts of Antiochus IV was a prototype in the last cycle of prophecy. To look forward we need to look back, after all, God declares the end from the beginning in Isaiah 46:10. Antiochus IV Epiphanes was a Greek king of the Seleucid Empire but that was not always his name. His original name was Mithradates.
The end days description means we can know that the conflicts of Antiochus IV was a prototype in the last cycle of prophecy. To look forward we need to look back, after all, God declares the end from the beginning in Isaiah 46:10. Antiochus IV Epiphanes was a Greek king of the Seleucid Empire but that was not always his name. His original name was Mithradates.
Mithra was the ancient Persian pagan sun god identified with Sol Invictus, the false light god of the world. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, "The first written mention of the Vedic Mitra dates to 1400 BC. His worship spread to Persia and after the defeat of the Persians by Alexander the Great, throughout the Hellenic world. In the 3rd and 4th centuries ad, the cult of Mithra, carried and supported by the soldiers of the Roman Empire, was the chief rival to the newly developing religion of Christianity."
Antiochus outlawed Torah observance, burned the scrolls and ordered the worship of Zeus. According to 2 Maccabees 6:1–11, "A man could not keep the sabbath or celebrate the traditional feasts, nor even admit that he was a Jew."
It seems that Antiochus Epiphanes strangely aligns with what we see happening today with the ISIS bloodlust which is led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who took radical leadership of the Da’ish group not long after U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq. It seems we've never withdrawn troops from a post war conflict protection until Iraq.
We still have bases in Germany, Japan, Italy, Guam, South Korea, Bulgaria, even Cuba and others. Why Iraq? Here's the withdrawal agreement posted at the State Department. Its says it is for contributing to world peace and stability, strengthening security, combating terrorism and deterring aggression. That means Afghanistan will be next as the President Bush era declared trillion dollar "war on terror" fades into post 9/11 American history.
For now the horrific terror of the crisis of ISIS is that they are different. They are more aggressive than we have seen or imagined from groups like al-Qaeda because ISIS attacks its own in a demonic movement east of Israel near the Euphrates. They look like a manifestation of the spiritual darkness of pure evil in the Levant, an area which was first recorded to apply to the whole region including none other than Canaan.
You might brush this off, but demonic engagement is a part of the reality before us. We need to take note that after landing on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee where Jesus walked on water, the disciples found themselves in “the country of the Gadarenes,” the area east of Israel and the Jordan River where people were foreigners to God’s covenant with Israel (Matthew 8:28). We can know this to be the case because pigs were raised there and no Torah keeping Jew would be associated with swine (Leviticus 11:7–8).
Today, areas east of Israel are now threatened by the demon-like ISIS that have arisen after Arab strongmen have fallen following the Arab Spring.
For now the horrific terror of the crisis of ISIS is that they are different. They are more aggressive than we have seen or imagined from groups like al-Qaeda because ISIS attacks its own in a demonic movement east of Israel near the Euphrates. They look like a manifestation of the spiritual darkness of pure evil in the Levant, an area which was first recorded to apply to the whole region including none other than Canaan.
You might brush this off, but demonic engagement is a part of the reality before us. We need to take note that after landing on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee where Jesus walked on water, the disciples found themselves in “the country of the Gadarenes,” the area east of Israel and the Jordan River where people were foreigners to God’s covenant with Israel (Matthew 8:28). We can know this to be the case because pigs were raised there and no Torah keeping Jew would be associated with swine (Leviticus 11:7–8).
Today, areas east of Israel are now threatened by the demon-like ISIS that have arisen after Arab strongmen have fallen following the Arab Spring.
Let's look at the account of Matthew 8:28-24:
"And when he came to the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes, two demon possessed men met him, coming out of the tombs, so fierce that no one could pass that way. And behold, they cried out, “What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?”
Now a herd of many pigs was feeding at some distance from them. And the demons begged him, saying, “If you cast us out, send us away into the herd of pigs.” And he said to them, “Go.” So they came out and went into the pigs, and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the waters.
The herdsmen fled, and going into the city they told everything, especially what had happened to the demon-possessed men. And behold, all the city came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their region."ISIS are not just fierce medieval terrorists, they are like the demon laden herdsmen of the Gadarenes.
The account of Matthew shows us that demons were driving the men of Gadar to violence (Matthew 8:28). Incredibly, these dark spirits revealed Yeshua's identity to the disciples when they begged the “Son of God” not to torment them before their "time" (Matthew 8:28). These demons knew that another "time" was coming, perhaps to again possess men and believe it or not, the word Gardarenes means: "reward at the end".
Precisely as ISIS of Syria and Nineveh reject Jesus today, the men of Gadar rejected the healing of Messiah.
Ignore or even poke fun if you want, but untold horrors foretold in Revelation 20:4 are in the headlines after ISIS attacked Mosul and began a campaign to behead and exterminate people living in the regions east of Israel while seeking to establish a Caliphate (kingdom) ruled by Shariah Law to devour and crush the ancient Christians of Nineveh in Northern Iraq, but:
Precisely as ISIS of Syria and Nineveh reject Jesus today, the men of Gadar rejected the healing of Messiah.
Ignore or even poke fun if you want, but untold horrors foretold in Revelation 20:4 are in the headlines after ISIS attacked Mosul and began a campaign to behead and exterminate people living in the regions east of Israel while seeking to establish a Caliphate (kingdom) ruled by Shariah Law to devour and crush the ancient Christians of Nineveh in Northern Iraq, but:
"The great day of the Lord is near,The burden of Nineveh looks like the vision of the fourth beast noted in Daniel 7. The Islamic State is a radical militant Muslim beast that declares “the Prophetic methodology,” a beast which follows medieval Islamic prophecy that is committed to purifying the world by killing "apostate infidels" and strictly following the Koran which specifies crucifixion as a punishment for the enemies of Islam. If you doubt this, read the message from the Quran for yourself, Sura 5:33 says:
near and hastening fast;
the sound of the day of the Lord is bitter;
the mighty man cries aloud there.
A day of wrath is that day,
a day of distress and anguish,
a day of ruin and devastation,
a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds and thick darkness,
a day of trumpet blast and battle cry
against the fortified cities
and against the lofty battlements."
Zephaniah 1:14–16
Those who wage war against God and His Messenger and strive to spread corruption in the land should be punished by death, crucifixion, the amputation of an alternate hand and foot or banishment from the land: a disgrace for them in this world, and then a terrible punishment in the Hereafter . . . . (MAS Abdel Haleem, The Qur’an, Oxford UP, 2004)The Quran in Sura 7:124 says:
"Be sure I will cut off your hands and your feet on opposite sides, and I will cause you all to die on the cross."Daniel described a beast as does Revelation, and Daniel tells us who gave meaning to his dream:
"In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence.
He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed."The beast will meet its end with Messiah King.
Daniel 7:13 records an explanation of the "one like a son of man" who is given sovereign power over His kingdom by the Ancient of Days just like the descriptions Messiah's return shown in Matthew 24:30 and Mark 13:26.
Daniel continues on about a "horn" government power:
“Then I wanted to know the meaning of the fourth beast, which was different from all the others and most terrifying, with its iron teeth and bronze claws — the beast that crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left. I also wanted to know about the ten horns on its head and about the other horn that came up, before which three of them fell—the horn that looked more imposing than the others and that had eyes and a mouth that spoke boastfully. As I watched, this horn was waging war against the holy people and defeating them, until the Ancient of Days came and pronounced judgment in favor of the holy people of the Most High, and the time came when they possessed the kingdom. He gave me this explanation: ‘The fourth beast is a fourth kingdom that will appear on earth. It will be different from all the other kingdoms and will devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it. The ten horns are ten kings who will come from this kingdom. After them another king will arise, different from the earlier ones; he will subdue three kings. He will speak against the Most High and oppress his holy people and try to change the set times and the laws. The holy people will be delivered into his hands for a time, times and half a time" Daniel 7:19-25It is as if ISIS is a prelude to the ten horns and another, a different king that will also speak against the Most High and also oppress his holy people much like Antiochus III the Great, the Seleucid king born near Suza, Iran.
He was the 6th ruler of the Seleucid Empire. His son Antiochus IV Epiphanes was like ISIS, a ruler in terror.
Antiochus IV Epiphanes conquest of the Middle East included today's Israel. We can read 2 Maccabees 5:11–14 which tells us he massacred young and old, women and children, virgins and infants. In the space of three days, eighty thousand were lost, forty thousand meeting a violent death, and the same number being sold into slavery. 2 Maccabees 6:1–11 states:
Antiochus IV Epiphanes conquest of the Middle East included today's Israel. We can read 2 Maccabees 5:11–14 which tells us he massacred young and old, women and children, virgins and infants. In the space of three days, eighty thousand were lost, forty thousand meeting a violent death, and the same number being sold into slavery. 2 Maccabees 6:1–11 states:
"Not long after this the king sent an Athenian senator to force the Jews to abandon the customs of their ancestors and live no longer by the laws of God; also to profane the temple in Jerusalem and dedicate it to Olympian Zeus, and that on Mount Gerizim to Zeus the Hospitable, as the inhabitants of the place requested...They also brought into the temple things that were forbidden, so that the altar was covered with abominable offerings prohibited by the laws. A man could not keep the sabbath or celebrate the traditional feasts, nor even admit that he was a Jew. At the suggestion of the citizens of Ptolemais, a decree was issued ordering the neighboring Greek cities to act in the same way against the Jews: oblige them to partake of the sacrifices, and put to death those who would not consent to adopt the customs of the Greeks. It was obvious, therefore, that disaster impended. Thus, two women who were arrested for having circumcised their children were publicly paraded about the city with their babies hanging at their breasts and then thrown down from the top of the city wall. Others, who had assembled in nearby caves to observe the sabbath in secret, were betrayed to Philip and all burned to death."Antiochus III was defeated by the Romans. Like him, perhaps the one that follows Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi will be defeated because Antiochus III's conquests were assumed by his son Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the next ruler of the Seleucid Empire.
He eventually ruled Judea from 175 to 164 BC. His original name was Mithradates. He was named after the false god Mithra.
Daniel 11:40-45 is considered non-historical by some Bible scholars, who generally agree that the verses are genuine predictions as they do not accurately describe the events of Antiochus and his son. After describing the "desecration of the Temple (Daniel 11:31) and the Maccabean revolt, Daniel predicts another attack which will include the entire Levant along with Libya and Ethiopia (Daniel 11:40-43). If this is so, terror in Libya will follow by the words of Daniel. We must now watch and pray without ceasing for the Middle East and the Peace of Jerusalem so that you may be accounted worthy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Nineveh Alerts ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NBC News Updates: ISIS TERROR - Continuing coverage of the ISIS terror threat in Iraq and Syria.
Global Terror Database: The Global Terrorism Database (GTD) is an open-source database including information on terrorist events around the world. Statistical information contained in the Global Terrorism Database is based on reports from a variety of open media sources.
December 9, 2019: Christmas is cancelled in Nineveh. The Arab Spring has resurged this winter in Iraq.
Christmas Celebrations Canceled in Iraq After Deaths of 400 Protesters
"Distributing food to protesters with 40 fellow church members under the Jumariyah bridge near Tahrir Square in Baghdad, Ara Badalian made a poignant observation.
“This movement is a flood, occupying the hearts of the youth and the poor, without any religious discrimination,” the pastor of National Baptist Church recalled to CT. “It has broken down all the walls that divided Iraqis.”
It is at the bridges—about a dozen span the Tigris River, which bifurcates the Iraqi capital—where most violence has taken place. The protest movement, which began in October, has resulted in more than 400 deaths, around a dozen of them security personnel. Over 17,000 people have been injured.
In response, the Chaldean Catholic Church decided last week to refrain from holding public celebrations of Christmas, trading tree decorations and holiday receptions for prayers of intercession.
“Instead of bringing hope and prosperity, the current government structure has brought continued corruption and despair,” Bashar Warda, the Chaldean archbishop of Erbil, told the United Nations Security Council last week."
May 23, 2019: It's been five years since ISIS attacked Nineveh in northern Iraq.
Iraq's Christians 'close to extinction'
"The Archbishop of Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, has accused Britain's Christian leaders of failing to do enough in defence of the vanishing Christian community in Iraq.
In an impassioned address in London, the Rt Rev Bashar Warda said Iraq's Christians now faced extinction after 1,400 years of persecution.
Since the US-led invasion toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 2003, he said, the Christian community had dwindled by 83%, from around 1.5 million to just 250,000.
"Christianity in Iraq," he said, "one of the oldest Churches, if not the oldest Church in the world, is perilously close to extinction. Those of us who remain must be ready to face martyrdom."
He referred to the current, pressing threat from Islamic State (IS) jihadists as a "final, existential struggle", following the group's initial assault in 2014 that displaced more than 125,000 Christians from their historic homelands."
"Elsewhere in the Middle East it is a mixed picture for Christians in 2019.
Egypt's Copts, who constitute at least 10% of the country's 100 million-plus population, have come under sustained attack from jihadists who have bombed their churches and attempted to drive them out of northern Sinai."
December 1, 2016: Mosul appears to be a mirror image of today's horrors of Aleppo. What happens in Mosul and Aleppo is important to the future of the planet.
IS conflict: 1,950 Iraq security forces killed in November
"At least 1,959 members of the Iraqi security forces were killed across the country in November, the UN says.
It is almost three times the figure for October, when the government launched a major offensive to retake the city of Mosul from so-called Islamic State.
The number of civilians killed in November was 926, while 930 others were injured.
The UN special representative for Iraq, Jan Kubis, said the casualty figures were "staggering".
"In its desperate attempt to cling on to territory it controls in Mosul and Nineveh areas, [IS] has been employing the most vicious tactics, using civilians' homes as firing positions as well as abducting and forcibly moving civilians, effectively using them as human shields," he added."
November 20, 2016: As battles deluge Aleppo and Mosul, we have to remember Genesis 10 because this area accounts for Noah's sons that spread out over the land after the devastation of the flood destroyed humanity except for Noah, his sons, and their wives. Here is the introductory verse of the chapter:
So we must ask, is there a prophetic link in Genesis 10 that will take conflict along the journey of Abraham toward Jerusalem?
The Times of Israel reports... Paris peace parley proceeding as planned, France insists
"France will hold an international peace conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict next month, French officials said over the weekend, rebuffing several reports claiming that Paris had decided to shelve the planned summit.
The reports had quoted French President Francois Hollande as saying that he was facing difficulties convening the summit due to heavy international opposition, particularly from Israel but also from the United States.
French diplomats over weekend said the reports were “erroneous.” Hollande never said the confab was scrapped, merely that it was subject to “incertitude” that bears clarification after the US election, they said.
“As President Hollande reaffirmed in his speech to the UN General Assembly on September 20, our goal is to convene an international conference in order to help relaunch the Middle East peace process,” a spokesperson from the French Foreign Ministry said Thursday. “We are working closely with our partners and in collaboration with the parties to that end.”"
November 1, 2016: Aleppo and Mosul exist on the same plane separated by 383 miles. Today, battles rage in the tale of two cities, as only an 8 1/2 hour drive separates their devastation. Before ISIS, some 300,000 Christians lived in Iraq and abut 35,000 lived in Mosul, today there are about 25 or so according to reports.
According to Barnabasaid on Aleppo: "An estimated 40,000 Christians are amongst the remaining residents."
The firepower against ISIS is led by Russia to the West in Syria and the United States to the East in Iraq as Moscow and Washington accuse each other of war crimes as civilians hide from the crossfire and the question remains, what will be the end of the conflict and crisis in the Levant?
The future of the Shia-Sunni conflict may point toward Jerusalem. What happens in Mosul and Aleppo is important to the future of the planet.
Iraq Troops Enter ISIS-Seized Mosul for 1st Time in 2 Years
"BAZWAYA, Iraq — Iraq's special forces entered the outskirts of Mosul on Tuesday and were advancing toward its more urban center despite fierce resistance by ISIS fighters who hold the city, an Iraqi general said.
Troops have entered Gogjali, a neighborhood inside Mosul's city limits, and were only 800 yards from the more central Karama district, according to Maj. Gen. Sami al-Aridi of the Iraqi special forces.
"The special forces have stormed in," he said. "Daesh is fighting back and have set up concrete blast walls to block off the Karama neighborhood and our troops' advance," he said, using the Arabic acronym ISIS. Bombs have been laid along the road into the city, he added.
It was the first time Iraqi troops have set foot in Mosul in over two years, after they were driven out by a much smaller group of ISIS extremists in 2014. Mosul is the final ISIS bastion in Iraq, the city from which it declared a "caliphate" stretching into Syria, and its loss would be a major defeat for the jihadis."
October 5, 2016: The Bible is a storyline of the history and future of the world with the focus on the Middle East. In Matthew 24:6 Jesus warned of wars and rumors of war. We have both birth pains increasing in the Middle East.
As Russia sends its S300 Missile battery to Syria to support Assad and suspends its plutonium agreement as agitation grows deep between Russia and the United States, we must recognize that we now face the grave possibility of engagement in two conflicts: one with Russia and one with the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
Reuters has just reported on another huge burden in Nineveh: Baghdad bridles at Turkey's military presence, warns of 'regional war'
"Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has warned Turkey that it risks triggering a regional war by keeping troops in Iraq, as each summoned the other's ambassador in a growing row.
Relations between the two regional powers are already broadly strained by the Syrian civil war and the rise of the Islamic State militant group.
Turkey's parliament voted last week to extend its military presence in Iraq for a further year to take on what it called "terrorist organisations" - a likely reference to Kurdish rebels as well as Islamic State.
Iraq's parliament responded on Tuesday night by condemning the vote and calling for Turkey to pull its estimated 2,000 troops out of areas across northern Iraq.
"We have asked the Turkish side more than once not to intervene in Iraqi matters and I fear the Turkish adventure could turn into a regional war," Abadi warned in comments broadcast on state TV on Wednesday."
August 8, 2016: Two years ago ISIS attacked Qaraqosh and Mosul on the ancient Nineveh plains where 2,800 years ago Jonah arrived to preach by the direct order of YHVH Elohim to "cry against it". Jonah walked through the city crying out and warning: “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” But Nineveh listened to the message and repented long ago.
Regrettably, radical Islamic terrorists have brought tribulation direct to the oldest and largest Christian community in Iraq. They did so without warning in April 2014. Then, weeks later on July 2nd, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed caliph of the new Islamic State called on Muslims the world over to unite behind him as their leader. The next day, ISIS captured Syria's largest oilfield from rival Islamist fighters, the al-Nusra Front.
The United Nations Security Council issued a resolution which "deplores and condemns in the strongest terms the terrorist acts of ISIL and its violent extremist ideology, and its continued gross, systematic and widespread abuses of human rights.
Iraq: 2 years since Nineveh fell to IS, displaced Christians pray for ‘liberation’
I pray not, instead I pray that vision was reserved only for a day past, but we MUST SEE today's headlines show us that Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi is warning Israel to prepare to meet ISIS.
NBC News has reported: ISIS Leader Says Group Is Getting Stronger in Purported New Message
Everyone knows that ISIS threatens everyone in Syria and Iraq and now YNet News has posted a headline about the worthless counselor Al-Baghdadi who also has a terror support group in the south that seek to ultimately attack Israel form the Sinai formerly called Ansar Beit al-Maqdis. After aligning with ISIS they call themselves "Sinai Province" but their former name reveals their intent. They called themselves "Supporters of the Holy House" or "Supporters of Jerusalem". In Libya, the local Salafist ISIS support group calls themselves Ansar Al Sharia which means "Supporters of Islamic Law".
There are many more terror groups in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and SE Asia listed at The National Counterterrorism Center. Just a week before the last blood moon at Tabernacles, random stabbings and shootings known in Israel as "The Wave of Terror" have swept across Israel since Yom Kippur.
Daniel 11:40-45 is considered non-historical by some Bible scholars, who generally agree that the verses are genuine predictions as they do not accurately describe the events of Antiochus and his son. After describing the "desecration of the Temple (Daniel 11:31) and the Maccabean revolt, Daniel predicts another attack which will include the entire Levant along with Libya and Ethiopia (Daniel 11:40-43). If this is so, terror in Libya will follow by the words of Daniel. We must now watch and pray without ceasing for the Middle East and the Peace of Jerusalem so that you may be accounted worthy.
Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Romans 12:12 ESVThis map is foreboding when we consider what started in Syria is now unfolding before us today in Iraq as if history is repeating itself in the ISIS headlines:
NBC News Updates: ISIS TERROR - Continuing coverage of the ISIS terror threat in Iraq and Syria.
Global Terror Database: The Global Terrorism Database (GTD) is an open-source database including information on terrorist events around the world. Statistical information contained in the Global Terrorism Database is based on reports from a variety of open media sources.
December 9, 2019: Christmas is cancelled in Nineveh. The Arab Spring has resurged this winter in Iraq.
Christmas Celebrations Canceled in Iraq After Deaths of 400 Protesters
"Distributing food to protesters with 40 fellow church members under the Jumariyah bridge near Tahrir Square in Baghdad, Ara Badalian made a poignant observation.
“This movement is a flood, occupying the hearts of the youth and the poor, without any religious discrimination,” the pastor of National Baptist Church recalled to CT. “It has broken down all the walls that divided Iraqis.”
It is at the bridges—about a dozen span the Tigris River, which bifurcates the Iraqi capital—where most violence has taken place. The protest movement, which began in October, has resulted in more than 400 deaths, around a dozen of them security personnel. Over 17,000 people have been injured.
In response, the Chaldean Catholic Church decided last week to refrain from holding public celebrations of Christmas, trading tree decorations and holiday receptions for prayers of intercession.
“Instead of bringing hope and prosperity, the current government structure has brought continued corruption and despair,” Bashar Warda, the Chaldean archbishop of Erbil, told the United Nations Security Council last week."
May 23, 2019: It's been five years since ISIS attacked Nineveh in northern Iraq.
Iraq's Christians 'close to extinction'
"The Archbishop of Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, has accused Britain's Christian leaders of failing to do enough in defence of the vanishing Christian community in Iraq.
In an impassioned address in London, the Rt Rev Bashar Warda said Iraq's Christians now faced extinction after 1,400 years of persecution.
Since the US-led invasion toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 2003, he said, the Christian community had dwindled by 83%, from around 1.5 million to just 250,000.
"Christianity in Iraq," he said, "one of the oldest Churches, if not the oldest Church in the world, is perilously close to extinction. Those of us who remain must be ready to face martyrdom."
He referred to the current, pressing threat from Islamic State (IS) jihadists as a "final, existential struggle", following the group's initial assault in 2014 that displaced more than 125,000 Christians from their historic homelands."
"Elsewhere in the Middle East it is a mixed picture for Christians in 2019.
Egypt's Copts, who constitute at least 10% of the country's 100 million-plus population, have come under sustained attack from jihadists who have bombed their churches and attempted to drive them out of northern Sinai."
December 1, 2016: Mosul appears to be a mirror image of today's horrors of Aleppo. What happens in Mosul and Aleppo is important to the future of the planet.
IS conflict: 1,950 Iraq security forces killed in November
"At least 1,959 members of the Iraqi security forces were killed across the country in November, the UN says.
It is almost three times the figure for October, when the government launched a major offensive to retake the city of Mosul from so-called Islamic State.
The number of civilians killed in November was 926, while 930 others were injured.
The UN special representative for Iraq, Jan Kubis, said the casualty figures were "staggering".
"In its desperate attempt to cling on to territory it controls in Mosul and Nineveh areas, [IS] has been employing the most vicious tactics, using civilians' homes as firing positions as well as abducting and forcibly moving civilians, effectively using them as human shields," he added."
November 20, 2016: As battles deluge Aleppo and Mosul, we have to remember Genesis 10 because this area accounts for Noah's sons that spread out over the land after the devastation of the flood destroyed humanity except for Noah, his sons, and their wives. Here is the introductory verse of the chapter:
This is the account of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, Noah's sons, who themselves had sons after the flood. Genesis 10:1These names are the genesis of the nations of the ancient Biblical world and they figure prominently in the Bible storyline, such as Egypt and Canaan in the genealogy of Ham, and Ashur (Assyria) and Eber (the ancestor of Abraham) in the genealogy of Shem. Today, we see this land at the forefront of disaster once again.
So we must ask, is there a prophetic link in Genesis 10 that will take conflict along the journey of Abraham toward Jerusalem?
The Times of Israel reports... Paris peace parley proceeding as planned, France insists
"France will hold an international peace conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict next month, French officials said over the weekend, rebuffing several reports claiming that Paris had decided to shelve the planned summit.
The reports had quoted French President Francois Hollande as saying that he was facing difficulties convening the summit due to heavy international opposition, particularly from Israel but also from the United States.
French diplomats over weekend said the reports were “erroneous.” Hollande never said the confab was scrapped, merely that it was subject to “incertitude” that bears clarification after the US election, they said.
“As President Hollande reaffirmed in his speech to the UN General Assembly on September 20, our goal is to convene an international conference in order to help relaunch the Middle East peace process,” a spokesperson from the French Foreign Ministry said Thursday. “We are working closely with our partners and in collaboration with the parties to that end.”"
November 1, 2016: Aleppo and Mosul exist on the same plane separated by 383 miles. Today, battles rage in the tale of two cities, as only an 8 1/2 hour drive separates their devastation. Before ISIS, some 300,000 Christians lived in Iraq and abut 35,000 lived in Mosul, today there are about 25 or so according to reports.
According to Barnabasaid on Aleppo: "An estimated 40,000 Christians are amongst the remaining residents."
The firepower against ISIS is led by Russia to the West in Syria and the United States to the East in Iraq as Moscow and Washington accuse each other of war crimes as civilians hide from the crossfire and the question remains, what will be the end of the conflict and crisis in the Levant?
The future of the Shia-Sunni conflict may point toward Jerusalem. What happens in Mosul and Aleppo is important to the future of the planet.
Iraq Troops Enter ISIS-Seized Mosul for 1st Time in 2 Years
"BAZWAYA, Iraq — Iraq's special forces entered the outskirts of Mosul on Tuesday and were advancing toward its more urban center despite fierce resistance by ISIS fighters who hold the city, an Iraqi general said.
Troops have entered Gogjali, a neighborhood inside Mosul's city limits, and were only 800 yards from the more central Karama district, according to Maj. Gen. Sami al-Aridi of the Iraqi special forces.
"The special forces have stormed in," he said. "Daesh is fighting back and have set up concrete blast walls to block off the Karama neighborhood and our troops' advance," he said, using the Arabic acronym ISIS. Bombs have been laid along the road into the city, he added.
It was the first time Iraqi troops have set foot in Mosul in over two years, after they were driven out by a much smaller group of ISIS extremists in 2014. Mosul is the final ISIS bastion in Iraq, the city from which it declared a "caliphate" stretching into Syria, and its loss would be a major defeat for the jihadis."
October 5, 2016: The Bible is a storyline of the history and future of the world with the focus on the Middle East. In Matthew 24:6 Jesus warned of wars and rumors of war. We have both birth pains increasing in the Middle East.
As Russia sends its S300 Missile battery to Syria to support Assad and suspends its plutonium agreement as agitation grows deep between Russia and the United States, we must recognize that we now face the grave possibility of engagement in two conflicts: one with Russia and one with the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
Reuters has just reported on another huge burden in Nineveh: Baghdad bridles at Turkey's military presence, warns of 'regional war'
"Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has warned Turkey that it risks triggering a regional war by keeping troops in Iraq, as each summoned the other's ambassador in a growing row.
Relations between the two regional powers are already broadly strained by the Syrian civil war and the rise of the Islamic State militant group.
Turkey's parliament voted last week to extend its military presence in Iraq for a further year to take on what it called "terrorist organisations" - a likely reference to Kurdish rebels as well as Islamic State.
Iraq's parliament responded on Tuesday night by condemning the vote and calling for Turkey to pull its estimated 2,000 troops out of areas across northern Iraq.
"We have asked the Turkish side more than once not to intervene in Iraqi matters and I fear the Turkish adventure could turn into a regional war," Abadi warned in comments broadcast on state TV on Wednesday."
August 8, 2016: Two years ago ISIS attacked Qaraqosh and Mosul on the ancient Nineveh plains where 2,800 years ago Jonah arrived to preach by the direct order of YHVH Elohim to "cry against it". Jonah walked through the city crying out and warning: “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” But Nineveh listened to the message and repented long ago.
Regrettably, radical Islamic terrorists have brought tribulation direct to the oldest and largest Christian community in Iraq. They did so without warning in April 2014. Then, weeks later on July 2nd, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed caliph of the new Islamic State called on Muslims the world over to unite behind him as their leader. The next day, ISIS captured Syria's largest oilfield from rival Islamist fighters, the al-Nusra Front.
The United Nations Security Council issued a resolution which "deplores and condemns in the strongest terms the terrorist acts of ISIL and its violent extremist ideology, and its continued gross, systematic and widespread abuses of human rights.
Iraq: 2 years since Nineveh fell to IS, displaced Christians pray for ‘liberation’
"It’s been two years since thousands of Christians fled their homes in Mosul and the Nineveh Plains to run away from the advancing armies of the so-called Islamic State. But now, as Iraqi forces plan to retake Mosul, the Christians are praying they will soon be able to return home.February 5, 2016: EU declares ISIS actions genocide
Iraqi Christians in Internally Displaced People (IDP) camps across the country held prayer services and other memorial events throughout the weekend to mark the “Black Day” on 6-7 August, 2014, when IS took several towns surrounding Mosul, such as Qaraqosh.
In the Karamles camp (named after a village still occupied by IS) in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, just 50 miles from Mosul, the central square was filled with people carrying candles, symbolising the light of Christ. The flames lit the words on the posters they were holding: “Liberate Mosul!”"
"The European Parliament on Thursday passed a resolution declaring Islamic State violence against Christians, Yazidis, and other religious minorities genocide and punishable under the 1948 convention on genocide.January 13, 2016: 2015 Deadliest Year for Christians Worldwide, Open Doors' World Watch List Finds
By show of hands in the 751-member parliament, the elected representatives of the 28-nation EU became the largest international body to subject to unified condemnation and legal punishment the two-year reign of terror by Islamic State (ISIS or Daesh).
In strikingly forceful and detailed language, the resolution condemns the terrorist organization’s “deliberate targeting” of religious groups. It cites ISIS driving more than 150,000 Christians from Nineveh Plains on the night of Aug. 6, 2014, and it calls attention to the ISIS kidnapping of more than 200 Assyrian Christians from Syria’s Khabur River region in February 2015. The resolution also highlights the killing of an estimated 5,000 Yazidis in Iraq, and the enslavement and trafficking of at least 2,000 Yazidi women—all by ISIS.
“The persecution, atrocities, and international crimes amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity,” the resolution states, declaring the terrorist group “is committing genocide against Christians and Yazidis, and other religious and ethnic minorities, who do not agree with the so-called ISIS/Daesh interpretation of Islam.”
The EU action came eight days after the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly—a nonbinding human rights body that’s nevertheless larger than the EU with 47 members states—overwhelmingly passed a similar resolution, 117-1. The European genocide rulings put added—and human rights advocates say, needed—pressure on the Obama administration and Congress to do the same.
Last October, the world’s largest organization of genocide experts, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, called on Congress to declare the crimes committed by Islamic State in Iraq and Syria genocide. But U.S. officials have been notably reluctant to act.
A bipartisan resolution whose language mirrors the EU resolution has languished in the House since last year, even though it has 178 co-sponsors. President Barack Obama and the U.S. State Department have refused to apply the term genocide to ISIS-targeted violence. The president last month referred to the atrocities instead as “unspeakable violence and persecution.”
In December, journalist Michael Isikoff reported the administration was preparing to declare ISIS attacks on Yazidis genocide but would exclude Christians and others from the declaration."
"The Christian persecution watchdog group Open Doors has released its annual list of countries where Christians face the greatest persecution and found that it has reached unprecedented levels worldwide as over 7,000 Christians were killed for their faith between Nov. 1, 2014, and Oct. 31, 2015.December 27, 2015: Jeremiah tells us he saw a "cauldron" coming from the "north" of Israel.
Although the California-based ministry, which works in over 60 countries, stated last January that 2014 was the worst year for Christian persecution than any other time in modern history, the organization said during the rollout of its 2016 World Watch List that 2015 surpassed 2014 as the deadliest year for Christians worldwide.
Open Doors found that over 3,000 more Christians were killed for faith-related reasons during its reporting period for the 2016 World Watch List than it found during the reporting period for the 2015 report. Additionally, over 2,400 churches were attacked, damaged or destroyed during the reporting period, which is more than double the number from last year."
"The word of YHWH came to me a second time, saying, “What do you see?” And I said, “I see a boiling pot [caldron], facing away from the north.” Then YHWH said to me, “Out of the north disaster shall be let loose upon all the inhabitants of the land. For behold, I am calling all the tribes of the kingdoms of the north, declares YHWH, and they shall come, and every one shall set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, against all its walls all around and against all the cities of Judah."" Jeremiah 1:13-15In 70 AD, the Roman Legions, comprised of soldiers recruited from none other than Syria came against Jerusalem, but should we consider it possible this vision may repeat?
I pray not, instead I pray that vision was reserved only for a day past, but we MUST SEE today's headlines show us that Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi is warning Israel to prepare to meet ISIS.
NBC News has reported: ISIS Leader Says Group Is Getting Stronger in Purported New Message
"ISIS released a new audio message Saturday purportedly from its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, mocking the U.S. for not putting combat boots on the ground and criticizing the recently declared Saudi-led Islamic military coalition against terrorism.
Flashpoint Intelligence, a security firm and NBC News partner, verified that the message was released by the group's main media arm via official channels online. NBC News, however, cannot independently confirm the authenticity of the audio.
The terror group's top leader said in the 24-minute clip that ISIS was thriving and that airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition and Russia in Syria are failing, despite destroying Syrian oil facilities and killing several ISIS leaders in recent weeks."
Everyone knows that ISIS threatens everyone in Syria and Iraq and now YNet News has posted a headline about the worthless counselor Al-Baghdadi who also has a terror support group in the south that seek to ultimately attack Israel form the Sinai formerly called Ansar Beit al-Maqdis. After aligning with ISIS they call themselves "Sinai Province" but their former name reveals their intent. They called themselves "Supporters of the Holy House" or "Supporters of Jerusalem". In Libya, the local Salafist ISIS support group calls themselves Ansar Al Sharia which means "Supporters of Islamic Law".
There are many more terror groups in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and SE Asia listed at The National Counterterrorism Center. Just a week before the last blood moon at Tabernacles, random stabbings and shootings known in Israel as "The Wave of Terror" have swept across Israel since Yom Kippur.
It started at the plaza outside al-Aqsa mosque regarding the status of the Temple Mount. The goal of the "terror" is to liberate Palestine as attacking Palestinians believe that the terror will lead to the destruction of Israel and a Palestinian state. In their own insane evil, they do not realize that their murder murders of innocents will lead to rule not by Hamas, but to the chaos of the Islamic State. These radical Palestinians seek to destroy Israel, but little do they know, they will destroy themselves in the end.
The jihadist Muslim world repeatedly portrays the murderers of innocent Jewish civilians as heroes, as the Western media refuses to brand these devils as evil.
The YNet headline gives an apocalyptic message that states their goal, and I can't help but wonder if the Assyrians sent messages before they attacked Israel 70 years before Jeremaiah's visons?: ISIS leader to Israel: Palestine will be your graveyard
They are all there to fight ISIS, but Jeremiah's vision of the “almond” branch carries the truth to Israel, not Muhammad.
People of Jerusalem, shama`.
Seek Yeshua the pierced One!!
The good news, the "basar" or the gospel as many call it is this: The humble feet of the one called Salvation (Yeshua) have already walked your mountains. Nahum (1:15) told you this as he spoke of fighters from Nineveh:
November 17, 2015 Mass graves of women 'too old to be Isil sex slaves' - this is what we're up against
Last week Kurdish forces – backed by British and American air strikes – liberated Sinjar from Islamic State militants, along with 28 other villages.
They discovered two graves. The first – containing the corpses of older women – was found west of the city’s centre, near the Sinjar Technical Institute. The second was ten miles west, and is believed to contain men, women and children. It is rigged with explosives and deliberately difficult to access.
The Kurdish government team will analyse the bodies in an attempt to uncover the grim story of what happened here.
But let’s be frank: it is not difficult to guess.
Over the past year, Islamic State forces have kidnapped thousands of young Yazidi women to use as sex slaves. Now we know what happened to those not deemed ‘attractive enough’ for them.
French President Francois Hollande has called the sickening atrocities carried out in Paris “an act of war” committed by Isil.
But for the Yazidis, persecuted in Iraq, this is not just a war. It has all the marks of genocide.
Reading about what happened to the Yazidis is difficult. At a time when the west is still mourning the victims of the co-ordinated terror attacks in Paris, more horrific news can seem too much to bear.
But the massacre of the Yazidis cannot be ignored if the true nature of the enemy in Hollande’s ‘war’ is to be understood.
October 2, 2015: Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani Urges Global War Against ISIS
September 30, 2015: The Associated Press reports: Vladimir Putin Gets Unanimous Green Light to Use Troops in Syria
If we check out Numbers 24 in the Balak Torah portion last week, it had this to say hidden in plain sight:
We must consider the words that have remained unchanged between Numbers 24:14-19 for some 3,500 years.
Here's the rest of the Exodus account as Balaam heard the words of God and saw the vision of the Almighty in a trance with his eyes wide open:
June 1, 2015: Debka file reports ISIS arrives in Gaza: Supporters of the “Islamic State of Jerusalem” sighted on Israeli border
This is huge, it will open you eyes as to why ISIS is plotting to bring back the U.S. led "Coalition of the Willing" into a 'final battle' in the Middle East. All non-U.S. coalition members had withdrawn from Iraq by August 2009 and the last 500 U.S. soldiers left Iraq on December 18, 2011. You need to READ ALL of this report:
The hidden hand behind the Islamic State militants? Saddam Hussein’s.
Statement by the President on the Framework to Prevent Iran from Obtaining a Nuclear Weapon
We must consider the world today, it points to prophecy. When we do, the "latter day" ram and goat conflict described in Daniel 8 appears to be coming into focus that made Daniel sick for days.
Should we possibly consider, when "the deal" runs out, it will be 2030? That coming year may well mark two days (2,000 years) since Yeshua's crucifixion and perhaps a time of the ultimate ram and goat conflict.
Hosea 6:2 says:
PRAYER ALERT March 26, 2015: Are the ten kings reminiscent of Daniel and Revelation arising before our eyes?
I am very surprised at the move by Pakistan in this Iran proxy fight.
Ethnically, this nation is not really a part of the "Arab" gulf nations and Pakistan maintains close cultural and political relations with Iran. Pakistan is majority Sunni, but the nation also has the second largest population of Shi'a Islam "twelver" followers behind Iran and they have Muslim traditions that are very distinct from those of the Arab nations.
Pakistan maintains close political and military relations with Iran. Pakistan has the seventh largest military in the world and the nation is the only Muslim nuclear weapons state in the world joining the United States, the Soviet Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, North Korea and Israel.
Iran has nuclear power. Iran has nuclear enrichment centrifuges. What they lack today is the ultimate weapon of mass destruction.
The Lausanne Agreement is a framework agreement sought between the United Nations “5 plus 1″ group (the US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany) and Iran to delay the advent of Iranian nuclear weaponry that would make the Persian nation the world's tenth known nuclear weapons state.
The Lausanne Agreement is championing nuclear disaster in the Middle East, but not only that, Shi'a nuclear weapons may be used against the Sunni Arab League nations as well as Israel and America. The democratic Jewish state of Israel sees nuclear Iran as a major threat to it's survival and the wider world as does the Sunni Kingdom of Saudi Arabia which is the world's second largest arms importer behind India. This is important because Saudi Arabia is Sunni-ruled and an intense rival to Shi’a Iran.
Like Israel, the Saudi's fear that a framework deal will not stop Iran from developing a nuclear bomb. Saudi Arabia also worries that Washington is putting Iran before their security needs and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned our Congress that the deal poses a grave danger to the world. He has also warned that the framework could fuel a nuclear arms race with nations such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia seeking nuclear weapons to counter Iran.
I could be wrong but it appears to be very possible that the six nations that seek the Lausanne Agreement may be engaging the terror of the death covenant given in Isaiah 28:18-19 (NASB)...
Perhaps this horrific scenario before us today is what caused Jesus to declare a warning to the world that may have begun in 1945 with the Trinity Test that took place 70 years ago exactly 3 days before Tisha B'Av on July 16, 1945:
It's time to wake up!
Many don't notice, but with a couple of post World War I name changes, the nations of Egypt, Libya, Iran, Turkey, Syria, Israel, Arabia and Yemen are all described in various end-time prophecies. Further, each of these nations is a member of the Arab League and joined in pacts of mutual defense such as the Arab League Charter of 1945, the Joint Arab Defense Pact of 1950 and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
Here's one example of prophecy that seems to point to these Arab Leagues:
And we must remember that clay and iron toes do not mix. Because of that ancient truth of prophecy from the book of Daniel, rest assured that the Sunni toes led by the Saudis will not permit a Shiite Iran proxy state to be set up at the foot of their southern border. But Iran will seek a final death blow.
USA Today Reports: U.S. forces evacuating Yemen air base
"U.S. troops were evacuating a southern Yemen air base Saturday after al-Qaeda seized a nearby town amid growing violence in the war-torn nation, multiple media outlets reported. Military forces, including commandos, were leaving the Al Anad air base near the southern city of al-Houta, the Associated Press, NBC News and CNN reported, citing unnamed officials. About 100 American troops and special forces units are stationed there. The troops are the last American forces stationed in Yemen, CNN reported. Al-Qaeda's Yemen branch — considered the terror organization's most dangerous — seized al-Houta on Friday."
PRAYER ALERT March 19, 2015: Militants, ISIS Included, Claim Tunisia Museum Attack
"Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been." Revelation 6:11 PRAYER ALERT February 16, 2015: Dwekh Nawsha Aramaic for "self sacrifice".
PRAYER ALERT February 7, 2015: NPR reports today that: Jordanians Seek Retribution After ISIS' Burning Of Captured Pilot Perhaps King Abdullah II of Jordan may no longer be blind to reality. The so called Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a core issue in the Middle East. It is a fabrication of his imagination, a lie that will lead many men to the curse of perdition. The goal of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is to unwind the Sykes–Picot Agreement which means Jordan will be no more. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's speech aired across the world in July 2014 at the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul makes it clear: "this blessed advance will not stop until we hit the last nail in the coffin of the Sykes–Picot conspiracy". PRAYER ALERT February 4, 2015: Newsweek reports: 4,000-Strong Christian Militia Formed to Fight ISIS in Northern Iraq
Luke 20:36 Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.
PRAYER ALERT October 9, 2014: Words matter in ‘ISIS’ war, so use ‘Daesh’
PRAYER ALERT September 22, 2015: Here we are, right before the Day of Trumpets. We have attacked ISIS in Syria in Raqqa, the so-called capital of their Islamic state before the eve of Yom Teruah. Some say the shofar blown on the Day pf Trumpets is for joy, others say for war.
Airstrikes by U.S. and Allies Hit ISIS Targets in Syria
Statements from local Muslims in Israel differ as reported by Israel Today:
Rashid converted from Islam to Christianity after studying the differences between the two faiths with the original intent to defend Islam. In this video called “A Message to President Obama From a Former Muslim”, he asserts that the actions of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) do speak for the religion of Islam despite assertions to the contrary and asserts that terrorism begins in Muslim schools and mosques.
PRAYER ALERT August 31, 2014: Is the Greece of Daniel 10:20 making a move? Stars and Stripes reports: Hagel going to Turkey as US tries to build ‘coalition of the willing’ against the Islamic State
The jihadist Muslim world repeatedly portrays the murderers of innocent Jewish civilians as heroes, as the Western media refuses to brand these devils as evil.
The YNet headline gives an apocalyptic message that states their goal, and I can't help but wonder if the Assyrians sent messages before they attacked Israel 70 years before Jeremaiah's visons?: ISIS leader to Israel: Palestine will be your graveyard
"Al-Baghdadi asserts that the terrorist group has not forgotten the Palestinians and is getting closer by the day to a showdown with Israel."Allah NEVER assembled the Jewish people in Palestine. YHVH Elohim brought them to Israel. Ironically, this CBS News article reports about the "north": ISIS leader surfaces in new audio recording
"If the Islamic coalition against ISIS were truly Islamic, it would declare that it was cutting ties with its Jewish and crusader masters and that its goal was to kill the Jews and liberate Palestine," said al-Baghdadi in the tape."
"The Jews thought we forgot Palestine and that they had distracted us from it," he continued. "Not at all, Jews. We did not forget Palestine for a moment. With the help of Allah, we will not forget it… The pioneers of the jihadist fighters will surround you on a day that you think is distant and we know is close. We are getting closer every day."
"You will never find comfort in Palestine, Jews," continued the terrorist leader. "Palestine will not be your land or your home, but it will be a graveyard for you."
"Allah assembled you in Palestine so that the Muslims kill you, so that you may hide behind stones and trees (a Muslim tradition regarding the killing of Jews)," declared the head of the self-styled caliphate."
"In October, a branch of ISIS in Damascus released a Hebrew-language video. "We will enter Al-Aqsa mosque as conquerors and our car bombs will strike the ramparts of the Jews," said an ISIS member in the video."
"Baghdadi brought up the idea of this epic final battle which based on a 1,400-year old prophecy about "Crusader forces" attempting to conquer Muslim land in a place called "Dabiq," but Muslim armies fight them and emerge victorious. They then conquer Rome and end up ruling the entire world. According to the prophecy, this battle in "Dabiq" would be a sign marking the beginning of the end of the world."Muhammad is believed to have said that "the last hour will not come" until Muslims vanquish the Romans at "Dabiq" and for the past 18 months, notably since the first of the four feast day "blood moons" ISIS has been seeking to bring on that battle and now the international coalition is there including the U.S. France, Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia's Arab coalition.
"ISIS has been promoting the idea that Dabiq exists for real near Azaz, north of the Syrian city of Aleppo."
They are all there to fight ISIS, but Jeremiah's vision of the “almond” branch carries the truth to Israel, not Muhammad.
Seek Yeshua the pierced One!!
The good news, the "basar" or the gospel as many call it is this: The humble feet of the one called Salvation (Yeshua) have already walked your mountains. Nahum (1:15) told you this as he spoke of fighters from Nineveh:
"Behold, upon the mountains,And Nahum has the Torah's required second witness in Isaiah 52:7. Listen to (shama`) Isaiah. He gives you His name Yeshua יְשׁוּעָה
the feet of him who brings good news,
who publishes peace!"
"How beautiful upon the mountainsZechariah is telling you about another miraculous day ahead, it is greater than what you have ever seen in your restoration to the land. It speaks of Yeshua, the pierced one's return as your King:
are the feet of him who brings good news,
who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness,
who listens to salvation יְשׁוּעָה
who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”"
"And on that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn. Zechariah 12:9-10Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! “May they be secure who love you! Psalm 122:6
November 17, 2015 Mass graves of women 'too old to be Isil sex slaves' - this is what we're up against
In the desert dust of Sinjar, in north west Iraq, a walking stick lies on the ground.
Strewn casually alongside it are a couple of pairs of scissors, some household keys and a shoe.
Bank notes flutter in the dirt.
But, if you look a little closer, the scene becomes a horror show. Clumps of hair and fragments of bone poke grotesquely out of the ditch. It is estimated that almost 80 women are buried in this mass grave, aged between 40 and 80-years-old. The bodies are of Yazidi women, murdered by Islamic State butchers.
As the world prayed for Paris, more than three thousand miles east another atrocity was being uncovered.
Last week Kurdish forces – backed by British and American air strikes – liberated Sinjar from Islamic State militants, along with 28 other villages.
They discovered two graves. The first – containing the corpses of older women – was found west of the city’s centre, near the Sinjar Technical Institute. The second was ten miles west, and is believed to contain men, women and children. It is rigged with explosives and deliberately difficult to access.
The Kurdish government team will analyse the bodies in an attempt to uncover the grim story of what happened here.
But let’s be frank: it is not difficult to guess.
Over the past year, Islamic State forces have kidnapped thousands of young Yazidi women to use as sex slaves. Now we know what happened to those not deemed ‘attractive enough’ for them.
French President Francois Hollande has called the sickening atrocities carried out in Paris “an act of war” committed by Isil.
But for the Yazidis, persecuted in Iraq, this is not just a war. It has all the marks of genocide.
Reading about what happened to the Yazidis is difficult. At a time when the west is still mourning the victims of the co-ordinated terror attacks in Paris, more horrific news can seem too much to bear.
But the massacre of the Yazidis cannot be ignored if the true nature of the enemy in Hollande’s ‘war’ is to be understood.
October 2, 2015: Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani Urges Global War Against ISIS
"BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraq's most powerful Shiite cleric called for a global war against ISIS on Friday, a day after the prime minister said he would welcome Russian airstrikes against the group on his country's soil.CBN News reports: ISIS's First Step: Conquer Rome, Defeat Christianity
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who has a huge following and can often influence government thinking, was speaking through an aide after nationally televised Friday prayers.
"Battle with Daesh is destined for all Iraqis," said Sistani, using an Arabic acronym for ISIS. "But it's not their battle alone but the whole world, because terrorists target with their dark ideology all humanity, its culture and morals."
He added: "It's essential to join together all efforts and expand the parameters of countering this movement.""
September 30, 2015: The Associated Press reports: Vladimir Putin Gets Unanimous Green Light to Use Troops in Syria
"Russian lawmakers voted unanimously Wednesday to let President Vladimir Putin send Russian troops to Syria. The Kremlin sought to play down the decision, saying it will only use its air force there, not ground troops."July 18, 2015: ISIS Kills 115 on Eid in one of Iraq's Deadliest Attacks in a Decade
"An attack by ISIS on a crowded marketplace in Iraq killed 115 people, including women and children, in one of the deadliest single attacks in the country in the past decade.Update: July 13, 2015: The Hill reports from Jerusalem: ISIS has threatening words for Christian Jerusalem
The mostly-Shiite victims were gathered to mark the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which ended Friday for Iraqi Shiites and a day earlier for Iraqi Sunni Muslims.
Police said a small truck detonated in a crowded marketplace in the town of Khan Beni Saad Friday night in what quickly turned celebrations into a scene of horror, with body parts scattered across the market. At least 170 people were injured."
"Since Friday, June 27, leaflets have appeared in and around Arab East Jerusalem, signed by the Islamic State. On July 3, Israeli television Channel One reported on a leaflet that read:July 6, 2015: Israel Is Building an Anti-ISIS Fence Along Border With Jordan
The Armed Forces of the Decisive Swords will purify the Islamic neighborhoods of Christians so that on Eid al[-]Fitr, these neighborhoods will be completely clean. We will start in the neighborhood of Beit Hanina and move on to Shuafat and then all the neighborhoods of the Old City of Jerusalem and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. We say to the Christian unbelievers, you must leave immediately so that you will not be slaughtered like lambs with the dawning of Eid al[-]Fitr.
The pamphlets were signed "The Islamic State, Emirate of Jerusalem."
Eid al-Fitr is the last day of holy month of Ramadan, the joyous breaking of the Muslim fast. On the Gregorian calendar, Eid begins at sunset on Thursday, July 16.
It is no secret that the Islamic State, or ISIS (the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) has had its eye on Jerusalem, the third holiest city in the Islamic faith after Mecca and Medina. ISIS often legitimizes its atrocities and attracts followers by promising to "liberate" Jerusalem. For example, the Islamic State in the Sinai, responsible for the bloody attacks on July 1 that killed dozens of Egyptians, released a propaganda video of a captured Egyptian soldier, later executed, saying: "They want to liberate Jerusalem, and soldiers like me are preventing them. I am a soldier that prevents them from liberating Jerusalem because we [Egypt] support Israel."
The leaflets in Jerusalem similarly accused Christians of serving as agents of Israel and the West, spreading evil by encouraging Muslims to become more secular. The leaflets also charged that the Christians have violated the Pact of Umar, made over 1,000 years ago after Muslims conquered the Holy Land. The pact forbade Christians from displaying crosses on churches, chanting prayers in a loud voice when a Muslim is present, proselytizing, erecting new monasteries or repairing churches when they fall into ruin.
The Islamic State in Gaza has also recently accused Hamas of being too lenient in enforcing Islamic law. In fact, the Islamic State in Gaza is so irate that it has now sworn to overthrow Hamas.
But, just to be clear, the Islamic State cells that plan to attack Jerusalem's Christians are coming not from Gaza or the Sinai. No. The cells are coming from the West Bank. The route specified by the leaflet proceeds from north to south, not south to north. To reach Beit Hanina, the cells would need to pass first through the Qalandia checkpoint. They would then proceed south to Shuafat, pass another checkpoint, and from there go on to the Old City of Jerusalem where they would eventually run into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
I know. It's confusing."
"TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel has taken one more step to walling itself off from its neighbors.While many of us were watching the headlines and grieving about the Supreme Court decision here in America, in the Middle East, it seems all eyes were on ISIS as they are aligning with Hamas as their eyes are on Jerusalem.
The border with Jordan is the last Israeli frontier that is totally open to a neighboring country; the borders with Egypt, Syria and Lebanon are all fenced off.
But the nation's Security Cabinet adopted a proposal last month to build an approximately 18-mile-long fence along Israel's eastern border with Jordan."
If we check out Numbers 24 in the Balak Torah portion last week, it had this to say hidden in plain sight:
"I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth." Numbers 24:17It is amazing to see that verse this week since many reports came out of Israel last week that ISIS, a Balak nation with sights on Jerusalem, is now encroaching on Israel. An affiliate of ISIS has fired rockets from the Sinai and are telling the world they have infiltrated Gaza. Israel recently approved the construction of a new high-tech security fence near the Jordan border designed to stop Jihadi infitratration from Jordan.
We must consider the words that have remained unchanged between Numbers 24:14-19 for some 3,500 years.
Here's the rest of the Exodus account as Balaam heard the words of God and saw the vision of the Almighty in a trance with his eyes wide open:
"And now, behold, I am going to my people.A people God calls Israel will do valiantly.
Come, I will let you know what this people
will do to your people in the latter days.”
And he took up his discourse and said,
“The oracle of Balaam the son of Beor,
the oracle of the man whose eye is opened,
the oracle of him who hears the words of God,
and knows the knowledge of the Most High,
who sees the vision of the Almighty,
falling down with his eyes uncovered:
I see him, but not now;
I behold him, but not near:
a star shall come out of Jacob,
and a scepter shall rise out of Israel;
it shall crush the forehead of Moab
and break down all the sons of Sheth.
Edom shall be dispossessed;
Seir also, his enemies, shall be dispossessed.
Israel is doing valiantly.
Out of Jacob shall come he that shall have dominion,
and shall destroy him that remaineth of the city."
Exodus 24:14-18
June 1, 2015: Debka file reports ISIS arrives in Gaza: Supporters of the “Islamic State of Jerusalem” sighted on Israeli border
"Followers of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant were spotted for the first time in the Gaza Strip this week, DEBKAfile’s military sources report. Their arrival on Israel's border was confirmed as a division-strength IDF force launched its large-scale “Turning Point 2015” exercise for repelling Islamist cross-border incursions. The Islamist group which has established a substantial anti-Hamas presence in the Gaza Strip is Ansar al Dawa al-Islamia, renamed “Supporters of the Islamic State of Jerusalem.”"April 20, 2015: The Islamic militants that have joined the "Islamic State" call Christians 'worshipers of the cross'. This is a subtle lie. After all, Christians of course are not worshipers of the cross, they are followers of Yeshua-Jesus of Nazareth. Like Him, they are willing to give their lives for their faith in a time when the fire of persecution of Christians in the Middle East is exploding. The flame seems to be inadvertently fanned by failed policies that endorsed and promoted the Arab Spring as the rise of democracy, the will of the people while U.S. troops withdrew their protection from Iraq and our commander in chief turned his back to the oblivion in Syria.
ISIL video purports to show killing of Ethiopian ChristiansMore than 90,000 people have fled Islamic State advance in Iraq's Anbar province
"A video purporting to show the killing of Ethiopian Christians by Islamic State-affiliated militants in Libya has been released online.
The 29-minute video appears to show militants holding two groups of captives, one by an affiliate in eastern Libya known as Barka Province and the other by the Fazzan Province, an affiliate in the south.
A masked fighter wielding a pistol says Christians must convert to Islam or pay a special tax prescribed by the Quran, before the captives in the south are shown being shot dead and the captives in the east are beheaded on a beach."
"BAGHDAD – A United Nations humanitarian agency says more than 90,000 people have fled the Islamic State group's advance in Iraq's western Anbar province, which has set off fierce fighting in and around the provincial capital Ramadi.April 4, 2015: If you are like me and you have been scratching your head trying to figure out where on earth the evil of ISIS came from, it's critical that you read this report from Liz Sly which is part of a series from the Washington Post.
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Sunday that civilians are fleeing Ramadi as well as three nearby villages captured by the IS group a few days ago.
OCHA says in a statement that humanitarian agencies have moved quickly to provide assistance, including food, water and shelter.
Iraqi troops backed by Shiite militias and U.S.-led airstrikes managed to dislodge the IS group from the northern city of Tikrit earlier this month.
But troops have struggled against the militants in Anbar, which saw some of the heaviest fighting of the eight-year U.S. military intervention."
This is huge, it will open you eyes as to why ISIS is plotting to bring back the U.S. led "Coalition of the Willing" into a 'final battle' in the Middle East. All non-U.S. coalition members had withdrawn from Iraq by August 2009 and the last 500 U.S. soldiers left Iraq on December 18, 2011. You need to READ ALL of this report:
The hidden hand behind the Islamic State militants? Saddam Hussein’s.
CONFRONTING THE ‘CALIPHATE’| This is part of an occasional series about the militant group Islamic State and its violent collision with the United States and others intent on halting the group’s rapid rise.April 2, 2015: Today is the 13th day of Nisan. It is the day noted in in Esther 3:12-13:
"The raw cruelty of Hussein’s Baathist regime, the disbandment of the Iraqi army after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, the subsequent insurgency and the marginalization of Sunni Iraqis by the Shiite-dominated government all are intertwined with the Islamic State’s ascent, said Hassan Hassan, a Dubai-based analyst and co-author of the book “ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror.”
“A lot of people think of the Islamic State as a terrorist group, and it’s not useful,” Hassan said. “It is a terrorist group, but it is more than that. It is a homegrown Iraqi insurgency, and it is organic to Iraq.”
The de-Baathification law promulgated by L. Paul Bremer, Iraq’s American ruler in 2003, has long been identified as one of the contributors to the original insurgency. At a stroke, 400,000 members of the defeated Iraqi army were barred from government employment, denied pensions — and also allowed to keep their guns.
The U.S. military failed in the early years to recognize the role the disbanded Baathist officers would eventually come to play in the extremist group, eclipsing the foreign fighters whom American officials preferred to blame, said Col. Joel Rayburn, a senior fellow at the National Defense University who served as an adviser to top generals in Iraq and describes the links between Baathists and the Islamic State in his book, “Iraq After America.”
The U.S. military always knew that the former Baathist officers had joined other insurgent groups and were giving tactical support to the Al Qaeda in Iraq affiliate, the precursor to the Islamic State, he said. But American officials didn’t anticipate that they would become not only adjuncts to al-Qaeda, but core members of the jihadist group.
“We might have been able to come up with ways to head off the fusion, the completion of the Iraqization process,” he said. The former officers were probably not reconcilable, “but it was the labeling of them as irrelevant that was the mistake.”
Under the leadership of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliph, the former officers became more than relevant. They were instrumental in the group’s rebirth from the defeats inflicted on insurgents by the U.S. military, which is now back in Iraq bombing many of the same men it had already fought twice before."
"Then were the king's scribes called on the thirteenth day of the first month, and there was written according to all that Haman had commanded unto the king's lieutenants, and to the governors that were over every province, and to the rulers of every people of every province according to the writing thereof, and to every people after their language; in the name of king Ahasuerus was it written, and sealed with the king's ring. And the letters were sent by posts into all the king's provinces, to destroy, to kill, and to cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day, even upon the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, and to take the spoil of them for a prey."Today is the day that Haman convinced king Ahasuerus to sign a decree to destroy the Jewish people on Adar 13. The next Adar 13 will occur on the Day of Purim March 24, 2016, one month before Passover. Today, this word was spoken:
Statement by the President on the Framework to Prevent Iran from Obtaining a Nuclear Weapon
Rose Garden 2:25 P.M. EDTNow, let me reemphasize: these are the words from the 44th President that prematurely withdrew from Iraq, the President that refused to meet with Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu as he warned Congress of a bad deal, the same President that ignores the chants of "Death to America," the President that declared 'No Question That Libya ...Would Be Better Off With Gaddafi Out of Power', the President that called ISIS the "JV team", the President that said Yemen was a counterterrorism success.
"THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon, everybody. Today, the United States -- together with our allies and partners -- has reached a historic understanding with Iran, which, if fully implemented, will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
As President and Commander-in-Chief, I have no greater responsibility than the security of the American people. And I am convinced that if this framework leads to a final, comprehensive deal, it will make our country, our allies, and our world safer."
"Today, after many months of tough, principled diplomacy, we have achieved the framework for that deal. And it is a good deal, a deal that meets our core objectives. This framework would cut off every pathway that Iran could take to develop a nuclear weapon. Iran will face strict limitations on its program, and Iran has also agreed to the most robust and intrusive inspections and transparency regime ever negotiated for any nuclear program in history. So this deal is not based on trust, it’s based on unprecedented verification.
Many key details will be finalized over the next three months, and nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed. But here are the basic outlines of the deal that we are working to finalize.
First, Iran will not be able to pursue a bomb using plutonium, because it will not develop weapons-grade plutonium. The core of its reactor at Arak will be dismantled and replaced. The spent fuel from that facility will be shipped out of Iran for the life of the reactor. Iran will not build a new heavy-water reactor. And Iran will not reprocess fuel from its existing reactors -- ever.
Second, this deal shuts down Iran’s path to a bomb using enriched uranium. Iran has agreed that its installed centrifuges will be reduced by two-thirds. Iran will no longer enrich uranium at its Fordow facility. Iran will not enrich uranium with its advanced centrifuges for at least the next 10 years. The vast majority of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium will be neutralized.
Today, estimates indicate that Iran is only two or three months away from potentially acquiring the raw materials that could be used for a single nuclear bomb. Under this deal, Iran has agreed that it will not stockpile the materials needed to build a weapon. Even if it violated the deal, for the next decade at least, Iran would be a minimum of a year away from acquiring enough material for a bomb. And the strict limitations on Iran’s stockpile will last for 15 years.
Third, this deal provides the best possible defense against Iran’s ability to pursue a nuclear weapon covertly -- that is, in secret. International inspectors will have unprecedented access not only to Iranian nuclear facilities, but to the entire supply chain that supports Iran’s nuclear program -- from uranium mills that provide the raw materials, to the centrifuge production and storage facilities that support the program. If Iran cheats, the world will know it. If we see something suspicious, we will inspect it. Iran’s past efforts to weaponize its program will be addressed. With this deal, Iran will face more inspections than any other country in the world.
So this will be a long-term deal that addresses each path to a potential Iranian nuclear bomb. There will be strict limits on Iran’s program for a decade. Additional restrictions on building new facilities or stockpiling materials will last for 15 years. The unprecedented transparency measures will last for 20 years or more. Indeed, some will be permanent. And as a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran will never be permitted to develop a nuclear weapon.
In return for Iran’s actions, the international community has agreed to provide Iran with relief from certain sanctions -- our own sanctions, and international sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council. This relief will be phased as Iran takes steps to adhere to the deal. If Iran violates the deal, sanctions can be snapped back into place. Meanwhile, other American sanctions on Iran for its support of terrorism, its human rights abuses, its ballistic missile program, will continue to be fully enforced.
Now, let me reemphasize, our work is not yet done. The deal has not been signed."
We must consider the world today, it points to prophecy. When we do, the "latter day" ram and goat conflict described in Daniel 8 appears to be coming into focus that made Daniel sick for days.
Should we possibly consider, when "the deal" runs out, it will be 2030? That coming year may well mark two days (2,000 years) since Yeshua's crucifixion and perhaps a time of the ultimate ram and goat conflict.
Hosea 6:2 says:
"After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight."2Peter 3:7-8 says:
"But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."March 27, 2015: Former Lebanon President Gemayel: "Start Thinking the Unthinkable" Middle East Christians face "the Specter of Genocide" on eve of UN Security Council deliberations
"BOSTON, March 26, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- "I have never in my life witnessed Middle East Christians in such extreme danger," Amine Gemayel warned on Wednesday. Speaking at a public lecture at Boston College, the former president of Lebanon called 2014 "a year of existential crisis" for Middle East Christians. He raised "the specter of genocide," in the context of atrocities suffered by Christians and other religious minorities in the region at the hands of the Islamic State and other extremists.
"If present negative trends continue to intensify," Gemayel said, "we must start thinking about the unthinkable: the extinction of Christianity" in the region. In addition to an enormous human toll, the former president claimed that the end of Middle East Christianity would "destabilize the region for generations.""
PRAYER ALERT March 26, 2015: Are the ten kings reminiscent of Daniel and Revelation arising before our eyes?
"As for the ten horns, out of this kingdom ten kings shall arise, and another shall arise after them; he shall be different from the former ones, and shall put down three kings." Daniel 7:24You remember "Desert Storm", now there is "Decisive Storm" and the Muslim Sunni participants include: 1) Saudi Arabia, 2) United Arab Emirates, 3) Qatar, 4) Kuwait, 5) Bahrain, 6) Jordan, 7) Morocco, 8) Sudan, 8) Egypt and 10) Pakistan:
"And the ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have not yet received royal power, but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour, together with the beast. These are of one mind, and they hand over their power and authority to the beast." Revelation 17:12-13
· Decisive Storm targets Houthi camps in SanaaYou will notice that Iraq is notably missing from the league of Arab nations. True, they have their hands full fighting off ISIS, but the reality is that the Muslim population of Iraq is not really Arab, they are approximately 60-70% Shi'a and only 20-30% Sunni which is unlike the other nations engaged in Yemen which are predominately Sunni.
· Egypt air force, Navy join Decisive Storm
· King Salman orders airstrikes against Houthis
· World powers react to ‘Decisive Storm’ in Yemen
· UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan deploy warplanes against Houthis
I am very surprised at the move by Pakistan in this Iran proxy fight.
Ethnically, this nation is not really a part of the "Arab" gulf nations and Pakistan maintains close cultural and political relations with Iran. Pakistan is majority Sunni, but the nation also has the second largest population of Shi'a Islam "twelver" followers behind Iran and they have Muslim traditions that are very distinct from those of the Arab nations.
Pakistan maintains close political and military relations with Iran. Pakistan has the seventh largest military in the world and the nation is the only Muslim nuclear weapons state in the world joining the United States, the Soviet Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, North Korea and Israel.
Iran has nuclear power. Iran has nuclear enrichment centrifuges. What they lack today is the ultimate weapon of mass destruction.
The Lausanne Agreement is a framework agreement sought between the United Nations “5 plus 1″ group (the US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany) and Iran to delay the advent of Iranian nuclear weaponry that would make the Persian nation the world's tenth known nuclear weapons state.
The Lausanne Agreement is championing nuclear disaster in the Middle East, but not only that, Shi'a nuclear weapons may be used against the Sunni Arab League nations as well as Israel and America. The democratic Jewish state of Israel sees nuclear Iran as a major threat to it's survival and the wider world as does the Sunni Kingdom of Saudi Arabia which is the world's second largest arms importer behind India. This is important because Saudi Arabia is Sunni-ruled and an intense rival to Shi’a Iran.
Like Israel, the Saudi's fear that a framework deal will not stop Iran from developing a nuclear bomb. Saudi Arabia also worries that Washington is putting Iran before their security needs and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned our Congress that the deal poses a grave danger to the world. He has also warned that the framework could fuel a nuclear arms race with nations such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia seeking nuclear weapons to counter Iran.
I could be wrong but it appears to be very possible that the six nations that seek the Lausanne Agreement may be engaging the terror of the death covenant given in Isaiah 28:18-19 (NASB)...
"Your covenant with death will be canceled, And your pact with Sheol will not stand; When the overwhelming scourge passes through, Then you become its trampling place. As often as it passes through, it will seize you; For morning after morning it will pass through, anytime during the day or night, And it will be sheer terror to understand what it means."I also believe that it is quite possible that we might consider the "ten nations" found in four prophetic Scripture passages (Daniel 2:31-45; Daniel 7:7-24; Revelation 13:1-2; Revelation 17:3-16) may possibly be 10 end-time nuclear powers. These passages either directly or by implication prophesy of a ten-kingdom confederation that may be account for the terror of an end-time plutonium fire.
Perhaps this horrific scenario before us today is what caused Jesus to declare a warning to the world that may have begun in 1945 with the Trinity Test that took place 70 years ago exactly 3 days before Tisha B'Av on July 16, 1945:
"For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will. Unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short." Matthew 24:21-22Many people may have not even noticed, but since South Africa voluntarily dismantled its nuclear weapon capabilities in 1989, there currently remain "nine" known nuclear weapons states and Iran could make the 10th by a horrifically flawed agreement with the nuclear-seeking, death to America chanting Twelver Shi'a Mullahs of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its "Supreme Leader" who also declare that Israel should not exist.
It's time to wake up!
Many don't notice, but with a couple of post World War I name changes, the nations of Egypt, Libya, Iran, Turkey, Syria, Israel, Arabia and Yemen are all described in various end-time prophecies. Further, each of these nations is a member of the Arab League and joined in pacts of mutual defense such as the Arab League Charter of 1945, the Joint Arab Defense Pact of 1950 and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
Here's one example of prophecy that seems to point to these Arab Leagues:
"The word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus says the Lord GOD:PRAYER ALERT March 21, 2015: We need to pray about a Yemen withdrawal by U.S. troops as Houthis extremists move in. As we move out others will move in as Yemen will join the abyss of chaos in Syria northern Iraq and Libya but this time things are different as the Shiite Houthis are 100% backed by Iran just like Syria's Bashar Assad. In the Middle East, conflict is generally about land and religion and Yemen sits baked in the desert sun at the southern foot of ancient Mesopotamia, today's Sunni dominated Arabian Peninsula.
“Wail, ‘Alas for the day!’ For the day is near,
the day of the LORD is near; it will be a day of clouds,
a time of doom for the nations.
A sword shall come upon Egypt, and anguish shall be in Cush,
when the slain fall in Egypt, and her wealth is carried away,
and her foundations are torn down.
Cush, and Put, and Lud, and all Arabia, and Libya,
and the people of the land that is in league,
shall fall with them by the sword." Ezekiel 30:1-5
And we must remember that clay and iron toes do not mix. Because of that ancient truth of prophecy from the book of Daniel, rest assured that the Sunni toes led by the Saudis will not permit a Shiite Iran proxy state to be set up at the foot of their southern border. But Iran will seek a final death blow.
USA Today Reports: U.S. forces evacuating Yemen air base
"U.S. troops were evacuating a southern Yemen air base Saturday after al-Qaeda seized a nearby town amid growing violence in the war-torn nation, multiple media outlets reported. Military forces, including commandos, were leaving the Al Anad air base near the southern city of al-Houta, the Associated Press, NBC News and CNN reported, citing unnamed officials. About 100 American troops and special forces units are stationed there. The troops are the last American forces stationed in Yemen, CNN reported. Al-Qaeda's Yemen branch — considered the terror organization's most dangerous — seized al-Houta on Friday."
PRAYER ALERT March 19, 2015: Militants, ISIS Included, Claim Tunisia Museum Attack
"CAIRO — The Islamic State and other extremists on Thursday sought to claim responsibility for the deadly attack that killed at least 21 people at the National Bardo Museum in Tunis. The authorities there arrested at least nine people suspected of being accomplices as major cruise lines indefinitely suspended stops in Tunisia, a sign of the looming toll on the crucial tourist industry. The assault was the latest evidence that the extremist victories and cruelties in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere are emboldening like-minded militants to acts of violence around the world — including recent attacks in Paris, Ottawa and Sydney, Australia."PRAYER ALERT March 4, 2015: The most serious threat of tribulation is not from radical Islam but apocalyptic Islam. The Atlantic is privileged to have Graeme Wood as a contributor who like Benjamin Netanyahu understands this and writes perhaps the most insightful message we must know: What ISIS Really Wants
"The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy—and for how to stop it."He writes:
"Our ignorance of the Islamic State is in some ways understandable: It is a hermit kingdom; few have gone there and returned. Baghdadi has spoken on camera only once. But his address, and the Islamic State’s countless other propaganda videos and encyclicals, are online, and the caliphate’s supporters have toiled mightily to make their project knowable. We can gather that their state rejects peace as a matter of principle; that it hungers for genocide; that its religious views make it constitutionally incapable of certain types of change, even if that change might ensure its survival; and that it considers itself a harbinger of—and headline player in—the imminent end of the world."He continues...
"To take one example: In September, Sheikh Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the Islamic State’s chief spokesman, called on Muslims in Western countries such as France and Canada to find an infidel and “smash his head with a rock,” poison him, run him over with a car, or “destroy his crops.” To Western ears, the biblical-sounding punishments—the stoning and crop destruction—juxtaposed strangely with his more modern-sounding call to vehicular homicide. (As if to show that he could terrorize by imagery alone, Adnani also referred to Secretary of State John Kerry as an “uncircumcised geezer.”) But Adnani was not merely talking trash.
His speech was laced with theological and legal discussion, and his exhortation to attack crops directly echoed orders from Muhammad to leave well water and crops alone—unless the armies of Islam were in a defensive position, in which case Muslims in the lands of kuffar, or infidels, should be unmerciful, and poison away. The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic. Yes, it has attracted psychopaths and adventure seekers, drawn largely from the disaffected populations of the Middle East and Europe. But the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam.
Virtually every major decision and law promulgated by the Islamic State adheres to what it calls, in its press and pronouncements, and on its billboards, license plates, stationery, and coins, “the Prophetic methodology,” which means following the prophecy and example of Muhammad, in punctilious detail. Muslims can reject the Islamic State; nearly all do. But pretending that it isn’t actually a religious, millenarian group, with theology that must be understood to be combatted, has already led the United States to underestimate it and back foolish schemes to counter it. We’ll need to get acquainted with the Islamic State’s intellectual genealogy if we are to react in a way that will not strengthen it, but instead help it self-immolate in its own excessive zeal."He refers to the Bible just once, but this is a must read. This cover story is vitally important if you want to know the nature of the beast and the power of the dragon. Know the enemy, read it all at The Atlantic. I can only offer this appendix in regard to this people with the spirit of antichrist and suggest the fearful concept that while Obama is leaning on the wrong side of history, believe it or not, he may have been correct by calling ISIL the JV team. There is a greater, a more grave threat looming, it's called nuclear Iran and Iran’s deal with Barack Hussein Obama will provide a 10 year pause to prepare for an apocalypse based on radical Shiite Islamic belief.
"Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth? Ecclesiastes 3:21 "And they shall no more be a prey to the heathen, neither shall the beast of the land devour them; but they shall dwell safely, and none shall make them afraid." Ezekiel 34:28 "After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it." Daniel 7:6 "And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast." Revelation 13:2-3PRAYER ALERT February 24, 2015: ABC News tell us: Why This American 'Soldier of Christ' Is Fighting ISIS in Iraq
"He is 28 years old. Detroit born and bred. An Army veteran. And now he is a self-described "Soldier of Christ" back in Iraq, fighting ISIS on the front lines. "People ask me, 'Why you?' I come back and I say, 'Why not? Why just me? Where's everyone else at?" said Brett, who requested that ABC News not use his last name to protect his family back home. "Jesus says, you know, 'What you do unto the least of them, you do unto me,'" he added. "I take that very seriously." Brett returned to Iraq six months ago. In 2006-07, he served in the infamous "Triangle of Death," where he said he was badly wounded in an IED attack on his Humvee. He came here, he told ABC News, to defend the defenseless -- to protect the Christians and others in this part of Iraq who have been terrorized by the ISIS onslaught: driven from their homes, massacred, their women and girls raped and sold into slavery. He is of Irish and Polish descent, raised Roman Catholic and now describes himself simply as a Christian. Brett fights alongside a small, local Christian militia -- the Dweikh Nawsha. They are under the command of Kurdish peshmerga forces in this part of Iraq. From Brett's forward position, in the deserted Christian village of Bakufa, about eight miles from the outskirts of the city of Mosul in northern Iraq, you can see the black flags of ISIS whipping against the sky in a stiff winter wind. We joined him there to hear his story."PRAYER ALERT February 18, 2015: What the Media Isn’t Reporting on ISIS’ Beheading of 21 Christian Men
• In the days and weeks leading up to their deaths, their ISIS captors tortured them and attempted to persuade them to deny Jesus in return for living. • All 21 Coptic Christian men refused to deny Christ. • They all died on that beach singing songs to Jesus and ISIS provided their witness to the world.
"I am here out of love to protect the innocent at all costs. It out of love and concern and respect for these people here""Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends." John 15:13 This is important: Westerners join Iraqi Christian militia to fight Islamic State PRAYER ALERT February 15, 2015: Revelation 6:6-11 tells us that the pale, putrid green horse of Radical Jihad held by ISIS is shown in the prophecy of the beheadings of 21 Egyptian Christians. These orange jumpsuits will exchanged for pure white robes. An earthquake is coming and Revelation 20:4 declares judgment is coming. I am posting this picture so that you can see the faces of men that will reign with Yeshua in His Kingdom:
PRAYER ALERT February 7, 2015: NPR reports today that: Jordanians Seek Retribution After ISIS' Burning Of Captured Pilot Perhaps King Abdullah II of Jordan may no longer be blind to reality. The so called Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a core issue in the Middle East. It is a fabrication of his imagination, a lie that will lead many men to the curse of perdition. The goal of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is to unwind the Sykes–Picot Agreement which means Jordan will be no more. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's speech aired across the world in July 2014 at the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul makes it clear: "this blessed advance will not stop until we hit the last nail in the coffin of the Sykes–Picot conspiracy". PRAYER ALERT February 4, 2015: Newsweek reports: 4,000-Strong Christian Militia Formed to Fight ISIS in Northern Iraq
"Thousands of Iraqi Christians have established their own militia and are training to fight the Islamic State (ISIS) in the Nineveh Plains of northern Iraq. The Nineveh Plains Protection Units (NPU) has 3,000 Christian men registered to be trained, while another 500 are already training for combat. The militia was founded by the Iraqi political party, the Assyrian Democratic Movement.PRAYER ALERT January 29, 2015: Sources: At least 26 killed in North Sinai attack
Another 500 volunteers from the group are already situated in Assyrian villages in northern Iraq, the majority of which were captured by ISIS when they marched across the country last summer. Approximately 30,000 Christians have since fled the Nineveh Plains for fear of falling into the hands of the radical Islamists. Last November the American Mesopotamian Organisation, whose aim is to support the NPU, said that the primary mission of the militia is to “protect the remaining Assyrian lands from further attacks by ISIS” and then “liberate the Assyrian homeland of the Nineveh Plain” from the grasp of the radical Islamists. John Michael, a British-Assyrian in Iraq, told the Catholic Herald: “This is our last stand, if this fails then Christianity will be finished in Iraq.” The religious outlet reported that the militia are receiving funds from the Assyrian diaspora in countries such as United States, Australia and Sweden and are also receiving training from an American security company."
"(CNN) At least 26 people were killed and dozens more wounded, including civilians, during a series of militant attacks on army and police positions in Egypt's volatile Sinai Peninsula, medical and security sources told Aswat Masriya, a news website that deals with Egyptian issues. At least 36 people were wounded in the assaults, which involved car bombs and mortar rounds in the town of Al-Arish, in North Sinai, the sources told the Egyptian website. The army is battling an Islamist insurgency in North Sinai that has spiked since the 2013 ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Morsy."PRAYER ALERT December 23, 2014: ISIS: Western Journalist Embedded With Group Says He Came Into Contact With Americans
"The first Western journalist to spend time with ISIS since the launch of U.S. airstrikes in August says he has spent time with upwards of 14 Americans -- including one from New Jersey -- during the 10 days he spent inside the group's self-styled “Caliphate." In an interview with ABC News, German journalist Jürgen Todenhöfer said the U.S. fighters were from different backgrounds -- both American born and Arab-Americans as well as white. "I have seen many wars. That’s the strongest group I ever met. Very strong, very clever, very enthusiastic. They are extremely brutal. Not just head-cutting. I’m talking about the strategy of religious cleansing. That’s their official philosophy. They are talking about 500 million people who have to die," he said."PRAYER ALERT December 5, 2014: Jordan's King talks to Charlie Rose saying ISIS does not represent Islam. This is a video report from CBS and incredibly the Hashemite King says... The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the core issue in the Middle East not ISIS. This is absolutely mind boggling and I am afraid his bizarre statement will come home to haunt him, especially with ISIS black flag of evil aggression surrounding Jordan toward the east in Iraq and to the north in Syria. King Abdullah II of Jordan is blind to reality. ISIS may very well attempt a takeover in Jordan. Doesn't he know the simple truth that his Hashemite constitutional monarchy does not fit into the medieval interpretation of the Sharia Law of ISIS. Jordan's king: Fight on ISIS "a third world war"
"He said he is not working alone in the fight. Arab and Muslim leaders around the world are beginning to work together, but he was unwilling to give details. The world leader believes the battle against extremism can be won. "This is a war inside of Islam. So we have to own up to it. We have to take the lead. And we have to start fighting back. And all of us have to make that decision and stand up to the plate and take our responsibilities." But even with the threat of ISIS, he still considers the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the core issue in the Middle East. "You know, whether it's true or not, that argument is still being used by the extremists. And countries around the world realize that they have to solve the problem for their benefit.""PRAYER ALERT November 29, 2014: Andrew White tells the story of the Iraqi children who said 'No, we love Yasua. We have always loved Yasua. We have always followed Yasua.' They are now at the throne serving God. They hunger no more, neither thirst any more... For the Lamb feeds them, and leads them unto living fountains of waters: and God is wiping away all tears from their eyes.
PRAYER ALERT October 9, 2014: Words matter in ‘ISIS’ war, so use ‘Daesh’
"THE MILITANTS who are killing civilians, raping and forcing captured women into sexual slavery, and beheading foreigners in Iraq and Syria are known by several names: the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS; the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL; and, more recently, the Islamic State, or IS. French officials recently declared that that country would stop using any of those names and instead refer to the group as “Daesh.”"PRAYER ALERT September 30, 2014: David McCandless of Information Is Beautiful, has built an interactive geopolitical visualization map of the Middle East showing the relationship lines between extremist groups like ISIS and others.
"The term “Daesh” is strategically a better choice because it is still accurate in that it spells out the acronym of the group’s full Arabic name, al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham. Yet, at the same time, “Daesh” can also be understood as a play on words — and an insult. Depending on how it is conjugated in Arabic, it can mean anything from “to trample down and crush” to “a bigot who imposes his view on others.” Already, the group has reportedly threatened to cut out the tongues of anyone who uses the term.
Why do they care so much? The same reason the United States should. Language matters."
PRAYER ALERT September 22, 2015: Here we are, right before the Day of Trumpets. We have attacked ISIS in Syria in Raqqa, the so-called capital of their Islamic state before the eve of Yom Teruah. Some say the shofar blown on the Day pf Trumpets is for joy, others say for war.
Airstrikes by U.S. and Allies Hit ISIS Targets in Syria
"WASHINGTON — The United States and allies launched airstrikes against Sunni militants in Syria early Tuesday, unleashing a torrent of cruise missiles and precision-guided bombs from the air and sea on the militants’ de facto capital of Raqqa and along the porous Iraq border.PRAYER ALERT September 11, 2014: Yesterday, speaking from the State Floor in the White House on September 10, 2014, President Obama addressed the nation saying no boots on the ground but as of July 1st, The Pentagon differs on that statement. Obama also said: "ISIL is not Islamic..." Barak Hussein... are you kidding me?
American fighter jets and armed Predator and Reaper drones, flying alongside warplanes from several Arab allies, struck a broad array of targets in territory controlled by the militants, known as the Islamic State. American defense officials said the targets included weapons supplies, depots, barracks and buildings the militants use for command and control. Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired from United States Navy ships in the region.
The strikes are a major turning point in President Obama’s war against the Islamic State and open up a risky new stage of the American military campaign. Until now, the administration had bombed Islamic State targets only in Iraq, and had suggested it would be weeks if not months before the start of a bombing campaign against Islamic State targets in Syria.
Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates took part in the strikes, American officials said, although the Arab governments were not expected to announce their participation until later Tuesday. The new coalition’s makeup is significant because the United States was able to recruit Sunni governments to take action against the Sunni militants of the Islamic State. The operation also unites the squabbling states of the Persian Gulf.
The strikes came less than two weeks after Mr. Obama announced in an address to the nation that he was authorizing an expansion of the military campaign against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.
Unlike American strikes in Iraq over the past month, which have been small-bore bombings of mostly individual Islamic State targets — patrol boats and trucks — the salvo on Tuesday in Syria was the beginning of what was expected to be a sustained, hours long bombardment at targets in the militant headquarters in Raqqa and on the border.
The strikes began after years of debate within the Obama administration about whether the United States should intervene militarily or should avoid another entanglement in a complex war in the Middle East. But the Islamic State controls a broad swath of land across both Iraq and Syria."
Statements from local Muslims in Israel differ as reported by Israel Today:
“ISIS is on the right path,” an imam at a mosque in northern Israel preached last week. At another mosque in the area, a congregant publicly declared, “The Islamic State is the only one that can establish an Islamic state, and it is good they are punishing people. I hope they make it to Israel.” “When the picture becomes clear, everyone will understand that the Islamic State is the only solution for everyone. Jews should also support the state and convert to Islam,” another imam told Ynet."A former Muslim, now Christian, Brother Rachid is a Moroccan Christian convert from Islam whose father is a well-known Imam has something to say to President Obama. He is one of the most outspoken converts in the world, he hosts a weekly live call-in show on Al hayat TV where he compares Islam and Christianity as well as debates Islamic scholars. Brother Rachid gave this message earlier this month:
Rashid converted from Islam to Christianity after studying the differences between the two faiths with the original intent to defend Islam. In this video called “A Message to President Obama From a Former Muslim”, he asserts that the actions of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) do speak for the religion of Islam despite assertions to the contrary and asserts that terrorism begins in Muslim schools and mosques.
PRAYER ALERT August 31, 2014: Is the Greece of Daniel 10:20 making a move? Stars and Stripes reports: Hagel going to Turkey as US tries to build ‘coalition of the willing’ against the Islamic State
"Turkey is a key NATO ally. And given its border with Syria and Iraq, they share our deep concerns with … the regional threat posed by ISIL,” Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby told reporters. “We want a coalition of the willing. We want to seek partners in this effort,” Kirby said. Hagel’s stop in Turkey will come near the end of a six-day international trip which begins Wednesday. “Secretary Hagel has longstanding relationships with Turkey’s leaders, including the newly-inaugurated President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan, and he views this visit as an important opportunity to advance our critical relationship,” Kirby said.Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't The Great Altar of Pergamon or Satan's Throne as John called it from Pergamos, near today's Bergama, Turkey? Didn't Mohamed Elibiary, a senior fellow of Obama’s Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council say America is an Islamic Country? What is it about the Home of the Ottoman Empire... Turkey? Yusuf al-Qaradawi,an Egyptian Muslim Cleric who has is widely, including "Islam: The Future Civilization" and broadcasts his show "Shariah and Life" on Al Jazeera, which has an estimated audience of 60 million worldwide says... All Muslim Nations Must Give Allegiance To Turkey.
"Daniel 7:24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings."The Aramaic word here translated as 'subdue' in the King James is shĕphal. It means 'cast down'. Will the Islamic State end up tossing off of moving away from three (Iraq breakup) and end up focused on the ten from the seat of Turkey? ISIS posts Caliphate map of states. Use Google Chrome if you want to translate, here's what you will see...
"So is The Caliphate State, three and ten Aahngti toward the hemisphere"The words "three and ten" coming out of the translation jumped of the page and seem to point to the fourth beast, the fourth empire of Daniel 7.
Incredibly, other than sending Hagel to Turkey, ABC News has reported: "The President has No Strategy on ISIS". This seems incoherent, but as it is seen on the map, the Islamic State has a strategy of Biblical proportions. While Hagel says ISIS, the President says ISIL which means the Islamic State of Iraq in the Levant. As you can see by the map, the Levant is a larger geographic area that includes not only Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan and Turkey at its core but the entire Middle East including Iran and Saudi Arabia as well as all of Northern Africa including Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and the Sudan.
The area also includes all of the seven former Soviet Union's Islamic "stan" nations of West Central Asia. These include Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The "stan" in each is actually from an ancient Persian word meaning homeland so, Afghanistan means "homeland" of the Afghans. Perhaps the reason the Commander in Chief has no admitted strategy against this rebirth of the Ottoman Empire short of a full ground invasion, is that the U.S. or a coalition would in the end, need to enlist Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as an ally of sorts which would be an gross indictment of President Obama's foreign policies. If you think that is absolutely crazy, consider the concept of enlisting Iran's help. CNN reported on Secretary of State John Kerry suggesting this on June 17th. Wake up 'Watchman'!! David Cameron has raised the alert for terror in Britain. Meanwhile, Obama, the golfaholic democrat has no strategy.
Fox News reports chatter that the Texas Department of Public Safety has put out a border alert on ISIS warning of domestic disaster:
“A review of ISIS social media messaging during the week ending August 26 shows that militants are expressing an increased interest in the notion that they could clandestinely infiltrate the southwest border of US, for terror attack,” warns the Texas Department of Public Safety "situational awareness" bulletin, obtained by FoxNews.com. The three-page bulletin, entitled “ISIS Interest on the US Southwest Border” and dated Aug. 28 was released to law enforcement on Thursday."PRAYER ALERT August 30, 2014: Today, AFP reports on what appears like a possible proxy request by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. I say proxy because the Saudi military consists of the Saudi Arabian Army, the Royal Saudi Air Force, the Royal Saudi Navy, the Royal Saudi Air Defense and paramilitary forces totaling some 200,000 active-duty personnel and 300 combat aircraft including Eurofighter Typhoons, upgraded Tornado IDS, F-15 Eagle and F-15E Strike Eagle fighter planes. With a $67 billion budget, Saudi Arabia ranks among the top 5 nations in the world in military spending. They are next door to Iraq, why haven't they engaged the terror threat headed South? The headline reads: Saudi king warns West will be jihadists' next target
"Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) (AFP) - King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has warned that the West will be the next target of the jihadists sweeping through Syria and Iraq, unless there is "rapid" action. "If we ignore them, I am sure they will reach Europe in a month and America in another month," he said in remarks quoted on Saturday by Asharq al-Awsat daily and Saudi-backed Al-Arabiya television station. "Terrorism knows no border and its danger could affect several countries outside the Middle East," said the king who was speaking at a welcoming ceremony on Friday for new ambassadors, including a new envoy from Saudi ally the United States. The Islamic State (IS) jihadist group has prompted widespread concern as it advances in both Syria and Iraq, killing hundreds of people, including in gruesome beheadings and mass executions. Lack of action would be "unacceptable" in the face of the phenomenon, King Abdullah said.Reading the words of John Kerry above... ISIS must no longer be a 'JV' team to our President who has been unable or perhaps unwilling due to his own Muslim training, to define the enormity of the threat of militant Islamic jihad to America, our European allies, Israel or the Middle East. The Telegraph says "Such a coalition would likely have to include Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Gulf countries, which, plagued by diplomatic rivalries between themselves, make unlikely bedfellows."
"You see how they (jihadists) carry out beheadings and make children show the severed heads in the street," he said, condemning the "cruelty" of such acts. "It is no secret to you, what they have done and what they have yet to do. I ask you to transmit this message to your leaders: 'Fight terrorism with force, reason and (necessary) speed'." President Barack Obama has yet to decide whether the United States should launch raids against positions held by the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria to follow US air strikes on IS activities in Iraq. US Secretary of State John Kerry called Friday for a global coalition to combat Islamic State fighters' "genocidal agenda". Writing in the New York Times, Kerry said he and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will meet European counterparts on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Wales next week, to enlist assistance.
They will then travel on to the Middle East to build support "among the countries that are most directly threatened".
"With a united response led by the United States and the broadest possible coalition of nations, the cancer of ISIS will not be allowed to spread to other countries," Kerry said in Friday's op-ed piece. Asharq Al-Awsat said the king urged other countries to join the UN Counter-Terrorism Centre, set up in 2011 to respond to new threats, and to which Saudi Arabia has made a grant of $100 million."
"Meanwhile, Islamic State declared, via its English language publication Dabiq, that its goal is to "continue striking every apostate who stands as an obstacle on its path towards Palestine… it is only a matter of time and patience before (IS) reaches Palestine to fight the barbaric Jews and kill those of them hiding behind the gharqad trees – the trees of the Jews." That is a partial change of rhetoric from Islamic State's earlier focus on first establishing an Islamic caliphate by concentrating on fighting insurrection campaigns in Arab countries. So far, Islamic State seldom focused on Israel or other Western countries, such as the United States – though they have recently threatened retaliation on the US after the latter bombed IS positions in Iraq and said it was considering to do in Syria, as well."i24 also reports today that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared: 'We ended Gaza op due to other regional threats'
"Netanyahu says with IS knocking on Jordan's door, militants on Golan heights, he chose to conserve firepower Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday stated he has decided to end the latest round of warfare against Gaza-based militants to preserve military resources in view of other regional threats.Earlier today, J.E. Dyer at Liberty Unyielding... posted the video noted in a August 19th Reuters report. The video has been withdraw from YouTube:
"We have fought 50 days and we could gone for 500 days, but we are in a situation where we have the Islamic State knocking on Jordan's door, al-Qaida on the Golan Heights and at the Lebanese border," Netanyahu told Israel's Channel 2."
Four days ago, Reuters reported that ISIS had released a new video, in the wake of the video showing the beheading of journalist James Foley. ISIS called this new video “Breaking the American cross.” Said Reuters: The video with the theme “breaking of the American cross” boasts Islamic State will emerge victorious over “crusader” America. It follows a video posted on Monday warning of attacks on American targets if Washington struck against its fighters in Iraq and Syria. The video showed footage of President Barack Obama as well as strategic U.S. ally King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, and attacks on American soldiers.The ISIS video hatefully plays 'Amazing Grace' and shows ISIS soldiers on horseback. With today's modern equipment and modern tank warfare, I've often wondered about the prophecy of Zechariah 12:4 but the words seemed to jump off the screen as I reluctantly watched the video:
"On that day I will strike every horse with panic and its rider with madness," declares the LORD. "I will keep a watchful eye over Judah, but I will blind all the horses of the nations."PRAYER ALERT August 28, 2014: A report from ANTAKYA, Turkey Found: The Islamic State's Terror Laptop of Doom Buried in a Dell computer captured in Syria are lessons for making bubonic plague bombs and missives on using weapons of mass destruction.
Abu Ali, a commander of a moderate Syrian rebel group in northern Syria, proudly shows a black laptop partly covered in dust. "We took it this year from an ISIS hideout," he says."
PRAYER ALERT August 27, 2014: The words of Nahum 3:18 "Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria: thy nobles shall dwell in the dust: thy people is scattered upon the mountains, and no man gathereth them."
On Mount Sinjar Iraq the prophetic words of Nahum are before us as the Guardian reports: Yazidis still stranded on Mount Sinjar: 'We need weapons now more than food or water'
"For the US and its allies, Mount Sinjar is a success story: a humanitarian disaster alleviated by US air power. But hundreds, if not thousands, of Iraqis – mostly sick and old – remain atop the mountain, with no relief on its way.PRAYER ALERT August 25, 2014: Yesterday, AFP published a report that sounded almost as if it had been scripted from the apocalyptic pages of Daniel, Ezekiel and Revelation. It concluded with a hint at the words of Isaiah:
Satellite images taken on 21 August by the firm ImageSat International and interviews with members of the Yazidi religious minority still on the mountain indicate a humanitarian emergency continuing to unfold. While thousands have fled down the mountain’s north face, making a dangerous trek into Iraqi Kurdistan through Syria, those on the southern side remain in crisis.
There has not been a US airdrop of food, water or medicine since 13 August, after a reconnaissance team of US special operations forces that had briefly been on the mountain reported that conditions were not as dire as Washington initially thought.
Survivors of the Islamic State (Isis) siege describe leaving behind their elderly and infirm relatives. The younger Yazidis who have stayed behind talk of fighting Isis until they either liberate Sinjar city below or they die.
One Yazidi man, Abu Sulaiman, described the situation on the mountain now as “heartbreaking”.
Islamic State 'beyond anything we've seen': US Washington (AFP) - The Islamic State poses a greater danger than a conventional "terrorist group" and is pursuing a vision that could radically alter the face of the Middle East, US defense leaders said Thursday. The IS jihadists could be contained and eventually defeated by local forces backed by the United States, but the Sunni population in both Syria and Iraq would need to reject the group, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and General Martin Dempsey told reporters.Concluding his remarks, potential conflict near Damascus is seen:
Hagel warned that the Islamic State is better armed, trained and funded than any recent militant threat.
"They marry ideology and a sophistication of strategic and tactical military prowess. They are tremendously well funded. This is beyond anything we have seen," Hagel told a news conference. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the group adheres to a fanatical ideology and has "a long-term vision" to take over Lebanon, Israel and Kuwait.
"If they achieve that vision, it would fundamentally alter the face of the Middle East and create a security environment that would certainly threaten us in many ways," he said.
""Can they be defeated without addressing that part of the organization that resides in Syria? The answer is no," the general said."This Associated Press report gave more details from Four Star Army General Martin Dempsey on the Islamic State's "apocalyptic, end-of-days strategic vision". Please read the AP report. Then, ask yourself something. Other than from a Hollywood script, have you ever heard words like "apocalyptic, end-of-days strategic vision" from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, America's top-ranked military officer? I know I haven't and here's the thing, ISIS controls more land and people than any terror organization in modern history where they have declared an Islamic Caliphate with the goal to occupy the Middle East in order to destroy Israel, and then to extend their Caliphate from Jerusalem across the Levant and the world, now you know why YHVH of Hosts [Warriors] says:
Again the word of the LORD of hosts came to me, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; I was jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and I was jealous for her with great fury. Thus saith the LORD; I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and Jerusalem shall be called a city of truth; and the mountain of the LORD of hosts the holy mountain. Zechariah 8:1-3PRAYER ALERT August 23, 2014: Be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray. How should we respond to the Islamic threat? This important sermon is from a small congregation in Seattle including Jewish believers and followers of King Messiah. The bold message from fellowship leader Hylan Slobodkin focuses on the weighty times, the Middle East and the need for our prayer as a real and valid spiritual weapon.
It warns against slumbering blind watchmen as we all must be informed, asks for prayers warriors and spread the message of the Kingdom. (Less than 40 minutes, some brief audio glitches in the beginning.) Pass it along.
"Christians are being persecuted all over the world. However, the Islamic State persecution is different because they want to take over the world, literally, and reestablish the caliphate, an Islamic state led by a supreme religious and political leader known as a caliph, or successor to Mohammad, ruled by Islamic sharia law. We need to be informed, with the goal of encouraging focused, unified prayer as a spiritual weapon, in cooperation with God's purposes."Audio: http://beittikvah.us/media/sermons/Details?id=1825 UStream Video: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/51751378
PRAYER ALERT August 7, 2014: I am sickened to share this. To begin, yesterday, Rick Wiles of TruNews Radio interviewed Canon Andrew White, chaplain of the St. George’s Anglican Church in Iraq who recently warned that Christianity may be wiped out in the next few days in Iraq, but he has refused to flee. Breaking Christian News has reported on his plea:
Barbara Bolan of CNS News reports: "Christianity in Mosul is dead, and a Christian holocaust is in our midst," said Mark Arabo, a Californian businessman and Chaldean-American leader. In an interview with CNN's Jonathan Mann, he called what's happening in Iraq a "Christian genocide" and said "children are being beheaded, mothers are being raped and killed, and fathers are being hung."
My prayer is that the words of Jeremiah 32:36-41 are also given for these people of Mosul:
I earnestly pray that Israel will do the same. I have written Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu imploring he can do a great mitzveh, a great deed of kindness not unlike the favor shown by Arthur James Balfour. You can too. After all, the last Christian of Mosul, a 70 year old man named Yacob was spared by ISIS.
The Bible tells us that the Angel of God gave Yacob a blessing, He gave him the name Israel. Prime Minister, you too can share a blessing in the land whose very name means "God Prevails".
PRAYER ALERT July 29, 2014: Historian: Destruction of Jonah's Tomb Ignored by West
Zack Beauchamp, Max Fisher and Dylan Matthews of Vox provide a look at 27 maps that are very helpful in explaining the complications of the crisis in Iraq. As you look at the maps, remember the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 was the secret agreement between the United Kingdom, France and Russia that defined the borders of Syria and Iraq as part of the plan to break up the Ottoman Empire. Now, just 100 years later, that plan is being pillaged by the conflict of Sunni and Shi'ite as the map of The Middle East is being morphed back in time. With ISIS, there is no border between Syria and Iraq, and perhaps soon there will be no border between Lebanon and Iran.
It now seems possible that the king of the north described by Daniel is Sunni and the king of the south is Shi'ite. We already know by the horrific violence infesting Northern Iraq, that ISIS has 'abundant supplies' and they are headed for Baghdad, a 'well fortified city' with the 'best troops' that have been armed and trained by the West. We also know the end-game if ISIS is to come against 'the glorious land'... Israel:
PRAYER ALERT June 30, 2014: As the jihadist group ISIS on Sunday declared the establishment of a “Caliphate”, or Islamic state spanning parts of both Iraq and Syria with the group’s leader as the ruling “Caliph”... ISIS fanatics publicly crucify nine men in Syria as rival militias in Iraq prove just as brutal
"Jordan’s king told a delegation of US congressmen Sunday that he fears the turmoil in Iraq could spill over into the entire region." Read more: Jordan's king: We fear spread of Iraq chaos | The Times of Israel.
"Just this week, Canon Andrew Wright sent out a global call for prayer, saying the world was so focused on blaming Israel for the Gaza conflict that they were ignoring the horrors being inflicted on Iraqi Christians by the same terrorist mindset working against Israel."During the radio broadcast, Reverend White sounds desperately sad in the 20 minute telephone interview, weeping as he says he cannot adequately describe the tribulation in Iraq. This critically important interview begins @ minute 13:50. So you can fast forward if you like. PLEASE listen to it, pray and consider helping. Details are given toward the end of the 20 minute interview or you can donate directly to the church or here. You can also view his comments in this August 7th report from BBC NewsNight.
"You are saying about this city, ‘By the sword, famine and plague it will be given into the hands of the king of Babylon’; but this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I will surely gather them from all the lands where I banish them in my furious anger and great wrath; I will bring them back to this place and let them live in safety. They will be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me and that all will then go well for them and for their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me. I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul."The nation of France has offered asylum, "We are ready, if they wish, to facilitate their asylum on our soil."
I earnestly pray that Israel will do the same. I have written Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu imploring he can do a great mitzveh, a great deed of kindness not unlike the favor shown by Arthur James Balfour. You can too. After all, the last Christian of Mosul, a 70 year old man named Yacob was spared by ISIS.
The Bible tells us that the Angel of God gave Yacob a blessing, He gave him the name Israel. Prime Minister, you too can share a blessing in the land whose very name means "God Prevails".
He said, "Your name will no longer be called 'Ya`akov,' but, 'Yisra'el,' for you have fought with God and with men, and have prevailed." Genesis 32:28 HNVISIS Captures City in Lebanon as Threat Moves Closer to Israel
"The radical Islamic terror organization, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), has gained a larger foothold in Lebanon as it faces off against the Lebanese army. Hezbollah announced on Wednesday that for the moment, it has no plans to confront ISIS. Hezbollah leaders told the Lebanese Daily Star that it has only agreed to provide logistical support to the Lebanese army. However, should ISIS capture significant territory, Hezbollah leadership implied that it would enter the fray.France has offered Iraqi Christians asylum, what will you do? PRAYER ALERT August 4, 2014: If true, this might just kick start a Revelation 18 nightmare... Saudi Arabia Seeks to Protect Mecca after ISIS Destroys Iraqi Religious Sites - Reports
Since Monday, Lebanese forces and members of ISIS have been squaring off in northern Lebanon. According to reports, ISIS has captured the city of Arsal.
The Telegraph reported that the Syrian terror group set up check-points throughout the city, which has some 40,000 residents and approximately 120,000 Syrian refugees."
"MOSCOW, August 4 (RIA Novosti) - Saudi Arabia is seeking help from Pakistan and Egypt to protect its borders and religious sites from attacks by the Islamic State (IS), formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), the International Business Times reported.In addition to this, the Islamic State militants fight for Iraq's two biggest dams.
"The kingdom is calling in favors from Egypt and Pakistan. No one is certain what ISIS has planned, but it's clear a group like this will target Mecca if it can. We expect them to run out of steam, but no one is taking any chances," the International Business Times wrote Sunday citing an adviser to the Saudi government."
"The recent destruction of the tomb of the Biblical figure Jonah has been met with a disturbing silence by the West, according to historian Timothy Stanley, a former professor at Oxford and Harvard Universities. "We're witnessing the destruction of an entire civilization — of a society. "That's a remarkable war crime obviously without any justification,'' Stanley said Tuesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.PRAYER ALERT July 28, 2014: USA Today reports...Iraq is already splitting into three states For all you Bible prophecy students out there that have studied the Scriptures including the book of Daniel, you are probably familiar with the passage found in Daniel 7 and Daniel 11 that describes three states as none other than that which Joe Biden proposed in 2006 dividing Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds...
Eyewitnesses say the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant — the al-Qaida-related terror group that has captured city after city in Iraq — purposely destroyed the sacred shrine, which is located east of Mosul. ISIL has also been called the Islamic State of Iraq and the Syria or ISIS. Stanley said the lack of outrage by the West over the sickening desecration is stunning. "[We] have a duty to ask ourselves why our society chooses not to speak about what's happening there. It says something about our lack of confidence as a Judeo-Christian western culture that we don't like commenting upon a lot of what goes on in the Middle East,'' Stanley said.
"By ignoring it, we are essentially facilitating it and it's just absolutely horrendous. It's so sad to see the destruction of Jonah's tomb. This is a holy prophet and the West has nothing to say about it whatsoever. "Of course, it's not just relics being destroyed, it's also people being killed, being driven out their homes, being raped, being treated in a dreadful, dreadful manner and the West is shamefully silent.''"
"After that, in my vision at night I looked, and there before me was a fourth beast--terrifying and frightening and very powerful. It had large iron teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left. It was different from all the former beasts, and it had ten horns. While I was thinking about the horns, there before me was another horn, a little one, which came up among them; and three of the first horns were uprooted before it. This horn had eyes like the eyes of a human being and a mouth that spoke boastfully. Daniel 7:7-8Do you now think the beast might be the radical jihadists of Islam? Dare we consider the Kingdom of Greece represents "the West" and the ideologies that ISIS jihadists detest and seek to destroy? Dare we consider Iraq could soon become a three-headed kingdom? Dare we consider how ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may arise to become a mighty king who shall rule with great dominion and do as he wills? If we step back, today it seems feasible that Iraq may very well split into three warring states: 1) an ISIS Sunni terrorist state in the northwest extending into Syria, 2) a Kurdish territory in the northeast bordering Iran and 3) a Shi'ite territory in the south. Time Magazine has been reporting on this for quite some time.
“And now I will show you the truth. Behold, three more kings shall arise in Persia, and a fourth shall be far richer than all of them. And when he has become strong through his riches, he shall stir up all against the kingdom of Greece. Then a mighty king shall arise, who shall rule with great dominion and do as he wills. And as soon as he has arisen, his kingdom shall be broken and divided toward the four winds of heaven, but not to his posterity, nor according to the authority with which he ruled, for his kingdom shall be plucked up and go to others besides these." Daniel 11:2-4
Zack Beauchamp, Max Fisher and Dylan Matthews of Vox provide a look at 27 maps that are very helpful in explaining the complications of the crisis in Iraq. As you look at the maps, remember the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 was the secret agreement between the United Kingdom, France and Russia that defined the borders of Syria and Iraq as part of the plan to break up the Ottoman Empire. Now, just 100 years later, that plan is being pillaged by the conflict of Sunni and Shi'ite as the map of The Middle East is being morphed back in time. With ISIS, there is no border between Syria and Iraq, and perhaps soon there will be no border between Lebanon and Iran.
It now seems possible that the king of the north described by Daniel is Sunni and the king of the south is Shi'ite. We already know by the horrific violence infesting Northern Iraq, that ISIS has 'abundant supplies' and they are headed for Baghdad, a 'well fortified city' with the 'best troops' that have been armed and trained by the West. We also know the end-game if ISIS is to come against 'the glorious land'... Israel:
"Then the king of the south, moved with rage, shall come out and fight against the king of the north. And he shall raise a great multitude, but it shall be given into his hand. And when the multitude is taken away, his heart shall be exalted, and he shall cast down tens of thousands, but he shall not prevail. For the king of the north shall again raise a multitude, greater than the first. And after some years he shall come on with a great army and abundant supplies. n those times many shall rise against the king of the south, and the violent among your own people shall lift themselves up in order to fulfill the vision, but they shall fail. Then the king of the north shall come and throw up siegeworks and take a well-fortified city. And the forces of the south shall not stand, or even his best troops, for there shall be no strength to stand. But he who comes against him shall do as he wills, and none shall stand before him. And he shall stand in the glorious land, with destruction in his hand." Daniel 11:11-16PRAYER ALERT July 22, 2014: ISIS Torches 1,800-Year-Old Church in Mosul; Priest Says City Is 'Now Empty of Christians'
"The torching of the church comes on the heels of the destruction of a number of other Christian monuments in Iraq in recent months including the tomb of biblical prophet Jonah, which was dug up by ISIL militants in the east of Mosul."ISIS Forces Last Iraqi Christians to Flee Mosul
"Since 2003, when Saddam Hussein was ousted, Mosul’s Christians, one of the oldest communities of its kind in the world, had seen their numbers dwindle from over 30,000 to just a few thousand. However, once ISIS swept into the city in early June, there were reports that the remaining Christians had fled. The NYT report said that interviews on Friday with Christian elders and leaders suggested that in fact many had hung on, hoping for a way to continue the quiet practice of their faith in the city that had been their home for more than 1,700 years. Friday’s edict was probably the real end. While a few may still find a way to stay in secret, the community will be gone."PRAYER ALERT July 10, 2014: Fox News reports: ISIS destroys shrines and mosques, may be targeting Mecca
"For the Christians displaced from Mosul, the NYT said, sudden departure has meant a series of treks—first to nearby Christian villages like Bartella and Hamdaniya, already badly overcrowded, then to Kurdistan, a semiautonomous region of Iraq where there is more tolerance for Christians.
As the Christians leave Mosul, ISIS has painted the Arabic letter that means "Nasrani," from Nazarene, a word often used to refer to Christians, on their homes. Next to the letter, in black, are the words, "Property of the Islamic State of Iraq.""
"ISIS is leaving a path of destroyed churches, shrines and mosques in its wake as it storms across Syria and Iraq, and has even set its sights on Mecca -- Islam's holiest site. The nihilistic jihadis, led by self-proclaimed descendant of Prophet Muhammad Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, have already bulldozed or blown up some of the most sacred places in Iraq, and seem bent on killing and destroying anyone or anything that does not measure up to their vision of Islam. Experts say the group, which originally stood for Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, but now simply calls itself "Islamic State," has appointed itself the leading proponent of the Muslim faith.PRAYER ALERT July 6, 2014: The events we see in Syria and Iraq today are described in this NY Times article: Power Struggles in Middle East Exploit Islam’s Ancient Sectarian Rift
“They see themselves as the last defenders of Islamic civilization and want to eradicate anything that they see as the enemy of Islam, and any Muslim they perceive as compromising with the West,” Yvonne Haddad, a professor at Georgetown University who specializes in the history of Islam and Christian-Muslim relations, told FoxNews.com."
"Is there no end to their depraved brutality? The fanatical jihadists waging war across Syria and Iraq have already horrified the world with their mass shootings and the discovery of a “death pit” where they hurl victims’ bodies. Now, they have employed a cruelty many centuries old — crucifixion. The fiends of ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, also known as ISIL) publicly hung nine men on crosses at the weekend in Syria."As jihadist forces horrified...
"Jordan’s king told a delegation of US congressmen Sunday that he fears the turmoil in Iraq could spill over into the entire region." Read more: Jordan's king: We fear spread of Iraq chaos | The Times of Israel.
"There have been Christians in Iraq since the first century when two disciples of Jesus are said to have brought the Gospel here. As recently as 2003, Iraq had 1.5 million Christians. But since then there have been more than 70 attacks on churches, several priests have been murdered and the number of Christians has plummeted to less than 500,000. This latest spasm of sectarian violence will probably lead to another mass exodus."CBN News provides this request for prayer: ISIS to Iraqi Christians: 'Obey, Pay, or Leave'
"About 25,000 Christians have fled to Bartilla, but CBN News couldn't find one who would talk on camera out of fear of retribution. The conditions in Bartilla are abysmal. There's no water because ISIS turned it off. And there's no electricity because Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's government turned that off. People here are protected by the Peshmerga, who have set up a perimeter around the town and a few other towns in the area. These people know that ISIS could come in and kill most of the people here.CBN provides this video from Tom Doyle, author of Dreams and Visions: Is Jesus Awakening the Muslim World, offers a unique insight into what's happening in the Middle East right now and how Christians can respond.
They're asking for prayer from Christians around the world. One Christian leader said they're asking for prayer just as the Apostle Paul did, praying that God will protect the town and the region."
"In the midst of this cauldron surrounding Iraq's Christians, Majeed sent out a prayer S.O.S. "So please raise up prayer for us. This is what we need," he said. "We do believe that prayer is very important because we hear when man is work[ing], man is working. But when man is praying, God is working." "So it is important for the churches outside Iraq to raise up prayers and also to fast for the sake of the people of Iraq," he continued. "It's important for the other churches to pray for them to be protected," he admonished. "Please pray for us -- this is the only thing for the right time. We have nothing to do. People outside can do nothing for us except praying.""
"For I will cause Elam to be dismayed before their enemies, and before them that seek their life: and I will bring evil upon them, even my fierce anger, saith the LORD; and I will send the sword after them, till I have consumed them: And I will set my throne in Elam, and will destroy from thence the king and the princes, saith the LORD. But it shall come to pass in the latter days, that I will bring again the captivity of Elam, saith the LORD." Jeremiah 49:37-39God tells Jeremiah what is next in Jeremiah 50 and Jeremiah 51. Notice "the least of the flocks shall draw them out". Could ISIS be the least of the flock? There will be a cry among the nations...
"Therefore hear ye the counsel of the LORD, that he hath taken against Babylon; and his purposes, that he hath purposed against the land of the Chaldeans: Surely the least of the flock shall draw them out: surely he shall make their habitation desolate with them. At the noise of the taking of Babylon the earth is moved, and the cry is heard among the nations." Jeremiah 50:45-46The conclusion of chapter 51 states...
"So Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come upon Babylon, [even] all these words that are written against Babylon. And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, When thou comest to Babylon, and shalt see, and shalt read all these words; Then shalt thou say, O LORD, thou hast spoken against this place, to cut it off, that none shall remain in it, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate for ever. And it shall be, when thou hast made an end of reading this book, [that] thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of Euphrates: And thou shalt say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I will bring upon her: and they shall be weary. Thus far [are] the words of Jeremiah." Jeremiah 51:60-64PRAYER ALERT June 19, 2014: I think that this is an important report today from JNS and a must read that provides a thoughtful and unique view beyond the headline. It very well may address prophetic events tied to Jacob's trouble and tribulation for Ephraim possibly tying people and events beginning in 740 BC to 2014.
The Assyrian invasions of Northern Israel recorded in Assyrian cuneiform states that captives were taken from Samaria. This lasted 18 years until 722 BC. Interestingly, 18 years from now will mark what many believe to be 2,000 years (2 days) or 40 Jubilees from the Passover cross. Christianity Like Jews before them, Iraq’s Christians may face extinction after jihadist invasion
"For most Westerners, Iraq is a foreboding and dangerous place that is filled with extremists and daily violence. Yet as little as 75 years ago Iraq was a vibrant country that was home to many different ethnic and religious minorities, including large Jewish and Christian populations. But the latest round of violence spearheaded by the jihadist terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), which is driving through the heart of Iraq to the capital of Baghdad and inflicting medieval-style Islamic justice on anyone in its path, might be the last gasp of Iraq’s ancient Christian community, which faces extinction like Iraq’s Jewish community before it. “Iraq used to be a beautiful mosaic made of many different faiths, including Judaism,” Juliana Taimoorazy, founder and president of the Iraqi Christian Relief Council, told JNS.org.If your read the report, you will notice the reporter errs just a bit stating that the Northern tribes of Israel who were expelled to Mesopotamia by the ancient Assyrians were "Jewish". The Bible clearly describes something different. Most miss it but the Bible calls these people of the northern hill-country cities of Ephraim and Manasseh by the name "Ephraim".
Like the Jewish people, the Christians of Iraq have a long and storied history that can be traced back to the very foundations of human civilization. Most Iraqi Christians belong to an ethnic group known as the Assyrians. The Assyrian people consider themselves to be direct descendants of the numerous ancient Mesopotamian civilizations such as the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians. “The Assyrians, also known as Chaldeans and Syriacs are the children of Sumerians, the original people of Iraq,” Taimoorazy said. Mentioned numerous times in the bible from Genesis and onward, the peoples of Mesopotamia were key in formation of Judeo-Christian history. It is the land where the biblical patriarch Abraham hailed from."
The Jewish people, the people of Judah and Benjamin lived in the southern kingdom in and around Jerusalem, the Assyrians did not overtake the Southern Kingdom, but the Ottoman Muslims did and they were forced to give it up in 1920 and they are fighting to get it back.
PRAYER ALERT August 4, 2014: Gaza Crisis: Isis Pledge to Join the Palestinian Fight Against ‘Barbaric Jews’
"The Islamic militant group, who last month announced a “Caliphate” straddling the Iraqi-Syrian border and renamed themselves the Islamic State, released the provocative statement on an Isis-affiliated Twitter account. “It is only matter of time and patience before it [Islamic State] reaches Palestine to fight the barbaric Jews and kill those of them hiding behind the gharqad trees – the trees of the Jews,” the statement read. The group said it would do “everything within its means” to continue the fight against any obstacleon the way to “Palestine”, alluding to the Middle Eastern territory before the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.PRAYER ALERT June 16, 2014: If you care about America, you need to understand the mind of Homeland Security official Mohamed Elibiary. His remarks on Twitter should make your skin crawl when you realize that he is a leader at the Department of Homeland Security. You'll want to read the full article. Senior DHS Adviser: ‘Inevitable that ‘Caliphate’ Returns’
“As for the massacres taking place in Gaza against the Muslim men, women and children, then the Islamic State will do everything within its means to continue striking down every apostate who stands as an obstacle on its paths towards Palestine,” the group said."
"A controversial senior adviser to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is receiving criticism for tweeting that the recent takeover of Iraqi cities by a violent terror group is proof that a Muslim “caliphate” is making an “inevitable” return. Mohamed Elibiary, a controversial figure and member of DHS’s Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC), discussed what he described as the “inevitable” return of a Muslim caliphate Friday on Twitter."You now know what Mohamed Elibiary says. Here's what Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed Caliph says:
"Our Last Message Is To The Americans. Soon We Will Be In Direct Confrontation, And The Sons Of Islam Have Prepared For Such A Day. So Watch, For We Are With You."U.S. Plans to Evacuate Many Embassy Workers "ERBIL, Iraq — The American Embassy in Baghdad plans to evacuate a substantial number of its personnel this week in the face of a militant advance that rapidly swept from the north toward the capital, the State Department announced on Sunday.
The embassy, a beige fortress on the banks of the Tigris River within the heavily secured Green Zone, where Iraqi government buildings are also situated, has the largest staff of any United States Embassy. The exact number of people being evacuated from Baghdad — the American government prefers to say they are being “relocated” — was not disclosed. But the embassy will remain open, and most of its staff will remain, according to the State Department."
News.com.au reports: Iraq is a tangled web of religious, racial and political conflict. Here’s where the key players fit
"IRAQ is imploding as a brutal force of jihadist extremists — almost medieval in their beliefs — storms over dispirited defenders. The world has been forced to take notice as the insurgents brutally massacre government soldiers, even posting pictures of the mass slayings on social media. Meanwhile confused reports emerge of the blood-soaked fanatics closing in on the capital Baghdad as Westerners prepare to flee."
"SUNNI MUSLIMS: At the core of Iraq’s turmoil is a religious divide that reaches back almost 1500 years — the Sunni and Shiite factions who, essentially, disagreed over who the Prophet Muhammad’s true successor was. Like most religious movements, the Sunnis are made up of hundreds of different factions and groups — all with their own interpretation of how to enact God’s will. Once the faction of dictator Saddam Hussein, the overthrow of the old power structure by the Coalition of the Willing in 2003 opened up the opportunity for the opposing Shiite Muslims to take control — and revenge. There are believed to be almost twice as many Shiites as Sunnis in Iraq. However with the well-organised insurgency mainly led by radical Sunnis, the balance is swinging once more.
SHIITE MUSLIMS: This Islamic faction with its powerbase in Iran has seen the recent Western occupation as a golden opportunity to entrench itself as the new power base in Iraq. Controversially, the US-backed Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been one of the prime movers behind this push — though the US has turned a blind eye. The result is a divided nation that saw its people come to regard the government as an instrument of religious oppression, not an impartial mediator and source of justice.
BAGHDAD GOVERNMENT: Under the figurehead of President Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish politician who helped establish his people’s semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq, the true power behind the Iraqi flag is Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The leader of a prominent Shiite political-religious group, he rose to the top job in 2006 and has since set about strengthening his own religious faction’s position at the cost of others. He ousted Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, the top Sunni religious faction politician, as soon as the US withdrew its last troops in 2012.
Sentenced to death in absentia for crimes of terrorism, the whereabouts of Hashemi is unknown. ISIS: The well-armed, well organised and highly motivated alliance of jihadist groups that is sweeping aside all signs of resistance in Iraq has ties to militant Islamic organisations throughout the Middle East. At the head of the predominantly Sunni Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) (also known as ISIL — Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) is Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, an Iraqi-born militant some hail as “the new bin Laden”. Baghdadi — who regards himself to be a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad — wants to erase “Western imposed borders” and create a “new Caliphate”.Here's a mindblowing report from Reuters: U.S. preparing for dialogue with Iran on Iraq security -official PRAYER ALERT June 14, 2014: For futher study, consider: Is the Vision of Daniel 8 Being Fulfilled Right Now in Iraq and Iran? PRAYER ALERT June 13, 2014: ISIS calls America to battle that strangely sounds like Revelation 16:14... ISIS Leader to USA: ‘Soon We Will be in Direct Confrontation’
With a $10 million bounty on his head, he is known for extreme views that even al Qaeda’s hierarchy find uncomfortable. Nevertheless, he has assembled a coalition of some 10,000 warriors — mostly from US-backed Islamic militant groups fighting against President Bashar al-Assad in Syria."
"(CNSNews.com) - Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), issued a rare audio message back on January 21 in which he flatly stated his group’s intention to march on Baghdad and move into “direct confrontation” with the United States. “Our last message is to the Americans. Soon we will be in direct confrontation, and the sons of Islam have prepared for such a day,” Baghdadi said. “So watch, for we are with you, watching.”"
Tim Lister of CNN reports on ISIS: The first terror group to build an Islamic state?
"The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has thrived and mutated during the ongoing civil war in Syria and in the security vacuum that followed the departure of the last American forces from Iraq. The aim of ISIS is to create an Islamic state across Sunni areas of Iraq and in Syria. With the seizure of Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, and advances on others, that aim appears within reach. ISIS controls hundreds of square miles where state authority has evaporated. It ignores international borders and has a presence all the way from Syria's Mediterranean coast to south of Baghdad."PRAYER ALERT June 11, 2014: Business Insider reports on the black flag group ISIS, the shock and awe terrorists that use crucifixions and beheadings to spread their horror from Syria into Iraq. They morph their name from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). By any name, they remind me of the sons of darkness from the War Scroll and Habakkuk 1. From Nineveh, ISIS may target Baghdad:
"For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwelling places that are not theirs. They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves." Habakkuk 1:6-7Other Bible translations use the word Babylonians instead of Chaldeans. I'm no prophet, but if you have spent any time on this website, you know we need to study the Scriptures of the Prophets. Amos 3:7 tells us:
"Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets."The report is an eerie reminder of the prophetic warning of the sixth bowl plague in Revelation 16:12-16 which warns of three unclean spirits described as frogs that come out of the beast. The description is much like the three extreme terror groups that have broken from the jihadi terror roots of Al Qaida:
1. Ahrar Al Sham 2. Islamic state of Iraq and Levant 3. Jabhat al-Nusra and its al-Qaeda affiliate the other black flag the Khorasan group that has moved into Syria from Afghanistan.They remind me of the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites that were linked to the Amalekites. And their swift terror attacks are like the leopard of Jeremiah 5:6, Daniel 7:6 and Revelation 13:2.
Today, these groups a the focal point of the divide between Sunni and Shi'a. The divide is none other than the ancient argument of DNA vs. religion. The tradition of the Shiite is to believe that only a blood relative of Mohammed can succeed the prophet as the leader of Islam, while the Sunni believe any devout, faithful follower of Mohammed can be the Caliphate leader.
If you think about that, it sounds eerily familiar, as to the conflicts of other religious beliefs. You might want to let that soak it.
Shi'a Muslims are a minority except in Iran and Iraq where they are the majority, These are the ancient lands represented by the gold and silver of Nebuchadnezzar's dream in Daniel 2 interpreted by Daniel after God gave him the vision and its meaning to deliver to the king.
"The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay. While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were all broken to pieces and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth."It seems that ISIS may at least for now, be representative of the iron breaking and smashing everything, even the baked clay of Shi'a in Iraq, the land of Nebuchadnezzar. After all, through its violence, ISIS wants to create an Islamic Caliphate state ruled by strict Shariah law in Iraq and expand it to Syria and down to Egypt and north Africa. A Jihadist Group That's Too Radical For Al Qaeda Is Threatening Iraq's Water Supply
"Extremists fighters from the al Qaeda offshoot the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) are now able to control, or at least seriously damage, Iraq's water supply.This report on Nineveh is from AFP: Jihadists seize Iraq's second city, Nineveh province "Mosul (Iraq) (AFP) - Jihadists overran Iraq's second city of Mosul, the surrounding Nineveh province and parts of Kirkuk on Tuesday, in a major blow to a government apparently incapable of stopping militant advances.
Earlier today, fighters from ISIS, which was actually expelled from Al Qaeda's global network in February, captured Mosul, the capital of northern Iraq and the country's second largest city. The entirety of the city is reported to be in ISIS's hands since government troops and police officers abandoned their posts before the offensive. ISIS's control of Mosul places it in a prime position to launch an attack against the Mosul Dam, the largest in the country. The dam impedes the Tigris River, which, along with the Euphrates River, is the main source of water for the vast majority of Iraq's 32 million citizens. ISIS has previously shown a desire to take control of dams as a means of inflicting strategic damage to southern and central Iraq. In January 2014, ISIS took control of the Fallujah Dam along the Euphrates. The Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) was not able to retake control of the dam until April. During their months in control of the dam, ISIS managed to block the Euphrates, flooding the area around Fallujah while cutting off water to the southern and central districts of Iraq."
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki responded by asking parliament to declare a state of emergency and announcing the government would arm citizens to fight the militants. "All of Nineveh province fell into the hands of militants," parliament speaker Osama al-Nujaifi told journalists in Baghdad, adding the gunmen were heading south towards neighbouring Salaheddin province. An army brigadier general told AFP hundreds of militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) launched a major assault on the security forces late on Monday." And the extremists ISIL or ISIS as there militant name morphs are rich from their crimes in Iraq...
Mosul Seized: Jihadis Loot $429m from City's Central Bank to Make Isis World's Richest Terror Force
"The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (Isis) has become the richest terror group ever after looting 500 billion Iraqi dinars - the equivalent of $429m (£256m) - from Mosul's central bank, according to the regional governor. Nineveh governor Atheel al-Nujaifi confirmed Kurdish television reports that Isis militants had stolen millions from numerous banks across Mosul. A large quantity of gold bullion is also believed to have been stolen. Following the siege of the country's second city, the bounty collected by the group has left it richer than al-Qaeda itself and as wealthy as small nations such as Tonga, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands and the Falkland Islands. The financial assets that the group now possess are likely to worsen the Iraqi government's struggle to defeat the insurgency, which is aimed at creating an Islamic state across the Syrian-Iraqi border.Fox News gives a video report today on the events in Iraq and a warning of the goal of a Caliphate: Gen. Jack Keane on new threat for US from Al Qaeda offshoot.
The Islamist militants took control of Mosul after hundreds of its fighters overwhelmed government military forces in a lightening attack on Monday, forcing up to 500,000 people to flee the city and Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki to call a national state of emergency.
The militants freed up to 1,000 inmates from Mosul's central prison, according to senior police officials. They are also in control of Mosul airport and local television stations. They also seized considerable amounts of US-supplied military hardware. Photos have already emerged of Isis parading captured Humvees in neighbouring Syria where they are also waging war against President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
In a televised news conference, Maliki said "Iraq is undergoing a difficult stage" and urged the public and government to unite "to confront this vicious attack, which will spare no Iraqi.""
"As Iraqi militants lay siege to Mosul, Tikrit, and Baijia, the U.S. Department of State issued a new travel warning on Wednesday to caution Americans against unnecessary travel to Iraq."Terror groups across the Eastern globe have become prolific and they include many names according to the National Counterterrorism Center.
What does this all mean?
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.