Friday, April 4, 2014

Global SITREP B20-14: Bible Prophecy Front and Center

4 April 2014: The purpose of this SITREP is to illustrate how Bible prophecy is literally being manifest in current world events. These are events which everyone who is being a watchman of world events relative to specific Bible prophecy can witness to with their own eyes and ears in living color via satellite and cable television broadcasts. Bible prophecy coming to pass in front of our eyes from verses almost no one has paid real careful attention to before now, plus other verses which clearly indicate a very clear sequence for these major events, and why we should be exuberantly looking up for our Harpazo by the Lord draws ever closer!

To begin with, lets take Ezekiel 38/39. I think all of us have read these two prophetic chapters as well as an endless stream of articles giving various interpretations on the basics, and that's all fine and dandy. However, it's when one pays attention to the little noticed details that one actually notices them occurring in real-time, as in right now real-time, that one can feel the Holy Spirit leap within you. This happened to me last evening.

The verse that I would like to call your attention to is Ezekiel 38:7 where the LORD God is speaking through the prophet Ezekiel directly to the man who is known as "Gog, of the land of Magog." and He says:

“Prepare yourself and be ready, you and all your companies that are gathered about you; and be a guard for them."
In this single sentence the LORD God has instructed Gog to prepare (Hebrew: kuwn qahal: meaning to be prepared as in a very high state of readiness for war or invasion) the military forces of his own country, the military forces of those countries he also has direct control over, as well as all those military forces of the other countries that are also in this military alliance with him, and to be a guard for them. The Hebrew word for guard here is mishmar, meaning a diligent ward or overwatch for their military capabilities.

In very recent news and as a direct result of the Russian invasion and annexation of the Crimean Autonomous Republic from Ukraine, the United States and our NATO allies in the EU have taken various economic measures known as sanctions. Most important of them was the one which resulted in kicking the Russian Federation out of the exclusive economic club, formerly known as the G8, but now just being the G7 (yes, 7 nations in a Trans-Atlantic and Global economic alliance which also includes Japan!).

In direct retaliation for these sanctions the Russian's have served notice to the G7 that they will henceforth act as guardian of the Iranian nuclear program in the upcoming round of talks which resume shortly following a 6-month hiatus during which Iran was supposed to have accomplished some benchmark reductions and shutdowns of its nuclear program. Now that the time has arrived for a viable Western military option to strike Iran to be raised, Russia has now openly committed to defend Iran's military-purposed nuclear weapons program against the US and Europeans.

Putting aside for a moment the billions upon billions worth of Russian weapons systems sales that are arming all of the the Ezekiel 38/39 Magog military confederation, is this new direct Russian defense of the Iranian nuclear weapons program not a literal fulfillment of Ezekiel 38:7? I absolutely believe it is, and this is why the Holy Spirit leapt inside me when I read about it. This will shortly be, or at least it should be, front page news or the lead story when the "E3/EU+3 Iran Talks" reconvene

Well, everybody knows the Iranians never intended per the negotiated E3/EU+3 interim agreement to reduce their growing nuclear weapons capabilities by even so much as a single spinning centrifuge. But what everybody may not know is the the United States and European Union made a hard promise to Israel to keep the Iranian military strike option on-the-table. This promise is what directly prevented Israel from launching their own well-planned and  devastating unilateral strike against Iranian nuclear infrastructure targets in the summer of 2012. Now Russia's actions in Crimea and the very real Indications and Warnings (I&W) of an even larger Russian invasion of the rest of Ukraine probably have Israel's military commanders pounding on the conference table even before Bibi Netanyahu strolls into the room. If those IDF commanders understood Bible prophecy they'd know that God has a pair of hooks from which there is no escape in His hand that He will soon put to use. The appointed hour approaches.

Now to another item which I have posted on and written about many times in the past 5 years or so. Isaiah 17. And as much as I have read that prophetic chapter, and have believed it would be the event which launches the final battles of the ongoing Psalm 83 war (1947 to the present), it wasn't until very early in the morning the other day that I noticed something in those texts which even more directly points to a sequence of Isaiah 17 preceding Psalm 83.

We're all very aware of what occurs in Isaiah 17. The focus is always on the total destruction of Damascus, then of the cities of Aroer, and then of central Israel (Ephraim). It is the end result of the military action which results in the destruction of Damascus that I noticed is more profound and prophetic than I previosuly saw it to be.

Isaiah 17:12-13 reads:

"Woe to the multitude of many people
Who make a noise like the roar of the seas,
And to the rushing of nations
That make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters!


The nations will rush like the rushing of many waters;
But God will rebuke them and they will flee far away,
And be chased like the chaff of the mountains before the wind,
Like a rolling thing before the whirlwind."

Who are those many gentile people who are making a noise like the roar of the seas that Isaiah prophesies about? A rushing of gentile nations going where and to do what?

Of course, they are the gentile Arab Shi'a and Sunni Muslims nations and peoples from Lebanon, Jordan, the West Bank, Gaza and the Sinai in a headlong jihad rush to attack and destroy Israel so "the name of Israel may be remembered no more" (Psalm 83:4). Why do they suddenly rush in to do this? Because Israel has just destroyed to the point of complete obliteration the oldest Arab Islamic capital city in the world. But what happens when they come rushing in? The result is that these nations God rebukes them, they are chased like chaff off mountains before a wind, like a rolling thing before the Cuwphah (Sufa).

So why do I conclude that Isaiah 17 precedes the finale of Psalm 83? Because of the very specific language the singing prophet (chozeh) Asaph was inspired of the Lord's Spirit to use in his description of the military result of Psalm 83. This military result was nearly achieved in 1948, and again 1967 and again in 1973. This next time it will absolutely be achieved. Asaph's specific prophetic language in Psalm 83:13-15

"O my God, make them like the whirling dust,
Like the chaff before the wind! 
As the fire burns the woods,
And as the flame sets the mountains on fire, 
 So pursue them with Your tempest,
And frighten them with Your storm."
It appears to me that these two prophets, first Asaph and then Isaiah, were inspired by the same Holy Spirit to prophesy about the same event but from slightly different perspectives and about 400 years apart from each other. It is these two distinct perspectives about this great military defeat that is strongly suggestive of and reinforces what I have come to understand about their place in the sequence in events preceding the fulfillment of Ezekiel 38/39 which immediately precedes the start of the 70th Week. In this these verses sequence provide an explanation of why the resultant rushing of the Arab nations in Isaiah 17 occurs only after Damascus is obliterated, and why Aram-Syria-Damascus does not appear at all within the nations and peoples specified in Psalm 83.

Addendum: As a final note to the sequence of Isaiah 17 immediately followed by Psalm 83 being thereafter followed by Ezekiel 38/39, I again submit the confirming prophecies found in Isaiah 11:12-14 and Ezekiel 28:24-26.

20 comments:

  1. Looking forward to reading this!!!

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  2. Still working on it... posting no later than early this evening if all goes according to plan. :)

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  3. I have been reloading this page on and off all day today waiting for this one! lol Can't wait to read!!!

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  4. If the internet will cooperate for a little bit longer it'll be postin' time in about 45 minutes... give or take a couple

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  5. The internet gave me fits all day, and that delayed this posting for almost 8 hours. I was in hurry to post it so please bear with the typos and grammatical oops! that are likely within the text; I'll clean them up later when my eyes get back to normal. LOL.

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  6. From my understanding I think the order will be
    1) Isaiah 17 followed by
    2) psalm 83 followed by
    3) Ezekiel 38&39/harpadzo
    4) Daniel 9:27
    I didn't mention Jeremiah 49, the destruction of Elam because I'm not sure when that happens and I have a suspicion that Ezekiel 38&39 and the harpadzo will be in such close proximity that I don't know the order.

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  7. Great post Sean, I have a different view than most regarding how it all plays out. Isaiah 17 seems to allude to a coalition of nations present during the destruction of Damascus mobilized like a storm as you have provided. Could this force also be what is identified in Ezekiel 38:9, "Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee"?

    The primary portion of the Gog/Magog coalition comes down from the north and gathers on the mountains of Israel. This seems to suggest the Syrian/Lebanese area, my guess is the Bekaa valley and probably the fertile plain of Hauran in southern Syria. I find it rather peculiar that this open plain is adjacent to Damascus and a previously active volcanic field.

    The great earthquake of Ezekiel 38:19,20 would sure make a mess of Damascus as well as activate now dormant volcanoes in the area bringing fire and brimstone on the gathered forces in the area. Of course, when the Arab/Islamic nations surrounding Israel see the strength of the Gog/Magog coalition they no doubt will want to join the bid to destroy and plunder Israel. Guess my suggestion is that Isaiah 17, Psalm 83, and Ezekiel 38/39 will be a combined effort and fulfilled in unison.

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  8. hartdawg,

    I agree with your sequencing of these prophecies.

    For Jeremiah 49 the circumstantial clues which hint that its placement in the sequence could be prior to both Isaiah 17 and Psalm 83 are:

    1.) That Iran its it present military form, and as the current military master over both Lebanon and Iraq, rates no mention whatsoever in either Isaiah's or Asaph's inspired prophesies. There must be a reason for this lack of presence that is precursory to both of them.

    2.) Among the many nations and peoples which are specified in conflict with Israel prior to the 70th Week, the lone reference to Persia/Iran/Elam in Ezekiel 38:5 comes in the form of weakling world military power within Magog's confederation. This is evident to me in their named direct association with Libya and Sudan (Phut and Kuwsh).

    Currently, rapidly increasing Iranian military power is a big concern for the West and for Israel, so clearly, something has to happen between now and Ezekiel 38/39.

    A weakling military power status for Iran in Ezekiel 38:5 can be seen by looking at how the nations of the world are currently ranked in terms of conventional military capabilities.

    One open source whose content I find to be extremely accurate is GlobalFirePower.com (GFP). The 2014 CIA World Factbook is a primary reference for the GFP rankings.

    (NOTE: The lower the numerical value the more powerful the conventional military power. There are 106 countries ranked from a high of 0.2208 (the USA) to a low of 4.3423 (Tanzania).

    Number 1 rank is held by the USA at 0.2208
    Number 2 rank is held by Russia at 0.2355
    Number 3 rank is held by China at 0.2594

    The average world military power ranking is 2.2815 which is somewhere between Number 73 Angola (2.2259) and Number 74 Kuwait (2.2997).

    At present the 2014 GFP PowerIndex (PI) rank for Iran is #22, at 0.8891

    This PI rank is 0.0636 below the current rank for Number 21 ranked Ukraine at 0.8255

    Now look at the PI rank for:

    Libya: not ranked, but somewhere below the very lowest ranking of Number 106 Tanzania (4.3423).

    Sudan is ranked at Number 79 at 2.3465.

    So, in Ezekiel 38:5 Iran is militarily somewhere among the lowest 20% of the worlds ranked military powers.

    In terms of military relevance for Ezekiel 38:5, which is the grouping Iran, Libya and Sudan in Magog's military confederation, it is not at all impressive.

    In fact is downright unimpressive to the point of being like the last military charge of once-great military powers who are obliterated on the mountains of Israel along with the really significant military power of Russia and its closest allied nations.

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  9. Oh, and for the record, the PI ranking for geographically tiny Israel - and which as all the other nations does not include nuclear weapons - is Number 11, or .5578

    Israel is definitively, measurably and literally one of the most powerful nations in the world.

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  10. "And thou shalt come from thy place out of the north parts, thou, and many people with thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great company, and a mighty army"-Ezekiel 38:15. It would seem that the Lord God does not share your accessment of a weak, insignificant coalition.

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  11. Your labor and efforts to overcome the spite of the internet are well worth your tolling. Reading it the first time required me to take a few stress time outs but it is only because my inner person (H.S.)was carrying on.

    I do have one question as regards Syria. In that passage of Ezekiel 38:19,20 and the aftermath of the earthquake, wouldn't that also take out Damascus in the same degree as an nuclear attack by Israel? Damascus, reportedly, is where Assad kept a great deal of his WMD hidden in caves or such. Wouldn't Chemical weapons, beyond our imagination, contaminate the whole area for eons of time?

    I want to add something about Jer. 49 that I just discovered and it really bothers me that it is on the website of Bible Gateway. The comments at the bottom of the page keep referencing all of this chapter to the past events or as prophecy fulfilled. I don't believe it was ever fully fulfilled but I could also be very wrong in that regard. I do know that in Ez. 38 & 39, Persia was not the dominate power in the gathered coalition. Like the Holy Spirit inspired you, Russia is the Mother Hen (wouldn't Vladie be stressed to know that anyone would consider him a hen?).

    Shalom/GG5

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  12. An anonymous someone wrote:

    "It would seem that the Lord God does not share your {assessment} of a weak, insignificant coalition."

    Anonymous,

    You obviously did not take my response to hartdawg's Jeremiah 49:34-39 question in the context that it was made.

    I was speaking only of the Iranian, Libyan and Sudanese contingents of the invasion force which "are with them, all of them with shield and helmet" per Ezekiel 38:8.

    It seems to me the plain text here identifies these three as not possessing great offensive weapons, but rather "shield and helmet" which are purely defensive combat equipment.

    Perhaps they are forces which defend the flanks of the main force of Magog, Rosh, Meshech and Tubal as they come down from their place in the north parts.

    Irregardless of that, they all are annihilated as a result, so its really not a big deal, but I feel the analysis was well worth the effort put into it.

    Also, in general geographic terms, the fact of the matter is that with respect to Israel's location on a map Iran lies to the east, Libya to the west and Sudan to the south of Israel -- clearly they are not with Gog's main invasion force from the north parts.

    In fact, when the main invasion force is reiterated in Ezekiel 39:1, the three militarily insignificant nations found in 38:5 are nowhere to be found; as if they're no big deal, not important enough to be repeated like the primary enemy nations are repeated.

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  13. Got it, thanks for the clarification Sean, either way, someone is going to have to fill a big void when the Lord God brings judgement upon these forces, and rains down fire on these major oil and natural gas producers homelands. As it stands, the United States seems poised to attempt to restore global security in the aftermath, no doubt increasing their financial status as well as having control of these resources in the region. Perhaps this is why beyond all explanation we have not really tapped into our domestic resources.

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  14. Another interesting point is the fact that the Lord God declares Libya and Sudan, yet Egypt is not mentioned when we know they will pass through Egyptian territory. The other nations bordering Israel are also omitted such as Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon ect, it seems reasonable that their not be mentioned is because the context of Ezekiel 38/39 is dragging these enemies from afar to these nations currently surrounding Israel to judge them all in unison. At least that is what I have gathered from it.

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  15. I believe Israel will fill the void that results from the defeat of the "inner ring" nations:

    Syria is dispatched in Isaiah 17

    Then in the subsequent and resultant action Lebanon is conquered by Israel. (see Joshua 13:1-7 which has not yet occurred)

    Jordan, or at least the western portion of it (Ammon, Moab and Edom) is taken by Israel. This is why that part of Jordan known as the valley of the Passengers is declared by God in Ezekiel 39:11 to be Israel proper.

    And, of course, Judea and Samaria (the so-called West Bank) and Gaza and a large swatch of the Sinai are returned to Israeli sovereignty.

    Israel profits greatly from the Arab defeats according to the texts of Isaiah 17. This new found wealth of Israel's is a big part of the subsequent Ezekiel 38/39.

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  16. Yes, about Egypt. Consider what is going on in Egypt through the lens of Isaiah 19 and Ezekiel 29.

    Consider these two prophetic chapters by two prophets very carefully indeed. Understand the geographic locations which are specifically referenced in the texts.

    You will probably learn what I have also written about here previously, particularly with respect to Syene - which is none other than the location of the Aswan High Dam. Egypt may yet go to war with her neighbors to the south over what is being done to the Nile source waters.

    These are pre-70th Week events because we know from the angel Gabriel in Daniel 11 that Libya and Egypt will be militarily conquered or at least occupied by the Antichrist during the latter part of the 70th Week.

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  17. Judging by the looks of things we will soon know what will occur and the sequence of events, especially if we see Russia move deeper south amidst a weak N.A.T.O. alliance and lameduck U.S. Presidency.

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  18. I enjoy discussing these prophetic details with you Sean and wish the best of luck regarding your blog. The anticipation of these events simultaneous with pressing forward with the Great Commission along with the hope of our soon bodily redemption, surely keeps us with one eye open wouldn't you agree?

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  19. The southerly direction is not something I expect to see from Russia at this point -- the hooks in the jaws are coming, but not just yet -- I think Putin is still obsessed as any Russian Nationalist would be with reconquering Finland, the Baltic States and Ukraine.

    His speech recently outlined his ideology and his military objectives and that is where his focus will be in the short-term. That speech can be regarded as his own personal "Mein Kampf." It is a window into the man I believe will become Gog of Magog; it is something from which a warfighting doctrine to defeat him can be created, or to pull him in the direction of his destruction in Israel.

    I'll have more to say on this train of thought on the mainpage shortly...

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