Global SITREP C1-16: The Past As Prologue

Antiochus IV Epiphanes

(Update Below) 12 May 2016: The past is prologue to the future. Prologue is defined as "a preliminary discourse; a preface or introductory part of a discourse, poem, or novel." To this definition I will add God-breathed prophecy for the simple reason that prophetic prologue in Scripture was extant thousands of years before Shakespeare was born. 

The various texts of the Bible, but especially the prophetic texts, are replete with this theme many times over. In Genesis the narrative of Noah and the Ark serves as a rather detailed account of those ancient times as well as a prophetic prologue for the Harpazo of the Bride of Christ by Jesus in the near future. So too in Daniel 11:20-45, the angel Gabriel provides in great detail the account of Antiochus IV Epiphanes which we know in hindsight as completely fulfilled historical events, and also as prologue for future events during the 70th Week to be fulfilled by the Antichrist.

With Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the Greek-Macedonian self-proclaimed demigod of the Seleucid Empire in a long, unbroken line of Macedonian-Greek Seleucid kings, we have a very specific prologue into the coming of the man who will become the Antichrist as provided by Gabriel in Daniel 11. The prologue does not even skip a beat in the exploits of this man circa 168-67 BC to those of the real future Antichrist; the text is a virtual time warp of from the events of 168-67 BC to those of what I believe will be circa the years 2028-2031 AD. And in this fact alone the future will be fulfilled. As many have pointed out previously, this is about a bloodline, and about a certain demonic entity which possessed Antiochus IV Epiphanes during his brief rule and will possess the coming Antichrist in the final 42 months of the Megas Thlipsis (a/k/a the 'Great Tribulation').

This is were history comes into play and it is instructive on how events may well come to pass in the future. In ancient times globalism was accomplished through the vehicle of Empire. In Scripture, the interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream by the prophet Daniel established this paradigm of human empires for the sum of human-led rule on this earth until the 'end of days.'  

With an eye to historical events, did Antiochus IV Epiphanes inherit his very powerful and militarily dominant empire, or did he conquer and establish it as Alexander the Great had done 157 years earlier? The historical fact is that Antiochus IV Epiphanes inherited his empire; it was literally handed to him when when his predecessor, Seleucus was assassinated by a general named Heliodorus upon returning to the capital Seleucia from Jerusalem in 175 BC. Antiochus, the second son of Seleucus then seized the throne through royal scheming and the subterfuge of some close associates. Daniel 11:21 was thus literally fulfilled by Antiochus in 175 BC (see the comments section on precisely how this fulfillment came to pass). I believe we can expect to see similar subterfuge and conspiracy as the future Antichrist comes to power.

The end of Antiochus IV Epiphanes and the transition or overlap to the future Antichrist occurs within the text of Daniel 11:29-39. These ten verses apply to both Antiochus IV Epiphanes and to the future Antichrist. Then at Daniel 11:40, where the prophecy states "At the time of the end..." the overlap has been completed and the time-line has definitively jumped forward by about 1,850 years into the 70th Week. None of the text of Daniel 11:40-45 was fulfilled in the past; all of it is set for a future fulfillment during the 70th Week. 

It is also important to note that the Seleucid bloodline which followed Antiochus IV Epiphanes (his son Antiochus V Eupator; his grandson Demetrius I Soter; his great-grandson Demetrius II Nicator who was overthrown by another great grandson supported by Rome and the Seleucid Empire became fully a vassal state of the Roman Empire, Alexander I Balas; his great-great grandson Antiochus VIII Grypus; his great-great-great grandson Seleucus VI Epiphanes Nicator. This line continues all the way to the last Seleucid vassal king named Philip II Philoromaeus (which means 'friend of the Romans'), and then to Antiochus XIII who ruled for a year in 65-64 BC when Rome turned what remained of the Seleucid kingdom into a full-fledged province of Rome controlled by Roman General Pompey. This kingdom was then stripped of its Macedonian-Greek name Seleucia and renamed Syria by Roman decree. At this time Antiochus X Eusebes Philopater became a figurehead ruler of Syria, but he was quickly replaced in 58 BC by the Roman general and supporter of Pompey, Aulus Gabinius. Antiochus XIII ultimate fate and progeny thereafter are unknown to this day. A descendant could literally be anywhere, yet what is certain is that he will emerge and fulfill everything that has been prophesied. 

The keen-eyed will likely have already made note that this same lineage lent its name to a major city of ancient times, the Biblical city of Antioch, which is today known by its Turkish name, Antakya. This city was founded in the 4th century BC by the first of the Seleucid kings, Alexander the Great's close aide, Seleucus I Nicator. Acts 11:26 teaches that this city is where believers of Jesus Christ first became known as Christians.

Just as Gabriel's prophetic narrative scaled time in a single bound, so now shall this SITREP.  In the year 2016 AD, according to the Julian calendar we use, the world situation is similar to that of the fourth decade of the 20th Century AD (1931-1940). 

In a nutshell, the events which preceded World War II ensured its occurrence. These were chaotic events which gave rise to the emergence of strongmen on both the left and right of the political spectrum. Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Stalin, Tojo, Chamberlain, Churchill, Roosevelt. Each of major nations of the world found the necessity of a strong leader to rule absolutely essential; such is the call and dictate of national survival. The League of Nations, the first modern attempt at globalism, was weak and therefore ineffective and ultimately incapable of fulfilling is purpose. Right by might became the rule with some nations taking territory that belonged to others, and other nations doing nothing to stop it. A world war was the inevitable result.

Midway through the second decade of the 21st Century AD chaotic events are once again occurring. In many countries strong leadership is once again seen as an essential necessity. Nations are seizing the territory of others; corruption is rampant in almost every facet of society. A blood-thirsty religious cult centered on a 7th Century AD madman's demonic-inspired conquests is running rampant through both legal and illegal means all over the globe. Before everyone's eyes the global semblance of order that was established following World War II through the establishment of the United Nations has been fully corrupted and continues as a virtual functioning debacle. 

The difference this time is that the means to destroy all life on the planet is in the possession of a handful of nations who are more or less aligned in opposing blocs known as East and West. Strong men and dictators currently rule in the Eastern Bloc. And smack dab in the middle of this is the Middle East. No longer is the threat of war in the Middle East the issue, the issue now is that there is ongoing warfare of one type of another occurring in even its remotest corners, with the major nuclear-armed powers directly involved from Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean Levant. These are wars which will ignite larger ones, eventually dragging the nuclear-armed powers into a flood of direct conflict. The absence of a strong-man in the Western Bloc cannot last much longer; and the opposing sides in the trifecta of the Middle East's wars are all clamoring for the emergence of their expected messianic figure. 

As we all know from prophetic Scripture, the fast approaching appointed time of this demonically-controlled man's emergence and revealing is imminent. So is the blessed hope of the Harpazo. "Ready" and "Get Set" have already been announced, all that remains is for our Father in Heaven to say "Go!"

Who is “Gog” and Why he’s NOT the Beast of Daniel’s 70th Week

Collective Security Treaty Organization

Организация Договора о коллективной безопасности

Update 19 September 2013: Four years is a long time between updates, nevertheless, this item is back to the top of Eschatology Today with an update.

In my assessment the CSTO is about to kick itself into high gear due to the very recent events which pitted the CSTO military alliance against a faltering NATO alliance over the issue of chemical weapons use in the Syrian civil war. While the world may see that confrontation as one of Russia versus America, I see it as a CSTO versus NATO confrontation because the charters of these organizations view an attack upon one member as an attack upon all members who are then obligated to join in a common defense.

As a direct result of these recent events a CSTO Council and statutory bodies meeting will convene in Sochi, Russia on Monday morning, 23 September 2013 at which the member nations representatives will sign numerous documents and agree to the creation of a CSTO Joint Air Force. The CSTO Joint Air Force will complement the already existing CSTO Collective Rapid Reaction Force (CSTO CRRF). One week later, between October 1 and 4, these same CSTO members will reconvene in Yerevan, Armenia for further tightening of the alliance in all areas of military cooperation. 

The key military function of both meetings is the CSTO CRRF which as of yesterday morning began a large scale military exercise on the territory of member nation Belarus. The exercise is known as "Cooperation 2013." The "Cooperation 2013" exercise will continue through September 27, 2013 and includes the CSTO CRRF contingents from Armenia, Belarus, the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

It is my assessment that the CSTO Collective Rapid Reaction Force and its newly integrated Joint Air Force will be the forces that are prophesied to march against Israel in the near future during the fulfillment of Ezekiel 38/39. It is these forces which will be annihilated by God and buried by the people of Israel in the Valley of the Passengers (the Valley of Hamon-Gog) east of the Dead Sea.

See also:  The Prophetic Road to Revelation (Part IV): The War of Gog and Magog

  

02 October 2009: Armies of Gog, The Chief Prince of Magog, Rosh, Meshech and Tubal Initiate Military Exercises
 

The Russian-led military alliance of seven former Soviet Republics known by the acronym CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization), the counter-balance to the American-European NATO alliance, began large-scale military exercises today at the Matybulak training grounds in southern Kazakhstan.

The name given to this CSTO military force is "Collective Rapid Reaction Force" (CRRF). One of the CRRF's principle mission objectives is to wage war on Islamic insurgent groups on the territories of the member countries: Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Just another nail in the coffin of the Gog is Antichrist shoehorned eisegesis.

14 September 2009: The overwhelmingly accepted Christian eschatological definition for the name Ezekiel 38 and 39 identified as “Gog” is that of a man who will be the chief prince or leader of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal and who is to come from the land of the Magog located far to the north of modern day Israel.

Eschatology Today and our sourced documents have provided the ancient historical records, themselves from additional multiple-sourced historical records, from which a firm eschatological conclusion has been achieved in determining that Magog, Rosh, Meshech and Tubal are ethnically diverse nations which exist today within modern Russia to include the 46 oblasts, 21 republics, 4 autonomous okrugs, 9 krays, 2 federalized cities and 1 autonomous oblast of Russia; officially and internationally recognized as the Russian Federation, or within the increasingly totalitarian political confederation known as the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Let’s compare the above regarding “Gog” with my July 8, 2009 article “Origin of the Antichrist.”

A few excerpts of my research should suffice for this comparison.

“He (Antichrist) has always been an enigma, a man of mystery, prophesied to be of fierce countenance, a master of deceit and deception, of such unearthly evil power and charisma that by his mere presence all of mankind will be subdued and submit to his will.

The beast will be a man who ultimately will be wholly possessed by a demonic spirit ascended out of the abyss and identified by the name of Abaddon in Hebrew and Apollyon in the Greek; a man of mind bending unconscionable evil destined to stand as Satan incarnate during Daniel's 70th Week. He is a man whose name John revealed in the Revelation of Jesus Christ, chapter 13 verse 18, would count to or calculate to the Greek alphabetical-numerical equivalent of χξϚ (chi-xi-stigma) or six-hundred, three-score and six. 666.”

Who among us is so bold as to declare, contrary to the Word of God in the Revelation of Jesus Christ, that the name of “Gog” must be given the same alpha-numeric value as the 666 assigned to the Antichrist? Only someone completely ignorant of the Lord’s admonition found in Revelation 22:18-19 would do so.

As I wrote and cited Scripture in the above article, all indications from the prophet Daniel are that the coming Antichrist would be modeled on his Biblical predecessor, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, a man of a definitive Greek-Macedonian bloodline; that he would possess a might that is not derived from his own power; that he would exalt himself above everything, including God and Christ, and yet in the end he would come to his end without human means, as revealed in Revelation 19:20-21:

“Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the rest were killed with the sword which proceeded from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse. And all the birds were filled with their flesh.”

To review what has already been covered in this blog, Gog comes from the land of Magog and is a prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal. Gog is a man who is from an ethnic Russian origin. Gog is killed in battle in Israel and buried in Israel in a mass grave in what will become known as the Valley of Hamon Gog. Gog has no side-kick or accomplice such as the False Prophet.

In stark contrast to the fate of Gog, the Antichrist is indwelt by a demonic spirit from the Abyss known as Abaddon/Apollyon. It is my absolute conviction that Daniel's prophecy informs us in no uncertain terms that the coming Antichrist will specifically arise from a Greek or Hellenic ancestry; that he will be a direct descendant of the Biblical Javan via one of his sons whose progeny populate Europe and most of the nations of the West. In his defeat Antichrist and his False Prophet are captured by Jesus Christ and are immediately “cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone.” This fate is entirely and wholly different than that of the human followers of Antichrist who are “killed with the sword which proceeded from the mouth of” the KING OF KINGS AND LORD OR LORDS, our Lord Jesus Christ.

The differences between Gog and Antichrist are exceptional differences. They are even more exceptional than the brief synopsis provided in this article. However, even these brief exceptional differences cannot be overlooked by anyone unless they are conducting eschatological studies in a manner not unlike the locomotive ability of some surface skimming water strider.

UPDATED EXEGESIS: The ultimate proof that Gog cannot possibly be one and the same as the Antichrist is found in the Biblical fact that Gog and his armies are IMMEDIATELY UNSUCCESSFUL in their invasion of Israel. Almighty God will personally see to that. On the other hand, the Antichrist WILL BE SUCCESSFUL and will stand in the Temple declaring himself to be God. Put another way, since Gog will be dead and buried in the Valley of Hamon Gog it will be literally impossible for him to stand in the Temple much less have an image of himself placed there. Therefore Gog cannot possibly be the Antichrist.

Babylon and the End of the Age

6 February 2009: Is the Babylon of the Old Testament the same Babylon New Testament Scripture refers to at the ‘End of the Age”? The purpose of this article is to point out why I do not believe the two are to be confused. The original, physical political entity known as Babylon was the original ‘World Empire’ from the Biblical perspective and other is ‘symbolic’ of the global system of government during Daniel’s 70th Week.

Yes, I hold to the interpretation that there will be no resurrection of a physical or historical Babylonian Empire. The Scriptural evidence for this interpretation is the God-given vision of Daniel regarding the statue which began with Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel’s vision of the distant future and the time of the end. That Babylon is gone forever into history and is the fulfilled prophecy of Isaiah 13:20-21.

The God-given sequence of empires thereafter is very specific with each subsequent Middle Eastern empire built upon the ruins of the Babylonian Empire: the Persian Empire, the Hellenic Empire of Alexander and its prophesied division into four rump empires, of which the Seleucid Empire and its Antichrist precursor (Antiochus IV Epiphanes) was most important, and finally the Roman Empire.

The physical destruction of Babylon, as prophesied also by Jeremiah 50 and 51, occurred over many years and was not complete until Seleucia, the new capital of the Seleucid Empire founded by Seleucus I Nicator circa 305 BC was literally built brick by brick from the ruins of Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon. Any Bible prophecy student can look at a detailed map of modern day Iraq and determine that the ruins of Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon lies just east of the Euphrates River near the city of Al-Hillah and Seleucia was built in the desert 20 miles south of modern day Baghdad and 70 miles to the northeast of the original Babylon along the banks of the Tigris River. Aside from the geographic differences, Babylon was an ancient Middle Eastern culture while Seleucia was very much a Western Hellenistic culture.

In addition to this we also have Isaiah 13 serving as a central prophetic theme regarding a symbolic “Babylon” and the end times “pains of a woman in childbirth” concurrent with the overwhelming fear that overtakes every man’s heart, and the darkening of the stars in their constellations, the sun and the moon which was repeated by Jesus Christ during his Olivet Discourse found in Matthew 24. Isaiah’s Babylon in this prophecy is a symbolic Babylon representing the utterly corrupt world government system of the Antichrist within Daniel’s 70th Week.

In this day and age it is very interesting to note that Israel, in the form of its military and intelligence services has returned to northern Iraq, in the region known today as Kurdistan and in ancient times as Assyria. The Israeli’s are developing an alliance with the Kurd’s and providing them with state of the art military equipment and training. What the Israeli’s receive in return is copious amounts of critical human intelligence regarding all manner of goings-on within western Iran, northern Syria and eastern Turkey. For their part the Iranians, Syrians and Turks are none too pleased with this alliance. Perhaps it is this Israeli-Kurdish military alliance that Jeremiah 51:6 speaks to with respect to Daniel’s 70th Week, for there appears to be a direct correlation between Jeremiah 51 and Revelation 17 and 18.

In the aftermath of the soon-to-be fulfilled prophecies of Isaiah 17, Psalm 83 and Ezekiel 38/39 the global dominant kingdom of the Antichrist shall arise. Since the prophetic word of Revelation came directly from the Father to the Son to John on Patmos, circa 90-95 AD, it most assuredly speaks of future events even to our age, yet given the signs of the times we know the season is upon the world and this future is within the span of this generation. That modern Iraq will fall within the Euro-centric kingdom of “the people of the prince who is to come,” that is out of the two legs standing upon ten toes. This last day’s kingdom of the Antichrist is a revival of the Roman Empire, and the inclusion of modern-day, post Saddam Iraq can be seen in the events that have occurred in the past seven years since 2003 and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Iraq is now completely an integral part of the Western sphere of influence and will play a key role in the coming post-paradigm shift of the current world order.