The Kings of the East

20 October 2010: "Now the number of the army of the horsemen was two hundred million; I heard the number of them. And thus I saw the horses in the vision: those who sat on them had breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow..." Revelation 9:16-17 (NKJV). Notice the emblem on Chinese PLA General Liang Guanglie's hat. Is it mere coincidence that the above Communist Chinese Army emblem contains the prophecied colors of the 200-million man army of the kings of the East?

Let's look as some prophetic specifics.

According to God, per Revelation 1:1, these kings of the East are on the move at the sounding of the 6th angel's trumpet during Daniel's 70th Week. Their army is numbered at 200,000,000 strong, and they kill a third of mankind while enroute across Asia to a crossing of the river Euphrates which is dried up in the 6th Bowl wrath of God Judgment found in Revelation 16:12-16. 

According to the text of Daniel 11, particularly verses 42-44, after the other Middle Eastern military campaigns which the Antichrist executes successfully, news (i.e. military intelligence) comes to him about an approaching enemy force from the East and the North. Antichrist goes out with his military forces to engage them in battle.

"He shall stretch out his hand against the countries, and the land of Egypt shall not escape. He shall have power over the treasures of gold and silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt; also the Libyans and Ethiopians shall follow at his heels. But news from the east and the north shall trouble him; therefore he shall go out with great fury to destroy and annihilate many."

A 200-million man army coming from East Asia would not approach the Euphrates along a single axis of advance. No, sound military tactics and warfighting doctrine would determine that these Asian forces will enter the region in several columns across a broad, 800-mile front from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea/Caucasus region. This 200-million man armed force will approach from the East and the North exactly as Daniel has foretold.

Incidentally, the third of mankind which killed by these military forces are not necessarily resident on the continent of Asia, but all over the world, and which when expressed in real numbers and based upon today's population of the earth, amounts to over 2.025 billion people. These deaths are attribbuted to the Eastern kings weaponry which is described as fire, smoke and brimstone. The text provides a clear description of nuclear warfare on an unprecedented scale, and it is at the same time quite symbolic of their nuclear weaponry and its effects: the fire - of a nuclear blast, the smoke - the over-pressure of the expanding sphere of destruction, and the brimstone- the fallout of nuclear debris.

I hold no doubt that the prinicple of these kings of the East is mainland China. The colors match, they can field a conquering army of 200 million men and they are nuclear armed. China is the emergent eastern superpower.

And where is this 200-million man Army going? To the Battle of Har Megiddo where the Antichrist awaits with his own armies several hundred miles west of the Euphrates River. These kings of the East will be at war with the Antichrist. Coming to this realization answered another question I have long pondered: why must the Euphrates River be dried up? The answer is because in that day all of the land west of the Euphrates will be within the boundaries of a much enlarged Israel. 

Here's proof:

"On the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates— the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.” - Genesis 15:18-20

“I will send My fear before you, I will cause confusion among all the people to whom you come, and will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. And I will send hornets before you, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite from before you. 29 I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased, and you inherit the land. And I will set your bounds from the Red Sea to the sea, Philistia, and from the desert to the River. For I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you." - Exodus 23:27-31

“For if you carefully keep all these commandments which I command you to do—to love the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways, and to hold fast to Him — then the LORD will drive out all these nations from before you, and you will dispossess greater and mightier nations than yourselves. Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the River Euphrates, even to the Western Sea, shall be your territory. No man shall be able to stand against you; the LORD your God will put the dread of you and the fear of you upon all the land where you tread, just as He has said to you." - Deuteronomy 11:22-25

"From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the River Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your territory." - Joshua 1:4

Interestingly, these verses also put the kibosh to the theory espoused by the proponents of an Islamic Antichrist - Eastern Leg empire since these soon-to-be-former Muslims lands will at that time belong to Israel - from Lebanon north to the former Hittite Empire which today comprises the bulk of modern Turkey and northern Syria, east to the Euphrates river and Iraq. When in all of previous history has Israel occupied the lands of the Hittites? Since the answer is never, then the occurance of Israel's occupation of the land promised by God in Exodus must be a future reality, and logically a result of the coming Gog-Magog war.

So why is this subject on my mind? In the past week both Bill Gertz and Debka posted reports on the presence of Chinese PLA Air Force warbirds in Turkey for participation in the recent "Anatolian Eagle" air combat exercise. The Su-27 and MiG-29 aircraft flew direct from China to a refueling on the ground in eastern Iran and then continued to the their deployment station at Konya Air Base in central Turkey. Previously only NATO allies and Israel participated in the exercise. Turkish PM Ergodan stated the Red Chinese participation signalled a raising of bi-lateral Turkish-Chinese military relations to a "strategic level" per an agreement signed in Ankara on 8 October 2010. An advance guard 'kings of the East" have arrived per the strategic agreement between Turkey and the People's Republic of China.

Bible prophecy is continually in the news these days.

Inside the Middle East Crisis:

19 September 2010: If you live near or are within driving distance of The Moody Church in Chicago there is an event you might want to attend the first weekend in October. The Title: Inside the Middle East Crisis: Finding Peace in a Troubled World.

The eyes of the world are focused on the events in the Middle East—the epicenter of the dramatic events that are shaping our world and impacting our future.

Are you ready for it?

On October 1st and 2nd, 2010, at the historic Moody Church in downtown Chicago, New York Times best-selling author, Joel C. Rosenberg, along with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, Dr. Charles Dyer, Dr. Michael Rydelnik, and Dr. Mitch Glaser will open our eyes to the events that are unfolding in the Middle East from a biblical perspective and provide practical insight on how to love Israel and her neighbors, come what may.

WHEN
October 1-2, 2010
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SPEAKERS
Joel C. Rosenberg
Dr. Erwin Lutzer
Dr. Charlie Dyer
Dr. Michael Rydelnik
Dr. Mitch Glaser
Steve Wiggins (Musical Guest)
Mark Elfstrand (Emcee)
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WHERE
The Moody Church 1635 North Lasalle Drive, Chicago, IL 60614
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BUY TICKETS
Click here to buy your tickets now or call 888-405-5874 to register by phone. All tickets cover both days of the conference; single-day tickets are not available.

General Conference Rate: $59

Group discount of 20% for groups of four or more registrants (If you are a part of a group and you'd like to register separately, please click on "individual" when registering and then enter the code "group" to receive your 20% discount.

Conference Rate for Students: $25 (student ID required at check-in). Enter discount code student to receive the student rate in online registration

Israel Doesn't Care About Peace?

14 September 2010: If there was ever a global corporate newsmagazine cover which visually represents the anti-Israel agenda of the "Global Oligarchy" the most recent cover of TIME Magazine is it. That this graphic image was published at the precise time when Israel and Palestinian Authority representatives are engaged in the process of direct peace negotiations via the good offices of the United States of America the absence of any Palestinian national symbol is as striking as the accompanying headline "WHY ISRAEL DOESN'T CARE ABOUT PEACE."

And where the cover story author, Karl Vick, writes "Israel" he means not only the Israeli government negotiators, but the Israeli people themselves do not care or are totally disinterested about achieving a lasting peace with the "Palestinian" people. The intent and effect of Time Magazine is to blame the whole of Israel for the inevitable failure of the negotiation and for the war which will ensue. Thus we find the agenda of the "Global Oligarchy" unabashedly standing front and center: BLAME ISRAEL. Period.

What the "Globalist Oligarchists" and the nations which they lead are oblivious denial of is that in standing against Israel they stand and build their global empire against the will of Almighty God. They align themselves not with the will of the God of their fathers, nor the false god of the Arabs, but that of another god, a false god of fortesses, a god he himself will claim to be in the flesh as foretold by the prophet Daniel.

Israel at the Rubicon

15 August 2010: After years of endless debate, delayed decisions, additional deliberations, bald-faced lies and disinformation, followed by economic sanctions packages piled upon other ineffective economic sanctions packages, coupled with incessant Iranian and Western bellicose rhetoric which would have been considered casus belli in years gone by, the announcement made on Friday by Sergei Novikov, the spokesman for the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency (Rosatom), that the fueling of the Iranian Bushehr nuclear plant will commence on Saturday, 21 August has left the State of Israel standing on the southern bank of a literal River Rubicon.

In the absense of a decision by Western governments, the United States of America in particular, to back up its own rhetoric with concrete actions, Israel has been left holding the baggage containing approximately 144 hours of time. At the conclusion of those 144 hours it will have become irreversibly too late for military action to halt Iran and its current apocalyptic regime's nuclear weapons program. This is the conventional wisdom being related by many subject matter experts in the past 36 hours, experts such as former Ambassador John Bolton. Bolton's comments to FoxNews last Friday speak of just such a window of time remaining.

However, there's another window no one is openly considering, a window that may likely already have closed. The name of this window is "Russian nuclear technicians at Bushehr." Those Russian technicians effectively consistute a "human shield" guarding against a pre-emptive Israeli strike on the Bushehr reactor complex. Not to mention the Russian VIPs who will begin arriving on-site at the Bushehr complex for the opening cermonies prior to the end of the 144 hours.

Short of starting a war with Russia, the physical presence of Russian technicians at Bushehr affords Israel no option but to focus its contingency plans against deeply buried Iranian enrichment cascades, weaponization plants and delivery systems as well as the suppression of Iran's military retaliation capabilities. The Iranian response to an Israel air assault also includes thousands of missiles, some of them likely tipped with biological or chemical weapons in Lebanon (Hezbollah) and Syria, as well as an Iranian assault against commerical shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

Have I just described a recipe for an armgeddon-like scenario to unfold in the Middle East? No doubt about it. This is precisely the type of scenario the leaders of apocalyptic Iran want more than anything. Great chess players those Iranians. So here stands Israel on the southern bank of the River Rubicon with virtually no time left to ponder her next move. Irregardless of the next action taken this world will never be the same, and only the ancient Biblical prophets have told us what lies ahead.

On The Brink

4 August 2010: Approximately three and one-half years ago I wrote a brief report regarding a firefight between troops of the Lebanese Army and Israeli Defense Forces on Februrary 8, 2007. That was a reminder of a similar firefight between the Lebanese Army and the IDF which preceded the surprise war which followed that became known as the Hezbollah-Israel summer war of 2006.

A review of that article might be prudent given the breaking news events of just the past 24-36 hours in the Middle East powder keg. It would appear that once again the Middle East is again on the brink of war – a war which has been repeatedly forecast to occur; a war the enemies of a negotiated settlement appear determined to cause at all costs.

Yesterday another deliberate assault upon IDF soldiers was executed by Lebanese soldiers. In the unprovoked opening skirmish a sniper firing from Lebanese soil shot and killed IDF Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Dov Harari and may have fatally wounded Captain Ezer Lakiya. Israel National News has details on this deliberate Lebanese Army assault. The immediate area of the Lebanese Army sniper assault is seen in the IDF image above. Israel immediately retaliated and the fighting escalated to near open warfare. By no means has this military engagement ended, both sides stand on the brink of full-scale war. The fecklessness of the Western-imposed UNSCR 1701 lies burnt to a crisp, although its remains continue to be propped up like some international scarecrow by malignant global politicians and their toadies.

This morning comes word from many Western and Middle Eastern news organizations of an apparently unsuccessful improvised explosive device (IED) assassination attempt against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad as his vehicle and security convoy drove through the streets of Hamadan, Iran. After first denying such an assassination attempt has occured, I hold little doubt that the Ayatollah’s sock-puppet and holocaust-denying president will blame the attempt on “the Zionist entitity” further inflaming the military situation in the Levant and the entire Middle East region.

This past spring a regional war had been forecast to occur late this summer by many observers in the Middle East. It would appear that once again multiple fuses have been lit to preempt direct negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, and any of which could ignite the forecast war. Our summer vacation has just been cut short.

Don’t Tread On Me: The Second American Revolution

30 JULY 2010: A storm has been brewing for some time now in all levels of the American populace. Ever since the day that Barack Hussein Obama opened his “Office of the President-Elect” and then actually succeeded in usurping the office of Chief Executive and Commander-IN-Chief, there have been ever increasing rumblings across this great land. So much so that from the Atlantic to the Pacific coasts the American heartland has been bubbling with words not heard since our Founding Fathers cut colonial ties with Great Britain, and several southern states rebelled over the issue of State’s Rights. Join or Die. Don’t Tread On Me. Tea Party. Civil Disobedience. Secession. Revolution. The elite in Washington, D.C. would have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to see this coming.

And it just got easier. In yesterday’s issue of The Washington Times, Jeffrey T. Kuhner wrote an opinion piece entitled “Should Arizona Secede: Choice between devolution and dissolution may be inevitable.” Previous top-notch OpEds by Kuhner include: “President’s socialist takeover must be stopped,” and “Who Lost Afghanistan.” However, it is yesterday’s article which clearly shows where the “rubber meets the road” in America today, that a breaking point is all but inevitable when the will of “We The People” is usurped, over-ridden or ignored one time too many.

Jeffrey Kuhner’s concluding paragraphs lay it squarely on the line.

“For too long, liberals have successfully used the courts to impose radical social engineering upon a recalcitrant population. Abortion, homosexual marriage, pornography, racial quotas, affirmative action, a ban on public school prayer – all of these issues have been imposed by an imperial judiciary against the wishes of the majority. The Arizona law is the reassertion of democratic self-rule against the federal leviathan.

Arizona is where the old republic will stand or fall. It is showdown at high noon. Either America returns to its constitutional system based on real federalism, states’ rights, individual liberty and decentralized power, or it continues to slide toward the darkness of a socialist superstate. Washington – with its swollen bureaucracy, imperial arrogance, rampant corruption and dangerous detachment from ordinary citizens – is despised and distrusted by many Americans. A secession of the heart is taking place – a profound alienation from the liberal ruling class.

In the future, many states – including Arizona – may decide they have no other option but to break away from the union. The choice is becoming starkly apparent: devolution or dissolution.”

It is just a few more months until national mid-term elections occur and the will of the people is manifest. This coming election will go a long way in determining America’s near-term future, and what precisely need be done to ensure our God-given right to restore this Republic to the law of our Constitution. One way or another it is to going to happen.

Israel Integrates with NATO Theater Ballistic Missile Defense Systems

19 JULY 2010: Not quite 6 weeks ago, between 7 and 9 June, an Israeli delegation attended a briefing given by the NATO Program Office for the Active Layered Theater Ballistic Missile Defense System (ALTBMDS) Operational Users Group, led by the United States, Germany, Italy, Poland, the U.K., France, Holland and Canada.

The briefing brought the Israeli's up to speed on the current and future capabilities of the NATO ballistic missile defense system. At the same time the NATO side was briefed by Israeli Brigadier General (Ret.) Eitan Yariv on Israel's Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) system.

Obviously, the two systems were immediately recognized to be mutually compatable and would provide an immediate increase in joint capabilities against hostile ballistic missile threats against Europe, Israel and forward deployed NATO forces in the Middle Eastern theater of operations (Operation Enduring Freedom). Without question the Islamic Republic of Iran, with its Shahab-3/4/5 family of ballistic missiles, is seen by all parties as the primary emergent threat. Syria and newly ballistic missile-armed Hezbollah in Lebanon are second tier emergent threats.

It is no big surprise, therefore, to see operational in Israel today a jointly-manned American and Israeli operations center featuring the ground-based center-piece of the NATO system, the AN/TPY-2 radar seen in the image above. Israel has not only integrated its defenses with the American systems in theater, but now has integrated with those of NATO on the European continent. Any launched ballistic missile threat within 1,900 miles of these allied territories will be rapidly identified, the specific launch point located and the incoming warhead destroyed. The effective range of this system is likely limited only by the overhead postion of the space-based element of the networked system and the location of most forward deployed elements of the actual interceptor missiles - most likely located outside of Europe in Israel, Kuwait and Afghanistan.