CAULDRON.... Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East

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CAULDRON
Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East

Posted: Januray 5, 2014
8:00 am Eastern

PART 1: WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?

Introduction To Concept, by Tom Horn

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CAULDRON.... Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East Cauldron

They say that timing is everything, and in the upcoming nonfiction book by best-selling author Terry James, you will discover why I consider it to be one of the most important works—if not the most prescient document—of 2014.

Cauldron uncovers with vivid description how prophecies from the Bible proclaimed far in advance appear now to be cascading around the world in phenomenally accurate fulfillment. Research and analysis within Cauldron will convince even the hardiest skeptic that something frightening yet marvelous is unfolding as the author takes you deep into the Middle East and around the world to chronicle, with pivotal skill, not only shocking events that seem torn from the pages of apocalyptic literature, but also the words and actions of global leaders who are now openly proclaiming the end times are here.

Critical prophetic events as covered by James include a gamut missed by most recent works of prophecy—an astonishing call by Muslims and Jews to build the Third Temple in Jerusalem; political and religious leaders advocating for a single global, financial, and political authority; and even what appears to be intentional movement by the international community that could initiate the battle of Armageddon.

As a judicious example of the findings in this investigative book, James points to the book of Ezekiel, where one of the most important prophets of the Old Testament provides very specific information regarding the final global battle—called in Ezekiel 38 “the battle of Gog and Magog.” Ezekiel says this supernatural contest will occur in the latter times, after Israel is “gathered out of many people and nations” and is recognized as a nation once again. During that generation in which Israel is so reunified—which was accomplished on May 14, 1948, when David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, proclaimed the establishment of the state of Israel and “U.S. President Harry S. Truman recognized the new nation on the same day”[i]—the Battle of Gog and Magog occurs. If a biblical generation is seventy years (see Psalms 90:10, Daniel 9, and related texts), counting forward from 1948 would seem to indicate that this decisive conflict, which leads to the final confrontation referred to in John’s Apocalypse as the “battle of Armageddon,” could happen very soon. In Ezekiel’s vision, Iran (Persia) becomes the number-one confederate with Russia (Gog) in this invasion of Israel:

Quote :: And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog [the Russian Federation]…and prophesy against him, And say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: And I will…bring thee forth, and all thine army…. Persia [ancient kingdom of Iran], Ethiopia, and Libya with them.” (Ezekiel 38:1–5)

CAULDRON.... Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East Gog

Although Ezekiel explains how the invasion of Israel described above somehow goes wrong for Iran, Russia, and their confederates (actually leading them to turn on each other, according to chapter 38:21), one cannot read this prophetic foresight and fail to ponder the unprecedented events in recent days involving Iran and its leaders, Russia and its leaders, and the current push by the president of the United States to force Israel into a so-called peace deal with the Palestinians (whose leaders openly call for the destruction of Israel and the slaughter of Jews[ii]) while secretly negotiating a nuclear agreement with Iran, a fact made public in November 2013.

“The Obama administration, with Secretary of State John Kerry in the lead, joined with the international community in making an agreement with the Iranian regime that many view as a betrayal of Israel,” notes James in a chapter of this book.

“Just as the sanctions against Iran for their pursuing development of a nuclear program to produce atomic weaponry was beginning to make an impact, the U.S., in concert with the world powers that constitute the international community, agreed to lift part of those economic sanctions on Iran.”

Of course, James sees through this façade of diplomacy and recognizes the important, even staggeringly prophetic, implications of these Machiavellian maneuverings. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saw through them as well and harshly condemned the nuclear deal with Iran as a massive failure of foreign policy. “What was reached last night in Geneva is not a historic agreement, it is a historic mistake,” he said, before including: “Today the world became a much more dangerous place because the most dangerous regime in the world made a significant step in obtaining the most dangerous weapons in the world.”

Netanyahu’s economics minister, Naftali Bennett, then alleged, “If a nuclear suitcase blows up five years from now in New York or Madrid it will be because of the deal signed this morning.”[iii]Ironically, Saudi Arabia also viewed the U.S.-led and secretly bartered agreement with Iran as a treachery due to its (the Saudis’) historic affiliation with Washington, which in modern history was demonstratively committed to protecting the kingdom from Iran. This new agreement weakens the relationship with Saudi Arabia, a fact that, all by itself, could have destabilizing and prophetic effects throughout the Middle East.

CAULDRON.... Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East Netanyahu

Given Iran’s consistency with not honoring such “deals” and the hearty evidence that it is in fact developing nuclear bomb technology as well as likely purchasing WMDs (weapons of mass destruction) on the black market with stated ambitions of annihilating Israel, James says what people not living in the Middle East should understand is the resolve that Jews like Netanyahu have for protecting themselves and the security of their nation, not to mention God’s promise of the same. Because of this resolve, Obama’s fait accompli regarding peace deals with Israel’s enemies could result literally overnight in the battle described by Ezekiel and in the book of Revelation. The modern people of Israel—from civilians to government and military leaders—have powerful memories of those who have promised to exterminate them, including Nazi Germany in the past and modern Iran today, and survival by any means necessary thus pervades their hearts at this stage in history. This was reflected most recently by Netanyahu himself during the 2013 General Debate of the 68th Session of the United Nations, when the prime minister, before the nations of the world, admitted that Israel is at the center of Bible prophecy, saying:

Quote :: [O]ne cold day in the late 19th century, my grandfather Nathan and his younger brother Judah were standing in a railway station in the heart of Europe. They were seen by a group of anti-Semitic hoodlums who ran towards them waving clubs, screaming “Death to the Jews.”

My grandfather shouted to his younger brother to flee and save himself, and he then stood alone against the raging mob to slow it down. They beat him senseless, they left him for dead, and before he passed out, covered in his own blood, he said to himself, “What a disgrace, what a disgrace. The descendants of the Macabees lie in the mud powerless to defend themselves.”

He promised himself then that if he lived, he would take his family to the Jewish homeland and help build a future for the Jewish people. I stand here today as Israel’s prime minister because my grandfather kept that promise.

And so many other Israelis have a similar story, a parent or a grandparent who fled every conceivable oppression and came to Israel to start a new life in our ancient homeland. Together we’ve transformed a bludgeoned Jewish people, left for dead, into a vibrant, thriving nation, defending itself with the courage of modern Maccabees, developing limitless possibilities for the future.

In our time the Biblical prophecies are being realized. As the prophet Amos said, they shall rebuild ruined cities and inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and drink their wine. They shall till gardens and eat their fruit. And I will plant them upon their soil never to be uprooted again. [iv](emphasis added)

One should read the entire UN statement by Netanyahu and not underestimate the national Jewish commitment to preservation, even if they have to go it alone. While President Obama has been steering the United States increasingly away from the stronger relationship Israel once enjoyed with previous administrations, France, one of the P-5+1 members (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany), and Saudi Arabia recognize that the threat posed by modern Persia-Iran is not only prophetically against Israel, but holds global implications of a wider nuclear war and, if the U.S. will not stand in defense of God’s land and people, the Saudis and France (for their own self-interests) will offer logistical support to Israel should they be backed into a corner and forced to strike the heart of the ancient enemy.

This recent development is but one scenario of what is timely and imminently important in Cauldron, a single example I have provided from among many that offer a unique evaluation of what is happening in the world and what lies ahead for the reader. You should pay very careful attention to this and other magnificently researched details by this veteran prophecy expert, Terry James, because what happens next in the Middle East will affect your life and future, as well as the lives of every person on earth. Understanding these events—“signs,” as the Bible calls them—will empower you to take action for yourself and your family and to find peace that passes understanding, something that all of us will surely need in the immediate days ahead.

Guest

CAULDRON
Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East

Posted: Januray 12, 2014
8:00 am Eastern

PART 2: Back To The Beginning?

Abraham's Covenant and Conflict

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CAULDRON.... Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East IsraelHated

Today’s problems in the region we call the Holy Land cannot be ignored or put on the back burner. They are in-your-face, everyday news. Hundreds of reports coming from that area weekly could be used to make the point. Israel and its neighbors are rumbling toward war!
The following news excerpt vividly illustrates that fact. The report is from a former insider of the Iranian regime. Reza Kahlili was in the CIA directorate of operations working as a spy in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. As of this writing, he serves on the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, an advisory board to Congress, and on the advisory board of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran (FDI).

Quote :: Iranian scientists are working on nuclear warheads—and trying to perfect them—at an underground site unknown to the West, according to a high-ranking intelligence officer of the Islamic regime.…
The site, approximately 14 miles long and 7.5 miles wide, consists of two facilities built deep into a mountain along with a missile facility that is surrounded by barbed wire, 45 security towers and several security posts.
The new secret nuclear site, named Quds (Jerusalem), is almost 15 miles from another site, previously secret but exposed in 2009, the Fordow nuclear facility.…
Quds, built about 375 feet under the mountain and accessible by two large entrances reinforced with concrete, has 12 emergency exit tunnels and spreads around the mountain.
The site has a capacity of 8,000 centrifuges and currently has three operational chambers with 19 cascades of 170 to 174 centrifuges enriching uranium….
One chamber is specifically allocated to laser enrichment research and development, and Iranian scientists have seen great progress, the source said.…
Moreover, the source said, successfully making a neutron reflector indicates the final stages for a nuclear weapons design that would be a two-stage, more sophisticated and much more powerful nuclear bomb.
Regime scientists are also working on a plutonium bomb as a second path to becoming nuclear-armed, the source said, and they have at this site 24 kilograms of plutonium, which is sufficient for several atomic bombs.
The scientists are at the last stage of putting together a bomb warhead, he said, and the scientists in their design for a plutonium bomb are using polonium and beryllium, which would serve as the trigger for the bomb.
Iranian scientists, aided by North Koreans, are also working on new ways to have more miniaturized and more powerful atomic bombs, he said.…
The regime is working on 17 Shahab 3 missiles in preparation of arming them with nuclear warheads, the source said. The operational and technical aspect of the delivery system is 80 percent completed, he said.
The regime, aided by North Korea, is also working on neutron warheads that could be used as super EMP weapons for electromagnetic pulse attacks.[i]

Penalty for Premature Paternity
CAULDRON.... Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East Luciferfall

The prophetic issue of war and peace in the Middle East, as explained in the upcoming book Cauldron, began with the angelic rebellion in heaven. Sin then entered the human world at the Fall in the Garden of Eden. But the conflict really picked up steam when the great patriarch, Abraham, stepped onto the stage of human history.
God’s plan is always the right plan. His is always the perfect plan. That was true when He created the angelic hosts. It was true when He created the man and the woman in Eden. It was also true when He promised Abram that he would father a great family through his wife, Sarai.
Sin is terrible because it altered God’s perfection. The “lawlessness” we’ve been talking about has continued to interfere with God’s perfect plan down through history. After Lucifer determined to do things his way rather than God’s way and Adam disobeyed, choosing to do what he considered was best, the Bible record shows that mankind continued to grow worse and worse until the Lord had to destroy all but Noah and his family with the Great Flood. Abram and Sarai continued the long line of disobedient acts committed by fallen men and women. Rather than wait on God’s precise timing to do its work, they acted on their own. We are living with the consequences of their sin thousands of years later. In fact, notes Hal Lindsey, “the current crisis in the Middle East originated in a feud that began in the tents of Abraham—the father of both Ishmael and Isaac.”[ii]
High Price of Disobedience
Jesus once said that among men, no one was greater than John the Baptist. Abram, who would later be renamed Abraham, surely was in John’s class in God’s view, because He trusted him to father God’s chosen people, the children of Israel.
But even the greatest of men and women are fatally flawed because of their fallen nature. Such is the case of the great father of God’s chosen people. Despite his deep love for God, Abram jumped the gun in the matter of God’s plan for him and Sarai. The couple’s disobedience was so serious that fighting and struggles have plagued the world ever since.
Journey for Jehovah
“Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee” (Genesis 12:1). When God gave Abram these instructions, the seventy-five-year-old man faithfully did as he was told. He always obeyed his much-beloved God, who had never failed him. He, Sarai, his nephew, Lot, and their families packed up all they possessed and went into the land the Lord showed him: Canaan. The images of the Middle Eastern landscape we see daily in news coverage of the region make it easy to envision the scenario as the ancient troupe set off on their journey:

Quote :: Shepherds looking north and east from what are now called the Golan Heights might have seen the first Hebrew scouts coming over a range of low hills. Herdsmen followed with sheep and goats, then came pack donkeys with the women and children, heading south towards Canaan. They wore brightly coloured tunics, knee-length for men, slightly longer for the women. Men wore sandals or went barefoot, the women leather shoes. Most of the adult males had neatly trimmed beards and hair hanging to the neck; the women’s tresses flowed down their backs.
When these nomads camped, they grouped round a tent belonging to…Abram, later to be known as Abraham. He was leaving behind the clan of his father and brothers at Ur in southern Mesopotamia and migrating into unknown territory.
Abraham’s journey launched the history of the new Hebrew people, a moment of incalculable consequence for the world. Leaving the Euphrates valley with its dark, thick-walled houses, Abraham’s growing clan moved to the dry but open wilderness and pasture land of Canaan.[iii]

CAULDRON.... Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East Israel

The journey, though monumental to the travelers in distance, scope, and risk, would eventuate in absolutely spectacular results. Genesis 12:2–3 records God’s promise to make of Abram “a great nation.” Further, God stated, “I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”
Perhaps the most dramatic truth found in this passage is the prophecy that Abram’s future family would affect the peoples of the whole world throughout the centuries to come. To know that God still curses those who curse Abram’s offspring, we need only to remember what happened to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis of World War II Germany. Hitler committed suicide in total defeat. The Nazis were considered war criminals by the whole world, and most top Nazis were executed. This was the most hated regime of modern times.
And to know that God still blesses those who bless Israel, all we have to do is to consider that America, the nation-state that God used to help bring modern Israel to birth, is to this point in history one of the most spiritually blessed countries, and certainly the most materially blessed nation ever to exist.
Ultimately, Abram—whose name, of course, would later be changed to Abraham—is a blessing to the whole earth in that through his offspring, God brought Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, into the world.
A Patient Heavenly Father
God had promised to bless the world through Abram and his descendants; however, he and Sarai obviously had tried to have children without success. They were very old—and getting older! The great man of God lamented the fact that he couldn’t give God what He wanted: “And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless?… Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir” (Genesis 15:2).
But, God wasn’t worried. His plan hadn’t changed. He patiently, lovingly took Abram aside and asked him to look at the heavens and try to count the stars. That mind-boggling number, the Lord said, would be the head count of his descendants one day.
Abram was still unsure about the matter and asked God for affirmation that He would possess the land. God gave that assurance through a covenant, which is a binding agreement of the most immovable kind. Like God instructed, Abram gathered animals for the covenant process. After putting Abram into a deep sleep, the Lord performed the covenant ritual. Abram had no part in agreeing to the promise, except to accept God’s word on the matter. Then God gave a far-reaching prophecy explaining what would happen in the coming centuries:

Quote :: 1) Abram’s descendants would be away from the Promised Land for four hundred years.
2) They would be greatly mistreated in foreign lands.
3) The Lord would punish the people who mistreated Abram’s descendants.
4) After four hundred years, Abram’s heirs would leave the land of their bondage with very great possessions.
5) Abram would live a long life, then die and go to heaven to join his forefathers.
6) Four generations later, Abram’s descendants would come to the land of promise.

God concluded the covenant by describing the boundaries of the Promised Land as stretching from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates River. “The meaning to Abraham and the early readers of Scripture is clear,” explains theologian John Walvoord in his book, Armageddon, Oil, and the Middle East Crisis. “The land promised was Palestine, stretching from the Sinai Desert north and east to the Euphrates River. This would include all the holdings of present-day Israel, Lebanon, and the West Bank of Jordan, plus substantial portions of Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia.”[iv]
CAULDRON.... Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East IsraelPromisedLandFull

CAULDRON.... Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East IsraelPromisedLandFull

Unconditional Covenant
It’s important to emphasize that this covenant God made with Abram was one that nothing and no one could ever break. The promise, or agreement, depended on God’s absolute love and integrity alone and had nothing to do with Israel’s performance.
Abram’s Arranged Affair
Even with the covenant in place and God’s assurance that He would fulfill His promise, the graying Sarai couldn’t seem to ignore her ticking biological clock. Still, there was no child. Sarai began to wonder if she and her husband should put “plan B” in place by asking the couple’s Egyptian handmaid, Hagar, to serve as what we would call today as a surrogate mother. The practice was common and, while it does not excuse ungodly sexual activity during Abram’s generation or any other, the culture at this time often called for such action when a couple couldn’t conceive otherwise. Abram was quick to agree to Sarai’s suggestion to do what they thought was best rather than what God wanted to do through them. Soon, Hagar had conceived a child with her master.
In the Middle East during these times, childlessness was regarded as the most dreaded misfortune a woman could experience. In fact, many believed that happiness could even be measured by the number of children, particularly sons, a couple had. For most women, much of their entire identity and sense of purpose was wrapped up in the ability to bear children. In light of this, Hagar displayed what would have been a typical attitude: Once pregnant with Abram’s child, she haughtily looked down her nose at her barren—at least to this point—mistress. The beginning of the future troubles in the Middle East had begun!
Humiliated by Hagar’s attitude, Sarai grew angry and took out her frustration, no doubt, on the ears of her husband. Abram acted less than a diplomat, telling Sarai to do with Hagar as she wished. Sarai did just that; in fact, she “dealt” so harshly with Hagar that her actions and words sent the pregnant woman packing (Genesis 16:6), foreshadowing things to come. The hostilities would build from this point to become full-blown wars that will continue to boil until Christ returns.
Heavenly Intervention
As Hagar was heading out of town, she had an unusual encounter. An “angel of the Lord” appeared to her in what many scholars believe was a theophany—a supernatural appearance before His birth to Mary in Bethlehem many centuries later. The angel of the Lord told Hagar to repent, or turn from her haughtiness, and trust herself and her unborn child to Sarai for safekeeping. He then made Hagar a great promise, a mixed blessing of great expectation and dire consequences. The great expectation was the promise that her offspring would grow to become a great number of people who would populate many nations. The terrible results of Abram and Sarai getting ahead of God’s plan would be that the fruit of the sin would result in big trouble: Hagar’s baby, to be named Ishmael, would be a “wild man” who would be “against every man,” and “every man’s hand [would be] against him.” He would dwell among his brothers (see Genesis 16:7–12).
Hagar might not have realized exactly what all of the angel of the Lord’s promises meant at this point. The promise of a wonderful future, however, convinced her to pick herself up and return to Abram’s house.
The Birth of a Fierce Family
CAULDRON.... Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East Arabfatahyouth

CAULDRON.... Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East Arabfatahyouth

The description of Ishmael offered by the angel of the Lord quickly propels our thoughts to the Middle East today. What do we know about today’s descendants of Abram and Hagar? Certainly the Arab people are descendants of that long-ago union. This is not a thought that is argued against by the Arab people themselves. They readily claim Abraham as their original father and Hagar as their mother.
That is the fact upon which they base their claim to the land now called Palestine. Many of the Arab authorities claim that Israel—that is, the Jews—is an illegitimate intruder in the area also called the Holy Land. That is why some of the terrorist organizations within the radical Islamic groups call for jihad (holy war) against the tiny nation of Israel.
Very interesting facts about recent history come to the surface when examining the words the angel of the Lord gave Hagar. The Israel-Arab conflict down through history is covered throughout the pages of this book. But we’ll look at that trouble briefly here:

Quote :: 1) The Arabs have lived mostly as nomadic people in the arid lands of the Middle East since the time of Ishmael.
2) The Arabs have been in constant conflict, warring against other peoples and with each other during that history.
3) The Arabs continue to live much like their early ancestors in dress and cultural ways. They remain “wild” in the sense they have not, as a race, conformed to the modern, “civilized” way of life.
4) The Arabs now dwell among their brothers. The prophecy given to Hagar—“And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man”—means the Arabs and the Jews will live in the same region. They are, after all, half-brothers. They will quarrel over the same land, particularly as the end of the age approaches.

“The descendants of Ishmael have been at Isaac’s descendant’s throats for four thousand years now, and their blood feud has smoldered and frequently flamed into war during all that time,” notes Bible scholar and author Hal Lindsey in The Final Battle. “No racial problem in the world can compare with this one in terms of duration and intensity of animosity.”[v]
God Keeps Promise to Hagar
Not only have we seen the prophecy about Ishmael’s descendants being “wild” come to pass; we’ve seen the prediction of their proliferation fulfilled as well. God has absolutely kept His promise to multiply Ishmael’s seed; the great Arab race has exploded in population, dominating the Mideast region and beyond for many hundreds of years. Further, the Arabs have been blessed indeed with great riches. Petroleum brought from beneath the sands has made Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and some other nations there the richest per capita countries in the world.
Sadly, because of the religious and governmental systems in most of the Arab-dominated nations, the masses of people enjoy few of those oil riches. Their dictator-leaders keep the great wealth for themselves.
God-Guaranteed Greatness
Abram had been eighty-six years old when his and Hagar’s son Ishmael was born. Now, at ninety-nine years old, Abram was told an amazing thing by none other than God Himself. As recorded in Genesis 17:1–5, God said that not only was Abram to become a father again; he was going to be a father many times over—“I will multiply thee exceedingly” (Genesis 17:2). That is indeed enough to make a man fall on his face! And, that is exactly what Abram did. He lay flat on his face before Almighty God, who also told him many other wonderful things. For example, the name “Abram” was no longer significant enough to proclaim the greatness God was about to invest in him. From now on, he would be known as “Abraham,” which means “the father of many nations.” Kings and entire nations would be born from his line of descendants. The covenant between Abraham and the Creator of all things would, God promised, last forever.
It was a staggering promise Abraham’s God made that day. More than that, the Lord guaranteed that Abraham and all of his descendants would own the land of Canaan forever. That includes all of what is called today the Holy Land.
God then made a second covenant between Abraham and himself, one made binding through the act of circumcision for Abraham and all his male heirs to follow (see Genesis 17:9–14). This covenant differs from the earlier one in that the first covenant was “unconditional”—Abraham and his heirs could do nothing to either keep or break it; God did it all. This later covenant was “conditional,” one that must be entered by Abraham and his heirs. Circumcision also means that those entering that covenant must keep the requirements involved in obedience to God. To do otherwise brings certain judgments as corrective measures. In that sense, it is possible to break this covenant.
New Names for New Fame
Like the name “Abram,” the name “Sarai” was not significant enough to reflect the powerful blessings God was about to bestow upon the couple. So God changed Sarai’s name to “Sarah,” promising to bless the woman who would not only become the mother of a son, but who would become “a mother of nations.” The couple’s new fame would become tremendous on the earth (see Genesis 17:15–16).
Ishmael’s Mocking Brings Strife
CAULDRON.... Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East Middle_East_Crisis

CAULDRON.... Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East Middle_East_Crisis

Sure enough, twenty-five years after her son’s birth was promised, Sarah became pregnant and delivered Isaac—and this is where we come to the beginnings of the strife between Abraham’s sons. God’s words recorded in Genesis 16:12 describing Ishmael’s character were coming true: Ishmael was a wild young man looking for trouble, and he found it. Isaac was a very young child when Ishmael, about sixteen years old, began to mock the younger boy in threatening tones.

Sarah, obviously upset and angered, told Abraham that Hagar and her son would have to go. Abraham was extremely saddened about having to deal with the situation. The Lord talked with the old father of both boys and comforted him, letting him know that, in this case, Abraham should listen to his wife and do what she wanted him to do. Whether Sarah did it for the right reasons or not, or whether she knew it or not, sending Hagar and young Ishmael away from Isaac was the only way there would be any peace at all in Abraham’s family.
God of Isaac Loves Ishmael
Genesis 21:14 and the verses following describe how Abraham gave Hagar and her son some provisions and sent them out as commanded. The old man’s faith must have been tested greatly by having to watch the pair shuffle away from the protection of his home. But Abraham always believed God and trusted him completely.
The trip proved very difficult for Hagar and her son as they struggled to survive in the wilderness of Beer-sheba. When the supply of water Abraham had packed for them ran dry, just at the moment Hagar was about to give up on her son’s survival—and her own, for that matter—she left the exhausted boy in the shade of a bush. “Let me not see the death of the child” (Genesis 21:16) wept the distraught woman, who was “seemingly alone and without help.”[vi] But she soon learned that she wasn’t alone, nor was she without help. God, who sees all and who hears every cry, came to her, tenderly asked her what was wrong, reaffirmed His promise to make of her son “a great nation” (Genesis 21:18), and then miraculously provided a well of water in the wilderness. How wonderfully personal this time was between Hagar and the Heavenly Father! The God of Isaac also loves Ishmael…by this, we can know He loves us, too.
Sinful disobedience had set the wheels in motion that would cause Abraham to sire sons of strife. Peace will not come to either of Abraham’s two families until the Prince of Peace returns to put down all war on the planet.
Thankfully, many prophetic signals, as we will vividly illustrate in the upcoming book Cauldron will let us know Christ’s return must be very near indeed. Jesus is the only hope for mankind collectively, and He is the only hope for us individually as each of us passes through this life.
One day the great strife will end. There will be peace, not war, in the Middle East and everywhere else. But first there will be a time of Great Trouble, which we will look into in the next entry.
TO BE CONTINUED...

Guest

CAULDRON
Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East

Posted: January 19, 2014
8:00 am Eastern

PART 3: MORE ON HOW WE GOT HERE

A Cauldron Set To Boil Over

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CAULDRON.... Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East TempleMount3

Present-day troubles in the Middle East are nothing new. The troubles are due to man keeping God out of the peace process. Disobedience to God has always plagued the world. Satan makes the most of sinful man’s opposition to God’s perfect order. Satan’s angry disorder can be witnessed in hourly news accounts around the globe.

As discussed in the previous entry, Abraham fathered Ishmael contrary to the Lord’s will. Abraham and Sarah were then blessed with Isaac, the child God wanted born in the first place. Then, Abraham sired through Ketura, another handmaid, a huge family that has been in conflict with Isaac’s children ever since.

The Arabs and Jews have been in an ongoing clash since Isaac came into the world.

Today, the fiery relationship grows hotter by the day. Satan continues to use these families against each other. The struggle will grow worse until Christ returns personally to stop the conflict at the end of Armageddon.

Neither Isaac’s family nor Ishmael’s has fully received the great blessings God promised. There must first come an era ruled by the Prince of Peace. Both families of Abraham will receive everything promised them. That will come to pass during the thousand-year reign of King Jesus upon David’s throne at Jerusalem.

Nonetheless, Abraham’s seed has already been a blessing to the entire world through Jesus Christ. He is the Jews’ Messiah and the Savior of the world who was born of Mary, a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. His birth is fulfillment of the prophecy in Genesis 3:15: “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” The Bible says much about Christ’s birth. One of the earliest foreshadowings of that wonderful event is the story of Abraham and Isaac, who were told by God to take a little trip.

God Says, “Take a Hike”

And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. (Genesis 22:1–2)

It’s impossible to grasp what the Lord was asking Abraham to do without understanding a little bit about sacrifices and offerings, a system very foreign to the thinking of twenty-first century Christians. When the sin of Adam and Eve—and, by birthright, their descendants—separated mankind from God, from that point on, “the only way for sin-tarnished people to approach a holy God was through the shedding of blood [remember the animals the Lord had slain to cover the first couple’s nakedness?]. This was accomplished through the ritual of sacrificing animals” and involved a complex code, outlined in great detail in the book of Leviticus, that was “at the very center and heart of Jewish national life.”[i]

So, the ritual of sacrifice itself would have been very familiar to a man as devoted to keeping the Lord’s laws as Abraham. In fact, a man who loved the Lord as much as he did would have cherished every opportunity to draw closer to God through the privilege of worship and sacrifice. Yet this burnt offering would be like no other. The Lord wasn’t asking Abraham to offer an unblemished bull, lamb, or goat; this was a radical instruction for a man to place his own long-awaited, beloved son on the altar.

“Abraham’s previous experience of God would certainly not have led him to suppose child-sacrifice would please him,” notes one commentary on Genesis. “Nor was this general practice in Abraham’s time.”[ii]

Are you close enough to your Heavenly Father that you could hear instructions like these from Him without losing it? We can’t know what doubts or fears began to rage inside Abraham’s head or heart when he heard those words, but, according to Scripture, he didn’t even question his Lord. He simply got right down to the business of obeying: He arose early and got his things together, then set out towards Moriah with his son as commanded on the three-day trip.

Although the King James Version of the Genesis passage states here that God “tempted” Abraham, we know that God doesn’t tempt us to do wrong (see James 1:13). Temptation is Satan’s territory. We saw that at its boldest manifestation during his temptation of Christ in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1–11). Instead, a word study reveals that the more accurate concept conveyed here would be “tested.”

We know from many places throughout Scripture that God does test His followers, and that is the case here. God was testing His servant—and what a severe test it was! Life and death hung in the balance. However, this was so much more than God testing a man. This dramatic event was the foreshadowing of God sacrificing His own Son for the awful thing called sin.

Trip to Moriah

The destination for father and son was Mount Moriah, a site aptly described as God’s touchstone to humanity because of its great significance as a focal point of biblical history. More of an elongated ridge than a particular peak, it is clearly seen in many photos of Jerusalem. Stretching between Mount Zion on the west and the Mount of Olives on the east, Mount Moriah, often called the Temple Mount, is not only where this remarkable demonstration of Abraham’s faith took place, but it is also the exact spot where the Holy of Holies sat within the Temple King Solomon would build many years later, in the tenth century BC. The Holy of Holies is the sacred area within the magnificent structure that housed the Ark of the Covenant, which was indwelt by God’s glory until the moment of Christ’s death on the cross.

Because of its sacred history, it’s easy to see why this one spot on the globe is the focus of Satan’s hatred. That hatred will continue to be at the heart of Middle East war and peace until Christ’s return.

Mountaintop Experience

When Abraham arrived at the mountain as commanded by God, there seemed to be no weak-kneed wavering. He matter of factly told his servants to wait for Isaac and him to return after they had had a worship session: “I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you” (Genesis 22:5).

This offers a thrilling insight! There seemed no doubt in the old man’s mind or emotions that both he and the son he had been commanded to sacrifice would return together, and that they both would be perfectly well when they did so.

Sons of Sacrifice

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The biblical account of what happened next offers striking parallels to the last days of Christ’s life on earth. First, Abraham put the wood for the fire upon Isaac, his son, for the boy to carry to the place of sacrifice, foreshadowing the way Jesus carried His own wood to Calvary for the cross upon which He was to be sacrificed.

Next, Isaac called out to his father about the sacrifice that was to be made. Didn’t Jesus call to His Father in the Garden of Gethsemane about the sacrifice He knew must be made for sin? Then, Isaac saw that there was no lamb. Have you ever considered that God saw no lamb that could adequately cover humanity’s sin?

Further, Abraham told Isaac that God would provide a lamb for what had to be done. Indeed, in His Son that day on Calvary, God did provide the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13: Cool

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Finally, there is no record of Isaac protesting about what was going on; he went upon the altar willingly. He was bound by his father, but obviously he had obediently let the elderly Abraham tie him. In the same way, Jesus willingly and obediently laid down His life on the cross, led like a lamb to slaughter. He allowed His limitless power as God to be bound by and for God, His Father. He let Himself leave the power and the glory of heaven in order to die for our sin.

God’s Great Intervention

As Abraham was about to plunge the knife into Isaac’s heart, he was urgently interrupted:

The angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said…. Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him; for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. (Genesis 22:11–12)

This was the same angel of the Lord who would later be born through Isaac’s bloodline. It was Jesus Christ who, before He ever came into the world to provide a once-and-for-all sacrifice, stopped Abraham from killing his son. We know this voice was of Jesus, not a created angel from among the many, because He spoke in the first person when commending Abraham for not withholding his son “from me.” God honored faithful Abraham’s absolute obedience to Him, and Abraham now trusted and obeyed His Heavenly Father completely. Imagine the overwhelming emotions Abraham must have felt as he then continued the mountaintop worship service with a ram that the Lord Himself provided (Genesis 22:13).

Covenant Includes Isaac and Kids

Isaac then began his own journey through life apart from his father and mother. God assured Isaac that He would be with him, and would give him the blessings He had promised faithful Abraham. True to God’s Word, Isaac was indeed blessed. He became far richer than any of the people in the land he entered. But the Philistines, the nomadic people who roamed the land, were jealous of Isaac’s great wealth.

Isaac was forced to move from area to area looking for a well that could sustain his family, servants, and flocks. The Philistines threatened every time he and his people stopped to dig wells for water. Rather than fight them, Isaac picked up and moved along. He and his people moved three times. When he dug the third well, the Philistines stopped bothering him. Finally, he found a good water supply and settled near there.

Even the people who hated and harassed Isaac and his people finally admitted that he was blessed. In Genesis 26, we read of Abimilech, the Philistine king who came to Isaac wanting to make a peace agreement. Isaac at first asked why Abimilech came, considering that the Philistines had run them out of every place they had tried to settle. Abimilech insisted on a peace arrangement, most likely because of superstitious fear of a man as blessed as Isaac. Isaac made the agreement and the Philistines left in peace—for the time being.

We know the peace didn’t last. Remember Goliath and that bunch? They were Philistines. So it has been in the Middle East in more recent times. Modern Israel in the land today faces constant envy, hatred, and harassment. There is no real peace between God’s chosen people and the modern-day equivalent of the Philistines.

Battling Brothers

God’s blessings upon Isaac were awesome. But with the blessings came a terrific increase in troubles. Satan worked overtime on him.

Genesis 25:19–26 tells us that when he was forty, Isaac married a woman named Rebekah who, like her mother-in-law, appeared to be childless. Isaac asked the Lord to do something about the problem, and his wife did become pregnant—with twins.

The two children moved around uncomfortably within Rebekah’s womb, prompting her to worry and then ask God about it. He told her the movement she was feeling was a battle for dominance; that is, she was sensing the wrangling of each baby pursuing his desire to be on top. The Lord said the children represented two nations to come that would be completely different from each other: one child would be stronger than the other. Also, He said that the first one born would someday serve the second born.

Even with the Lord’s explanation of her discomfort, it is still very unlikely that Rebekah knew at this point what it would mean for generations to come. This battle she felt within would rage until the end of human history.

When the twins arrived, the first child was born with a ruddy complexion. Isaac and Rebekah named him Esau. The second child had his hand clamped on the heel of the first baby as they emerged in birth, as if he were trying to hold his big brother back. His parents named him Jacob.

If we were to pinpoint almost exactly the time the Mideast war began, we would see that the conflict started as a skirmish most wouldn’t recognize as possible: Twin brothers seem to have started the fighting the moment when they began to battle it out in their mother’s womb.

(Modern thinkers, scientists, politicians, and others would say this is not possible, because the unborn “are not people”—the fetus is merely a blob of flesh until the first breath. This is their justification, of course, for murdering children in the womb. They call it the right of the mother to choose whether to have the baby or to have an abortion. The claim that the unborn child is not yet a human being with rights is a false one—if one believes God’s Word is true. Christians who believe that the Bible doesn’t have anything to say about the fetus being a real person must face the account of this mother and her twin babies within her womb.)

The Birthright and the Blessing

The contrast between the twins born to Isaac and Rebekah couldn’t have been starker. The Bible characterizes Esau as “a skillful hunter, a man of the field”—a “man’s man,” as we might say—and Jacob as “a quiet man, dwelling in tents” (Genesis 25:27). And, whereas the rough and ruddy Esau is many centuries later singled out as an example of ungodliness (Hebrews 12:16), Jacob is described in various translations of Scripture as “plain” (King James Version), “quiet” (New International Version), and “peaceful” (New American Standard Bible). He even earns the description “blameless and upright” from some biblical scholars who have studied the original translation of his story in its full context.

We learn of two key conflicts in the lives of the twins, once grown. The conflicts center on a birthright and a blessing.

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The Birthright

As firstborn son, Esau possessed a special honor within the family, a double portion of his father’s inheritance. This was his birthright. However, Esau apparently didn’t value the importance of such a privilege; Genesis 25:27–35 tells of a time when, famished after an unsuccessful hunt, he sold his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of soup. In essence, he made this life-altering decision without a thought given to God or to his father…and all just to meet a temporary desire. Esau and all of his children for generations to come would pay the price for his sinful carelessness.

The Blessing

Sometime later, when her husband was very old, Rebekah hatched a plan to deceive Isaac so that her favored son Jacob, rather than Esau, would receive his father’s blessing. In our day and time, to “bless” someone is a term of endearment or an expression of a desire for God’s favor upon a person. We can all “bless” anyone at anytime, as often as we wish—even for a simple sneeze. However, the meaning of “blessing” in this account bears much more weight. For the ancient Hebrews, blessings (and curses) were “special categories of expression that were believed to have the power to determine reality. Once spoken, they could not be changed or repudiated.”[iv] This means that, once Isaac bestowed his blessing, he would not be able to amend it, retract it, or transfer it to anyone else. Jacob, whose name means “supplanter” or “one who takes the place of another,” was so eager to receive the valuable gift of his father’s blessing that he willingly joined Rebekah’s plan of deception. She and her son arranged for Jacob to disguise himself, easily tricking the nearly blind Isaac into giving the blessing to Jacob rather than Esau.

Hate-Plagued History

The treacherous act of fooling Isaac and taking his blessing sent Esau into a rage against Jacob (Genesis 27:41). Knowing his aged father’s remaining days were few in number, he vowed he would kill his brother as soon as he finished mourning his father. This was a threat Rebekah and Jacob took seriously; after all, Esau was a mighty hunter. They knew he had the ability to carry out his warning. Jacob’s mother urgently talked to her favorite son and instructed him to take refuge at the home of her brother, Laban, in Haran. So Jacob did as his mother told him, and the brothers were separated.

About twenty years later, Jacob and Esau met again. All seemed forgiven, although Jacob was very afraid as he approached his brother. To Esau’s credit, he held no grudge against his brother. He hugged Jacob enthusiastically and welcomed all of Jacob’s family, which had grown enormous by that time.

Despite Esau’s forgive-and-forget attitude, however, his many offspring through the centuries—the people called in the Old Testament the Edomites—have neither forgotten nor forgiven. Satan will not allow them to do so. It is a supernatural hatred that rages within the most fanatical of the Arabs.

And, Esau’s bloodline became mixed with that of Ishmael in the eastern parts of the Middle East. The families intermarried, producing many generations of people who made up many great nations of the vast region. Theirs has been a hate-haunted history of vengeance against the Jews. That history is prophesied to get worse before it gets better.

Jacob’s Ladder

After Isaac’s death, when Jacob was escaping Esau’s murderous rage by fleeing to the home of his uncle, Laban, he stopped to rest along the way and soon fell asleep. This is where we come to the familiar story of “Jacob’s Ladder” that you might have heard in Sunday school. This isn’t just a good story, however, and it wasn’t just a dream Jacob had. It was a mighty vision of things to come.

As he was sleeping, Jacob saw a gigantic, escalator-like ladder, with many angels ascending and descending. They went up and came down between heaven and earth. Scripture says the Lord was standing above this ladder, and records His words:

I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed;

And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. (Genesis 28:13–15)
Jacob named the place where he had the dream “Bethel,” marking the spot with rocks for future travelers because he now considered this place the gateway to heaven. Indeed, the things the Lord spoke of to Jacob have come to pass; his descendants have been in the forefront of history.

Jacob vs. Jehovah

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Many years later, after Jacob reached Haran, had married, and had become a father many times over, the Lord told Jacob to return to Bethel. A strange thing happened to the “supplanter” on his way: He got into a wrestling match with the Creator of all things (see Genesis 32:24–30). And here’s the strangest part of all: Jacob won!

Jacob wouldn’t let go of his opponent, even after God had injured him. The Lord seemed impressed with Jacob’s persistence and staying power, and He gave Jacob a new name. He went from being Jacob, the “supplanter,” to “Israel,” which means “he fights or persists with God” or “a prince who has power with God and with men.”

Thus, “Jacob and Sons” became “Israel”—a new name for a new business. The nation Israel is destined to be the head of all nations during Christ’s millennial reign on the throne of David atop Mount Moriah in the Temple at Jerusalem.

Israel’s Powerful Presence

One glorious day, when all things are made new by Jesus Christ, Israel will be at the head of all the nations. Until that time, the world continues to think of the tiny country as standing in the way of world peace.

A diminishing number of nations, including the United States, defend Israel today as a peaceful state wanting to get along with neighbors who only desire to drive it into the Mediterranean. The defenders are few and far between, however. Thankfully, America, despite the obvious dislike for the Jewish state by some at the highest levels of U.S. government, still seems, for the time being at least, determined to stick by Israel.

Israel is small, it is true. But, its presence is still commanding. It has one of the most potent nuclear forces on earth. That alone gives it a powerful influence. But it is Israel’s sitting in the middle of the Middle-East powder keg that makes the nation the truly intimidating entity it is.

We will explore these modern-day facts later in the book. For now, let us consider how Israel is already beginning to fulfill the prophet Zechariah’s forewarning:

The burden of the word of the Lord for Israel, saith the Lord, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.

Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.

And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it. (Zechariah 12:1–3)

Jerusalem is already a trouble spot, which is what’s meant by the phrase, “a cup of trembling unto all the people round about.” The following news reports on tensions over the Temple Mount bear that out. (More about plans for the Third Temple atop Moriah is dealt with in chapter 15.) The cauldron is about to boil over in the matter of Mideast war and peace. The turmoil is sweeping the whole world toward man’s final war, Armageddon.

Israelis who believe the Temple Mount should remain in Israeli hands must take urgent action, Likud MK [Member of Knesset] Moshe Feiglin warned Thursday.
Feiglin, who heads the Jewish Leadership faction of the Likud party, visited the Temple Mount on Thursday despite knowing he would find it locked to Jews, as a display of protest.

In an “unprecedented” move, police on Wednesday informed Jewish groups that the Temple Mount will be closed to all non-Muslims until at least the end of Ramadan, on 11th August. The announcement has provoked renewed anger over anti-Jewish discrimination on the Temple Mount, and sparked calls by activists for a mass-protest on 7th August, at the start of the Hebrew month of Elul.

Temple Mount activists had complained that for the past three days the Temple Mount—the holiest place in Judaism—remained inexplicably closed to non-Muslim visitors. The only “explanation” offered was a bland sign which simply read “Today the Temple Mount will be closed to visitors.” Those restrictions did not, however, apply to Muslim visitors, who continue to receive unrestricted access.…

The political right must realize that unless it is willing to sacrifice for the sake of Jewish access to the holy site, nothing will happen, he added. “I call for everyone who hears us to come here, to understand that they are giving the very heart of Jerusalem to foreigners, to Islam,” he called.
Taking a conservative approach will not help, he said. “This isn’t a matter of policy, of authorizations—we’ve already tried all the accepted routes. We need to understand that there needs to be sacrifice here, that one thousand people show up ready to make sacrifices, ready to be arrested,” he explained.[v]

A Jewish website that aims to teach Israelis about the Temple has been met with an angry backlash from the Arab Muslim community.

The Har Hakodesh (lit. “The Holy Mountain”) website includes educational material about the history of the Temple Mount, which was the site of the First Temple and Second Temple. The Temples were the focus of divine service for the Jewish nation.
The site also includes stunning photographs of the Temple Mount, including pictures taken by a non-Jewish photographer from parts of the Mount which Jews may not enter.

What has caused upset in the Muslim world is a representation of the Temple Mount as it would appear with a rebuilt Jewish Temple atop it rather than Al-Aqsa Mosque that currently stands there.

The site has been repeatedly targeted by hackers, and has been the focus of criticism in the Arab media. Sheikh Raed Salah, who heads the hardline northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, has called for an “Islamic awakening” in response to the website.…

The desire to see a rebuilt Temple is central to traditional Judaism, and the Amidah prayer, which religious Jews recite three times daily, calls for the Temple to be rebuilt.[vi]

Judgment at Jezreel

The Bible says that the nation will be back in the Promised Land at the time of the world’s final battle:

For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle. (Zechariah 14:2–3)

Israel will be the trouble spot of the world, with Jerusalem at the center of the whole problem. More than that, the Temple of the Jews will be the one place Antichrist claims as his own as he declares himself to be God.

For hundreds of years, this idea was scoffed at by theologians and scholars. Israel was finished as a nation, they declared. The Jews would never return to the Middle East in large numbers. As a matter of fact, they questioned whether there was such a thing as a Jew left. The Jews were scattered and were lost, the great thinkers believed.

But the Jews did come back into the land. Modern Israel was born on May 14, 1948!
The Temple hasn’t yet been rebuilt. But there are rumblings of a foundation stone possibly being laid at any time (read more about the subject in chapters 11 and 15 of the upcoming book Cauldron). I personally don’t think this will happen until a peace covenant is backed up by the power of the so-called international community we hear so much about these days. I believe it will take Antichrist to bring this about. He will do so because he will want to be like God, just as did his father, Lucifer. He will want people to worship him as God there on top of Mount Moriah.

Antichrist will first try to murder every Jewish person he can get his devilish hands on. It will be the time of “Jacob’s trouble” referred to in Jeremiah 30:7. Jacob and Sons—Israel, the nation—will be at the heart of the most terrible time in human history. All nations opposed to Israel and Israel’s God will gather to battle at a place called Armageddon, located north of Jerusalem near an ancient town named Megiddo. The battlefield will be on a large land mass called Esdraleon in a valley called Jezreel (which means “God sows”) in northern Israel. That’s coming sooner than most understand . . . and it is where and when God’s judgment will devastate the armies of the world.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Guest

PART 4: PERSECUTION

Then, Now, And Coming

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Let’s return for a moment to the hours just before our Lord Jesus went to the cross.

He sat upon the Mount of Olives with His disciples while the group looked down at the Temple sitting atop Mount Moriah. One of His disciples wanted Him to look at the beauty of the great structure. It was a magnificent sight. They were having a time of fellowship, and it must have seemed that nothing bad could come of their circumstances.

Jesus, however, knew what He faced. More than that, He was concerned for His friends and disciples. He knew they had to get a grip on reality as they faced the satanic war that lay before them. Very soon they would see Him die in the cruelest method known to man at the time. They must be given truth upon which they could reflect during the uncertain days ahead. Although they wouldn’t understand for the moment, the prophecies Jesus gave that day in His Olivet Discourse would echo mightily through the centuries until the very end of the age.

“The Olivet Discourse forms Jesus’ last major discourse and His most prophetic sermon,” notes author and eschatologist Tim LaHaye. “While the message includes a prediction of the imminent fall of Jerusalem, it also looks to the distant future of the ‘times of the Gentiles’ (Luke 21:24), which will continue until the end of the Great Tribulation.”[i]

Temple Toppled

Jesus told His disciples that the beautiful Temple they were looking at would soon be completely wiped off Moriah; its destruction would be so complete that “there shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down” (Matthew 24:2). (The Temple Jesus was referring to was the Second Temple; the first, built by Solomon, had been destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC.)

Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of the Second Temple came to pass some thirty-seven years later, when the soldiers under Roman General Titus not only toppled the Temple, but removed from the surface of Moriah every huge stone that had made up the building. Titus tried to stop the soldiers from destroying the structure, but Roman soldiers were often given the freedom to plunder any place they conquered, and they went into a frenzy. Going after precious stones and the gold and silver inlaid within the building, they set fires, causing the gold and silver to melt into the cracks and crevices between the stones. The greedy troops then tore the stones apart in order to retrieve every trace of the valuable metals.[ii]

Later, after the scavenger soldiers had picked the site clean, the Temple Mount was leveled and smoothed, then salt was poured on top of the soil so nothing would grow. This, too, fulfilled Old Testament prophecies. But this was just the beginning of Israel feeling the chastening hand of God. He was going to use the Romans to drive most of the Jews from the land.

The words of Christ about the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem would have been deeply troubling to the disciples.

“To the very end of His earthly ministry the apostles had been waiting for Jesus Christ to overthrow Roman rule in Palestine and to usher in the glorious Messianic kingdom,” notes author Arthur Kac. “When, therefore, instead of fulfilling their hopes the Lord Jesus began to speak of his approaching death and the coming destruction of Jerusalem the apostles became deeply distressed.”[iii]

“Run for Your Lives!”

In the same Olivet meeting with His disciples, Jesus forewarned that the people of the area would have to run for their lives (Matthew 24:16). There was coming, He prophesied, a time of great trouble in the land. Jesus said the people who lived in and around Jerusalem shouldn’t even take time to pack; they should just run for the hills of Judea when they heard of the Temple being attacked and the city being overrun.

The prophecy, of course, proved absolutely true. The Jewish population—and other people, too—were slaughtered if they stuck around once the looting and plunder started. Many soldiers for hire, along with the Roman forces, combined to massacre many. Hundreds upon hundreds were nailed and tied to crosses much like the one on which Jesus was crucified. The roads leading into and out of Jerusalem were lined with dead and dying people upon crosses.

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The most infamous case of Rome crushing the Jewish rebellion is at Masada (Hebrew for “fortress”), which was the last Jewish stronghold in the Promised Land “located atop an isolated rock cliff at the western end of the Judean Desert overlooking the Dead Sea.”[iv] Several years following the destruction of the Temple, “after Judaea became a province of the Roman Empire…the last survivors of the Jewish revolt…chose death rather than slavery when the Roman besiegers broke through their defences.”[v] The stand on the high plateau remains one of the greatest stories of courage in Jewish history.

The Jews’ attempts to take the heavy yoke of Rome from their necks ended with thousands fleeing the land to stay alive. Many others were taken as slaves. Most everyone who was Jewish, whether those who converted to Christianity, those who practiced Judaism, or those who professed no religious affiliation, were either murdered or scattered to other parts of the Middle East and other lands beyond.

Around AD 135, Rome dispersed the Jews because it considered the militant uprising against Roman authority a mostly Jewish rebellion. Many of Israel ended up in Rome, where the church of the Lord Jesus Christ would grow into a mighty movement.

“The Jew living now in the various parts of the Roman Empire was painfully aware of the fact that he had no National Home,” states Kac. “And by this time the great bulk of the nation lived outside of Palestine. With the loss of the Jewish National Home in AD 70, the long exile actually began, and the Jews became wanderers over the face of the earth, a people without a country.”[vi]

God’s chosen people were chastened by God for rejecting their Messiah. They were chased across the world by the forces of Satan. But the Jews had produced the most important gift ever given anyone: the Savior of the world. The Lord of heaven had already kept His promise to make Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’s descendants a blessing to all nations. He will yet make His chosen people the head of all nations as well.

While in Rome…

Meanwhile, Christianity was growing by leaps and bounds. The Jewish religious leaders had for many years persecuted Christians at every opportunity. The apostle Paul of Tarsus, a Christian-hating Jew before God changed his name from Saul, had been one of the worst of all persecutors of Christians.

Saul had held the robes of those who stoned to death the great hero of the Christian faith, Stephen. Saul had also gone into the homes of Christians and pulled them out so they could be imprisoned or murdered. This treatment, in the earliest time of the developing church, had been more the usual way of Jews treating Christians than the unusual.

When Saul saw Jesus in a blinding light on the road to Damascus, he was instantly converted to the Christian faith. Like Abraham, his name was changed to reflect the transformation of his life, and he became Paul, an evangelist for the gospel of Christ unlike any other who has ever lived. He then became the hunted and hated Christian whom the super-pious Jews wanted dead.

Over the hundred years following Paul’s death, the Jews were absorbed into the Roman Empire and given the right to be citizens. But when the Jews found themselves at the center of growing rebellion against their Roman masters, they were scattered throughout the developing medieval states and persecuted almost everywhere they went. Christians, too, were greatly persecuted. Most Christians were Jews who had been converted from Judaism during this time. Satan’s war-making in the Middle East and elsewhere appears to have been even more intense against Christian Jews than against the Jews in general. While in Rome, if Christians and Jews who held to Judaism didn’t repent and do as the Romans did, there was a mighty price to pay.

Christians Forced into Catacombs

Christianity continued to grow tremendously during the second, third, and fourth centuries and beyond. Jesus’ words, foretold to Peter and other disciples—“upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18b)—echoed across the barren wasteland of the Middle East and regions to which God’s children traveled.

Christians Thrown To The Lions

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Hundreds upon hundreds of Christians—including, many believe, Peter and Paul—died martyrs’ deaths under Roman Emperor Nero and the Caesars who followed. They faced gladiators, bears, and lions in the Roman arenas to entertain Caesar and his mocking friends. Many Christians were set on fire and used as torches to light the night skies for the various sporting events. It was the bloodiest time of Christ’s church. Thousands found shelter and safety in the catacombs, the underground tunnels that were Rome’s cemeteries. Drawings on the catacomb walls tell a story of an underground church in the most literal sense of the word.

Modern Martyrs for Christ

Today in Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, China, and many other places around the world, Christians are facing tortures and atrocities as terrifying as the horrors faced by the early Christians. The following reports offer a striking example:

Roadside Ambush in Nigeria Leaves Five Christians Dead and Four Wounded—On the evening of August 29, 2013, near Jos, Nigeria, Emmanuel Sunday was riding his motorcycle towards his village when the nineteen-year-old college student was stopped by an armed group of Islamic jihadists known as Boko Haram. The gunmen asked Emmanuel to identify his religion. He told them he was a Christian. As the young man looked ahead, he saw that the gunmen had detained a minibus and ordered a group of passengers who had also identified themselves as Christians to lie down on the roadside.[vii]

As darkness fell, the gunmen robbed the Christians, and as the jihadists began shooting their captives, Emmanuel escaped by running toward a nearby maize farm.

He then continued to run for two hours before finally reaching his village.[viii]
Five Christians were killed in the attack, including two from Emmanuel’s village. Four were wounded, including a pregnant woman.[ix]

Boko Haram, whose name loosely translated means “Western education is sinful,” so far is contained within Nigeria. Its leader, Abubakr Shekau, clearly states the group’s mission: “Let the world know that we have been enjoined by Allah to kill the unbeliever.”[x]

Seventy-two Civilians Killed in Mall Massacre in Kenya—Shortly after noon on Saturday, September 21, 2013, gunfire and grenade explosions erupted as Somalian Islamic militants known as al-Shabab launched a massacre at the packed Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, a mall frequented by expatriates and the rising middle class of Nairobi.[xi]

According to Joshua Hakim, a born-again Christian, the terrorists shouted for all Muslims to leave the mall. When Hakim realized that the attackers were targeting non-Muslims, he pulled out his identification card and covered his first name with his thumb. Seeing only his Arabic last name, the terrorists let Hakim go; however, the Indian man next to him was not so fortunate: He was shot when he couldn’t answer the question, “What is the name of Muhammad’s mother?”[xii] More than seventy-two civilians were killed and two hundred were wounded in the attack.[xiii]

Suicide Bombers in Pakistan Kill Nearly Ninety after Sunday Services—After services on Sunday morning, September 22, 2013, about 550 worshippers were exiting the 130-year-old All Saints Church, a Protestant congregation in Peshawar, Pakistan, unaware of two Taliban suicide bombers in their midst.
The explosion killed nearly ninety, many of them women and children; more than 120 people were injured, and the church was destroyed.[xiv]

“I heard two explosions,” said one parishioner who survived. “People started to run. Human remains were strewn all over the church.” At the time of the interview, she was still searching for her sister.[xv]

It is sad to have to say that while many of us here in America often will not let ourselves be inconvenienced enough to read our Bibles or pray, thousands of Christians are still laying down their lives for the Lord Jesus. According to the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, more than 200 million Christians are being persecuted worldwide; they are brutalized, sold as slaves, imprisoned, tortured, threatened, discriminated against, arrested, and killed—solely because they refuse to renounce or hide their faith in Jesus Christ.[xvi]But the long history of persecution that continues into our time will soon enter one of its darkest, most vicious eras.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Guest

PART 5: THE CAULDRON...

OF OIL IS SET TO BOIL

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CAULDRON.... Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East Cauldron9

What a time to be alive! Think of it: God chose for us to be here at the time that is almost certainly the wind-up of human history. But this is not something the Christian needs to fear; this all means that Jesus is about to return!

All of the major signals that Jesus and Daniel the prophet foretold for the very end of this present Earth Age are in our headlines today. The world’s religions coming together in the name of unity and peace are shaping up to be the apostate harlot church that rides the “beast” of Revelation 17. Huge banking and commercial institutions merging into one economic power are fulfilling the description of the one-world, economic Babylon of Revelation 18. Great increases in technology, knowledge, and speed of travel exactly match things prophesied in Daniel 12.

We are also seeing the rise of false prophets. False teachers pollute our broadcast airwaves with their false doctrines. Wars and rumors of wars are a part of everyday life. We continue to witness famines and pestilences in the form of new, incurable diseases. Earthquakes are occurring often and everywhere. There are wondrous signs in the heavens, from man walking on the moon to unexplained UFO sightings and unprecedented solar flares recorded by astronomers and other scientists. All of these things are eerily like Jesus said it will be just before His return to earth.

Mankind demonstrates all of the wicked ways the apostle Paul predicted in 2 Timothy 3. As if all this weren’t enough, Ezekiel’s prophecies (see Ezekiel 37, 38, and 39) loom heavily over the Middle East.

What is the one thing that turns all news-gathering cameras and microphones toward Israel and her hostile neighbors? Oil! Because oil deposits drench the Middle East, world economies are tied to that region as no other. Therefore, all the leaders of the great world powers concern themselves with every bit of news about Israel and its Palestinian adversaries.

“Now, most of the world is involved in the conflict in the Middle East, and the prosperity of the world depends on some mechanism to guarantee peace and a continued flow of oil from the region,” observes John Walvoord in his book, Armageddon, Oil, and the Middle East Crisis. “This is precisely what biblical prophecy predicts.”[i]

The Middle East indeed boils in oil anxieties while the world storms toward an uncertain future. But God is not worried; neither does He want us to worry: “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind”(2 Timothy 1:7). He knows the end from the beginning and has reported, in advance, the conclusion of these matters in his Holy Word. Study it and believe it to be absolutely true, and you will find your frown of worry fading into a smile of anticipation. You will know that His Beloved Son, Jesus, is about to return to take God’s children home with Him (read John 14:1–6).

God knew from before the Creation that oil would focus attention on the Middle East at the end of human history. He knew that the Garden of Eden’s lushness of life would bring about the end-time energy source the nations would covet.

Eden’s End-Time Energy

Let’s travel for a moment back to the time God created everything described in Genesis 1:20–24 with one majestic sweep of His almighty hand:

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth….

And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

CAULDRON.... Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East Cauldron10

This wasn’t just a few scatterings of created beings and a mere smattering of vegetation. When the Creator of all things spoke, all of these things suddenly existed from what had been nothingness only a fraction of a second before. The vast ocean waters surged with life, from the smallest organism to the biggest whale.

The brilliant, beautifully colored sky must have seemed suddenly cloudy while the flying, diving, soaring birds of every description tested their masterfully made wings.

The dry land crawled, hopped, ran, leaped, and lumbered with marvelous reptiles and mammals of every sort. The sounds and sights must have been too incredible to take into the senses.

God’s creation power, not evolution, produced abundant life in that electrifying second of early earth time. Nothing crawled from primordial soup to change over the next zillion or so years. Everything popped into existence under the hand of the Living God. There were no accidents or errors in the Lord’s action. He knew exactly what He was doing. In the process, Eden’s potential end-time energy source—oil—was produced.

Lush Garden Slush

God is omnipotent (all powerful). He is omniscient (all knowing). He is omnipresent (everywhere, all the time). Through His omnipotence, He created the abundant and vast array of life in one split second. He knew all about, in His omniscient foreknowledge, the Fall of man through sin. The Lord was, in His omnipresence, already forward in time when oil was formed from the dead, decaying things He was creating. He is already in the future when the last great battle of history is being fought in the Middle East at Armageddon.

The rage in the Middle East today, the hateful conflict between Israel and its radical neighbors, points to the reality that things are aligned precisely as God foretold. Oil is certainly the ingredient that makes the great world powers look toward that region with concern.

So the present Mideast problems involving war and peace that tug the world toward Armageddon again go back to the Garden of Eden and the Fall of Adam through willful disobedience. God didn’t cause this calamity. In His love and concern for us, He simply reported, through prophecy, the end of the matter. Is all of this about oil’s connection to the creation scientifically possible? I believe it is more than that.

Let’s look closer at what the scientific study of petroleum says. Then let’s look at what the Bible says about the catastrophic deluge God used to judge sin and cleanse the earth of sin’s corruption.

Today’s scientists believe that crude oil was formed over millions of years from the remains of small plant and animal life in the ancient seas. As this life—primarily plankton and algae and other organisms—died, it sank to the sea floor, where it was buried with sand and mud.

Heat, pressure, and bacteria compressed and “cooked” the material until it formed a thick liquid called oil. Over time, the oil traveled upward through the earth’s crust until its path was blocked by dense rocks. It’s under these rocks where we find most of our oil today.

The Bible says in Genesis 6 and 7 that God sent a great Flood because of sin upon the earth. The water covered everything, including the highest mountaintop, by at least fifteen cubits (a cubit is believed to be about eighteen inches).

So you can see that this catastrophe involved an incredible amount of water. This wasn’t just some local flood, as some would have us believe. The Bible says that all flesh and plant life on the earth’s ground portions died in the overwhelming surge. When the water receded, many of the various forms of life in the rivers and the seas were left to flounder and die on the drying ground. This included, of course, the plankton, algae, and other vegetation of the rivers and seas.

The fossil record shows this was true. Evidence of seashells and other residue of sea life has been found on some of the highest peaks in the world. When the waters swiftly withdrew, huge chunks of dirt, rock, and other material broke off and became massive mudslides. Many believe this is the reason the Grand Canyon was cut from the earth as it was.

The dead, decaying animal and sea life, as well as the birds that drowned, were covered by the mud. People, also, according to the Bible, died by the millions and their bodies became a part of the mixture that formed within the pockets where oil is now found.

Nowhere on the globe was there more lushness of plant and animal life than in the region where God had planted the Garden of Eden. It is sensible to think that the area would have the largest deposits of oil. At present, two Middle Eastern nations, Saudi Arabia and Iran, are ranked as among the world’s top five oil producers. With a daily production of 10.7 million barrels and a proved reserve of nearly 267 billion barrels, Saudi Arabia leads the list, and Iran—with daily production of 4.1 million barrels and a proved reserve of 132.5 billion—is ranked as the fourth-largest oil-producing nation in the world, with the third-largest proved reserve.[ii] (Nations rounding out the top five include Russia, second; the United States, third; and China, fifth).

There are some today who say that the Middle East having the lion’s share of all known oil in the world has changed because of new drilling techniques such as fracking, which can force oil from previously unreachable rock layers into retrievable quantities at an economically feasible cost. The United States would, if this is true, have as much in potential oil reserves as the Middle East. Still the region surrounding Israel is the main attraction to those who lust after the black, liquid gold.

Oil Eases Toil

CAULDRON.... Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East Cauldron11

CAULDRON.... Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East Cauldron11

When Noah and his seven other family members stepped onto dry land from the ark (see Genesis Cool

, they faced the curse God had pronounced because of sin—the curse of having to work for their food. They had to raise the animals, cultivate and sow the ground with seed, and “toil” by the sweat of their brow to make a living.

Hard labor isn’t fun for most people. It certainly has never been fun to me! While there is usually a sense of accomplishment after a job well done that makes us say as God said when He looked upon all He had created, “It is good,” the actual work can be back breaking.

Throughout history, society has tried to come up with ways to create labor-saving devices. For example, the aqueducts of ancient civilizations saved people from the hard work of hauling water by bringing it directly into the cities. In more recent times, the hand pump to get water from deep wells became an important part of early American life, even in frontier towns. And automated looms saved time and energy in weaving cloth for clothing and other things.

Even these earliest labor-saving inventions required human power, except in the few instances in which the mechanisms could be driven by the wind or running water.

But the fantastic energy stored underground around the world soon completely changed everything. The advancements that the discovery of the power of oil inspired are nothing short of phenomenal.

Think of the progress! Until the late nineteenth century, we could travel on flat land no faster than the fastest horse could run. With the coming of the steam engine and other inventions of locomotion, travel became much faster—and made it possible to move forward for a much longer time before having to stop. Petroleum and its byproducts were at the heart of producing advances that are truly astonishing. It all happened, basically, within only a century.

The twentieth century saw mankind go from the steam engine to the computer-directed, solid-rocket engines that let man exceed twenty thousand miles per hour. And man walked on the moon!

All of this happened in about the last 120 years. Before the discovery of the power potential in petroleum, we remained basically unchanged in our ability to progress, as far as labor-saving devices were concerned.

Not only did oil bring the electricity that powers the washing machines, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, and all the rest, but it also created a tremendous economic base that in turn brought about a leisure class. Now, there are those who laugh when they read that they are part of a “leisure” class—we still work pretty hard! Compared to our ancestors, however, we Americans live like royalty. As a matter of fact, when you think about it, with our modern conveniences and our ability to travel to and from most anywhere in the world in only a few hours, we live far better than did Solomon.

Most stunning of all is the communication technology we enjoy. Like the prophet stated in Daniel 12:4, knowledge has increased beyond anything previously imagined. We have only begun to realize the things that harnessing oil has made possible.

Need Feeds Greed

The more work-saving devices, the better. This is the attitude of the people of the industrialized world. And, more and more nations are moving toward becoming industrialized.

People in general, especially spoiled people with all the modern conveniences, want more and more free time to play rather than work. Vacations, or even weekends on the lakes with powerboats, are much more fun than working 8 to 5 to buy those luxuries and pay the bills.

Despite the mega-trillion-dollar debt facing Americans nationally and personally, the unquenchable need to buy more and more is on the increase. The compulsion to buy things is one form of greed that seems to be like a virus in the American economic bloodstream. With national credit card debt at a staggering $849.8 billion and the average household owing $15,185 to credit card companies, that greedy addiction cannot be denied. [iii]

The apostle Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 3:1–4 that in the last days, people will be covetous and love pleasure more than they love God. Does that describe America today? Everyone wants “stuff”—homes, cars, boats, etc.—at least as good and, hopefully, even better, than what the Joneses have. When the warm days of springtime come, even the true Christian churches seem to empty into the lakes and other playgrounds on Sundays.

The plastic credit cards, themselves petroleum-based items, drive Americans deeper and deeper into debt. The greed factor gets much bigger, growing like a snowball rolling downhill. Companies rush to fill the consumers’ desires. Their own covetousness demands more and more production, with manufacturing processes depending upon more and more petroleum.

CAULDRON.... Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East Cauldron12

CAULDRON.... Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East Cauldron12

This is where Mideast war and peace come into the picture. As mentioned earlier, most of the world’s easily accessible (cheap-to-extract) petroleum is in the land God promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—not the tiny strip of land occupied by Israel today, but the complete land of promise.

Today, Israel’s neighbors claim the majority of the world’s petroleum, and most of them are in an undeclared war against the tiny state. As a matter of fact, the enemies of Israel are blood vowed to push Israel into the Mediterranean Sea.

The mostly Arab governments who, when combined, control the vast oil fields of the Middle East, are in a sense an economic superpower just as surely as America is a nuclear superpower. They can bend the will of the rest of the world by raising—or simply threatening to raise—the price of oil. The lust for oil is probably the major factor that will bring an invasion into the Middle East. But more about that a bit later.

The industrialized Western nations have been lucky so far. The Arab countries are too busy fussing and feuding with each other to get together and make demands so far as prices of petroleum are concerned. They more often than not undercut each other’s prices and keep the costs relatively low.

A time is coming, no doubt, when they will put aside their continual fighting and get together on a greatly increased price per barrel of oil. When the greed overcomes their feuding, something will have to give. Most likely, that something will be Middle East peace…maybe even worldwide peace.

Oil, then, is the factor at the very heart of concern for world leaders. This group, referred to by news media as “the international community,” will do all within its power to put a permanent peace into effect in that region where the greatest oil supplies have been stored since the Flood.
Pact with the Devil

One of the things we are to look for as a signal of the end times is the formation of a one-world government, what some call the “New World Order.” The Bible says that at the end of this present age, a powerful group of world leaders will imagine to take over the world in all of its aspects: economically, governmentally, technologically, religiously, etc. (Read Revelation 17:12–13.) That is what happened when Nimrod and his fellow one-worlder friends wanted to establish a single government, economic, and religious world order (see Genesis 11). Humanism, the religious philosophy that drove Nimrod and the builders of the tower of Babel, is still around, and growing as a philosophy through which to bring about total control over all peoples and all the world’s wealth. Oil has a very high place in their big plans.

God came down to earth and scattered the tower builders to all parts of the globe, confusing the language so they could no longer communicate well enough to continue their satanic building project. Today’s similar engineers are aided by the computer, which is helping them get around the language barriers. God will again have to intervene, this time at Armageddon.

TO BE CONTINUED

Guest

PART 6: DOUBLE, DOUBLE TOIL AND TROUBLE

Fire burn, and cauldron bubble

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CAULDRON.... Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East Cauldron13

"And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil..." (Rev. 6:6)

Middle East soil can’t contain the petroleum substances that boil just beneath its surface. The tower of Babel builders found the sticky stuff—a thick, asphalt-like material they found in abundance on the plain of Shinar—to be a devilish blessing rather than a curse. They used it to paste together the bricks they made to build the ungodly structure Nimrod was determined to complete (see Genesis 11:2–3).

The boiling petroleum broth has been a constant part of some areas of the regions throughout recorded history. The south end of the Dead Sea was said to have looked like a boiling cauldron of asphalt as recently as the late nineteenth century.

Towers of Power

A number of years ago, Saddam Hussein, dictator of Iraq, left Kuwait in a hurry when the Desert Storm coalition forces pulverized much of his military. Before he left that small country he had invaded for its oil riches, he set the oil wells on fire.

Millions of petrodollars went up in black, sky-darkening smoke. Oil fire specialists were called in to douse the flames. The Iraqi dictator knew exactly where he could hurt the Western industrial nations the most. The money lenders of the world—the great financiers who control world economies—were, for the moment, helpless to stop their losses. One big part of their tremendous power seemed to be literally going up in smoke.

Those black towers of steel represent, at least symbolically, the modern-day tower of Babel. The structures, looking like small Eiffel towers on the desert sand, serve as monuments to the one-world, gigantic monetary power structure being built today.

As stated before, this was the primary reason all of those nations, including Saddam Hussein’s frightened neighbors, got together to stop the rampaging tyrant.

We watch and complain about the rising fuel prices. Oil and its costs affect us in so many ways that the topic itself would provide enough material to make a book

. Gasoline is only one facet of oil-price considerations. Electricity and all that involves, plastics for every manufacturing process you can name, communications and its many aspects…all these and many more things are impacted by the price of petroleum. The United States is particularly a sitting target for price-increase tyranny. The American people will yet suffer the consequences of the one-world controllers’ intentions to gather to themselves the wealth of the world.

The vast riches of the Middle East must be preserved at all costs, even to the destruction of national economies and of human life. The Middle East is the one area of the world the one-world tower builders will control, no matter the price. Armageddon will be their final attempt to stop God from establishing Jesus Christ’s throne in the heart of that land.

Real Rags to Riches

CAULDRON.... Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East Cauldron14

As demonstrated in recent years, the economic well-being of entire nations depends upon availability of reasonably priced energy. California, itself having an economy as large as many nations, is a prime example just within the United States.

Political environmental extremists, by forbidding the building of new power plants and prohibiting the development of energy resources, have greatly affected California’s way of life. Rolling brownouts and blackouts of electricity in recent years have caused problems from inconvenience to hardship on many Californians.

OPEC (Oil Producing Exporting Countries) has the power to cause all nations to bend to its will in a similar and more troubling way. Its power is based upon the ability to control production, prices, and embargoes.

It is, in effect, a collective superpower, even despite the recent tremendous upheavals in the region. National economies rise and fall based upon the petroleum they can distribute and withhold. Oil is the lifeblood of the developed and developing nations of the world.

Even rumors of supply shortages threaten the lifestyles of people in America, Europe, and Japan, the nations having the most to lose. This is seen in recent years when Iran’s leadership threatens to block the Strait of Hormuz if Iran’s nuclear development facilities are attacked, or when OPEC threatens to turn down the flow of petroleum. Energy, far and away fueled by oil more than by any other source, is at the heart of the developing one-world order’s ability to control the citizenry.

Energy is at the center of the power and wealth that provide livelihoods—and luxuries. The book of Revelation has much to say about the end-time Babylonian system of economic control over people, as the following passage indicates:

Quote :: And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more:

The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble,
And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.

And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all.

The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing,
And saying, Alas, alas that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls!

For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city! (Revelation 18:11–18)

The very souls of men, women, and children are at the mercy of the elite who control buying and selling. That system of commerce depends upon the ability to deliver the goods. Therefore, those who control the oil used in the manufacturing and delivery of merchandise are the masters of this world system. The sheiks and leaders of the Middle East are in a commanding position as they deal with the one-world builders.

From Tent to High Rent

CAULDRON.... Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East IsraelPromisedLandFull

Although much of the tremendous oil riches lie beneath the land promised to Abraham’s bloodline, Israel has refused to fully claim that Promised Land. Worse, God’s chosen people have disobeyed God’s instructions on a number of occasions.

When they do so, they are put out of the portions of the original land grant territory they have occupied.

Other peoples have moved in and occupied the area; in fact, intruders still hold on to the majority of Israel’s property today. But, their land grab will always be illegal in God’s perfect sight. Just as Jeremiah prophesied, the land has yielded its “substance” and “treasures” to those other than God’s disobedient people (17:3–4). Oil is the “substance” and “treasure” in our day. The mostly Islamic Arabs now have the riches, as foretold in that passage.

With the second industrial revolution in the mid-1800s to mid-1900s came an explosion of wealth for many of the tent-dwelling Arabs and others in that land of oil. The most powerful of those people suddenly found themselves among the richest in the world because their petroleum was needed to run the motorized machinery of industry’s production lines. The sheiks and kings of the Middle East literally did go from rags to riches…from “tent” to “high rent.”

At the same time however, despite their nations’ riches from oil sales, the majority remains under the oppressive, dark force of Islam. Most of the Arabs and other populations of the Middle East live as poorly as their ancestors. Royal families and other privileged people in high places enjoy the limousines, the jet planes, and palaces. You might say, “That’s the way it is in America, too. Only the few have the wealth.” But the difference is that Americans—at least for the moment—have the opportunity to work and worship as they please. Anti-Christian religious unity, under the umbrella of government, doesn’t yet hold an iron grip around the throats of our people (although the trend in that evil direction is becoming more and more evident). Our heritage is filled with rags-to-riches stories concerning men and women who have achieved great wealth.

The right to worship without fear of having our heads chopped off for believing in a way different from the state religion is at the heart of our true wealth. This is a right we must not take for granted. There will come a time when the whole world will be forced to live as many of the poor unfortunates in much of the Middle East live today. The story of that future horror can be found in Revelation 13.

Blessings Cause Curse

Riches seem to most of us a blessing. We think of how wonderful it would be to come into a lot of money. This covetousness is easily seen in the popularity of such past and recent TV programs as Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and The Million Second Quiz.

Daydreaming about lots of money has not just recently become part of our culture. Some of us remember a program that aired in the late fifties called The Millionaire. In this series of stories, an unknown donor gave away a million dollars each week to a very surprised person. It was, of course, fiction, but it was a very popular show. The stories sometimes portrayed that the million-dollar gift ended up being a source of unhappiness rather than joy.

Ishmael—remember him? Abraham’s son by Hagar, Sarah’s handmaid, was promised great blessings by God. Many of the Arab people today legitimately claim Abraham as their father. Some prophecy students believe that because the Arab nations have the greatest amount of oil, that fact is fulfillment of God’s promise to bless Abraham’s descendants—in this case, his descendants by Keturah, whom the patriarch married following Sarah’s death.

But we must look at the truth of the matter. The oil riches cannot be a blessing from God. He didn’t promise this part of Abraham’s family the land they presently occupy. Much of that land is rightfully the Jews’ land; it belongs to Israel because God promised it to them. Abraham’s family by Hagar and Keturah will come into their full blessing during the Millennium. They will then become a great nation just as the Lord promised. Today, however, they are under a curse, not a blessing. The Arab people today continue to live under the curse of radical Islamic fundamentalists, who would just as soon murder their own as the Jews they hate so much.

The one-world builders more often than not look the other way when these poor, hapless people suffer atrocities by those over them. The world wants the vast oil deposits the Islamic tyrants hold in their bloodstained hands.

Is Oil Gog’s “Spoil”?

CAULDRON.... Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East Gog

War has been the way of life for people of the Middle East for centuries. We know from news reports that the people there live every day under threat of a breakout of fighting. Many times the fighting involves gunfire, and people are killed. Or, terrorist bombs are used to murder both Arabs and Jews who only want to live in peace.

There is coming a time when God Himself will intervene directly into this matter of Mideast war and peace. Ezekiel foretells this coming time:

Quote :: And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him,
And say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal. (Ezekiel 38:1–3)
[...]

Thus saith the Lord God; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought:

And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,
To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land. (Ezekiel 38:10–12)

The prophet predicts the reason the festering boil of hostility will come to a head. God will allow the leader of those who hate Israel, “Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal,” to “think an evil thought” that will involve some sort of “spoil.” What is a “spoil”? This particular meaning of the word refers to the material rewards of victory in war. Gog will lust after something in the heart of Palestine that will promise him great riches as his reward for victory.

The Land of Magog

There is some disagreement among biblical scholars as to the exact location of the land called in the Ezekiel passages “Magog.” For example, some believe it to be in Russia: “‘Magog’ is a real nation occupying a territory that was known to Ezekiel and his Jewish readers in the fifth century before Christ,” noted biblical prophecy scholar and author Grant Jeffrey. “I believe the evidence supports the conclusion that Magog refers to the territory that is currently occupied by the present nation of Russia, including several of the southern republics of the Commonwealth of Independent States (formerly the USSR).”[ii]

Jeffrey notes that others challenge this identification of Magog’s location as being in Russia, however:

Some scholars suggest that Magog was connected with some small tribal groups in ancient Mesopotamia in the area presently occupied by Iran. Others suggest Magog is connected with the tribes led by an ancient king known as Gyges in the area of ancient Lydia (present-day Turkey) to the south of Russia. The ancient historian Pliny claimed the Syrians thought the name God was the same as Gyges, a king of Lydia whose country was named from him—Gygea, or Gog’s land.[iii]

It is my belief that Russia does seem to be at the center of the military force prophesied to invade Palestine. Do we have any indications today that Russia and its surrounding neighbors might invade the Middle East? One thing for sure: Russia is certainly in great need of some things.

The seventy-four years of Communist rule following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution were bad enough. Russian people were either murdered by Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and their successors, or were nearly starved due to wars, failing agriculture, and other Soviet socialist policies. Sadly, the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 didn’t bring much better prospects for the Russian people.

Today, the Russians, although somewhat better off than in the days of Stalin and his immediate successors, still are not happy and fulfilled under the oppression they continue to endure. They want the things the Western nations have. Getting these things for the huge Russian population will involve money—lots of it.

Presently, Russian leader Vladimir Putin is on the hot seat. He has conducted his grip on power in Russia in ways that could easily be construed as god-like. He no doubt realizes he must produce, and soon, or he will find his dacha (country house) on the Black Sea and all other perks given to someone who will produce the improved conditions the Russian people demand.

Despite hype to the contrary by the Russian propaganda establishment and some Western journalists’ willingness to parrot those lies, Russia is in ruin. Its military men and women are living at the poverty level. A number of Russian officers have committed suicide because of alcoholism and the despair of not being able to adequately feed, clothe, and house their families.

The top generals become more anti-West and anti-Israel as their economic plight becomes worse and worse. Many of the highest leaders in the military want to get back to the glory days when they were admired by their people and feared by the rest of the world.

Surrounding peoples who populate the region within what the Bible calls Magog are in similar circumstance to the Russians. They need food and want material things they have no hope of getting short of conquering some who do have these things.

The history of that area is one of plunder. Throughout the ages they have taken what they want, when they wanted—if and when they became strong enough to do so.

When God told Ezekiel to prophesy against Gog, the chief prince of Rosh (Russia), He indicated that the leader’s “evil thought” would be in the “latter days,” or the end of the time just before the climax of human history. At that time, all the people surrounding Palestine and other people throughout the world will question Gog and those of his coalition forces. They will ask: “Have you come to take great spoil?”

Some think this indicates there will be no more resistance to this force than that of a formal diplomatic note of protest.

Ne’er-Do-Well Neighbors
CAULDRON.... Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East Cauldron16

CAULDRON.... Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East Cauldron16

The invasion will be massive, according to Ezekiel’s prophecy:

Quote :: And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:

Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:
Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee….

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. (Ezekiel 38:4–6, 9)

Some prophecy experts perceive the words “like a cloud to cover the land” as representing flight after flight of Russia’s air force, along with paratroopers. That description, plus the words, “shalt ascend,” provides good evidence to back up such thought. Gog’s military will be like a storm.

The tremendous Russian mechanized army (tanks, etc.) will thunder toward Palestine, with greedy hearts and eyes on the riches of the Middle East. Combined with all of its partners in crime from Magog and many neighboring nations, the thousands upon thousands of vehicles and ground troops will no doubt raise a huge, boiling amount of dust. It will indeed look like a “cloud to cover the land”!

I believe this will be a literal invasion by literal military forces—something far beyond the scope of the 1991 Desert Storm military action. How do we know this will be literal?

Such a thing has never happened in the Middle East on this scale. Individuals in their own nations and regions have always been too busy warring with each other to mount such an attack. It is said this will be in the “latter days.” All other signals show that we are most likely in that predicted time today. Most importantly, God said He Himself will bring this great mass of humanity into the Middle East, where He will destroy all but one-sixth of them. He will do so for a very special purpose.
“Here we have Russia moving with powerful forces in a program of conquest of the South,” says Dave Breese. He continues:

Quote :: We also learn that Russia will take to itself certain allies who will be a part of this attempted program of conquest. Especially we note that Persia will be an ally of Russia [Ezekiel 38:5]. One of the frightening developments of our time is the furnishing of nuclear weapons and materials to modern-day Iran—once known as Persia. The recent leaders of Israel have frequently said, “Our real concern in the Middle East is not with Syria or Lebanon or the Saudis but with Persia. Persia, or Iran, is considered a rogue nation steeped in Islamic fundamentalism and led by near-insane leaders who would stop at nothing.”[iv]

The Invasion Equation

Ezekiel’s prophecy reveals that we can be certain of one thing: This attack is specifically on the nation Israel. It is a satanic attack, bent on once and for all ridding the world of the chosen people of God. The Lord will bring things to a head, as described here:

Quote :: Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say unto Gog, Thus saith the Lord God; In that day when my people of Israel dwelleth safely, shalt thou not know it?

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:

And thou shalt come up against my people of Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against my land, that the heathen may know me, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes. (Ezekiel 38:14–16)

The prophecy foretells in no uncertain terms that the Lord Himself will completely defeat Israel’s attackers, proving beyond any reasonable doubt that He is God—and that Israel is His chosen.

This attack will come when Israel is at peace—or, at least, when the Jews are living as if they are at peace. Do we see a peace process in the Middle East today? Yes! And it has really become intense in the past several years. But it is a false peace the haters of Israel seek.

The current efforts to bring an end to hostilities in the Middle East might very well bring about the “covenant made with death and hell” of Daniel 9:26–27. The Antichrist could be waiting in the wings of world diplomacy, ready to come forward when the false peace process is ripe.

The Ezekiel 38 and 39 prophecy about the Gog-Magog invasion also indicates that Israel will have little or no defense. That is certainly not the situation at present. Most geopolitical observers say Israel’s military is the fourth, maybe the third, most powerful in the world today. Its nuclear-weapons capability gives the small nation that status.

Israel’s “Samson Option,” well known by Israel’s enemies, is the vow of the nation’s military leaders to bring everybody and everything down around Israel, should it be attacked by overwhelming force. Israel will use its nuclear arsenal. Ezekiel’s prophecy states that, sadly, like Samson, the immensely strong judge of Israel, the nation will be seduced into letting down its great military strength. Israel will be shorn of its nuclear force at some point.

When the false-peace, diplomatic Delilahs get through, Israel will be “without bars or gates” and an “unwalled village.” The nation will be a sitting duck.

The invasion equation involves the following:

Quote :: 1) Israel must be back in the land of promise.
2) Its neighbors, especially Russia, must be in need and full of greed.
3) Israel and the land it occupies must have “spoil” of a significant nature.
4) There must be some sort of peace that puts Israel at ease.
5) Diplomats and others must be able to realize that an attack is about to take place (perhaps through spy satellite technology).

While the Middle East boils in turmoil, it is reasonable to assume that lust for the riches oil will provide the “evil thought” that enters (has entered?) Gog’s mind.
Watch the peace process and other developments in the region, and know that a satanic scheme is set to unfold that ultimately pits the mightiest forces of good against evil.

Guest

CAULDRON - - PART SEVEN:Comes The Temple Tempest

CAULDRON.... Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East Temple-blueprint

A storm is brewing. That storm will grow to be much more powerful and more destructive than the EF-5 tornado that hit the Oklahoma City area in 2013. But it’s not a natural storm involving the weather. It is supernatural! Pre-Armageddon clouds in the Middle East are now churning up fearsome winds of war directly over one particular spot on the planet: the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. God’s house on top of Mount Moriah has always involved matters of war and peace. When the people of Israel have done what God wanted them to do, there has been peace—and the people have lived calm lives of worship and contentment for the most part. When they have disobeyed to the point that they no longer hear God’s instructions, war has come upon them. They’ve been taken from the land and had their temples destroyed. In this chapter, we’ll be looking at the Temple and all the storms that have blown against it in the centuries long past. We’ll look also at dangerous winds that are blowing around the Temple Mount today.

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CAULDRON - - PART EIGHT (1): Temple Mount Tempest Grows
CAULDRON.... Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East TempleMount3

When you were a child, did you ever play “king of the hill”? That’s like what is being played out in the Middle East today. But it is not child’s play; it’s a deadly game with worldwide consequences. War and peace, life and death hang in the balance of this contest for control of the Temple Mount. As we’ve seen, much blood has been shed in modern times over the Temple Mount feud. Things aren’t getting better, but worse, because neither the Islamics nor the Jews will follow what the true God said about the matter. All sides are determined to do what Psalms 2:1–3 says: "Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us."

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CAULDRON PART 9

Here Comes "The Little Horn"

CAULDRON.... Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East Cauldron26

The thing that will mark this satanically inspired man is his dealing with the peace process. He will be the opposite of the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ. He will be the false prince of false peace. Daniel 8:25 prophesies that he will, through peace, “destroy many.” The Bible says further, “For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape” (1 Thessalonians 5:3). A question we can ask ourselves to see where we most likely stand on God’s prophetic timeline is this: “Do we hear a cry for peace and safety today?” And another: “Do we see a peace process today involving Israel?” We will soon learn that these issues are crucial to understanding prophecy as it relates to the cauldron that bubbles with the issues of Mideast war and peace at this very moment. And, like in Daniel's day, not all readers will understand in time the significance of what is unfolding in their lifetime, before their very eyes...

» CAULDRON: SUPERNATURAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE CURRENT MIDDLE EAST
» SUPERNATURAL WORLDVIEW -- PART 1 When I Met The Haunted Highwayman . . .
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» New Book "Cauldron" Reveals Temple Of The Antichrist Already Is In The Planning!
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