America, Syria and the Road to Destruction

I am teaching a class on the Minor Prophets and the main message of all twelve prophets is repentance.  Repentance was the only way to advert the judgment of God upon the nations in question.  The spiritual and political condition found in the Minor Prophets is similar to the condition of America and world today.  

The underlying message in the Minor Prophets is that authentic spirituality radiates from an individual’s hearts, not our traditions or forms of worship.  Christians today are no different from Judah and Israel during the time of the Minor Prophets.  When confused about where to look for real answers many Christians satisfy themselves with spiritual placebos and politically correct sermons.  Today we have self-appointed shepherds who cannot recognize the truth.  Their failure to guard the flock isn’t in their ineffectiveness in the spiritual, social, or political realms, but the struggle with obedience to the will of God.

Just as Judah and Israel went through the motions of religious worship today we have substituted real worship with platitudes, meaningless busyness of religious works.  There is an absence of genuine connection to the LORD.  Our generation has been given to such deep lies both in the political and religious areas that all our efforts now are aimed at restructuring these lies to fit our illusions and rid us of a guilt coming from a condition we have declared doesn't exist---sin. This prevents us from calling out to the God we need more every day.  We are admonished to repent. 

Our problem today is both a theological and political one.  Our theology determines, not the emphasis merely, but the character of our message and the end and purpose of our ministry which has a direct impact on how we are governed. In a word I believe that the issue is between the gospels of Jesus Christ, attested by Christ and His Apostles, and recorded in the New Testament, and another gospel, which is not a gospel, but a perversion of the truth as it is in Jesus. This other gospel is the product of a theology that is, at every vital point, diametrically opposed to the doctrine we hold and results, not in a diluted gospel merely, but in a negation of all that is distinctive of Early Christian beliefs.  The idols of the American Christian are sports, entertainment and material gains.  We have allowed our leaders both political and spiritual to divide us from devotion to God and set us on a course for destruction.

This past few weeks has proven the paradox of lies existing along with the truth.  Americans have watched as the leaders of our country have lied before Congressional hearings about our invasion of privacy, the corrupt actions of the IRS in targeting conservative organizations, and the neocons that are ready to go to war with Syria.  Americans have fallen prey to the deception of those who are motivated by something more than liberty and freedom.  When Jesus made the statement that in the end time, if it were possible the very elect would be deceived (Matt. 24:24), he knew there would be those who would process the lies and find the truth.

Isaiah gives us warning concerning leaders who spread falsehoods.  Scoundrels use wicked methods; they make up evil schemes to destroy the poor with lies, even when the plea of the needy is just. What is interesting is that history is repeating daily in American politics and religion.  To the student of history the events of today do not seem unfamiliar; in fact the conditions of the day depict the happenings of the end times as recorded by both Old and New Testament writers.

In reading the Old Testament prophets the ancient people and places have changed their names and are not the same names used today.  The best way to identify the nations and people spoken of by the prophets is to compare the ancient description with the modern people and places.

One nation that is mentioned in the tenth chapter of Isaiah is the Assyrian nation.   The country known as Syria was incorporated into the Assyrian Empire and was called by Greeks and Roman Syria, short for Assyria because it had been under Assyrian rule.  The name Syria is derived from the older Assyria.  This country will play a major role in the fulfillment of end time prophecy.  The Assyrian empire became great and powerful with Nineveh as the center of the empire.  The prophet Jonah was sent by God to warn them of the judgment of God if they failed to repent.  Nineveh repented and was spared from the judgment of God until its destruction in 612 B.C as predicted by the prophet Nahum. 

Nahum addresses Judah to announce the destruction of Assyria and its capital Nineveh. Judah, along with many other countries, had suffered from Assyrian tyranny and violence. The question of whether or not anyone can escape the cruelty of Assyria is answered by God's standing against Assyria. The destruction of Assyria is announced through speeches formally addressed to the king of Assyria and Nineveh, but the actual audience is Judah. Both the past affliction that Judah experienced and the coming destruction of Assyria are the work of God, as well as the usual ebb and flow of turbulent political forces.

What is interesting is that God was not finished with the Assyrians and would use them again in the end times.  In the tenth chapter of Isaiah the Assyrians are again used by God to bring punishment upon the nations.  The world has turned upside down.  Today the eyes of the world are on Syrira.

If the Syrian government crumbles and falls, violence will spread to neighboring countries of Iraq and Lebanon, there is also a huge possibility that Al-Qaeda is involved in the Syrian revolution and if Syria falls it will open the door for the Muslim Brotherhood to gain a foothold just like it has in Egypt. Isaiah gives us some insight into what would be happening world-wide.

“Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.  What will you do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes from afar?  To whom will you run for help?   Where will you leave your riches?  ⁴ Nothing will remain but to cringe among the captives or fall among the slain.  Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away, his hand is still upraised.”

It should be understood that the conflict in Syria is a religious war between two Muslim factions—Alawite-Shitte and Sunni-Muslims.  Behind the scene the CIA has been delivering weapons to the freedom fighters and is aware that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and other countries are sending aid as well. However, most of the armed shipment has been sent from Saudi Arabia and Qatar and are going to die hard jihadist the very groups we are fighting in Afghanistan.

What is hard to understand is why the United States has sided with the rebels.  This revolution is actually a proxy war formulated by the west along with Qatar and Saudi Arabia to destabilize the Syrian government for their own selfish means.  The “rebels” are not just Syrians there are foreigners from Libya, Jordan, Chechnya, Turkey and other Islamic nations. King Abdullah from Saudi Arabia proclaimed that those who do jihad in Syria will be guaranteed to have breakfast with Allah and will have their 72 virgins waiting for them in heaven. King Abdullah also granted Fatwas allowing Jihadist to have sex with women who are not Sunni, making Alawites Shitte, Christians and Druze fair targets.

So why has the United States sided with King Abdullah who mainly wants Bashar out of power so an extremist Sunni can control Syria and impose Sharia law onto the country?  He also has brainwashed the uneducated poor to do Jihad in Syria and to kill as many pro-Bashar supporters as possible, which is why all the main attacks in Damascus and Aleppo are in pro-Bashar areas.

The ‘freedom fighters’ are not fighting for democracy or freedom as Americas are being told, they are fighting to destroy a secular Syria. Saudi Arabia does not want any Christians in Syria. Over 1000 Christians have been killed; over 200,000 have fled the country leaving. Recently the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia called for all Christian churches to be destroyed in the whole Arabian Peninsula. And let us not forget that Saudi Arabia was the birthplace of 15 of the 19 hijackers of 9-11 and also of Osama Bin Laden.

So are the Sunni Muslims through the Muslim Brotherhood going to be the hand of God on the judgment of the nations? I know they are not in the lineage of the Assyrian but they have the same evil heart of cruelty the early Assyrians displayed during Biblical times.

 “Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger, in whose hand is the club of my wrath!   I send him against a godless nation, I dispatch him against a people who anger me, to seize loot and snatch plunder, and to trample them down like mud in the streets.   But this is not what he intends, this is not what he has in mind; his purpose is to destroy, to put an end to many nations. ‘Are not my commanders all kings?’ he says.   ‘Has not Kalno fared like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad, and Samaria like Damascus?  As my hand seized the kingdoms of the idols, kingdoms whose images excelled those of Jerusalem and Samaria— shall I not deal with Jerusalem and her images as I dealt with Samaria and her idols?’”

The spiritual mentor of the worldwide Muslim Brotherhood movement has risked further inflaming sectarian tension across the Middle East by using highly charged religious rhetoric to call for a Sunni "jihad" in Syria.

Yusef al-Qaradawi, who is based in Qatar and has been a leading voice supporting the Arab Spring, warned that Iranian Shia were trying to "eat" Sunni Muslims, who are a majority in the Muslim world.

He referred to Alawites, the followers of the Muslim sect to which President Bashar al-Assad of Syria belongs, as being "worse infidels than Christians or Jews". He also used the deliberately contemptuous term "Nusayris" when talking about them.

He was particularly critical of the roles played by Iran, which is largely Shia, and the Lebanon Shia militia Hizbollah whose name translates as Party of God but which he called "Party of Satan", in supporting the Assad regime. The hatred in the voices of the Sunni Muslim is heard throughout the world.  They main goal is to destroy and put an end to many nations.

The fear that “Arab Spring” will spread to all Muslim countries is becoming a reality.  Many Arab countries have recently been victimized due to the countless terrorist attacks that have taken place in the Middle East. The Arab Spring has sparked countless revolutions that spread to neighboring countries like an epidemic and the puppet master is Saudi Arabia.  Saudi Arabia has been behind the fake revolution in Syria.

Having said that, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, Israel along with the Western powers have formulated a proxy war to take down President Bashar Al-Assad out of power.  Why was this proxy war created in the first place? It is because of power and resources?  Syria lies in the heart of the Middle East and plays a crucial role in Middle Eastern politics and has oil? The so called Syrian ‘rebels’ are not Syrian, majority of them are Muslim jihadist sent from Libya, Jordan, Turkey and other Islamic countries. These terrorists have blown up churches, schools, mosques, and have destroyed most of Syria. Not to mention the kidnappings, beatings, and violence these terrorists have caused. Aside from that, they capture innocent civilians who support Bashar and behead them while screaming ‘Allahu Akbar’.

Will Saudi Arabia bring down all the Shitte Muslims nations and continue to bring misery to countries like England, Germany, France, and the United States? It looks like this is the direction the world is going.  However, they are creating the foundation for their own demise.  Isaiah looking through the telescope of time sees the end to the “King of Assyria”.  God will destroy them to the point very few will be left.  Their courage will come from bringing misery, death and destruction on the nations of the world and then to attack Israel.  It will be this move that will bring about their destruction.  It will not come from the United States, the United Nations or a collation of nations—it will come from the hand of God and not man.  The Arab Spring will turn into the Arab destruction.  To avoid this we as a nation must repent of the evil within our government and in our hearts.