When Iraq faded from the collective consciousness and few were paying attention to it we wrote: “Iraq will weaken as a result of America’s exit to simply be devoured by Iran.” (Article by Walid Shoebat written in 2012 for Jewish Voice Ministries)
And now that Iraq is under the radar again as Mosul, Iraq’s SECOND largest city, was besieged by the Sunni Al-Qaeda front (ISIS), a closer attention should be focused on Iran, which just moved into Iraq’s capital, and the FIRST largest city, Baghdad is devoured by Iran. Make no mistake about it; this is prophetically significant.
The Shiites did not standby idle watching Iraq being devoured by Sunnis, as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani convened an emergency meeting of the country’s National Security Council to say this:
“We, as the Islamic Republic of Iran, will not tolerate this violence and terrorism … We will fight and battle violence and extremism and terrorism in the region and the world.”
And he wasn’t like Obama, simply full of hot air, he sent in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards who are already deployed to Iraq and in the name of War on Terror, to help government troops defend (really occupy) the capital city of Baghdad from the escalating threat of Al-Qaeda’s ISIS insurgents which Iranian security sources as well as all the media now confirmed.
The showdown is on, the ISIS has already seized several areas in the northern part of Iraq taking control of Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit on Wednesday (June 11), but Revolutionary Guard and Iraqi troops overtook 85 percent of the city of Baghdad on Thursday (June 12).
As the crisis in the Middle East deepens, the Iranian military is also considering shifting troops fighting in Syria and Iraq if the deployment of the Quds Forces is not sufficient to combat the Sunni insurgents.
President Obama responded saying he would not rule out U.S. air strikes against the insurgents and that his government is looking at “all options”, including military action, to help Iraq fight Islamist militants.
Today, the United States is in check and is staggering in confusion, Iran is an enemy, and now since the pull-out of Iraq, the U.S. is all but confused, finding itself with little choices but to look the other way when its arch enemy, Iran, encroaches into Iraq, weighing between an Al-Qaeda takeover to create the Caliphate on the one hand and Iran consuming Iraq on the other. And since we have seen Russia invade Crimea and Obama showed his impotence, Iran has already invaded Iraq’s capital.
Obama said the United States has an interest in making sure jihadists do not gain a foothold in Iraq.
Really? Which Jihadists; Iran or Al-Qaeda?
Its checkmate for the U.S. and prophetically, last year we wrote:
“in the contest between Iran (the bear) and Turkey (the Leopard) we will see Turkey emerge victorious. As a result, Iraq will continue to weaken after being gobbled up by Iran following America’s exit.”
We accurately wrote about Erdogan’s triumph and the rise of the Islamists there. We also summed up the situation prophetically, years ago we wrote: “Iraq (The Babylonian Empire) was the major power in the Middle East when Saddam was in charge; its wings were clipped, then plucked before being humbled by the U.S. Iran rose (bear on one side without Media-Kurdistan) and today we have the Shia-Crescent – the Persian Bear – rising.”
Most prophecy students missed it. Why? They do not comprehend the different layers and dual fulfillment in Scripture when it speaks about Prophecy. For example, Daniel 7 and 8 are not simply about ancient historic events dealing with the Babylonian Empire exclusively but has layers for the future: Lion standing on feet, bear rising on one side and the leopard coming up in the end are prophecies that were not fulfilled historically, God repeats history and these have another layer that pertains way into the future; the end of times.
We will see in the next decade how the bear (Iran) will arise to form the “Shia-Crescent” (which has already began), the term Shia-Crescent was coined by Abdullah II, king of Jordan as the world began to witness how other countries cling to Iran like Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Azerbaijan.
The Medo-Persian bear is “arising on one side” is arising again as Iran (on one side) to devour much flesh, including as we see, Iraq. The modern traditional western interpretation correctly sees the ancient empires, yet misses the crucial other layers and their dual fulfillment. Certain prophecy even encompass all times. The first believers bailed out of Jerusalem when it was surrounded by Roman conscripts composed of nations nearby, the Christians read Revelation and Zechariah which was in one layer speaking to them ultimately urging believers to leave, but the prophecy ultimately was for the end. Not understanding this causes many to err as preterits believe that prophecy was all fulfilled in 70 AD and others presume this was strictly for end-times when truth is that God at times hits many nails with a single blow of His hammer. The lion, for instance, was the animal most often historically associated with Babylon (Iraq). The prophet Jeremiah, for instance, refers to Babylon as a lion. The lion motif is found abundantly in ancient Babylonian art and architecture. Likewise, the description of the bear matches the unbalanced character of the two sides of the bear, the Medo-Persian Empire, in which Persia (one side) exerted far greater influence over the Median portion of the empire. Here, the bear arose on one side (Persia without Media); we see one side rising and the other remains. Iran is rising, but Media (Kurdistan) is not.
This refutes a historic context and is pointing towards the end-times, exactly as we see today on the news.
While the leopard, known as a swift and stealthy predator, seems to be a clear reference to Alexander the Greats’ agile military prowess and the incredible speed with which he conquered the ancient world, but is now the fourth beast represented here is clearly the same empire that is seen in the fourth kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar’s statue, as well as in the Book of Revelation, which is the landmass of the Grecian Empire, that is today’s Turkey and its Ottoman aspiration.
As for the fourth, many prophecy aficionados have been waiting for Europe to emerge as the iron-toothed beast of Daniel 7, yet they were all wrong as we see the European Union dismantle.
It isn’t as westerners ‘didn’t get it’, truth is that the modern books which dominated the Prophecy spectrum having built their scenarios on Tim Lahaye’s fictional Left Behind series and Hal Lindsey’s The Great Planet Earth, twisted the historic understanding of Prophecy to make it fit the Cold War with Russia and the forming of the European Union.
Today I am simply reviving what other westerners (both Protestant and Catholic) have brilliantly predicted from the Bible, People like John Wesley explaining the iron teeth as the Islamic threat: “Ever since the religion of Islam appeared in the world, the espousers of it…have been as wolves and tigers to all other nations, rending and tearing all that fell into their merciless paws, and grinding them with their iron teeth” and Hilaire Belloc, “Will not perhaps the temporal power of Islam return and with it the menace of an armed Mohammedan world, which will shake off the domination of Europeans—still nominally Christian—and reappear as the prime enemy of our civilization? … I cannot but believe that a main unexpected thing of the future is the return of Islam.” And Catholic Bishop Fulton Sheen, “Today (1950), “the temporal power of Islam may return and, with it, the menace that it may shake off a West which has ceased to be Christian, and affirm itself as a great anti-Christian world Power.”, And Vernon Richards, “The true Islamic concept of peace goes something like this: Peace comes through submission to Muhammad and his concept of Allah (i.e. Islam). As such the Islamic concept of peace, meaning making the whole world Muslim, is actually a mandate for war. It was inevitable and unavoidable that the conflict would eventually reach our borders, and so it has.” “This is Islam’s latest attempt to conquer the infidel world. Why do you suppose they waited until three centuries after the siege and battle of Vienna before they tried again? Was it because they saw an opportunity to get after us for the first time since 1683, because political correctness and the apologists it brought in train softened us up, and made us totally unaware of how evil and intolerant Islam really is, and gave them that window of opportunity to once again threaten our civilization with doom.”, and Josiah Litch (1840), who interpreted the star of Revelation as the ushering in of Islam: “A star, in the figurative language of Revelation, is a minister of religion. See Revelation 1:20… A fallen star then would signify a fallen or heretical minister of religion. This was undoubtedly the Arabian imposter, Mahomet. [Mohammed]. There is so general an agreement among Christians, especially protestant commentators, that the subject of this prediction is Mahommedism [Islam]”.
Then we have the great Protestant Prophecy teacher Sir Robert Anderson, perhaps one of the leading scholars of prophecy who unlocked the seventy weeks of Daniel and wisely understood such layers and dual fulfillments, stated:
“Verse 7 indicates that the rise of all these kingdoms was future.”
He continues:
“In the history of Babylonia there is nothing to correspond with the predicted course of the first Beast, for it is scarcely legitimate to suppose that the vision was a prophecy of the career of Nebuchadnezzar. Neither is there in the history of Persia anything answering to the bear-like beast with that precision and fullness which prophecy demands. The language of the English version suggests a reference to Persia and Media but the true rendering appears to be; ‘It made for itself one dominion,’ instead ‘it raised up itself on one side.’”
Anderson gets it. Even today this “bear” is rising in a lop-sided fashion. We have Iran (Persia) rising without Media (Kurdistan).
Anderson continues showing his brilliant understanding of these dualities and layers stated:
“While the symbolism of the sixth verse seems at first sight to point to the Grecian Empire, it will appear upon a closer examination that at its advent the leopard had four wings and four heads. This was its primary and normal condition, and it was in this condition that dominion was given to it. This surely is very different from what Daniel 8:8 describes is the history of Alexander’s Empire realized, viz., the rise of a single power, which in its decadence continued to exist in a divided state.”
Anderson then comes to the following accurate conclusion:
“Each of the three first empires of the second chapter (Babylon, Persia, and Greece) was in turn destroyed by its successor; but the kingdoms of the seventh chapter all continued together upon the scene, though the dominion, was with the fourth (Daniel 7:12). The verse seems to imply that the four beasts came up together, and at all events there is nothing to suggest a series of empires, each destroying its predecessor, though the symbolism of the vision was (in contrast with that of ch.2) admirably adapted to represent this.”
Anderson who was running the Scotland Yard was brilliant and is correct. Today, we see these three kingdoms rising to power—Iran (Persia without Media), and Turkey (Ionia, Greece). They are all rising together and will be destroyed together (Daniel 2:34-35), and all are symbolically and historically connected to the empires that Daniel predicted. Expect the bear (Iran) to consume three ribs, which may be the splintering of Iraq into three sectors or Syria, Lebanon and Iraq or even put in the mix Azerbaijan.
Anderson concludes what we have said for two decades: “Now, Daniel 2 expressly names the Mediterranean (“the Great Sea”) as the scene of the conflict between the four beasts. But there is no doubt that Egypt, Turkey, and Greece will be numbered among the ten kingdoms”
Quite amazing. There is no European Union, Layahe’s Left Behind should be what the book cover says; left behind.
And way before Protestantism, these great Catholic and Orthodox thinkers, Gregory Palamus (1354) “For these impious people, hated by God and infamous, boast of having got the better of the Romans by their love of God…they live by the bow, the sword and debauchery, finding pleasure in taking slaves, devoting themselves to murder, pillage, spoil…and not only do they commit these crimes, but even — what an aberration — they believe that God approves of them.” And Cyril of Jerusalem (315-386) and Sophronius (560-638) and Maximus The Confessor (580-662) and John of Damascus (676-749) who spoke of the “Ishmaelites, that is the forerunner of Antichrist. And this [superstition – Islam] is born from Ishmael, who was born from Hagar to Abraham, from which they are called Hagarenes and Ishmaelites…” and Eulogius who was martyred praised the Christians who he said, “marched out against the angel of Satan and the forerunner of Antichrist,” that is “Muhammad, the heresiarch.” and The Martyrs of Cordova and Paul Alvarus who went even further, writing a whole book entitled Indiculus Luminosus (The Illuminated Instructions), in which he argued that Muhammad was the forerunner to the Antichrist.
They saw Prophecy as speaking of the Romans and later Muhammad and the saracens and later the Ottomans and they were correct … prophecy was for all times. It wasn’t as if the God of Love, strictly uttered such proclamations for only the 21st century and beyond while He completely ignored His children throughout history!
Even Martin Luther (1483–1546) got it when he learned it from the Catholic Riccoldo da Monte di Croce “ … the Turk (Muslim) is the flesh of antichrist …” he correctly warned Protestants about Islam.
With Turkey coming out exactly where Greece used to be, it too is poised to devour its share of fill when it overtakes Egypt, Libya and Sudan with Somalia to muster armies to go against Israel (Ezekiel 38). Ever wonder why Zechariah 9 has Christ Himself fighting (Ionia/Greece) which is one of the four Grecian kingdoms? But modern student study Ezekiel 38 and rarely review Zechariah 9. Where are all the preterits (both Catholic and Protestants) who claim all was fulfilled? Jesus will come to battle with His true followers to defend Israel from being annihilated, for it too, the root, will join the branches to make the fruitful tree. O how beautiful is the Word of God.
We all err. The worst error is to continue in error. The good conservative Bible believing Christians are correct for warning about Obama, but they forget, the support of ousting the scorpion, Saddam Hussein (which we were against from the beginning) brought in the cobra (Iran and the ISIS). George Bush with good intent, ousted Saddam, but ultimately this created the chaos in Iraq and today Obama completed the mess by forcing the region into forming a new regional superpower—Iran.
Two years ago, we wrote an article for the Jewish Voice hitting the nail on the head:
“Iraq will weaken as a result of America’s exit to simply be devoured by Iran. By this, Turkey will control the Suez Canal and the Bosporus Strait, while Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz. This will undermine the U.S. naval hegemony in the region, which will eventually use its military armada alongside other allied European nations including Greece, Spain, and Italy in a showdown with Turkey. In the next few years, the West will enter an era like that of the late 1930s when Neville Chamberlain famously announced “peace in our time.” Thus, we will see the fulfillment of 1 Thessalonians 5:3: “While people are saying, ‘Peace and safety,’ destruction will come.” At this point, the West will find out that secular (moderate) Islam and fundamentalist (radical) Islam are two faces of the same coin. The good news, and unlike that which modern prophecy buffs have taught, the United States will continue to be the strongest military power that will stand against Turkey. The United States is “the mightiest fortresses” (Daniel 11:39) that will eventually destroy this Islamic alliance: “I am going to bring foreigners against you. . . . They will bring you down to the pit, and you will die a violent death in the heart of the seas” (Ezekiel 28:7-8).
I believe the United States, alongside other allies, will wake up in the end. Christians need to stop giving heed to fatalists who warn of the impending doom of America, but need to stand up and fulfill their biblically mandated duty to their nation and recognize it is Satan’s kingdom that is doomed and that God would spare a nation for a few good men.
We have said it before “Iraq, will soon be gobbled up by Iran when the United States pulls its troops out” while during Saddam’s era, the modern prophecy buffs predicted the revival of Iraq’s Babylon by Saddam Hussein and today their predictions are in the dustbin of history.
Why?
They failed to examine the layers and the dualities closely, and isolated verses from their context to sell you their defective wares.