After eight painful years of democrats running Washington D.C., and by extension, large portions of the world, November 8th, 2016 will forever be branded in their minds as an American version of "Nakba Day."
This day of calamity has engendered much angst, aggression, and vitriol because it caught them completely unaware. All the "experts" had Hillary Clinton enthroned as president with electoral landslide. This is because liberals in media, academia, and Hollyweird had become so entrenched and brainwashed with their own propaganda that they truly believed their reign of power would never come to an end.
This level of complete disconnect from reality, really only has two examples that even quantify as comparable in recent times: Adolph Hitler's belief that he could usher in a 1,000 year Reich, and our modern-day North Korean propagandists promoting Kim Jong Un as a demi-god. Unfortunately for most of American, liberal angst and disillusionment do not remain shuttered in safe-spaces very long. It is seething, and seething leads to violence, and violence to lawlessness. And because their political losses were so massive, the lefts' only options remaining are either outright civil war or death by a thousand cuts. It should be no surprise that no US President has ever been more grateful to trade in the blistering political intrigue of D.C., for the blistering Saudi Arabian summer heat as President Trump is.
As noted author and professor, Victor Davis Hanson rightfully stated in a recent television interview, this relentless and vitriolic onslaught on the President (and anyone associated with him) as a slow-motion coup. It is open and active attacks are meant to derail and dethrone the current US President by any means necessary. In other words, it is active political warfare meant to override the results of the election by other means.
Unfortunately, Pres. Trump has almost as many enemies on the right, as he does on the left. Fair to say when you threaten to drain the swamp, it rattles all the cages. Entrenched power (right or left) does not go quietly into the night. Liberals, globalists, and socialists despise the restraints put on power by the Constitution and have been trying to usurp it for the better part of two centuries. If Obama was meant to be the death-stroke to the Constitution, then Hillary was certainly meant to be the nail in its coffin. Trump's victory thus derailed all that and has rattled the doors to the very gates of hell itself, awakening a dark and angry spirit.
Assessment
Although the current political and intrigue might seem unprecedented, it was, however, not unforeseen. God has already seen how this plays out and as One who appoints kings and kingdoms (Daniel 2:20-22), this is working out exactly according to His plans and His purposes. Trump was meant to win at this particular point in history. I believe that while we don't/can't know the plans and purposes exactly, we can make some interesting observations about the signs of the times.
As mentioned in previous briefs, I believe that in dealing with the nation of Israel, God has used times and patterns in time to draw attention to their unique role they play on the world's stage. God seemingly dealt with Israel in times past in reoccurring 490-year cycles. The last (Daniel's 70 Weeks) has one remaining week of years left to finish. Although I am not a prophet nor omniscient, I can read what God's word has to say and apply a little bit of geopolitical common sense to our current day and age to forecast likely outcomes. A recap:
- 1897-2017=120 years, First Zionist Congress convenes
- 1917-2017=100 years, Balfour Declaration
- 1947-2017=70 years, UN Partition Plan approved on 29 November 1947. Israel waits till May 14th, 1948 to declare statehood triggering first Arab-Israeli War.
- 1967-2017=50 years, Israel regains all of Jerusalem back in Six Day War
- 1977-2017=40 years, beginning of "Land for Peace" with the Camp David Accords
- 1987-2017=30 years, Temple Mount Institute founded
Let's say hypothetically that all of these numbers and their alignment with biblical patterns are completely coincidental. Let's say that I and others are just reading way too much into 2017 this year is no more significant to Israel than 2013 was. How much longer then, does the nation of Israel share the same global stage as the universal body of Christ (i.e., the Church)? If we look back at the first century, Israel and the Church only overlapped by 37-38 years roughly. We know God is longsuffering (2 Peter 3:9), so perhaps that explains why we are approaching 70 years this time around. So the two things we can know for certain is that Daniel's 70th Week will play out exactly according to Scripture, and the Church is not destined to be on the earth when this does happen. (1 Thess. 1:10; 2:19; 5:1-11, Revelation 3:10)
Puzzling Pieces
It is interesting that we see Donald Trump shock the world by taking the highest office of the most powerful nation on earth in the 40th year after the beginning of the Camp David Accords. As you know, the Camp David Accords began a 40-year unicorn-hunt trying to find this ever- elusive peace deal. The only problem with any Arab-Israeli peace deal is that it's hard to have real peace with a group of people who have sworn to annihilate you and drive you off into the ocean. Thus, the West (the EU and US) have only ever become increasingly drunken with political blindness that they could divide and parcel out Jerusalem to whomever they chose and peace would ensue (Zech. 12:2-3).
I will also gather all nations, And bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; And I will enter into judgment with them there on account of My people, My heritage Israel, Whom they have scattered among the nations; They have also divided up My land. Joel 3:2
Trump has called the Israeli-Palestinian peace deal the ultimate deal he'd love to broker. But he's also stated that any peace deal, ultimately, has to be one that both the Israelis and Palestinians unequivocally supports. His Jewish son in law Jared Kushner, along with his daughter Ivanka, are set to play central roles in any future peace deal. Part of this deal is making the Sunni Arabs happy by ensuring their own continued authority in a region racked by upheaval and coup d'états thanks in part to Obama's Arab Spring. Trump is set to openly endorse (a US first) the creation of an Arab NATO, which is designed specifically to counter terrorism and the growing Iranian threat of destabilization across the Middle East. This, of course, will have the unintended (or perhaps intended) consequence of driving Iran further into Russia's bearish arms. This will naturally draw in another Middle East outcast, Erdogan's Caliphate (formerly known as Turkey), and any other nation too destabilized to muster a proper army. I am looking at you Sudan and Libya!
Any student of the Bible already knows where this article is headed. Ezekiel 38-39 is a prophecy about a coming war (never been fulfilled) in which an alliance of nations come against Israel in the last days called the battle of Gog and Magog. The nations mentioned for sure are Libya (Phut), Sudan/Somalia (Cush), and Iran (Persia). Other nations we can be fairly certain of through historical references look an awful lot like Russia and Turkey. A wise old man once said, "If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck." We see in the Middle East a resurgent Iran, aligned tightly with a resurgent Russia, and drawing in an angry Turkey (see the reference back to ducks).
In this war, the modern day equivalents of Europe (merchants of Tarshish and the young lions thereof) and Saudi Arabia (Sheba and Dedan) do not side with Israel, but merely lodge a complaint at this gross example of wanton violence committed by Gog and Magog's coalition. If the Arabs were to form a NATO-type organization, and they are only slightly more inclined to be friendly to Israel as they would be Russia/Iran alliance...how does that old saying go "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake" (Napoleon Bonaparte)...what do they have to lose? The answer: nothing. They're letting one enemy fight another while it weakens both.
As crazy as we may like to think Russia, Turkey, and Iran might be, they will not make a military move like that so long as the United States remains firmly entrenched in Israel's good graces (or vice-versa). Something has to sideline the United States first and potentially make it so that the EU has no time or taste for action in regards to coming to Israel's aid. To be fair, the EU doesn't have much military muscle, to begin with, so without US backing, the EU could not march off for another Holy Land Crusade even if it wanted too.
So the real question is, what sidelines the United States from backing one of our strongest allies?
Two of the most likely courses of action could come in the form of some type of economic-Armageddon which makes it impossible for the US to act even if it wanted too. Or it could be the Rapture of the Church, which would at the very least, decimate the US's ability to project military power abroad by instantly removing millions of people from the United States, thus throwing the nation into massive turmoil. Strategically speaking, having a lot of born-again Christians in a nation is not geopolitically good for that nation as we draw near the end. Which is perhaps why we see the aggressiveness of the antichrist spirit infecting every aspect of American life.
Psalm 2 notes that the leaders of the world are actively working against God and His Anointed (Jesus Christ). We see the United Nations and almost every government ignoring the persecution of Christians worldwide, and also working to divide and diminish Israel. The last days according to the Bible are replete with passages which speak to two basic categories: increased evil and violence and that all the nations of the world will come against Israel. We need only look around today to see a world embroiled in violence and wickedness. We need to look no further than the United Nations, EU, and former US administration's continued assault against Israel's existence. Setting aside the time-date "coincidences" of the last 120 years, IF these are not the tell-tale signs of the very last minutes of the last hour, I do not know what is. But God does. And God looks at man's scheming and machinations, of setting up thrones made of crumbly sand and HE laughs. A frightening thought indeed.
Why do the nations rage,
And the people plot 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 bonds in pieces
And cast away Their cords from us."
He who sits in the heavens shall laugh;
The Lord shall hold them in derision.
Then He shall speak to them in His wrath,
And distress them in His deep displeasure:
"Yet I have set My King
On My holy hill of Zion."
Even so, Maranatha!
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