WARS AND RUMOURS OF WARS IN THE END TIMES

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“And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.” Matthew 24:6-8 and Mark 13:7

Top Israeli defense officials say the country is preparing for the possibility of an armed conflict with regional arch-rival Iran and its proxies.

“We will be prepared to execute operations that haven’t been seen in the past, with means that weren’t in our hands in the past, that will harm the heart of terror and its abilities,” said Defense Minister Benny Gantz. By Associated Press

Israeli army chief of staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi said Tuesday that the Israeli military was “speeding up the operational plans and readiness for dealing with Iran and the nuclear military threat.”

Lebanon border
Israel readying for War with Iran, Officials say

Israel considers Iran an existential threat and has warned that it would act with military force if needed to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Last month Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said that “if a terror regime is going to acquire a nuclear weapon, we must act.”

Addressing lawmakers at a meeting of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Kohavi said the military “continued to act against our enemies in covert operations and missions around the Middle East” during the past year.

His remarks came following a string of reported Israeli airstrikes in Syria. Israel has staged hundreds of strikes on Iran-linked military targets in neighboring Syria in the past decade but rarely acknowledges its operations. It has been said that Iran’s presence near its northern frontier is a red line and that it targets arms shipments bound for Iranian-backed Lebanese terror group Hezbollah and Iran-linked facilities in Syria.

Speaking during a visit to a defense industry factory in the northern city of Shlomi, near the Lebanese border, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said that Israel was “working all the time to prevent war — carrying out operations, conveying messages, preventing (a military) build-up.”

In the event of war, he said, “we will be prepared to execute operations that haven’t been seen in the past, with means that weren’t in our hands in the past, that will harm the heart of terror and its abilities.”

Iran Proxy and Sanctions Map Dec 2020
From Susa in Iran the ram would be charging northward to Lebanon and Iraq

What we see Iran doing militarily is an “end times” prophecy in the book of Daniel. Iran is the ram charging westward and northward and southward. The two horns represent the supreme leader Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei and General Hossein Salami head of the country’s Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) together they control all political and military power in Iran.

“I was in Susa the citadel, which is in the province of Elam (Iran). And I saw in the vision, and I was at the Ulai canal. I raised my eyes and saw, and behold, a ram (Iran) standing on the bank of the canal. It had two horns, and both horns were high, but one was higher than the other, and the higher one came up last. I saw the ram charging westward and northward and southward. No beast could stand before him, and there was no one who could rescue them from his power. He did as he pleased and became great.” Daniel 8:2-4

We need to watch for the next part of Daniel 8’s prophecy to be fulfilled. Sunni Turkey (Goat) will not tolerate Shia Iran (Ram) claiming leadership of the Muslim middle east. Turkey (previously controlled the powerful Ottoman Empire) considers itself the leader of the Muslim world. Daniel’s prophecy predicts Turkey defeating Iran in what is described as a savage encounter but then we are told Turkey’s bid to re-establish a neo-Ottoman Empire is short-lived. We are not told who comes against Turkey, possibly the UN or a coalition of western nations that do not want to see a revived Ottoman Empire. Russia for one would not want to see a revived Ottoman Empire challenge its dominance in the region. We are told that it is broken up into four nations/kingdoms and it is out of these that the Little Horn (Antichrist) emerges.

Turkey’s attempt to re-establish a neo-Ottoman Empire

“The goat (Turkey) had a conspicuous horn between his eyes. He came toward the two-horned ram (Iran) I had seen standing beside the canal and rushed at him with savage fury. I saw him approaching the ram, and infuriated with him, he struck the ram, shattering his two horns, and the ram was not strong enough to stand against him... Then the male goat became very great, but when he became powerful, the large horn was shattered. Four conspicuous horns came up in its place, pointing toward the four winds of heaven.” Daniel 8:6-8

It is only then that the Antichrist (little horn) arrives on the scene and is allowed to dominate the world for an allotted time, three and half years.

“From one of them, a little horn emerged and grew extensively toward the south and the east and toward the beautiful land. It grew as high as the heavenly host, made some of the stars and some of the host fall to the earth, and trampled them. It made itself great, even up to the Prince of the host; it removed His daily sacrifice and overthrew the place of His sanctuary. Because of rebellion, a host, together with the daily sacrifice, will be given over. The horn will throw truth to the ground and will be successful in whatever it does.” Daniel 8:9-12

Ezekiel 38 also links the Antichrist (Gog) to modern Turkey (and/or its immediately surrounding vicinity). Ezekiel singles out all Islamic nations in the Middle East and North Africa as comprising the vanguard of Gog’s invasion force during the Great Tribulation.

END TIMES PROPHECY – IRAN AND ISRAEL

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This article by Dr. Majid Rafizadeh fits with end times prophecy concerning Iran and Israel.

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US Foreign Policy. 

“Iran’s military activities and clear public threats to annihilate Israel continue to grow in frequency and intensity. These moves not only instil fear, as they are doubtless meant to do; they also threaten to disrupt the international community.

With such dire promises of conflict, it would be expected that the international news media and politicians throughout the world would have something to say about this situation.

Instead, Iran’s continued abusive behaviour continues to be cozied up to at worst, or at best, ignored.

Iranians burn an Israeli flag. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Iran Inches Closer Toward its Goal of ‘Wiping Israel Off the Map’

One of the core pillars and revolutionary ideals of the Islamic Republic is destroying the Jewish state. It is also one of the religious prophecies of the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and his successor, the current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that Israel will be eventually erased from the face of the earth.

As Iran’s theocratic establishment believes that the Supreme Leader is Allah’s representative on earth, whatever words or desires the Supreme Leader utters are considered wishes, which must be brought to life by Allah’s true believers.

While they progress toward destroying Israel, not only do Iranian leaders believe that they are inching closer to fulfilling a religious prophecy, but they also see that they are gaining strategic and geopolitical victories — in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and in the Gaza Strip.

The Deputy Commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Hossein Salami, recently threatened on Iran’s Channel 2 TV that Israel is “vulnerable and bringing itself closer to death”.

Salami recently made it vehemently clear the strategy of the Iranian government, stating:

“Our strategy is to erase Israel from the global political map. And, it seems that, considering the evil that Israel is doing, it is bringing itself closer to that.”

In addition, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei recently posted a Twitter tirade against Israel. It stated that the, “the Zionist regime will perish in the not-so-far future.”

This burst of confidence is bolstered by Iran’s military buildup in Syria, among other places. The Syrian civil war has been viewed as a perfect environment for the Iranian leaders to advance and ultimately achieve their objective of destroying Israel.

Iran has built, or is in the process of building, more than 10 military bases in Syria, some of which are near the Israeli border. Tehran has used this strategic position in Syria to fire rockets into Israel.

While many of the world leaders disregard Iran’s evident intentions to destroy Israel, they always seems extremely quick to criticise Israel for actually defending the safety of its citizens.

After Iran’s unprovoked attacks on Israel and its military build-up in Syria were dismissed by the international community, Israel had no choice but to carry out its own strikes against the Iranian military bases and infrastructure that were threatening their country.

Unfortunately, some news outlets and politicians have been attempting to create a narrative to lead people to believe that the Iranian leaders’ threats are just talk. Iran’s leaders, however, continue to demonstrate their intentions not only with verbal threats, but with military actions as well.

Since 1979, Iran has authorised firing rockets and missiles into Israel, and have also used proxies, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, to attack Israel viciously. Iran appears to have Israel solidly in its cross-hairs.

Apparently in a rush to provide cover for Iran, some world leaders have also, for years, been attempting to tell the public that there is a difference between “moderate” Iranian politicians and the hardliners.

Unfortunately, that distinction is make-believe. Iran’s current president, Hassan Rouhani, like the previous president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has called Israel a “cancerous tumour.” Iranian politicians across the political spectrum (hardliners or “moderates”) all agree on one thing: destroy Israel.

When will the international community begin to take the Iranian government’s clear verbal threats and physical aggression seriously? Or would the international community secretly like to see Israel destroyed, under Europe’s Orwellian inversion of the words: ‘the peace process’?”