“I AM DOING IT FOR GOD”
March 15, 2008
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
I first came into the Middle East when Morocco was still French Morocco, and many of the countries of the Middle East were still under European occupation or just coming out from under it. In all reality the “man” in the street” was simply being transferred from a European Master to an Arab Dictator. Over the 56 years that have sailed by in Middle East society since I was first a part of it, I have watched a spirit of Islamic Jihad rise slowly at first, then more quickly after the French pulled totally out of North Africa. And it began to rapidly accelerate after the Iranian Revolution. The overthrow of the Shah of Iran, and a successful driving out of the Soviet Union, brought the rise of a spirit that has daily consumed the hearts of more and more of those of the Islamic faith across the Middle East. The spirit is an evil heart of lust for revenge through Islamic Jihad, and it can only end in chaos for all the peoples on this planet. I am convinced it is the spirit of Antichrist, but those who possess it are certain it is of God.
II Thessalonians 2:11 – And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
The last paragraph in the UK Independent.com series of excerpts from an article by Robert Fisk, which follows our heading, clearly manifests why there is not going to be peace in the Middle East until Armageddon is followed by the Second Advent of Christ. It contains a statement of a typical Islamic terrorist, which is the title of this Blog – “I AM DOING IT FOR GOD.”
The spirit of the Wicked One is now possessing the hearts of many of his followers to the extent they will follow his Antichrist to the death. The Wicked One himself will soon manifest himself outwardly from Islamic hearts filled with murderous hatred for the true God and for those who do not believe in their God Allah. The Antichrist himself will be filled and possessed bodily by Satan himself, who will reveal himself to the world as the God of it, which I believe will be him masquerading under the name of the Islamic God Allah. The Antichrist will be filled with the God of this world bodily, and Satan will openly reveal himself as God sitting in the temple (naos – body as a sanctuary) of a flesh and blood sinful man. I do not know who he is, but the Scriptures do indicate he will be revealed in his time. I believe he is one and the same as Islam’s Mahdi.
THE MAHDI ANTICHRIST WILL EVENTUALLY BE REVEALED!
The new Iranian President is a “died in the wool” religious Islamic fanatic from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. The Apostle Paul was a “Hebrew of the Hebrews,” and President Ahmadinjad is truly a “Shiite of the Shiites.” He is locked in combat with the old conservative heads that have governed Iran since the revolution that overthrew the Shah of Iran. He is trying to slip new leaders and departments into the government, attempting to get younger key members of the extremists from his Revolutionary Guard into top positions of power, putting out the old leaders who have held power for so long over all governmental decisions. It appears he has another revolution in mind, one in which he has absolute power to form a very radical Islamic Republic to replace the current conservative one. I truly believe the religious extremism in the fanatical Shiite beliefs, among their literal interpreters, is going to unveil the Middle East Antichrist. Both the Sunni and Shiite sects of the Muslim faith believe in a coming Al-Mahdi, which we would relate to as our looking forward to the return of Messiah Jesus Christ. The Shiites believe he has been hiding in a cave for some 1,100 years, but will soon come out to rule all Islam as the 12th Imam. Many Imams across Iran and Iraq are preaching his coming is very soon, and anxiousness for his arrival is growing.
The President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is a Shiite religious literalist, who believes in the imminent return of the 12th Imam. His segment of the Shiite faith believes the 12th Imam went into hiding in the 9th century.
The Sunni sect of Islam believes the Al-Mahdi, who is to arise and lead Islam to rule the world and establish a one-world Islamic religion, will be an ordinary man, born to an ordinary woman, and will live an ordinary life with the people of his time. But the Shiites under the same persuasion of their current President, believe that soon the 12th Imam, who disappeared mysteriously in the 9th century, will suddenly appear to lead the Shiites to victory over all enemies starting with the hypocrite mullahs and ending with the Jews.
In the Shiite theology, belief in Imams is the cornerstone of their faith. They believe the 12th Imam has been living in a cave-like well for more than ten centuries, and that he will suddenly surface from his hiding place below the earth as the Mahdi, their Messiah, and will then meet Jesus, the Son of Mary. They believe Jesus, the Prophet of Allah, will be second in command in that he will pray behind Al-Mahdi. They believe Allah will give Al-Mahdi the ability to rule all the Muslim nations with righteousness in the span of a night.
In the Shiite theology of the religious followers of the current President of Iran, the 12th Imam is still the sole source of legitimate power on the earth. I suspect a man will suddenly arise in Islam in the Middle East claiming to be the 12th Imam.
He will declare himself to have returned with the power of Allah, but in reality he will be the antichrist. It is quite possible he will appear to have come back from the dead.
Islamic writers indicate the signs in the next paragraph will precede the 12th Imam.
There are many signs that will precede him, a very important sign is that he will come at a time when there is great confutation, intense disputing, and violent deaths – when people are experiencing great fear. Calamities will fall upon people, so much that a man shall not find a shelter to shelter him self from oppression. There will be battles and conflicts before his appearance. The people will be troubled to such an extent that they will long for death. It is then that Imam will arise. The messenger of Allah said he will be sent at a time of intense disputes and differences among people amidst widespread earthquakes.
It may well be that Paul’s man of sin, the antichrist, is the coming Islamic Al Mahdi.
II Thesalonians 2:3,4 – Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; [4] Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
The man of sin, the antichrist, the son of destruction, is described critically in verse 4.
The word translated as “opposeth,” is “antikeimai.” It means “to lie opposite,” hence, to oppose, to be adverse or repugnant to another person. God is the other person in this verse, against whom all this animosity is directed.
The word translated as “exalteth” is in the middle voice, meaning “to lift up one’s self over others in conceit or arrogance.” Antichrist in his own mind becomes the god of all gods, and demands that all worship be given to him alone.
The word translated as “shewing” means “to point away from other objects at one specific object,” in this case he fingers himself as the only object of worship. It is almost as if he is frantic to prove it to himself as well as others. One of the first things one will notice in most Islamic countries are the countless huge pictures and statues of the current despotic leader, an effort on their part to point to themselves as “El Jumbo Supremo.” The antichrist will be pointing to himself as the supreme one of all supreme ones, and his statues and pictures will blanket the countries of the Islamic world.
The examination of the phrase “he as God sitteth in the temple of God” is perhaps the most interesting part of verse 4.” It has commonly been taught this refers to a rebuilt temple of stone in Jerusalem, but I have every reason to believe this is not the kind of “temple” Paul refers to in this verse. Please bear with me in a rather lengthy discourse on this phrase, because it makes a lot of difference in other areas of prophetic interpretation. If Paul had used the Greek word “HEIRON” for temple in this verse, I would tell you immediately there was no question he was referring to a rebuilt temple in the old city of Jerusalem. But he chose to use the word NAOS for temple, and that makes it a horse of quite a different color.
There are two words commonly translated as “temple” in the New Testament – HIERON and NAOS.
Temple – HIERON is the word used of the Jerusalem stone temple itself and, at times, of the whole compass of the Temple Mount enclosure, including all the other subordinate buildings pertaining to the temple.
Temple – NAOS is any enclosure surrounding the place where the Spirit of God dwells. In the HIERON, it was the enclosure within the HIERON where the Spirit of God dwelled, namely, the Holy of Holies in the rear of the Temple, which was separated from the Holy Place by a thick curtain. It was torn from top to bottom by the power of God when Jesus commended his Spirit into his hands. It was his completion of the redemptive work that finished the plan of salvation for all men, and tore open the barrier between the presence of God and man. It is still open to all those who will receive him as the one who finished God’s plan of salvation.
John 19:30 – When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.
Matthew 27:50,51 – Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. [51] And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;
The word “temple” appears some 24 times in the book of Acts, and it is ALWAYS “HIERON.” It first appears in Acts 2:46. Its last occurrence is in Acts 26:21.
Acts 2:46 – And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart,
Acts 26:21 – For these causes the Jews caught me in the temple, and went about to kill me.
The word “NAOS” does not appear in the book of Acts.
There is no question that Paul thoroughly understood the exacting differences between the two words. It is true that, at times, the word “NAOS” is used in the N.T. to refer to the entire temple building, but only because it was a part of it. But let’s take a detailed look at how Paul himself used the words “NAOS” and “HIERON.”
Paul used the word “NAOS” eight times in all of his N.T. writings – Seven of these cases follow: See if there is any possible way you could twist these usages by Paul to refer to the stone temple in Jerusalem.
I Corinthians 3:16,17 – Know ye not that ye are the TEMPLE of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? [17] If any man defile the TEMPLE of God, him shall God destroy; for the TEMPLE of God is holy, which temple ye are.
Ephesians 2:21 – In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy TEMPLE in the Lord:
II Corinthians 6:16 – And what agreement hath the TEMPLE of God with idols? for ye are the TEMPLE of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall
be my people.
I Corinthians 6:19 – What? know ye not that YOUR BODY IS THE TEMPLE of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
None of these usages refer to the stone Jerusalem temple.
Paul did use the word HIERON for the temple located in Jerusalem in the following Scripture.
I Corinthians 9:13 – Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the TEMPLE? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar?
Paul certainly knew the difference between the two words translated as TEMPLE in the New Testament, and, considering the importance of the eighth and final use of NAOS by Paul in all his writings, I don’t believe a temple will be built in Jerusalem before the 2nd Advent.
II Thessalonians 2:4 – Who opposeth and EXALTETH HIMSELF above ALL that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the TEMPLE (NAOS) of God, SHEWING HIMSELF that he is God.
I believe that Paul’s usage of NAOS in II Thessalonians 2:4 carries the same meaning as Paul intended it to have in I Corinthians 6:19.
I Corinthians 6:19 – What? know ye not that your body is the TEMPLE (NAOS) of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
II Thessalonians 2:4 – Who opposeth and EXALTETH HIMSELF above ALL that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the TEMPLE (NAOS) of God, SHEWING HIMSELF that he is God.
The antichrist will sit in a sinful body of flesh on the temple mount. I now sit in a sinful body of flesh at 204 Hickory Street in Dardanelle, Arkansas. My body, even though it is sinful, is a NAOS I received in the womb. The antichrist will have received the NAOS in which he dwells by the same process. But inside it will dwell an evil spirit and soul, claiming to be God, and trying to prove it to mankind.
Jesus was God living in a temple of sinless flesh. He was God incarnate living in a sinless body formed by God in the womb of the Virgin Mary.
Jesus referred to his own body as a temple (NAOS), but the Pharisees and scribes thought he was referring to the Jerusalem temple.
John 2:19-21 – Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this TEMPLE (NAOS), and in three days I will raise it up.
[20] Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? [21] But he spake of the TEMPLE OF HIS BODY.
Colossians 2:8-10 – Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. [9] For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. [10] And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:
II Corinthians 5:19 – To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
John 10:30 – I and my Father are one.
John 14:9 – Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?
The Devil is the greatest counterfeiter in all of history. His son, the antichrist, will be a man who the world will believe has returned from the dead, perhaps from after having received a deadly wound by a weapon of war. Jesus was the only begotten Son of God who came in sinless flesh and lived a sinless life. The Devil will come and dwell in the body of the antichrist after he is apparently returned from the dead.
When the antichrist sits on the temple mount near the end of the tribulation period, he will be Satan incarnate in sinful flesh, claiming to be God, and trying to prove it to man and himself.
II Corinthians 11:13,14 – For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, TRANSFORMING THEMSELVES into the apostles of Christ. [14] And no marvel; for Satan HIMSELF IS TRANSFORMED into an angel of light.
How can one make war against someone who can come back to life after death? Many would follow a man they believed has this power to their own deaths, believing he would resurrect them. Is that similar to what we believe as Christians? Is the Devil not the greatest of counterfeiters? Is not the Antichrist a false counterfeit Messiah?
Revelation 13:3-5 – And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. [4] And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? [5] And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.
End of http://www.tribulationperiod.com/ Heading
Begin Paragraph Excerpts from Independent.com.UK Article
Robert Fisk: The cult of the suicide bomber
Few players in the ‘war on terror’ are more chilling, or misunderstood, than suicide bombers. Yet the true scale of their grisly activities has never been properly calculated. Five years after the invasion of Iraq, Robert Fisk details the shocking extent of the most widespread campaign of self-liquidation in human history
Friday, 14 March 2008
Khaled looked at me with a broad smile. He was almost laughing. At one point, when I told him that he should abandon all thoughts of being a suicide bomber – that he could influence more people in this world by becoming a journalist – he put his head back and shot me a grin, world-weary for a man in his teens. “You have your mission,” he said. “And I have mine.” His sisters looked at him in awe. He was their hero, their amanuensis and their teacher, their representative and their soon-to-be-martyred brother. Yes, he was handsome, young – just 18 – he was dressed in a black Giorgio Armani T-shirt, a small, carefully trimmed Spanish conquistador’s beard, gelled hair.
And he was ready to immolate himself.
A sinister surprise. I had travelled to Khaled’s home to speak to his mother. I had already written about his brother Hassan and wanted to introduce a Canadian journalist colleague, Nelofer Pazira, to the family. When Khaled walked on to the porch of the house, Nelofer and I both realised – at the same moment – that he was next, the next to die, the next “martyr”. It was his smile. I’ve come across these young men before, but never one who so obviously declared his calling.
His family sat around us on the porch of their home above the Lebanese city of Sidon, the sitting room adorned with coloured photographs of Hassan, already gone to the paradise – so they assured me – for which Khaled clearly thought he was destined. Hassan had driven his explosives-laden car into an American military convoy at Tal Afar in north-western Iraq, his body (or what was left of it) buried “in situ” – or so his mother was informed.
It’s easy to find the families of the newly dead in Lebanon. Their names are read from the minarets of Sidon’s mosques (most are Palestinian) and in Tripoli, in northern Lebanon, the Sunni “Tawhid” movement boasts “hundreds” of suiciders among its supporters. Every night, the population of Lebanon watches the brutal war in Iraq on television. “It’s difficult to reach ‘Palestine’ these days,” Khaled’s uncle informed me. “Iraq is easier.”
Too true. No one doubts that the road to Baghdad – or Tal Afar or Fallujah or Mosul – lies through Syria, and that the movement of suicide bombers from the Mediterranean coasts to the deserts of Iraq is a planned if not particularly sophisticated affair. What is astonishing – what is not mentioned by the Americans or the Iraqi “government” or the British authorities or indeed by many journalists – is the sheer scale of the suicide campaign, the vast numbers
of young men (only occasionally women), who wilfully destroy themselves amid the American convoys, outside the Iraqi police stations, in markets and around mosques and in shopping streets and on lonely roads beside remote checkpoints across the huge cities and vast deserts of Iraq. Never have the true figures for this astonishing and unprecedented campaign of self-liquidation been calculated.
But a month-long investigation by The Independent, culling four Arabic-language newspapers, official Iraqi statistics, two Beirut news agencies and Western reports, shows that an incredible 1,121 Muslim suicide bombers have blown themselves up in Iraq.
This is a very conservative figure and – given the propensity of the authorities (and of journalists) to report only those suicide bombings that kill dozens of people – the true estimate may be double this number. On several days, six – even nine – suicide bombers have exploded themselves in Iraq in a display of almost Wal-Mart availability. If life in Iraq is cheap, death is cheaper. […..]
[…..] Suicide bombers in Iraq have killed at least 13,000 men, women and children – our most conservative estimate gives a total figure of 13,132 – and wounded a minimum of 16,112 people. If we include the dead and wounded in the mass stampede at the Baghdad Tigris river bridge in the summer of 2005 – caused by fear of suicide bombers – the figures rise to 14,132 and 16,612 respectively. Again, it must be emphasised that these statistics are minimums. For 529 of the suicide bombings in Iraq, no figures for wounded are available. Where wounded have been listed in news reports as “several”, we have made no addition to the figures.
And the number of critically injured who later died remains unknown. Set against a possible death toll of half a million Iraqis since the March 2003 invasion, the suicide bombers’ victims may appear insignificant; but the killers’ ability to terrorise civilians, militiamen and Western troops and mercenaries is incalculable.
Never before has the Arab world witnessed a phenomenon of suicide-death on this scale. During Israel’s occupation of Lebanon after 1982, one Hizbollah suicide-bombing a month was considered remarkable. During the Palestinian intifadas of the 1980s and 1990s, four per month was regarded as unprecedented. But suicide bombers in Iraq have been attacking at the average rate of two every three days since the 2003 Anglo-American invasion.
And, although neither the Iraqi government nor their American mentors will admit this, scarcely 10 out of more than a thousand suicide killers have been identified. We know from their families that Palestinians, Saudis, Syrians and Algerians have been among the bombers.
In a few cases, we have names. But in most attacks, the authorities in Iraq – if they can still be called “authorities” after five years of catastrophe – have no idea to whom the bloodied limbs and headless torsos of the bombers belong.
Even more profoundly disturbing is that the “cult” of the suicide bomber has seeped across national frontiers. Within a year of the Iraqi invasion, Afghan Taliban bombers were blowing themselves up alongside Western troops or bases in Helmand province and in the capital Kabul. The practice leached into Pakistan, striking down thousands of troops and civilians, killing even the principal opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto. The London Tube and bus bombings – despite the denials of Tony Blair – were obviously deeply influenced by events in Iraq. […..]
[…..] Khaled is – or was, for I no longer know if he is alive, since I met him a few weeks ago– influenced by his brother Hassan, whose journey to Iraq was organised by an unknown group, presumably Palestinian, and whose weapons training beside the Tigris river was videotaped by his comrades. Hassan’s mother has shown me this tape – which ends with Hassan cheerfully waving goodbye from the driver’s window of a battered car, presumably the vehicle he was about to ram into the American convoy at Tal Afar.
None of this addresses the issue of religious belief. While there is evidence aplenty that the Japanese suicide pilots of the Second World War were sometimes coerced and intimidated into their final flights against US warships in the Pacific, many also believed that they were dying for their emperor. For them, the fall of cherry blossom and the divine wind – the “kamikaze” – blessed their souls as they aimed their bombers at American aircraft carriers. But even an industrialised dictatorship like Japan – facing the imminent collapse of its entire society at the hands of a superpower – could only mobilise 4,615 “kamikazes”. The Iraq suicide bombers may already have reached half that number. […..]
[…..] Not even a disparaging remark about those who would send him on his death mission – that they were prepared to live in this world while sending others like Khaled to their fate – could discourage him. “I am not going to become a ‘shahed’ [martyr] for people,” he replied. “I am doing it for God.” […..]
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