Three Beliefs Looking for a Leader (Jesus, Mashiach, or Mahdi)!
February 8, 2006
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
The three major monotheistic religions in Israel are all looking for a leader who will come to carry them to the height of glory as a people. The Jews are still looking for their prophesied Mashiach to come for the first time, and then to lead them to victory over their many enemies, and establish his kingdom on this earth. Islam is waiting for the 12th Imam Mahdi to return and lead them to a great victory over their many enemies, and establish his kingdom on this earth. The Christians are waiting for its Messiah Jesus Christ to come again at his Second Advent, having already won the great victory over sin on the cross, to establish his spiritual kingdom on a physical earth.
John 18:36 – Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.
The founder of the religion of Islam was Muhammad. His full name is Abu al-Qasim Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allah ibn ‘Abd al-Muttal-ib ibn Hashim. He was born in Mecca in 570 AD, 500 years after the destruction of Herod’s Temple in Jerusalem. Both the Old and New Testament teachings were available during his lifetime.
About 610 AD, Muhammad reported having a vision with a majestic being, later identified as the great angel Gabriel, in which he heard a voice saying to him, “You are the Messenger of God.” This marked the beginning of his career as messenger (or apostle) of God (rasul Allah) or prophet (nabi). From this time, at frequent intervals until his death, he received “revelations” – that is, verbal messages that he believed came from God.
Sometimes these were kept in memory by both Muhammad and his followers, and sometimes they were written down.
The descendants of Ishmael’s 12 sons and Keturah
s 6 sons, the grandfather of all 18 being Abraham had, as Abraham’s father Terah, fallen into worshipping many different gods and idols. The village of Muhammad’s birth, Mecca, worshipped many gods. The earliest passages of the Koran (Qur’an) emphasize the goodness and power of God as seen in nature and in the way that he has blessed the Meccans, and calls on them to always be grateful and to worship the Lord of the Ka’bah, who is thus identified as God. These passages also warn men they will appear before God on the Last Day for a final judgment by God. They will be judged according to their deeds and assigned to heaven or hell.
The new religion of Muhammad was eventually called Islam (Submission to God), and its adherents identified as Muslims (Those Submitting to God), although the Koran speaks of them primarily as “the believers.”
One of the contributing factors in the great hatred one sees in Islam for the Jews involves the Jews rejection of Muhammad as a prophet. He first turned to Israel to receive him as a Prophet of God, but their rejection led him to break with them, and he began to assert the very specific Arabian character of what became the Islamic religion. Before his break with Judaism, his followers had faced Jerusalem in prayer, but Muhammad said he had received a revelation they were to begin praying toward Mecca. Over the centuries the followers, of a man who wanted to be recognized as a prophet from God by the Jews, have turned on the Jews with a great vengeance.
After Muhammad’s death, and especially after the great battle of Yamamah (633 AD), in which a great number of those who knew the Koran by heart had fallen, fear arose that the knowledge of the Koran might disappear. So it was decided to collect the revelations from all available written sources and, as Muslim tradition had it, “from the hearts of people.” A living companion of Muhammad, Zavd ibn Thabit, is said to have copied on sheets whatever he could find and to have handed it over to the Caliph ‘Umar. After ‘Umar’s death the collection was left in the care of his daughter Hafsah.
Other copies of the Koran appear to have been written later, and different versions were used in different parts of the Muslim empire. So that there would be no doubt about the correct reading of the Koran, the Caliph ‘Uthman (644-656AD) is reported to have commissioned Zavd ibn Thabit and some other learned men to revise the Koran, using those who knew the Koran by heart.
It was decided that in case of doubt about the correct pronunciation, the dialect of Quraysh, Muhammad’s tribe, was to be given preference. Thus an authoritative text of the Koran (known as the ‘Uthmanic recension) was established.
Much of the historical information up to this point was extracted from the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1982.
The vast Islamic region dominated by countries, where the majority of the population is of the Islamic belief, stretches across a vast stretch of the old world of the Old Testament.
There are some 50 countries, across all of Africa from the Sahara Desert northward, eastward across the Middle East extending north from there to Kazakhstan, across India to Bangladesh, and southeast across Malaysia to Java, that have a majority of the Islamic faith making up their individual populations.
The CIA totals give a world population of 6.5 billion as of mid-2005, which includes 1.3 billion of the Islamic faith, or about one-fifth of the world’s population.
The Industrial Revolution in Europe was one of the contributors to the rapid decline of an Islamic empire that swept across Spain and across the Balkans in its heyday. Most of its territory was under British and French control at the close of World War I. But the breakup of the great colonial empires led to many new independent Muslim countries over the period 1920 to 1985, and many more along the southern flank of the old Soviet Union, when it broke up in the late eighties and early nineties!
Very few people ever dreamed these sand republics had the potential to become what they are today, but oil has made the difference, just as I indicated it would more than 30 years ago. And the super power, that Europe was supposed to become to house the antichrist, is now afraid of its own shadow and the sand republics it once controlled.
The action is precisely where the prophets indicated it would be in the last days – In the Middle East. And the major combatants are just who prophets said they would be – The offspring of Abraham through Sarah, Hagar, and Keturah. It is the Middle East that will both produce and house the antichrist, not Europe!
At the battle of Armageddon most of the kings of the earth will come to join the antichrist in a final attempt to eradicate the nation of Israel. Among them will be 10 nations
representing the 10 Jihad toes of Daniel 2 that drove Israel into the Negev three and one-half years earlier.
Revelation 19:19 – And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army.
Some three and one-half years before the final battle of Armageddon, which closes the tribulation period, ten kings of nations out of the southern flank territory once occupied by the ancient Roman Empire will attack Israel from the north.
Daniel 2:42 – And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.
II Thessalonians 2:3 – 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;
The last evil kingdom of antichrist on this earth was to initially be comprised of 10 nations with 10 kings led by the man of sin himself. It was to arise out of the ashes of the old Roman Empire. I have always believed it would rise out of the southern half of the Empire and be made up of 10 Arab nations. I believe the elements for its formation are in place today, and I suspect that the most likely Arab nations of which it will be comprised are Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Sudan, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran.
Some of these nations are strong like iron, and some are as soft and pliable as clay.
I do not question that in the final battle of Armageddon the descendants of Ham, Shem, and Japheth will be combatants against the nation of Israel.
But I have always contended, along with the Bible expositors of the 18th and 19th centuries, that the antichrist’s initial attack would be led by Arab descendants of Abraham. They are the mingled seed of his oldest son Ishmael with the seed of the six sons he sired by Keturah, as well as some of the other offspring of his own father Terah. The empire of the antichrist will be an Islamic empire that eventually takes into it other old world nations. And, in the final great battle of Armageddon, all those nations that made up the world as it was known in A.D. 95 will come against Israel, such that Japheth, Ham, and Shem’s descendants will also be involved.
Daniel 2:41-43 – And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, for asmuch
as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. [42] And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken. [43] And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.
The 10 toes will consist primarily of Terah’s descendants. Abraham came out of Terah.
Out of Abraham came the leaders of the three great monotheistic faiths associated with Moses, Jesus, and Mohammad. And they have always been in conflict.
(See Archive Update 78 Diagram)
The inspired word in Daniel 2:43, from which the word “mingled” comes, is ARAB, which means “to interlace or mix.” The “seed of men” refers to non-descendants of the man Abraham, from which both Jews and Arabs descended.
“They” refers to the 10 toes of Daniel’s statue in Daniel 2:42, which have 10 kings over them. Isaac, the father of Israel, had seven half brothers – Ishmael from Hagar and the six sons of Keturah. It was from these seven half brothers that the Arab world has been primarily created. The descendants of Israel have been more likely to marry within the blood line of the man Israel than have the Arabs to marry within their separate bloodlines of Hagar and Keturah, and the Arabs have also intermingled with non-descendants of Abraham more than have the Jews.
Daniel 2:43 – And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.
Just as iron and clay do not hold together very long, the 10 Arab nations will only hold together long enough to fulfill God’s end time tribulation period prophecies. The saved will be caught up on the sounding of the seventh trump to be judged in heaven, and the kingdom of God will all be united in heaven, waiting to return to earth with Christ at his Second Advent.
Revelation 11:15 – And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.
Daniel 2:44 – And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.