How long will Syrian President Assad be Able to Stay in Power?
June 6, 2006
http://www.tribulationperiod.com
I assure you that the kind of “democratic” government the opposition is planning to establish in Syria, if they overthrow the regime of President Bashar Assad, is not the type we know in the U.S.A.! It will be more like the Democratic Republic of Iran. As you know, if you have perused the Prophecy Updates in our Archives, I have written for 32 years that the Antichrist would rise out of the area occupied by the ancient Empire of Assyria, and that I considered the most likely part of it, out of which he would arise, was Syria.
I have taught since Bashar Assad became the President of Syria in 2000 that his regime would fall before 2008, and that his immediate replacement, or the one quickly following that man, stood a good chance to be the Antichrist.
Please read the following article I received from Joe Bennett, which he took from Fox News.Com. Then read Special Prophecy Update 227A, which follows it. I will be watching Syria with great interest during the next two years.
Begin FoxNews.Com Article
Syrian Opposition Urges Public to Oust Current Regime
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
FoxNews.com
LONDON — Key Syrian opposition figures on Monday urged Syrians to work to oust President Bashar Assad by using acts of civil disobedience reminiscent to the upheaval that freed nations behind the Iron Curtain.
Describing Assad’s regime as oppressive and corrupt, the leaders pledged to bring democracy to Syria, which has been ruled by Assad since
the death of his father, Hafez, in 2000.
“The people are fed up with the government,” former Vice President Abdul-Halim Khaddam told The Associated Press after a conference uniting forces against Assad. “Of course they are scared. Our plan is to encourage them to get rid of this fear. … The military is not going to get involved.”
Two of the group’s most prominent members are Khaddam and Ali Sadr el-Din Bayanouni, head of the banned Muslim Brotherhood. Both exiled leaders forged an alliance in March after long being at odds, forming the National Salvation Front for Syria and urging the government’s ouster and formation of a transitional government.
The two leaders stood shoulder to shoulder following a news conference, insisting that working together was in the best interest of Syria — whatever their past disagreements might have been.
“This is also a response to the accusations, the exaggerations of the regime, when it says that the alternative to it is chaos,” Bayanouni said.
Diverse groups are represented in the front, including former members of the ruling Baath party and the outlawed Brotherhood, a fundamentalist Sunni Muslim group blamed for a campaign of assassinations and bombings in Syria in the early 1980s that was brutally crushed by authorities in 1982.
A member of Syria’s ruling elite for three decades, Khaddam broke with Assad last year and fled to Paris with his family. He said he was certain the Syrian people would support a peaceful change of government.
“We want a change of government and a democratic Syria … like what happened in Eastern Europe through the people’s will,” he said, speaking through an interpreter. At one point he corrected an interpretation to insist that he wasn’t advocating revolution.
Amnesty International claims that 10,000-25,000 people were killed at Hama in 1982 to put down a revolt by supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, though conflicting figures exist and the number could be considerably smaller or larger than this. The Syrian government has made no official claim about the number killed.
A representative from the Kurdish minority as well as liberal and democratic groups also attended the London meeting.
The alliance has pledged that the proposed transitional government would abolish Syria’s 1963 state of emergency and release all political prisoners.
End FoxNews.Com Article
As I indicated two years ago in Update 227A, June 12, 2005, I expected Assad to be out within two years. I still believe this will be the case, and when 2008 rolls around I believe there will be a new regime in power. Of course, he might still be in power after 2008, but I doubt it.
SPECIAL PROPHECY UPDATE NUMBER 227A
June 12, 2005
IS THE ASSYRIAN ANTICHRIST SOON TO ARISE?
Syria is beginning to slip its intelligence units back into the Palestinian camps in southern Lebanon, and may be planning more assassinations of Lebanese leaders that are anti-Syrian. Between the activities of the army
of Hizbollah terrorists in southern Lebanon, and their own covert activities, Syria has no intension of letting Lebanon out of its political grasp.
Watching the events unfurl in Syria, (which was once a part of the old Assyrian Empire), over the next two years, could well prove to be very interesting. The current President of Syria, Bashar Al-Assad, simply does not have the expertise to measure up to the biblical characteristics and role laid out for the future antichrist. I expect him to be taken out by a coup within two years and, after the coup and a brief period of struggle for leadership, I am looking for a strongman to pop up in the Syrian governmental structure, and take control decisively. He could be the Assyrian antichrist. Many are expecting the rise of the man of sin to be a long gradual process. I am not! I have always believed his initial appearance would be sudden and decisive. Before the world sees the Son of man return in a cloud to end the tribulation period, become King over all the earth, and stand and feed in the strength of his Father, the Assyrian antichrist will attack the nation of Israel from the north. It will be his attack that invokes the Son of man to return at his Second Advent some 3 and ½ years later.
Luke 21:27 – And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.
Zechariah 14:9 – And the Lord shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord, and his name one.
Micah 5:4,5 – And HE shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God; and they shall abide: for now shall HE be great unto the ends of the earth. [5] And THIS MAN shall THE PEACE, WHEN the Assyrian shall come into our land: and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds, and eight principal men.
There is no question in my mind that “THIS MAN” who brings “THE PEACE” of 1000 years, WHEN the Assyrian antichrist attacks Israel about 1260 days prior to the final battle of Armageddon, is “the Lord” and “king” found in Zechariah 14:9, and “the Son of man” in Luke 21:27.
PLEASE CONSIDER ARCHIVE PROPHECY UPDATE 66, Part 5, May 3, 2003 (Please read Updates 62, 63, 64 and 65 before reading 66).
Micah 5:1-4 – Now gather thyself in troops, O daughter of troops: he hath laid siege against us: they shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek.
[2] But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old,
from everlasting. [3] Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth: then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel. [4] And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God; and they shall abide: for now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth.
These verses, exposited on in Parts 1 through 4, were written more than 700 years before the birth of Christ, and yet they present: (1) Bethlehem as His birthplace, (2) His rejection as ruler over Israel, His last Passover in the “daughter of troops” Jerusalem, (3) His “head beatings” by the troops of Pontius Pilate, Herod, and the High Priest, (4) His rejection as the judge of Israel, (5) His Father’s siege against Israel because of their rejection of the Son (which has lasted some 2000 years), (6) Christ’s temporary rejection of Israel, (7) His Second Advent as Messiah after Israel’s travail of 1260 days in the Negev Wilderness (at which time His brethren will return with Him to the nation of Israel), and (8) The first 1000 years of His eternal kingdom, which phases into the final heaven age when the present earth and heavens pass away.
Micah 5:5 – And this man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land: and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds, and eight principal men.
Now, in verse 5, we find that “this man” will himself “be the peace” because He personally brings it in by Himself when he returns to be “great unto the ends of the earth” for 1000 years. “This man” who brings “the peace” of a thousand years is, of course, Jesus Christ. He is the primary contextual subject from verses 1 through 5. What happens to motivate His return to bring in the millennial reign is the movement of the Assyrian into the land of Israel. It is the final defeat and destruction of “the Assyrian” that will mark Christ’s Second Advent, and the beginning of His millennial reign.
When Micah wrote his prophecies the Assyrians had already driven into the northern Kingdom of Israel, and all that remained of Israel proper was its southern Kingdom of Judah. So what were the borders of the land of Assyria when Micah wrote the fifth chapter of his book? The borders of the Assyrian territory stretched northward from roughly where Ramallah is located in the West Bank to the present day southern border of Turkey, and eastward to the Mediterranean Sea to establish its western limits, then westward across the Euphrates River to the Tigris River north of modern Baghdad in Iraq. Technically, I suppose one might be able to say this future “Assyrian” might come out of southern Turkey, northern Iraq, or Lebanon, but since modern day Syria occupies some 85% of the area covered by the Assyrian empire at the time of Micah’s writings, I am persuaded the Assyrian antichrist will come out of Syria. The possible argument that Micah 5:5 was fulfilled during the old Assyrian invasion of Micah’s day, is thwarted by the context pattern of the four verses before it all still being unfulfilled at the time they were written, and then being linked contextually to verse 5 by “this man,” and “the peace.” Additionally, this argument is smashed by the verse that follows it.
Micah 5:6 – And they shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof: th us shall he deliver
us from the Assyrian, when he cometh into our land, and when he treadeth within our borders.
From the time of Micah’s writings to the present day, Israel has never “wasted the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof.” I will exposit specifically on both these locations in Prophecy Update Number 67, Lord willing.
The “Assyrian” of Micah 5:5 is not a European, an American, a Russian, an Eskimo, an Aborigine, an Ethiopian, or a platypus.
He is an Assyrian, who becomes chief prince of the land where descendants of Meshech and Tubal were dwelling when Ezekiel wrote his prophecies. I will elaborate on this in future updates, Lord willing. The expression, “seven shepherds and eight principal men,” is an oft used Hebrew idiom. It was the Hebrew manner of expressing “more than enough.” Seven is the Hebrew word for “complete,” implying “enough,” and when “eight” is added to it, the expression means “more than enough.” When the Assyrian comes into Israel, and treads within its borders north of Beersheba for 1260 days, then Jesus will return to restore peace for 1000 years on this planet. Christ’s Second Advent is accompanied by some 5/6 of the Assyrian’s armies being destroyed by the brightness of His coming. His destruction of the Assyrian and his false prophet will make whatever force Israel is able to muster up in the Negev for the battle of Armageddon “more than enough.”
When the Assyrian sets on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, as the willful King of the North preparing to launch his final attack on Israel at the battle of Armageddon, he will be beyond all help by men and Satan. Some 3 and ½ years before Armageddon the antichrist will have launched the attack described in I Thessalonians 5:3,4, Ezekiel 38:14-16, Zechariah 13:8,9, and Revelation 12:6
I Thessalonians 5:3,4 – For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. [4] But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
Ezekiel 38:14-16 – Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say unto Gog, Thus saith the Lord God; In that day when my people of Israel dwelleth safely, shalt thou not know it? [15] And thou shalt come from thy place out of the north parts, thou, and many people with thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great company, and a mighty army: [16] And thou shalt come up against my people of Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against my land, that the heathen may know me, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes.
Zechariah 13:8,9 – And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the Lord, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein. [9] And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord is my God.
Revelation 12:6 – And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.
Near the end of the aforementioned 3 and ½ year period he will gather all the troops of Europe, Eurasia, Asia, and Africa for a final assault on Israel in the Negev, but the battle of Armageddon, which follows Daniel 11:45, will be the end of him, his armies, and his false prophet.
Daniel 11:45 – And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.
II Thessalonians 2:8 – And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:
Revelation 19:19-21 – 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. [20] And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.
[21] And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.
Ezekiel 38:22 to 39:2 – And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone. [23] Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the Lord. [1] Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: [2] And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts, and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel:
Micah 5:5,6 – And this man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land: and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds, and eight principal men. [6] And they shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof: thus shall he deliver us from the Assyrian, when he cometh into our land, and when he treadeth within our borders.
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