Time Is Drawing Near For The Assyrian Antichrist To Come On Scene!
Syrian President Bashar Assad is being boxed in by former Friends,
As I’ve Repeatedly Stated, He Is More Likely to be Assassinated,
By former buddies, his own army, or people than by The West!
Once his regime is replaced, Look Out for a rise of the Mahdi.
Eventually Within the area once Labeled as ‘Greater Syria.’
August 30, 2011
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
GREATER SYRIA AND ASSYRIA
Regardless of etymology, the two names have often been taken as exchangeable or synonym from the time of Herodotus.
The teaching that the Antichrist would arise out of the Middle East area historically referred to as “greater Syria” or Assyria, has been around longer than the teaching he would come out of Europe. See Archive Prophecy Update Numbers 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, and 69 on our Web Site at:
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
I have taught this for 37 years
at Dardanelle MBC.
Begin Excerpt from Wikipedia
Greater Syria, also known simply as Syria, is a term that denotes a region in the Near East bordering the Eastern Mediterranean Sea or the Levant.
The classical Arabic name for Syria is Sham, which in later ages came to refer only to Damascus in Levantine Arabic, while the pre-Islamic name of the territory, Syria, was used again until the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918.
Historic Syria
The extent of the area known as Syria has changed over time. In the most common historical sense, it refers to the entire northern Levant, including Alexandretta and the ancient city of Antioch, the pre-Islamic capital of Syria), or in an extended sense the entire Levant as far south as Egypt, but not including Mesopotamia.
The uncertainty in the definition of the extent of “Syria” is aggravated with the etymological confusion of the similar-sounding names Syria and Assyria. The question of the ultimate etymological identity of the two names remains open today, but regardless of etymology, the two names have often been taken as exchangeable or synonym from the time of Herodotus (even though in the Roman Empire they referred to two separate entities, Roman Syria vs. Roman Assyria). A “Greater Syria” in this wider sense would correspond to “Greater Assyria” and include all of the Levant and Mesopotamia.
Ancient
Syria (name), Roman Syria, and Roman Assyria
Herodotus uses Συρία loosely to refer to Cappadocia (Pipes 1992). In Greek usage, Syria and Assyria were used almost interchangeably, but in the Roman Empire, Syria and Assyria came to be used as distinct geographical terms. “Syria” in the Roman Empire period referred to “those parts of the Empire situated between Asia Minor and Egypt”, i.e. the western Levant, while “Assyria” was part of the Persian Empire, and only very briefly came under Roman control (116-118 AD, marking the historical peak of Roman expansion).
In the Roman era, the term Syria is used to comprise the entire northern Levant and has an uncertain border to the northeast that Pliny the Elder describes as including, from west to east, Commagene, Sophene, and Adiabene, “formerly known as Assyria”.
In 64 BC, Syria became a province of the Roman Empire. Roman Syria borders on Judaea to the south (later renamed Palaestina in AD 135 (the region corresponding to modern day Palestine and Israel, and Jordan) and Phoenicia corresponding to Lebanon.
In AD 193, the province was divided into Syria proper and Syria Coele along the western bank of the Euphrates. Sometime between 330 and 350 (likely ca. 341), the province of Euphratensis was created out of the territory of Syria Coele and the former realm of Commagene, with Hierapolis as its capital.[3] After ca. 415 Syria Coele was further subdivided into Syria I, with the capital remaining at Antioch, and Syria II or Salutaris, with capital at Apamea on the Orontes. In 528, Justinian I carved out the small coastal province Theodorias out of territory from both provinces.
Medieval
The region was annexed to the Islamic Caliphate after the Muslim Rashidun victory over the Byzantine Empire at the Battle of Yarmouk, and became known afterwards by its Arabic name, ash-Shām. During Umayyad times, Shām was divided into five junds or military districts. They were Jund Dimashq, Jund Hims, Jund Filastin and Jund al-Urdunn. Later Jund Qinnasrin was created out of part of Jund Hims.
The city of Damascus was the capital of the Islamic Caliphate until the rise of Abassid Dynasty.
The States of the French Mandate
In the later ages of the Ottoman times, it was divided into wilayahs or sub-provinces the borders of which and the choice of cities as seats of government within them varied over time. The vilayets or sub-provinces of Aleppo, Damascus, and Beirut, in addition to the two special districts of Mount Lebanon and Jerusalem. Aleppo consisted of northern modern-day Syria plus parts of southern Turkey, Damascus covered southern Syria and modern-day Jordan, Beirut covered Lebanon and the Syrian coast from the port-city of Latakia southward to the Galilee, while Jerusalem consisted of the land south of the Galilee and west of the Jordan River and the Wadi Arabah.
Although the region’s population was dominated by Sunni Muslims, it also contained sizable populations of Shi’a, Alawite and Ismaili Muslims, Syriac Orthodox, Maronite, Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholics and Melkite Christians, MizrahiJews, and Druzes.
Following the San Remo conference and the defeat of King Faisal’s short-lived monarchy in Syria at the Battle of Maysalun, the French general Henri Gouraud, in breach of the conditions of the mandate, subdivided the French Mandate of Syria into six states. They were the states of Damascus (1920), Aleppo (1920), Alawite State (1920), Jabal Druze (1921), the autonomous Sanjak of Alexandretta (1921) (modern-day Hatay,Turkey), and Greater Lebanon (1920) which later became the modern country of Lebanon.
End Wickipedia Excerpt
Continue Blog Heading
The Assyrian Mahdi Antichrist will attack Israel from Greater Syria to begin a time of three and one-half years of tribulation, which will culminate with the final great battle of Armageddon. I speculate the most likely time for this attack to begin will be at some point in time between 2013 and 2015.
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 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.
Begin Excerpt from Speculative DEBKAfile Special Report
Assad may opt for war to escape Russian, Arab, European ultimatums
DEBKAfile Special Report
August 30, 2011, 9:32 AM (GMT+02:00)
Monday night and Tuesday, Aug-29-30, three international heavyweights – Russia, the European Union and key Muslim nations – gave Syrian President Bashar Assad tough ultimatums for ending his ferocious crackdown on protest. Nevertheless, on Monday, his troops shot dead 17 people in Syrian cities – even as he received Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov who arrived in Damascus with a last warning from President Dmitry Medvedev: Recall you soldiers to their bases immediately and implement changes or Moscow will endorse UN Security Council sanctions stiff enough to stifle the Syrian economy.
Those sanctions are only a step away from a resolution authorizing NATO, together with Muslim and Arab nations, to intervene militarily in the Syrian crisis.
DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources disclose that Turkey, as a NATO member, and Saudi Arabia, on behalf of the Gulf Cooperation Council, have been in discussions this past week on the form this intervention would take:
1. The long-considered Turkish plan to send troops into northern Syria and carve out a military pocket from which Syria’s rebels would be supplied with military, logistic and medical aid.
2. Ankara and Riyadh will provide the anti-Assad movements with large quantities of weapons and funds to be smuggled in from outside Syria.
3. The Turkish military incursion would be matched by Saudi troops entering southern Syria at the head of GCC contingents. They would move in via Jordan and establish a second military enclave under GCC auspices.
The third option came up in Tehran last Thursday, Aug. 25, when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad heard some straight talk from the visiting Emir of Qatar Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.
DEBKAfile’s exclusive Iranian sources reveal that the Qatari ruler slapped down a blunt warning: Assad was finished, he said, and advised Iran to face up to this. For the sake of even minimal relations with the Arab world, Iran must ditch the Assad regime in Damascus or face the real danger of the Syrian crisis deteriorating into a regional conflict – whether against Syria or by
Syria, he did not explain.
Ahmadinejad turned the emir down flat, according to our sources. He said Iran would never renege on its pact with Assad.
Two days later, our military sources report, Syria deployed 25 anti-air missile batteries along its Turkish border.
In Brussels, Monday, the 27-member European Union bowed to Washington’s demand and finally decided to corner Assad by clamping down an embargo on imported Syrian crude. Europe is the biggest buyer of Syrian oil, importing $4.5 billion worth a ye
ar. This provides Syria with its main source of foreign currency revenue and the primary funding for Assad’s military operations against dissidents.
Once this source dries up, the Syrian ruler will be forced to cut down on those operations unless Iran is willing to make up the difference.
Assad is sure to appreciate that the coalition lining up against him of the US, Europe, Turkey, the Gulf Arab nations and Russia, are almost identical to the alignment (barring Moscow) which has just overthrown Muammar Qaddafi’s regime in Tripoli. He and his advisers have no doubt discussed the possibility of being at the receiving end
of the same treatment.
Their ruler’s growing isolation and the real prospect of international punitive measures have given the opposition new heart after nearly six months of standing up to a deadly crackdown: Saturday, Aug. 27 Assad saw his own capital rallying against him with big demonstrations in central Damascus. The pressure from the street continued to build up through Sunday and Monday, some of the protesters venturing to hoist the old Syrian Republican flag instead of the Baathist version introduced by the Assads.
Aleppo is now the only Syrian city which has not so far come out against the regime. Tuesday morning, while Assad attended an Eid al-Fitr worship at a Damascus mosque, his soldiers sprayed demonstrators in the eastern town of Deir al-Zour with bullets.
Well-informed military sources warn that Assad will not be cowed by the international, military and economic noose tightening around his neck. He is far more likely to try and loosen it by lashing out against his enemies, starting with Israel. Iran will certainly be a willing supporter of such belligerence, starting a war which could spread like wildfire across the region.
FAIR USE NOTICE: Th is site
contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more detailed information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.
You may use material originated by this site. However, if you wish to use any quoted copyrighted material from this site, which did not originate at this site, for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner from which we extracted it.