Nation Against Nation

Yeshua’s description of the final days in the last generation before the Great Tribulation at first seems vague and non-specific. There have always been wars, false prophets, famines, earthquakes, hate, and violence. What has He really said that would be discernable signs leading to the end?

As He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?" And Yeshua answered and said to them, "See to it that no one misleads you. For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am the Messiah,' and will mislead many. You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes. But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs. Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name. At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another. Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. Because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved. This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come. Matthew 24:3-14

Yeshua’s description of the final days in the last generation before the Great Tribulation at first seems vague and non-specific. There have always been wars, false prophets, famines, earthquakes, hate, and violence. What has He really said that would be discernable signs leading to the end?

I have studied this passage many times trying to bring out every bit of understanding, but I know there must be more to it. If you ask anyone if these words seem to be fulfilled in our days, you will get a substantially affirmative response.

Sometimes prophecy is best understood after the event happens. In fact, this is very true. Suddenly we see and it obvious to all. Many of the prophecies of the Messiah Himself are like that. We see the suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 now that we have seen the crucifixion. But, who understood before then that the Messiah would be crucified?

With some of that same logic and anticipation, let us examine a more dramatic fulfillment of the Lord’s return and what we are expecting. What if the real intent of Yeshua’s prophetic picture of the world was a combination of sorrows feeding on one another compounding the effect of universal hopelessness and despair vs. out-of-control sinfulness? In other words, it is not the individual events He is speaking of; He is describing a world where all of these things are happening at the same time. The conflicts and harm He has spoken of will reach down into the core of the human experience and go beyond past history and its struggles. The Great Tribulation is to be a time of distress as the world has never seen before. Therefore, the beginning of sorrows (that which precedes the Great Tribulation) is to take on deeper dimensions of struggle. In this age of comparative ease, it is difficult, if not impossible, to visualize such events. But, let’s step back and consider a much more profound effect over what history has shown us in previous wars. Let’s focus on one aspect of Yeshua’s examples: Nation against nation, kingdom against kingdom.

Take a single nation and consider the nature of the conflict described by Yeshua. First, nation against nation means there is conflict with various neighboring nations. Add to that, for the sake of seeing the picture, the conflict includes all aspects of conflict. This would include ideological, geographical, strategic, social, economic, geo-political, and religious areas. Then let’s have conflict within the borders of that same nation, kingdom against kingdom. In our day, there are very few “kingdoms.” However, this could be interpreted as being differing political factions or ethnicities (races) within a nation. This internal conflict could additionally include all aspects of governmental and judicial corruption, racial strife, and wanton violence. Add to that religious persecution. Whatever morality of civilized society may have existed in this single nation is shredded and offers no guidance whatsoever. This nation would experience mass confusion, the inability to defend itself, and be left without hope for their future existence. This would be a nation ready for enslavement to any tyrant. There would be a never ending slide towards the complete loss of freedom and liberty. They would suffer massive loss.

The above example was pulling out all the stops, but we can see that in our lifetime, conflicts have been occurring little by little, a few here, a few there that have resulted in unsatisfactory outcomes that continue to simmer under the radar, but have the potential to rage again when the circumstances are right.

When nations are being destroyed inside and out, this is the sign Yeshua was referring to. His prophecy speaks to a multitude of nations with this kind of turmoil as the beginning of sorrows.

Let’s take a moment and examine our own nation, the United States of America. Do you think it is too big to fail? I’m not going to quote statistics about our national state of affairs. I learned a long time ago that ‘liars figure and figures lie.’ Instead, I am going to take you back a mere dozen years. President Bush was our leader and America was in full combat mode against Muslim extremists in Iraq and Afghanistan. American blood and treasure was being spent to take the fight to them so we wouldn’t have to face terrorists on our soil like the 9/11 attack. It was in January of 2004 that I wrote an article for Yavoh entitled “The War Against God, and Why We Will Lose the War on Terror…”

It’s an interesting read if you believe in God and consider yourself to be in the last generation. In particular, it clearly states why the world and our leaders (Republican and Democrat) will not win the peace against Muslim extremists. It addresses the strategy of how to win a war when it is nation against nation and how we seem to be doing the opposite of winning.

I’m going to share some highlights from that article, and I want you to remember that these words were offered more than 12 years ago and the President being referred to was not Barack Obama. Then, I am going to review the actions of President Obama that are bringing our nation to the brink of collapse, both nation against nation and kingdom against kingdom. I think we are in the midst of what Yeshua was talking about.

Maybe you haven’t no­ticed it, but I think you prob­a­bly have… The time is quickly ap­proach­ing when you will be hated be­cause of your faith and tes­ti­mony of God. Now, I am not talk­ing about a lit­tle scorn or dis­re­gard from your fam­ily or friends; I’m talk­ing about from peo­ple who don’t know you, but know that you rep­re­sent or are as­so­ci­ated with God. I am talk­ing about the kind of ha­tred that re­sults in ha­rass­ment, in­tim­i­da­tion, and a threat to your per­son. This is the kind of ha­tred that the prophe­cies tell us is to come. From my point of view, I can see a grow­ing trend that our God is not wanted any­more by the world. If they re­ject our God, it fol­lows that we too will be hated. I am con­vinced that the ha­tred of God and His peo­ple is grow­ing with ac­cep­tance every day now, fu­eled in part by the war on ter­ror and the con­flict with Is­lamic ter­ror­ists. No longer is the war against God on the back burner sim­mer­ing through­out his­tory. Spe­cific events in our very own com­mu­ni­ties and with many na­tional gov­ern­ments is in­di­cat­ing that faith in God is be­ing equated with ex­trem­ist and dan­ger­ous be­hav­ior. We are be­ing stereo­typed and pre­judged. The anti-God forces are be­com­ing bolder. There is a war against God and the bat­tle lines are quickly ap­proach­ing us.

Be­fore we go any fur­ther, let’s set some de­f­i­n­i­tions in or­der for the pur­pose of this ar­ti­cle. When I use the ex­pres­sion "God", I am re­fer­ring to the Cre­ator of heaven and earth; the God of Abra­ham, Isaac, and Ja­cob; the God of the Bible, the God of our Mes­siah Yeshua; the Holy Spirit; the God of Is­rael; our Re­deemer and Sav­ior. The list goes on but I think you un­der­stand my pur­pose. When I use the ex­pres­sion "god", I am re­fer­ring to any idol, imag­i­na­tion of a god, or any­thing val­ued im­prop­erly as [a] god. There­fore, "god" is anything set up against God.

Yeshua ad­dressed the days when wars would be­come ram­pant and the time would come for us to be hated as well. He framed His com­ments in re­sponse to the dis­ci­ples ask­ing about His re­turn.

For na­tion will rise against na­tion, and king­dom against king­dom, and in var­i­ous places there will be famines and earth­quakes. Matthew 24:7

Then they will de­liver you to tribu­la­tion, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all na­tions on ac­count of My name. And at that time many will fall away and will de­liver up one an­other and hate one an­other. Matthew 24:9-10

Wars and ru­mors (echoes) of wars is prob­a­bly the first and most com­mon prophecy of the end that most of us have heard. I am part of the baby boomer gen­er­a­tion. I grew up in the shadow of two pre­vi­ous world wars. How­ever, some­thing be­gan to change in my gen­er­a­tion. Wars be­came dif­fer­ent. In my gen­er­a­tion, the Ko­rean war and the Viet­nam War be­came wars with­out win­ners. In my gen­er­a­tion, we have had a mix of wars, each one drag­ging on into fur­ther con­flicts. Even the Gulf War led to an­other war with Iraq ten years later. The pre­sent con­flict in both Afghanistan and Iraq goes on daily with a fear that our troops will be stuck there. The armies have been de­feated, their lead­ers de­throned and run out. So, why is­n’t the war over, with clear win­ners and losers? Now con­sider the newest of wars we are fac­ing – the war on ter­ror. Con­sider Yeshua’s prophecy again. There have al­ways been wars, but to­day’s gen­er­a­tion, no­body seems to be able to win any war. They just keep drag­ging on. I think this is the unique fac­tor be­hind Yeshua’s prophecy—con­flicts that never find res­o­lu­tion. Yeshua said that this kind of un­re­solved con­flict would re­sult in ha­tred against us be­cause they will hate God.

The Pres­i­dent says that the war with Iraq and against Al Qaeda is not a re­li­gious war. The Mus­lim ex­trem­ists say it is. The Is­lamists use a par­tic­u­lar word to de­scribe the kind of war they are fight­ing. I’m sure that you have heard it; it is Ji­had. Ji­had is the Is­lamic de­f­i­n­i­tion for a holy war; a war fought for or against the god of Al­lah. Make no mis­take about it, the Is­lamic world con­sid­ers the war on ter­ror to be a war against Is­lam, Al­lah, and Al­lah’s ser­vants. At the bul­l’s-eye of the con­flict is Is­rael. The very ex­is­tence of Is­rael is an af­front to the Is­lamic world. Is­rael un­der­stands well the mo­ti­va­tions and the blood thirsty in­tent of Is­lamists to­ward Jews and Is­rael. They have been fight­ing the war against ter­ror much longer than the United States. The fact is that ter­ror is just a tac­tic used by Is­lamists in their ha­tred and war against the God of Is­rael and His Mes­siah. In 2001, Osama Bin Laden de­cided that they should ex­pand their at­tacks to sup­port­ers of Is­rael and other en­e­mies of Al­lah. We had the de­struc­tion of the World Trade Cen­ter. Sud­denly, the war on ter­ror was at the global level (at least ac­cord­ing to United States’ de­f­i­n­i­tion).

The Pres­i­dent is sim­ply wrong when he says that the war on ter­ror is not a re­li­gious war. The war on ter­ror is about God, who is God, and whose god is big­ger than God. This is fun­da­men­tal to the mad­ness called the war against God.

The Pres­i­dent has also made [a] sec­ond mis­take in this mat­ter. The Pres­i­dent be­lieves that Al­lah, the God of Is­rael, and Je­sus Christ are all the same God. I can as­sure you that Mus­lims do not be­lieve Al­lah is the God of Is­rael. They also do not be­lieve that Al­lah has any son. Ju­daism does not, for a mo­ment, con­sider the God of Abra­ham, Isaac and Ja­cob to be Al­lah, the moon god. The cres­cent moon is the sym­bol of Is­lam and orig­i­nates from the an­cient re­li­gion of the mid­dle east area. Some un­taught and un­sta­ble Chris­tians might ex­press a be­lief in monothe­ism, as the Pres­i­dent did, but Chris­t­ian teach­ers will clearly ex­plain a vast and ir­rec­on­cil­able dif­fer­ence be­tween Al­lah and the trin­ity of God. So, for the Pres­i­dent to make this state­ment that Is­lam, Ju­daism, and Chris­tian­ity share the same god is ev­i­dence of his ig­no­rance of the­ol­ogy and his own pro­fessed faith.

The Pres­i­dent is also mak­ing a third mis­take. The Pres­i­dent has stated that Is­lam is a great re­li­gion of peace. He be­lieves that Is­lamic ex­trem­ists have hi­jacked Is­lam for their own pur­poses to force their will on oth­ers. Rather than lis­ten to my de­f­i­n­i­tion of Is­lam in op­po­si­tion to the Pres­i­dent, let’s al­low an Is­lamic scholar to de­fine Is­lam. Not just any scholar, mind you, let’s lis­ten to the pre-em­i­nent le­gal scholar of Is­lam, rec­og­nized worldwide and by the Is­lamic world.

In an ar­ti­cle from Bat Ye’or and An­drew Bostom in Front­Page Mag­a­zine as re­cent as 12/​3/​02, the fol­low­ing de­f­i­n­i­tion was given.

"Ibn Khal­dun (d.1406) os­ten­si­bly the pre-em­i­nent Is­lamic scholar in his­tory, sum­ma­rized five cen­turies of prior Mus­lim ju­rispru­dence with re­gard to the uniquely Is­lamic in­sti­tu­tion of ji­had as fol­lows:

‘In the Mus­lim com­mu­nity, the holy war [ji­had] is a re­li­gious duty, be­cause of the uni­ver­sal­ism of the (Mus­lim) mis­sion and (the oblig­a­tion to) con­vert every­body to Is­lam ei­ther by per­sua­sion or force…Is­lam is un­der oblig­a­tion to wield power over other na­tions.’"

Is­lam ac­tu­ally means "sub­mis­sion" and this is their goal. If an Is­lamic be­liever says dif­fer­ently, they are in con­flict with the Ko­ran and Is­lamic think­ing.

This is why I find state­ments by the Pres­i­dent and other na­tional lead­ers re­fer­ring to Is­lam as a great re­li­gion of peace as just plain wrong. Monothe­ism is by its very na­ture in con­flict with idols and idol­aters. The Bible does not shy away from the con­flict caused by other gods be­ing set up. Is­lam does­n’t ei­ther. Mus­lims teach against idol­a­try and any god set up against Al­lah. This is the rea­son for con­flict be­tween Is­lamic ter­ror­ists and Is­rael, the God of Is­rael, or any­one sup­port­ing ei­ther. They con­sider the God of Is­rael and the Mes­siah to be false gods and Al­lah is the only true god.

Some in Chris­tian­ity say that Yeshua brought peace and good­will to all men. There­fore, there is no con­flict be­tween Chris­tian­ity and any­one else sup­port­ing an­other god. They are wrong of course. The New Tes­ta­ment clearly states that upon Yeshua’s re­turn, He will ride a white horse in with the cav­alry of heaven, to do away with all of His en­e­mies (other gods). It is pretty clear that how­ever you de­fine your monothe­ism, there is some sort of ma­jor con­flict.

The Old Tes­ta­ment is filled with wars, cap­tiv­ity, and armed strug­gle. King David was one of the best among the best. While Chris­tian­ity does­n’t have Bib­li­cal sto­ries of wars, the his­tory of Chris­tian­ity does not take sec­ond place in world his­tory when it comes to wars. The New Tes­ta­ment says, "We wres­tle not with flesh and blood, but with…" Is­lam, Ju­daism, and Chris­tian­ity (all monothe­is­tic based) are all about the strug­gle be­tween good and evil.

All of the Pres­i­dent’s state­ments have led me to be­lieve he is mak­ing the great­est of mis­takes for the world. He has di­rected the forces of the United States and other coali­tion part­ners in a war on ter­ror. The Pres­i­dent will not win the war on ter­ror. Will he win some bat­tles? Yes. But, he will lose the war be­cause he does not un­der­stand his en­e­my’s pur­pose in fight­ing, and he does not un­der­stand how to de­feat such an en­emy.

Let’s take a les­son from his­tory about wars and war­fare. Why are wars some­times won re­sult­ing in peace, and why do some wars like those in our gen­er­a­tion, never end or have clear win­ners and losers? In his­tor­i­cal times, na­tions and king­doms have fought each other with clear win­ners and losers. Why is the Mid­dle East dif­fer­ent? Why do we still have con­flict in Iraq and Afghanistan? Did­n’t we de­ci­sively de­feat their armies? So, why is there no peace and con­flict rages daily? Did­n’t we cap­ture Sad­dam Hus­sein? Did­n’t we win al­ready?

Let’s talk strat­egy and not tac­tics. To strate­gi­cally win a war, you must de­feat what your en­emy be­lieves in. This is why past wars have had win­ners and losers in pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions and why the wars con­tinue to drag on in our gen­er­a­tion. In the past, na­tions and king­doms de­feated their op­po­nents by de­feat­ing what they be­lieved in. World War II saw the de­feat of Nazi Ger­many and Im­pe­r­ial Japan. It was­n’t so much that we de­feated their armies or pos­sessed their lands, we de­feated what they be­lieved in. Ger­many thought the Third Re­ich would rule Eu­rope for a thou­sand years. The Ger­mans be­lieved in the Fuhrer, their leader, Adolf Hitler. Japan be­lieved in the Em­pire of Japan with its Im­pe­r­ial Em­peror. Only af­ter Hitler was dead and the Japan­ese Em­peror sur­ren­dered did the wars end. Even then, se­cret Nazi and neo Nazi types have re­mained (be­cause of what they be­lieve in) but they no longer had the means to wage war. Do you re­mem­ber the sto­ries of Japan­ese sol­diers stranded on Pa­cific is­lands, fi­nally found 20, 30, and 40 years af­ter the war, still try­ing to sur­vive and fight World War II? Yes, it is true that su­pe­rior forces at­tacked both and many vic­to­ries in bat­tle were won, but the be­lief sys­tem of the Ger­mans and the Japan­ese is what was de­feated. While the Al­lies com­pletely oc­cu­pied Ger­many, tak­ing Berlin with Hitler’s death, they proved that the Aryan race was not su­pe­rior. Two atomic bombs con­vinced the Em­peror of Japan and the Japan­ese peo­ple that they were fight­ing some­thing su­pe­rior to their de­f­i­n­i­tion of god. The Al­lies were clear win­ners with the peo­ple and na­tions of Ger­many and Japan sur­ren­der­ing.

If you go back to Bib­li­cal bat­tles, this prin­ci­ple of win­ning in war­fare was the same. This is why tem­ples were de­stroyed. You must de­feat what the en­emy be­lieves in to de­feat them. Oth­er­wise, the strug­gle goes on and on. In some bat­tles, there was no su­pe­rior mil­i­tary force over­com­ing an­other. His­tory has shown that some na­tions and king­doms have de­feated them­selves be­cause they cease to be­lieve in them­selves. This hap­pened to the So­viet Union in our gen­er­a­tion. There are many in Amer­ica who fear the same fate as we con­tinue to leave the found­ing prin­ci­ples of our na­tion. Then there is the an­cient ex­am­ple of how Is­rael (a bunch of slaves) was de­liv­ered from the great­est na­tion and king­dom of its time – Egypt. This was a war where God de­feated Egypt by de­feat­ing their gods. As a re­sult, He de­feated what the Egyp­tians be­lieved in; Is­rael was freed. When Pharao­h’s char­i­ots did ap­pear, God led them into the Red Sea.

Let’s state the prin­ci­ple again. You only win wars if you de­feat what the en­emy be­lieves in. If he be­lieves in his coun­try, you have to take it away. If he be­lieves in his leader, you have to take the leader out. If he be­lieves in his god, you must prove to him that his god is not God.

Now let’s talk tac­tics. First, ter­ror­ism is a tac­tic; it is not a strat­egy. Ter­ror­ism is the tac­tic of choice for fa­natic Mus­lims and Pales­tini­ans, orig­i­nat­ing against Is­rael and spread­ing to na­tions that sup­port Is­rael. The ex­cep­tions are the IRA against Britain and the Mus­lim rebels within the Con­fed­er­a­tion of In­de­pen­dent States (CIS) headed by Rus­sia. They were just fol­low­ing the tac­ti­cal ex­am­ple used by the Is­lamic ter­ror­ists. Ter­ror is the use of bombs, hi­jack­ings, and kid­nap­ing to in­duce fear into a peo­ple. You can counter a tac­tic, but you cannot de­feat it. You must de­feat the per­son us­ing the tac­tic.

So who is the na­tion or king­dom we are against in the war on ter­ror? Is­lam is a king­dom with many ser­vants. Al­lah is their god and king. Mus­lim na­tions co­op­er­ate with each other just as West­ern na­tions co­op­er­ate with each other in a war. Is­lamic ter­ror­ists be­lieve in Al­lah and Is­lam. They are strongly mo­ti­vated to de­stroy and harm Jews and any other na­tion that does not sub­mit to Al­lah and the teach­ings of the Ko­ran. Jews are par­tic­u­larly tar­geted as the teach­ings of the Ko­ran call for their death di­rectly. In a much more sim­pli­fied ex­pres­sion by Is­lamic ac­tivists, they say that Jews are to be slain on Sat­ur­day and Chris­tians on Sun­day. Wait a minute! Why are Chris­tians con­sid­ered an en­emy to Is­lam by them? The an­swer comes from his­tory. The Chris­tians be­lieve in the Christ (the Jew­ish Mes­siah) and the Chris­t­ian Cru­saders came slaugh­ter­ing Mus­lims (in­fi­dels and hea­then) in the great cru­sades. I can as­sure you that the Mus­lims have never for­got­ten them. To­day, Amer­ica with its Jew­ish and Evan­gel­i­cal Chris­t­ian vot­ers sup­port Is­rael. The United States is def­i­nitely on the tar­get for Is­lamic ac­tivists. In fact, Mus­lims re­fer to the United States con­quest against Afghanistan and Iraq as a Zion­ist/​Chris­t­ian cru­sade.

Why do you think the Is­lamic ter­ror­ists hit the World Trade Cen­ter? We know they hate us for our sup­port of Is­rael, but why did they at­tack the WTC in New York specif­i­cally? They were at­tack­ing what they think Amer­ica be­lieves in. Amer­ica be­lieves in the Almighty Dol­lar. They want to re­place Amer­i­ca’s be­lief sys­tem (con­fi­dence, trust, and surety) with fear. They want to make Amer­ica be sub­mit­ted (Is­lam). Ter­ror­ism is a tac­tic to put fear into an­other peo­ple’s be­lief sys­tem.

Make no mis­take about this, all Mus­lims want to make you sub­mit to their faith. The tac­tics may vary, but the strate­gic goal is the same. This is why Mus­lims pre­fer to build mosques upon the pre­vi­ous ground of a church or syn­a­gogue. Why do you think Mus­lims hold in such high re­gard the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque on the for­mer Jew­ish tem­ple mount? If you will do a lit­tle re­search, you will dis­cover that new mosques are not new de­vel­op­ment or con­struc­tion ar­eas. They pre­fer to build them on the for­mer foun­da­tions of churches through­out Eu­rope and the United States. They are mak­ing a state­ment. They want to re­place what oth­ers be­lieve so they will sub­mit to Is­lam.

The Is­lamic ter­ror­ists are true be­liev­ers in their re­li­gion. They be­lieve in Al­lah and they do want [to] bring the other na­tions and king­doms into sub­mis­sion of Is­lam. Their lead­ers have told them that the most no­ble thing, and the best way to get to par­adise, is by killing the en­e­mies of Al­lah. Killing one­self (sui­cide at­tack) while killing the en­e­mies of Al­lah (such as Jews and those who sup­port Is­rael) is an in­stant ticket to par­adise and Al­lah’s harem in heaven. Ex­cuse my oversim­pli­fi­ca­tion of Is­lamic teach­ing, but it re­mains ac­cu­rate. I am sure there are some Mus­lim be­liev­ers (here in the United States) who say that the Is­lamic ter­ror­ists have hi­jacked their re­li­gion. I can un­der­stand that kind of dis­agree­ment, since we have Chris­t­ian abor­tion clinic bombers who don’t rep­re­sent the Chris­t­ian faith ei­ther. But my point of why Is­lamic ter­ror­ists do what they do still stands. The fact is that the Ko­ran, not the Bible, says that their be­liev­ers should get oth­ers to "sub­mit" by per­sua­sion or by force.

In a re­cent state­ment by Is­lamic ter­ror­ists to their brethren worldwide, they ex­horted their faith­ful with these words. The state­ment was en­ti­tled, "The Fi­nal Blows in the De­ci­sive Bat­tles are at Hand." It was re­leased De­cem­ber 30, 2003. I have copied cer­tain seg­ments.

"This post­ing is aimed at re­in­forc­ing the morale of Is­lamic ac­tivists in their on­go­ing strug­gle. We are now liv­ing in cru­cial days and we are see­ing how the gov­ern­ment of the idol of this age [a ref­er­ence to all gov­ern­ments op­posed to them, par­tic­u­larly the United States] is filled with fear and dread, dream­ing of ob­tain­ing se­cu­rity and calm, and spend­ing a bil­lion dol­lars every week … We are see­ing that they have un­der­stood the oath of the com­man­der of Ji­had army [a ref­er­ence to Osama Bin Laden] and they now know that he meant ex­actly what he said [a ref­er­ence to his state­ment against the new cru­saders]. We are now en­gaged in Ji­had be­tween the armies of faith, truth, and good­ness as op­posed to the armies of un­be­lief, false­hood, and evil… The swords have been drawn from their scab­bards, and the fin­gers are on the trig­gers. Happy are those who choose the camp of the be­liev­ers and choose the prof­itable deal [a ref­er­ence to mak­ing them­selves mar­tyrs for Al­lah] and woe to those who join the losers [a ref­er­ence to the coali­tion forces] who are in the low­est com­part­ment of Hell."

This is a re­li­gious mes­sage. This will preach in any mosque. It is a call to faith and obe­di­ence to Al­lah. This is their the­o­log­i­cal ba­sis for killing us. For the Pres­i­dent to say this is not a re­li­gious war or any­one to say this is not about the war against our God is tan­ta­mount to stick­ing your head in the sand so you can’t see.

Be­fore we leave this strat­egy and tac­tics dis­cus­sion, let’s an­swer an un­spo­ken ques­tion. Am I ad­vo­cat­ing vi­o­lence against Mus­lims? Am I spew­ing the re­li­gion of ha­tred, try­ing to pro­mote an at­mos­phere of killings and con­flict to­ward the peo­ple who be­lieve in Is­lam? My an­swer is AB­SOLUTELY NOT. I be­lieve that truth is what sets peo­ple free. I am for truth, not my ver­sion of truth or any other man’s ver­sion of it. I am for the truth of God. That is the truth that sets men free. The truth is that we only do what we be­lieve in. As long as Mus­lims be­lieve that Al­lah is greater, they will con­tinue to wage war for him. When they dis­cover that he is not greater and does not ex­ist, they will not be­lieve in him. The war­fare will be over. Fun­da­men­tally, this is how you stop every Is­lamic ter­ror­ist in his tracks with­out us­ing one satel­lite guided bomb or any other weapon sys­tem in the U.S. ar­se­nal.

Strate­gi­cally, be­fore you can win any war, you must un­der­stand what the en­emy be­lieves in and why he wants to fight you. If and when you de­feat that be­lief sys­tem, the war is over. The war on ter­ror will not be over un­til Is­lamist ac­tivists no longer be­lieve that they are fight­ing for Al­lah. Ei­ther the be­lief in Al­lah with its ex­trem­ist teach­ings must die or they, the pro­mot­ers of the teach­ing, must die. Presently, we have a war of at­tri­tion with the ter­ror­ists. The Pres­i­dent has said that the war on ter­ror would be long. It will also be ex­pen­sive, costly to many lives and play into the hands of what the Is­lamic ac­tivists al­ready be­lieve. In fact, I be­lieve the Pres­i­den­t’s ap­proach ac­tu­ally helps with re­cruit­ment and the core sup­port for its con­tin­ued bat­tle.

Presently, the Mid­dle East is rife with ru­mors of the Amer­i­cans al­ready fight­ing a Ji­had against Al­lah. CBN News posted an ar­ti­cle dated De­cem­ber 22, 2003 mak­ing this very point. Ac­cord­ing to their re­port, ru­mors are ram­pant in na­tions such as Egypt, Qatar, United Arab Emi­rates that Amer­i­ca’s "in­tent to stamp out Mus­lims" with a "Chris­t­ian and Zion­ist in­va­sion" us­ing U.S. forces ac­com­pa­nied by "mis­sion­ar­ies." A Saudi Ara­bian called the Al Jazeera Arab me­dia and com­plained, "As it says in the Ko­ran, they are go­ing to fight you un­til you aban­don your re­li­gion."

Since President Obama took the helm of leadership, he has approached the conflict between the United States and Muslim extremists by withdrawing forces and trying to act like there is no “real” conflict. He is adamant about not using the words “Islam” or “Islamic” when referring to any terrorist incident. He refuses to acknowledge that Islam by its tenets is opposed to Western culture and customs. So pro-Islamic is his stance that many are convinced he holds to the Islamic faith himself.

When you mix his ideology and theology into the events since 9/11, you see the incredible assault against the United States internally, even more than all terror attacks from the outside. In fact, his actions and decisions, particularly opening immigration to Muslims, has brought Jihadi and Sharia philosophy to Main Street of America. The Democrats have bought it hook, line, and sinker. This is truly kingdom against kingdom conflict.

At the recent Republican Convention, you saw American flags and patriotism for America with fanfare. At the Democratic Convention, very few American flags were shown. Instead, there were Palestinian flags, Israeli flags being burned outside, and anti-American sentiments in abundance. The contrast was stunning. Simply put, the United States is now divided against itself (kingdom against kingdom).

So what does Yeshua’s prophecy about the beginning of sorrows bode for us?

It has already started. The first line of defense is law and order. Police officers are being assassinated and not supported by the Federal Government. In fact, the president takes the opportunity to scold the American population that police have it coming and infer support for the perpetrators. As well, the Government is slow to credit a terrorist incident as an act of terrorism. The Government does not want to believe that black people can be racist against whites, Latinos, or Asians. Only white people can be racists, according to them. That is America today.

In other nations it is even worse and tragic. There is open persecution at many levels. There is no righteousness in government anymore. This is the meaning of nation against nation and kingdom against kingdom.

The Apostle Paul spoke to these same issues paralleling what Yeshua had said.

But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, …  

2 Timothy 3:1-4

This is a parallel teaching to what Yeshua said:

At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another. Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. Because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold. Matthew 24:10-12

When I listen to representatives and those who speak for the group “Black Lives Matter,” calling for the death of police officers, or Muslims advocating Sharia laws, or Democratic Liberal Progressives calling everyone a racist or a homophobe, I remember the words of Yeshua and the Apostle Paul. Our nation and our world is being ripped to shreds. It is even worse in other lands.

Twelve years ago I wrote we were going to lose this war. It is because of what is in the heart of men, what they believe or don’t believe in. Half of the citizens in America don’t believe in America, the America that has “In God We Trust” on our currency, or the America with the song “God Bless America.” They want a nation that has removed God and replaced it with homosexuals who will be slaughtered by Muslims, where the biggest criminals are politicians who use government resources to punish their enemies, and where police officers and law-abiding Americans are scorned as evil-doers and racists.

So, what can we expect? More of the same and even worse.

This is not the country I grew up in anymore nor is the world the same as it was. These are days that Yeshua spoke of. The Great Tribulation is approaching soon. Stop watching the “train wreck” and start preparing yourself and your family to escape and be part of Messiah’s deliverance in these last days. Don’t act out of fear; act out of faith and God’s promise.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, and with all your mind. Obey His commandments. Get your Sukkah ready!