Syrian Implosion: 20,000 dead; now Assad Regime Prime Minister Defects to Jordan, as do 3 cabinet members
August 6, 2012
I’m finishing writing my new novel,
The Damascus Countdown, this week, but set aside fiction for a
moment — the painful truth is that Syria is imploding. The bloodthirsty
regime of Bashar al-Assad is slaughtering its own people, and steadily
losing control of the country.
The latest reports indicate that more than 20,000 Syrians have been
murdered. Top Syrian officials are defecting. The rebels are
steadily winning control of more and more of the country. Iran is
sending forces to fight on behalf of the Assad regime against the
rebels. Now Russian President Vladimir Putin is reportedly sending naval
warships and Russian marines to Syria as a show of support for
Assad, though it’s not clear how far the Kremlin is willing to go to
defend the dictator of Damascus. But the rebels are no friends of
freedom. Should they topple the Assad regime and seize control, we could
see a repeat of the Egyptian revolution last year where Radical Islamic
jihadists end up gaining control of the country.
Looming over the entire catastrophe are
Bible prophecies that Damascus will be judged and utterly destroyed in
the last days. Please be praying for the Syrian people to renounce
Islam and give their lives to Jesus Christ before it’s too late. Please
pray for the persecuted Christians in Syrian that the Lord will give
them courage and boldness to preach the Gospel, teach the Word of God,
and care for those who are wounded, scared and desperate.
Here are the key developments in recent days:
MAJOR DEFECTIONS — “Syria’s prime minister defected and fled to
neighboring Jordan, a Jordanian official and a rebel spokesman said
Monday, evidence that the cracks in President Bashar’s Assad’s regime
have reached the highest echelons of government,”
reports the Associated Press. “Ahmad Kassim, a senior official with
the Free Syrian Army, said Prime Minister Riad Hijab defected to Jordan
along with three other ministers. A Jordanian government official
confirmed Hijab defected with his family but did not comment on the
three other ministers. The Jordanian government official spoke on
condition of anonymity, saying he was not allowed to make any public
statements on the defection. Hijab is the highest-level government
official to defect since the uprising against Assad’s authoritarian rule
began 17 months ago. The other ministers’ identities were not
immediately known.”
RUSSIAN MARINES ARRIVING — “Interfax quoted an unnamed Defense Ministry
source as saying three landing assault ships, an anti-submarine ship and
four smaller vessels might call on Tartus by Sunday,”
reports the Los Angeles Times. “The ships are carrying a contingent
of about 360 marines and amphibious armored personnel carriers….’ am
absolutely confident that most likely their task will be to evacuate the
personnel and equipment of the base,’ Alexander Golts, a defense expert
and deputy editor-in-chief of the popular liberal online publication
Yezhednevny Zhurnal, said in an interview. ‘However, this group is not
sufficient enough to evacuate from 30,000 to 60,000 Russian citizens
working and living in Syria,’ Golts said, ‘unless the marines will be
ordered to gain control of a landing strip at Damascus airport and help
establish an air-bridge to take all Russians out….Whatever their task,
it is clear that given the rapidly deteriorating situation in Syria the
Kremlin wants to have some sort of military presence close to its
shores,’ Golts added.”
IRAN SENDING FORCES — “Iran is sending thousands of fighters to help the
Bashar Assad regime in it’s ongoing conflict with rebel forces,
according to a Syrian opposition leader,”
reports the Times of Israel. “Col. Abdul-Jabbar Mohammed Aqidi, the
commander of rebel forces in Aleppo province, was quoted in Al Arabiya
on Saturday saying that 3,000 Iranians had already passed through
Damascus International Airport in the last week.”
Henry Kissinger now believes Syria will implode.
As I have written before, there are actually two key Biblical
prophecies that explain that at unspecified time in the future, the city
of Damascus will be completely destroyed — judged by God — and will not
be inhabited again.
*
Isaiah 17:1-3 — “The oracle concerning Damascus. ‘Behold, Damascus
is about to be removed from being a city and will become a fallen ruin.
The cities of Aroer are forsaken; they will be for flocks to lie
down in, and there will be no one to frighten them. The fortified
city will disappear from Ephraim, and sovereignty from Damascus….’”
*
Jeremiah 49:23-27 — “Concerning Damascus. ‘Hamath andArpad are put
to shame, for they have heard bad news; they are disheartened. There is
anxiety by the sea, it cannot be calmed. Damascus has become helpless;
she has turned away to flee, and panic has gripped her; distress and
pangs have taken hold of her like a woman in childbirth. How the
city of praise has not been deserted, the town of My joy! Therefore, her
young men will fall in her streets, and all the men of war will be
silenced in that day,’ declares the Lord of hosts. ’I will set
fire to the wall of Damascus, and it will devour the fortified towers of
Ben-hadad.’”
These prophecies have not yet been fulfilled. Damascus is one of the
oldest continuously inhabited cities on earth. It has been attacked,
besieged, and conquered. But Damascus has never been completely
destroyed and left uninhabited. Yet that is exactly what the Bible says
will happen. The context of Isaiah 17 and Jeremiah 49 are a series of
End Times prophecies dealing with God’s judgments on Israel’s neighbors
and enemies leading up to — and through — the Tribulation.
How exactly will Damascus be destroyed? When will exactly it be
destroyed? What will that look like, and what will be the implications
for the rest of Syria, for Israel and for the region? The honest answer
is that the Bible does not say. I’m currently writing a novel entitled,
The Damascus Countdown that envisions how these prophecies could
come to pass. This will be the third and last in the novel series that
includes
The Twelfth Imam and
The Tehran Initiative (both out now in paperback and ebook). Lord
willing, I will finish the manuscript in the next few days and it will
release early next year (probably in March). In the meantime, I am
tracking events in Damascus and Syria very closely [i.e, see blog posts:
"Will Syria Implode?";
"More than 1,000 Syrian leaders attend premiere of Damascus film"].
I am also praying much for the Lord Jesus Christ to have mercy on the
people of that great city. The innocent blood shed by the Assad regime
is reprehensible, and heart-breaking and is setting the stage for a
terrible judgment. The believers in Christ there are being horribly
persecuted, but some are still boldly preaching the Gospel and teaching
the Word of God. Let’s pray that they reach all of the people of
Damascus and Syria before the judgment comes.
