The Year in Review - Steve Elwart - www.khouse.org
"Son of Man", he said, "I've appointed you to be a watchman over the house of Israel. Therefore when you hear a message that comes from me, you are to warn them for me."
- Ezekiel 3:17, ISV
As we come to the end of the year, it may serve us well to take a look at the last year to get an idea of what the "Watchers on the Wall" need to continue to monitor in the months ahead.
ISIS
Last August, Islamic militants belonging to a group called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to some seemed to come out of nowhere and take control of Fallujah, Iraq.
ISIS started as an al Qaeda splinter group the goal of creating an Islamic state across Sunni areas of Iraq and in Syria.Known for killing dozens of people at a time and carrying out public executions, crucifixions and other acts, ISIS has taken over large swaths of northern and western Iraq. The group currently controls hundreds of square miles of territory.
It ignores international borders and has a presence from Syria's Mediterranean coast to south of Baghdad and rules by Sharia law.
One reason that ISIS is so dangerous is that it is very well funded.
ISIS's initial strategy for revenue was through extortion and robbery, but now it has shifted to generating resources through large-scale attacks aimed at capturing and holding territory. It's most lucrative revenue to date comes from oil sold on the black market pumped from its captured territory.
Their leader is a man known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi: Very little is known about al-Baghdadi, but a biography posted on jihadist websites in 2013 said he earned a doctorate in Islamic studies from a university in Baghdad.
Al-Baghdadi was detained for four years in Camp Bucca, which was a U.S.-run prison in southern Iraq. He was released subsequently released by the Obama administration in 2009. After ISIS declared the creation of the so-called "Islamic State", he began using the name Al-Khalifah Ibrahim, and now goes by that name with his followers.
What has caused a quandary in the progressive think tanks of the world is that this group, which was considered too radical to be a part of Al-Qaeda, rules its territory by Sharia Law.The beheadings, rapes, and tortures inflicted by ISIS are, according to the group, to be in the name of Islam.ISIS apologists insist that the terror group does not represent Islam, but when they are pressed, they cannot refute Quranic teaching that justifies these acts.
The United States and their Western Allies are playing a dangerous game in trying to fight ISIS without getting immersed in yet another Mid-East conflict.In Syria, if the Western Powers do not get involved in the conflict, they are accused of permitting the slaughter of innocents by inaction. If they do not engage ISIS forces, they are accused of helping the Assad regime.
It is a no-win situation.
What the United States is trying to do now is exercise its well proven strategy of support a rival power in the region and try to restore the balance of power in the region that it destroyed when it invaded Iraq.
The two countries with the most to lose at this point are Jordan and Saudi Arabia, with the Saudis being the stronger power. Given that, the United States is trying to get Saudi Arabia to become more engaged in the fight.
In the year ahead, look for the United States to enter into more defense and arms treaties with Saudi Arabia and the UAE to provide them with weapons and technical assistance to carry the fight to ISIS. What the Middle-East powers choose to do from there with the Assad regime would be their business.Though Russia and China have backed Assad through the civil war, neither country seem willing to back the Assad regime to the point of they themselves becoming embroiled in the conflict.
Also, be careful to watch to see if the United States pulls even further away from Israel as part of any agreement with the Arab nations.
Ebola
"He will inflict on you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they won't be curable."
- Deuteronomy 28:60, ISV
One effect of the Fall was the lessening of efficiency in biological systems. Before the Fall, genetic information was apparently copied without error - or at the very least, all copying errors were corrected. The mechanism by which this occurred is unknown, but for biological systems to persist indefinitely, errorless copying seems to be essential.
Beginning after the Fall, genetic copying errors (such as mutations) entered the world and began to accumulate in the DNA of organisms. Some mutations compromised the design of the organism, leading to failed or impaired function. This led to diseases such as diabetes and sickle-cell anemia.
Some mutations caused entire populations of organisms to change their behavior and begin to hurt other organisms, taking more away from them than they gave back-even to the point of death. Examples are parasites and pathological bacteria. In the young-age creationist model, these diseases are the result of small imperfections in otherwise magnificently designed systems. This would explain how two similar strains of Ebola could impact humans in such radically different ways: one not harmful at all, the other one of the deadliest disease organisms known to man.
The 2014 Ebola epidemic is the largest in history, affecting multiple countries in West Africa. There were a small number of cases reported in Nigeria and a single case reported in Senegal; however, these cases are considered to be contained, with no further spread in these countries.
Two imported cases, including one death, and two locally acquired cases in healthcare workers have been reported in the United States. CDC and partners are taking precautions to prevent the further spread of Ebola within the United States. CDC is working with other U.S. government agencies, the World Health Organization (WHO), and other domestic and international partners and has activated its Emergency Operations Center to help coordinate technical assistance and control activities with partners.
CDC has also deployed teams of public health experts to West Africa and will continue to send experts to the affected countries.
According to the latest WHO Situation Report, no new cases have been reported in Mali since November 24, 2014. All identified contacts connected with both the initial case and the outbreak in Bamako have now completed 21-day follow-up.
The Ebola epidemic is another case of how we should consider just how much we lost in the Fall and what we need to do to prepare for our salvation.
Russia
Russia (who many believe is the Magog spoken of in prophecy), seems to be in its final throes befall an eventual economic collapse.
On March 18, 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an annexation pact with the Prime Minister of Crimea and the mayor of the city of Sevastopol. This following civil unrest in the region by pro-Russian demonstrators and partisans. While Moscow denies it, many countries are convinced that Russia was instigating, even funding, the pro-Russian forces. As a result, on April 1, NATO announced that it was suspending "all practical civilian and military cooperation" with Russia because of the annexation of Crimea.
After Russia occupied Crimea in February 2014 and started encroaching into eastern Ukraine by proxy, the United States and the European Union introduced economic sanctions against the regime of President Vladimir Putin.
They hit hard.
The Russian economy had already been suffering from inflation, a bloated pension system and dependence on high oil prices. With the latest round of sanctions and with U.S. crude recently settling below $100 per barrel, things are only getting worse. The collapse of oil prices have dealt the Russian economy a substantial blow and may very well cause civil unrest due to government cutbacks in social programs due to lack of funds.
Prices for food and other essential items have already risen, according to Russians who live in Moscow and the surrounding regions.
But Putin's approval ratings are still at all-time highs. One of the main reasons for having more than 80 percent of the population's support is his being able to control the public narrative, especially for the older population who rely heavily on Russian state-owned television for news.
That older generation is just the demographic that may be hit first by a collapsing economy. Several Russian media sources reported that Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Maxim Topilin announced the decision to freeze Russian citizens' pension savings in 2015.
In March 2014, Irina Prokhorova, the politically outspoken sister of oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov, told alternative news channel "TV Rain" that Crimea would most likely be paid for on the backs of pensioners.
So what will Putin do next?
Vladimir Frolov, author and president of the LEFF Group, recently wrote in The Moscow Times that Putin has two options: "The disastrous and the cynical."
Frolov correlated the former "disastrous" option with the move by former Soviet leader Yuri Andropov of escalating tensions with the West to the point of near catastrophe, and the latter "cynical" option with the move by former Russian President Boris Yeltsin to rearrange the government while throwing domestic allies turned enemies under the bus.
For now, though, where Putin will finally stop remains unclear.
A major fear though is what many countries do when faced with an internal crisis:
Start a war.
With an economy on the brink of collapse, oil revenues depleting, and a high popularity rating that's dropping, Vladimir Putin could be a very dangerous man.
Watch in the year ahead for a more aggressive Russia, one that is even more threatening to Israel.
Israel
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeing that Israel is becoming more isolated in the world.In some ways that could be liberating.As Britain's King George VI said after the fall of France, "It's nice not to have any allies to worry about."
Being alone in the world could give Israel a "what do I have to lose?" attitude.Without having to worry about the opinion of erstwhile allies, Israel can choose to conduct its internal and foreign policy as it wishes.
Along those lines, on April 24 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel was suspending peace talks with the Palestinians after rival factions Fatah and Hamas announced a unity deal. (Hamas and Fatah swear in a unity government with Rami Hamdallah as prime minister on June 2). After three Israeli teens on their way home from school in the West Bank are abducted by Hamas militants and their bodies were discovered on June 30 in the West Bank, Israel declared Operation Protective Edge against Hamas. While Israel and Hamas agree to a ceasefire in August, This action manifested Israel's "go it alone" policy.
The year 2015 may see Israel more at odds with the Obama Administration as they strike out their own path in the world.
Homegrown Terror
2014 saw an uptick in terrorist incidents that seemed to be homegrown, meaning not part of a coordinated action.On October 22 Gunman Michael Zehaf-Bibeau opened fire at Canada's National War Memorial and Parliament Hill in Ottawa, killing army reservist Cpl. Nathan Cirillo. Zehaf-Bibeau is killed by the House of Commons Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers. Then on December 15, in Sydney, Australia an Iranian immigrant named Man Haron Monis took a number of hostages at a chocolate cafe. After a 16-hour standoff with police, commandos storm the cafe and end the siege. Two hostages are killed as well as Monis.
U.S. Relations with Cuba
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may not be the only head of state that feels liberated.With a crushing defeat for his party in the November 2014 elections, on December 17 U.S. President Barack Obama announced plans to normalize diplomatic relations with Cuba and ease economic restrictions on the nation, a policy shift he called the end of an "outdated approach" to U.S.-Cuban relations that, "for decades, has failed to advance our interests."
Obama said the U.S. will move towards re-opening its embassy in the communist nation and allow some travel and trade that had been banned under a decades-long embargo instated during the Kennedy administration. (In an interesting note, President Kennedy announced the embargo on Cuba only after he had purchased 1,600 Cuban cigars for his personal collection.)
There is a divided opinion on the action. Many people, including Cuban refugees living in the United States feel that the action shows that authoritarianism pays. Many of these people feel betrayed.
There are others though who feel the action is long overdue. They feel that the best way to overthrow Communism in that country is to open up its citizens to American goods and services and show Cubans what American life is like under free enterprise.
This is an issue whose effects are unclear.
As we look back at the year, we can see the effects of a fallen world; we are reminded that we need to concentrate on using our "heavy artillery", prayer.
The idea that power is inherent in prayer is a very popular one. According to the Bible, the power of prayer is, quite simply, the power of God, who hears and answers prayer. Consider the Lord God invites His people to pray to Him. Prayer to God should be made:
Persistently: Jesus told his disciples a parable about their need to pray all the time and never give up. - Luke 18:1, ISV
With thanksgiving: Never worry about anything. Instead, in every situation let your petitions be made known to God through prayers and requests, with thanksgiving. - Philippians 4:6, ISV
In faith: Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives to everyone generously without a rebuke, and it will be given to him. - James 1:5, ISV
Within the will of God: May your kingdom come. May your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. - Matthew 6:10, ISV
For the glory of God: I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me for anything in my name, I will do it. - John 14:13-14, ISV
And from a heart right with God: Therefore, make it your habit to confess your sins to one another and to pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. - James 5:16, ISV
Next week, we'll take a look at what is shaping up to be the coming trends for 2015.
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