Could ISIS Be Anointed By God? - Belle Ringer - http://www.salvationandsurvival.com/2016/04/could-isis-be-anointed-by-god.html
Now, before you think I've gone completely off my rocker, give me a chance to explain my train of thought. I've recently written about the Temple of Baal (or Bel) that will soon be replicated in Times Square, the heart of New York City, and in London. I spared no words in recounting its significance in regards to idol worship in the ancient world. I also related that this ancient temple was destroyed by ISIS last summer. The most recent news in the last few days is that Syrian forces have liberated the ancient city of Palmyra and recaptured it, with plans to rebuild much of the ancient artifacts and archeological sites.
I suspect much of the world will hail this as a victory and in the best interests of man's archeological heritage. But is it? I want to expand on some thoughts that have occurred to me since July of last year, and just keep pricking my spirit. I can't help but look at this situation through the lens of my Biblical worldview. And to do that, I need to take some time to share a specific perspective with you; it's a fascinating story from the Old Testament, and one that I think casts valuable insight on God's purpose in all things.
Remember the story of Cyrus, King of Persia, who conquered Babylon and allowed the Jews to return from captivity to their homeland and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem? Well, as fantastic as this sounds, apparently it was not out of the ordinary for Cyrus. An excellent post on Cyrus, found at a website called ChurchOfTheGreatGod.org, reports that King Cyrus, as was his policy, allowed his vassal states to retain their cultural and religious identities. He advanced funds for the repair or restoration of public buildings, particularly temples and shrines, and he reversed the Babylonian policy of forced relocation of conquered peoples, allowing their descendants to return to their ancestral homelands.
What you might find utterly amazing is that God used King Cyrus, a Muslim, to move forward his plan in history. In fact, God calls Cyrus, His "anointed". Yes, you read that correctly! He explicitly says in Isaiah 45:1-3: "Thus says the LORD to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held-to subdue nations before him and loose the armor of kings, to open before him the double doors, so that the gates will not be shut: 'I will go before you and make the crooked places straight; I will break in pieces the gates of bronze and cut the bars of iron. I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places. . . . I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways; He shall build My city and let My exiles go free, not for price nor reward,' says the LORD of hosts."
I can hear shocked Christians right now, exclaiming, "But how can a Muslim be God's anointed? First of all, we need to broaden our understanding of what the word anointed means. The Hebrew word is mashiah, which has come down to us as "messiah" and translated as christos in Greek. Because we now use this term exclusively for Jesus Christ, the Messiah, many of us Christians fail to see its broader application. Mashiah simply means "anointed" or "anointed one." At its most basic, mashiah indicates a person God authorizes and sets apart for His service.... regardless of their faith, ethnicity, or background. And the type of service an anointed one might render can vary. Besides being in the service of God, he might fulfill more than one role in his service; but his primary function is to cause deliverance. You can see how Jesus fulfilled all three of those facets of an anointed one.
So the question becomes "Why did God raise up a Messiah, or Anointed One, like Cyrus? The answer is found in the continuing verses of Isaiah, Chapter 45: "[God will work through you, Cyrus,] that you may know that I, the LORD, who call you by your name, am the God of Israel. For Jacob My servant's sake, and Israel My elect, I have even called you by your name; I have named you, though you have not known Me. I am the LORD, and there is no other; there is no God besides Me. I will gird you, though you have not known Me. I am the LORD, and there is no other; I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the LORD, do all these things" (verses 3-7). Very simply, God raised Cyrus up to do His bidding to prove to him and all the world who is the true God! God went before Cyrus, paving the way for his victories and policies so that His will and His plan would move forward.
So, now I return to my original question, posed in the title of this blog post ... Could ISIS be anointed by God? If we use the criteria that the Bible lays forth regarding the prerequisites for an anointed one, I would say, in one sense, YES!
(OBVIOUS CAVEAT: The atrocities and barbaric acts of murder against Christians and non-Muslims is obviously not an act of service to God. But remember, God is Sovereign, and He is capable of using even evil people to carry out one or more of His purposes. In this instance, I am only looking at ISIS's acts of destroying ancient temples to idols.)
And here's how I got there .... As I have pointed out in past blog posts, Palmyra was the site of some of the world's most valuable Roman-style ruins, including 2,000-year-old towers and temples; among them the Temple of Baal (or Bel), which was the name of the supreme god worshiped in ancient Canaan and Phoenicia, and the Temple of Baalshamin, dedicated to the Canaanite sky deity Baalshamin.
But last year, in its takeover of the city, ISIS blew up both structures, along with the famed Arch of Triumph, which was constructed under Roman rule during the late second century, calling them monuments to idolatry --- which they were! In case you need convincing, here is some interesting information about the Temple of Baal: It was known as the temple to the Sun God. And if you are a student of Biblical and ancient history, then you know that there were many names for the Sun God throughout the pagan cultures. Some of them are Ra, the sun god of the ancient Egyptians; Apollo, the sun god of the ancient Romans; Helios, the sun god of the Greeks; Mithras, the Iranian and Persian sun god ... and I contend that they are all names for the same spirit of rebellion that existed in the man Nimrod.
The great-grandson of Noah, Nimrod is the prototype of a rebellious people, his name being interpreted in Hebrew as "he who made all the people rebellious against God". As you can see by the various cultures and ethnic groups who worshiped the Sun God in his name, he led many peoples into rebellion against the One True God and into idol worship.
Now, the modern world is lamenting the destruction of the ancient Temple of Baal, the temple of Sun God worship, in Palmyra, Syria. And I'd like you to get a picture of what worshipping there must have been like to the pagans, as described by Amr Al Azm, a professor at Shawnee State University who served as the director of the Center of Archeological Research at the University of Damascus from 2003 to 2006: "You would attempt to go and visit the temple at dawn [before it was damaged]. And on the east face, as the sun rises, it would eventually reach that point where, even though it was dark around you - you were surrounded by stone walls - the sun would touch a particular point on the window, and it was like someone switched on a thousand lights. The whole building would light up instantaneously." He goes on to say, "Unfortunately, we will never be able to experience that again. That's how significant the loss is, as far as I'm concerned."
But might I suggest that ISIS got it right? That it is actually a "monument to idolatry". And might I further propose that by destroying it, the Muslim jihadis were actually in service to YHWH, liberating that area of the ancient Middle East from a centuries-long fascination and reverence to a false god? Remember, as in the case of Cyrus, (whom God makes it very clear, did not know Him), God can use whomever He desires to move along his plan in history. Perhaps God is tired of our interest and preoccupation in preserving these ancient temples of idolatry, and so He put ISIS, who certainly does not know Him, into service to destroy their very foundations.
And what does the world plan to do? To rebuild them, of course! Or, at least in the instance of the Temple Baal, erect duplicates of them in New York City, London, and another 1,000 cities around the world --- all in the name of defiance to ISIS. But, can you clearly see that, in reality, it is in defiance to YHWH?
And there is another aspect that I want to briefly touch upon before I end my hypothesis. I will admit that the connecting dots are still a little fuzzy in my spirit, but I can't help but feel there is something here that we need to pay attention to. The "recapture" of the ancient city of Palmyra from ISIS was conducted by Syrian forces, assisted by Russian troops and airstrikes. And now the world is incensed by the destruction of the temples and the looting of the artifacts, and archeologists from around the world are rushing to the site to help reconstruct the ancient city. Is this part of the multiple roles that ISIS could be playing in their service as God's anointed? Could they be drawing the nations of the world to this area to preserve the treasures of idolatrous worship?
The world's elite mourned when ISIS ransacked and burned the Mosul Public Library, destroying more than 8,000 ancient and rare books and manuscripts, calling it "cultural genocide"; an attempt to destroy an ethnic or religious group's customs, including its languages, traditional practices and ways, religious institutions and objects, and clergy members, academics, and intellectuals. I admit that it is difficult to see God wanting the history of whole peoples wiped out. But what if those histories, and art, and traditions, and religious practices honor gods and ways that are not of Him? Could we then see the possibility that God could authorize ISIS to serve Him by destroying what He considers idolatry? Even if they declare a hatred for Him and those who follow Him?
I know! It is hard to wrap your head around it, but throughout the Bible God used unbelievers to execute His plan for the world. All we have to do is look at how He used Pharaoh to liberate His people from their bondage in Egypt; how He used Nebuchadnezzar to take the Jews into captivity in Babylon because of their continued disobedience, yet placed Daniel in their midst to prophecy of the return of His remnant; and how He used the Persian King Artaxerxes to allow Nehemiah to reintroduce His law to the Jews returning to Jerusalem. And in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul often worked through unbelievers to carry out God's will and purpose.
We must remember that He is Sovereign and Immutable ... He never changes and it is often His way to use unbelievers to execute His will. It is not up to us to question or reason why. I am not here to suggest that I know God's mind or that my hypothesis is even plausible. All I'm saying is that I see idolatrous temples being destroyed and the world's desire to rebuild them. Can we truly say it is all out of a sense of preserving cultural history? Or is there something more diabolical happening underneath it all? Keep your spiritual radar turned on and up!
Isaiah 45:9-10 "Woe to the one who argues with his Maker-one clay pot among many. Does clay say to the one forming it, 'What are you making?' Or does your work say, 'He has no hands'? How absurd is the one who says to his father, 'What are you fathering?' or to his mother, 'What are you giving birth to?' "
ISIS descends on Jordan's border, activates suicides. Jordanian command post in Daraa - http://www.debka.com/article/25345/ISIS-descends-on-Jordan's-border-activates-suicides-Jordanian-command-post-in-Daraa
ISIS forces in southern Syria overran several Jordanian border crossings south of the Yarmouk River on Tuesday, April 5. This disastrous turn of events is illustrated by an exclusive picture obtained by debkafile of an ISIS fighter unfurling the organization's flag at one of the crossings which sports a Jordanian flag.
The picture taken the same day shocked the royal court and the Jordanian military command in Amman.
Our military sources report that an urgent conference was called at the Military Operations Command (MOC), north of Amman to devise measures for containing the Islamic State's leap into more territory on the Syrian-Jordanian border. It was attended by Jordanian, American, Israeli, Saudi and UAE officers.
They voiced apprehension about three developments which give Daesh a substantial edge
1. A group of high ISIS officers traveled south from headquarters in Raqqa in the last few days, took command of the 3,000 fighters of the affiliated Yarmouk Brigades, and is now working to form a continuous jihadist enclave along Syria's borders with Israel and Jordan, like the 90-kilometer ISIS strip blocking part of the Turkish border.
This enclave would directly threaten the Israeli Golan and northern Jordan.
2. When ISIS forces retreated last week from Palmyra, a group headed south, fetching up outside Jebel Druze without entering this mountain region. It is now feared that the jihadis are about to turn west toward the Israeli border and link up with the Yarmouk brigades. This would double the number of ISIS forces in southern Syria and make possible a major new assault on the Jordanian and Israeli borders.
3. The strengthening of ISIS forces in southern Syria has attracted some of the Syrian rebel groups fighting the Syria army to the jihadist flag and the Yarmouk Brigades. The largest militia to enlist recently is the Al-Muthana movement. Although its leaders deny taking an oath of allegiance or any other ties with ISIS, Al-Muthana is currently fighting alongside ISIS. This has sent a disturbing signal to the hundreds of other anti-Assad militias in the neighborhood.
Jordan has meanwhile stepped forward to stem this flow of strength to ISIS.
debkafile's military and intelligence sources report that Jordanian military intelligence officers specializing in guerrilla warfare have been infiltrating rebel-held areas in the South, especially Daraa, the regional hub, for the purpose of whipping rebel militias together into a front against ISIS. These officers have succeeded in setting up a joint war room with the three biggest rebel groups in the south, the Southern Front, Jaish Fatah al-Junub and Jaish al-Islam, for action under the direction of the MOC outside Amman.
On Monday, April 4, the joint force saw combat, when rebel forces under Jordanian commanders launched an attack to drive the ISIS forces back into their former corner in the narrow triangle near the meeting-point of the Syrian, Israeli and Jordanian borders. ISIS hit back with suicide bombers, who blew themselves up next to the Jordanian-led rebel assault force. It was the first time ISIS had unleashed suicide bombers so close to the Israeli border.
Saudi cash boosts Egypt's war on ISIS-Sinai after US opts out -
The first visit to Cairo by Saudi King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Thursday, March 7,heralded a new chapter in the war on the Islamic State in Sinai, one to be fought with petrodollars versus the jihadis' war chest. The monarch brought President Abdel-Fattteh El-Sisi two large checks: a $20bn guarantee to cover the oil needs of 90 million Egyptians for the next five years, and another $1.5bn listed euphemistically under the heading of "Sinai development."
Two-thirds of the latter sum - a cool billion dollars - has been wholly earmarked, according to debkafile's military and intelligence sources, for weaning 13 Sinai Bedouin chiefs from their commitments to supply fighters and other services to the Wilayat Sayna of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant - ex-Ansar Bait al-Maqdis. The Egyptian army will also acquire hi-tech intelligence tools for fighting the terrorist group holding the peninsula in its grip.
King Salman's arrival in Cairo, his first since ascending the throne in January 2015, follows a sharp downturn in Egyptian security versus the rampant ISIS threat due to three disturbing developments in the last week of March::
1. A large group of senior ISIS officers arrived in Sinai from their Syrian Raqqa headquarters to assume command of operations against the Egyptian army and security forces. Their arrival coincided roughly with the transfer to the Golan of another group of officers to bolster the affiliated Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade posted there.
The Islamist commanders traveled to Sinai via Iraq and Jordan and were ferried across the Gulf of Aqaba in smugglers' boats.
2. They carried additional orders to mount terrorist operations from Sinai against Israel. One of their plans is to land sea raiders on Israeli beaches, in the same way as ISIS gunmen attacked tourist seaside resorts in Tunisia and southern Egypt.
3. ISIS has imported into Sinai through Bedouin smuggling rings a new type of extra-powerful Improvised Explosive Devices (IED), which were recently encountered with deadly effect by Egyptian military, intelligence and security forces on Sinai roads.
The Bedouin tribesmen pose an all-encompassing threat to Egyptian forces. They are the Islamist terrorists' eyes and ears for detecting and betraying their slightest movements in the peninsula. Furthermore, hundreds of "messengers" on motorbikes or camels carry information and orders to and from ISIS commanders before they decide whether to strike or go into hiding from a coming Egyptian assault.
By using these human couriers, ISIS operatives can eschew communication by satellite networks, cell phones and social media, which are susceptible to eavesdropping.
Another service supplied by the indigenous Bedouin is their vast smuggling network, which covers 11,000 kilometers stretching from the eastern Libyan town of Derna to western Iraq and runs through Egypt, the Gulf of Aqaba and Jordan.
All in all, the Bedouin tribes are the Islamic State's lifeline in Sinai: they move forces and command posts from country to country through clandestine trails, and procure any item ISIS may require to support its campaign of violence, from missiles to brand new automobiles straight off Japanese or South Korean production lines.
No espionage or counterterrorism services, whether Egyptian, American or Israeli, has ever managed to penetrate the secret Bedouin smuggling master hub, from which all orders issue to the sprawling the network.
Israel has its own special problem with this network, since it also serves the Palestinian Hamas terror organization and other radical Salafi groups in the Gaza strip.
ISIS and this vast Bedouin smuggling machine have mushroomed in recent weeks into major hazards not just to the stability of the Sisi regime in Cairo, but also to Saudi Arabia and its oil shipping route through the Gulf of Suez and the Suez Canal.
Saudi rulers have therefore decided to neutralize the threat by severing the dangerous symbiosis between the Bedouin tribes and the Islamic State's Sinai wilayat, by using the same means as their peace effort in Yemen, i.e., buying the loyalty of renegade tribal chiefs with hard cash.
King Salman handed President El-Sisi a check for one billion dollars for Egyptian intelligence to spend on winning the Bedouin chiefs away from the terrorists. The balance of half a billion dollars was made available for the Egyptian army to acquire sophisticated intelligence systems, including advanced drones and other items which the Americans have withheld, although they were promised.
The effort to turn the war on terror into a financial contest carries its own risks.
The Saudis may discover that ISIS can match them dollar for dollar, rather than relinquish access to the most wide-ranging smuggling machine in the region. Furthermore, the Sinai Bedouin chiefs are perfectly capable of pocketing money from both sides and carrying on as before
The day before the Saudi king landed in Cairo, it was leaked in Washington that the Obama administration is pondering ending or reducing the US-led Multinational Force and Observers operation in Sinai, since the peacekeepers have become sitting ducks for Islamist terrorists.
The White House has still not answered El-Sisi's urgent plea for US military back-up to support Egypt's foundering effort to curb ISIS in the peninsula, although US officials constantly declare their strong commitment to the war on global terrorism.
Saudi Arabia this week showed itself ready to step into the breach left by Washington's indifference.
ISIS uses mustard gas against Syrian army - By Ben Ariel - http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/210336#.VwPaso-cE2y
Syrian media says ISIS terrorists attacked Syrian army troops with mustard gas in an offensive against a military airport.
Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists attacked Syrian army troops with mustard gas in an offensive against a Syrian military airport in the eastern province of Deir al-Zor that borders Iraq, Reuters reported Monday, citing Syrian state media.
The reports did not disclose how many casualties were sustained in the attack on the heavily defended airport located south of Deir al Zor city, whose main neighborhoods are under the group's control.
"The terrorists fired rockets carrying mustard gas," a statement on state owned Ikhbariyah television station and quoted by Reuters said.
Reuters could not independently verify the media reports.
The Syrian army backed by heavy Russian air strikes was able last January to drive back the jihadists from several villages near the airport but has so far failed to dislodge them, according to the news agency.
Reports in the past have said that ISIS had used mustard agent in both Syria and Iraq, and CIA chief John Brennan has warned that the jihadists have used chemical weapons and have the capability to make small quantities of chlorine and mustard gas.
The question has been asked how ISIS managed to get its hands on chemical weapons in the first place. One possible answer is that in June 2014, ISIS seized a weapons complex thought to have held hundreds of tons of lethal sarin and mustard gasses: the al-Muthanna complex, located 60 miles north of Baghdad, which was a central base of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons program.
There has also been some speculation that ISIS got its hands on chemical stockpiles that belonged to former Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi.
A former intelligence official of Qaddafi's recently said in a television interview that ISIS and other terrorist groups had gotten hold of the chemical weapons that had remained in Libya and smuggled them somehow to Syria.
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