Tuesday, May 17, 2011

End of the World/Armageddon closer than ever...

excerpt from Jerusalem Post
70% of Palestinians expect third intifada if talks fail'
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
05/17/2011 16:33

Palestinian poll shows one quarter oppose new intifada, 70% oppose firing rockets from Gaza; majority believes Israel interested in peace deal.

A vast majority of Palestinians expects an eruption of a third intifada if Israeli-Palestinian peace talks reach an impasse, according to the results of a public opinion poll published on Tuesday.

The poll, which was conducted by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion [PCPO], also showed that nearly 80% of Palestinians supported the recent reconciliation agreement between Hamas and Fatah.

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Dr. Nabil Kukali, president of the PCPO, said that the poll was carried out between May 5 and 12 and covered a random sample of 950 Palestinians from the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. He added that the poll had a margin of error of 3%.

According to the results, 70% of Palestinians expect a break out of a third intifada that would be similar to that of 1987 and the second intifada in 2000 in case Israeli-Palestinian peace talks failed. However, 25% of those polled said they were opposed to a new intifada.

Almost 75% of those polled said they believed that any military escalation in the Gaza Strip would be in Israel’s interest, whereas only 18% believed it would in Hamas’s interest.


New York Times
CAIRO — Muslims and Coptic Christians clashed with bullets, rocks and Molotov cocktails here for the second time in seven days on Saturday night, sending at least 55 people to the hospital, officials with Egypt’s Interior Ministry said.
Related

Clashes in Cairo Leave 12 Dead and 2 Churches in Flames (May 9, 2011)
The officials said that at least 33 of the wounded were Muslims, 22 were Christians and that 28 were arrested for playing a role in the strife.

Fears of such sectarian violence have kept Cairo on edge since a nightlong battle between mobs of Muslims and Coptic Christians in the working-class neighborhood of Imbaba a week ago left at least a dozen dead and two churches in flames. (Egyptian state news media said Sunday that the death toll had risen to 15.)

On Sunday, hundreds of Copts angry at the failure of the Egyptian police and armed forces to protect their churches more effectively held a sit-in outside the state television building, known as Maspero.

The clashes on Saturday began about 10 p.m., officials of the Interior Ministry said. Witnesses and officials said a small group of Muslims had fired shots at the sit-in. Soon groups of young men from each faith were battling each other for hours with rocks, sticks and Molotov cocktails.

In the aftermath of the bloodshed, Pope Shenouda III, the leader of Egypt’s Coptic Christian church, urged an end to the sit-in on Sunday, Egyptian state news media reported. “To our children who are protesting in front of Maspero, the protest is now no longer about expressing your opinion and has been infiltrated by those who use different means than the ones you use,” the pope said in a statement, according to the Web site of the state newspaper Al Ahram. “Now there is fighting and hitting, and that negatively affects Egypt’s reputation as well as your reputation. Therefore, you have to immediately end the protest.”

The paper’s Web site said that he added: “The patience of the rulers is starting to end, and you will be the losers if you continue in the protest.”

But thousands of Copts ignored their patriarch’s admonition and continued to rally into Sunday night. “With our blood, with our soul, we sacrifice for the cross,” they chanted.

Tensions between Muslims and Coptic Christians, who make up about 10 percent of the population here, have risen steadily since the sweeping vows of unity during the revolution that toppled President Hosni Mubarak three months ago. Copts say they have felt increasingly embattled since clashes just south of Cairo left a church burning last month.

The battle on the night of May 7 in the neighborhood of Imbaba began with a dispute over a woman. Neighborhood Muslims were convinced that Christians were holding her in a church against her will to talk her out of converting to Islam and leaving her Christian husband for a Muslim man — a recurring theme in sectarian disputes here, where a combination of custom and law make it easier for Muslims than Christians to divorce.

With memories of last month’s church fire still fresh, about 500 Copts rallied to defend their church — some with firearms — even before more than two dozen Muslims had approached it. Casualties were roughly even on both sides.

The anger among the Copts had run so high that many continued to protest at their sit-in on Friday, even as thousands of other Egyptians held a rally for Muslim and Christian unity in Tahrir Square.

In addition to sectarian violence, general crime has jumped in Cairo since the revolution as the military council running the country has struggled to rebuild the police force. Many police officers, who were a primary target of the revolution because of their past abusive practices, deserted the force or have returned timidly. Some leaders of the protests that brought down the old government suspect a counterrevolutionary conspiracy to stir up lawlessness.

Liam Stack contributed reporting.
A version of this article appeared in print on May 16, 2011,

With Pakistan and now Iran with Nuclear weapons and capabilities to attack Israel, the world is at the doorstep of World War Three, and most people are asleep to this eventuality. From the biblical perspective, it is not "if" but "when".

Zechariah 14:12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lord will smite all the peoples that have warred against Jerusalem: their flesh shall rot away while they stand upon their feet and their eyes shall corrode away in their sockets and their tongue shall decay away in their mouth.

Verse 12 suggests nuclear blast that will cause the flesh to melt off of the person by the intense heat before they can fall to the ground dead.

now the rest in context.....

1BEHOLD, A day of the Lord is coming when the spoil [taken from you] shall be divided [among the victors] in the midst of you.
2For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken and the houses rifled and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go into exile, but the rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city.

3Then shall the Lord go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fought in the day of battle.

4And His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which lies before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from the east to the west by a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north and half of it toward the south.(A)

5And you shall flee by the valley of My mountains, for the valley of the mountains shall reach to Azal, and you shall flee as you fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah; and the Lord my [Zechariah's] [a]God shall come, and all the holy ones [saints and angels] with Him.(B)

6And it shall come to pass in that day that there shall not be light; the glorious and bright ones [the heavenly bodies] shall be darkened.

7But it shall be one continuous day, known to the Lord--not day and not night, but at evening time there shall be light.

8And it shall be in that day that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern [Dead] Sea and half of them to the western [Mediterranean] Sea; in summer and in winter shall it be.

9And the Lord shall be King over all the earth; in that day the Lord shall be one [in the recognition and worship of men] and His name one.

10All the land shall be turned into a plain from Geba to Rimmon, [the Rimmon that is] south of Jerusalem. But Jerusalem shall remain lifted up on its site and dwell in its place, from Benjamin's gate to the place of the First Gate, to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the king's wine-presses.

11And it shall be inhabited, for there shall be no more curse or ban of utter destruction, but Jerusalem shall dwell securely.(C)

12And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lord will smite all the peoples that have warred against Jerusalem: their flesh shall rot away while they stand upon their feet and their eyes shall corrode away in their sockets and their tongue shall decay away in their mouth.

13And in that day there shall be a great confusion, discomfiture, and panic among them from the Lord; and they shall seize each his neighbor's hand, and the hand of the one shall be raised against the hand of the other.

14And Judah also shall fight at Jerusalem, and the wealth of all the nations round about shall be gathered together--gold and silver and apparel in great abundance.

15And as that plague on men, so shall be the plague on the horse, on the mule, on the camel, on the donkey, and on all the livestock and beasts that may be in those camps.

16And everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths.

17And it shall be that whoso of the families of the earth shall not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, upon them there shall be no rain.

18And if the family of Egypt does not go up to Jerusalem and present themselves, upon them there shall be no rain, but there shall be the plague with which the Lord will smite the nations that go not up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

19This shall be the consequent punishment of the sin of Egypt and the consequent punishment of the sin of all the nations that do not go up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

20In that day there shall be [written] upon the [little] bells on the horses, HOLY TO THE LORD, and the pots in the Lord's house shall be holy to the Lord like the bowls before the altar.

21Yes, every pot in all the houses of Jerusalem and in Judah shall be dedicated and holy to the Lord of hosts, and all who sacrifice may come and take of them and boil their sacrifices in them [and traders in such wares will no longer be seen at the temple]. And in that day there shall be no more a Canaanite [that is, any godless or unclean person, whether Jew or Gentile] in the house of the Lord of hosts.(D



So we see here that Christ establishes his kingdom (millennial reign) after this last battle that seems to end in great destruction for those who fought against Israel.

While there are differences of whether or not this battle is "Armageddon" or the one Revelation speaks of after the Dragon/Satan is loosed and leads another last rebellion at end of the "thousand Years" and forever destroyed in Lake of Fire. Rev 20:7 At the end of the thousand years, Satan will be set free. 8He will fool the countries of Gog and Magog, which are at the far ends of the earth, and their people will follow him into battle. They will have as many followers as there are grains of sand along the beach, 9and they will march all the way across the earth. They will surround the camp of God's people and the city that his people love. But fire will come down from heaven and destroy the whole army. 10Then the devil who fooled them will be thrown into the lake of fire and burning sulfur. He will be there with the beast and the false prophet, and they will be in pain day and night forever and ever.

As I pointed out,it is argued which battle is "Armageddon"...we have construed the battle to be the "battle of all battles" so we look to the very last in that context. However the last battle is after the resurrection of the saints and their safety is not at risk being in "glorified eternal bodies."

So the battle before the millennial reign is the important one for believers who will be involved with it's world-wide consequences of all the prophesies concerning the leading up to the end of the Church Age.

The long and short of it all is...we are closer than ever to the fulfillment of these prophesies.

Once again I reiterate that it will all come like "a thief in the night" and catch many unawares and unprepared. While many believers think their "faith" will stand, that "think mindset" is a carnal pride of life deception if they are not fasted and prayed up watching and fulfilling their great commission unto the end.

If a flood was coming down the valley towards you and you just kept acting like it was not really coming, that is not faith, it's blindness.

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