Nearing Midnight: Egypt in Prophetic Perspective – Terry James – http://www.raptureready.com/rap16.html
Events in the Middle East are moving rapidly, stirring many prophecy students to speculation─as always happens when things flare in the region. The current focus for rumination is on Egypt and the chaos that doesn’t yet rival that of what has been happening in Syria, but which is obviously building toward a similar level of trouble.
The speculation I have been receiving centers mostly around the question of whether the Egyptian military vs. the Muslim Brotherhood is the beginning of prophecy yet future laid out in Isaiah, chapter 19. Superimposed over both the Syrian and the Egyptian turmoil, along with all other physical and polemical dynamics surrounding Israel today, is the question: “Is this all leading─specifically, in the near time─to the fulfillment of the Psalm 83 matter involving Israel’s surrounding, Arabic, Islamic enemies?”
Egypt is the most recent recipient of the destructiveness of the Arab Spring’s “democracy movement.”
Despite warnings by many geopolitical thinkers who genuinely employ cognitive reason, not to mention those who have spiritual discernment at the helm of their thinking, the Obama Administration threw the diplomatic blessings of the U.S. behind the deposing of Hosni Mubarak, and the subsequent installation of that great champion of democracy, Mohammed Morsi. Doing so was a fool’s errand.
No sooner was the election done and Morsi installed, then the Islamist enslavement began. Only, the people of Egypt─more than 17 million strong in their response would have none of it. As of this writing, it has yet to be determined where it will all lead.
The questions we are considering here are: “Does the current Egyptian maelstrom indicate that fulfillment of Isaiah, chapter 19 has begun?” Subsequent to that question is: “Does this mean that Psalm 83 is on the verge of fulfillment?”
Space for this column doesn’t permit the full examination of what these portions from the great prophet, Isaiah, and the Psalm entail. In brief, however, Isaiah 19, according to some prophecy students, is thought to indicate that Egypt might, with the current crisis, become─like the prophecy details — under great internal strife, and will be judged by God for its idolatry and for its treatment of Israel. God will send great trouble, most specifically─the Nile will dry up and there will be great destruction of Egypt’s economy and environment, including devastation of much of its land.
The following is a part of the prophecy about Egypt’s fate in question. I suggest you read chapter 19 from the beginning.
“The LORD hath mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof: and they have caused Egypt to err in every work thereof, as a drunken man staggereth in his vomit. Neither shall there be any work for Egypt, which the head or tail, branch or rush, may do. In that day shall Egypt be like unto women: and it shall be afraid and fear because of the shaking of the hand of the LORD of hosts, which he shaketh over it. And the land of Judah shall be a terror unto Egypt, every one that maketh mention thereof shall be afraid in himself, because of the counsel of the LORD of hosts, which he hath determined against it.” (Isaiah 19:14-17)
The Psalm 83 Scripture, a seemingly growing number of prophecy students believe, foretells a soon coming war between Israel and its immediately surrounding Arab Islamist neighbors (the inner ring, as it is termed). Israel’s military, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF,) is, many who hold this view believe, part of the revived army mention in the following prophecy, by Ezekiel.
“So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.” (Ezekiel 37:10)
This army, those who believe the Psalm 83 passage to be a coming war assert, will completely defeat the inner ring of Israel’s enemy nations and will win back for Israel portions of the land God promised them. Those who hold to this relatively new view of this part of the Psalm, in fairness, believe it will be the Lord, using the IDF to bring about this result. They see this as a prophecy that could take place at any time, as things stand now in the Middle East.
The conflagration continues to rage in Syria, with the Damascus matter in view (the Isaiah 17:1 prophecy). That real and present danger to world peace, combined with all that has taken place as the Arab Spring inflamed the whole region, now has been doused with the accelerant of Egyptian pyrotechnics, fed and fanned, it seems, by an American presidential administration that hasn’t a clue of what all of it portends.
While I continue to believe that the Psalms 83 passages refer to an imprecatory prayer of God’s chosen people to vanquish all of their traditional enemies, I do believe that prayer will be answered with exactly that vanquishing. This will happen, I believe, during the Gog-Magog assault of Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39.
The Damascus destruction, likewise, I’m convinced, will occur when the Middle East ignites, and the world implodes economically and most every other way.
I am firmly convinced that immediately upon Christ calling the church to Himself in the Rapture — Egypt will undergo the prophesied judgments of Isaiah 19, while Israel, following the confirming of the covenant of Daniel 9: 26-27, is undergoing Jacob’s trouble as given in Jeremiah 30:7 and outlined within other prophetic areas of God’s omniscient foretelling.
Primary in my thinking on all of this is the fact that Jesus tells us plainly that His next catastrophic intervention into the affairs of mankind will be at a time when things are still going on relatively as usual. Wars and rumors of wars have always been “business as usual” with mankind since the fall in Eden.
Jesus tells us that the day Noah went into the ark and the door was shut, and when Lot went out of Sodom — the very day each were removed by the Hand of God, judgment fell. Jesus said that it would be exactly like that when He next catastrophically intervenes. It will be business pretty much as usual right up until that stunning moment. This cannot be referring to the end of Armageddon, when perhaps three-fourths of mankind has perished during the most horrendous time of human history. This has to be the Rapture of the church!
(Read Luke 17:26-30 and Matthew 24: 36-42.)
Keep in mind that when the Middle East explodes in such a massive way as Bible prophecy indicates, “Business as usual” will go out the window. Jesus’ description of how the conduct of human activity will be at the time He next catastrophically intervenes─would be off the proverbial table of end times arrangement, if these devastating things were happening prior to the Rapture.
My own perspective is that all of this is stage setting for the sudden destruction that God has, Himself, prophetically scheduled. Here is a key to when these things will likely come to fulfillment.
“But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape” (1 Thessalonians 5:1-3).
