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Weekly World Watch. Andy Walton ’ s. October 29 – November 4, 2017.
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Weekly World Watch Andy Walton’s October 29 – November 4, 2017 “If the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people and the sword comes and takes the life of one of them, that man will be taken away because of his sin, but I will hold the watchman accountable for his blood.” (Ezekiel 33:6, New International Version) PRESS SPACE BAR TO CONTINUE To skip the introductory slides and go straight to this weeks developments click here.
What is a Weekly World Watch? The idea is simple. It is to look at current events and compare them to events spoken of in the Bible. . I hope to build up a picture of God’s hand working in the affairs of this world. God is bringing about a day when all nations will be gathered to Jerusalem to battle. At that time God will send His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, back to this earth. Jesus will then establish God’s kingdom on earth. This kingdom will last for ever. This is our hope and the reason we watch. The following six themes will appear repeatedly in WWW: • Israel: The continuing conflict in the Middle East and focus on Jerusalem. • Europe: Its developing union, both political and religious. • Russia: Its return to anti-Western ways as Bible prophecy’s “king of the north.” • The UK and the US: Bible prophecy’s “king of the south.” • Moral standards in decline and violence on the increase. • Increasing natural disasters: including earthquake, famine etc WWW presentations in PowerPoint can be ordered as audio/visual CDs by clicking here. Move your mouse to place the cursor on the blue link and click.
BIBLE QUOTE What is in a Weekly World Watch? Each WWW looks at a few key developments that have happened during the past week. It is in no way meant to be exhaustive – just a look at those events I saw as significant from a Biblical point of view. Every WWW event slide has the following format. To reveal each block of text just left click your mouse or press the space bar. You control when it appears. News Photo This is straight from a news report that caught my eye because it looked significant from a Biblical perspective, usually that of prophecy. HEADLINE The source of the headline and the date are included. This is the reporter’s description of the event. It is always a direct quotation from the news report and reflects the understanding of the reporter and editors. EVENT This is my comment on why the event is interesting to a Bible student. The intention of the WWW is to offer brief Biblical perspectives without going into detail. If more detail is desired, please e-mail me: (andy@weeklyworldwatch.co.uk). Please note that these are personal thoughts and the aim is purely to stimulate Bible study. COMMENT This is normally one verse which backs up why the event that has occurred is interesting from a Biblical perspective. Please read in its context. Unless stated otherwise, all quotes are from the King James Version.(Book, chapter, and verse)
This Week’s Developments October 29 – November 4, 2017 • Israel ready to go into Syria to 'protect Druze village' • Islamic scholars gather to discuss destroying Israel • Russia takes on Mideast diplomacy as US retreats • The 100-year-old letter that still divides the Middle East • What will happen in Syria following IS defeats? • Global atmospheric CO2 levels hit record high To print any of the event slides that follow, click the picture on the upper right PRESS SPACE BAR TO CONTINUE
The fortified towns of northern Israel will also be destroyed, and the royal power of Damascus will end. All that remains of Syria will share the fate of Israel’s departed glory,” declares the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. “In that day Israel’s glory will grow dim; its robust body will waste away. • Israel ready to go into Syria to 'protect Druze village' RT, November 4, 2017 The Israeli military, which has been launching airstrikes against Syria, could be preparing to cross into its territory now. It says it's ready to act to protect the Druze village of Hader, located on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, after a car bomb killed nine people and injured 23 others there. “In recent hours we witness the intensifying of the fighting at the area of the Druze village of Hader in the Syrian part of the Golan Heights,” IDF (Israel Defense Force) spokesperson Ronen Manelis said in a statement, as quoted by The Jerusalem Post. "The IDF is prepared and ready to assist the residents of the village and prevent damage to or the capture of the village Hader out of commitment to the Druze population,” he added. Manelis did not specify any actions that could be taken by Israel, but denied any claims that Israel is involved in the fighting in Golan Heights, or is assisting jihadists there. EVENT The Druze are a secretive, tightly-knit religious sect whose origins can be traced to Egypt a thousand years ago. The Druze do not have their own homeland. Thus, many of them migrated to the isolated mountains of Lebanon, Syria, and Israel, while others settled throughout the Middle East. There are 420,000 in Syria, 130,000 in Israel. Druze citizens are prominent in the Israel Defense Forces and in politics. As of 2012, 61 of the senior commissioned officers in the IDF were Druze. This is why Israel has said this week they will enter Syria to protect the Druze village. If Israel acts on this threat it will be the first time in the Syrian conflict that Israel has sent in troops. The Bible says that when Syria comes to an end as a nation that northern Israel is left weakened. This is still to happen. Somehow Israel WILL get drawn into the Syrian conflict. COMMENT BIBLE QUOTE (Isaiah 17:3-4 NLT)
“Come,” they say, “let us destroy them as a nation, so that Israel’s name is remembered no more.”With one mind they plot together; they form an alliance against you— This conference sounds very much like the plotting and alliance against Israel! • Islamic scholars gather to discuss destroying Israel Free Beacon, November 3, 2017 Some 700 Islamic scholars gathered in Beirut, Lebanon this week to mark the centenary of the Balfour Declaration with a conference discussing the future of the movement to destroy Israel and featuring a message from Iranian leadership to attendees to keep fighting the "Zionist regime," Arab media reported on Wednesday. This was the second meeting of a group called the "International Union of Resistance Scholars," attended by Shia and Sunni clerics of 80 countries, including the head of Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, according to reports. Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei, wrote a letter to the congress, urging, "all individuals, who feel the importance of this great responsibility [of freeing Palestine], to continue different methods of fighting against the usurper Zionist Regime." EVENT Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of terror organization Hamas, spoke in Beirut to assure conference attendees that Israel has no future and that Hamas would continue to attack the country, according to reports. Sheikh Maher Hamoud, the chairman of the Resistance Scholars, said the conference should "serve as a turning point to pave the way for liberation of Occupied Palestine and it will echo the voice of oppressed Palestinians worldwide.” This conference has clear echo's of Psalm 83 which speaks of a confederacy of the enemies of Israel who plot to bring Israel to an end. There is definitely a latter day fulfilment of Psalm 83. It ends with the prayer of all Israel’s enemies to be put to shame for ever - that men may know that God whose name is Yahweh is supreme over all the earth. This of course is still to happen. Therefore Psalm 83 is still to happen. COMMENT BIBLE QUOTE (Psalm 83:4-5 NIV)
I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name….You may say to yourselves, “How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the Lord?” If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. • Russia takes on Mideast diplomacy as US retreats Washington Post, November 2, 2017 After watching for years as the United States called the shots in the region, Russian President Vladimir Putin is seizing the reins of diplomacy in the Middle East, establishing footholds and striking alliances with unlikely partners. From the battlefields of Syria to its burgeoning relationships with Iran and Turkey to its deepening ties with Saudi Arabia, Russia is stepping in to fill a void left by the United States first under the Obama administration and now in the vastly inconsistent and largely hands-off policies of Donald Trump. Moscow has stood by Tehran while Trump has refused to re-certify the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers — a stance reiterated by Putin himself Thursday on a visit to Tehran. It has also reached out to Iran’s Mideast rival Saudi Arabia in recent weeks, promising weapons deals and other investments to the Sunni power house. Putin appears to be positioning himself as Mideast broker, seeking to expand his influence in a region where the U.S. remains the dominant military actor. EVENT COMMENT There is a rather sad website that mocks Christadelphian teaching on Bible Prophecy. It is entitled “What they said would happen – a review of Christadelphian predictions”. It was posted in January 2000 and is still there today. It begins by saying that Christadelphians have made sensational predictions – for instance “Britain will come out of Europe.” But of course we have now seen that happen! Britain is indeed leaving the EU. The author of the website also ridicules Christadelphian understanding on Russia’s future invasion of Israel and its growing influence in the Middle East. On the website the author (in the year 2000) published a letter which said “Where is Russia’s involvement in the Middle East today?” The answer to this letter is in the article above! BIBLE QUOTE (Deuteronomy 18:21-22 NIV)
Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets. John Thomas did not receive any direct relevaltion from God – he was able to prophesy about the future because he had read the Bible. The Bible is God’s plan revealed. • The 100-year-old letter that still divides the Middle East Washington Post, November 2, 2017 In a year brimming with profoundly symbolic centennials, Thursday marks perhaps the most politically fraught one. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will appear in London alongside his British counterpart, Theresa May, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, a 67-word missive from Britain’s then-foreign secretary expressing his government's support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The Nov. 2, 1917, public letter was written by Lord Arthur Balfour to Baron Walter Rothschild, the head of the British wing of the influential European Jewish banking family. Balfour articulated the British desire for the establishment of “a national home for the Jewish people” and promised that his government would “facilitate the achievement of this object.” It would take three further decades — and a great deal more politicking and bloodshed — before Israel declared independence in 1948. EVENT COMMENT In 1848 – 100 years before Israel became a nation a man called John Thomas wrote these words in a book called Elpis Israel….”I know not whether the men, who at present contrive the foreign policy of Britain, entertain the idea of assuming the sovereignty of the Holy Land, and of promoting its colonization by the Jews; their present intentions, however, are of no importance one way or the other, because they will be compelled, by events soon to happen, to do what, under existing circumstances, heaven and earth combined could not move them to attempt. …The finger of God has indicated a course to be pursued by Britain which cannot be evaded.” In 1917 Britain DID promote the colonization by the Jews of the Holy Land. The 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration was remembered this week in Israel and Britain. BIBLE QUOTE (Amos 3:7 NIV)
What will happen in Syria following IS defeats? BBC, November 4, 2017 EVENT Earlier this week IS's last urban bastion in eastern Syria, Deir al-Zour, hard up against the Iraqi border, fell to Assad government forces. IS will remain in some form or another as an insurgency and source of ideological inspiration but as a territorial entity or physical caliphate, it is finished. But what of Syria's other war, the uprising against the Assad regime and its efforts - aided by Iran and Russia - to crush the opposition? The current situation on the ground means that forces from the above countries will be in close proximity to United States troops, who are supporting some of the anti-Assad groups. But the crucial take-away from all this is that Syria is entering a new phase of conflict. The territorial defeat of IS, says Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, "will throw an awful lot of potential sources of hostility up into the air and nobody really knows right now how they'll land". COMMENT The BBC report continues to say….”With the demise of IS, Syria's future will continue to be determined by a variety of external players, fighting out their own strategic battles and seeking local advantage. The four key actors are the US, Russia, Turkey and Iran.” It is very interesting that these 4 nations are now drawn into Syria. The US on the one side – with Russia, Turkey and Iran on the other. What happens next in Syria now ISIS is almost defeated? As the analysis above says Syria could about to be entering a new phase of conflict. Far from being over it might be about to get worse. Until now these 4 nations had a common enemy – ISIS. But who do they turn their attention to now ISIS is no longer a threat? The answer could well be each other. The story of Syria is not over. Damascus must still cease to exist as a city. That day is coming… BIBLE QUOTE And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast. (Revelation 17:12-13)
Global atmospheric CO2 levels hit record high BBC, October 30, 2017 EVENT Concentrations of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere surged to a record high in 2016, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Last year's increase was 50% higher than the average of the past 10 years. Researchers say a combination of human activities and the El Niño weather phenomenon drove CO2 to a level not seen in 800,000 years. Scientists say this risks making global temperature targets largely unattainable. 2016 saw average concentrations of CO2 hit 403.3 parts per million, up from 400ppm in 2015. "It is the largest increase we have ever seen in the 30 years we have had this network," Dr Oksana Tarasova, chief of WMO's global atmosphere watch programme, told BBC News. "The largest increase was in the previous El Niño, in 1997-1998, and it was 2.7ppm; and now it is 3.3ppm. It is also 50% higher than the average of the last 10 years." COMMENT A new report on climate change paints an apocalyptic portrait of global climate trends, saying the last three years have been the "warmest years on record for the globe" and that humans are almost certainly causing the climate to change. The massive, 477-page National Climate Assessment says that it is "extremely likely" that global warming has been caused by humans -- with 95 to 100 percent certainty -- mostly from carbon dioxide through the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. On an ominous note, the report notes that "humanity's effect on the Earth system ... is unprecedented," and warns that the faster the Earth is "pushed towards warming," the greater the risk of "unanticipated surprises.” We know there are surprises in store for mankind. There is a time of trouble such as never was fast approaching… And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. BIBLE QUOTE (Daniel 12:1)
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