(Revelation 2:13) “I know where you live-where Satan has his throne…in your city where Satan lives.”
Two days ago according to a well-known reputable Jewish news broadcasting channel based in Jerusalem, that I greatly respect for its unbiased, accurate and reputable news reporting on Israel and the wider world, showed video footage of The Man from Turkey in the Turkish Parliament once again lashing out with vehemence, with bitterly harsh and even caustic language against Israel. It was announced; “Turkey calls on the Muslim World to stand with Lebanon against Israel to the rising prospects of hostilities, which were instigated by the Lebanese Iranian Proxy Hezbollah, turning into an all-out conflagration.”
Speaking to his ruling AK-Party Turkish President Recep Tayip Erdogan emphasised that the Islamic nations in the region must stand in solidarity with Lebanon. The Man from Turkey stated…
“It is understood that Israel, which has burned Gaza to the ground, has set its sights on Lebanon now. I am saying this clearly; Netanyahu’s plan to spread the war to the region with the consent of the west will lead to catastrophe. The Islamic world and brotherly countries in the Middle East need to react to this bloody plan, before the west (western nations). We should not provide an opportunity for this. Turkey is with the brotherly people of Lebanon and its state. I invite the other countries in the region to stand in solidarity with Lebanon.”
While Israel is not itching for a war with Lebanon it cannot be avoided in light of an unsustainable reality in which over 5,300 rockets, missiles and one-way unmanned Aerial Vehicles were launched toward Israel since Hezbollah launched its first aggression on October 8th 2023, the day after the bloody massacre of Israelis by Hamas and Arab civilians from Gaza on October 7th 2023.
In the Book of revelation the Messiah our Lord Jesus wrote personal letters to seven Messianic believing assemblies located in what is today Turkey. In His letter to the assembly at Pergamum the Lord Jesus mentioned two things about Satan. He said that it was “where Satan has his throne” and “the city were Satan lives.” In light of what He said we may well ask the question; “why would the Lord Jesus mention this about Satan?” “Why would He write personal letters to seven specific Messianic believing assemblies in modern day Turkey?”
Now the number seven in the Bible represents a complete work of God such as in seven days God finished His work in creation. It signifies a work of God that He has ordained. We know that the letters were addressed to seven literal Messianic Christian assemblies that existed in the time of John and can represent seven different types of assemblies that can exist down through history even to the present day. However, from the prophetic perspective these seven assemblies collectively can also represent the Body of Messiah corporately as a whole at the end of this age.
The fact that these seven assemblies in the Book of Revelation were all located in modern day Turkey may well point to the fact that the end-time Body of Messiah will be confronted with the beast empire of Islam with an Islamic Antichrist who will arise from Turkey. Now Pergamum in the time of John had in the city a huge Pagan Temple called The Pergamum Altar, or the Altar of Zeus, which was relocated to Berlin, Germany, in the early 20th century – almost 2,700 kilometres from its original location – and has remained on display as the museum’s centrepiece since 1930.
We know that these ‘gods’ that were worshipped in the Greco Roman world were demonic principalities (Deuteronomy 32:16-17) (Psalm 106:36-37) (1 Corinthians 10:20). Zeus was the king of the ‘gods’ in the Greek empire but also the same ‘god’ of the Roman Empire who was renamed Jupitar. In the unseen spiritual realm, being the atmosphere just above the circumference of the earth, Satan is ‘the god of this world’ and the king over all other unseen principalities, entities and demons (Ephesians 2:2).
It is interesting to note that after the Altar had been taken to Germany in 1930 we see the rapid rise of Adolph Hitler, who kick-started WW2 and who orchestrated the murder of over 6 million Jewish people. Today in Turkey you have Erdogan preaching a ‘holy’ war against the west but specifically aimed at Israel. While he out rightly condemns Israel with false accusations Erdogan avoids being confronted with the Armenian Genocide perpetrated by Erdogan’s Turkish Ottoman forbears.
The Armenian genocide was the systematic killing and deportation of Armenians by the Turks of the Ottoman Empire. In 1915, during World War I, leaders of the Turkish government set in motion a plan to expel and massacre Armenians. By the early 1920s, when the genocide finally ended, between 600,000 and 1.5 million Armenians were dead, with many more forcibly removed from the country. Today, most historians call this event genocide: a premeditated and systematic campaign to exterminate an entire people such as we saw with the Nazis under Adolph Hitler.
In August 2023 it was reported that more than 120,000 Christian Armenians were currently trapped, without food or medicine, behind a blockade of the Nagorno-Karabakh region maintained by the Muslim-majority nation of Azerbaijan. Former ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom Sam Brownback, who recently returned from a fact-finding mission to Armenia, said in June last year; “Azerbaijan is strangling the Christians in the region and that the blockade is the regime’s latest attempt at “religious cleansing. They’re working to make it unliveable so that the region’s Armenian-Christian population is forced to leave, that’s what’s happening on the ground.”
Now we know from the prophet Daniel that the Antichrist will be one who declares himself to be god and worshipped as God in the temple of God and not a man of peace but a man of war, and whose ‘god’ is the god of fortresses (Daniel 11: 36-43) (2 Thessalonians 2:4). Islam today is the ideology of the sword. The crossed scimitars pointing upwards on Muslim flags and banners and posters and badges show this fact clearly.
The Man from Turkey wants to resurrect the Caliphate of the Turkish Ottoman Empire which lasted for over 600 years until it was dismantled after Turkey was defeated at the end of WW1 and replaced by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938. He undertook sweeping progressive reforms, which modernized Turkey into a secular, industrializing nation.
It was the Turkish Ottoman Empire that persecuted Middle-Eastern Christendom and destroyed many Churches. In Istanbul today you have the Hagia Sofia Basilica which was the Vatican of the Eastern leg of Christendom which Erdogan turned it into a mosque. He even led the worship at one time in the mosque itself in recent times. It is interesting also to note that it was at Pergamum where Antipas, the Messiah’s faithful witness was martyred (Revelation 2:13).
Just before the Messiah our Lord Jesus comes back the persecution of the faithful Body of Messiah will occur throughout the whole domain of this end-time beast empire of the Antichrist which will be vast and one of global proportions with its crosshairs focused on Israel and the Body of Messiah spiritually grafted into Israel (Revelation 13:5-8) (Daniel 7:21, 25).
At the end of this present age for the last three and a half years the beast empire of the Antichrist, also known as the man of sin or the son of perdition, will wage a bloody war against Israel, against Christendom and against the western democracies traditionally associated with Judeo-Christianity that are now neo-pagan. Already the Islamic Trojan Horse is at work in Europe and in Great Britain and its operatives infiltrating America with its open border policy between Mexico and the United States.
When Islam’s prophesied Mahdi arrives (the man indwelt by Satan personally) he will unite the Islamic world and lead a jihad unlike anything else that has occurred in previous history because the Islamic world now has nuclear capabilities. The Antichrist’s military campaign and his ultimate demise are described in Daniel 11:36-45. Persecution is coming to the western democracies and the saints of the most high will experience the brunt of it, however, Daniel also tells us that the saints will overcome this beast empire and inherit the Messianic Kingdom to come when the Messiah comes back. Daniel writes…
“I kept looking, and that horn was waging war with the saints and overpowering them until the Ancient of Days came and judgment was passed in favour of the saints of the Highest One, and the time arrived when the saints took possession of the kingdom… He will speak out against the Most High and wear down the saints of the Highest One, and he will intend to make alterations in times and in law; and they will be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time. But the court will sit for judgment, and his dominion will be taken away, annihilated and destroyed forever. Then the sovereignty, the dominion and the greatness of all the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be given to the people of the saints of the Highest One; His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all the dominions will serve and obey Him’” (Daniel 7:21-22, 25-28).
While we see the “birth pains” mentioned in Matthew 24:7-8 being wars, rumours of wars with nation rising against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and with earthquakes in various places occurring and famine and disease rapidly increasing in frequency and intensity today, we need to keep our eyes on “the birth” of “the baby” being the Messianic kingdom to come, and that time will most assuredly come when the saints of the Most High God will inherit this kingdom which will be God’s pleasure to give to them.
As God the Son, the Messiah our Lord Jesus said; “But seek His kingdom, and these things will be added unto you. Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:31-32). The Messianic kingdom which the Lord Jesus will establish after His return to this planet will ultimately expand into eternity after the close of the Millennium when the New Jerusalem shall descend to earth and when everything will be made new for all of eternity (Revelation 21:1-4).
It may well be that the Man from Turkey will turn out to be the man of sin? If this is the case then on the mountains of Israel he will meet his end along with the armies that have followed him when the Lord Jesus returns, of whom we are told that He “will overthrow (this man of sin) with the breath of His mouth and destroy by the splendour of His coming” (2 Thessalonians2:8b). Today we see wars, rumours of wars, nations in turmoil, political leaders jostling for power, hostile nations now with nuclear capability, apostasy and spiritual deception rampant, diseases, famines, and earthquakes in various places and these are “the beginning of the “birth pains” and they must come to the zenith of their manifestations for the Lord Jesus to return to gather His elect saints and to save this planet from annihilating itself (Matthew 24:21-22).
We must not give into fear as God still has everything under control and the Lord Jesus Himself said “When these things begin to take place, stand up and do not buckle over at the knees with fear, and with faith lift up your heads towards heaven in expectation of the rescue, because your redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:28 Expanded version). Once “the baby” is born in the euphoria of celebrating “its birth” who remembers “the contractions!” As we read in the Book of Revelation…
“He who was seated on the throne said; “I am making all things new!” Then He said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true” (Revelation 21:5). As God also says through the prophet Isaiah; “Remember what happened long ago, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me. I declare the end from the beginning, and ancient times from what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and all My good pleasure I will accomplish.’ I summon a bird of prey from the east, a man for My purpose from a far-off land. Truly I have spoken, and truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, and I will surely do it” (Isaiah 46:9-11). The Lord Jesus is the author and perfector or finisher of our faith and what He has started in us He fully intends to finish!
