“He will take action against the strongest of fortresses with the help of a foreign god… He will pitch the tents of his royal pavilion between the seas and the beautiful Holy Mountain; yet he will come to his end, and no one will help him.” (Daniel 11:38a, 45).
The man from Turkey is once again seeking to expand his influence in the Islamic world. He has continued to lead the charge to establish the so called Palestinian State and for the occupation of Jerusalem and the temple mount for Islam, all part of course for the resurrection of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. There is no doubt he is the No.1 leading contender for the supreme Caliph of the Islamic world. Recently he called for the establishment of the United Nations of Islam by appealing to the OIC (The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation). His criticism is that the United Nations has not taken any ‘concrete’ steps to send UN forces into Israel to somehow curtail Israel’s military strikes against Gaza. Of course the UN is well known for its ‘Israel bashing’ and issuing sanctions against the Jewish State.
Then in September 2020 Turkey supported the Islamic state of Azerbaijan against Armenia that by and large has a Christian population. Turkey’s hostility towards the Armenians is well documented in the Armenian Genocide where the Turkish Ottoman Empire sought to eliminate the Armenian Christian presence in the region in the early part of the 20th Century. Now it seems that he is seeking to expand his ‘Embryonic Ottoman Empire’ by championing the cause of Ukraine against the Russians. As a part of its military modernization program, Ukraine acquired 12 battle drones from Turkey in 2019. The $69 million contract was signed between Turkey and Ukraine. Turkish officials said that the deal also involved the sale of ammunition for the armed version of the drones.
On April 20th this year, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that his country was selling armed drones to Ukraine without preconditions and that the deal is not directed against Russia. However, behind the scenes is Erdoğan’s ambition to extend the Turkish Ottoman Empire as he perceives Turkey to be. Now Russia has long seen the Black Sea as essential for projecting its power and influence in the Mediterranean and beyond. Currently Russia has a naval fleet in the Black Sea. Russia’s approach to the Black Sea builds on a centuries-old history of confrontation with Europe’s major powers and on Russia’s long geopolitical rivalry with Turkey. More broadly, Moscow sees the Black Sea region as vital to its geo-economic strategy to project Russian power and influence in the Mediterranean, protect its economic and trade links with key European markets, and make southern Europe more dependent on Russian oil and gas.
Today you have Turk Stream, the new export gas pipeline stretching from Russia to Turkey across the Black Sea. The first of the pipeline’s two strings is intended for Turkish consumers, while the second one is delivering gas to southern and south-eastern Europe. Eventually it is possible that Turkey will have a ‘face-off’ with Russia and the battle may well include a naval engagement. Historically, there have been several major wars between Turkey and Russia. The Russo-Turkish wars also called the Ottoman–Russian wars were a series of twelve wars fought between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire between the 16th and 20th centuries. So historically Turkey and Russia are not allies.
Turkey’s religious roots are Islamic while Russia’s religious roots have their source in Russian Orthodox Christianity. In Russia you have a population over 145 million. 20 million are Islamic. There are many Muslims in the Russian defence force but loyalty to Russia and Putin and the Communist manifesto is paramount among the defence forces. As for the Ukraine in the 18th Century, it was part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, ruled by the Khan of the Crimean Tatars, however, overnight, Russia and Ukraine became separate countries with Crimea still in Ukraine.
On 24 August 1991 Ukraine officially declared itself an independent country, when the communist Supreme Soviet (parliament) of Ukraine proclaimed that Ukraine would no longer follow the laws of the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) and only the laws of the Ukrainian SSR (Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic), declaring Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union. Today Russia still has about 100,000 soldiers deployed near its western border with Ukraine and in annexed Crimea despite Moscow announcing a military pullback last month amid soaring tensions with Kiev.
At present in Syria the relationship between Erdoğan and Assad is fragmented and Erdoğan wants to take Syria for Turkey. If Assad goes then the way will be clear for the ‘Caliphate’ to extend into Iraq and Iran. Of course this would also give the man from Turkey direct access into Israel from over the Golan Heights. Saddam Hussein has gone, Muammar Gaddafi has gone and the only ‘contender’ left is Bashar al-Assad. Once he’s gone the Turkish leader will emerge as the supreme commander in chief of the armies of Islam. He knows the prophesied Mahdi of Islam will unite all Muslims.
Also he would be welcomed by the Turkic speaking southern states of the former Soviet union, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Added to this you have Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, all Islamic countries. The amalgamation of these nations under the war banner* of the man from Turkey would be a direct threat to Russia. If the man from Turkey is recognised as the supreme caliph of the Muslim world and declared to be the promised Mahdi then fielding an Islamic army of 200 million won’t be a problem for ‘the Caliph.’ It will be the Jihad to end all previous Jihads. This army will come across the dried up Euphrates River. (Revelation 9:13-19) (Revelation 16:12-14)
The ultimate plan for the man of sin will be to lead an invasion of Israel from over the Golan Heights. He would come out of Syria as did Antiochus Epiphanes, a major type of the man of sin in scripture. This is why the Golan Heights is strategic to the defence and security of Israel. Already you have Hezbollah in Lebanon with thousands of missiles and rockets more lethal and deadly and technologically advanced than the ones fired from Gaza by Hamas. There is no doubt that Hezbollah would support an Islamic Invasion of Israel over the Golan Heights. Once the armies of the man of sin have invaded Israel they will also conquer Egypt, Libya, the Sudan and much of North Africa. (Daniel 11:41-43) Much of Europe will be Islamic but not all of Europe.
Military forces will oppose the armies of the man of sin. (Daniel 11:44) (Ezekiel 28:6-10) God will raise up eight leaders of men (nations) to directly confront the man of sin’s Islamic armies. (Micah 5:5-6) In these verses from Micah the “Assyrian” is a prophetic reference to the man of sin. His ‘foreign god’ will not save him in the end. (Daniel 11:45) He will be totally destroyed along with his army and that, not by mere human agency, but by the supernatural power of God. (Daniel 2:44-45) Recep Tayyip Erdoğan the Turkish leader is on a quest to establish a resurrected Turkish Ottoman Empire expanding across the whole Middle East sweeping down into North Africa and penetrating deeply into Europe. He may well have to face Vladimir Putin.
While the Turkish leader is seeking to establish economic ties with those Islamic countries that he wants ‘to get on board’ with him, his ultimate agenda is to be revered and even worshipped as the supreme caliph of the Muslim world with an eastern and western leg to this empire. Like Antiochus, he will end up wanting to be worshipped as God in God’s temple. (Daniel 11:36-37) (2 Thessalonians 2:4) At that time he will also bring about the abomination of desolation. (Matthew 24:15) We have already seen the foreshadow of the man of sin sitting in God’s Temple when the man from Turkey led the prayers in the Hagia Sofia Basilica, the former Vatican of the eastern Orthodox Church, now re-converted into a mosque.
And so Daniel writes; “He will take action against the strongest of fortresses with the help of a foreign god*… He will pitch the tents of his royal pavilion between the seas and the beautiful Holy Mountain; yet he will come to his end, and no one will help him.” (Daniel 11:38a, 45) As Apostle Paul writes concerning the man of sin; “Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming.” (2 Thessalonians 2:8)
*NB. On the flags and banners of Islam you have the emblem of the crossed swords pointing upwards denoting conquest by the sword which is the main characteristic of Islam historically. Their ‘god’ is “the god of fortresses Daniel writes about.” (Daniel 11:38-39) Allah in reality is the Arabic Mesopotamian moon god of war. He is not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This is “the foreign god” and the entity by which the man of sin will take action against the strongest of fortresses.
