End Times Prophecies Point to Threat from Iran, Christian Apologist Tells Greg Laurie
In an interview about the latest global developments in light of End Times prophecies, apologist Don Stewart told evangelist Greg Laurie that the Bible points to Iran as a major threat not only to Israel but also to the United States.
Iran, formerly known as Persia, is mentioned along with Rosh in Ezekiel 38 in relation to a prophecy about a coalition having a military alliance in the last days, Stewart said in a Q&A with Pastor Laurie at the Harvest church in Irvine, California, this past week.
Rosh seems to refer to the modern day Russia, Stewart explained, saying we can see that the two countries are signing military pacts, which had never happened earlier. What seemed impossible in the past "is now falling in place," he said.
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Iran's Defense and Armed Forces Logistics Minister Brigadier General Hosein Dehqan last month met with his Russian counterpart, General Sergei Shoigu, for a mutual defense pact to prevent "foreign meddling" led by the U.S., according to The Jerusalem Post.
People in Iran are Shia and they have a prophetic view of the last days that a final Imam, the 12th one, will come, and they will know who he is by the fact that he kills Christians and Jews to make this world a Caliphate, said Stewart, who has authored several books, including Living in the Light of Eternity, his latest, and The Rapture.
"They [the Shias in Iran] think they are divinely ordained to do this," which explains their determination to have nuclear weapons, Stewart added.
About 10 percent of the Muslims in the world are Shia. Sunnis have a different view of the last days.
"We [the U.S.] are the big Satan; Israel is a little Satan," for them, Stewart said, after he mentioned a 90-feet high inter-continental ballistic missile Iran has made "to hit us."
The Jerusalem Post reported last month that Iran has a missile measuring 88.5 feet in length placed on a launch pad just outside the capital city of Tehran. The missile had never before been seen in public.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham last week warned that President Obama will soon "unleash hell" on the Middle East if he carries on with his plans on striking a nuclear deal with Iran without listening to Congress and his critics.
Critics say that Obama is allowing the negotiation process to divert, from its original objective of removing that Iran's potential to make nuclear weapons, to tolerating and only temporarily restricting Tehran's nuke capability.
"Iran controls, or heavily influences, four Arab capitals without a nuclear weapon. They have great influence in Iraq with Shi'a militias, the Houthis in Yemen have now taken down the government. They're Iranian-backed. You've got Assad in Syria who's a puppet of Iran, and you've got Hezbollah," Graham said, highlighting Iran's increasing clout.
Asked why America is not mentioned in the Bible in the End Times prophecies, Stewart said it is indeed true that the U.S. is not shown as playing any role at all.
Ezekiel 38 and 39 say that when a coalition of eight nations comes down to invade Israel, there won't be any nation they will be afraid of, Stewart said. "So we assume there's no superpower in the world at all... We're predicting the United States goes down the drain."
Stewart said his guess as to why the U.S. will not remain a superpower is that "partly [because we're] having a form of Godliness but denying the power thereof."
The world looks at us as a Christian nation, but when they come here they realize we have nothing Christian about us, he said.
About his discussions on the End Times, Pastor Laurie earlier told The Christian Post, "It shows how fragile things are in our world and how quickly things can change. It's like we are seeing foreshocks of a powerful earthquake that is ready to happen. The prophetic events are like dominoes closely stacked together. When the first domino falls, the others will fall in short order."
