The situation in Syria has now become incredibly serious

Word came this weekend that “rebels” in Syria were fighting government forces in Damascus. This is obviously quite significant, since dictators caught in their own capitols often don’t fare well (see Hitler, Adolf).

Many have wondered why Obama and NATO haven’t intervened/interfered in Syria, as they did in Libya (and, indirectly, Egypt). We can only speculate, but a clue lies in the geo-political situation in Libya, ruled with an iron fist by Muammar Gaddafi. The cartoonish Libyan was more like a tribal chieftan, and his loyalists would have held out much longer against the Muslim Brotherhood-inspired “rebels” fighting against Tripoli...had not NATO and Obama been so hell-bent on removing Gaddafi.

Hauled-out and shot, Mussolini-style, last October, Gaddafi passed from the scene as a chilling Muslim horde moved across the sands of the Middle East.

THE PASSING OF THE ASSAD REGIME

In Syria, however, Bashar Al-Assad (himself a mass-murderer) is more of a secular autocrat whose loyalists make up only about 10 percent of the population. Assad, an Alawite (a branch of Islam) who, perhaps surprisingly to many, has been relatively easy on Syrian Christians, has been allowed to continue in power—savagely murdering his own citizens in the year-long uprising—because, in my opinion, he was going to fall without Western intervention.

If he killed 10,000 men, women, and children, well, tsk, tsk.

Gaddafi had to be removed much more quickly in order for the Brotherhood to come to power.

In Syria, once the inevitable happens and Assad is strung up by his heels, the conditions will exist for the Muslim Brotherhood to rule that country. We know where that leaves Israel.

The Jerusalem Post reported that:
“Russia will not oppose the departure of Syria's President Bashar Assad if such a move is a result of a dialogue between Syrians themselves and is not enforced through external pressure, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday.”

No matter who lands in power in Syria, Russia intends to be a player for the duration. Interesting, in light of Ezekiel 38,39.

Because Assad was similar to Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Jordan’s King Abdullah and, to some extent, Saddam Hussein, he was content to be a menace to Israel, but not a lethal threat. The new rulers of Middle East countries will be much more like the Iranian mullahs—religious psychopaths who do have lethal intentions for Israel.

The passing of the Assad regime in Damascus provides the framework for the next rulers to unwittingly bring Isaiah 17 to pass.

WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical.