The times are quickening as wars and rumors of wars spread at an accelerated pace.
In less than a week’s time, Israel has declared war on Hamas for the terror attack that killed over 1,000 Israelis, with thousands more wounded and hostages taken into Gaza.
In response, Israel has carried out airstrikes while preparing for a ground assault into Gaza to utterly annihilate the Hamas terror organization.
Mere months before the Hamas terror attacks, Israel was a split country that many thought could descend into civil war over judicial reforms brought forward by the new government helmed by Benjamin Netanyahu.
Fast-forward to now, and Israel is united in a way that it has not been in a long time.
Differences have been put aside as news media reports the brutal, barbaric and satanic ways that Hamas slaughtered Israelis. Hamas has spared no one: not men, women, children or the elderly.
Israel as a nation, and an international group of people, have responded much like the United States after the surprise bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Imperial Japanese Navy leading to World War II.
This steely resolve to eliminate Hamas, and those who were complicit in the slaughter of innocent civilians, saw Israel cross international borders to accomplish this goal.
Syria reported Israeli airstrikes on two of its key airports, Damascus and Aleppo, with Syrian air defenses responding to protect their skies. No casualties were reported in Aleppo, though the impact on Damascus Airport remains undisclosed.
The Israeli military typically maintains silence regarding such incidents, and as of Thursday, no official statement has been released. Israel’s actions have long been focused on what they consider Iran-linked targets in Syria, including these airports in Aleppo and Damascus.
These strikes disrupt Iranian supply routes to Syria, where Tehran’s influence has grown since it began supporting President Bashar al-Assad during the civil war that began in 2011.
Notably, these attacks occurred just one day before Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, was scheduled to visit Syria, reflecting Israel’s strong stance against Iran’s expanding influence in the region.
In the aftermath of the airstrikes, technical teams were deployed to assess the extent of damage at both airport sites, according to Syria’s transport ministry.
But are these series of events part of a greater plan according to the words of Isaiah 17?
The entire chapter from the prophet Isaiah is concerning the destruction of Damascus, the capital city of Syria.
Israel has, as previously reported, been targeting Damascus for years, but never has the situation been like it is today.
The sheer determination galvanized in every department of the Israeli government to see the enemies who attacked them destroyed is palpable.
Righteous anger and determination have taken ahold of Jewish hearts the world over, and if there were a time when Israel is willing to destroy her enemies akin to the days of David which saw fierce warfare, it would look like today.
This is not to say that the fulfilment of the prophecy in Isaiah is occurring right now at this time; instead, Christians must be aware of what the prophecies in the Word of God say, and test the signs of the times to what the Word says.
Be knowledgeable on what is occurring in the world today, and be wise from reading the Scripture that God gave to His people to help guide them through times such as these.
You can read what the prophet Isaiah wrote in chapter 17 below:
The oracle of Damascus.
See, Damascus will cease from being a city;
it shall be a ruinous heap.
2 The cities of Aroer are forsaken;
they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down,
and no one shall make them afraid.
3 The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim,
and the kingdom from Damascus,
and the remnant of Aram;
they shall be as the glory of the sons of Israel,
says the Lord of Hosts.
4 In that day the glory of Jacob shall decrease,
and the fatness of his flesh shall grow lean.
5 It shall be as when the harvestman gathers the corn
and reaps the ears with his arm,
and it shall be as he who gathers ears
in the Valley of Rephaim.
6 Yet gleaning grapes shall be left in it,
as the shaking of an olive tree,
two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough,
four or five in its outmost fruitful branches,
says the Lord God of Israel.
7 On that day a man shall look to his Maker,
and his eyes shall have respect for the Holy One of Israel.
8 He shall not look to the altars,
the work of his hands,
nor shall he respect what his fingers have made,
either the groves or the images.
9 In that day his strong cities shall be as a forsaken bough and an uppermost branch, which they left because of the sons of Israel; and there shall be a desolation.
10 Because you have forgotten the God of your salvation
and have not been mindful of the rock of your strength,
therefore you plant pleasant plants
and set them with vine slips of a strange god;
11 in the day that you plant it, you carefully fence it in,
and in the morning you make your seed to flourish;
but the harvest shall be a heap of ruins
in the day of grief and desperate pain.
12 Woe to the multitude of many people
who make a noise like the noise of the seas,
and the rushing of many peoples
who make a rumble like the rumbling of mighty waters!
13 The nations rumble like the rumbling of many waters;
but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off,
and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind,
and like rolling dust before the whirlwind.
14 At evening time, sudden terror!
And before the morning, they are no more.
This is the portion of those who plunder us,
and the lot of those who rob us. {eoa}
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James Lasher is Staff Writer for Charisma Media.
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