As the last few days news agencies have been “captivated” by the Vatican, showing cheering youth, cheering the pope like a rock star, then the Pope says He wants to unify.

 Ok, that aspect of prophecy is speeding ahead full steam, like a cat rolling down the hill.

Shifting back to the Middle East, we find, there is a reference to the war in which Damascus gets destroyed. Damascus is the oldest city in the world. It has had many strong Jewish and other Middle Eastern influences the last thousands of years it has existed. Damascus also has some ancient Christian churches, mostly Catholic and Orthodox, which claim they are being “persecuted”  by Muslims, but the fact no one wants to see is that these “churches’ are busy persecuting Pentecostals ,Evangelicals and Baptists. And even handing them over to Muslim Authorities to save their own skin to show themselves as “legitimate churches”.

 Many “churches” got bombed in Iraq recently, and some “Christian” shops got attacked, but also no one noticed was, these shops were selling whisky, and liquor, mostly by Roman catholic shop owners. No decent Christian would go on drinking whiskey and rum and get himself drunk back to his house.  Its not just Muslims who were offended by this but also many minority evangelicals and Baptists.

Tariq Aziz, who was Saddam’s deputy, and who also participated in genocide, was a “Christian” from the Chaldean Catholic Church. Saddam was himself an atheist/secularis/socialist and had many Chaldean Christians and Sunnis who worked under him.
 
Many of the Chaldean Churches are very ancient and ritualistic, they have also handed over many Baptists and Pentecostal pastors and missionaries to authorities too, who have been bringing the word of God to Muslims and “Main stream Churches”, The anger and jealousy and hatred felt by the powerful Chaldean bishops against these pastors and evangelists, that they would openly warn their congregations against protestant beliefs or theology.

It was mostly these “mainstream” churches that got bombed in Iraq and many of the Chaldean bishops on the run for their lives to Syria and Jordan and Lebanon. While many brave evangelical and Baptist and other small denominational churches tarried on and are still doing a brave work in Iraq. May God bless them richly and since they don’t have expensive big cathedrals, they seldom get bombed, but they do face hostility, both from Muslims and from Roman Catholic Clergy.

At some point, we may even see the Temple Mount in Israel become a flash point, something happens to Al aqsa that may trigger an angry Arab response, in which Syria gets involved, and Israel in desperation, nukes Damascus out. Could even be United States that does that. This may raise the anger of Russia who may begin to forge an alliance also.

The Middle East is definitely the flash point. Keep an eye on the temple mount.