Monday, July 28, 2008

In New Tactic, Militants Burn Houses in Iraq

This was the headline in a nytimes.com article of March 12, 2007 describing a new "intimidation tactic" carried out by Sunni militants in an attempt to take over control of the Diyala Province about 60 miles from Baghdad. Some witnesses said as many as 100 houses were set ablaze.

The attacks were blamed on the Islamic State of Iraq, an "umbrella organization" for Sunni extremists.

While not a widespread problem throughout Iraq yet, the tactic does suggest how the prophecy of the burning of the cities may find its fulfillment -- "For your day has come, the time when I shall punish you. And the arrogant one will stumble and fall with no one to raise him up. And I shall set fire to his cities; and it will devour all his environs" (Jeremiah 50:32). "And her high gates will be set on fire; so the peoples will toil for nothing, and the nations become exhausted for [because of] the fire" ( Jeremiah 51:58).

This is the next event in the prophecy of doom on the "land of the Chaldeans" (Jeremiah 51:4), modern-day Iraq, and the motivation for the coalition forces to finally leave Iraq -- "Suddenly Babylon has fallen and been broken; wail over her! Bring balm for her pain; perhaps she may be healed. We applied healing to Babylon, but she was not healed; forsake her and let us each go to his own country, for her judgment has reached to heaven..." (Jeremiah 51:8-9).

I look for the cities to burn, so our forces may finally come home, and Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans, will be left to her final desolation for having "engaged in conflict with the LORD" (Jeremiah 50:24).

After the burning, comes the abandonment, and after the abandonment comes the conflict with and defeat by the Kurds. And then the flood, and the subsequent drought. And with that she shall be left uninhabited and desolate forever. And the prophecy of ancient days shall have been literally fulfilled in our time.

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