Why Are So Few Seeing This?

13Then I saw three evil^[a] spirits that looked like frogs; they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet. 14They are spirits of demons performing miraculous signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty. 15"Behold, I come like a thief! Blessed is he who stays awake and keeps his clothes with him, so that he may not go naked and be shamefully exposed." 16Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon. - Revelation 16:13-16

Has anyone else noticed that the combined beast in these verses refers to the Lion-Bear-Leopard beast described in Revelation 13? Has anyone noticed that a lion beast, a bear beast, and a leopard beast are first introduced in the Bible in Daniel's vision recorded in Daniel chapter 7? Ellis Skolfield has done an excellent job of of bringing this relationship to my attention. I am thankful that I tripped onto his web site one day. I summarize Skolfield's Lion-Bear-Leopard (LBL) contention in a past blog post. I think Skolfield is right on when he says that the combined LBL beast is what we see in the Middle East today. The combined LBL beast in Revelation 13 is "glued together" by the religion of Islam today. The LBL beast in Daniel 7 describes the ancient kingdoms of Babylon, Medo-Persia, and Greece. Ancient Babylon, Medo-Persia, and Greece are today represented by the countries of Iraq, Iran, Greece, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, and former Soviet republics. What ties these nations together today? Islam. What is the number one threat to western civilization and the Jews in Israel today? Radical muslims.

To summarize:

Lion Beast = Ancient Babylon = today's Iraq
Bear Beast = Ancient Medo-Persia = today's Iran
Leopard Beast = Greek empire under Alexander the Great = Greece, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and former Soviet republics, and eastward to India.

The only thing gluing these countries together is the religion of Islam.

Here's my point: The Islamic LBL beast and the false prophet (Muhammad) are empowered by the dragon (Satan) to "go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty...Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon."

Interestingly President Bush will soon be proposing his go-forward strategy for Iraq. A story on YAHOO this morning speculates that President Bush is going to ignore the Iraqi Study Group's recommendation to retreat from Iraq, and instead bolster the number of troops. Based on scripture, I believe that Bush will indeed opt to send more troops to Iraq - it's part of God's plan. It is a well know fact that the U.S. already has at least three aircraft carriers in and around Iran within its' 5th fleet. I think we may be seeing the beginning of the gathering of kings to the battle of Armageddon. As I've emphasized on this blog in the past - keep your eyes on Israel and on anyone who threatens Israel (i.e. Ahmadinejad). Israel is the time clock of the final events on this earth. May the Lord open our eyes like never before so that we are not caught sleeping when he returns. May God help you to focus on His plan for this world, for our lives, and to ignore what the world considers as its priorities. Our western society, I believe, will soon get a huge wake-up call. God's patience with people who deny His existence will end, and to most it will come as a complete surprise that will devastate their daily routines: "As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark" [Matthew 24:37-38].

Obviously, you might have noticed that I'm not a proponent of the rapture-next theory. I believe that we will be raptured but not until the last trumpet on the day of the Lord per 1 Corinthians 15:51-52; Matthew 24:31; and per the "last day" references in John 6:39,40,44,and 54. See these additional comments on the predominant theory out there of a Secret Rapture. The danger of the rapture-next theory is that it presupposes that people will have another chance to come to Christ after the rapture, albeit they will have to be martyred. This "second chance" doctrine is dangerous because I don't see it lining up with scripture; God forbid non-Christians are taking a "wait-and-see" approach to see whether the rapture actually happens first before deciding whether to accept Christ.

So, back to my first question - why are so few seeing what is happening? The Bible says:

They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.
2 Thessalonians 2:10b-12