Some Different History                             

This week, I’m taking the liberty of sharing with you the journal travels of my friend, Brian Schrauger, founder and editor of the Jerusalem Journal. I’ve written before about Brian and his work; he is truly unique in that he is a Bible guy who happens to live in and report from Israel.

He’s also one of the finest people I know.

I knew he was taking an unusual trip to Iraq and I’ve been fascinated by his dispatches. He is going into territory most of us will never see with our own eyes, even those of us who’ve been to Israel. But the places he’s visited this week are also part of the Bible story. Very much so.

(For those of you on social media, his Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/BrianSchrauger)

With his own eyes(!) he has seen the places where the Assyrians took the captive Israelites, far from home.  Enjoy Brian’s observations below, and be sure to check out his work.

THE RIVER REMEMBERS…

When the 10 tribes of Israel’s northern kingdom were taken into exile in 722 BCE, the Bible says they were “carried away into exile to Assyria, and settled in Halah and Habor, on the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.”

Today that river is called the Khabur. It runs wends its way through the city of Zakho in northwest Iraq where it nudges Turkey’s border and knocks on Syria’s back door.

We don’t know what happened to those 10 tribes. In the ensuing 2,600 years or so, we do know that today’s Zakho became a popular home for Jews.

Yesterday I visited Zakho. Intending to explore it last night, I found the streets heaving with people. Going to bed early at my hotel there, I was out by 6am. Because the sun came up at about 4:45am, it felt like mid-morning. But unlike the night before, the streets were almost empty, making it easy to explore.

Although there was a strong Jewish presence there until the 1940s, I could not find where they lived or worshiped. It’s possible there are remaining footprints, but no one there with whom I spoke knew where they were.

But the river to which they were led captive by the ruthless Assyrians is impossible to miss.

We do not know what those exiles did when they were deposited on the banks of the Khabur. But we do know what the Judah’s exiles did when they landed on the banks of Babylon’s Tigris River. According to Psalm 137, “we sat down and wept.”

It is not difficult to imagine that exiles from the northern kingdom did the same on the banks of the Khabur.

Those tribes might be lost and Jews from the area erased…

…but the river remembers, bearing witness to judgment, tragedy and suffering.

At the same time, however, it is a body of flowing water that, like God’s Spirit, washes dirt away, cleanses and restores.

As such, it is a witness, both to the past and to the future. Redemption and restoration will come.

Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com

Russia in Jerusalem

More proof that we can’t really accurately make short-term predictions is seen in the announcement that the U.S., Israel, and…Russia(!) will meet in Jerusalem to discuss Mideast security issues.

According to a report in Al-Monitor:

“National security advisers John Bolton, Nikolay Patrushev and Meir Ben-Shabbat will convene June 24 in the Israeli capital to discuss the post-war order in Syria.

“’This is a crazy event. I don’t have sufficient superlatives to describe it,’ an Israeli defense source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. ‘It’s true that at this stage, the importance of the event is in the very decision to hold it, but think about it: Fifty-two years after Jerusalem’s liberation, we are bringing together there the heads of the American and Russian security councils to discuss arrangements for Syria after the war, with us as part of the process.’ The official got somewhat carried away talking about a ‘new Sykes-Picot’ — referring to the 1916 agreement dividing the region between the British and French colonial powers. Still, there is rare consensus in Israel about the summit being a tremendous achievement for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a strategic Israeli message to Iran and the rest of the Middle East that Israel is part of the axis of powers working together to instill a new order in the Middle East.”

Too often, I believe, we who love Bible prophecy like to announce that, for example, Ezekiel 38-39 is about to erupt.

Russia is the main bad actor in this drama, which will certainly happen at some point. If we’re honest, we have to admit that “Gog” might be Putin, or he might be a leader no one has heard of as of yet.

Currently, Putin knows full well that Israel is a force to be reckoned with. Obviously, he is no friend to the Jewish state, but the big, bad Vlad is a realist. With a naval base secured off the Syrian coast—long a coveted prospect for the Russians—Putin can bide his time. And now, astoundingly, the Russians need a strong Israel to keep the really bad actors at bay.

Who could have foreseen this? Certainly not me. For 40 years, I’ve heard that God-Magog was on the horizon.

It’s a long horizon.

Right now I’m looking at an email exchange between some prophecy students, several of whom are deluxe researchers. The speculation right now involves a specific prophecy related to Iran. The exchanges are a little chippy, as each jockeys for position to prove a point. Current events (as in real time) are being monitored by these people so that they can tell us all what is going to happen to and with Iran immediately.

But they will likely be wrong.

I don’t believe as preterists do, that much of prophecy has already been fulfilled, nor do I think the fulfillment of the greatest prophecies are very far off at all.

Neither do I believe, though, that we can say things with certainty when it comes to dates and places and actors. So long as these discussions stay in the realm of emails, that’s fine. It’s friends debating friends.

But the wider culture knows very, very little about the Bible. Actually, nothing about the Bible. Millions don’t even know a person named Isaiah ever existed in the ancient Near East. They don’t have a clue what our prophetic terminology means, and they aren’t aware of most end-times events. They have watched goofy apocalyptic movies starring people like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

What I wish we would do, as believers and supporters of Israel and students of Bible prophecy, is share the Gospel with them, using the prophetic model.

This is not being done on a wide scale by any very large ministry in this country. There is a void in this teaching. Andy Stanley hates it. So do Rick Warren and all the church growth guys. The Southern Baptists are now embarrassed about it. The Pentecostals are even dissing it.

So here you have a great opportunity.

Tell people what the Bible says about Bible prophecy, not what—I’m going to say it—John Hagee says about Bible prophecy. We jam our interpretations into the prophetic passages of the Bible and then stubbornly camp there. I wish we’d keep our eyes on the big picture, and use the astonishing, truly unique, and transcendent prophecies of the Bible to show people that Jesus Christ is the King of kings.

In some prophecy circles, there was/is no room for Russia as even a temporary ally of sorts with Israel.

Yet the Russians are in Jerusalem.

Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com