Let's Talk Turkey

The people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary  Daniel 9:26

Several days ago it appeared that the Turkish military was attempting a coup against the government led by their president, a guy named Recep Erdogan. Erdogan was away from the capital but called upon the Turkish people to take to the streets to resist the coup. Led by the mosques this they did in mass and the coup was quickly ended. President Obama praised the restoration of democracy and supposedly everything will go back to normal.

However, it did not take long for Erdogan to start his reprisals and begin to complete his goal to totally transform Turkey from a secular republic to an Islamic caliphate. For about a century the Turkish military had been the guardian of the democratic process but after Erdogan was elected, first Prime Minister, then later President, he has been purging the military of any leadership which would oppose his Islamic goals.

A day after the coup attempt almost by magic there were already long lists of generals, journalists and judges to remove. Some already had their heads lopped off by the masses and Erdogan began pushing to restore the death penalty so he could make all this legal.

Two days ago it was announced that every dean of a college or university (1577 in total) must resign, 21,000 teachers had their licenses revoked, 1500 judges were suspended, 9000 police officers and 500 clerics removed as were many thousands in the military. That was followed up by a decree that all of these people and their families are now on a no fly list. Tragic.

The recent supposed coup attempt in Turkey is probably the most important thing to happen in the world so far this decade. The fall out from it may lead to a massive war in the Middle East as Turkey attempts to form it's caliphate and be the dominate force both for territory and for the hearts and minds of Muslims worldwide. It will affect the alignment of NATO, the safety of Europe and the economic interests of the United States.

It has been suggested by authors such as Joel Richardson that a leader of Turkey will be the Biblical "Gog" mentioned in Ezekiel 38 that will lead an end time invasion against Israel. Many of the territory names mentioned in Ezekiel historically can be linked to Turkish areas (European identifications are the result of a very old bias that wants to see the pope as the Antichrist and the western half of the Roman empire, or Europe, his 10 nation confederacy). Some think this Gog could also be the prophesied Antichrist.

During the time of Christ and the apostles the land area on the Eastern half of today's Turkey was known as Asia Minor. Rome ruled at that time but previously the land had been part of the empires of Assyria, Babylon, Medes and Persians and finally the Grecian empire. After Alexander the Great died the Greek empire was split up between his 4 top generals and Asia Minor became part of the Seleucid dynasty. Among lands that dynasty included were greater Syria (Syria, Lebanon, Iraq) as well as Israel.

Prophecies in Daniel talk about these empires, the break up of the Greek empire, and suggest that the coming Antichrist will come from territory that had been part of the Seleucid dynasty. Interestingly there was a partial fulfillment of that prophesy in 165 BC when a leader of the Seleucid dynasty, Antiochus Epiphanes, dedicates the Jewish temple to Jupiter and sacrifices a sow on the altar. Antiochus is considered a type of the Antichrist to come.

A few years later the Romans defeated the Greeks and expanded an empire of their own and so they ruled both Asia Minor and Israel (or Palestine). When the Jews rebelled against Rome and Jerusalem was destroyed along with the Jewish Temple (the sanctuary of Daniel 9:26) by the Roman legions in 70 AD the vast majority of the Roman legions involved as well as their support troops were not Italian but rather drawn from and stationed in Asia Minor, Greater Syria and Arabia. According to the Roman historian Josephus, the Roman general Titus actually tried to stop his troops from destroying the Jewish temple but they would not listen to him because of their hatred for the Jews.

It is from one of the lands of these troops, "the people of the prince who is to come", that the prince, the Antichrist, will arise.

John wrote Revelation around 94 AD. The seven churches mentioned there were located in the Western half of Asia Minor. The letter to the Church of Pergamum mentions that city as being where the throne of Satan is. This was a giant altar built by the Selucids to honor their chief god which later honored the Roman gods. There was a pagan priesthood at Pergamum, the chief priest's title was Pontifix Maximus, and that title was eventually transferred to the Roman emperor. After Emperor Constantine moved the center of the Roman Empire from Rome to Asia Minor to a city he renamed Constantinople (now Istanbul) he handed the title over to the Christian bishop of Rome.

In the 1800's German archaeologists dismantled the altar of Pergamum and moved it to a museum in Berlin. They refused to return it to Turkey when asked so 2 years ago Turkey rebuilt it at the original site. On a side note, when Obama was running for President he went over to Germany to make his first major foreign policy speech and while doing so was standing directly across the square facing the Pergamum museum which displayed the giant altar.

In the 700's Asia Minor was conquered by Muslim forces. In 1299 we see the beginning of the expansion of Turkish rule with the formation of the Ottoman Empire gaining steam a hundred years later. From 1453 to the 1800's Muslim Turkey ruled a caliphate that controlled a large geographic territory, including Northern Africa and the Middle East. By the early 1900's their empire was shrinking and so Turkey and the Ottoman Empire aligned with German forces during WWI in an attempt to become strong again.  It was during this time (1915) that Muslim Turks murdered over 1.5 million Christian Armenians and Assyrians. In 1917 the British and their allies took over Arabia, Palestine and much of the Middle East and Turkey's borders became what they are today.

In 1923 a man named Kemal Attaturk (known as the father of modern Turkey) came to power. He instituted free elections and transformed Turkey into a secular state. It has remained so until Erdogan was freely elected and began to change things (his famous quote is that Democracy is the bus we will ride until it's time to get off).

It is the desire of many Muslims for there to be a Muslim empire, or caliphate, throughout the Middle East, Northern Africa and Southern Eurasia. But Islam is quite diverse ethnically, politically and spiritually. There are in that part of the world Arabs, Persians and Turks, secularists, moderates and fundamentalists divided up into the two main branches of Islam, Sunni (about 85 per cent) and Shia (about 15 per cent).

The primary Shia power is Iran. Iranians are ethnically Persian, most of their population is young and secular but the country is controlled by a group of fundamentalist mullahs who control every aspect of government and life. Their desire is to be the leader of the Muslim world and their theology seeks the destruction of Israel and confrontation with the West in order to usher in a glorious Islamic world. They sponsor terror groups such as Hezbolla and are behind the sectarian violence between the minority Shia and majority Sunni in Iraq.

The main Sunni power is in the Arab countries of Saudi Arabia, which has a lot of money and which controls the main Muslim holy places of Mecca and Medina, and Egypt, which has a large population and is the center of Islamic education for the Muslim world. Saudi Arabia funds the building of many mosques throughout the world including a lot in the United States. They are trying to hold together a Sunni coalition with other Arab nations. They are also fundamentalists but because they interact with the West there are more radical Sunni forces, as well as Iran, that want to overthrow the Saudi kingdom.

Egypt has been relatively moderate for the last few decades and they have a peace treaty with Israel. There too the military have been involved. During the Arab Spring a few years ago the people overthrew a corrupt leader, drew up a new constitution, but then like Turkey the people elected a leader (from the radical Muslim Brotherhood) who started to remake Egypt into a fundamentalist Muslim state. President Obama, siding as he has done so often with the Muslim Brotherhood, praised the democratic process. This time however the military stepped in and changed leaders.

Most Arabs in the Middle East hate the Jews and want to eliminate the Jewish nation but have a hard time working with each other.

That is why the rise of a Sunni Turkish caliphate may be very appealing to most Muslims (at least to the Sunnis) and to the West. The Turkish armies will end the fighting by groups like ISIS (who will not get their caliphate), bring peace to Syria and will stop all the infighting caused by artificial borders created by the Allies in WWI. Muslims the world over will look with pride to what the Turkish caliphate will bring about and the West will be glad to see an end to chaos in the Middle East. Perhaps there might even be a peace treaty made with Israel (for 7 years of course).

Ah, but prophecy says that like a fish with hooks in it's jaws Turkey's armies will be drawn to the beautiful land. Iran, Libya and Sudan will be it's partners. God will then intervene. How close are we?