The great Islamic world war between Sunni and Shiite Muslims could be God’s answer to the Psalm 83 plan to invade Israel.
Some think Islam is the primary danger to the Western world and even think that Islam will bring the Antichrist against the West. The flaw in their thinking goes beyond correct understanding of Bible prophecy. They gloss over the deep division that exists between the Sunni Muslims and the Shiite Muslims. A house divided will not stand.
Sunni Muslims have controlled most Islamic areas of the world for centuries. The Sunnis control most of the wealth and the governments in Islam today. Shiite Muslims have been the underclass in Islam but a revolution is rising with the support of the Shia clerics ruling Iran and Shiite teachings about a mystical end time savior figure called the “Mahdi”.
Iran and this rising revolutionary movement is now the great fear of the ruling families in the gulf and it is why these nations are now arming to the teeth. The conditions in Islamic nations are now ripe for a great world war between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.
The focus of the West today is on Iran and Israel but Iran is just using Israel as an excuse to develop the weapons that will be necessary to defeat the Sunni. The Sunni Arab oil rich nations spend huge amounts of money acquiring the latest weapons and it is not Israel that they fear. They fear their own Arab brothers.
Israel is a political football for power used by both the Sunni and the Shia. The leaders of Sunni nations are required to hate Israel to appease Muslim radicals in their nations and nations with large Shia populations use Israel as a scapegoat nation to gain more power within the Islamic world.
Seeing Muslims surrounding Israel, Bible prophecy students often wonder how Israel can ever be living in peace as it is described just before the Gog war in Ezekiel chapter 38. Some suggest that Israel will conquer a huge part of the Middle East after the war of Psalm 83. That is uncertain, but it is likely that the Arab armies are destroyed and the Arabs broker for peace with Israel before the Ezekiel 38 war. For that to take place I think Islam will have to become greatly weakened.
Here is one possible scenario where Israel could have peace with its now Muslim neighbors before the Gog war:
As a result of the failure of peace talks and a new war by Israel to neutralize the threat of Hezbollah and Hamas the Arab nations declare their intentions to cut off Israel from being a nation (Psalm 83). But, as the Arab nations gather their armies, Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear weapons sites and Iran responds with a major attack through Yemen against US backed Sunni controlled gulf oil states. The Sunni Arab armies that were planning to war against Israel go into full retreat back to protect their own governments from the Iran threat and internal Shiite revolution.
The focus in the Middle East then rapidly shifts from a war against Israel to a civil war and world war that spreads all over the Islamic world. Egypt, Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia and other Arab sheikdoms war against Iran and other Shiite controlled areas in the world. Think of what almost happened in Iraq happening over one fourth of the earth. The West will obviously side with the Sunni oil rich states and will directly help defeat Shiite and Islamic terrorism in the world. After the Islamic war I think interfaith religion will begin to rise in most of the religious areas of the world as the solution to world peace.
Now, picture a Middle East where all the influences of Shia are gone and the radicals of the Sunnis are also killed or muzzled. Most of the armies of the Arab nations are destroyed and that allows Israel to live in peace, security and prosperity until the time of the Ezekiel 38 war. Keep in mind that no Arab nation near Israel comes against Israel in the Gog war and Iran aligns with the Russia bloc.
The following article contains many facts and figures that should give you plenty of food for thought about all this. The author thinks this Sunni-Shiite war could occur before 2011. I know the article seems to be a sales pitch but if you can get past that it is worth reading. Here is a clip from his summery.
Say Hello to the “Jihad Generation”
It’s not just our experts saying it.
Leaders in all three of America’s biggest Middle East allied countries — Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia — claim the epic Sunni-Shia showdown is in the cards.
It could start from any one of the flashpoints I just named.
But no matter how it starts, Saudi Arabia is where it’s most likely to end up. Why?
Not only is Saudi Arabia home to Mecca, Islam’s holiest place… but it’s also home to the corrupt and U.S.-allied Royal House of Saud, considered an insult to all Islam.
Think about it.
In a country where they’ll cut off your hand for stealing and whip you for holding a glass of whiskey… Saudi princes gorge on cocaine and prostitutes, gambling, palaces, and more.
All while the vast Saudi underclass starves on just $6,000 per year and 30% unemployment. And as many as two million of that underclass is Shia. With a 1,354-year-old ax to grind and billions of dollars in oil revenues as the prize.
It’s a near-perfect formula for a FULL-ON war.
And the fuse is already lit.
interesting. i know a house divided against itself can not stand but are they not united for the most part against Israel? once the common enemy israel is gone then i could see them going at each other more. now that israel is in the land it seems they are united at least in their distain for that and for now they have a great point to rally behind as islam. since i dont see them being able to take the land i dont see them destroying each other..
I think you missed one of my main points. They are both using Israel as a whipping boy for their own own ends to establish a Islamic cabal ruled by their own faction. If there were not an Israel they would still be at each others throats today. The Achilles’ heel in Islam is this Shia Sunni division.
Since we know that Israel is not going away and Iran is becoming a nuclear power it is only logical that the Shia will now try to control the flow of oil. The Sunni are just not going to sit back and allow this to happen, nor can the West.
I think your point that “Iran is just using Israel as an excuse to develop the weapons that will be necessary to defeat the Sunni” and “[t]he Arab oil rich nations fear their own Arab brothers and Iran” is well-taken. In Matt. 24 Jesus said “nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom”. Based on that I suppose we should expect conflict among the middle eastern factions
Yes, and the Lord also said that Ishmael would be a wild man and his hand will be against everyone
Gen 16:11 And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because the LORD hath heard thy affliction.
12 And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.
I remember Gary North, an avowed Domionist, laying out a similar scenario. I dismissed it at the time. However, events seem to be lining up as you and he suggest. The Sunni – Shia split could result in the peace in Ezekiel 38.
Hi Bob, I’ve been reading North, mostly for a better understanding of the OT economy and because I like economics anyhow. He’s a hard one to read sometimes but I’d like to leave a quote about his dominionist view, ” As a result of the fall of Adam, man’s urge to dominion is a perverted one, no longer an exercise of power under God, and to His glory, but a desire to be God.” He is saying humanism has perverted God’s law of dominion and that is Satan, Lucifer.
Just wanted to share that. His idea is that we are made in the image of God and our responsibility was dominion over everything but our sin nature and Lucifer at the helm has perverted the laws of God’s dominion we should be acting with. Rather than control of the situation which he readily gives to God, he is speaking of our individual responsibility to act in God’s behalf. That puts us individually under God’s dominion and we should act accordingly. North is against the Unitarianism of our forefathers which did not match the trinitarianism of the puritans who settled here. He is concerned for corporate America like Israel is looking for a corporate redeemer.
As for the Shia-Sunni split, I sure hope they end up fighting each other to total destruction and leave Israel out of it but that is wishful thinking.
Julie,
By what you said, North seems to think that man can take dominion in his fallen nature. If a fallen man could act in God’s behalf he would have no need of a Savior. And Americans that are born from above are not looking for a corporate redeemer.
Anyway North’s Dominion Theology is off the post topic.
I hope Shia and Sunni hear the message and convert to trusting in Jesus Christ and then they will not resort to killing each other or threatening Israel. It is never good for Christians to hope for the death of the lost. The Church is only on earth in this dispensation to get out the good news so those that hear and believe the message of redemption in Christ can be saved.