Then at last we shall see the purposes of God fully revealed in and through His Covenanted peoples, Israel and the Church, as they live in perfect harmony in the Kingdom of Righteousness and peace. As the Holy Spirit guides the two Covenanted peoples of God - and as they yield to His prompting - jealousy will melt. Ambitions will be yielded. Error will be repudiated. Truth will prevail, and the Kingdom of God will be seen in all its radiant glory, centered in Jerusalem in the land of Israel, where `My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one Shepherd' and `they will reign with Him upon the earth'. (Romans 11:33)

" Oh, the depth of the riches of wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His judgements, and His paths beyond tracing out. "

On March 6th 1991 the then President of the United States of America announced to the American Congress his intention to pursue four aims in the Middle East following the success of the Gulf War against Iraq.

Firstly: He intended to create new security arrangements to ensure peace and stability in the area.

Secondly: He intended to effectively stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction in the area.

Thirdly: He would work consistently towards peace between the Arab nations and Israel.

Fourthly: He believed that out of the first three aims there would emerge economic prosperity for the benefit of all the peoples in the region, and American policy would be directed towards that aim!

Taking the position that the fourth aim is dependent upon the effective outworking of the first three, we would like to examine the first three aims - and as we believe that the first two aims are dependent upon the success of the third, we will start from there.

That President may well have believed that the New World Order, and the peace that would come from it, was his highest priority. However, we believe that God has already decided His priorities, and the anvil He intends to work on is Islam - which will affect not only all the Arab nations but all who feel the yoke of that cruel oppression. God's last `hammer blow' was struck against an equally cruel yoke - and communism lies shattered and exposed for what it is. But we shall see that much more has been accomplished by this than just the release of countless millions of people who had suffered for years under communism. The powers behind those oppressive religions are already regrouping and will begin to concentrate more and more on the Middle East - at the centre of which lies Israel!

This, of course, is the ultimate object of the evil power that lies behind the unrest in the Middle East. And as the immediate object of God's purpose also concerns the nation of Israel, it is obvious that a lasting peace is something the Middle East will not experience until the conflict has been finally brought to a head. And that, we believe is what lies ahead in the immediate future! The political will of the Super- Power nations will bring about peace in the troubled area, but it will not last - the forces that are driving the Middle East countries will see to that. Undoubtably the same politics will bring about the New World Order - but it is doomed to failure. Powerful forces are at work driving the nations towards a climax, but God is in total control of it all, and out of it will indeed come forth a lasting peace - a `New World Order' of His design!

We would step back for a moment and look at the forces that are gathering for the onslaught on that which the American President mentioned in his first aim - `peace between the Arab nations and Israel'. But first we must ask, who are those Arab nations?

Living, as we do, in a limited time and geographical situation, it is all to easy to lump all the Middle East countries together under the title of `Arabs'. Yet a quick look at them will reveal their individuality, and we then begin to understand the stresses and strains that are constantly at work in those diverse nations. And with that knowledge we shall see behind them a driving force that at times almost compels them to act as one people. This will give us an understanding of the reality of the real battle that is being waged now in the Middle East. We see this principle at work in Ezekiel 28 and verses 2 and 11:

"Son of man, say to the Ruler of Tyre . . Son of man, take up this lament concerning the King of Tyre and say to him . . . "

Clearly here, within the context of this chapter, Ezekiel was talking of a natural ruler - a living, breathing person of immense wealth, who was puffed up with pride and selfish ambition - but behind this ruler there was the true ruling force, a spiritual King of Tyre - who also through pride and selfish ambition had raised himself up against God. Paul takes up this theme in his Letter to the Ephesians chapter 2, and in chapter 6 he warns us:

" Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. "

Who, then, are the Arabs! There is no easy answer to that question, and we have no desire to add to the opinions of learned anthropologists who put forward different plausible theories based on conjecture and `intelligent guesswork'. One such writer clearly expounded the views of a recognised anthropologist and scornfully dismissed the Bible records as folk legends and myths written down thousands of years after the supposed events. But Paul, recognised by even the most liberal of theologians as a learned and intelligent Hebrew, had no such problems in accepting the Word of God as it stood, and it is recorded in Acts 17 that he was debating with the most learned men of the Areopagus in Athens (a group of Epicean and Stoic philosophers) when he said: (Acts 17:22-26)

" Men of Athens! . . . . From one man He made every nation, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. "

Genesis 10 - often referred to as `the Table of Nations' - records `the making of the nations of men . . . and the exact places where they should live'. These nations `sprang from the loins' of Noah's sons Shem, Ham and Japheth, and this chapter records the sons of the sons of Noah. From them can be traced out the records of the history of the world in broad terms, with the Indo-European nations coming from the line of Japheth. The nations of what could be called the First World Order, who dominated the early history of the world - the Egyptians, the Chinese, the South and North Americans Indians, such as the Incas, the Mayas and so forth - came from the seed of Ham. And finally, the sons of Shem, who spawned the Semite nations, such as the Hebrews, Chadeans and Assyrians.

Straight away we see that the people we generally call `Arabs' come from different roots and are a mixture of such people as the Egyptians, who dwelt in the Nile Delta, the Caananites, who were expelled from the immediate Middle East and settled in North Africa, and the Chadeans, who built the original Babylon. These all came from the line of Ham and are not Semitic in purity of race, although it would appear that there was an overriding Semitic language which identified them with the Middle East.

We have no intention of digging into the mists of anthropology in order to produce another interesting theory, but it is clear from even a limited knowledge of history that as great political and social shakings in this area occurred the desert fortress of the Arabian Peninsular became a kind of `womb', collecting a multitude of peoples who probably fled to it for refuge and then began to build a tribal life for self- protection. From time to time the `womb' became overcrowded and Arabia `expelled' groups of these nomadic people, who in the course of time would settle in the surrounding countries in and around the Fertile Crescent (as it is called) and would mould those countries into the Middle East in the form we recognise today. These migrations, occurring over thousands of years, have created what we now so casually call the `Arabs'.

The name `Arab' itself is very old: During the reign of the Assyrian King Shalmaneser 3rd in 853 BC there were records of the `Arabis', who were part of a mercenary fighting force, and the word describes the nomadic tribes who dwelt in the inland deserts of the Arabian Peninsular. The word `Arab' springs from a Semetic word `Abar' meaning simply `to wander or to pass through', and the same root word produced the word `Hebrew', which was used to describe the people of God who wandered or passed through the desert into the land promised them by God. By 550 BC the general word `Arabis' had largely been dropped, and independent nations had established themselves under the ancient names we may recall from our schooldays, with their own distinctive languages and cultures. The ancient Persians referred to the desert Peninsular as `Arabaya'. Later, the emerging Greek conquerors changed it to the more familiar `Arabia', and it has now come to describe the desert area of the whole Middle East which is peopled by various tribes and nations, all speaking a variation of the Semetic language. So much for our brief excursion into ancient history, which has been constantly added to and also made more complicated by continuous political and social upheavals - many of them coming from the `womb' of Arabia, for those swarms of nomadic people, moving upwards amd outwards, have touched and changed the `soft underbellies' of other stagnating nations through conquest.

For our own purposes we would limit our thoughts to the `expulsion from the womb' that swarmed out of Arabia with the cry `There is no god but Allah', which changed and formed so much of what we now know as the Arab world of the Middle East. In general terms we can see that today it is a cauldron of ancient animosities and hatreds, of domination and counter-domination, papered over by Pan Arabism. A greater Arab World! That which gells these nations together is not a genetic family line but a religion, the religion of Islam - or to give it its original name, Dar al Islam, which roughly translated means `the society of submission to the will of Allah' - and it is this yoke of Islam which is the power behind these nations!

As we have already seen from the passage in Ezekiel 28 (the ruler of Tyre and the King of Tyre) it is a demonic driving force that no man can control, and it will gather force with more and more intensity in the few years that are left of this world's history with the objective of destroying God's people, the nation of Israel. In that sense it is not primarily an attack directed against the Jewish nation but an attack directed against God Himself, for He has made a Covenant with the nation of Israel which has to be fulfilled. But that same God who wielded the hammer that broke the oppressive yoke of communism in the USSR and Eastern Europe still has His hand firmly on the hammer that will just as surely smash the spiritual yoke of Islam and set these people free!

We are not intending to set out the history of the formation of Islam - that is well documented for any interested scholar to study - but Mohammed clearly intended it to be a unifying force to bind together the multitudes of nomadic Bedouin tribes that peopled the Arabian Peninsular. His original aim was to forge a military and political system to control and protect the camel and spice trade that flourished in the area, but during the time Mohammed was translating his thoughts into political and military action the whole area was in confusion. The Byzantine Emperor Justinian was facing the Barbarian hordes from the north, attempting to hold back the Persians in the east, and trying to stabilize the Roman part of his empire which was disintegrating. Egypt was in a ferment and Syria was a rising force in the area. All this was forcing the merchants to travel by the more difficult route through the western Arabian Peninsular to the Indian Ocean ports. Mecca now became an important centre of trade and commerce, with all the associated gods this entailed. Mohammed was, therefore, to use a modern expression, `in the right place at the right time'!

The results are now history, but the consequences of these historical facts are still with us today - and an American President decided his policy was to bring peace between these peoples! The Western mind will never understand the Arab mind, which was formed during several millennia in a hostile and changing environment such as Western man has never had to contend with. We may give assent to the thinking of the Arabs, but it is impossible to fully comprehend, and persistently keep that comprehension, in political, social and diplomatic spheres. The nomadic tribal system developed in a way which cannot be understood unless you are born into it. Nomadic tribes wandered through seemingly endless tracts of desert, always in search of food, or spoils which could be bartered to obtain food, and the motivating force was survival - survival through a close tribal system which preyed on other tribes in order to survive.

These nomadic tribes became known as `Bedouin' (meaning `raider') and this raiding custom took the Bedouin further and further afield, always looking for more food and spoils. A tribal leadership system known as Shaykhs (or to use the more westernised form, Sheikhs, or elders) evolved, and they shared leadership with a council of family heads called the `Majlis'. There was no public law, as such. The controlling `law' to keep the people in check was simply one of revenge. If someone was killed it became the duty of the next-of-kin to kill someone from the offending tribe, and if a son was killed, it was the duty of the father to kill a son from the offending tribe. Failure to do so would be to reduce the dead son to the status of a woman - considered to be inferior to a man - and if this was the case the revenge had to be taken by the next male in line.

From this we can see that not only were men considered to be superior but that there were also superior men. It therefore follows that as superior men would lead a superior family, so also, if a man would not exact revenge then he would bring shame not only upon himself but upon his whole family. This formed the basis for the culture of the nomadic tribes that peopled the Arabian Peninsular, the Arabs. It takes little intelligence, therefore, to see that their camp-fire settlements became scenes of boasting and rhetoric, which boosted the supremacy of the leaders and their families and formed much of the `heroic' self-glorifying rhetoric so beloved by Arabs today. The ranting and raving of many of the modern leaders of the Middle East is but an expression of that self-glorification which springs from the early Bedouin tribal clans. Unfortunately, rhetoric must finally give way to action in order to maintain the position of the clan. We saw this in the Gulf War - and only an Arab mind would comprehend the `logic' of it all!

In simple terms, Mohammed fused the warring Bedouin tribes together under the banner of Islam. The death of Mohammed therefore came as a shock to the new `Islamic Society' and there was danger of it breaking up once more into warring factions. The solution to this came in the form of Mohammed's father-in-law, Abu Bakr, who appointed himself Khalifah (or Caliph) which simply means `successor'. He collected the sayings of Mohammed into a book, which was further added to by his son Omar. Other material was later added by a third Caliph, Othman, and the book has since remained unchanged over the centuries. Known simply as the Quran (or Koran) it has become the focal point of the gelling force of Islam - and in those early days it became the law of the land as the Bedouins moved out of Arabia bent on conquest.

Upon the death of Mohammed many of the tribes `apostacised', but under the unifying work of Caliph Abu Bakr a military campaign was launched, known as the Ridda - the War of Apostacy - and his loyal Bedouin tribes poured out of Medina to subdue the apostate tribes throughout the Peninsular. This forged within Islam a cohesive military machine, tied to a book and driven by demonic powers which worked through their nomadic culture of constantly roving. Always looking for new spoils, their thoughts and eyes were now drawn towards the rich lands of the Fertile Crescent. This was a rich, tempting, accessible new world in which to test their new-found strength forged in the War of Apostacy, and soon the `womb' of Arabia expelled the armies of Islam into the unprepared Byzantine Empire.

Contrary to popular understanding it was not fundamentally a religious conquest, for the Bedouin eyes were upon spoils and they were outworking their raiding instincts, although now built into a military machine. Conversion came through the simple law that no tribute was extracted from those who converted to Islam, and although whole areas and countries quickly converted to avoid paying crippling tribute to the various Bedouin armies, it should be understood that conversion was not uppermost in the minds of the conquerors at that time. Nevertheless the Jews and Christians who would not convert enjoyed considerable freedom from persecution because they were a valuable source of income to the Caliph in Medina!

As the marauding Arabs ranged further afield the tribute money poured into the coffers of the Caliph and further fuelled the ambitions of his armies. But some time later, after their warrior tribes had emigrated from the Peninsular to newly- conquered lands, there evolved a religious system which followed in the wake of these armies and they began to place the yoke of Islam on countries by law, and if necessary, by death. So there now came a blurring of nationalism based upon the self-glorification of the Bedouin culture. To be a Moslem was to be an Arabi - an Arab, with all the superiority which that implied - and the convert was quick to reject all that separated him from being seen as a superior person, an Arab, victorious and superior!

With this understanding Caliph Othman began to dream of an Arabian community stretching across the whole of the Middle East, and today we would call it Pan Arabism. Many `Arab' leaders such as Colonel Nasser of Egypt have dreamed of it - and, more recently, so too has Colonel Qadhafi of Lybia. And to bring it right up to date we must mention a more recent `Caliph Othman', in the form of Saddam Hussein, for it is a well-known fact that he wanted to be known as the new Saladin!

The expansion of the Islamic world now became one of careful design rather than the previous impulsive explosion from the `womb of Arabia'. Eyes were now turned towards Persia, but although Persia was eventually thoroughly Islamised it never gave up its own culture and language. In and around 639 AD the Islamic armies overran Egypt and the whole Nile Valley, and then moved down into the rich Nile Delta, with the Byzantine Empire collapsing at Alexandra in 642 AD. With Egypt fully under their control, the armies swarmed through into North Africa, subjugating the people living there and incorporating them into their armies. The Berbers, a people similar to themselves, were to become a driving force of the Islamic armies, which would eventually move across into Europe, up through Spain and into France itself. The Berbers embraced the religion of Mohammed and became the conquering force, the storm troopers, of the Islamic armies as they were unleashed into Europe. Eyes were now turned towards Anatolia (modern Turkey) and Syria!

But these victories were not won without much internal fighting amongst the Arabs. Their history is a collection of inter-family and inter-tribal feuds, murder and revenge, which we would expect to find emerging from the deeply engraved Bedouin culture of the `law of revenge'. However, we do not have space here to begin to list the details of the bitter in-fighting and intrigue which eventually weakened the hold of the original Arabic domination of Islam. Suffice to say that through the defeat of the Ummayad clan in 750 AD the centre point of Islam moved to Baghdad and took on a distinctly oriental flavour. However, the Islamic Empire of the Abbasids had the usual cancer of revenge and counter- revenge working away within itself and it soon split into many `camps'.

The Abbasid Caliphs now employed mercenary troops from nomadic Asian tribes known as the Seljuk Turks. They used as their shock troops trained slaves known as Mamluks, who established the Seljuks as a dominant force in the Islamic world. Under the control of a weakening Abbasid Caliph the Seljuks quickly rose to power and finally poured out into the Fertile Crescent, Syria, Egypt and beyond. It was the spreading of Islamic domination that ushered in the period recorded in Western history books as `the Crusades', which were primarily a struggle between European Christians and the thrusting and expanding forces of Muslim Seljuk Turks.

At that time a new force was also appearing in the north as the Mongol tribes of Central Asia began to move south. They overran the Seljuk Empire, reaching down into Baghdad itself and bringing with them total destruction. Finally they occupied all of Persia and also reached into India. This put an end to the Crusades, and the armies of Islam withdrew to defend their lands to the south from the threatening Mongol hordes. They left Egypt, Syria and Palestine under the direct control of the Mamluk armies and their Turkish leaders, and the `womb of Arabia' gratefully received back its Bedouin `children' from these wars.

Out of these struggles and bitter conflicts there emerged another tribe which would dominate Islam and the Middle East for the next five hundred years. This tribe would spawn the Ottoman Empire! They came to prominence through a man named Osman, whose father had been granted lands in north central Anatolia by a grateful Seljuk Sultan after his help in the struggle against the Mongol tribes in 1251 AD. Osman, who embraced the religion of Islam with a fanatical zeal, extended the power and infuence of his tribe as far as Constantinople. Consequently, practically the whole area of Anatolia converted to Islam. Osman became a man of legend and fame in the Islamic world by achieving what no other dynasty could achieve. By the 14th century the boundaries of this tribe's power extended across the Dardanelles, into the Balkans and touching the southern part of Europe with Islam.

So the Ottoman Empire began the growth of what was to lie like a sickly cancer across much of the then known world for many centuries. This fusion of Oriental and Arab culture and thinking - with all the deadening corruption that it spawned - brought about a decline and stagnation in the political and social world of the Ottoman Empire and the Arab nations under their control. There, in general sweeping terms, lay the Arab dream of world conquest under the banner of Islam - until the First World War finally broke the decadent power of the Ottoman Empire and a new world emerged. In 1905 a book was published in France called `The Awakening of the Arab Nation'. Published by The Legion of the Arab Fatherland, it talked of an Arab language nation stretching from the Tigris/Euphrates Basin across Syria and Palestine and right into Egypt, all under an Arab Sultan with political and economic power. Arab nationalism was once more aroused!

With this general overview of what we call the Arab nations, we can easily see that it is not possible to give such a general title to such a multiplicity of cultures, ethnic groupings and geographical locations. Recently through the news media we have become familiar with the religious divisions of these Arab nations, and titles such as Sunni Arabs and Shi'a Arabs easily spring to mind. However, be assured that there are as many sects and diversities within Islam as there are within the Christian Church, and there is total division between these two main groupings of Islam. But with respect to them, their belief in the `rightness' of their particular sect shows more conviction in their beliefs than many Christian groupings show for theirs - but that is another subject. For Muslims, however deep the divisions between the sects of Islam, one thing holds them together - the Koran, the writings of Mohammed. Wherever Islam takes a hold on a country, the law of the Koran prevails and it reaches out its tentacles into every sphere of life, and from the mouth of Mohammed himself it is stated that the world has clearly divided between Dar al Islam (the land of Islam, and those who hold to its teachings) and Dar al Harb (the lands of war, and those who do not). These titles speak for themselves, and they reveal the state of the Islamic world - a state of war!

Space alone dictates that much of this study is written in general terms, and with such a complex history - much of it unrecorded as literature - a more detailed account demands to be written by a more scholarly approach than we can give. But enough information has been given to show that the original Arabs were nomadic clans and tribes who had drifted into the `womb' of the deserts of the Arabian Peninisular and that through the direction and inspiration of Mohammed a cohesive collection of people had been brought into being, and after his death the successive struggles and the War of Apostacy forged great mercenary armies which swarmed out, conquering all who stood in their path. Today in the Arabian Peninsular Islam is practiced very much as it was in those early days. Centered around the Koran, and having the guardianship of the so-called holy places, Islam has produced a nation of extreme conservatism which is the protector of the purity of Islam.

However, the Islamic `Arab' nations of the north are entirely different. For as the original mass movement of the Arab armies moved out from Arabia they spread across the whole of the Middle East, reaching into much of Spain and France, across into Persia and on into the soft under-belly of the Asiatic lands, and through the centuries the original purity of the Arabic movement was left behind. Control of this vast empire moved to Baghdad around the Abbasids, and for centuries this was the centre of the Islamic world and its so-called Golden Age. If we care to dig into our childhood and youthful memories we will soon see how much of this Golden Age we have come into contact with - `Ali Baba', `The Thief of Baghdad', `One Thousand and One Nights' and so on - all beloved by Hollywood and novelists alike as they drew upon the Golden Age of the Abbasid Empire for inspiraton.

It was during this period that the Arab world experienced its own `great awakening' - developing its own distinctive architecture, its own concept of Islamic law (and the literature and philosophy that came from it) - long before the European `awakening' which we call the Renaissance. But this world was destroyed by the invading Mongols from the Asiatic lands, and Islam and the Arab world finally passed into the hands of the Ottomans whose empire was ruled by totally despotic Turkish Sultans. We saw that Islam was now spread across the whole Middle East and that for 500 years the whole area slowly but surely became a stagnant back-water in world affairs. Culturally they were a united people under the Ottoman Empire, but collectively they were corrupt, disintegrating both morally and economically. The fusing together of the original Arabi Bedouin with the guile of the oriental Persians, the Turks and the Asiatic Mongols produced an empire which would surely fall apart!

With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918-1919 it seemed that at last the yoke might be broken but, as we have already recorded, in 1905 there had been planted the seed of a dream of a resurrected Pan Arab world - a re- emergence of the Golden Age of Islam! But the conquering Western nations laid that dream to rest, and what we know as the Arab nations of today is the result of a carving up of the old Ottoman Empire ready for Western exploitation. The main culprits were obviously Britain, France and Italy, but most of the countries of the West had their political fingers in the Middle East pie. They used the ambitions of petty Sheikhs and Emirs who were waiting to settle old scores - part of the Arab life-blood - to establish Western power in the whole region. But these new states were highly unstable and volatile and after the Second World War they were uncontrollable!

Finally, with the forming of the State of Israel in 1948 through the United Nations, the whole area became a seething cauldron of bitter rivalry and ready for war!

Israel was merely in the way! and it became a catalyst for war by the re- emerging Arab Nationalism with its dreams of a Pan Arabia stretching over the whole area. There was a fusion of nationalism and religion over the whole of the Middle East - a dream of a new Islamic Golden Age. We have seen before that a fusion of state and religion brings into play a powerful force, and behind that powerful force stands the `King of Tyre' who will urge the `Ruler of Tyre' on and into a New Age of World Domination. This is at the heart of the battle now being drawn together in the Middle East!

The Western world saw it in the rise of Colonel Nasser in the 1960's. His was a dream of Egypt (and of a particular Egyptian called Nasser!) leading a Pan Arabian Renaissance which would last for ever. It was not to be! We saw it again with Colonel al Qadhafi. We might think he looked slightly ridiculous in his flowing robes, sitting in his Beduoin tent in the desert. He might well be a Berber, but he dreams of the simplicity and purity of the original Arab - the nomadic tribesmen who lived by the principle of `first among equals' with the boasting and rhetoric that leads to action. Do not think of the late Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran as merely an evil man who plotted behind his dark beard. His dream was of the Renaissance of Islam, based on power in Iran (or maybe he preferred to call it Persia).

Saddam Hussein is not totally a madman for he too is driven by the Pan Arabian dream. One of the titles he has chosen for himself is Saladin, the legendary hero of the Abbasid Empire who defeated the armies of Europe, the Crusaders, with his Mamluk armies. Saddam Hussein's choice of name is even more strange for Saladin was a Kurd - the very people this modern-day Saladin turned against in his defeat by the new `Crusaders' led by America! But in the midst of all this noise and rhetoric, the bombs and assassin's bullets, there was another who dreamed of a Pan Arabian world. (Strangely, the word `assassin' comes from an extreme Islamic sect whom the Crusaders feared, and for over two centuries they were the terrorists of the eastern world.)

The late President Lt. General Hafez al Assad also had his dreams of a Greater Syria based on Damascus. Most of the regimes of northern Arabia are secular in their political and social practices and the religion of Islam is subservient and secondary to their nationalistic ambitions. To give this philosophy a title we could perhaps call it Islamic Socialism, and this is best illustrated in the political creed of the Ba'th party which still rules with an iron fist in Syria and Iraq.

Into this sticky mire in 1991 stepped an American President with his dream of a New World Order and his four stated aims, one of which was peace between the Arab nations and Israel. The Gulf War was the means of drawing America into the steaming cauldron of the Middle East, but many had urged that President to make a clean exit. This was his avowed intent, but other forces ensured that he could not pull out of this area or of the Middle East as quickly as he would have wished. Even the most naive person knew that the Gulf War was not really about the invasion of Kuwait - not even necessarily about oil - but it was to do with power politics and the Western fear of the Pan Arabian dream coming to pass under Saddam Hussein.

The dream of another World Order, under the control (direction) of the West, was under threat, and with another political giant (the Old Soviet Union) undergoing death throes no-one could even begin, at that time, to give an accurate assessment of the outcome. And it must not be forgotten that large parts of the disintegrating former Soviet Union were Islamic in religion and culture, their borders resting up against Turkey and Iran. Who in America, or, for that matter, in the West, could have forecast what would happen to the world system if there was a victorious `Saladin' with Pan Arabian leadership dreams?

It had to be stopped! It was . . . at least for the time being! What, then, has happened? One thing is certain. With the end of the Gulf War the same old players were still in power, but their world had changed! There was no love lost between the Arab nations of the north and those of the southern half. Both had dreams and aspirations of leading the Islamic world. Saudi Arabia - keepers of the purity of Islam and guardians of the holy places - still dreamed of a new Golden Age, but to the side of them was the menacing power of Iran. Suddenly the dream of a Pan Arabian Empire was shattered. The falling pieces showed up deep divisions and bitterness, and the Gulf War alliance of Arab armies was seen to be no more than a settling of old scores - the blood feuding of the `Beduoin Arabs'.

This said, there will be no forgetting the treachery of Arab nations who aligned themselves with `the Great Satan', principally identified as America. According to Arab culture, treachery must be dealt with. Not to deal with the problem would bring discredit, not only to the leaders of the `tribe' but also to the family members. Great shame will be the portion of the nation that does not respond. This does not spell peace in anyone's dictionary! At that time, and quietly working in all of this, was the late President Assad of Syria - quietly, ruthlessly and efficiently seeking to extend his dream of a Greater Syria. He would have seen the waning influence of his previous benefactor, the old Soviet Union, and he bided his time - which came with the Gulf War. He then deftly moved his camp to the West, and as a reward he received $2 billion, which he promptly spent on armanents. This must surely call into question the American President's aim of controlling arms in the Middle East!

What does this all point to? Certainly not to a lasting peace! The forces that are waiting and watching with malevolent eyes will not stop until they once more attempt their objective - the destruction of the Jewish people. Christians in the West have become so preoccupied with their own part of the world, and fed on a diet of end-time prophecy concerning the shaking of the monetary system and the rise of the Antichrist that they have perhaps forgotten that there are other prophecies that must first be fulfilled. It has become a favourite `pastime' to try to identify the latest Antichrist, with such people as Henry Kissenger, Nelson Rockefeller, and, more recently, Mikhail Gorbachev, being identified. (Does Tony Blair now qualify?) But we need to take our eyes off our own narrow opinions for we have fallen into the trap of believing that the world consists only of the West, and we need to see the larger canvas on which God is painting His picture. This might not agree with our end-time doctrine which is based on videos and tapes from the latest Christian `Guru', but we could fall into the trap - through a dangerous deception of the enemy, who has worked on our westernised `McDonald's Fast Food' appetite for instant sensationalism - of listening to the news or watching the latest video and making the Bible fit into a timetable which the media has created.

There is no doubt that the West is experiencing a shaking, for the Babylonian system has to fall, politically, economically and religiously, *  is clearly foretold in the Bible. There is no doubt that the Antichrist will arise. That also is clearly foretold! There is no doubt that the False Prophet (a religious leader of an apostate religious system) will be clearly seen. Yes, the 10 horns, or kings, of Daniel 7 will emerge. But do not be surprised if they are not the European Community (and Jacques Delors was not the Antichrist, which will upset some Christian `Gurus' who expound current affairs as prophecy). The European Community is rapidly changing shape, and just as the danger of Pan Arabism was flattened (albeit temporarily) by the Gulf War, we now read of splits appearing (perhaps just as temporarily) in the member states of the European Community.

We can only know that prophecy has been fulfilled when it has happened exactly as foretold in every detail. Guessing will not bring about fulfillment. We are told to watch and pray . . to test and enquire . . to wait and be patient . . for what God has spoken will surely come to pass! God is painting on a very large canvas indeed, and we need to observe with eyes wide open in order to see what He is doing so that we can align ourselves with His will and purposes. Through prayer and intercession we can reach through international boundaries . . move against enemy armies . . have victory over spiritual forces . . and work together with God in the harvest field where He has placed us (if we know His will - and that is revealed in the Bible and by the Holy Spirit).

It would seem probable that the next major prophecy to be fulfilled will take place in the Middle East. This is usually described as `the wars of Ezekiel 38 and 39'. God is certainly bringing His people home to the land of Israel where He will bring them to Himself through affliction. The Bible refers to this time as `The Day of Jacob's Trouble', `The Day of the Lord', and other such titles, and these events will almost certainly be fulfilled through what is known as the Great Tribulation. However, the events of Ezekiel 38 and 39 would appear to take place prior to these terrible days, and the scenario which is now being brought together in the Middle East would seem to point to these wars and not to the war of Armageddon, which is recorded in Revelation 16:16.

The words the Lord spoke to Ezekiel are clear and tell of armies from Persia, Cush, Put, Gomer, Beth Togarmah, and many other nations gathering against Israel. The principle one of these is `Gog, chief prince of Meshek and Tubal', who is brought from the far north, coming to wage war against Israel, invading `a land of unwalled villages and a peaceful and unsuspecting people, all of them being without walls and gates and bars'. These nations are clearly identified as being Islamic nations and part of the Arab world. Gomer is usually thought to be northern Germany, which could head up a European army, whereas the main force is Russia, which at present has some highly volatile and unstable Islamic Republics on its southern borders.

But whilst we in the West have been preoccupied with the coming `money crash' - believing that every dip in the price of houses is a clear sign of its imminent arrival - another part of the canvas has been painted in by God. The `tribes' of the Greater Arabian womb were in dismay at the defeat of their latest `prophet' at the end of the Gulf War and reverted back to old-fashioned nationalism and the settling of old scores. Could it be that God is using the ambition of a former President of the United States of America to bring about peace in the Middle East between Israel and the Arabs - a real peace, according to man's understanding, which will bring prosperity and wealth to the people - a New World Order guaranteed by Western countries and the United Nations of a kind that will allow Israel to dwell in cities without walls?

We shall know when it happens! If it does come about then rest assured that what follows will be the complete fulfillment of Ezekiel's prophecy! One day soon some latter-day `Saladin', with a dream of Pan Arabism, could utter the cry that will fuse the Arab nations into one people under the banner of Islam. Russia will be reluctantly drawn into it; Gomer will be there too; and another war will be under way. But in its way will be Israel, with the Jews who have been gathered back into the land ready for God's dealings with them! It would seem possible, therefore, that `on the mountains of Israel' God will break the evil yoke of Islam just as surely as the yoke of Communism has been broken over the Eastern European nations.

In the aftermath, unnumbered multitudes of Arabs will be set free to hear the Good News of the love of God! So understanding the background of these people, instead of lumping them all together under the general title of `Arabs', will help our understanding of the purposes of God and of how He can work in the circumstances. And even a slight understanding of the complexities of the Arab world, such as we have attempted here, will enable us to lift up our eyes to see the `bigness of our God', who is reaching out in every possible way to draw people to Himself whilst there is time before the Lord Jesus returns!