This Recent Articles page is proud to serve up links to the house specialties that have been on offer at Chez ALS during the current year of 2025.
Each entry below contains a "hook" that suggests what the article deals with (an hors-d'œuvre), the first several paragraphs (an appetizer), plus a link to the full article (the main course). If you just want to scan over a list of the titles of all the articles on this site, you can save time by grabbin' a burger at the Article Index page. Bon appétit!
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JAN '25: The Burden of Damascus
With Syria in chaos, many are anticipating the fall of Damascus as per Isaiah 17:1–2. But others believe this prophecy has been completely fulfilled. Hmm...
The Burden of Damascus
Syria has been front and center in the news these days, as the government of Bashar al-Assad has fallen to Islamist rebels while the power brokers who propped up his government for their own purposes sat on the sidelines and watched. As for Assad, he escaped from the capital Damascus and fled to Moscow, where he was welcomed with open arms by President Putin.
Not being as much of a political wonk as some in the watch community, it's still a bit too soon for me to try and sort through the situation in Syria with a high degree of clarity and scope out just how all this might play out. I'm pretty much like a lot of ordinary people right now, saddled with a case of "wait and see." So, that's not the point of this article—we'll have to wait and see.
Now, I may not be much of a political wonk, but I admit that I am a bit of a Scripture wonk. So, rather than a little geopolitical prognostication, what I want to do here is consider a hot topic that's been making the rounds in prophetic circles these days: the question of Damascus and its relationship to an oft-quoted prophecy in the book of Isaiah.
FEB '25: Shifting Sands
Some significant events have occurred over the past year that impact the Gog-Magog scenario, and many are wondering what effect they will have.
Shifting Sands
My, what a difference a year makes. Scarcely a year ago, Iran was the up-and-coming bully of the Middle East, flexing its military muscles and bellowing its belligerent death-to-Israel diatribe with abandon. Iran was recognized as the world's terrorist octopus, with its tentacles reaching down into Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and a number of other smaller terrorist groups scattered throughout the Middle East.
As that octopus slowly and inexorably squeezed its tentacles around the neck of Israel, the Iranian head of that octopus frantically pursued its dream of developing nuclear weapons, rapidly drawing ever closer to the glorious day when it would be able to wipe Israel off the face of the earth with a spine-chilling array of shiny new nukes.
Not only that, but both Iran and their Russian BFFs maintained a strong military presence in Syria that served to (a) project a direct threat to the hated Jewish state and (b) prop up a cooperative Assad regime that exercised a cruel level of suppression over a suffering Syrian population.
1. Adapted from Sunset Over Grass Field © AOosthuizen at Can Stock Photo
2. Butler With Tray © NewAfrica at Depositphotos
3. Adapted from 3a–3b:
3a. Damascus, Syria, Panorama at Sunset © Vyacheslav Argenberg (cropped, resized, text added) [CC BY 4.0]
3b. Nuclear Bomb Explosion © rfphoto via Depositphotos
4. Global Middle East Crisis © lightsource at Depositphotos
Scripture Quotations:
All Scripture is taken from the World English Bible, unless specifically annotated as the King James Version (KJV) or the American King James Version (AKJV).