THE BURDEN OF DAMASCUS
THE BURDEN OF DAMASCUS
Sunday, February 3, 2013, the Year of Our Lord
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
Isaiah 17: 1 “The burden of Damascus, Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous city.
On January 30, 2013, Israel bombed a military facility in Western Damascus. Since the civil-war started in Syrian in 2011, Israel has not had in direct involvement in the war.
I can’t say the Lord has spoken to me regarding this week’s events in Syria, but like Isaiah, I can say I have had a “burden”. On February 2, Syrian rebels advanced taking control of a major road connecting the Aleppo International Airport with the rest of Aleppo.
The burden of Damascus has been my prayer focus since the Wednesday bombing by Israel. I have been reviewing some prophecies that came forth in 2012. I will re-cap, because like me, some one here may need a review.
On March 17, 2012, A.D., the Lord spoke to me, “the war has begun.” I had been focused most of the week on the bombing of Israel by the Palestinians in Gaza. I felt strongly at the time “the war” was the 10-nation confederacy of Psalm 83 in conjunction with the destruction of Damascus as described in Isaiah 17:1. (See Sermon Psalm 83---10 Nation Confederacies against Israel, March 18, 2012)
Today while researching the ongoing Syrian Civil War, I discovered on March 17, 2012, live car bombs hit the heart of the city of Damascus escalating the war into a new level of conflict.
On July 18, 2012, A.D., I received a message from the Lord in a dream. I saw a map of the nation of Turkey and heard, “They will invade the borders of Turkey”. I saw soldiers and machinery of war. Then I saw written out in the dream, “Carolyn preach on the Lors” (See sermon on Elam-Iran-The Lors July 22, 2012).
On July 20, 2012, the Shi’-a’ Syrian rebels secured the Syria/Turkey borders. By November 2012, the civil war in Syria crosses the borders of Turkey.
On February 1, 2013, The United States Army’s Third Battalion, Second air defense moved 400 troops to Gaziantep, Turkey with the mission of setting up Patriot missiles at the Turkey/Syrian border.
We have two air bases in Turkey. One is named Incirlik and means “fig tree grove”.
I preached on “The Fig Tree” July 8, 2012. I primarily focused the message of God’s covenantal blessing, prosperity and security for His covenant people using the metaphor of the fig tree.
However, the fig tree is also used figuratively of the end-times in Isaiah 34; Mt. 24:32; and Rev. 6:13:
Isaiah 34: 1-10: “Come near, ye nations, to hear; and hearken, you people; let the earth hear, and all that is therein; the world, and all things that come forth of it…for the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies…(Vs. 4) All the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll; and their host shall fall down, as the leaf falls from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree.
(This could possibly be figurative of air planes, drones and missiles coming out of the sky from “The Fig Tree” airbase in Turkey.)
(Vs.8) “For it is the day of the Lord’s vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion. And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. It shall not be quenched night or day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever; from generation to generation it shall lay waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever.”
Matthew 24: 31-33: “And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. Now learn a parable of the fig tree; when his branch is yet tender, and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near; so likewise you, when you shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the door.”
The fig tree puts forth its leaves in March. It was March 2012, the Lord spoke to me, “The war has begun.”
Revelation 6:12-13: “When he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake (Gk. seismos)…And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casts her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.”
What does this all mean to us today? I don’t know. However, like Isaiah, I can say I have a burden to preach what the Word of God tells us about Damascus, Syria.
Isaiah 17 was partially fulfilled when Tiglathpileser, King of Assyria and Sargon (11 Kg. 16:9-12) invaded and destroyed Damascus. However, this passage in Isaiah foreshadows the events of the Day of the Lord.
The prophet seeks to reassure and guide the terrified people of Judah (Southern Kingdom of Israel). The certainty of doom is pronounced, first for Damascus and then in equal measure for the northern kingdom, Ephraim.
Damascus has never totally been destroyed. It is the oldest continually-inhabited city in the world. According to Josephus it was founded by Us the grandson of Shem. Abraham sojourned there until he moved to Canaan. Three major trade routes through Damascus made it become a trade center. Syria came to power shortly after David’s rule.
David conquered Damascus, but under Solomon it became the capital of an independent kingdom, established by Rasin. Syrians were later Israel’s enemies. ` When not engaged in mutual conflict the kings of Damascus and Samaria entered into alliances with the neighboring princes against the powerful kings of Assyria
In this passage, Northern Israel (Samaria and Ephraim) have made an alliance against Judah. In 734 B.C. Damascus and Samaria nearly ruined Jerusalem, but Achaz, King of Juda, invoked the help of the Assyrian King, Tiglath-Pileser who defeated the allies, and captured Damascus after a siege of two years.
Isaiah 17:3: “The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus” Isaiah goes on to contrast the northern kingdom’s present glory and pride with its imminent future, reduced to negligible proportions comparable with pitiful quantities of grain and olives that are left behind after harvesting.
Isaiah 17:7: “In that day shall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel.”
Their punishment is for a purpose. When calamity strikes, they will think again of their Maker.
(Vs. 9) “In that day shall his strong cities be as a forsaken bough, and an uppermost branch, which they left because of the children of Israel; and there shall be desolation.”
Ancient Samaria is now known as the Palestinians. Most of ancient Ephraim is now Syria and Jordan.
Isaiah 17:10-11- is a rebuke to the Northern Kingdom of Israel, ---“Because you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not been mindful of the rock of your strength, therefore shall you plant pleasant plants, and shall set it with strange slips. In that day shall you make your plant to grow, and in the morning shall you make your seed to flourish; but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.”
This continues the charge of idolatry. Isaiah has singled out a specific type of pagan worship, the Adonis cult in which the forced growth of plants (as described here) had symbolic value.
In verse 12, Isaiah is giving courage to Judah when threatened by any and every foreign army; God would protect His own even if the whole world descended upon Jerusalem! How much more then, would He put the puny armies of Damascus and Northern Israel to flight, they would disappear overnight.
Isa. 17: 12-14: “Woe to the multitude of many people, which make a noise like the noise of the seas; and to the rushing of nations, that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters! The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters; but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling things before the whirlwind. Behold at evening tide trouble; and before the morning he is not. This is the portion of them that spoil us and the lot of them that rob us.”
Mt. 4:24: “The fame of Jesus went throughout all Syria and they brought to Him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy, and He healed them.”
It was in Damascus that Paul encountered Jesus Christ. Saul went to the high priest in Jerusalem to get a letter to the synagogues in Damascus. If he found any Christians there, he would bring them bound to Jerusalem.
As he came near Damascus, suddenly there shown round about him a light from heaven. He fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Paul trembling and astonished was told to go into Damascus and there it would be told him what he must do.
The men with him led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus. He was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink. Ananias, one of the Lord’s disciples lived in Damascus. The Lord said to him, “Arise go into the street which is called “Straight”, and enquire in the house of Judas for the one called Saul, of Tarsus for, behold he prays. He has seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in, and putting his hand on him, that he might receive his sight.
In Damascus today, there is still the same street called “Straight”.
In the time of St. Paul there were in Damascus about 50,000 Jews. Most of the women in the upper classes of society had embraced this creed.
In Damascus, Paul preached Christ and was obliged to flee by night to Arabia. The city then belonged to Aretas, King of the Arabs. Under Nero the heathen slaughtered by treachery 10,000 Jews in the gymnasium of Herod.
Acts 15:41: “And he (Paul) went through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the churches”.
Today 10% of the populations of Syria are Christians. Both the rebels and the Syrians are persecuting and killing Christians during this civil war. Christians are fleeing the country as the crisis has reached unprecedented levels of horror.
We know from these verses in Isaiah the doom of those who persecute the people of God. If the Assyrian army take God’s people captive, terrorize and murder them, they will be chased by their own terrors, as the chaff of the mountains which stand bleak before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind. God, Himself, will make them afraid with His storm.
This was a burden which came,
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
Scripture from K.J.V.
I entered into the labors of f. F. Bruce Bible Commentary and copied from sermon notes by: Carolyn Sissom; the Fig Tree; Psalm 83---10 Nation Conference against Israel; Elam-Iran-The Lors.