Won’t you pause to ponder and praise the Lord with me? Let’s look back briefly and consider how the prophetic has a place in diplomatic circles.
After a lightning strike damaged Mecca’s Grand Mosque just over two years ago I’ve noticed many changes are under way in Saudi Arabia and the M-East generally. Developments indicative of major spiritual and diplomatic changes in Muslim leaders’ relationships with and their attitudes toward Christians, and Israel in particular, are quietly emerging.
Late in the year of the ‘blood-moon tetrad‘ (2015) I closed a series of posts on the years’ spectacular events with Why this September is special: Update #2 – Islam, which referred to a lightning strike in Mecca. Under the sub-head ‘Anniversary of 9/11 Atrocity’ I wrote:
‘On the anniversary of this century’s ‘day of infamy’ for New York, I noted another event seemed to connect into the collapse of the Twin Towers – as well as possibly being of God, or was it simply coincidence? Lightning from a severe thunderstorm in Mecca struck a tall crane, which collapsed into the Grand Mosque thereby killing and injuring hundreds.
‘The construction engineer is quoted as saying, “It was an act of God”. A ‘very saddened’ British imam is reputed to have said, “It’s a blessing in disguise for those killed”. Four days later Saudi Arabia’s King Salman suspended contracts for the construction company, which is owned by the Bin Laden family!
‘Nevertheless, it ‘struck’ me that it’s a mirror ‘action replay’ on the 14th anniversary of the attack upon America, inspired as it was by the teachings and practices of the Meccan founder of Islam. That is, the very heart of the homeland and faith of those modern religious plotters and perpetrators was visited by an almost similar ‘toppling of a tower’. Also, my first impression was of The Almighty throwing down the gauntlet to confront satan. It’s far, far too uncanny not to be of poignant significance!’
The necessity of brevity means we’ll avoid itemising all subsequent events, except the notable one, and overlooking Crown Prince Muhammad’s radical reforms, your attention is drawn to recent events with his main Sunni Muslim allies of Egypt and Jordan.
This year’s change of US administration brought a complete sea-change not only in US-Arab diplomacy but also between USA and Israel. In his first foreign trip as the POTUS, Donald Trump addressed the 2017 Riyadh Summit in Saudi Arabia with a well-crafted speech. I re-blogged Joel Rosenberg’s report Trump boldly urges Muslim leaders to “drive out the terrorist and extremists” from their nations and mosques with this intro’:
‘Note Trump’s accurate description of Islamic terror as “battle between Good and Evil” (read prepared speech.) All a mighty contrast to Obama’s deep rift with Riyadh in 2011 for betraying Egypt’s president Mubarak as a consequence of having invited the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood to his 2009 Cairo speech plus his back-channel dealings with Iran, as I reported just over 8 years ago in Today’s Importance in History (18 May 2009)!’
Christian Leaders Meet Middle-East’s Leaders
THEREFORE, with those two historic and highly significant events in mind let’s look at the latest news from Joel Rosenberg of his delegation of evangelical leaders’ top-level meetings in Egypt and Jordan. Tap/click links to read his reports in full:
1st Nov > Today in Cairo, Egyptian President Sisi Welcomed First-ever Delegation of Christian Leaders for 3-hour Meeting : I had opportunity to meet Egyptian President el-Sisi in Washington in April. What I could not say at the time was that…the President invited me to bring a delegation of Evangelical Christian leaders to visit him in Cairo, as well as to meet other senior Egyptian government officials and religious leaders. We’ve been working on this with his staff and advisors ever since, and today the project not only became a reality but was far more than I could possibly have hoped for…’
2nd Nov > Arab & Israeli media provide inside details of President el-Sisi’s historic meeting Evangelical Christian leaders in Cairo : …’Rosenberg, who was born to a Jewish father, told Haaretz that he was surprised at the level of interest expressed by the Egyptians in the delegation. “For the leader of Egypt to invite a Christian group to sit with him, discuss what he’s doing, talk about some of the difficult issues, that’s very impressive. I was hoping we could get ten minutes with him, and eventually we got almost three hours. From our side, the important thing was to show our appreciation for his fight against terrorism and extremism, for his commitment to peace and security ties with Israel, and for saving Egypt from the darkness of the Muslim Brotherhood.”…‘
8th Nov > Jordan’s King Abdullah II welcomes Evangelical Christian Delegation at Palace in Amman. Leaders thank King for advancing peace, fighting terrorism, caring for refugees and protecting Christians : ‘The meeting capped three days of meetings between Delegation members and senior government officials; Evangelical, Catholic and Muslim leaders in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan; and a moving visit to the Zaatari Refugee Camp near the Syrian border….’
Kingdom Presence & Prophecy
An insight upon another quite different aspect of spiritual diplomacy on behalf of the King of Kings was shared at Revd Dr Sharon Stone’s mentoring day last Saturday – it’s that of the office and function of God’s prophet.
As part of his material, the speaker for the first session taught about the student’s ‘work’ or assignment in the Lord as being the prime driver and energizer in their lives. As God created air for birds to fly through so He created His Kingdom in which His presence manifests and in which His saints are to function. Therein, Holy Spirit’s words and power comes to His people. Those anointed in the office of prophet are to create a Kingdom atmosphere in order to do their ‘work’. So, without the presence of God any ministry is impossible. The question is, how’s this done in secular, even governmental, meetings?
In giving an example this speaker surprised us by telling about when he was invited to a meeting in Geneva, at the United Nations, and expected to prophesy to some government leaders. In meeting ‘the world’ with every race, creed and culture present, he realised the need to avoid jargon, or ‘churchese’.
‘Why? What am I trying to do? I’m trying to conquer an air-space; I’m trying to bring a Kingdom atmosphere into an already world-atmosphere. And there’s nothing more like world atmosphere, I promise you, than being at the UN…every ambassador, diplomat and delegate is there and I’m in front of a couple and of course I don’t know if they’re Christians. So I’m not going to say “Thus saith the Lord”. All I’m going to do is speak the Word of God into the atmosphere and drop Truth, even in this place. And so I said (to X and Y), “I don’t know who you are but I see you’re in between two intense negotiations right now and I see…”
He gave the gathered students just a tiny peek of the bigger picture he was giving them about their personal work and how the Lord is helping. They then asked the prophet, “You don’t know who we are, do you?” – “No” he replied.
It turns out they’re Donald Trump’s envoys and the prophet continued: ‘(Then) as I’m speaking the atmosphere changes, all of a sudden the Kingdom of God came in and the next day – and the next day – there was momentum to minister to most of the diplomats…Why? Because we can change the atmosphere with the prophetic!’
The speaker explained how this principle works by alluding to the military strategy of ‘air supremacy’ – so too, with prophecy and intercessory prayer.
British readers wishing to avoid the BBC’s extremely jaundiced, inaccurate news on America’s recognition of Jerusalem (visit BBC Watch) may be interested in the following sample headlines from Koenig World Watch Daily (also see Breaking Israel News and International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem):
First, we must refer to the concurrent ‘coincidental’ events 
‘Voice for Justice has issued the following request to petition for the immediate censure and removal from office of ‘Very Rev’ Kelvin Holdsworth, Senior Anglican Minister Kelvin Holdsworth, homosexual Provost of St Mary’s Cathedral in Glasgow. He calls for Christians to pray for Prince George to be gay, in order to force the Church of England to support same-sex marriage.
With the background from updates
This is first of three overviews of events in the Middle-East before leading into a consideration of how they relate to the ‘Four Signposts’ approach to Bible prophecy. We will look more closely at Jordan and dip into reports on Saudi Arabian involvement in the Israel-Palestine peace process and with Iran.
I wondered if Joel Rosenberg’s report of visiting Jordan accurately paints the picture in view of strong discrimination against those who become Christians (secret police watch ex-Muslims). I’m grateful to friends who’ve been there allowing me to share their response to my 
From his desk as an accredited correspondent in the White House, William Koenig gives an exceptionally extensive round-up of the week’s Middle-Eastern news in his 
So we’re not only back to the Bible but also to what grabbed my attention in mid-1980s of Iran rehearsing (with its Sunni enemy troops!) the storming of Jerusalem whilst I was reading about it as a non-Christian in the secular book 
Richard's Watch 