The fourth transgression

I remember 1962 and the Cuban Missile Crisis. All most of us could do was wait and see who would blink first, Kennedy or Khrushchev. At least, that's how it seemed at the time. Nine years old and wondering if we would see another day.

Fast forward eleven years and most of us didn't have a clue how dangerous the 1973 (October War) was. Nixon was embroiled in the Watergate scandal and Russia decided to send a warship with nuclear warheads to Alexandria, Egypt. For the first time since Cuba, Nixon put the US military on a Stage Three alert. Russia, under Brezhnev, backed off.

We've had all sorts of major and minor conflicts since then, but never one with the US and Russia eyeball to eyeball. Now both countries have warships in the Mediterranean.

Syria has warned that if attacked it will attack Israel. Iran has made similar threats/promises(?). Syria has said that it can surprise everyone if it has to defend itself.

Why does nobody believe them?

Putin is one of the toughest men on the political scene and Obama one of the most duplicitous. He cares little or nothing for Israel and his actions would indicate that his loyalties lie outside the USA.

Who blinks first? 

And the fourth transgression? That would be Syria's - see here.

It will be the fourth overt attack on Israel by Syria since the restoration of the State of Israel in its historic homeland.

All this beginning to look like Bill Salus is right about the Psalm 83 war. One wonders how easily the Egyptians and Jordanians would be pressured into joining the fight. It wouldn't be the first time.

 

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. 

The old three - four. Why we should weep for Syria. Four strikes and you are out!

In boxing, there's the old one-two; in the Bible, there's the old three-four. It's the last punch that does the damage.

Let me explain:

1. Proverbs Ch. 30: 18ff

¹⁸ Three things are too wonderful for me;
    four I do not understand:
¹⁹ the way of an eagle in the sky,
    the way of a serpent on a rock,
the way of a ship on the high seas,
    and the way of a man with a maiden.

What really puzzles the writer is  the behaviour of lovers. The first three are used to highlight the vagaries of love.

2. Luke Ch.15

Jesus is preaching on the text,  "This man receives sinners and eats with them".

He tells four parables. Oh, yes He does, but the fourth is woven into the third and is often overshadowed. He deals with four classes of sin.

1. The lost sheep is the foolish sinner, driven by wilful desire and ignorant of the consequences. 2.The lost coin, the shortest, is the victim of a fallen world. Still bound in sin, but not a perpetrator of sin. 3.The lost younger son knows what he is doing is wrong but is careless of the consequences. He could have done better, but chooses not to. 4.The lost elder son wilfully and deliberately humiliates his father by demand an accounting.  He knows better and rebels with a full understanding. His soul is in great peril. This is the story that is left unfinished. The listener is intended to answer the unspoken question for himself.

3. Amos 1

Amos doesn't bother to list the first three transgressions here. "For three transgressions and for four". The fourth strike is the trigger for judgement.  All the warnings are worth reading and meditating on, but the one that is of interest here is the first one in Vs.3. The judgement on Damascus.


Many link these words with Isaiah 17:1 - 3 and Jeremiah 49:23 - 27.  Here the destruction of Damascus is predicted. 

The link is not guaranteed, but here's the interesting thing... 

4. Damascus

Since 1948, Syria has openly attacked Israel THREE times. Covertly, it is considerably more. Recently, we have heard clear threats of war from Syria's president.  

The situation there grows evermore complex and dangerous. 

This is one prophecy that I do not want to see fulfilled.  All they have to do is to leave Israel in peace.

If you live in Damascus and do not think that Israel will be left in peace, then now is the time to leave and go elsewhere. 

As for the rest of us, we must pray and weep for Damascus.