THE SILVER KINGDOM: THE BIBLE AND IRAN by Dr. Shah, Clearview Church, Henderson, NC
Introduction: Today’s message is a little different from the previous messages. I am sure you have seen the news about the “major combat operations” against Iran. It is called “Operation Epic Fury” by the Americans and “Operation Lion’s Roar” by the Israelis. At last report, the Islamic leader Ali Khamenei has been eliminated, which is a big deal. The Iranian people are rejoicing in the streets everywhere! What does this mean for us living in America? What does this mean for Christians from a biblical, historical, and futuristic perspective? Here’s the gist of the message: Until the hearts of men and women, boys and girls, are radically changed by Christ, there can be no lasting genuine peace. Although, it is incumbent for the good people of the world to help others in their fight for justice, peace, and freedom, that is not enough. When doors are opened, we should do everything possible to share the gospel of peace, the gospel of Christ.
Ezekiel 38 (page #1350) 1 “Now the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 2 “Son of man, set your face against Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, and prophesy against him, 3 and say, “Thus says the Lord GOD: ‘Behold, I am against you, O Gog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal. 4 I will turn you around, put hooks into your jaws, and lead you out, with all your army, horses, and horsemen, all splendidly clothed, a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords. 5 Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya are with them, all of them with shield and helmet; 6Gomer and all its troops; the house of Togarmah from the far north and all its troops—many people are with you.”
Background: The passage we just read from Ezekiel is a prophecy concerning a future invasion of Israel by a host of nations surrounding it. It is referred to as the Battle of Gog and Magog. I don’t have time to get into the identity of each of these nations. For our message, the one that we are interested in is Persia. Until March 1935, the name was Persia and then it was changed to Iran.
The Past of Iran (Information coming from Edwin Yamauchi):
The very first name for this part of the world is Elam. Genesis 10:22 “The sons of Shem were Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram.” They were rivals of the Mesopotamians, At times, they were dominated by the Babylonians. At other times, they also came against the Mesopotamians and took treasures such as Stele of Naram-Sin and the code of Hammurabi.
By the end of the second millennium, the Medes and the Persians, Indo-European tribes, were slowly making their way from around the Caspian Sea. They were coming from both the eastern and the western side of the Caspian Sea. First the Medes dominated the Persians, until Cyrus came, who was himself half Mede and half Persian. Under his rule and the Achaemenid rulers, Persia ruled all the way from modern-day Tajikistan and India in the east to Egypt and modern-day Turkey in the west.
There’s so much more we can talk about regarding the history of Iran or Persia, but let’s turn to the Bible where it is clearly mentioned. It begins with a dream by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon around 602BC. It was so troubling to him that he could not sleep. He asked all his wisemen to tell him the meaning of the dream, but there was a catch. They had to also tell him what the dream was. Of course, they couldn’t do that. Only Daniel could. Listen to him in Daniel 2 (page #1373) 27 Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, “The secret which the king has demanded, the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, and the soothsayers cannot declare to the king. 28 But there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets, and He has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days…31 “You, O king, were watching; and behold, a great image! This great image, whose splendor was excellent, stood before you; and its form was awesome. 32 This image’s head was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, 33 its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. 34 You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. 35 Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed together, and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; the wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found. And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. In the verses following, Daniel gives the interpretation of the dream – Gold (Babylon – Herodotus talks about visiting Babylon and seeing more gold than ever in his life, a statue of Marduk was 22 tons of gold, that is 44,000lbs), Silver (Medo-Persia – complex postal system and an elaborate taxation system that brought in silver, another word for money, Alexander the Great took away 12-18 million pounds of silver from Persia), Brass (Greece – Alexander the Great’s army’s bronze helmet, armor, and shields), Iron (Rome – swords and chariots, brute strength and resolve), Iron and Clay (kingdoms of the Antichrist – Islamic East and Woke West, fragile and odd unity).
Just the way God showed in the dream, it happened. Daniel 5 (page #1382) 25 “And this is the inscription that was written: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. 26 This is the interpretation of each word. MENE: God has numbered your kingdom, and finished it; 27 TEKEL: You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting; 28 PERES: Your kingdom has been divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.” 29 Then Belshazzar gave the command, and they clothed Daniel with purple and put a chain of gold around his neck, and made a proclamation concerning him that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom. 30 That very night Belshazzar, king of the Chaldeans, was slain. 31 And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old. Without getting into too many details, Cyrus was overall king of the Medo-Persian Empire in 539BC and let all people go back home and rebuild their homeland. Not only that but Cyrus even returned the items that had been taken out of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar and placed in the temple of his gods. He also provided support and commanded the people to do the same for those who were going back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. In Isaiah 44:28,God calls Cyrus “My shepherd.”
Later in Daniel 7, Daniel has a vision of those same empires but in a different way. Daniel 7 (page #1385) 2 Daniel spoke, saying, “I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the Great Sea. 3 And four great beasts came up from the sea, each different from the other. 4The first was like a lion, and had eagle’s wings. I watched till its wings were plucked off; and it was lifted up from the earth and made to stand on two feet like a man, and a man’s heart was given to it.5 “And suddenly another beast, a second, like a bear. It was raised up on one side, and had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. And they said thus to it: ‘Arise, devour much flesh!’ This lopsided bear is again Persia. It is lopsided because it was dominated by the Median empire at first. The 3 ribs represent the 3 powerful nations that it conquered: Lydia (Turkey today), Babylon (Iraq today), and Egypt.
Once more, in Daniel 8, Daniel has a vision. This time the focus is on the Persian Empire and Greece, and Persia is described as a ram. Daniel 8 (page #1387) 3 Then I lifted my eyes and saw, and there, standing beside the river, was a ram which had two horns, and the two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher one came up last. 4 I saw the ram pushing westward, northward, and southward, so that no animal could withstand him; nor was there any that could deliver from his hand, but he did according to his will and became great. 5 And as I was considering, suddenly a male goat came from the west, across the surface of the whole earth, without touching the ground; and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes. 6 Then he came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing beside the river, and ran at him with furious power.
This may not seem like a big deal, but keep in mind that these prophecies were given about 200 years before they came to pass.
The Present of Iran:
Where did the name Iran come from? Reza Shah, the father of the Shah of Iran, came to power in 1923. He brought a lot of modernization and industrialization to Iran. He was so fascinated with rise of Germany in the 1930s that he considered Iran as an Aryan state just like Germany. So, the name was changed from Persia to Iran. I think he could have done that without changing the name. Fast forward to the 1970s when his son, the Shah of Iran, was in power. He was also trying to fast track Iran into a modern nation. He brought great reform and industries to Iran. Lot of good happened for the people. Unfortunately, this was also the time of rise of communism and socialism all over the world. This began on the college campuses where students led in the revolution in favor of socialism and communism. The only difference between socialism and communism is the ownership of private property but major industries are state owned. As Marxists see it, socialism is just a steppingstone towards communism. Back to the Shah, because of his reforms towards Western values, the Islamic clerics did not care for him, especially one named Khomeini. Even though he was exiled, through a series of riots and revolts, the Shah had to flee. Iran stepped into an odd marriage of Shiite Islam and Socialism, the red flag and the green flag. In 1979, the name changed to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
From here began the downward spiral of the people of Iran. How many of you remember the hostage crisis where 52 hostages were taken from the US embassy. The crisis lasted for 444 days until minutes after Reagan became the President. In 1983, 241 were killed by Iran’s proxies at the Marine Barracks in Beirut. Over the years, the Islamic regime has pushed to get a nuclear bomb. In 1995, Russia signed an $800 million nuclear plan deal to build a nuclear plant for Iran. Over the years, they played games with the International community on whether or not they will stop the uranium enrichment program. In 2005, Russia again signed a $1 billion deal for missiles and defense systems. Unfortunately, in 2015, the Obama administration made a nuclear deal with Iran along with some other nations known as the JCPOA. The deal did not block Iran’s nuclear ambitions, just delayed it with no consequences. The only thing it blocked were the sanctions and gave Iran billions of dollars. Through the years, Iran’s Islamic Socialist regime has been behind untold number of terror attacks against US citizens. They are behind the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah. They are behind the Houthi, Yemeni rebels. They are behind the Hamas attacks, especially the one on October 7, 2023. More than anything, it still wants to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.
Don’t forget that the ideologies behind the Islamic and the Socialists is to advance their agenda.For the Socialist, they won’t stop until they achieve their agenda to destroy our nations free economy. I grew up in a socialist country where we had to buy sugar with a ration card. Trust me, when I say, you don’t want it. For the Islamist, in Shiite Islam, especially the Twelver kind, as in Iran, they have the belief that there were 12 Imams (successor to Mohammed from his son-in-law Ali). They 12th one was Mohammed al-Mahdi who went into hiding since the 9th century, but he is waiting for the right time to come and bring about Islamic rule over the whole world. Nuclear war for some of these people, not all, would actually hasten the coming of the Mahdi. Imagine rulers like this with nuclear capability.
I’ve heard people say, “Why do we get involved in other people’s wars?” My answer is 2-fold: “If you don’t stop them there, get ready to fight them here”; “To whom much is given, much is required.” In other words, if we didn’t stop terrorists there, we would have faced them in our streets. If we don’t stop Iran there, we will have to face them here. If we don’t stop them in the sand dunes, we will have to fight them in our streets. Has that happened? Of course. September 11, Beltway sniper attacks, Capitol Hill massacre, Fort Hood Shooting, Boston Marathon, to name a few big ones. This is why we support our soldiers. They keep the fight away from us. Also, we have been blessed to bless others. Sometimes, it doesn’t come out right and mistakes are made. Yes, there can be corrupt politicians and bad soldiers. But we have to keep trying to do what is right.
The Future of Iran:
In the opening of our message, we read from Ezekiel 38 about the gathering of ten nations including Persia against Israel. The question is when will this take place? Listen to Ezekiel 38:8 (page #1350)“After many days you will be visited. In the latter years you will come into the land of those brought back from the sword and gathered from many people on the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate; they were brought out of the nations, and now all of them dwell safely.” When will Israel be dwelling safely? More than likely in the first half of the Tribulation period when there is a covenant of peace made with the Antichrist. Currently, Israel is not enjoying this time of peace. The Battle of Gog and Magog will be at the end of the three and half years of the Tribulation period and three and a half years before the Battle of Armageddon. By the way, don’t confuse these two battles. The first one will be a confederation of the 10 nations led by Russia against Israel during a time of peace. The second one will be at the end of the Tribulation with the Antichrist leading the armies of the entire world against Israel. The Battle of Gog and Magog will be gathered in the mountains of Israel. The Battle of Armageddon will be assembled in the plains of Megiddo. In the first battle, God will use fire, brimstone, hailstone to destroy the armies. In the Battle of Armageddon, he will just say “Drop dead.” It will take 7 months to bury the bodies of the dead. After Armageddon, the Millenium Kingdom will begin immediately.
Overall, the point is not that the bad guys are now eliminated, but the failure to share the gospel with a lost and dying world should break out hearts.
If this is about to usher in the age of peace and tranquility, I’m praying that Iran will not only prosper and have success but that the gospel will also go in and change lives.
Invitation: It’s time to pray for God to bring peace and freedom to Iran and the Middle East. Pray for America and our troops. Pray for revival in our nation. Pray for Israel for peace and protection. Pray also that many will come to know the Messiah through this. Pray that we will share the gospel with the lost world before it is too late.