UPDATED. China protests turning violent: Kings of the East now in play

UPDATE: Today in an unusual move, a Chinese General today said 'Prepare for Combat'. Top Chinese general in unusual move tells troops to ready for combat with Japan
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It's amazing to see the Lord work His sovereign will in the world. Over the last few years we have seen the Gog-Magog alliance shape up, Russia's return to power, the incendiary fanaticism of Iran, the abandonment of Israel, The emergence of the Arab Spring and Muslim brotherhood's rise to power, Egypt and Jordan breaking  their peace treaties with Israel (or almost), the inclusion of Libya and Sudan on the world prophetic stage, the near-collapse of the EU, and the decline of the US. The nations He intends to use in the very last days prior to the rapture and during the Tribulation are in play.

The only arena left out is Asia. Where are the Kings of the East? Well, they showed up, big time.

You might remember on August 18 I'd posted about an obscure standoff between Japan and China over even more obscure islands. I thought it was something at the time, and it has turned into something indeed. Here is the August news excerpt.

The latest dispute began in August, with Japan detaining 14 Chinese activists who clambered onto a bleak little islet claimed and controlled by Tokyo. The activists, who had set sail from Hong Kong, dodged Japanese coast guard vessels and planted Chinese and Taiwanese flags on one of the Senkaku islands, which are also claimed by China and Taiwan. The Chinese call them the Diaoyu islands. Map is from Wikipedia.

"The incident has the region in something of an uproar, especially in China. Global Times, a mainland newspaper with a nationalist bent that is affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party, ran a photo on its front page on Thursday of an activist standing on an outcrop and waving the Taiwanese flag. A state-run media outlet showing the flag of China’s “breakaway republic,” well, it’s almost unimaginable.' "

The article makes the case that the dispute is "not about oil, gas, or fish, it is about World War II. It is about national pride. And they’re about historical scar tissue that refuses to heal."

Well the issue has flared up a lot the past two days. The Voice of Russia reports-

1,000 Chinese fishing boats make for disputed islands
"A flotilla of one thousand Chinese fishing boats is on their way to the Senkaku, or Diaoyu, Islands, which are at the heart of a dispute between Tokyo and Beijing. The news has been reported by Japan’s Kyodo news agency with reference to the Internet site of China’s government radio. Japanese Coast Guard frigates are currently on naval alert in the disputed island area, in the East China Sea. Tokyo does not rule out that the Chinese may attempt to land on the Senkaku archipelago. Meanwhile, mass-scale anti-Japanese protests have been on in China for a week now. The protests flared up after Tokyo bought out the islands from private owners last week. The dispute over the islands was aggravated after oil and gas fields were discovered on the islands in the 1970s."

on the mainland, protests by the Chinese against the Japanese are like a prairie fire, popping up everywhere.

China-Japan hostilities are always simmering. This latest flare-up over the islands is only a pretext, much like the alleged Muslim protests against the West is a pretext based on the youtube low-budget film they claim insulted Muhammad.

The protests in China against the Japanese are taking on a disturbingly violent tone. BBC reports,

"Never forget the national humiliation,” and “Protect China’s inseparable territory,” read some. More disturbing: “Let’s kill all Japanese,” and “Nuclear extermination for wild Japanese dogs.” Those are some of the sentiments irate Chinese are displaying on protest banners across the country, as demonstrators in more than a dozen cities including Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Nanjing take to the streets, angry about Japanese control of the disputed Senkaku islands—known as Diaoyu in China—an uninhabited but possibly resource-rich atoll in the East China Sea."

The Chinese protests are getting so violent that today several major businesses packed up and closed for a few days, hoping it would all blow over. Temporarily suspending operations were Panasonic, Canon, Honda, Mazda and Nissan


Now, why they would burn a US flag, I don't know. The caption from the article says it is a combination US-Japan flag... A person on twitter stated that the Chinese writing on the banner next to the flag burners is "a taoist curse hurled at U.S. & Japan, claiming their rage is that of Supreme Lord." I don't know if that is true but there you have it.

These are not small demonstrations!

So what do massive protests in China against the Japanese (and the US) have to do with prophecy? Because an important arena of influence and military might in the Tribulation is from the East, the Orient. And until now, they had seemed to be escaping the fray of global general violent anger and protest against the current system.

Revelation 16:12 says, "The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, to prepare the way for the kings from the east."

A parallel verse to this one is in Isaiah, the LORD will dry up the Euphrates.

"The LORD will dry up the gulf of the Egyptian sea; with a scorching wind he will sweep his hand over the Euphrates River. He will break it up into seven streams so that men can cross over in sandals" (Isaiah 11:15 NIV).

The Euphrates is a great river and is mentioned many times in the bible. The eastern border of the land originally intended for Israel was from the Mediterranean all the way over to the Euphrates at the east. (Genesis 15:18, Deuteronomy 1:7, Joshua 1:4, Deuteronomy 11:24).

So the Kings of the East will unite and march to the Battle at Armageddon. It is demonic spirits that induce them to come at that future time. Now, we see the beginning of that inducement. The world is going crazy and that is not a coincidence. Individuals everywhere and whole nations are violently turning on other individuals and other nations. The violence is over small and stupid things, like the rocky outcrop of the contended islands, a youtube video, slashed salaries or even wants for higher salaries.

The Orient is now having their share of irrational violence, and it is evident that the Lord is allowing satan to heighten their anger, in preparation for the First and Second seals being broken in the Tribulation (Revelation 6:1-4).

It may sound strange to anyone reading this that I speak of satanically induced anger, or demons and their whipping up of violence. But the bible tells us that the god of this world is satan (2 Corinthians 4:4) and that we believers "do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." (Ephesians 6:12).

For the most part, the struggle has been invisible, with a few exceptions, such as when satan appears as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14). But in the Tribulation the battle will become visible as God allows hell on earth to be unleashed. That the Chinese are whipped up and their multitudes are violently protesting a few rocks in the East China Sea just tells me that the latest player in God's prophetic timeline has arrived.