FaithWalk Radio

Ron Susek: Hello friend, Ron Susek here. I am looking forward to sharing with you today Part 1 of the Assyrian prophecy explained. It's a short prophecy, it's only three verses long. How did we overlook it for so many centuries, for nearly 2,700 years? But it seems to be coming alive now. More and more people are talking about it, scholars are surprised, and political leaders are interested. Great things are happening. Eager to share with you the explanation of this prophecy. It's so full and rich, it's going to take me two programs to do it, but this is Part 1. Stay with me, I'll be right back.

Guest (Male): Finding and knowing God is a faith walk. The Bible says that without faith, it is impossible to please God. Our hope lies in the coming Messiah, who will establish God's peaceful kingdom on Earth. This is FaithWalk with Ron Susek. Dr. Ron is an evangelist committed to encourage and equip your faith walk as we pass through these turbulent end-time days awaiting that soon-coming kingdom. Here again is Ron Susek.

Ron Susek: Well, thank you for coming out on a Saturday night and spending some time with us. I'm more and more encouraged every day because I see God's hand. I think that it's safe to say that you and I are sitting in the front row seat of what has been waited for 2,700 years to happen. And it is just thrilling because there were movements to try to make it happen 100 years ago, and they all fell through from betrayals.

Now, I will tell you that I've been with the Assyrian people, and there are those that are as energized as you. They are praying their hearts out to make it happen. The majority, their hope, you know, the Bible says hope deferred makes the heart sick. And those beautiful people are heartsick. They're afraid to get their hopes up again lest they be dashed again.

But I don't think they're going to be dashed this time, and I've been very careful to say to them over and over again, I don't want to build up your hope and have you dashed. I'm only going to give you the facts of what's happening. And with that, many of them are really starting to come alive. So we're in great days. But let me share with you how the prophecy is impacting the world. I just want to analyze a little more about the prophecy, but I want you to think about something.

Are you aware of how many things are happening around us that are invisible, and yet they are major movements? If you're lying in your backyard on a warm summer day and the Canadian fog is gone and you don't have smoke in the sky and it's a crystal blue sky and big puffy clouds are slowly floating by, isn't that a peaceful setting? Have you ever flown into one of those big puffy clouds in a small plane? There are violent winds in those clouds.

You don't see it lying down here. It looks so peaceful. And above those clouds is what we call the jet stream that can be blowing as fast as 300 miles an hour, taking all the filthy air out of cities over to dump them into forests and cleanse it again. You don't see any of that happening unless you're in an airplane, and still you don't see it, but you sure do feel it.

God's sovereignty is that way. If you don't learn how to see it, you can miss the big event that's actually taking place around us. I'm going to show you that in a remarkable way tomorrow. I can brag about it because it's not mine, it's in the Word of God. God just graced me with the privilege of finding it.

Also, think about an oak tree and a rosebush. One is big and majestic, one is small and beautiful. How many here have ever heard an oak tree growing? Total silence. You've never heard a rosebush growing. You never heard an acorn split beneath the ground and the oak tree beginning. All these things are happening around you and you don't see them or hear them, but by sovereignty they're happening.

Here's one. How many came into this meeting tonight thinking about gravity? Tell me. Well, the only time you think about it is when you trip, right? Then you think about it. Even if you trip and fall, you're not thinking about gravity because you never saw it. My point is, we are down here listening to the evening news and it drives us crazy because it's this nation against that nation, this political leader damning that political leader, and all the stuff that goes on. And now they're even getting stronger in the news with their language.

And we're watching this mess down here. You're going to see tomorrow morning, and a bit tonight, God's sovereignty is moving like the jet stream. It's like the wind in those clouds. It's like the silence of the oak tree. It's happening. And God, the only thing that God needs to find are the people through whom He can make it happen.

And I want to emphasize that. It's been said that many people think, well, if it's a prophecy, God's going to do it, so don't worry about it. Wait a minute. Didn't Jesus give us an assignment in the Lord's Prayer? That we ought to be praying, "Thy will be done." This prophecy fulfilled on Earth as it is already fulfilled in Heaven.

There's only one place in the Bible that I know of where God was wondered, like surprised. What could surprise a God? One thing, it's in the Old Testament. There was a crisis in the nation and He could find no one to intercede. Isn't that tragic? No one to intercede to be that person to pray the will of God in Heaven to come to pass on Earth.

That's why I'm hoping I walk out of or fly out of Bismarck this coming Monday with an enlarged prayer team with you participating, committing. Again, the prophecy, I don't want to overstate anything. I don't think it's going to be finalized until the Messiah comes. But like John the Baptist, we are paving the way and there are more stages even after this one.

Stage 1 is done: Israel's home as a nation. I think now this is Stage 2 in God's plan. He just needs the people who will pray it into existence. And I want to tell you that I'm seeing things happen that is suggesting the time is now. If you ever want to be on the cutting edge of the next major breakthrough by that sovereign hand of God, this is the thing to be really getting into prayer about.

I mentioned this morning that more's been written about the Assyrian or about the, well, more written about the Assyrians than the Roman and Greek Empires combined, and yet nobody knows about them. Isn't that interesting? My goal is not to flood you, and that's what I'm trying to be careful with this weekend. I was so encouraged this morning that I dumped a lot of information and you really got it. That thrills me because it took me years to get it and you're getting it in minutes. I'm impressed by your brilliance.

But we need to be asking God, "God, if this is really Your next move," and it has all the earmarks that it is, "what can I do? What's my part? What's my role?" And I hope that by tomorrow night maybe some of that will be settled. The number one thing is we desperately need commitment to prayer. And I'll tell you why.

I can guarantee you that I have faced some fires from Hell by committing myself to this. We're in a spiritual war, you know that already. It's a real war. It's an intense war. Satan has never won a battle yet unless we let down our faith and surrender prayer. When we stay faithful to God wearing the armor of God and we're seeking His face, Satan and all the, in fact, think about this: one Christian arrayed in the armor of God committed with faith in the power of God could bring down all the powers of Hell at one time. Just one Christian.

What happens if the whole church begins to pray? We are talking about shaking the life out of Hell. So I hope I leave with an expanded prayer team. Let me read the prophecy again, Isaiah 19: "In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. And Assyria will come into Egypt and Egypt into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians." And worship is the doorway to what? Peace. You can't have peace until you're one mind, one heart, and one God. Is that not true for marriage? Yes, it is. Why does the Bible tell you not to be unequally yoked together? Because you're going to be in for a rocky ride.

In verse 24: "In that day Israel," how many here can tell me what the name Israel means?

Guest (Female): One who wrestles with God.

Ron Susek: High five that girl. Give her a high five. When was the word first used in the history of the world? It's in the Bible, and it was never used before that. Yeah, but what was the event? When Jacob wrestled with the angel all night. He wanted the blessing. He wanted the blessing. You get it? It pays to wrestle before God in prayer. And that was Abraham's grandson.

So in that day, Israel, one who wrestles with God and overcomes, will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the Lord of hosts has blessed saying, "Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance." Now, let me give you some background that I want you to see about Assyria.

Here's her history. Assyria began some 6,000 years ago in your Bible in Genesis chapter 2. Nimrod went up and established one city and then also Nineveh. So they appeared that early in history as a nation. They then came down to the Flood, and I mentioned this morning that I kid the Assyrians, "Boy, you must be good swimmers to make it through the Flood." But actually they made it through through Shem.

Both Assyrians and Jews are Semites. They made it through the Flood through the seed of Shem. Then one of Noah's 16 grandsons was named Asshur. And Asshur then obviously left the region where the ark was, and he's a grandson, so there were some years gone by, and he took his family to Northern Iraq. What famous garden was in Northern Iraq? Good for you, the Garden of Eden. How do we know that? Exactly. The Bible tells us the four rivers that flowed out of the Garden of Eden: Euphrates, Tigris, and I can't name the other two.

And so we know where the Garden of Eden was, and that's where Asshur went right into that territory and began as what? A family. And the family grew into a city and it was called the City of Asshur. The city grew into a nation, and the nation became one of the world's first empires. That's our starting point. And in that light, she became a mighty empire, the first one in world history, and isn't it interesting we know nothing about her.

Between 900 BC and 609 BC, she was the king of the earth in that sense of the word. She literally built the cradle of civilization. How many here drove tonight in a car? Your wheels were designed by the Assyrians way back then. They invented the, well, let me go down the list so I don't miss anything. They invented the wheel. They became a mighty military because they were the first ones to learn how to create iron and they became known as the Army of Iron, and that's why no other nations could beat them because their weapons were so superior. They were the atomic bomb of that era.

They were the first to design the chariot. They also were geniuses at military organization way ahead of schedule. Now, keep in mind all the other little nations around them, who were those people? Descendants of Noah. Cousins. They're all related, and guess what? We're still related to them. Pretty distant, but we're related.

The world is not that complex if you go back to how it began and the simplicity of it. It's just it gets all jumbled up as this nation moves there and these people conquer there and these people intermarry here. That's what gets it jumbled, but it's a very simple thing of how it began. And then they were the mighty growing because of their weapons and the power and authority. They had great conquest of expansion. They went all the way from the northwestern side of the Mediterranean across all the way down the eastern side, all the way down into Egypt, and that was their empire. They were a vast empire.

They were technological and their infrastructure had great advancements. They were technologically advanced on the world. I know them now. I have to tell you, they are to this day amazingly brilliant. You've heard of one of President Trump's, I maybe mentioned it this morning, lawyers named Habba. She's Assyrian. She just won't admit it. Why? Because many Assyrians, they've been so shamed by history books that they will not claim their rights. You wait until we clean up the name and they're going to reappear, "Oh, I'm an Assyrian."

They were masters at building roads. This is all the way back long before Christ. They also formed the first irrigation. Get ready for this. Their irrigation not only serviced their empire, but it ran through, and you're going to see this tomorrow night, it ran through and serviced the nations they conquered.

They, by the way, I'm going to just mention now, but they were not, and I said it this morning, they were not the brute, wicked people. They didn't always know God. They came back to God under Jonah's preaching, then they drifted again like nations do and like Israel did over and over again. But the reason why they advanced so rapidly and powerfully was because of what they had to offer. Once they conquered a nation, that nation became amazingly dependent upon them because they were teaching them all the things they knew. And you're going to see what the nations felt like when they fell. We'll talk about that tomorrow night.

They were road builders. They dealt with irrigation. They were the, get ready for this, they had the first library in the world. It was called the Ashurbanipal Library. They now have a duplicate in Chicago. Guess what the books looked like then? Clay tablets. All lined up in shelves. And you wanted to read it, you got to get a clay tablet to tug that thing over. Not quite like a laptop computer today. And so they, but they were the first ones to begin to collect knowledge and assimilate it in a library. They stored philosophy, they stored events, they stored history.

And in all their military exploits we find their stories written, except when they attacked Jerusalem and lost 185,000 soldiers. They didn't write about that one. You can't find it on the walls, you can't find it in the library. And get ready for this: they built the first hospital and were inventors of medicine.

Now, you're not talking about barbarians walking around dragging their wives by their hair, are you? You're talking about pretty advanced people. They built marvelous palaces. They were culturally artistic in their expression of art, relief carvings, and wall paintings. They established cities that became architectural wonders. They established new cities that just outdid everything. And they became the great empire by God's hand, not human manipulation.

Let me show you that. In Isaiah chapter 10, verse 5, what do we read? "Woe to Assyria," because now they overstep their bounds, but this is how we find out how they became so great. "Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger. I raised them up for My purpose." And you're going to see tomorrow night, I'm giving you a little telegraph here, where God said, "I made them beautiful." Everything I just read to you was not because they were genetically superior, it's because God was blessing them.

Isn't that something? Now, did you know that before? And I'm going to show you that tomorrow night biblically so that you know that I'm not just playing a nice card for them. I'm showing you biblically God's view of them. And so God said, "Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger, the staff in their hand is My fury." So they're not a bunch of barbarians. I raised them up to discipline nations.

Now, did they overstep their bounds? Yes, that's what this text is about. Where did they overstep their bounds? You're going to see tomorrow morning what happened when they were in God's bounds. Tomorrow night you're going to see what happened when they overstepped God's bounds. Why? Well, I'll give it to you tonight. When they went to Jerusalem. God did not tell them to go to Jerusalem. And they stood there and mocked the Israelites sitting on the wall and mocked their faith and mocked Hezekiah. "Hezekiah tore down your high places and you think he's going to get God to help you now?" Well, yes, because the high places were evil places. Hezekiah was obeying God when he tore them down.

And so that was, but isn't it interesting that they understood that theology of Israel? They're only 500 miles away. Then we read: "But he does not so intend." In other words, Assyria is going to overstep their boundaries that God had forged. "And his heart does not so think, but it is in his heart to destroy and to cut off nations, not a few. Shall I not do to Jerusalem and her idols as I have done to Samaria and her images?" So just understand that I think that when God said, "You're coming down," was when they overstepped their bounds at Jerusalem because God never sent them there. But He did send them, as you're going to see tomorrow morning, to the ten tribes of Israel.

So they, I just gave you their dimensions, but that's just a quick sweep of their history. In 612 BC, this is a key date to remember, 612 BC is when the Medes and the Babylonians brought them down in the Battle of Nineveh. The Battle of Nineveh, 612 BC, it was like Gettysburg. I live near Gettysburg, and Gettysburg was not the end of the Civil War, but it was the turning point. 612 BC, the Battle of Nineveh was not the end of Assyria, but it was the beginning of the end. And Babylon then took over, and it was barely 20 years before Cyrus and Persia destroyed Babylon. So quite a bit of military activity going on in that era. Am I going too fast? Is this okay? Great. Because I want you to get to bed early to get ready for tomorrow morning because I can't wait to share with you what you're going to see tomorrow morning from the Word of God.

And then, here's the exciting part. Before Jesus was crucified, they were already believing in Him. They heard reports about Him. And one of their kings wrote to Jesus. Now, I'm going to share this with you, but I don't want to share it as absolutely proven fact. Many say it is, many say, "Well, it might be legend." So I don't want to plant your mind on one or the other, just know that this story is very fresh in Assyrian circles.

That one of their kings, his skin turned coal black. And he wrote Jesus and asked if He would come and heal him. And Jesus just said, "No, I cannot come." He sent message back, "But after I'm gone I will send my disciples to come and they will heal you." And that happened because Thomas, Thaddeus, and Bartholomew went to Northern Iraq to the Assyrian people shortly after the resurrection and they say that king was healed, and that's why he said to the whole Assyrian nation, "We are going as a nation to follow Jesus."

And that happened, that we do know that that's a fact. And that happened very shortly after the resurrection. Now, here's where it really gets exciting. They had such a dramatic change of heart. They were truly born of the Spirit of God, and they became the loudest megaphone of the Gospel that I have ever found in church history.

And I'll tell you why. The Jews were at first the megaphone. Remember, at Pentecost they were converted. By 70 AD they ran out of gas. Their faith was sagging. That's why the whole book of Hebrews is written to those Jewish believers who are falling away. It talks about they're like a boat drifting out to sea. And the book of Hebrews is brilliantly written as a masterpiece just slamming into those people.

But remember, they probably never, their grandchildren probably never were able to meet their grandparents. Their homes were confiscated, they were rejected from Judaism, and they're fading away. So the Jews started off launching the Gospel and faded by 70 AD. And it was by then that the Assyrians were rising up.

Now, get ready for this. This is a shocker. The Assyrians, as they reported, with a Bible in one hand and a loaf of bread in the other and barefoot, left Mesopotamia, Northern Iraq, to travel 3,400 miles to take the Gospel to China. And the Chinese called them the Luminous Religion. Did you know that? See how we've been robbed of this history.

Guest (Male): Now Dr. Ron has been talking to us about the end-time days and wants us to prepare for the coming kingdom. And he has written a book titled *The Assyrian Prophecy* that is a missing part of the end-times puzzle.

Ron Susek: And he who sat on the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new. Write, for these words are true and faithful." The world is not ending. God is preparing a new world soon to begin. My new book, *The Assyrian Prophecy*, reveals how Assyria will join with Israel and Egypt to bless the world under the soon-coming Messiah. Amid today's chaos, God is searching for righteous people through whom He will bring the prophecy to completion. When you reach the end of this book, one question will be in your mind: "Lord, what would You have me to do?"

Guest (Male): You can learn more at theassyrianproject.org. Well, thank you for being with us today, and we hope you'll join us again next week as we find courage for the journey in our faith walk.