Grover Cleveland experienced a meteoric rise to power when he went from being a moderately successful Buffalo lawyer in 1881 to being elected President of the United States in just three years. One of Cleveland’s biographers, Horace Samuel Merrill, explained his political rise this way: “He was lucky, almost unbelievably lucky!”
It may have seemed that he was “incredibly lucky,” but the Bible declares that luck has nothing to do with anything, including rising from apparent obscurity to great power. Instead, the only real explanation for something like that is that God arranged it to happen. In fact, when comparing Daniel 2:21; John 3:27; 19:11; and 1 Corinthians 4:7, we can see that whatever authority someone possesses is because God bestows it.
Yet Grover Cleveland’s astonishing rise from obscurity to power will seem like nothing compared to one man’s rise from the seeming obscurity of a Middle Eastern country to become the ruler of the world. Certainly, luck will have nothing to do with that ascent, since the Bible tells us that Satan will be behind it. However, the same prophet of God who declared that God “removes kings and raises up kings” (Daniel 2:21), and who prophesies of this future king, indicates that his ascension will be part of God’s plan for the world.
The Bible states that this future leader is of Assyrian origin (see Isaiah 14:25 and Micah 5:6). Furthermore, Scripture also shows that he will emerge from the area that is common to three empires: the Assyrian Empire; the Seleucid Empire; and the Roman Empire. The region common to the three empires falls within northern Iraq. Interestingly, the largest group of Assyrians in the world exists in northwestern Iraq (in Kurdistan), around the place where the ancient Assyrian capital, Nineveh, once existed.
The book of Daniel (11:36-45) describes this future ruler as the king of the north and reveals that he will conquer the Middle East and North Africa before entering Jerusalem. It will be from this city of God that he will begin his three and a half year reign over the world.
If his rise to power is in the near future, we can expect that God is preparing the way for his ascension even now. There may be some clues that God has already begun that preparation.
There is a sense in which God began that preparation by having the US remove Saddam Hussein from power. Under Hussein, the Assyrians, though Christian, were protected by this neo-Nebuchadnezzar; because he respected the fact that they were the educated in Iraq: the doctors, teachers, lawyers, etc. When Hussein was overthrown, the United States not only staged the rise of the king of the north by destabilizing the country, it also removed the Assyrians’ protection against persecution.
As a result, Assyrians have become the world’s most persecuted people group without their own nation, falling from an estimated Iraqi population under Saddam Hussein of 1.2 million to fewer than 400,000 today. At this rate, there won’t be any Assyrians left in Iraq for about four years, so the rise of the king of the north is likely to happen in the next few years. It seems that this future king will begin his rise in power when he steps in to protect the people from him. Of course, he will be attacked when he does, which is indicated in Daniel 11:40; but his response to being attacked will result in his conquest of the region.
This land from which it will emerge has been made even more unstable by the vacuum created by the drawdown of US forces in Iraq. As a result, concern that Iraq is moving into Iran’s orbit is evident. A recent example of this seems to be Iraq’s moral and financial support for the Syrian regime.
However, it seems that Iran will not be able to fill this void. Instead, because the Iraqis view Iran as the enemy, a host of countries, including Turkey, China, Lebanon, and Kuwait, are making the biggest strides in Iraq. The division of power there creates a perfect environment for the powerful rise of the future king.
One of those divisions in power has served to create its own region within Iraq. That region is Kurdistan. As noted above, it is that area in which the largest number of Assyrians inhabit. And interestingly, there are similarities between the Kurds, who are a stateless and persecuted people, and the Assyrians, who are also a stateless and persecuted people, similarities that seem to go beyond coincidence. Could God be using one group of people to align the other with end-time prophecy?
Consider that both Kurds and Assyrians are persecuted in the same areas of the Middle East, particularly Turkey and Iraq. However, because the Kurds are Muslims, Iraq has allowed them to have their own region, in the northwestern area of Iraq now called Kurdistan. Interestingly, the Assyrians, who are persecuted even more than the Kurds in Iraq for being Christians, mainly reside in Kurdistan. It seems that God has arranged for them to meet there because the Kurds can identify with their suffering; therefore, they have a little more help there, as a result.
This help includes the presence of an Assyrian in the Kurdistan government-Sarkis Aghajan Mamendo, the finance minister. That position has allowed Mamendo to provide aid to his fellow Assyrians who have been beset by persecution attacks. Mamendo has been able to use his position to help Assyrians rebuild houses and churches destroyed by Muslims who set them on fire.
This, like the gathering of the Assyrians in the area located near the ancient Assyrian capital, Nineveh, seems to be providential. Mamendo’s financial aid enables the Assyrians to hold out until God’s providential moment of the rise of the king of the north. When it arrives, it will be much more meteoric than Grover Cleveland’s. Meanwhile, we can see the hand of God preparing for it.
