The enemy is at war with God’s people for the end times purposes of God. God chose the people of Israel, and throughout the ages, there has been an ongoing campaign against them, the apple of his eye. In a similar way, God chose the Armenian people, a small and insignificant people, lost in idolatry, to bear his name as the first Christian nation. From that moment, those who persecuted became the persecuted. Those who reviled became the reviled. They remained small and insignificant, but now they are very precious in the eyes of God.
Aside from a few short-lived periods of independence, the Armenian people have lived under the reign of emperors and sultans. They were the “people of the book” subjected to the discrimination and sword of Islamic conquests. Armenians, though an intelligent and peace-loving people, were regarded as the filth of the earth because of their identification with Christ.
The Armenian Genocide of 1915 provided a blueprint for Hitler to murder and eradication of the Jews during the Holocaust. Again, both were bloodthirsty demonic campaigns against the people of God. And let’s be sure, such beastly slaughters did not originate in the mind of the Young Turks or the Nazis but in the depths of hell itself. Yet our blessed assurance is that a nation that has captured the attention of hell, had the attention of heaven long before.
Fast-forward to today, we are witnessing yet another grotesque assault on the peoples of God. Again, signaling the coming kingdom of God and the unrest of the enemy. Only three years after loosing 4000 young men bravely defending the lands of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), the region found itself under attack yet again on Sept 19, 2023. The same region found itself under attack again on Sept 19, 2023. The people of Artsakh quickly succumbed to the fact their defense capability fell short against Azerbaijan, a Muslim nation four times its size, with Turkey’s military machinery by its side. Though the attack only lasted a few days, it was ridden with atrocities and war crimes on soldiers and civilians alike, demonstrating not just a land claim but also a depth of hatred that knows no sanctity. Artsakh was forced to surrender its weapons, and a mass exodus of 120,000 people began to unfold. Immediately following this ethnic cleansing, a cultural genocide began, erasing the hundreds of centuries-old spiritual and cultural historical landmarks throughout the region.
Right on the heels of this happening in the Caucasus region, before the world could even process it, an emboldened Hamas leveled a blow on the people of Israel that only continues to escalate till today. In practically the same week, two nations, destined as a tool in God’s hands, faced an onslaught of demonic proportions by the same frenzied jihadists they are all too familiar with.
Armenians are experiencing an ethnic cleansing on a scale they have not experienced since the genocide.
Israelis experienced the greatest loss of life in one day since the Holocaust.
Though there is far more to flesh out and discuss in the contexts of these conflicts, for brevity’s sake, we will leave it here with a simple call to intercession for the Armenian people.
- Bless the people of Azerbaijan and Turkey to serve the purposes of God rather than to be used as the instruments of Satan and his hate-filled schemes against God’s people.
- Stay faithful to Christ, who has gone before us in all things and calls the Armenian nation as priests to administer his mercy and as kings fearless in zeal in the face of the onslaught of wickedness.
- Healing from the past and wisdom for the future to build upon a foundation that is not shaken as unrest escalates all around the region.
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