If you are a regular visitor to this website you’ve likely noticed fewer posts since summer. While I am sorry about that, some things had to give.
With a day job to pay the bills, the season of harvest and processing from the garden, and most of all, continued work writing and researching for the fourth book, time has become a more precious commodity this season. Between that and a relatively quiet Middle East the last couple months (for which I am thankful) regular posts were temporarily lowered in priority.
With that said, it seems good to report some status to you all, of the work on the fourth book: the book advances! I’m being allowed time to research and write, and writing books does take a great chunk of time. Originally thought to be nine chapters, the book grew to ten chapters and now twelve. Chapter 7 of the draft manuscript has been completed. Research and writing continues on Chapter 8. So the book is over half written. Finishing the first draft before the end of the year is looking more like a doable task. Being a smaller book, reviewing and editing should go quickly.
This book will only be a third or so the size of Daniel Revisited, but admittedly is packed. Relying most heavily on Scripture to interpret Scripture, there should be plenty for the student of the Bible to sink his or her teeth into.
New discoveries for me continue even to this point. Even this past week God allowed me to stumble upon an interpretation for a phrase repeated many times in the Old Testament, that I never understood before. This book, like Daniel Revisited and Chronicles, has been a journey of discovery.
What is truly exciting to me is, just as the understanding of the Islamic Antichrist opened up Scripture allowing the Signposts to be revealed, so too, the understanding from Chiastics that Babylon the great is the opposite of the Bride has opened up so many Scripture passages to further understanding as well. The Scriptures declare in so many places, loudly and plainly, what Chiastics has suggested!
(And for students of Chronicles and Chiastics, two additional chiasmi have appeared to provide even more confirmation by Scripture: a convergent chiasmus in Genesis, as well as a parallel one between the O.T. and Revelation.)
And to the glory of God, understanding the true identity of Babylon the great highlights and makes more ominous the last great exhortation of the Bible: “Come out of her, my people!” And that’s the point of the entire book. Just as the reason for writing Daniel Revisited was as a warning to the Church about the wild things Iran and Turkey will do and what they mean, so this fourth book is an even more important warning of what that last exhortation is really saying.
God bless you all!
Categories: Announcements, Babylon the Great, chiastics
THE FOUR SIGNPOSTS 
On November 3rd, while Americans were still watching TV coverage of November 2nd US state elections (Tehran time is 7.5 hours ahead of New York time), the IRGC Navy thwarted an ill-advised attempt by US military to steal oil from an Iranian tanker.
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2021/11/03/669831/IRGC-Navy-thwarts-US-bid-in-Sea-of-Oman-to-steal-take-over-oil-tanker
https://en.mehrnews.com/news/180337/IRGC-thwarts-US-attempt-to-steal-Iranian-oil-tanker
“The IRGC has announced that it will shortly release the related video of the US attempted act of piracy.”
Russian media is covering this latest US military blunder.
https://www.rt.com/news/539246-iran-stops-us-seizing-tanker/
So far, Fox, MSNBC, and CNN have not. When IRGC video is released, America will be internationally exposed as violating “Thou shalt not steal,” while the IRGC will be portrayed as the good guys swooping in to save the day.
Most Iranian news websites in English are now reporting that the IRGC thwarted a US military attempt to steal the oil from an Iranian tanker. It actually happened in late October. The IRGC waited until the US November 2 state elections were underway before reporting what might have negatively affected the America-weakening candidates that they wanted to see win. The Pentagon at first claimed that the IRGC was lying. But the IRGC has aerial and deck level video of what happened (not yet with English subtitles). So a Pentagon official was forced to acknowledge that the IRGC was telling the truth.
https://en.mehrnews.com/news/180351/Pentagon-official-confirms-IRGC-seizure-of-oil-tanker-VIDEO
“I watched the ram as it charged toward the west and the north and the south. No animal could stand against it, and none could rescue from its power. It did as it pleased and became great” (Daniel 8:4 NIV).
The IRGC has released a version of the video with English captions.
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2021/11/03/669850/Iran-IRGC-confrontation-United-States-oil-piracy
The US military had completed transferring the oil from an Iranian tanker to another tanker, and it was this second tanker that was taken over by the IRGC. So the US military had actually violated “Thou shalt not steal.” Then the Pentagon violated “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor” by claiming that US ships were simply observing what was happening. No. They were actively trying to recover the second tanker loaded with the stolen Iranian oil, until the IRGC thwarted them. If any US personnel on the second tanker were killed or captured, with only 8 days from the October 25 incident to the November 2 US state elections, it had to be covered up by both the Biden Occupancy and the IRGC, who also like to see America-bashing politicians elected.
The oil tanker that the IRGC seized “belongs to Viet Nam.”
https://vietnamnews.vn/politics-laws/1072543/iran-seizes-vietnamese-flagged-oil-tanker-crew-reported-safe-foreign-ministry.html
The IRGC took over Viet Nam’s MV Southys oil tanker without injury to its 26 crew members. “Initially, American forces confiscated a tanker [not yet identified] carrying the cargo of Iranian oil in the strategic Sea of Oman and transferred its consignment of crude to another vessel [MV Southys]. But then the IRGC launched an operation against the vessel, landing its forces on its deck so as to navigate it towards Iranian waters.”
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2021/11/04/669934/Iranians-US-military-Is-lesson-learned-shall-we-continue
If the Vietnamese crew knowingly accepted Iranian oil from a tanker seized by the US military in the Gulf of Oman, that would explain why the Vietnamese crew is being held in Iran while diplomats of Iran and Viet Nam are working to resolve the unpleasant situation. The Pentagon’s pitiful attempts to explain what happened are what one would expect from people who can oversee withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan before removing America civilians.
On March 27, 2021, Iran and China signed a 25-year agreement for China to invest in Iran in exchange for a steady supply of Iranian oil for China.
To bypass U.S. sanctions against accepting oil from Iran, Iran has found ways to sneak it into China. A satellite image taken June 22, 2021, over the Gulf of Oman shows the larger green-decked Oman Pride (Liberia flag) transferring oil to the smaller red-decked Sothys (Viet Nam flag).
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FDRwNF7XIAQrlaZ?format=jpg&name=900×900
On August 13, the U.S. Department of the Treasury placed sanctions on entities owning “Liberian-flagged crude oil tanker Oman Pride, which has been used to transport Iranian oil.”
https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0320
On October 25, the IRGC Navy took over the Sothys in the Gulf of Oman and escorted it, despite U.S. Navy attempts to block it, into Iranian waters. On October 29, the U.S. Department of Treasury placed secondary sanctions on “OMAN PRIDE Crude Oil Tanker.”
https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/recent-actions/20211029
Detailed information about and photos of the Oman Pride:
http://www.aukevisser.nl/supertankers/VLCC%20N-P/id1365.htm
On November 3, with U.S. state elections just completed, the IRGC began claiming that the U.S. military had stolen Iranian oil from an unnamed tanker (was it the Oman Pride?) by transferring its oil to the Sothys, Viet Nam flag.” At first, the U.S. Department of Defense denied that the U.S. stole any oil and denied that the U.S. Navy tried to stop the IRGC from moving the Sothys into Iranian waters. When the IRGC released videos showing U.S. Navy ships very close to the Sothys, the Pentagon claimed that U.S. Navy ships were passively observing the IRGC take over of the Sothys. The Sothys crew is being held in Iranian territory. The Iranian Parliament is calling for international legal actions against the U.S. for stealing its oil.
https://en.irna.ir/news/84531341/US-attempt-to-steal-Iran-oil-should-be-prosecuted-internationally
Claire Jungman, an apologist for American interests, scrambled to theorize: “SOTHYS loaded Iranian oil from the U.S. Treasury sanctioned vessel OMAN PRIDE in June 2021. The vessel then attempted to deliver to China but was likely rejected and forced to return to Iran.”
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/42987/video-shows-u-s-destroyers-very-intimate-standoff-with-iranian-vessels-over-seized-oil-tanker
The problem with this is that China had previously signed an agreement with Iran to buy its oil, not reject it..