Allah vs. Rimmon
A couple days ago I was reading the last few chapters of the Book of Judges. You know the story. How the Benjamites of Gibeah committed an evil act of perversion and violence against a fellow Israelite and his concubine. Most of the men from the Tribe of Benjamin were eventually wiped out by the rest of the Israeli military might. The surviving 600 young Benjamites ran to the rock of Rimmon in the wilderness for protection. Read the story when you can, there’s a wealth of lessons to be learned in that story. But that’s not what we want to look at today.
I’m fascinated by the word Rimmon. There has to be more to it than just an upscale westside community in Colorado Springs by the name of Rockrimmon. Rimmon just sounds cool, but what does it mean? Well, literally, in the Hebrew Rimmon means pomegranate, the fruit. That’s not insignificant, because the pomegranate has an average of 613 seeds, the number of laws in the Tanach, or Old Testament. Fausset has this to say about the pomegranate: sacred to Venus; the fertilizing principle in nature; tree worship anciently having prevailed, a perverted relic of the tradition of Eden’s tree of life. Well there’s the Devil’s in, a counterfeit perversion of the Tree of Life. But there has to be more to it than that. The first definition in the Brown Driver Briggs Lexicon is: the deity of wind, rain, and storm, worshipped by the Syrians of Damascus (noun proper deity). Whoa, wait a minute, now that sounds interesting and rings a bell in the spirit. Didn’t we just do a study on a great windy storm in the Middle East in the end days? Yes, we did.
Haven’t we read about Rimmon somewhere else in the Scriptures? Yes we have. It’s mentioned in the story of Naaman, the great Syrian soldier. 2 Kings 5:1, “Now Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great and honorable man in the eyes of his master, because by him Yahweh had given victory to Syria. He was also a mighty man of valor, but a leper.” You know this story also, but read what recently healed Naaman says to Elisha the prophet in verse 18, “Yet in this thing may Yahweh pardon your servant: when my master goes into the temple of Rimmon to worship there, and he leans on my hand, and I bow down in the temple of Rimmon—when I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may Yahweh please pardon your servant in this thing.” Rimmon is a deity of wind, rain, and storm, worshipped by the ancient Syrians. Rimmon is a demon, a principality and power of the air over Damascus, Syria. Rimmon, the wicked spirit having rule over Damascus for thousands of years is still embattled today.
Watch the world news, read up on what has been happening in Syria for the last couple of years. A physical battle is raging, but a spiritual battle is raging also. For some reason, Allah the god, or mighty one, of the Muslims is trying to take down Rimmon, the god, or mighty one, who has been ruling over Damascus, Syria, for thousands of years. I’ve told you before that demons hate everyone, not just Yahweh. They hate Satan and each other. There must be something significant going on in the spiritual realm for Satan to be destroying his own kingdoms and replacing them with other leadership.
My guess is that these demon powers see the host of the armies of heaven amassing around the Middle East for the great endtimes battles leading up to and including the Battle of Armageddon. Of course Yahweh is manipulating all these satanic forces for His purposes. There has to be realignments of nations to fulfill all the end time prophecies. The Devil’s hordes will resist the plan of Yahweh to the bitter end. Rimmon apparently doesn’t want to give up his little realm of authority over Damascus, Syria. You know where Rimmon’s resistance will lead. Yep, you guessed it, Isaiah 17:1, “The burden against Damascus. “Behold, Damascus will cease from being a city, and it will be a ruinous heap.” The day is coming when Isaiah 17:1 will be fulfilled. This could happen at any minute now, literally. If Bashar al-Assad unleashes chemical or biological weapons against the Syrian rebel forces, someone, say the U.S. military, or Israel’s IDF, may have to nuke Damascus to bring an end to Assad’s bloody earthly reign, and Rimmon’s 6,000 years of spiritual rule over Syria.
When will this final showdown occur? I don’t know, Yahweh knows. End time events are on His schedule, not mine. The U.S. military is leading NATO into Syrian intervention right now as I write this. The spiritual battle over Damascus has been raging for 6,000 years. It will come to an end real soon, if not in 2012 or 2013, then when Yeshua returns to crush all His enemies.
Pray for the people of Damascus and all the Syrians. Yeshua may yet save a few more souls before the ruinous end of Damascus. You can bet that Rimmon doesn’t want to give up any lost humans to the Kingdom of Yahweh. The sea of humanity in the Middle East is boiling, raging, a great storm of opposing interests. The demon principalities over the Middle East nations are fighting each other at the same time humans are engaged in battle. The return of our Prince of Peace is the only final solution to our brothers’ troubles in the Middle East. Come Lord Jesus.
Father, have mercy on us all,
Gene Benjamin II
December 8, 2012 CE
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