When protests gave way to an uprising in Egypt, the bigger picture of civil unrest in the Middle East became front page news. While the media tends to zoom in on one country at a time (right now, all eyes are on Libya), uprisings have taken place all across the Middle East and North Africa. From peaceful protests in Morocco, to the flight of the Tunisian president to Saudi Arabia, to protests against the King of Jordan, to uprisings in Bahrain and Yemen, uprisings are becoming so numerous it is difficult to keep track of them all.
When the departure of Hosni Mubarak became apparent in Egypt, talk in U.S. media centered around the Muslim Brotherhood, a political organization operating in many Middle Eastern countries. Conservative pundits like Sean Hannity began to compare the ouster of Mubarak to the Ayatollahs returning to Iran. Many feared that the Muslim Brotherhood would install an anti-American, pro-terror government in Egypt. The Israeli-Palestinian peace process is now in question and many fear war.
During times like these, it is important to avoid hysteria. Still, one needs to be informed about what is going on. Whether the Muslim Brotherhood will install an Anti-American, pro-terror regime in Egypt is still in question. (The Egyptian military is still in control of the country.) However, even if the Muslim Brotherhood installs a relatively peaceful government, there is still cause for concern.
The Muslim Brotherhood's Wikipedia page describes the group as non-violent, however the book Milestones, written by prominent brotherhood member Sayyid Qutb, is often cited by those who advocate for jihad.
The Muslim Brotherhood's goals include establishing the Qur'an as the sole reference point for ordering the life of the individual, family and state. One of the primary goals is the reinstatement of the caliphate.
Referencing the book, Milestones, the Muslim Brotherhood believes that Western civilization is in decline because of its moral decline, and the Brotherhood seeks to build Islam as the lead civilization in the world.
All of these factors should be an eye opener for the Christian who is well studied in end-times prophecy. Imagine, a religious movement that rides the back of, and helps prop up a world government. That religion would be the most powerful religion in the world. It would be able to persecute other religions with little or no consequence.
That scenario matches up with Revelation 17:3-6. That passage depicts a woman riding on the back of a beast. The beast is identified as the Antichrist and his one-world government, while the woman is identified in Revelation 17:8 as being the city of Babylon. However, it is also worthy to note that scripture uses women as symbols of religious movements in apocolyptic passages like Revelation 17. So the woman is not just representative of the city (as in buildings and streets) but also of the religious nature of the city. Babylon will be home to the one-world religion, which will not be any form of Christianity.
Over the years, end times scholars have tried to forecast which players on their respective world stages would eventually be players in the end times. More often than not, these forecasts are wrong. However, I believe that it is entirely possible the dominant world religion in the Tribulation period will be some form of Islam. If indeed the Muslim Brotherhood is successful in taking control of the governments of the Middle East, you could see the foundations being laid to shift the center of power from the Judeo-Christian West to the Islamic East.
We may still have decades before the Tribulation begins. Still, we need to be mindful of how the groundwork is being laid today to usher in that time period. We should be obedient to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who said, "Watch, and pray."
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