I wonder how many people could give an accurate answer for what they believe ISIS is actually fighting for?
"I have no idea....they are just a bunch of crazy people who get off on killing, raping and torturing."
Really? Remember, just because someone believes differently from you doesn't mean they are crazy.....they are simply deceived. We have said it many times, but the leader of ISIS has his Doctorate in Islamic Studies, so clearly isn't an idiot.
The correct answer is that the Muslims willing to die fighting for ISIS believe that the world is in the End-of-Days and they are fighting and dying so that they will usher in the Muslim Messiah, also known as the 12th Imam and the Mahdi, who they believe will arrive to kill all the Christians, kill all the Jews and then convert the entire world into the one-world religion of Islam.
While God’s judgement of the world hangs in balance during the Days of Awe between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, a battle is being fought in a small, dusty town in Syria that ISIS and many of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims believe will usher in Mahdi, the Islamic concept of Messiah.
ISIS believes Mahdi will come after the final apocalyptic battle between “Rome” (or America, in its modern incarnation) and Islam is fought in Dabiq, Syria. Though the current has little strategic military importance and the outcome seems certain, as a small group of ISIS fighters face off against American-led troops, the Koran prophesies that this battle, win or lose, will set off a process resulting in all infidels choosing between conversion and death.
One expert sees this battle as a catalyst setting off intensified ISIS terror attacks around the world in an attempt by the Islamic State to fulfill the prophecy.
“ISIS believes quite strongly that the primary eschatological battle between the Muslims and the Christian forces will be fought there,” Dr. Timothy Furnish, an international media commentator and author on radical Islam, explained to Breaking Israel News. “They have been trying to goad the West, primarily the US, into inserting ground forces at that locale.”
Dr. Furnish cited a hadith (Islamic teaching attributed to Mohammed) which states that the “Last Hour would not come” until a vastly superior Roman army composed of “the best soldiers of the people of the earth at that time” came to battle Islam in Dabiq.
Islam’s vision of Messiah is the resurrection of a Muslim Jesus, who will convert all Christians to Islam. Those who do not convert will be killed.
Dabiq is a small Syrian town with a population of 3,000, about 10 miles from the border with Turkey. Rebel troops, including 300 US Special Forces, are currently moving to take the town back from ISIS. Fighting has been fierce and casualties are already high on both sides. Despite its relative unimportance, Islamic State has been focusing all of its efforts on the city.
The battle began on Monday, when the Free Syrian Army – Syrian rebel forces supported by America and Turkey – captured Turkman Bareh, four miles east of Dabiq. The anti-ISIS forces predicted they would capture Dabiq within 48 hours, but their advance slowed after they encountered extensively mined areas, mortars, and explosive devices in their path. Fighting was reported to be especially fierce as ISIS reinforcements poured into the region.
ISIS has put great effort into attracting American attention to the backwater of Dabiq, naming its online propaganda magazine after the town of Muslim armageddon. The magazine’s front cover quotes former terrorist leader and killer Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who proclaimed in 2004, “The spark has been lit here in Iraq, and its heat will continue to intensify – by Allah’s permission – until it burns the crusader armies in Dabiq.”
It is interesting to note the some prophecy watchers believe the Mahdi totally fits the bill for being the person the Bible calls The Antichrist.
But remember it is better that the Bride of Christ keep looking for Jesus' return. The Bible seems clear that the Antichrist will not be revealed until the restraining Holy Spirit is removed from earth in the rapture.