It's Monday, December 9, 2024.

I'm Albert Moller, and this is the briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

The scripture speaks of the rising and falling of nations.

History records the rising and falling of empire. Sometimes it is just a tin pot dictator who

falls, and that turns out to be very important as well. Over the weekend, that dictator who fell

was Bashir al-Assad, who was the totalitarian leader, the repressive leader of the nation of Syria,

until all of a sudden he wasn't.

And there are some huge worldview implications here for us to see. For one thing, we are talking about a far larger context, and there are some fascinating questions just related to all of this.

One of the questions that comes to mind is, okay, so what's the difference between

Syria and Assyria? Those of you who are familiar with ancient history and with the Bible,

understand that Assyria shows up. Syria shows up. Okay, so what's the difference? Well, they are at

opposite ends of the so-called Fertile Crescent. And so you look there at the Middle East,

and what you see is that on the eastern end of that fertile crescent. And so you look there at the Middle East, and what you see is that

on the eastern end of that fertile crescent would be Asher and Assyria. On the more western end,

you would have Syria. But they are still related in ways that many people, frankly, would not

recognize. For one thing, they're both related to the

Acadian peoples mentioned in the Old Testament. But the ancient Assyrian Empire, it is matched by

ancient Syria, but in ancient Syria, it is more about ancient cities, in particular Aleppo and

Damascus. Historians record that they are two of the oldest

continuously inhabited city sites on all of planet Earth. So if you're looking for an ancient

city, just go to Aleppo or go to Damascus. By the way, Damascus is the capital of Syria.

Aleppo is the largest, most populated city. They're in Syria. Of course, Damascus comes to mind

...