The Rise of China and the Back to Jerusalem Movement

By Sharon Fischer
Special to ASSIST News Service

YORBA LINDA, CA (ANS) -- The 21st century is a time of geopolitical shifts, with the relative decline of American power after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, financial crisis, trade deficit, eroding industrial base and social unrest with “Occupy” movements throughout various cities. At the same time, China is rapidly ascending in power militarily, diplomatically, economically, and is the world’s largest foreign exchange reserve holder at US $3.2 trillion.

Bullet train in China

Communist China’s rapid rise in power as well as military modernization has sounded alarms in the U.S. and elsewhere of a “China threat” to replace the Soviet threat during the Cold War.

Over the past decade, the world has witnessed China’s global reach. No longer is it an East Asian regional power, but now the U.S. and Europe are contending for influence with China in various parts of the world: Latin America, Africa, Central Asia, Middle East, including Europe where it is bailing out Eurozone countries with stakes in their infrastructure projects.

More troubling is China’s continuing close ties and support of rogue regimes and pariah states under Western sanctions for human right abuses and WMD proliferation—E.g., North Korea, Burma, Sudan, Iran, Libya, and others. It is building infrastructure projects in energy, transportation, and especially railway links throughout the world.

Currently China is a global rail leader, building rails in various countries including pariah states under western sanctions, and exporting high-speed rail technology. Its frenzied construction of railways has been dubbed as China’s new “Iron Silk Road” of connecting China to Europe and Africa. The Communist government sends thousands of infrastructure workers overseas along with Chinese troops to provide security, as witnessed earlier this year when China evacuated 36,000 workers from Libya during the Arab Spring uprising.

Middle East Railway Connections with China

Plans are already underway for China to connect its railways with Central Asia and Iran, and in the recent November G-20 summit in France, a large railway line was proposed to connect Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq and Syria at US $5 billion. Saudi Arabia-backed financier Islamic Development Bank (IDB) is in talks with the World Bank, European Investment Bank, and other international financial institutions to finance this project, with Chinese railway companies leading in construction.

Plans are to further extend rail links to Lebanon, Turkey and Israel. Currently, Israel is not included in the plan until the Palestinian issue is resolved, according to Jordan’s Minister of Transport, Mohannad Al Qudah. Back in March the Israeli Ministry of Transportation had submitted an official tender to construct parts of Jordan’s Hijazi railway line connecting Haifa with Irbid in Jordan, via the town of Beit She-an in the Jordan Valley.

What is interesting is that with various deployment of Chinese soldiers and infrastructure workers to various parts of the world—including states under rogue regimes—Chinese missionaries are deployed along to build medical and health facilities in these regions. Armed with the “Back to Jerusalem” (BTJ) vision of carrying the Gospel back to Jerusalem through places that have not heard the Gospel, Chinese Christians are able to reach people in countries where Westerners are denied access. God is not willing that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9) and seems to be using BTJ mission and China’s global reach to spread the Gospel all over the world in one last great reap of harvest in these last days.

And indeed it appears these are the last days. A July 14, 2009 New York Times article reported that the Euphrates River is drying up due to drought and water policies of Turkey and Syria that has seven dams on the River, and quoted: “The shrinking of the Euphrates, a river so crucial to the birth of civilization that the Book of Revelation prophesied its drying up as a sign of the end times, has decimated farms along its banks, has left fishermen impoverished and has depleted riverside towns as farmer flee to the cities looking for work”. In a March 8, 2009 Israeli article (Ynet) it is predicted that the Euphrates River would completely dry up in 10 years outside Turkish territory. Would this then pave the way for China’s iron Silk Road to be used to deploy the army of 200 million, when “the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates and its water was dried up, so that the way of the kings from the east might be prepared” (Revelation 16:12)?

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Sharon was born in the prairie province of Saskatchewan, Canada and in 1953, and when she was a teenager, her parents moved the family of six to Costa Mesa, California. It was there that in 1955 she met and married her husband Hal Fischer and they have been married for 56 years. They have three children Terri, Lynnette and Lonnie and seven grandchildren. As a six year old, she became a Christian in a little Pentecostal church in Canada. Later in Southern California, Sharon worked in the fashion industry as a photography and fashion model for many years and wrote fashion articles for the Newport Beach Ensign and in the 1960s she wrote articles on inner beauty for a Christian newspaper called Acts. Hal and Sharon Fischer were charter board members of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa in 1961 and had the privilege of being involved in the hiring of Pastor Chuck Smith in 1965. This year (2011) is the 50th anniversary of CCCM and the book she has written “Where Two or More are Gathered” reflects The Birth of Calvary Chapel and its small beginning in a trailer court recreation room with about 10 people to its present day with over 2,000 churches and ministries. The primary emphasis of the book is to show how God's hand has raised up this worldwide ministry. To receive the date of the release of The Birth of Calvary Chapel, send your request togardner.fischer@gmail.com

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