Putin's
Re-election and Bible Prophecy:
Closing
In on Armageddon
by Pastor
Paul J. Bern
[Ezekiel
chapters 38 & 39, part 3]
For
better small screen viewing click
here :-)
Last
week as we finished part
2 of this 3 part series on the Biblical significance of Vladimir
Putin's re-election as president of Russia, we left off at Ezekiel
chapter 39 and verse 6 (for anyone who missed part one, click
here). In the first 6 verses of chapter 39, God declared through
his servant Ezekiel that all the military forces that would swoop
down from the far north, as well as most of the Islamic nations of
the horn of Africa and Libya, will be stopped in their tracks by a
series of natural disasters, starting with the troops being pelted by
huge hail stones as well as by fire sent from God. The Bible doesn't
specify the origin or nature of this fire. It only says in verse 6,
“I will send fire on Magog and on those who live in safety in
the coast lands....” This
could be anything from being trapped in a wildfire, or series of
wildfires, to a huge fire-fight of some kind or another, all the way
up to nuclear warfare. There's simply no way to tell for sure, but I
would not be surprised at all if this war were to go nuclear.
This
week as we move on to the third and final part of this series on
current events juxtaposed with Biblical prophecy, we'll be starting
at verse 8 of chapter 39. “It is coming! It will surely
take place, declares the Sovereign Lord. This is the day I have
spoken of. Then those who live in the towns of Israel will go out and
use their weapons for fuel and burn them up – the large and small
shields, the bows and arrows, the war clubs and spears. For seven
years they will use them for fuel. They will not need to gather wood
from the fields or cut it from the forests, because they will use the
weapons for fuel. And they will plunder those who plundered them and
loot those who looted them, declares the Sovereign Lord.”
(Ezekiel 39, verses 8-10)
This
massive war is most assuredly coming, definitely and without
question! Although a first-time reader may not believe this, if God
says it's going to occur, then it's going to occur; it's only a
question of timing. Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq, together with
mercenaries from the Russian Islamic republics, will attack Israel
from the north and the east in a gigantic pincer attack. But they
will be driven back, and Russia will have to come and bail them out
since Iran and Syria are Russian allies. It is that precise day that
the prophet Ezekiel was writing about! When Russia comes to the aid
of Syria and Iran, they will fall back to a mutually agreed upon
rendezvous point before mounting a huge counterattack on Israel and
her people. Again, as before, they will be defeated, but this time by
the forces of nature as described in detail in these passages of
Scripture.
“Then
those who live in the towns of Israel will go out and use their
weapons for fuel and burn them up – the large and small shields,
the bows and arrows, the war clubs and spears. For seven years they
will use them for fuel.” Now
let's understand right here that this is written from the viewpoint
of a man who lived at least 2,600 years ago. So he is writing to his
contemporaries as well as for posterity and, most of all, out of
obedience to God. Ezekiel is describing weapons as he understood them
from his own time frame. Shields, bows and arrows and spears were the
weapons of his day. Today, everything is motorized and digitized, so
it appears the fuel from all the tanks, amphibious assault vehicles
and all kinds of trucks of various sizes and purposes will be used
instead. Tires will be burned in big piles to enforce road blocks and
in small ones for cooking and burning trash. This is a likely
scenario that fits with what Ezekiel wrote, as dictated to him by the
“Sovereign Lord”, or Almighty God.
“They
will not need to gather wood from the fields or cut it from the
forests, because they will use the weapons for fuel. And they will
plunder those who plundered them and loot those who looted them,
declares the Sovereign Lord.”
In this verse, I'm fairly sure that Ezekiel is referring to the
wooden gun stocks on all the rifles the troops from the Russian
confederation carried with them into battle. Since the homes of many
will have been destroyed by the war, the wooden gun stocks of the
Russian, Syrian, Turkish and Iranian troops will be used for
campfires, along with the tires and fuel from their vehicles. In this
way, the comfort of the Israeli people will be seen to even during
this traumatic time to come, because that is what God will do for his
people Israel. Their every need will be met, even in the rubble of an
earthquake and a military invasion. And now let's move on to part 2
of this week's message, starting at verse 11.
“On
that day I will give Gog a burial place in Israel, in the valley of
those who travel toward the sea. It will block the way of travelers,
because Gog and all his hordes will be buried there. So it will be
called the Valley of Hamon Gog. For seven months the house of Israel
will be burying them in order to cleanse the land. All the people of
the land will bury them, and the day I am glorified will be a
memorable day for them, declares the Sovereign Lord.”
(Ezekiel 39, verses 11-13)
This
will be the fate of all the troops from Russia, her allies, and the
other countries I mentioned who would presume to attack Israel. “The
valley of those who travel towards the sea” is an ancient
expression for the Jordan valley that runs between the Sea of Galilee
southward towards the Dead Sea. And so according to the Scriptures,
this is where the armies of the Gog-Magog War of Ezekiel 38 and 39
will be buried. It will take 7 months to bury all the dead because
there will be so many of them, and the entire populace will be
pressed into service for this arduous task, presumably to expedite
things for health reasons. But what is so understated is that the
tiny little nation of Israel, a country the size of New Jersey with a
population of 8.4 million people, just defeated the combined armies
and air forces of Russia, Iran, Syria, and Turkey, and you may as
well include Iraq and Jordan in the fray. Their combined military
forces will be decimated by Israel and her ally, the Sovereign Lord!
There
is one more thing that needs to be said about this, and that is
regarding the country of Israel itself, together with her people.
There are many individuals who, frankly, despise the nation of Israel
and her people. Some say that this is because of the conflict between
the Palestinian and Israeli people, but there is more to it than
that, and it has a long history. It was the newly created universal
church of King Constantine 1st, from which the modern name 'Catholic'
originates, that began teaching around the year 300AD that it was the
Jews and not the Romans who crucified Christ, when in fact it was the
other way around. Nevertheless, this wrong teaching has persisted to
this day. While the first reason for hatred of the Jews was religious
in origin, the second reason was and still is racial. Antisemitism –
the extreme hatred of Jewish people and all things Jewish, including
her homeland Israel – is raw racism, pure and simple. But more than
that, since Jesus Christ walked the earth as a Jewish man, to express
antisemitism is tantamount to having contempt for Jesus Christ. Adolf
Hitler's Nazi Germany is one of the most glaring examples in human
history of what happens when antisemitism is carried to its utmost
extreme.
This
inevitably brings up the debate about what the fate of the
Palestinian people should be. Should they get their own homeland? Of
course they should, but so should the Kurdish people just a few
hundred miles to the north, but they're not having any luck either.
Arbitration is the only fair way to settle both these disputes, that
much is certain, and both conflicts must be peacefully resolved. One
other thing is certain – the Gog-Magog War of Ezekiel chapters 38
and 39 (of which I only used select portions for the sake of brevity
and focus) will occur. But more than that, the stage is being set
even as I write this for this massive and incredibly deadly war.
Russia has forward bases in Syria and Iran, plus a critically
important naval port in Syria, and has still more troops – many
more – just to the north in Georgia and the Ukraine. I think we'll
have to see what happens once the American embassy moves from Tel
Aviv to Jerusalem, which coincides with the 70th
anniversary of the founding of the nation of Israel on May 14th,
1948. I would be quite surprised if this anniversary comes and goes
without incident. You know, like a 7-year peace treaty that divides
Jerusalem?
No comments:
Post a Comment