BY : Michael Foust | ChristianHeadlines.com Contributor
Russia will play a major role in the End Times by leading an attack on Israel, says pastor and author David Jeremiah, who adds that such an assault won’t “happen in the immediate future” but could take place “sooner than we think.”
Jeremiah’s social media accounts this week pointed his audience to the article, saying “many people have contacted Turning Point” – the name of his ministry – with “questions about Russia’s role in the End Times.” The article is titled “Russia’s Role in End-Times Prophecy.”
The actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin have caused “concern around the world,” Jeremiah wrote.
“He has annexed Crimea, crept into the Republic of Georgia, and invaded Ukraine,” he wrote.
Ezekiel 38 includes a prophecy about Russia’s future, Jeremiah said. In that chapter, Russia is called “Rosh,” he said.
“Both Ezekiel and Daniel describe Israel’s end-times aggressor as descending from the north. Daniel used the phrase ‘king of the North’ to describe the commander of the alliance (Daniel 11:5-35). Ezekiel’s prophecy lends support to Daniel’s, indicating the invading armies will arrive in Israel ‘from the far north’ (Ezekiel 38:6, 15). Russia is the only modern nation to match this description,” Jeremiah wrote.
The book also describes a “Gog,” which Ezekiel says is a “chief prince.”
“Gog is the prince of Rosh, or we would say the leader of Russia. Some scholars believe Gog is a title rather than a personal name,” Jeremiah wrote. “… Gog is from the land of Magog (verse 2). Magog was also the name of one of Noah’s grandsons (Genesis 10:2; 1 Chronicles 1:5), and many scholars believe his descendants settled around the Black and Caspian Seas on Russia’s southern border. In The Jeremiah Study Bible, I identify this region as the former ‘-stan’ countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and perhaps Afghanistan), all former constituents of the Soviet Union. What unites the sixty million residents of this region today is their religion: Islam.”
“Russia and Turkey will lead from the north. Iran will join from the east. Sudan and Libya will press in from the south and possibly Germany from the west,” Jeremiah wrote. “To darken the picture for Israel, these likely represent the chief allies in the invasion. In Ezekiel 38:9, the prophet added that the nation will have ‘many peoples’ on its side.”
Israel will be disarmed when the Russian coalition attacks it, Jeremiah said, acknowledging it’s “difficult to imagine.”
“This radical shift in Israel, when she will lower her defenses, will occur at the beginning of the Tribulation or just before it,” he wrote. “At the time of the Rapture, the Antichrist will make a seven-year deal with Israel in which he will promise to protect the nation. Israel will become dependent upon the Antichrist, disarm her army, and devote all her energy to increasing her wealth. The nation will be defenseless against the northern coalition.
“… The north’s invasion of Israel is not going to happen in the immediate future, but perhaps sooner than we think,” Jeremiah said.
Israel’s “only hope will be God’s intervention, and Russia will be blind to this prospect,” Jeremiah wrote.
God will protect Israel through a “series of natural disasters” that will be “even more spectacular and catastrophic than the plagues of ancient Egypt,” Jeremiah said.
The prophecy of Ezekiel 38 should comfort Christians, Jeremiah wrote.
“Prophecies like this one about the future of Russia and Israel remind us we have a great and awesome God, and nothing is beyond His power,” he wrote. “Even when it looks like there is no hope, God can come in and change everything.”
Photo courtesy: ©Sam Oxyak/Unsplash
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