“I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night … till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.” (Isaiah 62:6–7)
The above heading was for a report in the Sydney Morning Herald on 8th November which amongst other matters stated that the International Atomic Energy Agency in a forthcoming report will report new evidence that Iran has been working towards a nuclear weapon. “The IAEA will also reveal evidence suggesting that, since 2004, Iran has carried out computer modelling of a highly enriched uranium base in a way that can only be applied to planned testing of a nuclear device.”
In the light of this recent confirmation the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) states that the “British have already stepped up military contingency planning, according to the British newspaper The Guardian.” According to The Guardian, The Ministry of Defence “believes the US may decide to fastforward plans for targeted missile strikes at some key Iranian facilities. British officials say that if Washington presses ahead it will seek, and receive, UK military help for any mission, despite some deep reservations within the coalition government.”
The SMH reports that when President Obama visits Australia he will want the Australian Government’s support in the confrontation.
We all know, of course, that when Gog invades Israel, Iran will be there alongside the invader and who should be there to oppose this mighty force? – Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish. So whatever comes out of this latest crisis, what we are seeing is once again a consolidation of the Western powers against an implacable enemy of Israel which has made no secret of its desire to wipe Israel off the map.
In the light of these developments it is highly significant to note that the US announced last month that it had uncovered an Iranian plot to set off a bomb in a Washington restaurant. Apparently the bomb was designed to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington.
The Saudis are greatly concerned about Iran’s Middle East motives and it has long been reported that the Saudis have wanted the US to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities before they had a chance to build a nuclear weapon.
So the Sheba and Dedan powers are in the thick of the Western alliance.
And to cap it all off there was a report in The Australian on 7th November of Israel’s intentions under the heading, “Israel set to attack over Iran nuclear risk”.
In the previous week Israel had test-launched a nuclear-capable Jericho 3 missile, which could reach Iran. This and other preparations had fuelled speculation that PM Benjamin Netanyahu was pressing his military for a decision about when and how to strike Iran.
Defence Minister Ehud Barak told the BBC that “we strongly believe a co-ordinated world effort should be taken in order to block Iran from turning nuclear … no option should be removed from the table – and we mean it” (SMH, 8th November).
So whilst the world stumbles from one crisis to another, the Middle East is never out of the spotlight.
How long will it be before the final showdown when all nations will be drawn to this area in the day of Yahweh’s judgments?
Let us make sure we are all prepared for our day before the Lord.
Is Vladimir Putin the “Gog” of Ezekiel 38?
For the past nearly four years Vladimir Putin has served nominally as Prime Minister of Russia under President Medvedev. Medvedev assumed the presidency in 2008 (because Putin had already served as president for the maximum eight years – two terms of consecutive four years – allowed under the then Russian constitution) but this transfer of power was part of a carefully chosen process by which Putin took on Medvedev’s previous role of PM and Putin then anointed Medvedev as his successor.
It was always believed that Medvedev as president was merely a puppet to the wishes of Putin who called the shots on virtually all issues of consequence. It was believed that Medvedev was there only to ‘keep the seat warm’ for Putin when he would eventually return as president for a third time.
Well, the charade is now seen for what it really always was. In September Mr Putin announced that he will run for a third term as president in the March 2012 Russian elections and under the corrupt Russian electoral system his victory is seen as a certainty.
What is highly significant is that under the revised constitution the president will now be able to hold power for two consecutive terms of six years, making a period of 12 years in total!
This means that when Vladimir Putin assumes the presidency in 2012 he will be able to hold the reins of power until 2024! This is a very long time and Putin has made no secret of the fact that he wants to make Russia a great power again.
An article in The Australian, 6th October, could not have presented Putin’s intentions any clearer: “Putin plans new super power from old Soviet Republics” was the header. The article revealed that Vladimir Putin had a grand vision of creating a new superpower out of the countries of the former Soviet Union. “He announced his ambition to form a ‘Eurasian Union’ when he returns to the Kremlin next year. The body would gather the former Soviet republics into a ‘fully-fledged economic union’ capable of rivalling the EU and China.”
Mr Putin once described the Soviet collapse in 1991 as the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20thcentury”. No wonder there is alarm in the West that Putin aims to rebuild the former Soviet empire. But isn’t this exactly what we have always expected would happen? Ezekiel prophesied that in the latter days Yahweh would “turn thee about”(38:4 rv)and bring Gog and all his armies into the land of Israel.
With Putin back in the helm once again can we not see that there will be a massive “turning about” of the Russian power to the extent as detailed in Ezekiel 38 when amongst other things Gog will be “a guard” (v7) to the former Russian republics (as well as the other European powers both Western and Eastern)? “Mr Putin argued the Eurasian Union would grow to become a partner for the EU. Membership in the Eurasian Union, apart from direct economic benefits, will enable its members to integrate into Europe faster and from a much stronger position, he said” (our emphasis). This is the clear language of Ezekiel 38!
So will Vladimir Putin become the Gog of Ezekiel 38? Only time will tell, but already Mr Putin shows all the hallmarks of such a leader.
“In the last days perilous times shall come”
Paul’s description of society in the days prior to our Lord’s return in 2 Timothy 3 is so accurate – surely yet another proof of Bible inspiration.
In five verses Paul summarises all that is so distasteful and wrong in today’s world.
In the light of this, comments by Britain’s chief rabbi recorded in The Wall Street Journal (August 20–21, 2011) are of interest.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks had this to say about the riots in London that occurred in August:
“… hooded youths ran riot down high streets, smashing windows, looting shops, setting fire to cars, attacking passers-by and throwing rocks at the police. It looked like a scene from Cairo, Tunis or Tripoli earlier in the year. But this was no political uprising. People were breaking into shops and making off with clothes, shoes, electronic gadgets and flat screen televisions. It was, as someone later called it, shopping with violence, consumerism run rampage, an explosion of lawlessness made possible by mobile phones as gangs discovered that by text messaging they could bring crowds onto the streets where they became, for a while, impossible to control.”
So much for our advanced, enlightened Western culture ever going forward and upwards towards a new dawn of enlightenment in the so called evolutionary journey!!
The apostle put it another way: “lovers of their own selves … unthankful, unholy … incontinent [ie out of control], fierce, despisers of those that are good” (v2,3).
Jonathan Sacks went on to say:
“It [ie the riots] took everyone by surprise. It should not have. Britain is the latest country to pay the price for what happened half a century ago in one of the most radical transformations in the history of the West [our emphasis].
In virtually every Western society in the 1960s there was a moral revolution, an abandonment of its entire traditional ethic of self-restraint. All you need, sang the Beatles, is love. TheJudeo-Christian moral code was jettisoned. In its place came: whatever works for you. The Ten Commandments were rewritten as The Ten Creative Suggestions. Or as Allan Bloom put it in The Closing of the American Mind: “I am the Lord Your God: Relax!”
Paul put it this way, “Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (v4 esv). Yes, the god of pleasure has replaced the God of the Bible.
Jonathan Sacks in speaking of today’s society said,
“They are the victims of the tsunami of wishful thinking that washed across the West saying that you can have sex without the responsibility of marriage, children without the responsibility of parenthood, social order without the responsibility of citizenship, liberty without the responsibility of morality and self esteem without the responsibility of work and earned achievement … Religion is a thing of the past and there is no counter-voice to the culture of buy it, spend it, wear it, flaunt it, because you’re worth it. The message is that morality is passé, conscience is for wimps and the single overriding command is ‘Thou shalt not be found out’.”
Brothers and sisters, these observations from the Chief Rabbi are very revealing, but taking up his comments above, we should not be surprised at the shocking state of our world today.
The apostle spoke in the clearest, most graphic terms to warn us of the last days. The question we must ask ourselves however is whether we are taking notice of such warnings. The warnings from Paul are for our benefit to make sure that we are not entangled by the spirit of this age.
Whilst I am not suggesting that we would necessarily go down the track of some of the extremes of society yet we would be foolish to think that we are exempt from the other wiles of the flesh that are so rampant in society today whether we are young or old. It would be a real tragedy if at this ‘eleventh hour’ we succumbed to the temptations of the god of this world which has so blinded the minds of them which believe not.
Let us all greatly appreciate the treasure we have in knowing and understanding God’s inspired Word by which the light of the glorious gospel of Christ has shined in our hearts (summary of Paul’s thoughts in 2 Corinthians 4:4–6).
The days are certainly evil but through the grace of God we can withstand in the evil day and be ready to welcome our Lord when he returns.