(Zechariah 12:2-3) “Behold, I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that causes reeling to all the peoples around; and when the siege is against Jerusalem, it will also be against Judah. It will come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who lift it will be severely injured. And all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it.”
Four days ago in the Israel Today online website a headline appeared “Russia and China: The New Gog and Magog?” The article went on to write about China’s relationship with Russia. China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has called Russia his country’s “most important strategic partner.” China has refused to condemn the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and has thumbed its nose up at the United States and Europe which has been pressing China to use its influence to somehow restrain Russia’s continuing invasion of Ukraine. Wang Yi the Chinese Foreign Minister said that ties with Moscow constitute “one of the most crucial bilateral relationships in the world.” He also stated that “the friendship between the two peoples is ironclad.”
On February 4th Vladimir Putin actually met with Xi Jinping during which the two made a joint statement affirming “strong mutual support for the protection of their core interests.” We also need to keep in mind that this growing axis of power is also favourable to Iran and Syria, both hostile neighbours to Israel. Despite sanctions against Russia by the United States and the European Union as well as other western democracies such as Australia and Great Britain, China still seeks economic ties with Russia. As for Putin he seems not even to be worried about the sanctions in his ambition to establish Russia as the economic and military power broker in Europe knowing he is backed by China which still undoubtedly has on its agenda the invasion of Taiwan.
Russia without any hesitancy has affirmed China’s insistence that Taiwan is “an inalienable part of China and opposes any form of independence for Taiwan.” No longer is Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping even worried about the United States with Biden at the helm which these two leaders see as a joke and are laughing up their sleeves at Biden’s administration. While Europe and the United States have been tossed and turned by political unrest over the last decade or so, it seems Russia and China have been solidifying their relationship behind the scenes.
We also know that for years Russia has been supplying Middle-Eastern countries with weapons. Most Arab countries in the Middle East have been heavily armed with Russian tanks, fighter jets, machine guns and hi-tech equipment in their fight against Israel. According to the report in the Israel Today article it states; “While countries like Saudi Arabia and some of the Persian Gulf nations have buddled up to the US in exchange for massive arms deals, fear of Russia just to the north has kept them placated. The Abraham Accords have contributed to a degree of appeasement vis-à-vis the US and Israel, but the new superpower alliance now towering over the Middle East does not bode well for the tiny Jewish nation.” Israel has decided to back Ukraine which will not have gone down well with Russia at all.
The article went on to say; “And for Israel, the US, once a faithful bulwark to these northern threats, now feels more like a distant ally, not close enough geographically to be of much concern to the Russian Bear and Chinese Dragon fuming in the North, nor politically or militarily prepared for any serious fight for anything anywhere. Surrounded by 350 million Muslims in the Middle East, Israel is left once again to look to God alone and prepare for the fight of its life.”
However. Israel is not alone!
Now looking in Ezekiel Chapter 38 at the invasion force that will attack Israel we see listed Gog, prince of Rosh (the Antichrist) from the Land of Magog and the chief prince over Meshech and Tubal along with Gomer and Beth Togarmah all located on ancient maps of the Middle East. Geographically these nations are all located within modern day Turkey. Also we see listed the nations of Persia (Iran) Cush (Southern Egypt into the Sudan) Put (Libya) being all Islamic nations today. We are also told that there will be many nations with them being primarily other Islamic nations. Whether China and Russia will join the invasion force remains to be seen.
We know from Daniel Chapter 11:44 that when the Islamic Antichrist starts his military campaign in the Middle-East with the occupation of Israel in view, that he will be alarmed by reports from the east and the north. North of Turkey is Russia and east of Turkey is China. Both of these nations will never allow Islam to flourish within the borders of their respective countries. More than likely in light of the current situation in Europe, Russia’s main goal will be to regain all of the countries in Europe that were part of the former Soviet Union while China will have more than likely invaded Taiwan which would see the Quad being Australia, India, Japan and the United States. engaged in “a face-off” with China over Taiwan which the Quad have vowed to protect should China invade Taiwan.
Of course Australia would be vulnerable to missile attacks from China. Australia is an island so there is no place to escape to if China launches missiles on Australian cities and its military infrastructures and invades the country. The Australian Prime Minister has just now designated $30 billion to upgrading the defence capability knowing the threat from China but it may well be too late for Australia now which is rapidly following in the footsteps of America with its ungodly legislation being approved by the government at both Federal and state level by wicked and unprincipled politicians, with their left-wing socialist agendas, having no fear of God before their eyes!
Indeed the Lord Jesus was right when He said “You will hear of wars and rumours of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places (Luke Chapter 21 adds pestilence). All these are the beginning of birth pains” (Matthew 24: 6-8).
Any war produces famine, pestilence and in some cases even earthquakes if the weapons are powerful enough. Putin has already alerted Russia’s nuclear capability and if pushed he may well launch his missiles with nuclear warheads attached. It is very clear that the United States is in a fairly rapid decline as a super power and no wonder with Biden and Pelosi and others of their ilk funding abortion that is seeing thousands upon thousands of little lives terminated who have no say in the matter, the immorality, the violence being fuelled by violent and explicit video games in cyber space, decedent and hedonistic lifestyles at every level of society and with a government supporting everything that is offensive to God and that goes contrary to the Word of God.
Added to this within wider Christendom you have for starters the growing apostasy with its Laodicean spirit, ecumenism, interfaith associations, the Immerging Church, hyper faith prosperity and the seven mountain kingdom Dominion doctrine. Then you have the ordination of homosexual and Lesbian Clergy, not to mention the widespread paedophilia running rampant through the so called ‘hallowed halls’ of Roman Catholicism. God’s judgement has fallen on the United States! Australia and New Zealand may also be in China’s expansionist agenda for the South Pacific region. The day may well come when America will isolate themselves as a nation to defend their citizens on their home soil after a missile attack, possibly from the North Pole. Russia already has missile solos established in Antarctica. Last year satellite photos showed a huge Russian military build- up in Antarctica which would give Russia’s missiles the capability of hitting American cities and military infrastructure.
America no longer has the capability to be the world’s police force neither it seems does the European Union, the United nations and even NATO have the decisiveness needed to have an all-out war with Russia or with China for that matter. While all attention is focused on Russia and China, Islam is growing in leaps and bounds under the radar of the western democracies and the man from Turkey globetrotting to gain supporters for his resurrected Turkish Ottoman Empire that if established, will shake the world to its very foundations. As I write Erdogan in yesterday’s edition of Hurriyet Daily News called for a new global order amid war in Ukraine clearly showing his agenda for a global Islamic government which is in line with the creed of the Muslim Brotherhood which Erdogan adheres to.
In Revelation Chapter 9:13-21 we see an army of 200 million crossing the Euphrates River with firepower that will kill a third of mankind. It is God’s judgement on the nations of this world that have turned their backs on Him. The leaders of this vast army are described as the Kings from the East. Some say it is China but these kings are more than one king and they will be a confederation of Middle-Eastern armies (Revelation 16:12-16). This war will ultimately lead to Armageddon when Israel will be under attack with no one to help it other than the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
At the end of this protracted time of the ‘birth pains’ lasting three and a half years in duration, the city of Jerusalem will be centre stage in world affairs and surrounded on all sides by hostile foreign armies. When it looks like Israel will be annihilated the Lord will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all of the nations globally and those nations that seek to move Jerusalem will injured, the Hebrew text says they will be literally “torn” or “ripped apart” In that day God will completely confuse and destroy these armies as He did the Assyrian army in the time of Hezekiah where the Angel of the Lord (the Pre-incarnate Messiah) put to death 185,000 Assyrians!
The surviving remnant of the Jewish nation will go out and fight against these nations under the war banner of the Messiah who will have returned to the Mount of Olives with His powerful angels and with all of His raptured and resurrected saints (Zechariah 14:3-5) (Jude 1:14). The Messiah our Lord Jesus, the people of Israel and the glorified saints will take the fight to the enemy and woe-betide the nations! (Zechariah 12:1-9; 14:1-5). We are told that “Judah will also fight at Jerusalem” (Zechariah 14:14). The final assault by the Islamic armies on Jerusalem will be an assault against God and the Anointed Messiah our Lord Jesus.
However, when the dust of battle finally settles, the bodies and military equipment of the armies of the Antichrist and the nations will lay scattered over the hills of Israel all the way up through the plain of Megiddo and sweeping down into Saudi Arabia the home of the Muslim world. Their final burying place will be east of the Dead Sea. After this the cleansing of the land of Israel will commence (Ezekiel 39:9-16). As for Satan, he will be chained in a dungeon beneath the earth and the Antichrist and the false prophet thrown alive into the Lake of Fire (Revelation 19:20; 20:1-3). After this the Messianic kingdom will be established and the millennial reign of the Messiah will commence.
Let Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping ‘strut their stuff’ across the global stage, yet their empires will come to an abrupt end when the Messiah comes back and the command goes forth from His mouth that will see the armies of heaven galvanised into action! Let the man from Turkey raise his Islamic army of 200 million remorseless killers for Allah with vehicles armed with their missile launching capabilities accompanied by armed drones, because these Islamic armies too will experience the wrath of God and go into that winepress of His wrath (Isaiah 63:2-3) (Revelation 19:15; 14:19-20) (Joel 3:13).The armies of these nations will go down into the pit of Hades! These nations are actually named and they are all Islamic nations today (Ezekiel 32:18-32).
As New Covenant believers faced with the coming great tribulation let’s not focus on “the birth pains” as frightening as they will be, but not be alarmed because our Lord Jesus Himself said these things must happen before He returns but instead focus on “the birth of the baby” being the birth of the Messiah’s kingdom on earth of which we will be a part, to co-reign with Him in our glorified immortal bodies! Once the baby is born who remembers the birth pains in the euphoria of the new life that has come into the world!
So let the nations rage and the people devise a vain plot. Let the kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord God and his anointed Messiah our Lord Jesus and declaring their rebellion against His lawful rule, but He who sits in heaven will laugh at their antics, speak to them in His anger, terrify them in His fury and declare to them He has now installed His King on the original sight of Mt Zion in Israel! (Psalm 2:1-6).
This is our blessed hope as New Covenant Believers! (Titus 2:13).
