Tuesday 8 April 2014

THE COMING WAR OF GOG AND MAGOG DRAWS CLOSER

The Coming War Of Gog Magog
April 07, 2014 | Maryann Gearhart

The winds of war are brewing in the Middle East and they aren’t the “run-of-the-mill, what-you- see-on-the-news, day-after-day, year-after-year” skirmishes between Israel and their neighboring adversaries.

It is a war of great magnitude that is thought to be the trigger war that will culminate in Armageddon. And interestingly enough Jews, Muslims and Christians seem to agree on the basic premise that indeed, an “end of days war” in the making right before our eyes.

Jews are talking about the possibility that Russia’s annexation of Crimea is a prophesied sign that Messiah is soon to come.

Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims fighting each other in Syria believe the battle there will spread to Israel and is their sign that that a global Caliphate will be soon be established and the Shi’ite messiah figure, the Imam Madi will soon appear.

Bible-believing Christians have been intensely watching events in the Middle East for the past several years as they have noted the gradual development of a tight military relationship between Iran and Russia, the key aggressors in the end-times war on Israel described in Ezekiel Chapters 38 and 39, commonly referred to as the war of Gog Magog.

And now, Israeli news writer for Haaretz.com, Chemi Shaley, says, “observers are watching closely developments in the Ukraine based on the idea that it could generate the conflict with Gog and Magog, one of the Bible’s heralds of the end times and the return of the Messiah.”

Jews view the war of Gog and Magog as the event which immediately precedes messianic days, as Shaley notes, “Christians aren’t the only ones who are getting excited about the standoff in Eastern Europe. According to a report catching fire over the weekend in the haredi press in Israel, the Gaon Rabbi Moshe Shternbuch told his disciples this week that the times of the Messiah are upon us. And who is the source for his amazing analysis?

None other than one of the top Jewish sages of all time, the Vilna Gaon himself, the Gra, ‘the genius of Vilnius,’ the famously harsh critic of Hasidic Judaism.”

The report continues, “According to Shternbuch, he is privy to a closely guarded secret handed down from the 18th Century Vilna Gaon through generations of revered rabbis: ‘When you hear that the Russians have captured the city of Crimea, you should know that the times of the Messiah have started, that his steps are being heard.

And when you hear that the Russians have reached the city of Constantinople (today’s Istanbul), you should put on your Shabbat clothes and don’t take them off, because it means that the Messiah is about to come any minute.’”

Chemi Shaley writes that Josephus Flavius, “the turncoat Jewish historian who chronicled the Masada saga,” theorized the Scythians, who lived in the central Eurasian region until the 4th century, lived in the land of Magog, “as in Gog and Magog, as in the war of Gog and Magog, as in the biblical prelude to the End of Days.”

“Which is one of the many reasons why recent events in the Ukraine have created a buzz among legions of apocalypse-anticipating true believers. This could be the real thing, they tell themselves, the big time, the major leagues, not the end of the beginning, to quote Winston Churchill in reverse, but the beginning of the end. And it is Vladimir Putin, aka Gog, aka King of the North, who has set things in motion.”

“You only have to read Ezekiel chapters 38-39, the widely accepted handbook and screenplay for the upcoming decimation. According to traditional translations of verse 2 of Chapter 38, Gog is the ‘chief prince of Meshech and Tuval,’ ancient kingdoms also near the Black Sea.

But the term used for ‘chief prince’ in Hebrew is ‘nesi rosh’ (as in נשיא ראש משך ותבל): Nesi could also mean ‘ruler’ or ‘president,’ and some scholars believe that ‘rosh’ is not an adjective, at all, but a noun denoting the name of yet another nation that will enter the fray. So Gog is the prince of Rosh, or the president of Rosh, or, with a little bit of help, the president of Russia.”

“And who will ride with Gog? Why Persia, of course, as specified in verse 5. And possibly Turkey, Libya and Sudan, though only Turkey seems capable these days. And why will they all gang up on Israel?

The Internet site RemantReport explains: 1) To acquire more territory (Ezekiel 38:8). 2) To plunder Israel’s wealth (38:12) (Israel’s newly discovered vast reserves of natural in the Mediterranean, of course, CS). 3) To destroy the Jews (38:11, 16). And 4) To challenge the authority of the Antichrist who will temporarily be Israel’s ally due to a treaty mentioned in Daniel 9:27, ‘That ruler will have a firm agreement with many people for seven years.’”

Mariam Karouny reports that “Iranian forces battle anti Shi’ite fighters in Damascus and the region braces for an ultimate showdown” which is expected to spread to Jerusalem.

From the Islamic viewpoint, the Syrian conflict appears to be the fulfillment of prophetic expectations foretold by the prophet Mohammed in the 7th century and many of his current day followers, in particular the Sunni and Shi’ite sects who are battling against one another in the belief that they are fighting the battle that will lead to the establishment of an “Islamic state which will rule the world before total chaos.”

Karouny writes, “the hadith, or sayings of the prophet Mohammed and his companions, have been handed down orally over the centuries and are the most important sources of authority in Islam after the Quaran itself. Many date back to those medieval battlefields in what are now Syria and Iraq, where the two main Islamic sects took shape.”

Both the Sunni and Shi’ite Hadith mention Syria as a main battlefield, naming cities and towns where blood will be spilled.”

“Hundreds of thousands of people will be killed. The whole region will be shaken from the Arabian peninsula to Iraq, Iraq and Jerusalem, according to some texts.”

“Syria’s civil war built upon sectarian conflicts elsewhere, especially in Iraq and Lebannon, is leading to a growing sense across the region that all those power struggles in individual countries were part of a titanic battle for the future.”

“Abu Hsaasan, a 65 year-old pensioner from southern Lebanon, said he once thought the prophecies of the end of days would take centuries to come about.”

“Things are moving fast. I never thought that I would be living the day of the Imam. Now, with every passing day, I am more and more convinced that it is only a matter of a few years before he appears.” 
zekiel Chapter 38 portrays Gog as a conquering military leader. If Putin is Gog as many observers suspect, Crimea and Georgia may just be the beginning.

Read more at http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/2014/April07/073.html#frU70WTAKdCdt4hL.99

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