WAR WITH RUSSIA
PART 2
by Steve
Ashburn
In Part 1 of this
series we saw how Israel was restored to their ancient
land of Canaan, including all the land that God promised
Abraham, including most of present-day Syria, Jordan,
Lebanon and the Sinai. After this, God richly blessed
Israel, so that it became like “the garden of Eden… And
the floors shall be full of wheat, and the fats shall
overflow with wine and oil” (Joel 2:3, 23–24). It is
these great riches—including “silver and gold”—which
Russia and her Moslem cohorts will see and try to take
for themselves. Since the US is no longer a world power
(being removed by the rapture, and thus unable to
protect Israel), this leaves the door wide open for a
Russian military invasion of the Holy Land.
Russia and her
allies therefore launch a blitzkrieg attack: “Thou shalt
ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud
to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many
people with thee.” (Ezekiel 38:9).
This makes God
absolutely furious, and he causes a great earthquake (“a
great shaking”), a strange kind of mental illness
whereby the invading troops attack each other (“every
man's sword shall be against his brother”), and are
pummeled with “an overflowing rain, and great
hailstones, fire, and brimstone.” He does all this to
“magnify myself, and sanctify myself” so that many
nations “shall know that I am the
Lord”:
And it shall come
to pass at the same time when Gog shall come against the
land of Israel, saith the Lord
God, that
my fury shall come up in my face. For in my jealousy and
in the fire of my wrath have I spoken, Surely in that
day there shall be a great shaking in the land of
Israel; So that the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of
the heaven, and the beasts of the field, and all
creeping things that creep upon the earth, and all the
men that are upon the face of the earth, shall shake at
my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and
the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall
to the ground.
And I will call
for a sword against him throughout all my mountains,
saith the Lord God:
every man's sword shall be against his brother. And I
will plead against him with pestilence and with blood;
and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon
the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain,
and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone. Thus will I
magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known
in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I
am the Lord.
(Ezekiel 38:18–23)
Zechariah 14:13
also provides more details of this judgment: “And it
shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from
the Lord
shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one
on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up
against the hand of his neighbour.” The earthquake is so
large that it affects everyone one on earth. Mountains
everywhere are thrown down, along with landslides (“and
the steep places shall fall”) and the collapse of
buildings (“and every wall shall fall to the ground”).
This severe judgment by God perhaps can be understood in
terms of Zechariah 2:8: “he that toucheth you toucheth
the apple of his eye.” Zechariah 8:2 also says, “I was
jealous for her with great fury”—again, in context,
referring to the great fury God pours on those who
attack modern Israel.
As if the
earthquake were not enough, God drives home the point by
sending fire on Russia itself and other nations which
are dwelling at ease, for the purpose that “they shall
know that I am the
Lord.” This judgment is entirely miraculous and
consists of fire and burning sulfur (probably
representative of things beyond our understanding)
poured onto unspecified destination cities and nations
that dwell with unconcern, presumably about Israel or
weighty spiritual matters: “And I will send a fire on
Magog, and among them that dwell carelessly in the
isles: and they shall know that I am the
Lord”
(Ezekiel 39:6). The timeline for this judgment clearly
is in “the day of the Lord” because it is entirely
miraculous and affects all nations on earth
simultaneously; therefore, by definition, it occurs
after the church age and the rapture.
This catastrophic
judgment is on par with anything in Revelation. It’s so
bad, I can’t even relate to it except through a cartoon
analogy: an earthquake flattens all buildings, dams and
bridges, and a flamethrower from the sky then
incinerates what’s left. Then, the cartoon characters
look back at you with blackened faces, blinking.
Unfortunately, that will be the reality a few years from
now!
The fact that many
nations “dwell carelessly” indicates that complacency
has developed to a high degree in these twenty-nine
years after the war that began the end times; after all,
the rapture recently has occurred and the judgments of
the tribulation are imminent, which anybody with a Bible
can read about and understand clearly. This suggests a
marked deterioration of the world’s spiritual condition
and widespread insensitivity to weighty matters of sin
and judgment. It also suggests that the rapture will be
a non-event in most countries.
In addition, few
nations support Israel, and these nations’ national
policies tend to be relativistic and based on immediate
financial considerations rather than on the covenant
that God made with Abraham: “I will bless them that
bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee” (Genesis
12:3). Sending fire and brimstone on these nations
perhaps is God’s way of reminding them of this eternal
covenant as well as their own blind spiritual condition.
Consequently, this
judgment may awaken quite a few people to the truth of
the gospel, and lead them to repentance. It is during
this period, in fact, that the 144,000 Jewish witnesses
will be called. This process starts soon after the
rapture, and by the time the tribulation begins a few
years later, all of them will be ready to be “sealed”
(Revelation 7:3). Undoubtedly, this applies to "a great
multitude" of others as well (Revelation 7:9), so that
this judgment from God may induce a notable degree of
spiritual polarization, whereby many people are saved,
while others become more hardened in their sins and in
their rebellion.
Thus God
sanctifies his holy name in Israel and among the
nations: “So will I make my holy name known in the midst
of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my
holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am
the Lord,
the Holy One in Israel” (Ezekiel 39:7). From this day
forward, Israel shall know that the Lord is their God:
“So the house of Israel shall know that I am the
Lord their
God from that day and forward” (Ezekiel 39:22). In
addition, the reference to other nations as "the
heathen" signifies the fact that the church is
gone—taken in the rapture—and therefore that the nations
are, in fact, heathen.
Russia and her
hordes are decimated. Only one-sixth is left, and they
return to Russia. Ezekiel 39:2 says: “And I will turn
thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and
will cause thee to come up from the north parts, and
will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel.” This
event also is anticipated in Joel 2:20: “But I will
remove far off from you the northern army, and will
drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face
toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the
utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great
things.”
The Russian army
is driven far back into Siberia (“a land barren and
desolate”), as far as the Pacific Ocean (“the east sea”)
and the Arctic Ocean (“the utmost sea”); and the
remaining dead bodies really begin to stink. Israel
spends seven months in burying all these bodies, and a
gravesite is chosen east of the Sea of Galilee; the
smell will be so bad that it will stop the noses of
travelers through this area: “And it shall come to pass
in that day, that I will give unto Gog a place there of
graves in Israel, the valley of the passengers on the
east of the sea: and it shall stop the noses of the
passengers: and there shall they bury Gog and all his
multitude: and they shall call it The valley of Hamongog”
(Ezekiel 39:11).
Israel will take
the weapons and armament of the invaders and burn them
for fuel for seven years. They do this in lieu of
gathering wood.
And they that
dwell in the cities of Israel shall go forth, and shall
set on fire and burn the weapons, both the shields and
the bucklers, the bows and the arrows, and the
handstaves, and the spears, and they shall burn them
with fire seven years: So that they shall take no wood
out of the field, neither cut down any out of the
forests; for they shall burn the weapons with fire: and
they shall spoil those that spoiled them, and rob those
that robbed them, saith the Lord
God.
(Ezekiel 39:9–10)
Of course, modern
Israel has electricity and natural gas for energy; few
people burn wood for fuel. If Israel is forced to
surrender her nuclear weapons after the war which begins
the end times, however, they also might have to shut
down their nuclear power plants (which are the source of
plutonium for weapons) and convert them to conventional
power plants. This may be what the Bible means when it
says that Israel will burn Russia’s weapons for seven
years—they burn them in order to generate electricity.
Another curious
point is: How does Israel burn weapons and armament when
they’re made out of steel? The simple answer is that
since the judgment of God upon Russia is entirely
miraculous, then God would simply convert steel into
burnable carbon.
The seven years
that Israel will burn these weapons is an important
number prophetically. Daniel 9:27 says the Antichrist
will break the peace treaty he made with Israel in the
middle of the seven-year tribulation period, and set up
the abomination of desolation in the temple at which
point Israel has to flee for their lives. At that point,
they won’t be burning any more weapons. Therefore, seven
years prior to this date would be three-and-one-half
years prior to the tribulation. Since Israel spends
seven months burying bodies and collecting weapons, this
would place the Russian invasion about twenty-nine years
into the end-times period, or about four years before
the tribulation begins.
It will probably
take Russia at least six months to marshal her troops
for this invasion. Prior to this, she is seen
consolidating her gains from conquest of the United
States (“a bear, and it raised up itself on one side,
and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the
teeth of it”) and being urged to attack Israel (“they
said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh”), as stated
in Daniel 7:5. Prior to this was the recognition that
the US was vulnerable to attack, and prior to that was
the great trumpet blast heard worldwide, which announced
the (invisible) return of Christ for his church.
One can only guess
how much time elapses between the rapture and Russia’s
attempted invasion of Israel; perhaps a reasonable guess
is two to twelve years. That is why we estimate
approximately seventeen to twenty-seven years for the
rapture to happen after the end times begin. No one
knows exactly when it will happen, but it will be in a
time of great complacency, and this is the reason we
allow some time for the world to become complacent after
the nuclear war that begins this time. Second Peter
3:3-4 also comments on this time period:
Knowing this
first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers,
walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the
promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell
asleep, all things continue as they were from the
beginning of the creation.
This implies that
this period of complacency will take a l-o-o-o-o-o-ng
time, so long that men will tend to forget the nuclear
war that began this time period, and assume that the
relative peace that the world has enjoyed since then
will continue forever. It is during this time that
Christ will return for his church.
In addition,
Isaiah 18:4–5 implies that the rapture will happen in
the same month that corn is pollinating in the American
Midwest: “like a clear heat upon herbs . . . afore the
harvest, when the bud is perfect, and the sour grape is
ripening in the flower”; meaning, the month of July. I
sort of wonder then, why the Bible would imply the month
of the rapture but not the year. All this gives me the
sneaking suspicion that the rapture will occur in the
last year possible, that being year 27 of the end times
period. That’s the only year that people alive then
will be able to know for certain that the rapture will
happen. In my book, I go into more detail about this.
Let me emphasize that this is all just
speculation—although I would add, educated guesswork
based on Scripture.
To his credit, Tim
LaHaye also thought the rapture would occur six years
prior to the tribulation, but perhaps for slightly
different reasons.
Russia plays an
important part in end-times prophecy: first by their
invasion of North America (implied in Isaiah 18 and
Daniel 7), and then subsequently by their invasion of
Israel (Ezekiel 38–39). Both of these events happen in
“the day of the Lord”—which begins with the rapture and
is characterized by the direct intervention of God into
human affairs. Unfortunately, Russia learns the hard
way—as did the Arab nations which attacked Israel some
three decades earlier—that God is extremely jealous of
his holy land of Israel and will not allow them to
perish.
I hope you have
enjoyed reading this series about the great end-times
war with Russia as described in Ezekiel. I provide more
details of this and many other end-times prophecies in
my two books, The Next Nuclear War and END
TIMES DAWNING (available from
www.endtimesrecord.com). Please read them!
These books
describe the timing and sequence of events of the end
times and at a level of detail which no one yet has
ascertained from Scripture. I believe the Lord has given
me the great personal honor of writing about these
details for the first time, as this great time period
draws near!
The first book
provides a concise overview of the end times, including
the definition, timing and sequence of events—and the
key role of the United States in Bible prophecy. The
second book describes the end times in more detail,
including an in-depth analysis of Isaiah. Both of these
make an excellent addition to a Christian’s library, as
well as gifts for friends and pastors—and for your
Sunday school class!
My publisher made
me buy 2,000 books as part of my author agreement, and I
really need your help in moving them! Also if you would,
please leave book reviews on Amazon!
Yours in Christ,
Steve Ashburn