(OPINION) 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, the pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church in El Cajon, California, and the author of multiple books, says in an article on his website that the biblical book of Ezekiel “predicted specific events that will occur in Russia’s future.” 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.” These nations, Jeremiah said, will be led by Gog and form an alliance against Israel. “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.” READ MORE
