“Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom” (Matthew 24:7a).
Our world is witnessing something we haven’t seen in years; a true mass migration of entire people groups. It seems as if whole populations are on the move. Most are fleeing from the horrors of war and the terrors of ISIS, desperate to get into mainland Europe. This is a crisis Europe has not seen on this scale, since World War II. Half of all Syrians have been displaced by the fighting that is currently raging there.
This would be the same as 160 million Americans being made homeless today. More than a quarter of a million have been killed, almost ten times that number wounded or seriously injured. They are fleeing for their lives. Already, many hundreds of thousands of refugees have gained access to Europe through countries like Italy in the Mediterranean.
How can anybody question the veracity of the Bible and the prophecy contained within it? What the world is witnessing every single day is a direct fulfillment of the words of Jesus Christ Himself, “Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom…” (Matthew 24:7). When Jesus spoke of “…kingdom rising against kingdom,” the literal translation of its original meaning is “ethnic group against ethnic group.”
Today, we witness one Middle Eastern ethnic group after another rising up and slaughtering other ethnic groups, oftentimes entirely indiscriminately. The entire Arab spring has been kingdom against kingdom, ethnic group against ethnic group.
In the near future millions of Middle Eastern people will seek access to Europe. Watching these scenes is reminiscent of the Holocaust; harassed masses huddled together, desperate to find safety, weary families traumatized and desperate; for somebody, anybody to show them mercy.
This crisis, if it continues will no doubt have significant demographic consequences for Europe. The delicate ethnic balance of Europe is going to be radically altered over a very short space of time.
This European refugee crisis has occurred because the West, led by America and Britain have destroyed all the traditional power structures in Iraq and Libya, leaving a huge vacuum of power behind them. Into this vacuum have flooded the demonic horde we now know as ISIS, bringing an evil the likes of which the world has not seen for millennia.
Using Iraq and Libya as a springboard, ISIS have now successfully taken over vast amounts of Syria and fundamentally destabilized the regime of Bashir Al-Assad, who is a client proxy of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
It is from this tyranny and the utter savagery of ISIS that these countless masses are fleeing. It is a real human tragedy with the majority of men and women genuinely terrified for the future of their loved ones and their children. They are right to fear ISIS, for their unspeakable acts of terror and carnage are now plain for all the world to see.
Mothers and fathers are putting their young children in inflatable dinghies, attempting to cross rough, open seas when their chances of survival are minimal for only one reason; they believe the water is safer than the land.
Human tragedy aside though, there is an ominous biblical implication to this mass migration. A plethora of credible sources are reporting that another state actor, other than ISIS, is also filling this power vacuum left in Syria; Russia.
In ISIS controlled Syrian territory, all traditional power structures have been removed and entire swathes of indigenous populations have fled, leaving the battlefield completely open. Russia has found it a simple task to occupy this land.
Credible reports are even now reporting that Russia is actually building military air bases deep inside Syria, so that they can extend their reach over the country and then further afield into the Middle East. This is much to Washington’s paralyzed angst. John Kerry has spoken on this issue; Vladimir Putin has completely ignored him.
They are terrible and feared, but ISIS is simply no match for the Russian military. In a standing fight, ISIS will lose every time. It is one thing for ISIS to bring terror and defeat to civilians who are already oppressed, exhausted and defeated. It will be quite another prospect for them to take on the might of a genuinely feared and respected military machine staffed by men who are well trained, well-equipped and most important—well motivated.
Let us also not forget that the Russian military as a result of the wars they fought in Chechnya, are vastly experienced in confronting and fighting radical Islam on the battlefield. They know what tactics they will face and they know how to win.
Russia will very soon be sitting right on the border of the beautiful land itself—Israel. For a long time I wondered how Russia and the horde they will lead would manage to attack Israel and take them almost completely by surprise. It seems that even the world at large will be caught off guard by this invasion,
“Sheba, and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil? hast thou gathered thy company to take a prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil?” (Ezekiel 38:13).
How could they possibly take Israel by surprise? In order to do this they would have to cross Iraq and Syria just to get to Israel, and these are big countries. There is simply no conceivable way Israel, with its huge technologically empowered military, would not see them coming and prepare accordingly for battle. The answer could be that Israel won’t see them coming because Russia will already be there, right on Israel’s borders.
ISIS’s end time’s role is not to bring carnage and destruction, though this is what they have left in their wake. ISIS’s end time’s role has been to clear the ground ahead of Gog, in preparation for Gog’s invasion of Israel, and they have accomplished this task exceptionally well.
Vast swathes of land now stand undefended, ready for the Russians to come. Where once strong borders stood, they now stand desolate, laying in utter ruin. Russia doesn’t have to invade Syria to get to Israel, they have been invited in by Bashir Al-Assad to defend him against ISIS. The Russian military will soon be able to stroll right up to the border of Israel, completely unmolested, and if Russia has a presence in Syria, so too will their allies Iran.
Russia has comprehensively outmaneuvered Obama in Syria from the very beginning. Just this past week Putin sent a Russian nuclear submarine with twenty Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles and two hundred nuclear warheads directly to Syria, the week after John Kerry and Barack Obama demanded Russian withdrawal. Another example of Obama “… leading from behind?”
Nation has now risen against nation and kingdoms continues to rise against kingdoms. Gog is on the move and Israel is already in his sights. Russia is openly mobilizing in Syria. ISIS have pre-prepared the ground, regimes have fallen and borders are open and crushed. The West, stung by years of failed military intervention in the Middle East no longer have the stomach, leadership or will to intervene in any meaningful way in another foreign battlefield for fear of another quagmire.
Europe is being overwhelmed by a crisis of humanity arriving on its shores and Putin, shrewder than most give him credit for, has seen his opportunity to exert Russia’s influence once more into this volatile and prophetically crucial region, and he has taken it.
We are on the threshold of a major prophetic event which could mark the spiritual awakening of Israel and the fullness of the Gentile Age, which shows the nearness of the Rapture of the Church.