As readers of my research paper on “Ezekiel 38-39 and World War III” know, biblical prophecy foretells that Russia, China and Iran will lead a huge anti-American, anti-Western alliance in “the latter days.” Russia is identified by the terms “Gog, Magog, Meshech and Tubal,” China is “Gomer,” the nation of Japheth with a large population, and Iran is “Persia.” These nations are fulfilling Bible prophecy by becoming increasingly anti-American and anti-Western. They are also drawing closer to each other as allies. Ezekiel 38 reveals that this Russian-Chinese-Iranian axis will attack the nations of the Western world in a surprise attack at the climax of this age.
Several news items indicate that these trends are continuing inexorably toward fulfillment.
An AP story printed in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune (February 8, 2007, p. A15) was entitled “Ambitious weapons plans in Russia.” Besides increasing its military forces, the article noted “a growing chill in Russian-US relations.”The Economist magazine (February 17, 2007, p. 60), in an article entitled “Not a cold war, but a cold tiff,” commented on the “…deeply resentful attitude” that Russia now has toward America, and “General Russian attitudes to America are hardening…” Russia is enjoying a bonanza of riches from high oil and energy prices so it will continue to able to build up its military power.
A front-page article in the Washington Times’ National Weekly Edition (March 5, 2007) warned that China is engaged in a “major buildup of submarines that includes five new strategic nuclear missile boats and several advanced nuclear-powered attack submarines…” The article (“China adds nuclear missile boats to fleet”) stated China’s missiles on its new submarines will have a 5,000 mile range, and adds that “the buildup is raising new concerns among senior Pentagon planners already worried by Beijing’s broader strategic nuclear-forces buildup, which also includes several new long-range land-based nuclear missiles and a land-attack cruise missile similar to the Tomahawk.” Recent media articles have also publicized China’s growing aggressiveness in testing the USA in a military manner. All readers must have heard about the successful test of a Chinese anti-missile rocket which destroyed a space satellite. This was obviously a message to the USA and the West about China’s increasing power and skill. Many media stories were also written about a Chinese submarine which successfully stalked the USS Kitty Hawk, an American aircraft carrier, for an unknown period of time without the US forces detecting its presence. The Chinese sub surfaced to advertise the fact that it had easily gotten into attack position against the American carrier without being noticed. One wonders how often Chinese subs had done the same thing in the past without revealing to the American Navy that they had done so?
Iran, of course, is still provoking America and the West with its belligerent threats to Israel, its defiance of the UN in continuing its nuclear program, etc. Russia is Iran’s primary friend and protector. Russia and China protect Iran by ensuring that the UN will do little more than issue meaningless protests and adopt minimal sanctions against Iran. Russia has supplied Iran’s nuclear reactor and Russia has also supplied Iran with sophisticated anti-missile systems to shoot down American or Israeli planes if a preemptive strike is launched against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Modern geopolitics practically shout that Ezekiel 38-39 are heading toward fulfillment, but the world’s leaders and media are blind to the Bible’s accuracy and unaware that today’s headlines were foretold millennia ago in the Bible. That the Bible’s prophecies are coming to pass precisely as prophesied for “the latter days” confirms that a Divine hand is guiding world geopolitics as this age heads toward its inevitable climax.
Meanwhile, what is the USA and the West doing to prepare for this prophesied (and coordinated) attack of Russia, China and Iran? The answer is…nothing. Many media articles have revealed that the US army is being worn out in Iraq as American soldiers and marines enter their fourth year of combat in Iraq. Many have warned that the US army could be nearing a breaking point. Not only are the soldiers being worn out with endless deployments and persistent combat, their equipment is being worn out faster than it is being replaced. I saw a national TV story recently which showed that there were so many pieces of damaged US military equipment that it would take years to fix at the current dismally low rate of repair.
Few Americans realize just how far the US military was weakened during the post-Reagan years. Pat Buchanan, in a syndicated article (published March 6, 2007 in the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader) stated how dramatically American leaders have disarmed the USA in the Clinton and Bush administrations (most of it under President Clinton). Buchanan writes in an article entitled “US Must Decide What and Whom to Defend,” that “The active-duty Army was cut from 18 divisions during Desert Storm to 10 by 1994-its size today. The Navy, which counted 569 ships in the late 1980s, struggles today to sustain a fleet of only 276. And the number of tactical air wings in the Air Force was reduced from 37 at the time of Desert Storm to 20 by the mid-1990s.”
It doesn’t take a top analyst to see the US military is in a state of decline at the very time that Russia, China and Iran (all anti-American) are rapidly increasing their military forces. Some American disarmament decisions seem bizarre. In an AP story by Robert Burns (published in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader on March 8, 2007, p. 8A), it was revealed that “The Air Force…will retire the most modern cruise missile in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, a ‘stealth’ weapon developed in the 1980s with the ability to evade detection by Soviet radars.” The article added the announced action was a surprise because “as recently as February 2006 that it expected to keep the missile active until 2030,” [and that] “the decision to retire the Advanced Cruise Missile fleet [had] not been publicly announced.” This strange action was found by an alert scientist looking at a military Budget Request. The same article also noted that “the last of the Air Force’s 50 MX Peacekeeper land-based missiles was retired in September 2005.” One wonders what other foolish disarmament decisions will be implemented by the USA and the West. Europe has disarmed so remarkably since the end of the Cold War that NATO forces are just a “shell” of their former size. Europe is so militarily weak and demographically challenged by increasing millions of Muslins in its midst that long-term planners are coining the term “Eurabia” to describe Europe’s current peril and possible future status. Even the vaunted Israeli military was unable to do more than fight Hezbollah to a standstill in 2006.
The West is in a state of obvious decline. Our prophesied enemies see this and they likely can hardly believe the self-defeating disarmament and military exhaustion policies being implemented by the fading Western superpower, the United States of America. The USA is so far in debt because of long-term overspending that one wonders if the USA even has the financial capacity to rearm itself properly. The current geopolitical trends indicate the Bible’s prophecies are “right on the mark.” However, evolutionary fables have blinded the leadership and people of the Western world. They have “forgotten God.” However, God has not forgotten his prophecies. He challenges everyone in Isaiah 41:21-26 to admit his reality and sovereignty by looking at his ability to bring to pass his prophesies! World events are proving God’s challenge to be a true one. It is too bad that world leaders are so ignorant of the Bible’s content that they do not realize that their very actions are bringing to pass the specific situations and events foretold millennia ago by Divinely-inspired biblical writers.
The trend lines are stark and clear. Our prophesied enemies are rapidly adding new and sophisticated weaponry at the same time that the USA is both wearing out its military ground forces and foolishly disarming itself of some of its best weapons. Ezekiel 38 prophesies the attack led by Russia, China and Iran will achieve complete surprise, so there is no indication that American and Western leaders are likely to wake up to their imminent and certain peril. The USA is still acting like a superpower on the world stage, but it is doing so without having its former superpower military in existence any longer.
Ezekiel 38-39 is marching toward its future fulfillment.
Steve Collins
3-22-07
