Ezekiel 38:2-6 list many nations that will be in the Gog-Magog alliance which will include Russia, China and Iran, and verse 6 allows for other unnamed nations to be included in the phrase “…and many people with you.” South Africa currently is now headed for an alliance with the Gog-Magog group. The first link below documents the very strong movement by South Africa toward the Russian-Chinese camp and away from the western group of nations. The current government has “authorized the sale of high-tech weaponry to Libya, Syria and Venezuela and is considering requests from Iran and North Korea.” South Africa now votes with Russia and China at the UN, and China is now its foremost trading partner. South Africa has long been rich in gold and strategic minerals so this last fact indicates that China is gradually trying to take over control of the valuable mineral resources of South Africa. There is always the possibility that a new government will come to power in South Africa that will switch back to a pro-western stance, but, once it is established, China’s influence will be very hard to remove. The white minority South Africans and some black tribes are not supporters of the current Jacob Zuma government in South Africa so one can hope that South Africa will revert to a pro-western stance. However, the trend now is not good.
The second link below, also from Newsweek, hails the warming relations between Libya and the USA and other western nations. Libya’s eccentric leader, Muammar Kaddafi, is coming to the USA for a UN meeting and he only sleeps in a mobile Bedouin tent. As is clear in the article, the US and western oil companies want access to Libyan oil. Ezekiel 38 specifically prophesies that Libya will be aligned with the Gog-Magog alliance at the end of this age (Ezekiel 38:5). Either a future Libyan leader will openly realign with Russia and China or Libya’s current warming relationships with the West are actually a feigned effort to get western oil companies to develop Libyan oil fields for a time before Libya kicks the West out again. Libya was long aligned with Russia, so it is possible that Libya is feigning an embrace of the West at the behest of Russia’s intelligence service. Would ex-KGB chief Putin consider such a ploy? Of course! It would be a clever strategy on his part.
The word translated “Libya” in Ezekiel 38:5 is actually the Hebrew word, “Phut,” which identifies one of the sons of Ham (Genesis 10:6). Many historical sources identify the region west of Egypt as the land inhabited by Phut’s descendants (Harper’s Bible Dictionary and Young’s Analytical Concordance are two such sources). Egypt is named “Mizraim” in biblical texts, and Mizraim is a different son of Ham (Genesis 10:6) who is not identified as being aligned with the Gog-Magog alliance. Egypt has trended more pro-Western in recent years and has also had warming relationships with the Israelis. The descendants of Phut likely include Algeria and other North African nations as well as Libya, so one would think that at least Algeria is a likely candidate to eventually join Libya in the Gog-Magog alliance.
Isaiah 41:21-26 contains God’s challenge to everyone to watch his ability to fulfill his prophecies as proof of his reality and his total sovereignty over human affairs. As Creator, God has the power to move the leaders of nations to make whatever decisions he wishes them to make to fulfill his prophesies ( Proverbs 21:1, Ezekiel 38:10). His will WILL be done.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/211408?from=rss
http://www.newsweek.com/id/212128
