3 September 2016: Signs. I remember the early 70's hit song and AM radio staple by the Five Man Electrical Band. This tune's time on the airwaves was concurrent with when the Holy Spirit was moving very powerfully across this country; so-called "Jesus Freaks" were suddenly appearing everywhere, and eschatological books like Salem Kirban's '666' and Hal Lindsey's 'The Late, Great Planet Earth' were introducing Bible prophecy to millions upon millions of Americans. And the refrain of that song, "Sign, sign, everywhere a sign" took on a new, and more accurate, meaning for that time and those which followed to this very day.
Fast forward forty-six years to the present. The signs continue, and then as now, they're all pointing, like the image above, in the exact same direction. They're all pointing to Daniel's 70th Week, or as I like to call it, The Prophetic Road to The Revelation of Jesus Christ. And in this time, as never before, expectations of the call that will precede the Harpazo are more profound than they have ever been. This is because at least half of the wise bride of Christ, like the five of the ten virgins Jesus spoke of in the Matthew 25 parable, have their lamps oiled and trimmed and awaiting the midnight call, "Behold, the Bridegroom comes; go out to meet Him!"
That's the ultimate sign, to be sure, but the other signs are everywhere if we're looking for them as well; if we're watching as instructed by our Lord. "So you also, when you see all these things know that He is near...at the doors!"
And the signs are like birth pangs, ever increasing in frequency and intensity. Wars and rumors of wars are documented on this blog in abundance. The scarcity of food to feed the world's 6 billion people increases with each passing day. Disease is rampant around the world; Zika and other viruses are known and feared by virtually every living soul on the planet. Seismic activity is also at unprecedented levels across the globe. Floods, from India to Louisiana, are as catastrophic as ever; as are the roaring and tossing of the world's oceans. And these signs will only increase going forward through the time remaining.
And other signs are more subtle. These are the ones you really have to look at closely to see, but they also are in very great abundance. For example, with regards to the eschatological interpretation, Eschatology Today views Ezekiel 38/39 in terms of Russia and Iran. Yet few are aware that these two nations have never been military allies as they are today. A little over a century ago the Russian Czar was completing his military conquest of the Central Asian territories, like Turkmenistan, which the Shah of Persia considered to be within his own realm. Today we see the emergent Russian Federation-Shi'ite Iran Axis, or the Ezekiel 38/39 Magog military confederation in other words.
The Emergent Magog Confederation In-Depth
The Russia-Iran Axis is largely the result of a very influential 54-year old Russian ultra-nationalist Bolshevik political scientist by the name of Alexandr Gelyevich Dugin. Alexandr Dugin's influence reaches deep inside the Kremlin and Russian military. He espouses Eurasianism, a key cornerstone in Vladimir Putin's vision for his nascent Eurasian Union, again, a/k/a the Magog confederation of eastern European Russia combined with former-Soviet Central Asian countries and Iran. Alexander Dugin is in tune with the Hojjatieh Shi'a imams in Iran in that he also calls of all-out war to "hasten the end times." If you look carefully you can see Alexandr Dugin's influence as the strategic underpinning for every one of Vladimir Putin's military moves of the past eight years. Moves such as the Russian military reconquest of the southern Caucasus (Georgia), the invasion and conquest of Ukrainian Crimea, and of Eastern, Russian-speaking Ukraine itself. As we know from Ezekiel, Russia will not be stopping with the military reclamation of its former empire; it and its allies have an appointment with God on the mountains of Israel.
This Russia-Iran alliance is not quite one-year old, but it has progressed with an extreme rapidity. In late September 2015 an agreement was reached between Russia, Iran and Syria within the strategic alliance of the Syrian Civil War and the war against the Islamic State. The war in Syria is understood within Eschatology Today as the process of near-term fulfillment for Isaiah 17 and Jeremiah 49:23-27. In the past year the Russia-Syria-Iran Axis expanded to include the Shi'ite-led government of Iraq and Iran's Lebanese proxy Hezbollah.
The effects of the coup d'etat in Turkey which occurred only weeks ago and its fallout continue to have reverberations in the Middle East and beyond, particularly within the currently leaderless NATO. This is all a very critical real-time sign that not all seismic events are terrestrial, they are also political and they cause real changes we can only speculate about until they fully play themselves out. However, what can be seen as the driving force within Russia right now and into the foreseeable future contains powerful hints that the Lord's prophetic hooks will be readily accepted by a nation with an overwhelming warlike intent. Ezekiel 38/39 will not be a long, drawn-out war as some interpret. I believe it will be a blitzkrieg of unrestrained warfare, including nuclear weapons, which is quickly and miraculously concluded. On the other side of it waits the 70th Week and the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
