Sept 3, 2007
Mother Russia's Middle East Meddling
In recent days, there have been two shocking revelations in the news that details Russia's involvement with Israel that runs from its Soviet days to the present. Beforehand, everyone just thought Russia was an arms supplier to Israel's foes for purely financial reasons. We now know it has been playing a more sinister role.
Gideon Remez and Isabella Ginor, in their book, Foxbats over Dimona, say that the Soviet Union deliberately engineered the 1967 war to create the conditions in which Israel's nuclear program could be destroyed. The chief spokesman of the Russian Air Force, Col. Aleksandr V. Drobyshevsky, has confirmed in writing for the first time that it was Soviet pilots, in the USSR's most-advanced MiG-25 "Foxbat" aircraft, who flew highly-provocative sorties over Israel's nuclear facility at Dimona in May 1967, just prior to the Six Day War.
Soviet nuclear-missile submarines were said to have been poised off Israel's shore, ready to strike back in case Israel already had a nuclear device and sought to use it. The Soviets were also said to have geared up for a naval landing on Israel's beaches.
The other shocking disclosure involves Russia's current Middle East activity. Israeli intelligence has discovered that Russia has been trying to promote war between Israel and Syria. Gen. Amos Gilad (ret.), head of the Defense Ministry's Diplomatic-Military Bureau, said in an Army Radio interview, "At a certain time, the Russians caused the Syrians to believe that Israel was preparing for war.” The general noted that recent messages sent by Israel to Moscow have caused the Russians to cease their activity, thus easing the tensions in the region.
Syria is said to have more than 1,000 Russian military advisers currently stationed in that nation. The Syrian government has recently purchased a number of weapon systems from Russia.
These two events may solve a long-standing mystery from the first Lebanon war. When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 to stop PLO terrorists from attacking Israel's northern border, the IDF discovered a huge cache of Soviet-made weapons. The amount of arms was so large it took the Israeli army nearly a year to haul it back to Israel. The quantity of weapons was more than ten times what the PLO could ever need.
At the time, several prophecy commentators wondered if the weaponry may have been shipped there to be used by the Soviet military in some future invasion. Israel may have prevented the Gog War by its incursion into Lebanon.
Russia's involvement in the planning or the instigation of military conflict against Israel is a huge boom for Bible prophecy. For a long time, there was always a blank spot for why Gog would invade Israeli. The Book of Ezekiel says that Gog will seek to gain a “great spoil.”
Israel has fought a series of wars that mostly ended in humiliation for Israeli’s Arab neighbors. Those losses were also a severe blow to the Russians, who were the primary arms supplier to the Arbas. Revenge might be the main motivation for why Russia is continuing to supporting Israel's foes. It also might be the “great spoil” that Russia seeks in the Gog invasion.
Russia has invested a lot into Syria's military. It has even established naval bases in the Syrian ports of Tartus and Latakia. One can easily imagine what Moscow's reaction would be if a war would erupt that leads to Damascus' sudden destruction. It could be the hook in the jaw that draws Gog south.
"I will turn you around and put hooks into your jaws to lead you out to your destruction. I will mobilize your troops and cavalry and make you a vast and mighty horde, all fully armed" (NLT Ezek. 38:4).
-- Todd
Only On Evil Continually
Every time I open my e-mail, Outlook Express brings to my attention the same sort of salacious e-mail prompts. Being blind now due to a retinal disease since 1993, I must endure the laborious process of listening to my JAWS (Jobs Accessible Word System) computer-synthesized voice program read to me the cesspool verbiage.
I have learned to quickly hit the delete key, thus ridding my senses and my "In Box" of the invitations to wallow in the sewage that floats within cyberspace. I guess I should be thankful I can’t see the graphic depictions that lure so many into those depths of depravity. And, deep they are. These allurements to enhance one’s sexual prowess are often disguised as medical assistance for genuine physical problems. The intention of the father of lies, however, is to use even the “legitimate” sexual assistance drugs to drag all who take the lures into the swamp of debauchery. He seems to be succeeding in that regard. One researcher has analyzed today's burgeoning sexual addictions in cyberspace:
“The internet is now a contributing factor to nearly one-half of all marital or family problems. In some cases, relationships are breaking down when a man
or woman develops a relationship in cyber society. High levels of Internet use can produce social isolation, loss of real intimacy and depression. Men, women and families are going into counseling for relationship problems that are partly or entirely caused by compulsive internet use or virtual addictions. Women are filing for divorce claiming that their husbands are having sex on-line or looking at 'pornography' for hours every day. Kids stay up all night. Parents stop relating and spend less time raising their children… Many people go on-line to find information. But unfortunately the most perverse human and even human-animal sexual interactions are available on-line. The biggest 'rushes' for the severe addicts come from violent sexual cruelties that are available on-line. People tell themselves that they can just click and look for a second, but they don’t realize that the trauma and stimulating effects are addictive. The most addictive content is the most shocking that changes your mood quickly. A quick look at graphic violence is a 'rush' even if you find it offensive. Normal people can become addicted to disgusting content not because they approve but because it changes and excites their mood. People become excited and disgusted at the same time…” ("Internet Addiction, Cyber Sex, Internet Sex and Virtual Addiction," by Michael Conner, Psy.D).
I’m certain that most everyone reading this face the same type prurient e-mail prompts as I face every time you open your e-mail programs. Even the most fervent Christian is susceptible to the allurements of the world, the flesh and the devil. Jesus prophesied an end-time generation that would be like in the days of Noah and of Lot: “But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matt. 24:37-39).
The relevant sin that links this generation to that of Noah’s day, as prophesied by the Lord, is: “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen 6:5).
The internet is an excellent tool for use in God’s service; it is invaluable in Todd’s and my work on the Rapture Ready website, to be sure. But, its use as the devil’s tool in feeding garbage to the minds of an increasingly perverse generation already full of wickedness, whose imagination of the thoughts of their hearts are only on evil continually, cannot be denied.
While this present dispensation of God’s grace culminates, and we consider what is coming upon a wicked and rebellious world of earth dwellers, those who name the name of Christ are instructed from God’s prophetic Word: “Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?” (2 Pet. 3:11-12).
Prayer, Bible study and working to carry out Christ’s great commission is the combined preventative and antidote for imagination of the heart that is only on evil continually. Let us keep our thoughts on a higher plain, while we watch for Christ’s calling us to be with Him.
--Terry
