“And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh” (Daniel 7:5).

The Russian Bear – Daniel’s Second Beast of the End-Times

As of this date, February 24, 2022, the Russian Bear has made her move against Ukraine.

In Daniel 7: The Four Beasts of the End-Times, I had referenced the possibility that the three ribs in the mouth of the bear could represent the nations of Syria, Iran, and Turkey with regard to the Gog/Magog invasion of Israel in Ezekiel 38 and 39.

These “three ribs in the mouth of it [the bear]” are saying to the bear, “Arise, devour much flesh.” In Russia’s attempt to put back together her former glory of the Soviet Empire, she seems to be doing just that. Russia’s battles with Georgia in 2008 and the annexing of Crimea in 2014 come to mind, and now, we have Ukraine.

Although it’s always possible that more is to come, it does appear that the Russian Bear is fulfilling Daniel’s prophecy to “Arise, Devour Much Flesh.”

A Possible Link to Ezekiel 38 and 39

Ever since Russia, Iran, and Turkey have had fighting forces in Syria, directly to Israel’s north, we see the obvious set-up for the Gog/Magog invasion.

But there is a passage in Ezekiel’s prophecy that has caught my attention as of late and shows a potential link to the current events surrounding Russia and Ukraine.

“Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts, and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel” (Ezekiel 39:1-2). (emphasis mine)

[Note: The phrase “leave a sixth part of thee” is not in the original Hebrew.]

“… turn thee back,” from where? Maybe from another invasion – namely, Ukraine?

When I see the Russian Bear’s focus on Ukraine, I can’t help but wonder if her attention will soon be drawn back to the Syrian theatre with an eye on Israel.

With troops, hardware, and Russia’s new common allies – Iran and Turkey – still at the ready in Syria, my mind considers that the hook in the jaw is but one event away.

“And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords” (Ezekiel 38:4).

(For a study on this verse and these war terms, please see Prophetic Hebrew Words of Warfare.)

There’s no doubt as to this invading alliance coming for a spoil – most certainly Israel’s energy resources. It seems all I have been uttering lately when it comes to current events and prophecy is, “It’s all about the energy!”

But it does seem there could be an event that might be involved as well.

In my two articles on the Gog/Magog invasion of Israel, Possibilities: The Ezekiel 38 Invasion and Possibilities: The Ezekiel 39 Aftermath, I do suggest just such an event.

Here’s what I wrote:

Timing of The Invasion

I’m in the camp that believes this end-time war will happen after the rapture of the church. To be more specific, I suggest it will happen immediately after the rapture.

The United States, Israel’s closest ally in the world, will be greatly impacted by the body of Christ being taken from the earth. More than that, it is because of these believers in Jesus Christ that keeps the United States the best friend of Israel. Once these lovers of Israel and the Israeli people have gone, who is left to protect Israel from her enemies? The answer is, obviously, nobody. Nobody, that is, but God!

This would be the absolute perfect time for the Gog/Magog invasion to occur. Israel’s enemies will know it when they will see it, and they will capitalize on the situation when the opportunity arises.

Conclusion

Am I predicting anything here? No, I’m not that presumptuous. But I am making some observations and attempting to connect some dots of future prophecy with the current events we are witnessing.

It will be fascinating to see where these events will take us.

Along with the Russian Bear, we need to keep an eye on the Leopard of China – the ‘Third Beast of the End-Times’ – and watch the moves that she will make, in particular with regard to Taiwan. After all, this beast will have its dominion as well.

“After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it” (Daniel 7:6).

May the Lord give us wisdom to traverse these last of the last days and that we all are Answering the Call of The Great Commission. Therein lies our mandate: To spread the gospel to every creature.

“And [Jesus says unto us], Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned” (Mark 16:15-16).

May the love and light of our Lord and Savior shine brightly through us, His servants, in this dark and dying world.

“Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:14-16).

➢ Email: mab10666@yahoo.com

➢ If you have not given your life to Jesus Christ and are seeking answers about God, Jesus Christ, the gospel, and salvation, please email me at mab10666@yahoo.com for information.

➢ I am still taking questions for the Questions from the Body of Christ series. If you or someone you know has a question pertaining to the Word of God – theology, difficult passages, eschatology, etc. – I would really like to hear from you.

➢ A listing of past articles may be found at my Article Listings on Rapture Ready or my Home Page on FaithWriters.

 

THE RAPID DECLINE OF AUSTRALIA
ALIGNED WITH ROMANS 1

We come to the Third and last part in this series of the Decay in Australia and, indeed, in all our nations. This is also a study in Romans 1. We have looked at man’s stupidity and the reason why it has reached this point. This time we descend to the basement to understand why we are in the most dangerous times. Things are happening today that would have been inconceivable just 3 years back. A few weeks ago in the State of Western Australia, the police stormed into a Catholic church during Mass and stopped the service, checking who they could find without a mask (in the last post, I said “demanding the people there prove they were double vaccinated,” but it was for masks.) Those things we expect from totalitarian, communist governments, but that is what we have reached.

Verses 22-23. “Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.”

We saw in the second part of this series how man willfully rejected God after knowing His creation and His power. People turned their backs and turned to idols, but they were without excuse. In the two verses here, we continue that spiral as it proceeds downwards.

The next step down is the replacement of God. God was exchanged for idol images of all sorts of earthly creatures, even of man himself, and even of constructed gods like Jupiter and Pluto and Cybele. Do you remember the Romans practiced Caesar worship? Xi wants that for himself in China, as the deluded man in North Korea also does.

There is within the human spirit a spiritual capacity that must be filled. Man is at peace when that is satisfied by God, but when God is rejected, as we have here, then everything else has to become the substitute. Human beings are desperate to fill the vacuum, whether it is by rock music, drugs, worship of celebrities, or false religion and the New Age.

The substitute, however, will never satisfy.

It just crams itself more and more but can never fulfill what is missing. Only the Lord God can satisfy the longings and vacuum in the human spirit.

Without God, everything else is a fake imitation and, in the end, stings like an adder.

The flying fox in Queensland and the crocodile, both mentioned in Part 1, are held in the highest esteem by the Governments, and unbelievable penalties apply to any harm to them. They have more rights than we do. Check out the legislation. We must appreciate God’s creation in a sensible way, and the worshipping of flying foxes carrying disease is not what is meant. Man has ruined it all. One day we know God will put it right because all nature is groaning for that time (Romans 8). God has a lot of repair work to do, for man has ruined everything.

Verse 24. “Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies might be dishonored among them.”

“Therefore” starting the verse is important. In scripture, these adverbs should be noticed. This verse begins with a “therefore,” and as someone has said, “When you encounter a “therefore,” always ask what it is there for.”

Here it captures all that we have done so far, to draw a conclusion, which is now, the rest of the chapter.

Remember there are THREE “God gave them over” in this passage. The first of these in verse 24 is allowing the human heart to follow the natural, sinful lusts. That led to impurity and dishonoring of their bodies. The latter part of Romans is outlining the downward spiral of the human race. Down, down, and down.

“God gave them over” means God withdrew and let them pursue their own desires. We see the outcome of that everywhere today, and it grows progressively worse. People are becoming more violent, more radical, more godless, and more reactionary. We are currently in a sick world, but it will get worse because God said in the last days (of the Church age), wicked men will progress from bad to worse. In Australia, there is a very rapid rise in hatred for and opposition to Jews and Israel.

It is ballooning. I suppose that is no surprise as Satan hates Israel, and his henchmen do the same. The Labor Party has no time for Israel, and they will probably take office next election.

They hate Christians and the Jews – is that any surprise?

Verse 25. “for they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever. Amen.”

This is a further regression. Remember, the hearts are becoming darker, so deeds are darker too. This next move is into paganism and idolatry. God’s revealed truth was exchanged for a lie. It is the Creator who is blessed forever, but natural man has moved so far away from that. He worships creation, including the creations of his own hands.

The rainbow serpent is a Satanist spiritism, the worship of the Australian aborigines, and being forced onto us and our kids at school. It is used in Parliament. Australia has adopted much of Aboriginal spiritism into its belief system. The rainbow serpent is Satan, worshipped by Aborigines and filling so much literature. It is an abomination. Australians are being dumbed down so rapidly, forced to obey ridiculously low speed limits and so many onerous government regulations that are unnecessary and demeaning.

What we are seeing is a step down each time from the very first departure from God, when nature was speaking so clearly. Man turned away; he rejected the Creator.

Verses 26-27 “For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions, for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.”

We come now to the basement I mentioned. God has been giving a downward progression, down and down in departure from Him, but he does that no longer after these two verses, so we have the last of the three “God gave them over” in verse 28. That is as far as God spells it out, so when a nation reaches the practices of verses 26 and 27, then all that awaits for the people is the wrath of God.

Homosexuality and lesbianism is the rock bottom of morality, and it goes no further down. Today these perversions are everywhere in my nation. The children are being taught them in school at an ever-decreasing age.

It is the ruination and subversion of children. Only the darkest demons can be behind all that. The top footballer in Australia lost his career and was dismissed because he posted a Bible verse that mentioned homosexuals on some social media platform that had nothing whatever to do with his job.

In Australia, the rights of Christians are not protected, but homosexuals have so many legislated rights and can bring penalties against Christians for even seeming to disagree with homosexuality.

Christians have no rights. The Green Party (environmental communists) and the homosexual lobbies are before the Supreme Court to have the Bible declared an illegal book because it speaks against homosexuality. Once the government has legislated for and approved the practice of homosexuality with offenses against those who speak out about it, then we have reached as low as Romans goes.

After that, judgment awaits.

I do not care that advocates try to endorse homosexuality and lesbianism with normalcy, but the brick wall is of God’s making, and it is where God’s judgment will be handed down. Let us look at the expressions used in the two verses by God Himself – “degrading passions,” “unnatural,” “burned in their desire,” “indecent acts,” “due penalty of their error.”

Does Satan have churches? Most certainly he does, for more and more churches are arising that declare homosexuality to be an act of love and are for full acceptance.

It is these same churches that are on the climate change bandwagon and the advocacy of socialism. I see it everywhere in Australia now. If the Lord tarries with the Rapture, I can see people becoming like Elijah, where he thought he battled alone, and God had to reveal there was a small remnant. That is what we are coming to. Considering Australia would most likely have no more than 1% born-again Christians, it is no wonder this is a pagan country.

Verse 28. “Just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper.”

As I said in the previous entry, we are now at basement level. The free fall of man’s departure from God has now landed in verses 26 and 27, and that is as far as it goes. Once a nation has reached that level, there is little or no hope for it, and it descends into depravity. Once there, it will never recover. The wrath of God will descend, but as I always say, it will not crash on this world this side of the Rapture. The state of our nations is another reason for believing the Rapture must be close.

I think the depraved-mind Australia (and I think which is nearly in the USA) can be likened to two examples in the Old Testament, and they are Sodom and Noah’s time, and we know what happened then.

They both reached the basement, and God acted. There are no more steps to fall once a nation has embraced homosexuality and all its relatives – transgender, bisexual, queer, intersex, and all the rest. That is the bottom rung. Now, Paul (God actually) lists the rivers that flow from that polluted spring. We look at those:

Verses 29-31. “being filled (the tense reads as “have become filled”)

with all unrighteousness, (“every kind of” – all forms of declension – morally wrong and wicked, injustice)

wickedness, (wickedness, depravity)

greed, (Strongs – Covetousness, avarice, aggression, desire for advantage, avarice, i.e., fraudulency, extortion)

evil; (badness, depravity, hatred)

full of envy, (Strongs – a grudge, spite, ill-will, jealousy)

murder, (as in murder, premeditated or rage like Cain)

strife, (contention, strife, wrangling, quarrelsome)

deceit, (guile, treachery, evil trickery)

malice; (Strongs – Evil-mindedness, malignity, malevolence)

They are gossips, (whisperers, secret slanderers)

slanderers, (Strongs – Slanderous, back-biting, a railer, defamer)

haters of God, (hate God)

insolent, (Strongs – an insolent, insulting, or violent man, one who maltreats)

arrogant, (proud, arrogant, disdainful, haughty)

boastful, (Strongs – a boaster, one who gives one’s self airs in a loud and flaunting way, braggart)

inventors of evil, (bad, evil, in the widest sense, depraved, or injurious, worthless)

disobedient to parents, (Strongs – unbelieving, disobedient, who will not be persuaded, contumacious)

without understanding, (Strongs – unintelligent, without wisdom, unwise, undiscerning – implying probably moral defect – By implication, wicked)

untrustworthy, (Strongs – not covenanting, untrue to an agreement, treacherous, treacherous to compacts)

unloving, (Unloving, devoid of affection. Hard-hearted towards kindred)

unmerciful. (Unpitying, unmerciful, without compassion, cruel, merciless)

When you read and think about the meanings of these descriptions, it is very revealing how they apply to our age.

Yes, they have always applied to people, but these are everywhere today and getting worse. Man goes downhill, but Christians are supposed to remain on a level with God. That makes the differences between saved and unsaved greater and greater; therefore, the Christian will face increasing persecution.

Christian, you won’t be listened to, but like Stephen, the world will want to shut us up. Righteousness will be trampled in the street by rules and legislation, restrictions, and deliberate mandates against Christianity. We must prepare ourselves with weapons. I DO NOT SPEAK about firearms but of the weapons of our warfare.

Paul does these well – see 2Corinthians 10:4 “for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.” And 2Corinthians 6:7 “in the word of truth, in the power of God (and) by the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left; 2Cor 6:8 by glory and dishonour; by evil report and good report; regarded as deceivers and yet true.”

Ephesians 6:13-18 “Therefore, take up the full armour of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints,”

Verse 32 of Romans 1. “and, although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.”

Now, why would that be? Because they don’t believe it would ever happen, and there is no fear of God before their eyes, then they don’t care less. This is what happens when ungodliness and delusion take over. This world has gone down to the basement, so demonic activity and delusion now rule the hearts of mankind generally. Thank the Lord He has His own called-out ones. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!May the Lord bless us in these end days of the Church age.

Ron

ronaldf@aapt.net.au

——————————-

P.S. I (Ron) need help – is there anyone?

I am wanting to place on the internet a good deal of my Christian work and study. This will include almost 90,000 words in poems, and then there are messages, articles, series on subjects like the current one I am doing, The Psalms of the Sons of Korah; and of course, some of the eschatology subjects I have written on. Also, I’d like to put some photos, especially tropical rainforest fungi, as they tell amazing stories about the creation of God. Also, I think I’d like to do a small weekly feature.

The trouble is I am quite brainless (well, very) with that sort of technology and feel inadequate at trying to make something.

I would welcome any ideas or suggestions for a web page or site. I am 78 and would like to get the stuff out there while I can still think!! For some years, I have been trying to resolve this problem.

If any could set me in the right direction, it would be appreciated.