A number of questions have come in with the worry over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s Vladimir Putin seems to be in the process of fulfilling the Gog-Magog prophecy in the opinion of some of those among whom have sent emails, etc.

Of particular interest in this regard is Russia’s sending the warning to Israel that Russia no longer considers the Golan, etc., to be Israel’s sovereign territory. i.e., apparently, it’s now open for Russia’s taking it over because of Israel’s dealings with Syria in some perceived unjust way.

Putin took unkindly to Israel saying they supported the Ukrainian people in opposing Russia’s assault on their nation.

During all this perhaps stage-setting for the Gog-Magog attack of Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39, another powerful player of prophetic dimension is starkly in view. The developments in the regions east of the Euphrates, the oriental world, are indeed worth delving into in terms of likely prophetic progression.

I refer to the matter of the persistent probing into Taiwan’s air space with military jets. The actions are intended not only to intimidate but to see just how not only Taiwan itself but how the western powers – particularly the U.S. – will react and respond.

Of course, China is the culprit in all this. Taiwan’s monstrous neighbor, under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has had for many years a festering hatred for that democratic republic just miles off China’s coast. They are now making that hatred manifest for the world to see.

Vladimir Putin’s daring invasion of Ukraine has, without a doubt, given China’s despot, Xi Jinping, the evidence he needs that confirms America’s weakness of leadership. The current presidential administration’s perceived inability to deal with Putin and his aggression with military action or even with other effective means to deter Russian incursion have no doubt caused Xi Jinping to become more aggressive by the day in probing Taiwan’s vulnerability.

The buildup of China’s aggressiveness has been coming more clearly into the picture of events shaping for prophetic fulfillment for several years of late. The building of artificial islands in the South China Sea, for example, has been part of this buildup. They have thus challenged navies and anyone other who passes through that sea, even though that is legally, in terms of maritime law, open waters for movement of ships from around the world. China has proclaimed it as its sovereign waters and has threatened military action even against U.S. naval ships.

So among the questions I’ve gotten through email and in personal conversations as well as on TV and radio interviews is: “Do you think China will attack Taiwan and take it over?”

People who are well-versed in Bible prophecy already can see the proverbial handwriting on the wall when it comes to Russia. They are fairly certain the Russian actions, with their taking of Ukraine (or at least parts of it at this point), is a sure signal that it might be all setting up the Gog-Magog assault at some point. Russia’s aforementioned threatening of Israel, denying the Jewish state’s sovereignty in the matter of the Golan, strongly adds to the evidence that the Gog-Magog attack must be somewhere in the not-too-distant future.

But China is another matter. The questions concerning its intentions, etc., are not issued with any certainty that they see potential prophetic fulfillment within the matters involved.

“Will China attack and take over Taiwan?”

The question has been ruminating within the aging gray matter and within my spiritual neurons that want to know, too.

Here is my assessment, or at least my best epiphany, if that’s the correct term.

I do believe that because of this American presidential administration’s weak actions and reactions to most everything that involves aggression, China will decide to take Taiwan. If they wait until the midterm elections in this nation, they will face much stronger opposition if, as expected, there is a complete rout of the Democrat Party, particularly in the House of Representatives.

If they await the presidential election of 2024, their prospects for successfully taking the Taiwan island-state without use of nuclear weapons might be even more greatly diminished.

Bible prophecy tells of the massive force of 200 million troops that will cross the dried-up Euphrates River at the end of the Tribulation period. This force is called the kings of the east. I have always believed that China, who now can easily put together that size force, joined by all the other “kings of the east” in that oriental part of the world, will be the lead nation in the demonically-possessed horde. I believe that China will be the King of the kings of the east in that attack that will kill one-third of people on earth.

If this generation is at the very end of the Church Age (Age of Grace) – as many of us believe the world is – all prophetic progression must soon come together in preparation for the wind-up of history this side of the Tribulation and the Triumphant Return of Christ. Just as the Gog-Magog forces seem to be coming together at present, so, too, the things in the oriental world must be coming together.

China, by bringing Taiwan into its hegemonic embrace, is almost a certainty in firming up the kings of the east assault force. Xi Jinping, or whomever is the Chinese leader, will soon be bringing all of those oriental nations that are now independent, sovereign countries into their orb through whatsoever means necessary.

I don’t believe those means will be nuclear – at least not this side of the Rapture of the Church. That would throw the world into configuration other than prophesied by the Lord Jesus as recorded in Matthew 24:36-42 and Luke 17:26-30. It would not be business as usual if there were nuclear exchanges all over the world, or, I believe, even on a limited basis.

No matter the way things will play out within the near term, the God of Heaven is in complete Control. We can be absolutely certain of that Truth. And He will take Christ’s Bride, the Church, out of this doomed world because of its rebelliousness before His Wrath must fall.

Here again is how to avoid that coming Judgment and Wrath.

“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10: 9-10).

I had just turned twenty years old a couple of months earlier when I watched and heard John F. Kennedy say live on TV something like: “The United States shall consider any missile launched from Cuba to be a direct attack by the Soviet Union upon this nation, which will bring a full retaliatory response by the United States upon the Soviet Union.”

The president’s famous smile had been wiped away, and a grim expression had taken its place. Even at only twenty, I knew there had never been such a critical moment in human history, so far as potential for war was concerned. The missile crisis of October 1962 had brought mankind to the brink of all-out nuclear war.

Many years later, it was learned that only the refusal of one Soviet submariner to agree to launching a missile prevented initiating a conflagration. The sub’s command was under the mistaken impression that Soviet military assets had been attacked with nuclear warheads.

The Soviet naval officer was the third vote required to send the nuclear missiles toward their targets. Two of his fellow officers, one of them being the sub’s commander, voted yes. He voted no, so the missiles weren’t launched. It was the right decision, and, after days of tense standoffs and negotiations directly between Kennedy and Soviet Premiere Nikita Khrushchev, the most dangerous nuclear confrontation in history dissolved back into less-threatening cold-war status.

Both Kennedy and Khrushchev–particularly Khrushchev—have been credited with and lauded for showing great restraint in preventing all-out atomic war. This because the Soviet dictator started dismantling the nuclear missiles on the Cuban island.

I knew little about the details of Bible prophecy at that age, although I had been taught prophecy from the pre-Trib viewpoint since I was very young. I can remember vividly, as a six-year-old, hearing Pastor Harris in the Seventh Street Tabernacle in Pekin, Illinois, preaching on the Rapture of the Church. The belief that the Lord knows the end from the beginning was never a point to question in my thinking. But when the Cuban missile crisis was in full bloom, I admit I didn’t think about all that. I was very worried–as was most every American who kept up with the unfolding events.

My naïve understanding was that these geopolitical leaders had indeed been responsible for applying the restraint of common sense in preventing the world from being blown up. I even found a modicum of appreciation for Khrushchev, who had, a year or two earlier, boasted that he would bury us.

And now, in 2022, some are saying we are facing the greatest threat to world peace and of nuclear annihilation since the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962.

These six decades later, I have no fear whatsoever of nuclear world annihilation. Thus, even though Russian President Vladimir Putin has just said something to the effect that if anyone tries to interfere with his going into Ukraine, they will experience something that they have never faced in all of history. By this, the diplomats of the world began thinking Putin meant he would unleash nuclear attacks against the US if American forces tried to intervene.

At this moment of writing, it seems there is no restraint whatsoever from the Russian side. And many, including yours truly, believe that America’s current leadership either doesn’t know how to restrain the nuclear demon or is using the attack on Ukraine in a wag-the-dog move to distract from all this presidential administration’s failures at every level.

Despite the seemingly out-of-control movement toward possible nuclear conflict, like I say, I have no fear of the world ending through atomic warfare.

I’ve learned much since I was that naïve youth of 1962. I have learned to trust, without reservation, our God’s ability to restrain even the most horrific of man’s proclivity for self-destruction.

I now know the end from the beginning because my Father in Heaven has told those who believe His prophetic Word that there will be “wars and rumors of wars,” and He has said that we should look for them. But He has also foretold that “the end is not yet” when we hear of those wars and rumors of war.

Our Heavenly Father has also told us that particular developments must take place as the end of human history plays out. That process does not include all-out nuclear destruction prior to the Rapture of the Church.

Following that great event, the red horse of war will indeed ride. As much as three-fourths of humanity will be killed by the judgments; most of the destruction almost certainly will come from nuclear weapons being unleashed. The black horse of famine and the chloros horse of death and Hell will quickly ride upon a planet of rebels deserving of God’s wrath.

Since the atomic bombs fell in 1945 on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the nuclear demon has been restrained. Not one such weapon has been allowed to be released in warfare, only in testing. This, in itself, is a miracle of God.

It won’t be any human leader or other human agency that will restrain the nuclear demon. The demon about which physicist Dr. Robert Oppenheimer remarked upon witnessing the first atomic explosion at the site called Trinity might be referenced obliquely in his following statement: The explosion brought to Oppenheimer’s mind words from the Bhagavad Gita: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

I believe that it is God’s mighty hand that will continue to restrain the nuclear demon–and all other wickedness—until the Restrainer, the Holy Spirit who indwells believers in Christ—is removed when we are called into the clouds to be with Jesus for eternity.