I had a minister friend show/explain these current events to me.
I thought it interesting, to say the least.....
Modern apocalypticism[edit]
Ronald Reagan with his wife Nancy aboard a boat in California in 1964; Reagan was one of many prominent Americans to take literally the apocalyptic predictions of Gog and Magog
In Europe expectations of the end-times have receded with the advance of a secular worldview during the 19th century.[59] This has not been the case in the U.S., where a 2002 poll indicated that 59% of Americans believed the events predicted in the Book of Revelation would come to pass.[60] During the Cold War the idea that Russia had the role of Gog gained popularity, since Ezekiel's words describing him as "prince of Meshek"—rosh meshek in Hebrew—sounded suspiciously like Russia and Moscow.[7] Even some Russians took up the idea, apparently unconcerned by the implications: "Ancestors were found in the Bible, and that was enough."[61] Ronald Reagan, then Governor of California, told state legislators in 1971:
"Ezekiel tells us that Gog, the nation that will lead all of the other powers of darkness against Israel, will come out of the north. Biblical scholars have been saying for generations that Gog must be Russia. What other powerful nation is to the north of Israel? None. But it didn’t seem to make sense before the Russian revolution, when Russia was a Christian country. Now it does, now that Russia has become Communistic and atheistic, now that Russia has set itself against God. Now it fits the description of Gog perfectly."[62]
Post Cold War-millenarians still identify Gog with Russia, but they now tend to stress his allies among Islamic nations, especially Iran.[63] For the most fervent, the countdown to Armageddon began with the return of the Jews to Israel, followed quickly by further signs pointing to the nearness of the final battle–nuclear weapons, European integration, Israel's seizure of Jerusalem, and America's wars in Afghanistan and the Gulf.[64] In the prelude to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, President George W. Bush told Jacques Chirac that Gog and Magog were at work in the Middle East: "This confrontation is willed by God," he told the French leader, "who wants us to use this conflict to erase his people's enemies before a New Age begins."[65] Chirac consulted a professor at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Lausanne (Switzerland) to explain Bush's reference.[66].......
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...IDlnqvzdJ61SFA
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