There continues to be a great deal of conjecture about whether the current Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, is Gog, the evil person who will lead the Gog-Magog attack against Israel as prophesied by Ezekiel in chapters 38 and 39.

Mr. Putin certainly seems to fit the profile in many ways. While the world of Bible prophecy watchers looks intensively at the current Russian leader, fishing to understand if he, Putin, is indeed that biblically foretold character, it is absolutely assured that God’s Word says He has what it will take to deal with whoever Gog turns out to be.

Here is what the Lord says:

And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, 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 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: Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet. (Ezekiel 38:1–5) 

So God Himself will go fishing at exactly the right time for this voracious would-be destroyer of God’s chosen nation, Israel. He will “hook” this barracuda-like leader of Rosh (Russia) in his jaw. The Lord will jerk Gog back into the direction He wants this Satan-spawned leader to go. The Lord will be in total control at all times during this attack on Israel–just as He is always totally in control.

We who observe and seek to understand these times so obviously near the Rapture of the Church can’t know for certain who this big, prophetic fish named Gog is. I believe the Church will be in Heaven, called into the clouds of Glory by God the Son–the Lord Jesus—before that great Gog-Magog battle is launched.

The Gog leader is apparently called so because “Gog” is the designation for a demon spirit that will inhabit the Russian leader at the time God puts the “hook” into the jaws. So it is, to me, at least, not possible to say for certain who Gog will be in terms of his given name.

Again, Vladimir Putin seems to have many of the characteristics attributed to the one who will be Gog.

Here is what Joel Rosenberg, a well-known Christian-Jewish writer, has to say in the matter:

Over the years, people have asked me if Putin might be the Russian dictator referred to as “Gog” in the Biblical prophecies of “Gog and Magog” in Ezekiel 38—39…. Here’s my quick answer: It’s too soon to draw such a conclusion. There’s much more that would have to happen to indicate that Putin was the “Gog” of Bible prophecy. But there’s no question in my mind that Putin is Gog-esque. He is dangerous, and both Israel and the West should keep a close and wary eye on him, especially given all that Putin has done to build a strategic alliance between Russia and Iran and the other countries mentioned in the ‘Gog and Magog’ prophecies.

The Lord has always seemed to have a special interest in fishing. He started building His Church on the concept of fishing. Remember the earliest signs used by Christians in expressing their relationship to Christ was the symbol of a fish.

Jesus first called men from the shores of Galilee while they were fishing. He told them He would make them “fishers of men.”

He certainly did so. And we can be assured that God will follow up by putting the “hook” in the jaw of the one He calls Gog, whether it’s Mr. Putin or some other Russian leader.

But, as my great friend Chuck Missler used to say: “We will be watching from the Heavenly mezzanine.”

Even so, come Lord Jesus.

Authors note: Due to my need to concentrate on other matters as I prepare for speaking at the Colorado Springs Prophecy Watchers Conference, my commentaries this week will be selections I’ve written in the recent past. This segment appeared in the recent book Jonathan Brentner and I wrote: HEREAFTER: It’s Far Better Than You Imagine.

Life in the Millennium

New World Order architects today claim to want to make life on planet Earth much better than humankind has thus far managed to construct. The slogan for those who want to create the equivalent of Utopia is “Build Back Better,” and they call this construction project “The Great Reset.”

In making their grandiose plans, they make the same deliberate, monumental mistake the antediluvians did. It is the same egregious error Nimrod and his minions made in their construction catastrophe on the plains of Shinar when they built the tower intended to reach into Heaven.

These earlier one-world, would-be masters of planet Earth, like their father Lucifer, determined to usurp the throne of God. They desired to be like the Most High—to take the place of the Creator. They fell for Satan’s lie that they could “be as God.”

The writer of Ecclesiastes was certainly on the mark with the line: “There is nothing new under the sun” (1:9). The present-day globalists elite, like the earlier rebels, are infected by the reprobate mind forewarned by the Apostle Paul:

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient. (Romans 1:28)

Their insane drive, through their sin-infected, upside-down thinking, will eventuate in God judging their rebellious wickedness. He will, like in destroying the antediluvian world order and in decimating the Tower of Babel construction, completely erase the final effort to build world order in the image of humankind. Daniel chapter 2 tells of the great stone from Heaven that will strike this final, evil world order, with the winds of God’s eternal Kingdom sweeping away all vestiges of fallen humanity’s rebellion. That great stone is the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of all kings.

We are witnessing today the build-up toward the final form of worldwide wickedness the globalists elite are planning. For a time, they will seem to be successful. As a matter of fact, their efforts are obviously making tremendous strides at the moment of this writing.

The effort seems led by the minions of the World Economic Forum (WEF). However, this anti-God organization is but the nucleus—the center—of a rapidly expanding range of concentric circles spreading the devil’s doctrine of “Building Back (Babel) Better.”

If we only consider all of the above, we have every reason to sense being plunged into the deepest abyss of depression. There would seem no hope of being able to climb out of that abyss of Ephesians 6:12 evil.

But, as the renowned broadcaster Paul Harvey used to say, this isn’t the end of the matter. Here is the rest of the story.

Just as the powers and principalities of Ephesians 6:12 are about to reestablish their long-sought Tower of Babel, creating–especially through a transformed worldwide economy (monetary system)—Satan’s desired one-world order, God will say “Enough!” We believe that exclamation is forecast in the following words:

Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. (Luke 17:28–30)

Jesus will remove God’s children from Earth, just as He removed Lot (whom He saw as “just”—that is, “righteous”—because of Lot’s belief for salvation) from the wicked city of Sodom.

Here is how that removal will happen:

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4: 16–18)

With all believers of the Church Age (Age of Grace) removed to safety (Revelation 3:10), God will begin dealing in judgment and wrath with the anti-God, neo-Babel builders. That will eventuate in heavenly action, as described by the prophet Daniel when he interpreted Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream:

Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible. This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth. (Daniel 2:31–35) 

This prophecy says God will forever do away with the Babylonian system of Earth’s rebels—a system that was, since antiquity, fomented, instigated, and put into effect by the master architect of all rebellion against the Almighty.

Again…here is the rest of the story. And, it is a glorious story to be sure! The Lord Jesus Christ is the stone of Daniel’s prophecy. He will descend to strike that rebellious system and cause it to crumble:

And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. (Revelation 19:11–15)

We pick up this return of King Jesus, who will smite that Babylonian system and cause it to crumble and blow away in the winds of eternity:

Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle. And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south. (Zechariah 14:3–4)

At that moment, the topography of Jerusalem and the entire world will change. Earth will begin transforming into the pristine world it was before the Fall in Eden.

Mount Moriah, the Temple Mount, will lift high into the sky to overlook the Earth, and King Jesus will proceed down through the great valley just created. He will ascend the mountain to take up residence in the gloriously constructed Holy Temple where the Third Temple, desecrated by Antichrist, had previously stood during Daniel’s seventieth week (the Tribulation).

And this is where we will commute to and from each moment of the Millennial Kingdom–the thousand-year reign of the King of kings and Lord of lords.

As supernatural beings, having become so at the Rapture, we will be with King Jesus, or have access to Him, at every moment of the thousand years He reigns. Not only will we be priests, prophets, and kings over all the Earth, we will, as children of God, have the same inheritance that belongs to Jesus Himself. Everything that is His, God gives us when we become His children. We then come fully into that indescribably magnificent inheritance in the Hereafter–the time that begins upon cessation of physical life of the believer, or at the moment when Jesus shouts, “Come up here!” (Revelation 4:1–2).

God’s great plan was to have a family that would love Him unconditionally, just as He loves unconditionally. We are and will be the Heavenly Father’s joy throughout eternity.

Imagine! No…neither you nor I can even to begin to imagine in our finite minds what it means to be considered the same as the Father’s Only Begotten Son in terms of eternity, or even for a second. We accept it by simple faith in the Father’s promises.

That’s what it means to be as one with the Heavenly Father and Jesus, whose words in the moments before He died for the sins of the world confirm our coequal status in God’s family.

Hallelujah!

That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. (John 17:21–25)

This oneness we will enjoy for eternity means we have great responsibility. We are, of course, directed to go forth and share the Gospel with the whole world, making disciples of all people and baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But that is only the beginning of our responsibility.

Our commission during the thousand years of the Millennial Kingdom will be beyond anything we can fully grasp at the present, while having only finite thinking.

By the time we follow the Lord Jesus to planet Earth, accompanying Him while He returns, we will each have gone before the Judgment Seat of Christ.

Each child of God will stand before that holy bench of judgment for rewards and crowns earned during life on Earth. There will be no condemnation–no judgment—for sin. All sin was paid for through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Each of us will, however, be rewarded with different levels of attainment, depending on the faithfulness we demonstrated in using our gifts and talents on Earth. How we honored the Lord’s desires will determine the level of responsibilities we will be given for ruling and reigning with Jesus during the Millennial Kingdom.

There will be no competitors, no envy, no jealousy in all this Hereafter activity. We will have the mind of Christ; our thinking will be like His. All we will be concerned with is doing His holy will. Our goals and desires will be precisely the same as His. Our love will be not for ourselves, but for our brothers, our sisters, and especially for our “big brother” Jesus–the King of all kings.

Our friend Daymond Duck researched what we will do during the Millennial Kingdom and throughout the Hereafter:

1) Worship (Revelation 4:9–10)

2) Keep the Feast of Tabernacles (Zechariah 14:16–19)

3) Visit Jerusalem to learn (Isaiah 2:2–3; 1 Corinthians 13:11–12)

4) Fellowship (Revelation 19:9)

5) Serve Jesus (Psalm. 72:11; Revelation 22:3)

6) Judge fallen angels (1 Corinthians 6:3)

7) Reign on the Earth (Luke 19:11–27; Revelation 5:10; 2 Timothy 2:12)

These things will be more than enough to keep us busy! (Daymond Duck, Prophecy Plus Ministries)

Authors note: This article appeared some time ago. American culture and societal corruption continue down a dark and dangerous pathway toward judgment and Sodom-like destruction.

Sudden destruction is certainly foretold following the removal of believers, Jesus said, just like when Lot was taken out of Sodom. And that destruction was total, as modern-day archeologists are proving as they dig in near the Dead Sea.

But has the final Word been written in Heaven’s pronouncement on earth’s nations, especially considering our own beloved America? I prayerfully hope not.

America—Sheep or Goat?

Will the United States of America be a sheep nation or a goat nation? That is perhaps a Shakespearian question in the vein of “To be or not to be?”.

The question, of course, is rooted in context of the Millennium, at the beginning of which Jesus Christ will judge which will be, symbolically, a sheep nation, or a goat nation—based upon how these entities dealt with God’s chosen nation, Israel. Believers in Christ who survive the horrendous Tribulation will inhabit the sheep nations. All who survive the Tribulation but who have not accepted Christ will be placed in the goat nations, then be cast into what is described as “outer darkness,” and will remain in that state until the white throne judgment at the end of the one-thousand-year reign of King Jesus upon the millennial earth.

Our quest here is to wonder just a bit on whether America is destined to be a sheep nation. You can guess without much speculation what I, personally, hope is the answer.

One thing that comes to mind in these contemporary times regarding the United States is its magnetic attraction to peoples around the world. This nation might be likened to the planet Jupiter. It is huge in most of the ways human beings see as alluring, giving it the greatest gravity—materially speaking—of any nation-state to grace earth’s surface. God has indeed blessed America “from sea to shining sea.”

While all other nations orbit this one, realization about the liberty that is synonymous with the US to worship, move about, work, play, or even just be slovenly doesn’t escape even those kept from knowing much about things going on around the rest of the planet. Indeed, America’s gravity dynamically has drawn all peoples toward its irresistible opulence. With the exception of very few, no one makes noises about leaving this nation to live elsewhere.

Billions look in America’s direction as the “shining light on the hill,” as President Ronald Reagan once called it.

Even the defectors who sought to dodge the draft during the Vietnam era have since done all they could to come back to the nation they deserted. The Hollywood types—like Barbra Streisand, for example—who periodically threaten to leave America because they don’t get their way, politically, decide to stay when it comes down to the moment of leaving or staying. In southern parlance, they know on which side their bread is buttered.

Perhaps to get right to the heart of what has made America the center of the universe of nations, and to try to determine its status so far as involvement in Bible prophecy might be concerned, I would like to consider a well-known historical observation by a man outside this country—a Frenchman, no less.

French social philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville, while touring the United States in the 1800s, said about America: “America is great because America is good. If she ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.” De Tocqueville no doubt was speaking of how he viewed cultural and societal good. But, upon observing the nation’s Christian church foundation he encountered, he must have based his conclusion on the fact that America’s goodness in the societal sense was a result of Christianity running throughout the country’s cultural fiber. What he likely didn’t understand was what that “goodness” really means in God’s economy.

God’s Word speaks of this “good”: “And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? [there is] none good but one, [that is], God” (Mark 10:18).

Jesus was not saying to the man who fell on his knees before the Lord that He, Jesus, was not “good,” but the Lord was acclaiming that God, alone, is the only good. Jesus was—and is—the only “good” flesh-and-blood person to ever walk the earth’s surface following the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden. That is because Jesus IS God.

De Tocqueville now looks from the past at America’s once pretty face, and his words of warning are reverberating: “If America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.”

America, A Golden Cup

Again, is the name “America” given anywhere in Scripture? Of course not. But, the influence this nation has exerted since coming to its full bloom as earth’s greatest superpower in history makes it a prophetic nation. The Creator of all things continues to use America in His mighty hand to accomplish two very distinctive, supernatural purposes. As a matter of fact, the United States, in my view, has an overwhelming presence in Bible prophecy. Its place is at the very heart of the end-times things that we see developing—matters unfolding in daily, even hourly, news reports. In this sense, I am of the conviction that God is speaking of America—in type, if not by name, when His Word tells us the following:

Babylon [hath been] a golden cup in the LORD’S hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad. (Jeremiah 51:7)

Certainly, the United States of America has been a “golden cup” in the Lord’s hand. No other nation of modern vintage can come close to claiming that achievement.

Some nations of Europe were formative in bringing forth Christianity into the world, thus shedding a degree of gospel light into a world of sin-darkness.

But, it is America that, despite its great shortcomings and more recent degeneration, has been a shining beacon, reflecting from that golden cup in God’s hand.

Being the first nation in spreading to the whole world the gospel message—that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross makes possible the only way to redemption for lost humankind—is a feat no other country can claim. This, ultimately, has been done not by the offices or under the auspices of American ingenuity, but by the omniscience and the omnipotence of the One holding the “golden cup.” It is God’s grace and mercy that have put America as a beacon of God’s light upon that mountain of gospel dissemination. God’s providence gave this nation the industrial and technological genius—a fact that is denied, or that is so taken for granted today.

All of the grace God has shed upon America from sea to shining sea, it must now be noted here, means nothing in addressing the question we are seeking to answer about whether America will be a sheep nation or a goat nation.

The United States has been extremely generous with its wealth at every turn. Whether rebuilding war-torn nations far away, such as through the Marshall Plan, or providing billions of dollars whenever there are tragedies to be funded, our country has seemed to be the Good Samaritan. But our largesse as a people also will not determine whether America is destined for sheep-nation status.

Again, according to the prophetic Word, it seems national status in this regard is to be based on how other nations have dealt with God’s chosen nation, Israel.

It is based upon this factor—US/Israeli relationship—that I have great hope in trying to answer our question.

America was chosen by God, Himself, I have absolutely no doubt, to act as national midwife in Israel’s rebirth into modernity. Any true reading of history will attest to this reality. The revisionists, the Marxists, the evil from the mind of Satan cannot change this fact. America, despite its egregious acts of late against the God of Heaven, has been friend and protector of the fledgling Jewish state as it entered again as a nation at mid-twentieth century.

Will America face God’s judgment? Again, there can be no doubt. We have allowed the murder of more than sixty million children in their mothers’ wombs, just as a start on listing the absolute wickedness we have seen recently. God will judge this nation.

But there will be a glorious rebirth for America, I’m believing, once its sins are purged and the Lord again counts our nation as “good.”

Let me assure at the outset of today’s venture into the blogosphere, I by no means intend to be disparaging of or demeaning to those with hereditary or other mental disorders of any sort. It is spiritual health I refer by the use of the article’s title, not physical health.

That said, I state without reservation that there’s a growing insanity in this nation and world. It is hereditary in nature–rather, I should say, it is hereditary in the supernatural sense. The loss of normal sensibility becomes more apparent with each news cycle.

The cause of the insane condition is as ancient as the time of the first humans. Adam and Eve suffered the beginning of the spiritual mentality breakdown the moment Eve fell victim to Lucifer’s lies and Adam to his own choice to disobey God’s commandment not to eat of the fruit of the forbidden tree. All of their progeny have the infection God calls sin.

The gene that causes the insanity affects each and every one of us until the cure is accepted. We must receive that cure voluntarily, as surely as our human father Adam voluntarily received the deadly gene when he disobeyed his Creator’s warning.

The cure is, of course, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and His sacrifice on the cross at Calvary. He died for the sin of humankind and resurrected to life so that all who believe this truth and accept Jesus’ cleansing blood are instantaneously healed of all unrighteousness–forever.

However—it’s sad to have to say—the vast majority of humanity throughout the ages have not accepted God’s cure—His belief system for salvation. Thus humanity remains untreated. And now, at this late prophetic hour, the spiritual insanity is manifesting in ways that cannot be missed.

One recent article makes the point.

In 2016, Ash Williams became pregnant for the first time. Williams wants to be a parent eventually — but he wasn’t ready for a child then. He didn’t know much about what an abortion entailed, and he needed a ride, so he called up a friend who drove him. When they got to the clinic, Williams, who is trans, remembers the people working there didn’t care enough to get his name right — using, instead, the name on his license. Never mind asking about pronouns. “Working with the actual provider was really [expletive deleted] up, too,” he says. “I just remember he didn’t say one word to me, and I felt sad about that.”

It’s all there, isn’t it? In a single paragraph, we have all of the most insane and insidious progressive views on display. There’s the fiction of the “pregnant man.” There’s the “pregnant man” getting an abortion — that is, a gender-dysphoric female having her child killed by an abortionist. There’s the fact that the abortion clinic staff is faulted not for facilitating feticide but for paying insufficient attention to pronouns…

It’s a potent, eye-watering ending to a profile that manages to showcase everything wrong with our culture in 2024. “Pregnant men.” “Abortion showers.” For that matter, “abortion doulas.” Celebrating someone for an abortion (“Congratulations — it’s dead!”) People “deserve” abortion. It reminds me of a line from Proverbs 8: “All those who hate Me love death.” (“‘Pregnant man’” becomes ‘abortion doula’ to assist others who want to kill their babies,” LifeSite, Jonathon Van Maren, 6/5/24)

When considering such as reported here, one’s end-times thinking might go to Paul’s 2 Timothy chapter 3 “perilous times” prophecy: “In the last days…they will be without natural affection…”.

Certainly nothing is more natural than a man being a man and a woman being a woman, unless it is a woman having a baby and wanting only to love and nurture that little one. Yet, today, a broad swath of humanity prefers the murder of millions and millions of babies in the wombs of their mothers–even up to the moment of birth, and in some cases, just beyond the actual birth.

For example, in listening to the Chris Plante Show one morning recently, I heard him report on those protesting at an abortion clinic who were arrested for blocking a young woman from going into the clinic.

Whether they actually did so or not, I don’t know, but the story told was that the young woman was on the floor in the last stage of giving birth. She was in heavy labor. She was going to the clinic for an abortion. The pro-abortionist prosecutors were charging the pro-life protesters with interfering with the birth of the young woman’s child (thus charged even though she was trying to get into the clinic to have her child murdered).

Is there any doubt, upon hearing report after report of such craziness, that the insanity gene inhabits humankind?

We consider again God’s Word on that insanity gene, its cause and effect:

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient…” (Romans 1:28)

There is forgiveness for the heinous sins of abortion and homosexuality, as well as all other anti-godliness. Here is the cure for the insanity gene that rules the reprobate mind. It will cleanse and change all into the mind-likeness of Christ, which saves the soul and makes any person acceptable for dwelling with God in Heaven for eternity.

That if you will confess with your mouth the lord Jesus, and will believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9–10)