Does A Treaty Mean Peace?

    The treaties now being signed between the Soviet Premier Mikhail
Gorbechev and our President Ronald Reagan are drawing praise from
everyone for being a great move to peace.  On the surface, it appears
to be a good thing to get rid of some of our nuclear weapons, but why
is Gorbechev so enthusiastic.

    The Russians have never been known for doing anything without
wanting something in return and probably are not being pacifist now. 
It seems rather, that they are wanting to kill our ability to
retaliate so that they can further their own ends in the middle east. 
It may even be the beginning of the plan mentioned in Ezekiel 36-39.

    Verse 38:10 says that, "On that day it shall come to pass that
thoughts will arise in your mind, and you will make an evil plan." 
This plan is possibly now in motion as strategically, it calls for a
conventional invasion of Israel by trying to over-run her rather than
by using nuclear weapons.  To make this plan happen, Israel's friends
would need to be stripped of their ability to retaliate.

    Ezekiel tells us that God is restoring the nation of Israel in the
end times and that His people will be brought back into their own
land.  That has been happening since 1948 when Israel was re-
established as a homeland for the Jews.  There is also a large move
for Russia to release their Jews so that they can return.  (Just think
of it, Bible prophesy being fulfilled in our own time.)

    Chapter 38 then speaks of a confederacy of nations that God will
come out of their land against Israel.  This confederacy is known as
Gog and the land of Magog.  Gog will come along with the princes Rosh,
Meshech, and Tubal.  These men are briefly identified in Genesis 10 as
grandsons of Noah through his son Japheth.  They originally settled on
the southern side of the Black Sea in Armenia, now Turkey.  They then
gradually migrated north to populate the current Union of Soviet
Socialists Republics including Eastern Europe which the Bible calls
Gomer.  This union is then completed by alliances with Persia (Iran),
Ethiopia, and Libya.  All nations now having Soviet sympathies.

    Moving through Iran to avoid most nations of the middle east, to
the Persian Gulf, it says that Sheba, Dedan (Kuwait and Oman near the
mouth of the Persian Gulf) and the merchants of Tarshish (oil or
mineral merchants) want to know if they are coming to take their
wealth.  What they intend is to sail around to the Red Sea by Ethiopia
and through the Gulf of Aquaba with the help of Libya to invade Israel
by conventional means from the south.  This would give them a strangle
hold on the whole middle east as well as the Suez Canal.

    But God says that He will destroy them on the mountains of Israel. 
Through a massive earthquake and raining fire and brimstone as
happened to Sodom and Gomorrah.  Their troops will even turn on each
other until they are destroyed.  This destruction will be so bad that
it will take Israel seven months to bury the dead.

    Why is God doing this?  Allowing such a devious plan to go into
action?  Ezekiel 38:23 says, "Thus I will magnify Myself and sanctify
Myself, and I will be known in the eyes of many nations.  Then they
will know that I am the Lord."  Not only will the Jews be given a new
respect and faith, but the current wave of atheism will be twarted. 
People will once again know that there is a God who is in control of
this world.


Frank Cooke