CHRISTIAN MEDIA RESEARCH - Newsletter - Gog And Magog Are Gathering Momentum

The long prophesied military cataclysm that is described in Ezekiel 38 is moving ever closer to fulfillment. The famous prophecy, heavily cited by Christian prophecy teachers everywhere, speaks of a massive military attack on the nation of Israel in "the latter years" (Ezekiel 38:8). The nations involved are relatively easy to identify - with the exception of the instigator of the event who is known as Gog and Magog.

For many decades, Christian prophecy teachers, largely following the ancient historian Genesius, have sought to connect these mysterious names with Russia. When Hal Lindsey's epic Late Great Planet Earth broke every sales record in the Christian book world by selling over 50 million copies, he almost single-handedly created the now fossilized tradition that Russia is Gog.

Two other mysterious names in the military coalition that will meet their Waterloo on "the mountains of Israel" (verse 8) are said to be Meschech and Tubal. While their confederates Iran, Ethiopia, and Libya (Persia, Cush, & Put respectively in the King James Version) are readily identifiable, these two names Meschech and Tubal are closely linked to Gog.

Following a dubious linguistic theory, the paperback writers of pop prophecy have almost universally claimed that Meschech and Tubal are Moscow and Tobolsk - again pointing the theological finger at the Soviet Union. When Late Great was released in 1970, the Cold War was raging and the identification seemed to be exceedingly probable - notwithstanding the fact that several dissident scholars such as Dr. Edwin Yamauchi of Miami University flatly stated the names could not refer to Russia, Moscow, and Tobolsk.

In the case of Late Great's Hal Lindsey and his close associate writer Chuck Missler, the paperback rapture writer's response was to plagiarize portions of Yamauchi's scholarly work Foes From The Northern Frontier, and then twist the good Doctor's research into the false conclusion that Gog and Magog is Russia. So they not only stole his work, but they then used the plagiarized material to reach a different conclusion!

Lindsey and Missler were caught by the LA Times, and pulled the stolen title (The Magog Factor) from the market, but the modern fiction of Russia as the great invader continues to be widely propagated through books, tapes, tracts, videos, and even popular songs - such as Maranatha's pop anthem The Cossack Song - where the lyric laments "I wouldn't want to be a Cossack...headed down Jerusalem way."

As the Rapture Cult provided the unscriptural twist that described the great escape from the consequences of the devastating war described in Ezekiel 38, the media writers have continued to misidentify the primary players that will bring about what can only be described as a nuclear holocaust in this hideous conflagration that is just around the corner.

In 1992, as I studied the prophecy for a chapter in my prophecy book Beyond Babylon, the Lord quickened in my spirit the fact that when the text states "Gog of the land of Magog," it wasn't speaking of Gog as a person that came from the land of Magog - it's just the opposite. Gog is the name of the land, and Magog is the proper name that comes from the land of Gog. After carefully studying each of the place names, I realized that Gog is the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

After the Soviet Union restructured in the Gorbachev-Reagan era, the Russian pronunciation of the capital of Georgia - Tiflis - was dropped, and the nation took back its ancestral name of Tblisi. In the Georgian dialect, the ethnic suffix isi means "the land of." Furthermore, in that same ancient dialect, which is unique among linguistic groups, the consonants T and B are specifically separated by a gutteral U sound.

The actual verbalization of Tblisi is "Tuh-ooh-ball-ee-see." In short, the name literally translates as "the land of Tubal." This is the capital of the modern republic of Georgia.

Further research showed that the other group that settled in the same region thousands of years ago were known as the Meskhet - or the Meskhetians. During the Russian domination of Georgia in the 19th century, Moscow named their military headquarters that was located adjacent to the Georgian capital Mtzkheta. Again, by removing the suffix, we see the name Meschech has survived in Georgian and Russian.

Scholars have long known that the Georgians are descended from the Iberians which have a presence in the modern era in several regions including the South of Spain. If you wish to take a commercial flight in that area of the world, for example, you'll probably buy a ticket on Iberian Airlines. A recent scholarly treatment on the origin of Georgia that was published by Oxford University Press states "The Jews of ancient Georgia were doubtless aware of the Jewish identification of Iberia with the Tubal of the Old Testament" (Georgia In Antiquity, David Braund, 1994).

Josephus tells us the Iberi were descended from a son of Japheth - whose son was named Magog. It's fascinating to realize that the name Gog is widely widely utilized in Georgian - albeit under a more affectionate fashion that is known as Gogi. I've eaten at a Russian restaurant here in Southern Oregon that is owned by a Georgian with that very name. Indeed, we recently learned from a Christian missionary that has spent 10 years in Georgia that the Georgian pronunciation of Gog and Magog is Gogi da Magogi. In short, Gog is Georgia.

What is significant in all of this is that Georgia is presently ruled by Eduard Shevardnadze - a native Georgian who, because of his clever political abilities, was nicknamed The Fox by his constituents. Shevardnadze was installed by the CIA after the intelligence agency overthrew the rightfully elected nationalist President Zvhiad Ghamsakhurdiya.

Shevardnadze, the former number 2 man in the Soviet Union under Gorbachev, is carefully seeking to integrate the vast numbers of surrounding Islamic groups into a cohesive identity - while simultaneously keeping Russia's influence at arm's length as he cozies up to the American oil interests. Georgia, with an Eastern Orthodox background, is completely surrounded by massive numbers of Islamic men - many of which are traversing the nation as they move back and forth between the Islamic militant strongholds of Chechenya, Dagestan, and Abhkazia.

It is now believed there are significant numbers of Al Qaeda and other Moslem militia groups based in an area of Georgia known as the Pankisi Gorge. In fact, about a month ago, Igor Ivanov, the head of the Russian Foreign ministry declared that Osama bin Laden was probably hiding in the Pankisi Gorge - in Georgia.

In the midst of this political turmoil is the staggering wealth that is being pumped through major oil pipelines through Georgia. The various Western multinational oil interests, including the Bush family, are deeply invested in the trans Caucasian oil routes that also include Afghanistan. Said to be the purest crude on the entire planet, the oil reserves now coming through Georgia are being positioned to replace the oil reserves that will be taken out of service from the Arab producers that are scheduled to be eliminated during the coming war with Israel (see Daniel 7:8).

Meanwhile, according to Science Magazine, a United Nations nuclear watchdog group has sent a team of experts to "to seize two portable nuclear devices found in Georgia's breakaway province of Abkhazia that it fears could be used to make bombs." At about this same time, American troops were quietly dispatched in a very low profile mission to train Georgian troops.

All of this came about because two Georgian men recently became seriously ill after finding some odd looking components in a forest. The strange finding turned out to be radioactive materiel that alarmed Western nuclear experts that there may be nuclear devices in Georgia. Thus, a recent article in the British Guardian blared the following headline West Scours Georgia For Nuclear Triggers.

Incredibly, the major American media has completely ignored the story.

he reason all of this is significant is because of Ezekiel. The venerable Hebrew prophet tells us that after Gog and Magog attack Israel from the North, a nuclear conflagration ensues in which the land is so toxic that no-once can enter for a period of 7 months. The lengthy prophecy speaks of an enormously destructive battle that will result in so many bodies that they will all be buried in a mass grave due to their apparent toxicity.

In reading this ominous passage, we see that every state mentioned is militantly Islamic with a declared animosity towards Israel - except for Georgia. Thus, the political intrigue that has surrounded Shevardnadze and his known CIA ties to former master spy Bill Casey and others becomes highly suspect in what would appear to be yet another carefully manipulated war induced by the globalist cabal that has designs on world dominion.

As the church falsely continues to preach an easy escape followed by a Russian move into the Middle East, the sordid reality continues to point to American and European globalists that continue to use war as an instrument of foreign policy in order to further their ungodly aims at a universal dominion, power, and astonishing wealth. This coming cataclysm is but another step towards the global tyranny that awaits the entire planet as the Satanic conspirators continue to mask their true designs - a one world government, ruling from Jerusalem, headed by the Antichrist.

April 15, 2002 -- James Lloyd

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