Christian end-times experts see the way nations are aligning with Iran against Israel as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy.
Texas-based pastor Jimmy Evans — founder of Endtimes.com and host of the “Tipping Point” podcast — told CBN News in a recent interview, “The importance of Bible prophecy is it helps us to contextualize what’s happening in the world.”
The prophecy expert noted that the worldwide alignment against Israel since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack is consistent with Scripture. Both Zechariah 12 and the book of Revelation predict that the nations of the world will converge militarily on Israel for the Battle of Armageddon.
But before that final apocalyptic battle, others must happen first, Evans said, including the Battle of Gog and Magog, described in Ezekiel 38 and 39. Ezekiel was an ancient Jewish prophet who wrote about the upcoming battle likely around 575 B.C.
It will involve a coalition of nations made up of Iran, Russia and Turkey, among others, invading Israel from the north, Evans told CBN.
“They’re all present and accounted for and Gog and Magog is unfolding right before our very eyes,” he said.
Warning Signs
Iran’s hatred for Israel has been clear for decades, but Turkey and Russia used to have fairly good relations with the Jewish state.
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The New York Times reported in December that Turkey was once Israel’s “closest friend in the Muslim world and a significant trading partner.” However, Turkey broke off diplomatic ties in 2010 over a dispute regarding the Gaza Strip.
After re-establishing ties in 2022, relations have once again soured since Oct. 7. In December, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.
Meanwhile, Russia has been building ties with Hamas, which is backed by Iran.
In September 2022, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Moscow. The Times of Israel reported that Lavrov has met with him several times in recent years.
Ismail Haniyeh, chief terrorist of Hamas, meets with Sergei Lavrov, Putin’s foreign minister. Russia, Iran and Hamas planned the assault on Israel’s population. pic.twitter.com/jnaIGYCc8B
— Rɪᴄʜᴀʀᴅ Kᴇᴍᴘ ⋁ (@COLRICHARDKEMP) October 9, 2023
Iran and Russia have also forged a close relationship, particularly since the latter’s invasion of Ukraine. In fact, in January 2023, Foreign Policy described the “newfound friendship” between the countries as “closer than ever before.”
Evans could foresee the Magog coalition joining together to attack Israel in response to a Jewish air strike on Iran’s reported nuclear weapons program.
“What would happen today if Israel bombed Iran? You would just see everything break loose in the Middle East,” he said. “It wouldn’t take much right now to cause … a massive war [to break out].”
Past Fulfillment
The credibility of what Ezekiel predicted about the war between these nations in chapters 38 and 39 is strengthened by what he wrote about in Ezekiel 37.
He saw a time — under divine inspiration, according to his account — when the Jews would spread throughout the nations of the earth, which certainly happened starting in the first century A.D.
Their exile would last until the latter days, when they would return to Israel and be a nation again.
Todd Hampson, host of the “Prophecy Pros Podcast,” told CBN last year that Israel’s rebirth in 1948 was a “super sign” of the end times.
“Every Old Testament prophet except for Jonah predicted that Israel would become a nation again in the last days and that its people would be gathered from all over the world back to their original homeland,” he said.
“So anybody who says Israel becoming a nation again in 1948 is not a fulfillment of prophecy is either twisting Scripture or ignoring Scripture,” Hampson added.
In 2022, Israeli President Isaac Herzog called the restoration of Israel following the Holocaust in World War II a fulfillment of Ezekiel 37 (a vision of dry bones coming back to life into an “exceedingly great army”), Charisma News reported at the time.
Future War
Ezekiel saw the Magog coalition striking Israel in the “latter days.”
The coalition includes Persia (modern-day Iran), as well as Gog of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal. Gog is the leader of the group, while the other names listed are tribes that lived in the current nations of Russia and Turkey, according to Bible scholars.
“I will turn you about and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you out, and all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed in full armor, a great host, all of them with buckler and shield, wielding swords,” Ezekiel wrote concerning God’s message to these nations.
“You will come up against my people Israel, like a cloud covering the land. In the latter days I will bring you against my land, that the nations may know me, when through you, O Gog, I vindicate my holiness before their eyes.”
God will then intervene on behalf of Israel, causing a massive earthquake, pestilence, torrential rains and flooding, hailstones, and fire to decimate the enemy forces.
“So I will show my greatness and my holiness and make myself known in the eyes of many nations. Then they will know that I am the Lord,” God told Ezekiel.
Bill Salus, author of “The Future War Prophecies,” told Evans on his “Tipping Point” show last week that he believes the current war Israel is fighting with Hamas and Hezbollah is the beginning of the war described in Psalm 83, which is a precursor to the Magog battle.
“Psalm 83 talks about a confederacy of the Arab states and terrorist populations within them that surround Israel. It was written about 3,000 years ago by the worship leader of King David, Asaph, who was also a prophet, we’re told in 2 Chronicles 29:30,” Salus said.
He listed Lebanon (including Hezbollah), Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinians, among others, as members of the confederacy that will attack Israel.
Israel will win the war and will then dwell securely in its land, as Ezekiel describes. But the Magog battle will follow sometime thereafter, and further down the line the Battle of Armageddon, according to Salus.
Billy Hallowell, with CBN’s Faithwire.com, highlighted last year how astounding it is that events in the Middle East appear to be playing out just as the Bible predicted.
“If I were an atheist, I’d be looking at this and saying, ‘OK, it’s a little weird that all these things in Ezekiel, all these places that he’s talking about, thousands of years later are … the centerpiece of what we are talking about right now globally.’”
