All right, let's pray. Father, we're grateful to be here again. It's been a while since we've been together. It's good to be with friends and to enjoy some time in your scripture and try and figure out some more things about your word and what you have in store for the future here. We're just grateful to be together. Lord, bless this time of prayer. Give us good understanding and we would not go too far with things and yet try and understand as best as possible. Pray this now in Jesus' name, amen. So I'm gonna start with this map. We're gonna be looking at Ezekiel 38 tonight, which is a war that's in the future called the Gog Magog War. And so I just wanna point out the places, and you may know this, but you may not, but the place we're gonna be looking at are gonna be Libya, Sudan, Ethiopia, okay? Talk a little bit about Saudi Arabia, Iran over here, Turkey, And we're going to look at Russia. I'm going to show you another map here in a second, and we'll come back to this. And of course, a little bit of Israel right here in the middle. And Bible prophecy is always Israeli-centric, okay? Everything, if there's prophecy, it has to do something to do with Israel or the countries that are affecting Israel, okay? And so this war that's coming, we think, is going to involve these countries, Libya and Sudan, Sudan, Ethiopia, this area anyway, and Iran, Turkey, and Russia are the main contenders is what most scholars hold for this coming battle. I want to show you just one other thing here to just point out where Moscow lies. But if you look here, you can see this is Jerusalem where that heart is. Moscow is directly north, and that's going to come up in our looking, okay? The compass is set. I can tweak this like that, but when I hit that compass up there, it recenters it so you know that that is directly north. There's Moscow right there, okay? So there's nothing beyond Russia as far as a country. You know, we just go up into the Arctic, right? We're going to be reading about the uttermost parts of the North. And it's said three times, okay? So that's why a lot of scholars say, hey, Russia must be part of this. Even though the words don't, I mean, you could spend, people have spent many, many days trying to figure this out, okay? What all these names mean. I'm just going to take us back to that picture, because we'll be kind of coming back to that as we teach. So you can open your Bibles to Ezekiel. We're just going to work our way down through this passage. Ezekiel 38, verse 1. And the word of the Lord came to me, and this is Ezekiel. He's prophesying while he's in captivity in Babylon. And the year is 593 to 571 is when he prophesied, B.C. He starts his ministry at about 30 years of age. Verse two, son of man, set your face towards Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshach and Tubal, and prophesy against them. So Gog, most likely, carries the idea of high or supreme one. refers to a person and he ends up being described as a prince later on, okay? Prince from the land of Magog, okay? We just read some little clips that I pulled in here from, I think, the Bible Knowledge Commentary. The chief prince has also been translated as Prince of Rosh. With the idea that the word Rosh describes the greatness of the prince, not a place where the prince rules, Rosh never appears as a nation in any other biblical list of place names while all the other names are well attested. Now this is this guy's opinion, okay. Rosh more than 600 times in the Hebrew Old Testament is an adjective for chief as in a chief priest, okay, so that's why it's so common there. It's often a reference to chief, yeah, chief priest, okay. Then Meshach and Tubal, now I just gotta say this. There's people on the other side of the camp that say we've got evidence of a country named Rosh, and it's spelled R-O-S, or R-O-S-Z, or it's about three or four different things. And they found it on inscriptions here and there, different places. And most of those people would relate it to somewhere in Turkey, modern day Turkey. So there's a couple camps on this. We'll just read some more here. Mishek and Tubal. Ezekiel's Rosh does not point to Russia merely because the words sound similar. Neither should one identify Mishek with Moscow or Tubal with Toblesk. Ezekiel had historical places in mind, not modern day names. And that makes sense. And these areas must be located in Ezekiel's time. However, while one must avoid dogmatic assertions, and we want to be careful about that, three reasons suggest, including Russia, within Ezekiel's prophecy. The first reason, some of the countries named by Ezekiel were located in what is now Russia. Number two, the armies are said to come from the far north, and we see that three times, okay? Down through verses 6, 15, and then Ezekiel 39 too, also. In all places other than chapters 38 and 39 where Meshach and Tubal are mentioned, Rosh is not listed as a third people group, okay? So there's two camps on this. I don't know how the outermost parts of the North could be anything but Russia, in my mind, because there isn't anything else up there. But some people seem to think it could be just Turkey and Russia isn't involved. So we'll just leave that as it is. There's whole chapters in this book I have. North Storm Rising by Ron Rhodes. He wrote it in 2008. It was dad's book, actually. And he's got a whole chapter on. People saying it's this way and people saying it's that way. I'm not going to go into all that, but we should know that it could be one or the other or both. Certainly Turkey is included. That's certain. Russia may not be. The best argument is the far north. Okay. Verse three. And so he says, son of man, say, thus says the Lord God, behold, I'm against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal. So one of the questions you're going to come up right away with is, is Putin Gog? Or is Erdogan Gog? Erdogan being the president of Turkey, or prime minister, whatever he is. And you can say they're both dictators. If it were to happen tomorrow, I guess you'd say yes. But with dictatorships, they can change just overnight, too. We saw what happened to Assad in Syria just a month ago. He got ousted after years of being in there. And he's now trying to get poisoned in Russia. And that only took him two weeks of being there before the first poisoning. So we'll see how that goes for him. Verse 4. And I will turn you about and put hooks in your jaws, and I will bring you out, and all your army, horse and horsemen, and all them clothed in full armor, a great host, all them with buckler and shield, wielding swords. So the Lord says to Gog, I'm gonna put a hook in your mouth. And of course we know from fishing, once you get that hook set, he's yours. I'm sure if the Lord sets a hook, he's going to turn him around and take him where he wants to go. So whatever it is that happens, this ruler has to go and attack Israel. I mean, it seems like he has no choice. The hook is in his jaw, the Lord's doing it, and he's going to reel him in and have him do what he wants to do to him. So I'm gonna bring you out and all your army. A buckler is just a large shield. So you got large shields and small shields, whatever that means. Most likely they're modern weapons. If they had written in tanks and airplanes and missiles, no one would have known what that meant. It's probably a modern army. Some have held the position that, I don't know, doomsday happens and we're all using swords and horses again. Probably not. Verse five. Now it says, Persia, Kush, and Put are with them, all of them with shield and helmet. Persia is Iran. Iranians today call themselves Persians. Okay, so over there in the east. It's easy to identify them. And then Sudan and northern Ethiopia are Kush. And that's pretty easy to identify them. There isn't really much argument with those countries. Libya is put. Same with that. That's easily identified. And that would be to the west here, below the Mediterranean. And then Turkey is, the things I read, Mishek and Tubal seem really strong for Turkey. Gomer actually comes up as Germany in some people's minds. And these are historians that have studied all this stuff, and they try and make a determination of what are all these companies. I don't know how you get Germany in here, but possibly. This is some future event that is going to cause a group of people, a coalition, you could say, and they're going to attack Israel. And it seems to be led by Gog, whoever he is. I would say it's either the head of Russia or the head of Turkey. Interesting that there's no mention of arms in verse five. There's the shield and helmet, but these guys aren't carrying arms, which is kind of interesting, I think. Verse six, Gomer and all his hordes, Beth, Togmoth, from the uttermost parts of the north with all his hordes, many peoples are with you. So here we have this uttermost parts of the north, which really seems, and that's why so many people hold Russia as part of that, because there's just nothing more uttermost than Russia. So modern terms, Gog has raised a coalition of nations to come against Israel is what we're doing here. Verse seven, be ready and keep ready you and all your hosts that are assembled about you and be a guard for them. Okay, speaking to Gog, you need to be ready. Verse eight, after many days you will be mustered In the latter years, you will go against the land that is restored from war, the land whose people were gathered from many peoples upon the mountains of Israel, which had been a continual waste. Its people were brought out from the peoples and now dwell securely, all of them." So we start off with the latter years in this verse. You know, when is this going to happen? Bible knowledge commentary has this, it seems best to play Ezekiel's battle of Gog and Magog in the tribulation period. Other internal markers indicate that it should be placed in the first three and one half years of the seven year period. The attack will come when Israel is at peace, which we just read, when Israel's covenant with the Antichrist is in effect at the beginning of Daniel's 70th week. Now this is this guy's understanding, okay. This couple of men, actually three men, I think, do the Bible knowledge commentary out of Dallas. She will be at peace, Israel will be at peace, but after the covenant is broken at the middle of the seven year period, the nation will suffer tremendous persecution. This will provide the time needed to bury the dead, which we won't get to tonight in Ezekiel 39, but it takes a number of years to bury the dead and to burn the weapons of war. So the battle described by Ezekiel may take place sometime during the first three and one half years of the seven year period before Christ's second coming. Possibly the battle will occur just before the midpoint of the seven year period. Now there's a new book out that I've heard about, I don't have it, but it's seven positions on this battle on when it takes place, seven different positions from people that would have our viewpoint of dispensational pre-trib, you know, viewpoint. And there's seven different positions that people have come up with on when, how this timing takes place. Okay. My mind, it's probably something like what I just read to you. It could be before, the tribulation after the rapture, I don't know. It's hard to know. But anyway, let's continue looking at it. This back of this verse, it says, in the latter years, you'll go against the land that is restored from war. And you're thinking, okay, well, right now, we're certainly at war if we're in Israel, okay? I mean, they're winning, but they're still at war. They're still fighting in Gaza. They're still fighting Hezbollah. Syria, right on their northern border, has just totally changed. Assad is gone, and what replaced him is really a combination of al-Qaeda and ISIS. It's not a good group. They're killing Christians. There's horrible video of that coming out of there, what they're doing to the people they don't, like. So that's a real thing. So it would seem before this battle can take place, Israel needs to be at peace. That could be coming soon. These things can all just kind of wrap up too sometimes. I'm sure Trump's going to try and stop stuff. He's talking about it. So peace could come soon. We don't know. but it is supposed to be restored from war. The land whose people were gathered from many peoples upon the mountains of Israel. We know that Israel is a bunch of people that have come from all around the nations, come back to the land, and about, I think it's 46% of them, of Jews in the world are in Israel, and the rest are scattered around. The biggest majority being in New York or well in the United States, but in the United States biggest majority isn't in Brooklyn, is it? That's all right. I think that's where they are New York City, so that's his role which is Continuing in this verse 8 which has been a continual waste Okay What's his name? Mark Twain wrote, he traveled through Israel back in the, what, I don't know when, 18-somethings, but he wrote what a wasteland Israel was, and it had been until the Jews came back. It had just been a wasteland. A number of other people wrote similar things besides Mark Twain. And then, now dwell securely, all of them, okay? That's not today. In the north of Israel, up against the border with Lebanon, there's some 40,000 to 60,000 people displaced and living more in the south because of the battle up there and the continual rockets that come across and whatnot. And so they're certainly not dwelling securely. And of course, down around Gaza, well, it's better than it was, but I wouldn't call it secure as well. And Yemen cleared down. farther down right below Saudi Arabia there, Yemen's been launching rockets up to them, and I don't know if you know, but Israel's been bombing Yemen, so has the United States, and so has Britain, and Egypt even asked the other day if they could get in on it, because they're blocking that portion of the Red Sea, that western finger, and ships can't go through there and go to the Suez Canal and go on to the Mediterranean that come out of Asia, so they're forced to drop all the way down and go around Cape of Good Hope. And so that adds a tremendous amount of cost. The other option is they go to Dubai. This is something that's been being worked out. The other finger of the Persian Gulf, they run up that and unload in Dubai or right near there, truck it clear across to Haifa in Israel, which is northern Israel on the Med, and put it back in ships and take it on. And that's a route they're working out and trying to help get established, but it'd be probably better if the canal was opened back up. Okay, verse nine. Speaking of Gog, you'll advance, coming on like a storm. You'll be like a cloud covering the land, you and all your hordes and many peoples with you. So this group, this coalition is gonna come like a storm. I think this verbiage is interesting, like a cloud covering the land. And it says that again also in verse 16 on down, it repeats that verbiage. I don't wanna, don't take this too far, but we have drone warfare now. And drones come like clouds. I'll show you some pictures. Don't take it too far, but you kinda wonder about that. It's interesting verbiage, like a cloud. Verse 10, thus says the Lord God, on that day, thoughts will come into your mind, and you will devise an evil scheme. The little phrase, on that day, is often associated with the day of the Lord. I'm not positive it is here, but I tend to think it is. It also occurs in verse 14 and verse 18, where he specifies the day of the Lord, or on that day, I should say, is how he puts it. The day of the Lord is really from, the rapture kind of opens it up, And it's that period from the rapture, some period of time, and then the Antichrist signs a peace deal with Israel and starts a tribulation. And you got seven years of tribulation, and then it seems to include all of the millennium. When we look at all the things that are mentioned in scripture about the day of the Lord, I like to just say it's 1,007 years. That's just how I mentally think of it, okay? You got the millennium of 1,000, the Tribulation of 7, and there's probably some other time in there before the Tribulation actually starts after the Rapture of the Church. So that may be what he's referring to here. I don't want to be dogmatic on that, which would indicate if that's correct, that it won't start until after the Rapture. A couple of verses on that, 1 Thessalonians 5.2, I'll just read these to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. So it just comes suddenly and surprising. But let's turn over to 2 Peter 3.10 and just put our eyes on that for a second. Because it just kind of, I think 2 Peter 3.10 in my mind shows this 1,007 years all in one verse. And I think Peter puts it all just in one sentence here, but the day of the Lord will come like a thief. That'd be the rapture. And then the heavens will pass away with a roar and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Okay. So that doesn't, we know that doesn't happen until the end of the millennium when it's burnt, earth is burned up. Okay. So that kind of encompasses that in that verse in my mind, that whole time span. Okay. If the day of the Lord is that entire time period, this 107,007 years that I'm talking about, if that is what is referred to in this verse, then the Gog War will not occur until sometime after the rapture. Any questions on that? Does that make sense? Or anyone wanna throw a different idea there? Okay. He says, thoughts will come into your mind and you will devise an evil scheme. Okay, end of a 10. So here's the evil scheme, verse 11. And say, I will go up against the land of unwalled villages. I will fall upon the quiet people who dwell securely, all of them dwelling without walls and having no bars or gates. Now that's been a challenging verse because there's walls all over Israel. Really, I mean, they've had a wall around Gaza this whole time. I don't know if they're going to rebuild that with what they're doing to Gaza. I mean, if they take total control of Gaza, do they still need a wall? I don't know how that's going to work out. There's been a wall between the West Bank and Jerusalem in places. We went through that to get to Bethlehem and other places. There's maybe not walls physically, but there's Security, you know, you go through armed security just in traveling across the country when you go from the Israeli into a West, what they call West Bank, which would be an Arab controlled area. And then, and then our Palestinian controlled areas, they call it. But in Ezekiel's day, all the villages had walls and bars and gates, and there's none of that in Israel today, in that sense, okay? So that could be what, that's a position I know Amir Sefardi holds, is that we don't have walls in Israel. We don't have gates and bars, you know, that's how he puts it. He's living there. So anyway, interesting verbiage there. Could be when everything is done and settles down, the dust is settled, those things go away, you know, after they're done with Gaza. Well, I don't know how much you're looking at the Israeli news, but while they've been taking care of business in Gaza and Hezbollah, they have also been taking care of West Bank things. There's been a lot of hammering on the West Bank people that that are terrorists and that kind of stuff. There's been a lot of that that's been going on this whole last year. Okay, verse 12. This is continuing on what he's going to do. To seize spoil and carry off plunder, to turn your hand against the waste places that are now inhabited and the people who are gathered from the nations who have acquired livestock and goods who dwell at the center of the earth. Okay. So what is it they're coming to get? Some people think it's Leviathan, which is this big oil field that they found off the coast of Haifa. It's out there, and they're pumping out of it. Matter of fact, I was reading today, 90% of that oil that they're pumping out of there, or natural gas, really, is going to Egypt. And Egypt has these great big plants that turned it into propane and put it on a ship and sent it to Europe. So most of that stuff's going to Europe, which probably doesn't make Putin too happy. But I don't know that the volume is affecting things that much or not. Just a fun little thing here. I'll read you this. This is out of Deuteronomy 33. It's Moses' final blessing on Israel. And he says to Asher, and and pull this up, but if you look at a map of Israel, let me take you over here to Esord and to that. So the tribal allotments of Israel, and you see Asher on the coast over here, okay? See that little bump comes up, bloop, Asher's right in there, see that? It's listed. Let me read this to you. So Haifa is right up in that area. Okay, and just off of Haifa is where this big oil field's been found. And this is what Moses said when he was talking there in Deuteronomy 30. He says, and of Asher, he said, most blessed of sons be Asher. Let him be the favorite of his brothers and let him dip his foot in oil. Which is kind of interesting. They searched all over Israel for oil. Even Golda Meir said, If only Moses would have turned right instead of left, they would have gone into Saudi Arabia and had all the oil in the world. But instead, coming out of Egypt, they went left up into Israel, and there was no oil. They looked and looked and looked for oil, and they finally found it right off of Asher's area. Whether that's what this means, I don't know, but it's kind of interesting. So just for fun. Oh, I wanted to read you something out of this book. What are they coming after? What kind of plunder are they coming after to get from Israel? And there's some suggestions here. This is a little section by Arnold Fruschenbaum. Suggests that these are general Old Testament references to the spoils of war, okay? what we just looked at, to seize spoil and carry off plunder, spoil and plunder. To the spoils of war, this great spoil might actually take a number of very exciting forms. To begin, quite a number of wealthy people live in Israel, more than, and this is a 2008, more than 6,600 millionaires with total assets exceeding 24 billion. Moreover, the mineral resources of the Dead Sea, including 45 billion tons of sodium, chlorine, sulfur, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and bromide, are worth virtually trillions of dollars. The mineral wealth of the Dead Sea is considerable. Whoever controls the land of Israel can look forward to an incalculably large economic boost. Now, the other thing, it could be that something totally new comes up and Israel has it. Israel is very innovative. You know, maybe they'll have some discovery or something like that and people want to come and control it. We just don't know. It's in the future. But whatever it is, the Lord puts a hook in his jaw and he's going to make him do it. He's going to come and do it. And he's coming. And in his mind, he has to do it. And it's for plunder. OK, he's he's He has this scheme, I will go against this place and I will seize spoil and carry off plunder. Verse 13, Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish and all its leaders will say to you, have you come to seize spoil? Have you assembled your host to carry off plunder, to carry away silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods and to seize great spoil? So Sheba and Dedan, and this is pretty easy to place as Saudi Arabia. Everyone pretty good with that. And with the Abraham Accords that Trump is going to really try to push and get Israel and Saudi Arabia together. He wanted to do that last time, and I think that's probably going to happen this time. That puts Saudi Arabia in a favorable position with Israel. And so that if this were to happen, they could say, hey, what are you doing messing with Israel? We're partners with Israel. They don't do anything about it, but they at least stand up and say something about it. Whereas today they may not do that because they don't really have a relationship with them here in the future. I'm just speculating that may be what happens. You know, with these Abrahamic courts, there's trade deals that go on, and it can be very lucrative for both countries to be in that, and so they would be speaking up. Right now, their trade is not that much, from my understanding. The merchants of Tarshish and all its leaders. Some people think Britain is part of Tarshish. We just don't know. When you look at Tarshish, and it comes up quite a bit in the Bible, It's often associated with ships, ships of Tarshish. So maybe they have people that sail the high seas. Britain was big with that, but that was much later. But maybe they were back in the day, too. I don't know. It could be the European Union, the way it's worded and all its leaders, the merchants of Tarshish, and the way the European Union is put together. I don't know. And it's kind of speculative on who that is. Verse 14, therefore, son of man, prophesy and say to Gog, thus says the Lord God, on that day, here it is again, when my people Israel are dwelling securely, will you not know it? You will come from out of your place, out of the uttermost parts of the north, you and many people with you, all of them riding on horses and a great host, a mighty army. And you will come 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. So here it says in the latter days. Up above it was the latter years. I don't know what to make of that exactly. Well, the latter days or the latter years, I guess. It's different. Verse 17, thus says the Lord God, Are you he of whom I spoke in former days by my servants, the prophets of Israel, who in those days prophesied for years that I would bring you against them? We don't know where that prophecy is, okay? Let me read this from the Bible Knowledge Commentary. This has caused some confusion among interpreters because no direct reference to Gog is made in any of the previous writing prophets. Perhaps this means earlier prophets had predicted the coming of invading armies against Israel in the last days, which Ezekiel now associated specifically with Gog. And I've got Here's four, Joel 3, 9-14 is a possible prophecy. Again, none of these mention Gog. Okay. Zephaniah 3, 15-20. Psalm 2, 1-3, which is, you know, one of the nation's rage, you know, which, okay. And then the last one is Isaiah 29, 1-8. If that was too fast, you can ask me later. So verse 18, but on that day, we have again, the day that God shall come against the land of Israel, declares the Lord God, my wrath will be roused in my anger. For in my jealousy and in my blazing wrath, I declare on that day, there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel. Fish of the sea and the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the field and all creeping things that creep on the ground And all the people who are on the face of the earth shall quake at my presence on the face of the earth. This is a big earthquake apparently. And the mountains shall be thrown down, and the cliffs shall fall, and every wall shall tumble to the ground. Okay, this is really devastating. Verse 21, I will summon a sword against Gog on all my mountains, declares the Lord, and every man's sword will be against his brother." In Judges 7, when Gideon was fighting, we have that same kind of thing. Every man's sword against his comrade and against all the army. We see this great confusion that took place when Gideon blew the trumpets and broke the pots open. A huge amount of confusion. Also 1 Samuel 14, when Jonathan defeats the Philistines, remember he and his armor bearer were climbing up the rock and he said, if they say come up here, we'll go up there and take it from the Lord. And so he goes up there and beats them. Well, and behold, every Philistine's sword was against his fellow. And there was very great confusion is how it reads there in 1420 of Samuel. This seems to be a tactic of the Lord to let them fight themselves and puts them in a state of confusion. Verse 22, with pestilence and bloodshed, I will enter into judgment with him and I will reign upon him and his hordes and the many peoples who are with him, torrential rains and hillstones, fire and sulfur. And I'll show my greatness and my holiness and make myself known in the eyes of many nations and they will know that I am the Lord. And you, son of man, prophesy against Gog and say, Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal. And I will turn you about and drive you forward and bring you up from the uttermost parts of the north and lead you against the mountains of Israel. Then I will strike your bow from your left hand and make your arrows drop out of your right hand. "'You shall fall on the mountains of Israel, "'you and all your hordes, and the people who are with you, "'and I will give you to the birds of prey of every sort, "'and to the beasts of the field to be devoured. "'And you shall fall on the open field, "'for I have spoken,' declares the Lord God. "'I will send fire on Magog and on those "'who dwell securely in the coastlands, "'and they shall know that I am the Lord.'" He's making sure that they know who's doing this. Verse seven, in my holy name I will make known in the midst of my people's Israel, and I will not let my holy name be profaned anymore, and the nation shall know that I am the Lord, the Holy One of Israel. So it's coming, we know that, the Lord's batting 1,000. So we just don't know when exactly. But I think what's interesting to me is the, these countries are getting tighter and tighter in their relationships. And I want to show you some of that. Let me tell you one more thing just before we start that. There's another prophecy, and there's some debate on whether this has been fulfilled, not fulfilled, but I'll just read Isaiah 17. One, an oracle concerning Damascus. Now, Damascus is the capital of Syria, which was just taken over, okay, and is now under totally new leadership. and they're bad people, okay? And it says, behold, Damascus will cease to be a city and will become a heap of ruins. Okay, so, something's gonna happen to Damascus. Some people that I listen to are wondering if that destruction of Damascus will be what causes Gog to come after Israel. Which I guess you'd say, okay, so Israel takes out Damascus and then God comes after them. Could be, we just don't know. So I have some things I just want to show you. So here's Leviathan. This is a big oil field, and there's a number of other oil fields out here, too. Haifa's right here, okay? And so this is this major offshore gas field that I think they said 90% of that oil is going down to Egypt. I think it's all going underwater in a pipeline right down to Egypt. And they turned it into LNG, I think, is that what you call it, LNG, propane? Yeah, and run it back. These aren't in any particular order, just a bunch of screenshots I took. Just population of Israel, 7 million in Israel, 46%. United States has 5.7 million, 36%. Yeah, I'm sorry, thank you. Jews around the world. And you see France, 400, 400. It just drops like crazy. So the majority of Jews are in Israel, but the United States is that close. So there's a lot of Jews that have not yet gone back to the land. Just some, again, the roots of increasing military cooperation between Iran and Russia. This is October 16th, 24. You know, people are making note of it. This is, you know, not that old, four or five months old. This is a little older. This is from 22. But here you got Putin of, you know, Russia, and Khomeini of Iran, and then Erdogan of Turkey, who, I don't know, it looks like he just ate a sour grape. I don't think he's happy to be there, but whatever. These guys meet together. They're probably all part of this coalition, is kind of what we're thinking here. Russia is making a fragile pivot from Syria to Libya. The West should be aware of falling into this new trap. I think this is off the Jerusalem Post, I think it is. So when Syria fell, Russia basically took everything and headed to the coast with it, okay? They've flown some stuff out and they've shipped some stuff out, and what they shipped out, they took right straight to Libya, which is part of this coalition, which is kind of interesting. Now they've come back with their ship that transports this stuff, and Syria won't let them back into the port. And so this ship, and there's radar images of this ship just making circles outside the port of Tartus there off of the Syrian coast. And Syria says, no, you cannot come in here. And so they've essentially captured all these Russian weapons, people too, I suppose, at this point. They're not letting them leave. Anyway, so we see Russia staying strong in the Africa area. They want to, they always want a this was the only Mediterranean port that they had. They would service ships at this port in Syria. That's kind of gone away now, and they are pivoting, as he puts it, to Libya, part of our coalition, right? Kind of interesting stuff. Russia's military presence in Sudan boosts African strategy. This is from 6 of 24, okay? So trying to establish a Russian naval base. down in Sudan. So we see there's good relations going on there. They're helping them with arms. Sudan is, of course, in a civil war right now. It's kind of a mess. But Russia is trying to get in there. Iran as well. Iran fuels Sudanese civil war with arms, seeks a Red Sea base as well, December 18th, 24. Look at this poor little guy here. The civil war, the people are starving down there. It's a mess. But these two countries are still trying to get in good with Sudan, part of our coalition. Iran-Turkey ties tested by Assad's downfall in Syria. Now, this goes against what we're trying to do, tying Iran and Turkey together. And the downfall there has caused some friction between the two. But again, dictators come and go. That could all change in a moment. Interesting thing about Turkey is Turkey is part of NATO. And they're kind of the outlier in NATO. I mean, they're like the most radical one we got. Why they're even there, I don't know, but they are. And in my mind, I think Turkey is closer to Russia than they let on. And the Russians are good at the long game. I just wonder if they say, stay in NATO as long as you can. They get information, I think, out of Turkey about NATO, but that's just my thinking. That's not, who knows. As European and Arab leaders rush to meet Syria's new leader, Israel calls for caution. Okay, they're all running over to Damascus trying to meet this new guy. This is, you know, I'll call him Abe Lincoln. I can't remember his name. Ahmad El-Sharara, something like that. He looks like Abe. The beard's pretty long. I think he's actually shaved it back some. But everybody and their dog is running over to make nice to these guys. And again, they're ISIS and Al-Qaeda. These are bad people. And they're trying to say, well, no, we're reformed now. It's really not a good situation. This is that ship that's been not allowed to enter Tartus on the Syrian coast there. And he's just been making loops out there trying to get in because he wants to. They use that to move a bunch of this equipment. Here's an interesting one. Not necessarily true. I ran an earthquake or a secret underground nuclear test. This is, I think, October of last year or September of last year. There was a rattle, and some people were speculating it was at an underground test. And I don't know if they know how to tell the difference or not, but anyway. Made the news multiple places, not just this one. I saw it multiple places. And also revised articles, you know, where they update them. So who knows, you know. Iran just doesn't tell anyone what they're doing about nuclear stuff. Putin says Russia is ramping up drone production. This is September last year tenfold. Not just those kind of little drones as well, but big ones also. But I don't know, is that drones that are coming and those clouds that come? I don't know. But drone warfare is, I mean, the Ukraine war has made drone warfare just like a totally new thing. And it's really increasing. And not just these little guys. I think we'll see a picture here in a little bit. Yeah, this is a one year limbo, displaced Israeli families continue life in hotels with no end in sight. And so they've been, you know, especially out of the north, I talked about that, but this is just an article about it. Trump's son-in-law, Kushner, has discussed US-Saudi diplomacy with Saudi Crown Prince. And of course, he's part of that Abrahamic Accords. And so I'm thinking, he doesn't look like he's having a good day there. Maybe they don't like Kushner, so they put that shot up. Anyway, there he is. Let's see. Here we go. Construction progress at Russian plant for Iranian drones. So Russia and Iran are working close together. Iran helped them set up a plant in Russia to build these drones. And it's not uncommon in the news that I watch every day for them to send 50 to 70 of these every night into into Ukraine, these drones. But for us, what we're looking at is that they're just working together closely. And so Iran has given them this kind of technology and helped them with this. What is Russia giving to Iran? Well, nuclear secrets, possibly. I don't know for sure, but that's kind of the thing. That's all I got. They actually shoot down quite a few, and their electronics are pretty strong at stopping these things and turn them around. That's all I have. Some questions? This is what they did in the New Year's. This is all drones. And it's in Beijing, I believe. OK. The idea is that they're using. We'll get back to my map. The whole drone thing, what they're doing there is they're just working off this technology is that the idea of using drones to swarm so that you've got a whole swarm of drones coming at you. You don't know which one to shoot down. One of them is carrying a bomb and it's going to get you, but you've got a million targets out there. And the Chinese are way ahead on this drone technology, and they're building probably the most of them. And they've been playing a lot with these swarms. And of course, the military is involved. It seems to be in virtually everything that goes on in China, is my understanding, that they've got a stake in everything. And so while it looks cool to see a dragon fly up, come up out of the city or whatever, it's still technology that's being used and figured out for swarms that could be used militarily. It's a cool shot. I don't know how many drones it took them to do that, but it was pretty cool. Let's pray. Father, we're grateful that we could look at this passage that you put in Ezekiel's mind to give to us. And you're telling us about something that's going to take place in the future. We're not sure when. But we know that if you said it's going to happen, it will. And we're grateful that we can trust you for that. We do see some of these things seem to be coalescing a little bit and heading in that direction, which would tell us that The day of your coming to get us would be soon which would tell us that the time left to communicate the gospel to those who don't know you would be short and We want that to be in our minds Lord and always looking for opportunities to share the gospel and that this would help spur us on to that end and also just to Glorify you and knowing that You're sovereign, and You're bringing things to a conclusion in Your time. And we may be living in a day where we see that in real time. So we're grateful for Your Word, and that we can study it, Lord. Bless us this week, I pray now in Jesus' name, amen.