What’s up with Crimea? Just old-fashioned Russian Imperialism or Possibly an End-Times Scenario Building In Ezekiel 38 & 39, the Bible speaks of a future time in which many nations shall come against Israel. In his warning, God predicts the destruction of the armies that come against Israel. “In my zeal and fiery wrath I declare that at that time there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel. The fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the beasts of the field, every creature that moves along the ground, and all the people on the face of the earth will tremble at my presence. The mountains will be overturned, the cliffs will crumble and every wall will fall to the ground. 21 I will summon a sword against Gog on all my mountains, declares the Sovereign LORD.” Historically, it’s fairly clear what some of these nations are. They include Iran, Turkey, Sudan, Libya. The exact location of other nations is not clear. Magog, Meshech & Tubal are associated with areas north of the Caucuses between the Black and Caspian Seas. These areas lie in modern-day Russia, and many people believe that Russia will be one of the nations that attacks Israel in the time Described in Exekiel. This brings us to Crimea. Until 1991, Crimea was part of the old Soviet Union led by Russia. During the last few weeks, Russia has begun to seize control of Crimea, and there is little doubt that Crimea will eventually be re-absorbed into what used to be called the Russian Soviet Empire. Many people believe that this is just Russia trying to reassert control of the nations is possessed during the time of the Soviet Union. There is, however, another aspect to Russia’s move. In 2009 several companies discovered oil and enormous pockets of natural gas in the Mediterranean Ocean off the coast of Israel. The pockets of natural gas were so large the engineers encountered problems determining their size with sonar. The USGS and other groups also say there are still more pockets of oil and gas to be found near Israel in the Mediterranean. In 2013 the offshore wells began pumping the first barrels of natural gas and oil. One of the pockets of natural gas was so large they refer to it as leviathan. Already the Israeli’s have enough natural gas to meet their power needs and are on their way to having enough petroleum as well. In early 2014 they entered into negotiations to sell their excess natural gas to Italy, with similar deals on the way with Spain and Greece. The Russians are currently the largest suppliers of natural gas to the nations of Europe. In the past, the Russians have used their ability to control the flow of natural gas to bully the European Union and recently Crimea. There’s only one little fly in the Russian ointment. Israel is selling natural gas to Europe for a third less than Russia. Continued and expanded, this could end much of Russia’s influence with the EU, not to mention a lot of Russia’s income. And Russia aside, every single other identified nation in the Ezekiel prophecy is an exporter of either oil, natural gas or both. If Israel was to become a major supplier of oil and gas to Europe and perhaps eventually the whole world, it could seriously damage all these nations. This prospect might not be something these nations would be readily willing to accept. Such a possibility might actually induce these nations to attack Israel. Currently, Russia is the only one of the possible Ezekiel prophecy attackers of Israel with significant military power. Currently, it would be very difficult for Russia to attack Israel, as they would have to sail an invasion fleet to attack the Israeli oil fields because they don’t have any good deepwater ports on the Black Sea. They would either have to sail around from the port of St. Petersburg on the Baltic and pass by Denmark, Sweden and Norway or they would have to go around through the North Atlantic from the ports of Polyarny or Murmansk on the White Sea. They would also have to pass Great Britain, Portugal and Spain and pass through the straits of Gibraltar and then pass Sicily and Italy. That would be a huge amount of ocean to cover without any chance or reinforcement or supply and they would have to pass by a large number of nations that might object to such a venture. If Russia had deep-water ports on the Black Sea, the entire venture become a lot more feasible. Crimea has two deep-water ports: Yalta and Sevastopol. All this is pure speculation. If it has any substance, we might expect to see Russia re-establishing it’s Black Sea fleet, reasserting its former-dominance over the nations surrounding the Black Sea, and securing an alliance with Turkey in order to pass through the Bosporus and into the Mediterranean Sea. For the rest of the story, read Ezekiel 38 & 39.
Posted on: Mon, 23 Jun 2014 03:13:31 +0000
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