PUTIN RISING: But is he "Gog"? - Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog

Russian PM Vladimir Putin at a recent air show. (AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel)

>> With threats rising against America, Israel, and the Church, encourage your pastor to host “The Gathering Storm” special simulcast on Saturday, October 22nd. For more details — and to see a brief video — please click here.

After keeping a relatively low profile for the last several years, Vladimir Putin is rising.  In recent weeks, the Russian leader — currently serving as his country’s prime minister — once again has been making headlines, stoking controversy, and seeming to position himself to run for president of Russia again in March 2012. Consider the latest:

• Putin is attacking Americans, saying we are “living like parasites off the global economy and their monopoly of the dollar.”
• Putin is talking openly of creating a merger with the neighboring country of Belarus, run by a tyrannical dictator.
• Putin is talking of creating a Eurasian economic union in Central Asia, similar politically and economically to the European Union but likely dominated by the Kremlin.
• Putin is drawing criticism from Mikhail Gorbachev who says Putin’s political party is a bad copy of the Soviet Communist Party — anti-freedom and corrupt.
• Meanwhile, Putin is fueling speculation that is he is planning to run for president again in 2012 , though he hasn’t officially announced.

A lot can happen between now and then, so it’s by no means certain Putin will return to full power. But should Putin come back, it will not bode well for Israel, the U.S., or Europe. Putin is a power-hungry, greedy, authoritarian, Czar wannabe. He is determined to expand Russian wealth, power and control over her neighbors. He has worked especially hard to build strategic alliances with Radical Islamic leaders and states in the Middle East. Over the years, people have asked me if Putin might be the Russian dictator referred to as “Gog” in the Biblical prophecies of “Gog and Magog” in Ezekiel 38-39. I suspect as Putin continues to re-emerge, those questions will begin to be asked again. Here’s my quick answer: It’s too soon to draw such a conclusion. There’s much more that would have to happen to indicate that Putin was the “Gog” of Bible prophecy. But there’s no question in my mind that Putin is Gog-esque. He is dangerous, and both Israel and the West should keep a close and wary eye on him, especially given all that Putin has done to build a strategic alliance between Russia and Iran and the other countries mentioned in the “Gog and Magog” prophecies.