Epicenter 2.0

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  It’s important to note that just because the leaders of Russia, Iran, Germany, and the other coalition countries have set themselves in opposition to God does not mean God does not love them and the people under their rule. To the contrary, Christ died to save his enemies. The apostle Paul—himself once a chief enemy of Jesus Christ—wrote in Romans 5:8-9 that “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” and that “we shall be saved from the wrath of God” and be saved from condemnation if we turn to Christ and ask Him to be our Savior (NASB). Jesus said in Matthew 5:44, “I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (NASB). The apostle Peter said in Acts 2:21 that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” There is, therefore, hope for all, including those in nations aligned with Gog. But Russians, Iranians, Germans, and others cannot choose to follow Christ if they have all perished. Thus, the God of Israel has given the world a warning about the coming judgment before it occurs to give individuals in these target countries time to repent of their personal and national sins and to receive Jesus Christ by faith as their personal Savior and Lord. What’s more, I believe that he will also allow many people in these countries to survive these judgments so they have a second chance to understand and accept his love and grace.

  A GLOBAL STORY

  When my father and I were in Moscow in 2005, we met with the senior pastor of one of the largest evangelical churches in Russia. Through an interpreter, we talked for more than an hour about the spiritual and political climate in Russia and the former Soviet Union and about the biblical prophecies of the last days. He told me he firmly believes that Ezekiel 38–39 refer directly to Russia’s future and that the War of Gog and Magog is rapidly approaching. He said he had just preached a sermon on the topic a few months before my visit and was trying to prepare the believers of Russia for the dark days ahead for their country.

  This is not an easy task, he said. The younger pastors of the country—many of whom came to faith in Christ only after the collapse of the Soviet empire and have little or no formal Bible college or seminary training—do not know much about such prophecies. But he insisted that it is an important task and one to which he is deeply committed. “We need to wake up the church before it happens so Christians can turn Russians’ hearts back to God. And we need to be ready for after it happens since so many Russians will be in such great need.”252

  The War of Gog and Magog will not be the most important day in history. That was the resurrection from the dead of the crucified Jesus of Nazareth. But Ezekiel’s war will certainly be the most tragically dramatic moment in modern history, and it will be witnessed by billions. Some five hundred people personally witnessed the resurrected Jesus in the forty days after his resurrection. But Ezekiel 39:21 tells us that “all the nations will see” God’s judgment (NASB). With the proliferation of televisions and satellite dishes around the globe, we are now living in the first age in history when this prophecy could truly be fulfilled.

  This really struck home with me when my father and I were in Moscow and the school in Beslan was seized by radical Islamic terrorists. Few had ever even heard of this obscure town in southern Russia, much less seen pictures of its people and its streets. We certainly hadn’t. But no sooner had the crisis erupted than live images were being beamed from Beslan to televisions all over the world. This will be the case when God’s judgment falls. It will be the most televised, most reported story ever, giving every nation on earth the opportunity to see the God of Israel display his glory.

  What will happen when the smoke clears from the War of Gog and Magog? This is the subject of our final chapters.

  CHAPTER TWELVE: FUTURE HEADLINE

  IRAQ EMERGES FROM CHAOS AS REGION’S WEALTHIEST COUNTRY

  When it comes to the future of Iraq, there is no shortage of naysayers.

  Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, a Democrat, says America may have won the war in Iraq but warns “we may lose the peace.”253

  Senator Robert Byrd, the Democrat from West Virginia, says “the cost of the war has spiraled,” yet “the situation in Iraq has gone from bad to worse” and “the level of violence only keeps growing, week after week, month after month.”254

  Democratic senator John Kerry of Massachusetts says that “invading Iraq has created a crisis of historic proportions, and, if we do not change course, there is the prospect of a war with no end in sight.” He adds that President Bush “misled, miscalculated, and mismanaged every aspect of this undertaking and he has made the achievement of our objective—a stable Iraq, secure within its borders, with a representative government—harder to achieve.”255

  Democrats are not alone in their lack of hope for Iraq.

  Senator Chuck Hagel, the Nebraska Republican, says, “Things aren’t getting better; they’re getting worse” and warns point blank: “The reality is, we’re losing in Iraq.”256 He adds, “I think our involvement there has destabilized the Middle East. And the longer we stay there, I think . . . further destabilization will occur.”257

  Tucker Carlson, formerly one of CNN’s Republican commentators, was once a big supporter of “regime change” and getting rid of Saddam Hussein and his thugs. Now he says, “I am embarrassed that I supported the war in Iraq.”258

  The list of such doubting Thomases in Washington and in the media goes on and on, as do the list of books preemptively declaring defeat. Among them:

  LOSING IRAQ: INSIDE THE POSTWAR RECONSTRUCTION FIASCO

  by David L. Phillips

  SQUANDERED VICTORY: THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION AND THE BUNGLED EFFORT TO BRING DEMOCRACY TO IRAQ

  by Larry Diamond

  HOW AMERICA LOST IRAQ

  by Aaron Glantz

  IMPERIAL HUBRIS: WHY THE WEST IS LOSING THE WAR ON TERROR

  by Michael Scheuer

  Such pessimism is shortsighted in my view, but to be fair, it is understandable. The third anniversary of the liberation of Baghdad in April 2006 was, after all, marked not by a full withdrawal of U.S. forces but by a ferocious insurgency launching wave upon wave of suicide bombings. Vehicles were being blown up regularly by roadside bombs. American casualties were rising. Iraqi civilian casualties were rising. Iraq seemed to be teetering on the edge of civil war, and calls by American politicians and editorial boards to withdraw our forces and let the Iraqis take care of the mess themselves were increasing.

  But those who argue that Iraq’s liberation will not succeed in bringing about a season of stability and prosperity are making the mistake of viewing current events through only political and economic lenses. As such, they are unable to see the big picture. For when one views Iraq’s future through the third lens of Scripture, a much different picture emerges.

  IRAQ THROUGH THE THIRD LENS

  The truth is that Iraq will form a strong, stable, and decisive central government. Iraq’s military and internal security forces will be well trained, well equipped, and increasingly effective. The insurgency will be crushed, support for it will evaporate, and foreign terrorists will stop flowing into the country.

  As the situation stabilizes, Iraqi roads and airports will become safe, and people will finally be able to move freely about the country. Tourists will pour in to visit the country’s many ancient archeological sites and national treasures. Business leaders will also pour into the country, as will foreign investment, particularly to get Iraq’s oil fields, refineries, and shipping facilities up to twenty-first-century standards.

  In short order, Iraq will emerge as an oil superpower, rivaling Saudi Arabia. Trillions of petrodollars will flood into the country, and as this happens, Iraq will become a magnet for banks and multinational corporations that will set up their regional and international headquarters in the country.

  High-rise office buildings, luxury apartments, and single-family homes will be constructed. Theaters, concert halls, parks, and malls will be built. The ancient city of Babylon will emerge virtually overnight like a pho
enix rising from the ashes to become one of the modern wonders of the world.

  As I described in The Last Days, The Ezekiel Option, and most recently The Copper Scroll, Iraq is about to see a political and economic renaissance unparalleled in the history of the world. The people of Iraq are about to experience a level of personal and national wealth and power they have never dreamed possible. The pundits who have written the country off to failure and chaos will be absolutely stunned by such a dramatic turn of events, much as those who said the Berlin wall would never come down and the Soviet empire would never collapse found themselves scratching their heads in disbelief just a few years later.

  How can I be so sure? By looking at Iraq through the third lens and analyzing the advance intelligence the Bible provides.

  Iraq is described by the Hebrew prophets Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel, as well as by the apostle John in the book of Revelation, as a center of unprecedented wealth and power in the last days before the return of Christ. The city of Babylon not only literally comes back from the dead in the last days, but the writers of Scripture portray her as Iraq’s future capital. In Revelation 18, Babylon is described as a “great city” and a center of “extravagant luxury.”

  Iraq is described as one of the world’s great commercial hubs, where “the merchants of the world” come to trade “great quantities of gold, silver, jewels, and pearls,” along with all kinds of other “expensive” goods and services that entice “the kings of the world” and draw ships from everywhere on the planet (Revelation 18:9-12). When the people of the world think about the great wealth of Iraq’s future capital, they will ask themselves and each other, “Where is there another city as great as this?” (Revelation 18:18).

  To be sure, we also learn from the book of Revelation that Iraq will eventually become a center of great evil as well and will one day face a judgment similar to the War of Gog and Magog. But the Scriptures are clear: before that, Iraq will be rich and powerful.

  What’s more, the judgment of Russia, Iran, and other Middle Eastern countries will work to Iraq’s advantage. Oil and gas exports from those countries will be slowed or halted altogether because of the terrible destruction described by Ezekiel. Iraq, meanwhile, as one of the few Middle Eastern countries not having participated in the attack on Israel, will be one of the few oil powers (besides Israel) left intact when the smoke clears. As oil and gas prices skyrocket due to severe shortages, the world will become increasingly dependent upon Iraq for energy, and money will pour into the country’s coffers like never before.

  But first, Iraq must become stable, peaceful, and free. Only then can the physical and financial infrastructure for such explosive growth be set into place. Only then will international oil companies invest heavily in refurbishing Iraq’s drilling, refining, and export equipment and facilities. Only then will the merchants of the world begin establishing headquarters in Iraq and dramatically increasing the level of trade done in and through Iraq. What’s remarkable is that those who are watching carefully can see the early stages of such developments happening right now.

  A MODERN-DAY DANIEL

  Few people are more qualified to talk about the future of his country than Iraqi general Georges Sada, for he knows firsthand how far his people have come already.

  Now in his sixties, Sada has served as the chief spokesman for the Iraqi prime minister and as a senior advisor to the Iraqi president, and he was one of the chief architects of the new Iraqi military. But he was once Iraq’s top fighter pilot, his country’s air vice-marshal, and a top military advisor to Saddam Hussein—a role he did not seek and one that almost cost him his life.

  In November 1990—only two months before U.S. and coalition forces liberated Kuwait—Saddam ordered Sada and his colleagues to plan a massive attack against Israel using every plane in the Iraqi air force. If the U.S. dared to attack Iraq, Saddam vowed, then he would order a retaliatory strike against Israel that would involve dropping chemical weapons on Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, and other Israeli population centers, killing hundreds of thousands if not millions of Israelis.

  Sada was horrified. As a devout evangelical Christian working for a ferociously anti-Christian regime, he had refused to join the Baath Party and was deeply pained to see what Saddam was doing to his beloved country. Yet, remarkably, he had been promoted through the ranks anyway, partly because of his flying ability and leadership skills, partly because of his reputation for telling his superiors the truth no matter what the consequences, and partly because Saddam did not see him as a direct and personal threat to him and his regime.

  Now Sada faced the most difficult moment of his life. If he expressed even doubt—much less opposition—to the plan, he could be signing his own death warrant. But how could he keep silent? He abhorred the thought of annihilating Jews. In his eyes, the Jews were God’s chosen people and the authors of the Scriptures he had loved since growing up in the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh (modern-day Mosul). What’s more, he knew that since most of Iraq’s bombers and fighter jets would no doubt be shot down before entering Israeli airspace, most of Iraq’s chemical-weapon-laden bombs would likely land on Jordan and Syria, killing thousands if not millions of Iraq’s neighbors.

  So when Saddam asked for his counsel, Sada said a silent prayer asking God for mercy, braced himself for the worst, and refused to support the plan. In fact, in front of at least ninety other senior military officers, he actually sought to dissuade Saddam from attacking Israel by launching into a highly technical description of Israel’s air-defense systems and the enormous challenges Iraqi pilots would have going up against superior technology and training. His presentation lasted an hour and forty-one minutes, and when it was over, the room was dead silent.

  Not many men disagreed with Saddam and lived to tell about it. Several of Sada’s colleagues told him later that they had been certain he was going to be executed on the spot. But by God’s grace, he survived. So, of course, did Israel.

  On December 17, 1990, Saddam did, in fact, sign the order for the massive chemical-weapons attack against the Jewish state if the U.S. attacked Iraq first. But when the Gulf War began on the night of January 16, 1991, American and coalition forces destroyed Iraq’s air force so quickly that Saddam never had the chance to implement his order.

  I first heard about Sada while living in Cairo, working on this book. Sada’s memoir, Saddam’s Secrets: How an Iraqi General Defied and Survived Saddam Hussein, had just been released in the U.S., and a friend had e-mailed me to suggest that I read it as soon as possible.

  When I got back to the States, I read Sada’s book in a single day and tracked him down for an interview. What I found was a man who understands both his country’s past and its future far better than any American journalist or politician, because he has been at the center of events there for decades and has viewed them all through the third lens of Scripture. In my view, Sada is a modern-day Daniel, a man of faith and prayer whom God used to speak truth to a modern-day Nebuchadnezzar.

  IRAQ’S NEW RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

  In his book Sada describes working with Iraq’s new civilian leadership in Baghdad to help plan their nation’s recovery from the Saddam era. He also describes his meetings in Washington with various high-ranking White House, State Department, and Pentagon officials. It is all interesting and important material, but when I interviewed Sada, one of the first things I wanted to know was what it was like to stand before Saddam Hussein and actually hear him say, “Georges, I’ve decided that the air force will attack Israel and wipe her out with chemical weapons.”

  “I was thinking of it in two ways,” he told me. “One, as a Christian, as a believer. Second, as a national officer that belonged to the Iraqi forces. . . . As a Christian, I could not accept [this order] to send two waves of fighters to attack Israel, one wave through Jordan and one through Syria. I knew the capabilities of the Israeli air force and their air defenses and their plans to destroy all aircraft coming from the east before enteri
ng the Israeli borders. So this means the bombs were [mostly] going to drop on Jordan and Syria. . . . But with ninety-eight aircraft, some of them would still penetrate to Israel. Just imagine as a Christian [the deaths that would result] as all three countries were going to be hit by chemicals.”259

  Sada could not bear the thought of having to stand before Jesus Christ on the Day of Judgment with such a sin on his conscience. Nor could he bear to see the destruction that would be unleashed upon his own people if Saddam’s plan was successful.

  What’s more, “as a tactical general and a strategist, I also knew the Israelis would have the right to retaliate with nuclear weapons and they would destroy our big cities like Baghdad, Mosul, Basra, and the others. So what was the benefit of doing this?”

  “What gave you the courage to try to dissuade Saddam?” I asked.

  “Believe me, only Jesus. Only. I know how brave I am. I am not a coward. But to be that brave—to put your life in front of Saddam—he could shoot you at any second—there were some people who said, ‘Georges is finished. Today his head is gone’ . . . but you see, it was Jesus who gave me the courage.”

  Twelve years later, it was Saddam Hussein, not Sada, who was finished.

  American and coalition forces liberated Baghdad on April 9, 2003. Iraqis cheered in the streets in those heady first days. They sang and danced and wept as they tore down the forty-foot statue of Saddam in Fardus Square.