Donetsk leaflet: Jews must register or face deportation; Russia, Ukraine, and prophecy

This is a summary of what has been going on in the Crimea and Ukraine with Russia this past month. Russia and the Baltics have some prophetic significance in the upcoming Ezekiel 38/Gog Magog war and the Tribulation wars. I don't know much about that area of the world so I haven't been covering it from the geo-political angle. But something came to light today that must be addressed, because it is of high and clear prophetic significance.

[UPDATE: flier accepted as authentic now seen as a possible fake. But still, even that someone would think to do this as a prank, OR as a real incident, bespeaks prophecy. Like Putin joking he won't annex Alaska because it's too cold...]

[UPDATE 2, Joel Rosenberg weighs in: Leaflets ordering Jews to register in east Ukraine city or be deported creating fear. Threat evocative of 1930s. Pro-Russian separatists say order isn’t real. But someone is trying to scare Ukrainian Jews. The question is: Who?

First, the news,

April 15, 2014: First deaths in Ukraine; Putin admits Crimea invaded
A clash outside a military base ended with the first deaths so far in a Ukraine anti-militant operation as Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted Thursday in a radio interview that Russian soldiers did secretly invade Crimea to help pro-Russian Ukrainians take over the province by force. Meanwhile, high-level talks aimed at calming soaring tensions over the crisis in Ukraine were being held in Geneva between representatives of the United States, European Union and Russia. Three pro-Russian militants were killed in a skirmish outside a Ukrainian National Guard base in the Black Sea port of Mariupol in an attack Ukraine’s interior ministry called the bloodiest to date by militants who want the entire East Ukraine to go the way of Crimea. Crimea was annexed by Putin after Ukraine militants took over the province with the help of mysterious well-armed squads of masked soldiers who sealed off the province to prevent Ukraine from bringing in troops. Ukraine said Putin is doing the same thing in East Ukraine, but he denied it.

April 15, 2014: The UK Telegraph reports that the Ukraine is “on the brink” of civil war as the government launched an “antiterrorist operation” against pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country.

The Washington Post editorialized about Russian President Vladimir Putin's ambitions. Keep in mind that by the time the antichrist comes to the fore and he is revealed, the world will have been divided into ten geo-political regions led by ten kings. (Dan 2:31-35, 40-45; 7:7-8, 19-24 ; Rev 13:1-2; 17:3, 7, 12-16.) These kings will be the most ambitious of the most ambitious, and the most ruthlessly successful, if they end up as one of only ten leaders of the entire globe. The Gog Magog war is sparked by a Russian leader who invades Israel under the influence of demonic Gog. The leaders of the last of the last days will have huge ambitions and will not be afraid to put their tanks where their mouths are.

Of geo-political realignments:
Al Arabiya.net has recently described the current standoff between the West and Moscow concerning Ukraine as potentially the gravest instance of tension in the post-Cold War era. The tensions between Russia and the West seem to be causing some significant geopolitical re-alignments following Russia’s recent political aggressions in relation to Ukraine and Crimea. (Source)

Of dictatorship ambitions:
The Obama administration is underestimating Putin’s ambitions
President Obama has dismissed Russia as a “regional” power that “leads no bloc of nations, no global ideology.” But the Obama administration has consistently underestimated Vladimir Putin and continues to do so by asserting that Russia is isolated. Putin has laid the groundwork to assemble a powerful alternative to the transatlantic alliance.

Russia stands at the center of dozens of nations uncomfortable with or unsuited to the Western principles that President Obama described as “self-evident.” They chafe at Western control of global institutions and norms. Putin aims to offer them alternatives and is strengthening key relationships that will allow him to do so — with disgruntled mid-powers such as India, with regimes that have been kept at arm’s length for their behavior and with certain European political elites. t is wrong to think that Crimea is Moscow’s only strategic objective. As Putin’s stock at home soars, he is likely to methodically challenge the European Union and, especially, NATO. Russia’s willingness to use overwhelming force and the West’s inability to effectively respond give him two key advantages.

I believe those news excerpts bring us up to general speed on the Russian involvement in Ukraine and Crimea. Here is a map of Russia and the Baltics. The 'A' Pin is on Crimea with Ukraine just to the north. Click to enlarge.
There are two main reasons God will enact the Tribulation. The Tribulation is a hellish 7 years on earth that precede Jesus' bodily return. One reason is to deliver His long-promised stored-up wrath on an unbelieving world. The other main reason is to punish the Israelites, today's Jews. He never finished His punishment of them and paused His prophetic plan 7 years short of the decree. The Tribulation is the resumption of the prophetic clock of the Jews in God's timetable.

What has He been doing since the pause, you might ask? He has been building His church. (Matthew 16:18). When the Jews rejected Jesus, and refused to share Him with the world through the Good News, He founded His church and allowed the Gentile nations to be His light. (Acts 13:44-47; Romans 11:11-12).

When the church is complete in quota containing all the names He set down since before the beginning of time, (Revelation 13:8) He will rapture us and resume His plan with the Jews. (Romans 11:25). This link explains the prophetic clock and God's ever unfolding but differing plans for His different peoples (Jews, Church, unsaved).

One of the events prophesied to take place during this time is a Holocaust of Jews. The Tribulation holocaust will take 2/3 of Israel's Jews, demonic hatred of them will be so fervent and evil. (Revelation 12:13, Zechariah 13:8-9).

The German Holocaust of WWII began seemingly innocently enough. Jews were told to register. In 1937 and 1938, Jews in Germany were told to register all property. All Jews were obliged to carry identity cards that indicated their Jewish heritage, and, in the autumn of 1938, all Jewish passports were stamped with an identifying letter “J.” In January 1940, Polish Jews were ordered to register all property. The Holocaust Encyclopedia explains that of the order to register, it was "a prelude to the gradual expropriation of their material wealth by the state." 

Well, it's happening again.

Donetsk leaflet: Jews must register or face deportation
Fear replaced communal atmosphere in Donetsk's Jewish community as armed men handed out a leaflet Passover eve calling on Jews register their religion and property with the interim pro-Russian government or face deportation and loss of citizenship. A leaflet distributed in Donetsk, Ukraine calling for all Jews over 16 years old to register as Jews marred the Jewish community's Passover festivities Monday (Passover eve), replacing them with feelings of concern. The leaflet demanded the city's Jews supply a detailed list of all the property they own, or else have their citizenship revoked, face deportation and see their assets confiscated. Donetsk, a Ukraine province with 4.3 million people - 10 percent of Ukraine's population - and 17,000 Jews, is home to much of the country's heavy industry, and is thus the biggest prize of the eastern regions where pro-Russian separatists have captured government buildings in the past week." [HT to The Sovereign]

These events I've related to you may or may not have direct prophetic implications. In my opinion, they do. Jan Markell of Olive Tree Views listed 16 converging end of days signs, and my goodness, seeing them listed out like that does give one pause for thought of the times in which we are living.

Christian persecution is rising exponentially. This headline from the Christin Post mentions China, but it's emblematic of worldwide persecution of Christians. "Gov't Persecution of Christians in China Worsens Significantly: Persecution rose by 38.82 percent since 2012. It's the same in most places for Christians, and Jews are experiencing it too. Attacks on synagogues are up, and the Kansas City Jewish Center shootings this week are just one example of similar attacks and killings worldwide against Jews. And now the order for Jews to register their religion in the Ukraine city...is another highly significant sign of converging prophecy.

Tomorrow I'll write about the horrific rise in food prices. That is another sign.

Please understand the Good News. When Adam sinned, he separated humankind from intimate fellowship with God, and this barred our unholy selves from entering heaven. God had a plan though, and that was to send Jesus, His Son, to earth to preach reconciliation, repentance, and holiness to first the Jews and the world. He died as the sinless lamb upon the cross as bloody sacrifice for us with God unleashing His wrath upon Jesus' broken body. Jesus was sinless and thus lived the perfectly holy life God requires for entry to heaven. Satisfied, and with His wrath exhausted, He raised Jesus from the dead and brought Him to heaven and sat Him at His right hand.

Now, any person believing in Jesus as resurrected Messiah and having repented of their sins can enter heaven through Jesus as the door. Any person rejecting Jesus will have to endure God's wrath for their sins for all eternity.

Death seals the choice. If you die in your sins it is too late. Please don't leave resolving these questions until it is too late. As it is written in Dante Alighieri's famous medieval Italian literary masterpiece, The Inferno, here is hell's gate, and the plaque above it says, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

Jesus is all hope. He is the only hope. Apart from Him, there is none.
Illustration by Gustave Dore, wikimedia commons
And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:15)

I pray your name be found in the Lamb's Book of Life, and then you have this hope to look forward to:

"But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city." (Hebrews 11:16)

Putin with dictator ambitions desires a better country, but he will find that his country won't last. Please be reconciled to Jesus and live in a better country, the eternal one. The city is New Jerusalem, and Jesus is there.


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