Suspicion Grows between East and West

As we return to Cold War-level tensions, could World War III be on the horizon?

Just as the Bible predicts, global tensions are once again rising, with Israel caught in the center.

On Thursday, March 25, China expressed its desire to safeguard the Iran nuclear deal in order to normalize relations between those two nations. Obviously, China stands to benefit economically from a strong relationship with Iran. This is clear from the way Iran “indirectly” moved mass amounts of crude oil into China in recent months, passing under the international radar. It makes me wonder: What else might be taking place under the radar?

Then on March 26, media outlets reported the startling news that former CDC Director Robert Redfield believes that the coronavirus may have leaked out of a Wuhan laboratory. “It’s not unusual,” he said, “for respiratory pathogens that are being worked on in a laboratory to infect the laboratory worker.”

Redfield clarified that he does not imply intentionality on China’s part, but this doesn’t change the fact that one of the most respected virologists in the world just accused America’s greatest competitor of killing hundreds of thousands of people, shutting down the entire global economy, and then lying about it. Throughout the pandemic, other members of the Trump administration pushed the same theory.

To be fair, there is no scientific evidence that Redfield is right. He has admitted he personally has no evidence of China’s leak and was only sharing a hunch. In fact, the World Health Organization conducted a months-long investigation and concluded that a lab leak was extremely unlikely.

The world is a powder keg

But it still highlights the mounting tensions between East and West, which we haven’t seen on this level since the Cold War. Given past military cooperation between Russia and Iran, Turkey’s gradual drift from West to East, and ongoing flashpoints in the Middle East, it seems reasonable to conclude that the world is a powder keg waiting to be triggered.

Personally, I believe the trigger very well could be a preemptive strike by Israel on one of Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran has vowed retaliation for such a move, and in such a scenario, it seems possible—if not likely—that this could trigger World War III.

Or, the Bible calls it, the Gog-Magog War.

As I have noted before, the Gog-Magog War is not the same as Armageddon. You might think of Gog-Magog as World War III and Armageddon as World War IV, occurring seven years later. If it seems outlandish to imagine two world wars happening so close to one another, remember that the first two world wars occurred together because the issues of the first war were never completely resolved.

First peace, then mass chaos

With that history in mind, it’s not hard to foresee a global conflagration in which the loss of life is so great that peace is hastily reached under a charismatic leader—the Antichrist. Just before he comes to power, the Rapture will occur, causing mass chaos on earth and accelerating geopolitical tension until everything boils over in the battle of Armageddon. 

Some would interject that President Biden also aims to reenter the Iran Deal, but experts say that international tensions and legal red tape would make that process slow and difficult. Furthermore, President Biden isn’t exactly making friends with Iran’s allies. Recently he called Vladimir Putin a “killer” and said that Chairman Xi “doesn’t have a democratic bone in his body.”

As much as Biden would like to reenter the Iran Deal, it is unlikely to happen any time soon. It seems that the East/West divide is here to stay.

Prophets foresaw today’s possibilities

China’s rise to the international stage was not foreseen by any of the secular experts just a few decades ago, but students of Scripture have recognized it for a very long time. When I introduced my latest book, Tipping Point, I mentioned how influential another end-times prophecy book had been in my own study of prophecy. That book was the bestselling book of the 1970s, Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth.

At the time, Lindsey studied Revelation 9 and predicted that China would rise to the world stage with the capacity to assemble a 200 million-man army. It seemed impossible in biblical times and just as outlandish in the 1970s and 1980s. But what secular newspapers now report, prophets foresaw thousands of years earlier because of the Spirit’s inspiration.

I really do believe that World War III is coming very soon, with an even worse war to follow. What both wars have in common is that Israel is at the center and that God will be on Israel’s side.

The even better news is that God is also on the side of all who believe in Jesus Christ. This is why you don’t need to fear. There may be a world war around the corner, but around the corner from that will be the voice of the archangel, the return of Christ, and the marriage supper of the Lamb.

Come, Lord Jesus!