Libya war a precursor to Ezekiel 38-39?

The Wall Street Journal Reported today: “Oil futures settled at their highest level in 2 1/2 years Wednesday as air strikes continued against Libya and the U.S. reported a sharp drop in gasoline inventories.” On New York commodities markets, ‘Light Sweet Crude’ settled at $105.75 a barrel, the highest we’ve seen since September 2008.

The US and Allied forces air strikes on Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s military infrastructure and Western sanctions have stopped the 1.3 million barrel per day of Libyan output and have caused commodity futures traders to speculate that oil supply will get worse before it gets better. Kyle Cooper, managing partner at IAF Energy Advisors in Houston stated in the WSJ article, ”If this spreads into Saudi Arabia, $120 a barrel is going to look cheap. People are scared to death to be short.”

In Bible prophecy, Libya is included in the Russian-Iranian alliance against Israel in “the last days.” Ezekiel 38-39, tells us that ‘Put’ is one of the nations that joins the ‘Gog/Magog’ alliance against the nation of Israel. Ancient historian Flavius Josephus records that ‘Put’ or ‘Phut’ is ‘Libyos.’ Ancient Libyos included the territory of modern Libya. Regardless of the outcome of the current military and political struggle in Gadhafi’s Libya, Bible prophecy tells us that one day, Libya will be a part of the alliance with an ‘evil thought’ in its head, to invade the land of Israel to take a ‘spoil’ – maybe oil? Bible prophecy seems to be coming into fullness on almost a daily basis in Israel. Is the current Libyan war a precursor to the fulfillment Ezekiel 38-39? We’ll keep watching.

Russia Tried to Buy in to Israel’s Gas Discovery

New’s of Russia’s interest in partnering in Israel’s Tamar-1 gas field came out in court this week.

“Gazprom has been trying to enter the Israeli energy market for years. Missing out on the Tamar prospect is a major loss, because the gas discovery at the prospect would have enabled the company to become a major supplier to Israel and other countries in the Mediterranean Basin.

The Tamar discovery also puts an end to possible Israeli gas imports from Russia via Turkey via the proposed undersea infrastructure conduit, which would have cost $2-3 billion to build.

Yossi Levy said in response, “There were preliminary talks with Gazprom after BG Group announced that it was quitting the Tamar prospect in 2005. Gazprom was interested in the exploration, but no deal was reached.” (source: http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000426758&fid=942)

Ezekiel 38 speaks of God putting “hooks” in the jaws of Gog (Russia), drawing it down into Israel. Very interesting that Russia is already at work to secure the Mediterranean energy market. Could this be the beginning? We’ll stay on top of this story.

“Energy Independence” by Nathan Jones

The following article by Nathan Jones appeared in The Christ in Prophecy Journal. You can read the original article at: http://www.lamblion.us/2008/09/energy-independence.html.

Other than the economic downturn most of the world is grappling with due to the Sub-Prime Mortgage Crisis, no other topic has been more center stage lately than the energy crisis. Painful fill-ups at the pumps emptying wallets, food shortages ravaging the third world as corn is converted into ethanol, inflation rising as transportation costs are passed onto consumers, and the devaluation of the dollar as the U.S. government mass-prints money to keep up in competitive buying of fuel — all these and many more troubles have befallen the world over the amount of available oil.

“Black Gold,” “Texas Tea,” “Liquid Dinosaur” — the readiness of this substance is the source of troubles in modern world politics. It will also be a huge motivator in the prophetic scenes of Israel overcoming their Arab neighbors (Psalm 83), Russia and Iran trying and failing to seize the Middle East oil fields (Ezekiel 38,39), and the Antichrist’s struggle against Israel to control the Middle East to establish his Revived Roman Empire (Daniel 2,7).

While the world goes ga-ga over oil, Israel instead has been leading the way in becoming energy independent. With no known oil of their own, Israel knows that currently they are totally dependent on the millions of hostile Arabs intent on destroying them. If it wasn’t for God and the greed of OPEC being greater than their Islamic conviction to utterly remove Israel from the face of the earth, Israel would have been reduced to an agrarian society and destroyed by now.

Companies like Zion Oil and Gas, Inc., via The Joseph Project have been vigorously drilling for that questionable Israeli oil, believing the Bible supports that Israel is sitting on trillions of dollars underground. They base their search on Genesis 49:25-26; Deuteronomy 32:24; Deuteronomy 33:24; and Job 29:6. These verses speak of “blessings of the deep that lies below” and “oil from the flinty crag” and “let him bathe his feet in oil” and “the rock poured out for me streams of olive oil.”

Whether oil is under Israel or not, where Israel’s true search for energy independence lies is in its brilliant innovations in alternative energy sources like solar and battery power. Israeli scientists have released revolutionary second generation solar cells that are light years ahead of current installs. Israel is also looking to be the first country by 2020 to have eliminated all gas-powered cars with battery-powered cars. Because of Israel’s small size, driving distances are well within the current 124 mile battery limit. Israel is motivated to be totally energy independent because it knows it is in a race to survive.

The United States and EU, instead of selling out Israel to appease oil-rich Arab countries to keep the supply of oil running, should instead be partnering with Israel in their breakthrough advancements in energy. The United States could indeed be not just energy independent by following Israel’s lead and partnering with them, but also become major suppliers of energy to the world and eliminate the woefully unbalanced trade deficit.

Unfortunately, as end-time players are nearly ready to fulfill their prophetic roles and fall all over themselves to get Middle East oil, the day the world is free of oil tyranny with energy independence may well have to wait till Jesus is on the throne during His Millennial Kingdom. Pity our short-sightedness and greed.