Attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal
Debate is raging this week over the attempted assassination in England of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy who became a double agent for the United Kingdom. Skripal, his daughter, and an English policeman are in critical condition in a Salisbury hospital. The UK government says Skripal was attacked — on British soil — by Russia. They believe this because they have determined that a chemical nerve agent called Novichok was found at the site, on the victims, and in several places they visited. Novichok is considered an ultra-dangerous chemical weapon developed by and, supposedly, exclusive to Russia. Of course, Russia officially denies any involvement. But they’re not convincing.
Russia’s Federal Security Service says that Skripal exposed more than 300 Russian agents before he was arrested. Eventually, he was allowed to go to the United Kingdom in 2010 in a spy swap with the UK and the US that included the glamorous Russian spy Anna Chapman.
Family Disappearing
Ostensibly, Skripal has been living a quiet life in Salisbury, England. However, since 2010 his wife has died of cancer, his brother was killed in a mysterious car crash in Russia, and his son died of quick-onset “liver disease” while on vacation in Saint Petersburg. Though no one outside the family thought any of this unusual, the Skripal family had begun to grow uneasy. Were international intrigues afoot? Apparently so.
It doesn’t help Russia’s case that the Russians have a track record of going after dissenters and betrayers. In 2015, Boris Nemtsov, a popular opposition candidate for president was gunned down on a Moscow street.
Most famously, in 2006, another Russian dissident was murdered in England. Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned with Polonium-210 placed in his green tea at a London hotel restaurant. His death took three weeks and was excruciating.
The chemical weapon Novichok, which is outlawed by international convention and which Russia has never declared (but that’s another story!), was an inefficient method of murder, but a brilliant way to send a message to Russian operatives around the world: “Betray us and we will find you and kill you and the ones you love.”
And by openly using an outlawed weapon of mass destruction on the sovereign soil of a fellow member of the United Nations Security Council, Russian President Vladimir Putin may be sending a message of his own. He may be telling the world that he will not be held to the normal standards of nation-states. He will not respect agreements with other nations, or even their sovereignty.
Or, it may have been a bungled attempt by outsourced, freelance “assets” to control a crumbling intelligence network. At this point, no one knows for certain.
The UK government, however, is approaching it as an official Russian operation on their soil. In fact, the Home Secretary told Parliament it was an “act of war.” Their first response was to expel 23 Russian diplomats. Of course, Russia retaliated in kind.
Defining Moment
Nikki Haley, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, excoriated Russia in the Security Council. She called this “a defining moment,” and said that if the Security Council does not hold Russia accountable, then it will lose any credibility it has left.
No one knows for certain if Vladimir Putin is mainly smoke and mirrors, trying desperately to support his image as a strong leader for the Russian people by increasingly confronting the West, or if he is as ruthless and devious as he appears. Either way, he is unbelievably dangerous because he holds iron control in Russia and has at his command an unparalleled arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. And he has, on several occasions, implicitly threatened the use of nuclear weapons.
Vladimir Putin once said that he thought the greatest catastrophe of the twentieth century was the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Not “The War to End All Wars.” Not World War II. Not the Holocaust. Not the slaughter of 50 million Russians and Ukrainians by Stalin. Not the extermination of up to 80 million Chinese by Mao Tse-tung. Not any earthquake or tsunami or volcano. Not the famines or influenza epidemics that killed millions. But the fall of the Soviet Union.
That alone should tell us all we need to know about the man who may well lead Russia into Israel on the road to Armageddon.
The Coming Invasion of Israel
To that end, on this week’s program I will lay out the case for the Bible’s prophecies concerning Russia’s leadership in the future invasion of Israel by a “northern confederacy.” I will show you why scholars through the centuries have believed it will be Russia, Iran, and Turkey who head that alliance.
But as scary as the future will be, true believers in Jesus Christ don’t have to fear it. In fact, we can rest in His promises of peace, safety, and salvation. In fact, the simple fact that today’s news headlines confirm the Bible’s prophecies about these days, tells us that we can fully trust everything in God’s Word. And God promises us that He will never leave us or forsake us, but He will always protect us and will rescue us from the horrors that lie ahead.
transmitted by Hal Lindsey – 3/23/18
Editor’s note – sub-headings added to this article to enhance readability; nothing has been done to alter the message or meaning.
