Going Up and Coming Down

Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama

According to President Vladimir Putin, Russia's native population has gotten so low that drastic measures are needed to encourage young Russian men to marry and raise large families.

And so, Czar Putin has come up with a novel idea to reverse Russia's declining birthrates. From the Moscow Times: The stylish trio of Boyz II Men, the most successful R&B group of all time, is coming to Moscow on Feb. 6. The group will perform a selection of their classic and new romantic ballads, hopefully giving Russian men some inspiration ahead of St. Valentine's Day.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/arts_n_ideas/article/boyz-ii-men-expect-muscovites-to-bring-a-game-to-concert/474719.html

Whether the Boyz II Men idea actually works on impressionable young Russians, the results certainly won't be known until at least nine months after the concert. But what is now well known is the fact that Russia and the United States have become the exact opposites in an end time world where the wise and shrewd rise to prominence while the fat, lazy and stupid sink like a boulder in the ocean.

America wasn't always fat, lazy and stupid. The U.S. was once the most powerful nation in the world economically and militarily. It offered freedom of autonomy, thought and religion along the greatest educational system on the planet. In contrast, 70 years of communism turned Russia into a giant prison where political and religious persecution abounded and hope was found only in a dictionary. 

Under Marx's dream of a worker's paradise, Russia and much of eastern Europe under the Soviet Union became a nightmare for millions of folks who saw their nations and cultures crumble before their eyes. In Russia, if you were even suspected of having subversive thoughts toward the government, you could be hauled away in the dead of night never to be seen again. 

Many Russians and eastern Europeans who were fortunate to escape the Soviet nightmare will tell you horror stories of harsh persecution, government invasion of privacy, extensive poverty, apartment buildings without heat and running water in the dead of winter, stores with empty shelves, unsafe factories, inferior automobiles that rusted prematurely and frequently broke down and ambulances that never arrived during medical emergencies.

Russia's come a long way from those bleak days. And she still has a long way to go to catch up to the west. But she's getting there. Certainly, Vladimir Putin is reviled by millions of Russians who see him as nothing but a thug and a thinly disguised dictator. They believe that Putin stole the presidential election last year and they believe that he's going to return Russia to the dark days of communism where political oppression and persecution were commonplace.

That's probably not going to happen. Putin wants Russia to become the world's greatest superpower and that won't happen under a political system that denies individual freedoms while trying to control the economy. That's been tried and it's failed miserably. Putin understands that capitalism is the key to economic success which in turn brings in the wealth to help spread a nation's influence all over the world. Want proof? You can find a McDonalds restaurant almost anywhere in the world. 

In the future, Russia's going to become a friendly place to do business. You'll see businesses and corporations from all over the world move into Russia to build factories and that produce products that can no longer be built in America because of a hostile government that murders economic growth through stifling regulations and high taxes. And when you begin to see English gradually replacing Cyrillic throughout Russia, you'll understand what's happening.

Certainly, I'm not promoting Russia. And I'm no fan of Vladimir Putin. He's a ruthless man who destroys his enemies. But Russia's rise to prominence and world power is prophetic. Nearly 2,600 years ago, the ancient Hebrew prophet Daniel prophesied of a powerful nation that he described as a northern kingdom (Daniel 11) that would rise to power in the last days and eventually control the world. I believe that nation is Russia because the Bible's geographical map always places Israel at its center.

And the nation furthermost north of Israel is Russia. Is that a coincidence? Not likely.