North Korea and the Kings of the East

By Terry James

I must be up front and say that I feel somewhat guilty writing on the building North Korean nuclear threat. Compared to other things popping to the news front almost hourly, this tin-horn dictatorship and its doings somewhat fade in the glow of prophetic potentiality on today’s geopolitical horizon.

President Obama’s trip to Egypt to, in effect, call America the guilty party for causing all of the Middle East hatreds and turmoil, and his absolute insult to Israel by refusing to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his nation were fraught enough with prophetic portent. But, Obama’s declaration that there will be peace and security only when Israel’s land is divided and the Palestinians are given a state as part of that divided land, with part of Jerusalem its capital, is nothing short of staggering when considering the stage-setting for the coming time of God’s wrath.

There is so much surrounding the stunning swiftness of this president’s moves to remake this nation and the world into something very much like the end-times world foretold by Jesus and the Old and New Testament prophets that examining any other issues and events seems merely anecdotal or afterthought.

However, the North Korean factor does, I’m convinced, fit into the end-times Bible prophecy puzzle. Therefore, I’ve determined the matters involved to be of enough significance to present some thoughts in this forum, as I had started out to do before the Obama speech in Cairo. It is key to understanding the possibilities of how the countries of Asia might one day fulfill the “kings of the east” prophecies to look at how the giant dragon nation holds sway.

I’ve always found it fascinating that China in modern times – one of the most diabolically repressive regimes ever to exist — has the dragon as its national symbol. That reptilian beast, in my view, fits because of the influence that old serpent — the dragon, Satan — has observably wielded over that land since the time of Mao Tse-tung. Mao and the so-called Peoples Revolution had perhaps as many as sixty million Chinese people murdered.

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il , although more crude than Mao, is of the same dragon mind-set. He continues to press forward with nuclear weapons testing and with a ballistic missile testing program designed to intimidate his Asian neighbors, particularly South Korea and Japan.

His threats, we are led to believe, are as much a concern to china and Russia as to North Korea’s immediate neighbors. They seem to be all for putting the handcuffs on the Mao wannabe. But, when it comes down to putting the diplomatic hammer down on the North Korean tyrant, China, along with Russia, becomes wishy-washy.

Sanctions work against the North Korean regime, it has been proven, only if they are of the severe economic sort. Only when those government officials of North Korea who deal with international buying and selling are literally forced to carry cash around with them because they are sanctioned in the process of acquiring loans through credit do they ever make concessions.

The international community, demanding nuclear non-proliferation, then, not surprisingly is calling for severe sanctions in order to pressure Kim Jong-il into giving up nuclear weapons development. The United States, for example, is at the forefront of imposing sanctions of the kind that has in the past gotten results from such pressures on North Korea’s leadership.

SEOUL, South Korea — The United States has told South Korea it will impose its own financial sanctions on the North apart from punishments that the UN has been mulling for Pyongyang's latest nuclear test, a news report said Friday. The U.S. sanctions call for blacklisting foreign financial institutions that help the North launder money and conduct other dubious deals, the South Korean Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported… (“U.S. to reportedly go for own sanctions on N. Korea,” Associated Press, 6/5/09).

However, there is in these troubling days a major problem with America or anyone else squaring off with the North Koreans with regard to such stringent sanctions: Many analysts have said that economic sanctions against the isolated North won't be effective unless China actively implements them. Pyongyang relies heavily On China for food and energy aid and imports. More than 70 percent of the North's total trade is with China… (ibid.).

China, like Russia, wanting to give appearances of being on board with holding a tight rein on Kim Jong-il, has indicated it would join in the sanctions. But now, when it becomes imperative to take such action because of Kim Jong-il’s going full steam ahead with a barrage of missile launches, an underground nuclear test that violated previous UN Security Council sanctions, and apparent plans for more missile tests (including one believed to be capable of reaching the U.S.), China along with Russia uses delaying tactics at every opportunity.

UNITED NATIONS — North Korea's allies China and Russia raised questions Tuesday about some possible new sanctions against North Korea for its recent nuclear test, delaying Security Council action sought by key Western powers, U.N. diplomats said. But, getting a resolution out quickly is less important than getting one that has teeth, they said…(“China, Russia Delay United Nations Action on Sanctions Against North Korea Over Nuclear Test,” www.FOXNews.com, 6/4/09).

It is all quite troubling, but prophetic in implication. North Korea, at this point, appears to be a pawn used in the Sino-Russian mix of positioning for power in a world in process of stupefying changes. America’s new president continues to be a chief – perhaps the chief — instigator of those changes. Just as Russia looks to be the Gog nation of the Gog-Magog war of Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39, China will likely be the king of the kings of the East nations.

And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates. And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men. And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them (Revelation 9:13-16).

And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared” (Revelation 16:12).

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