Rabbi Jonathan Cahn’s “The Harbinger” for two years has warned of God’s impending judgment.

And pastor Mark Biltz, the author of “Blood Moons: Decoding the Imminent Heavenly Signs,” has a message that the signs in the heavens are aligning again as they have in the past when there have been significant events for Israel.

Now, a writer for Haaretz, the Israeli news report, says observers are watching closely developments in the Ukraine based on the idea that it could generate the conflict with Gog and Magog, one of the Bible’s heralds of the end times and the return of the Messiah.

Chemi Shaley writes that Josephus Flavius, “the turncoat Jewish historian who chronicled the Masada saga,” theorized the Scythians, who lived in the central Eurasian region until the 4th century, lived in the land of Magog, “as in Gog and Magog, as in the war of Gog and Magog, as in the biblical prelude to the End of Days.”

Reported Shaley, “Which is one of the many reasons why recent events in the Ukraine have created a buzz among legions of apocalypse-anticipating true believers. This could be the real thing, they tell themselves, the big time, the major leagues, not the end of the beginning, to quote Winston Churchill in reverse, but the beginning of the end. And it is Vladimir Putin, aka Gog, aka King of the North, who has set things in motion.

“You only have to read Ezekiel chapters 38-39, the widely accepted handbook and screenplay for the upcoming decimation. According to traditional translations of verse 2 of Chapter 38, Gog is the ‘chief prince of Meshech and Tuval,’ ancient kingdoms also near the Black Sea. But the term used for ‘chief prince’ in Hebrew is ‘nesi rosh’ (as in נשיא ראש משך ותבל): Nesi could also mean ‘ruler’ or ‘president,’ and some scholars believe that ‘rosh’ is not an adjective, at all, but a noun denoting the name of yet another nation that will enter the fray. So Gog is the prince of Rosh, or the president of Rosh, or, with a little bit of help, the president of Russia.”

Those who follow news reports know that an insurrection in Ukraine against an elected leader was followed by a revolt in its state of Crimea, where a majority of the population is Russian. Residents there voted for a secession from Ukraine and a joining with Russia, a move the rest of the world has yet to accept even though Putin quickly incorporated the region into his holdings.

Shaley noted that has created some unusual circumstances, such as the question for officials at the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam who are presenting an exhibit called “The Crimea, Gold and secrets from the Black Sea.”

The question is whether those assets now belong to Ukraine, which included Crimea when the exhibit opened, or Russia.

Shaley also reported that the prophecies suggest a cohort for Gog.

“And who will ride with Gog? Why Persia, of course, as specified in verse 5. And possibly Syria, though it hardly seems capable these days. And why will they all gang up on Israel? The Internet site RemantReport explains: 1) To acquire more territory (Ezekiel 38:8). 2) To plunder Israel’s wealth (38:12) (Israel’s newly discovered vast reserves of natural in the Mediterranean, of course, CS). 3) To destroy the Jews (38:11, 16). And 4) To challenge the authority of the Antichrist who will temporarily be Israel’s ally due to a treaty mentioned in Daniel 9:27, ‘That ruler will have a firm agreement with many people for seven years.’”

The article notes that if Gog is Putin, “Then we all know who the natural candidate for the Antichrist is. But let’s put that aside for now. In any case, there is a nuclear confrontation (‘I will start a fire in the land of Magog and along all the seacoasts where people live undisturbed, and everyone will know that I am the Lord) and then a massive seven-month cleanup and a mass burial, somewhere in Jordan, it seems.”

For Christians, the talking points then include an army of 200 million men from the East, and a variety of events follow.

“Jews, by the way, make do with just the war of Gog and Magog, after which messianic days are here and ‘swords are beaten into ploughshares’ etc. Nonetheless, Christians aren’t the only ones who are getting excited about the standoff in Eastern Europe. According to a report catching fire over the weekend in the haredi press in Israel, the Gaon Rabbi Moshe Shternbuch told his disciples this week that the times of the Messiah are upon us. And who is the source for his amazing analysis? None other than one of the top Jewish sages of all time, the Vilna Gaon himself, the Gra, ‘the genius of Vilnius,’ the famously harsh critic of Hasidic Judaism.”

The report continues, “According to said Shternbuch, he is privy to a closely guarded secret handed down from the 18th Century Vilna Gaon through generations of revered rabbis: ‘When you hear that the Russians have captured the city of Crimea, you should know that the times of the Messiah have started, that his steps are being heard. And when you hear that the Russians have reached the city of Constantinople (today’s Istanbul), you should put on your Shabbat clothes and don’t take them off, because it means that the Messiah is about to come any minute.’”

The “Harbinger,” and its companion documentary presentation, “The Isaiah 9:10 Judgment,” reveal the prophecy of that very reference.

“The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars,” says Isaiah 9:10.

The book explains how ancient Israel was initially attacked by the Assyrians as part of a limited judgment of God. But instead of repenting of their wicked ways, the Bible explains, Israel responded by putting its faith in its own ability to rebuild and rejecting repentance and re-dedication to God.

That spelled the eventual end of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, as Assyria conquered the nation and scattered, killed or took captive the population.

The premise of “The Harbinger” and “The Isaiah 9:10 Judgment” is that history is repeating itself in America today – since the limited attack of Sept. 11 – in a profound way, even with American leaders repeating the actual words of Isaiah 9:10 in responding to the cataclysm.

Here’s the trailer for “The Isaiah 9:10 Judgment”: