Posted on 10/24/2007 8:18:14 AM PDT by topcat54
An article is circulating around the Internet that carries the title “Israel Warns World War III May be Biblical War of Gog and Magog.” It is written by Ezra HaLevi and was published in Israel National News.1 The article begins with the following prophetic claims, not unlike so many evangelical and fundamentalist end-time assurances about the end:
US President George W. Bush said a nuclear Iran would mean World War III. Israeli newscasts featured Gog & Magog maps of the likely alignment of nations in that potential conflict. Channel 2 and Channel 10 TV showed the world map, sketching the basic alignment of the two opposing axes in a coming world war, in a manner evoking associations of the Gog and Magog prophecy for many viewers. The prophecy of Gog and Magog refers to a great world war centered on the Holy Land and Jerusalem and first appears in the book of Yechezkel (Ezekiel). On one side were Israel, the United States, Britain, France and Germany. On the other were Iran, Russia, China, Syria and North Korea.
M. R. DeHaan, writing in 1951, identified “the sign of Gog and Magog” to be one of the “three most outstanding signs of the coming of Christ.”2 In 1972, Carl Johnson wrote Prophecy Made Plain for Times Like These.3 His chapter on “When Russia Invades the Middle East” includes a lengthy quotation from a message Jack Van Impe gave at Canton Baptist Temple in Canton, Ohio, sometime in 1969. Like so many who claim to know what’s on the prophetic horizon, Van Impe made his case for an imminent war with Russia on what the newspapers of 1969 were reporting. This war was so close, he charged, “that the stage is being set for what could explode into World War III at any moment.”4 In 1971, Ronald Reagan, then governor of California, followed a similar prophetic script:
Ezekiel tells us that Gog, the nation that will lead all of the other powers of darkness against Israel, will come out of the north. Biblical scholars have been saying for generations that Gog must be Russia. What other powerful nation is to the north of Israel? None. But it didn’t seem to make sense before the Russian revolution, when Russia was a Christian country. Now it does, now that Russia has become Cummunistic and atheistic, now that Russia has set itself against God. Now it fits the description of Gog perfectly.5
This familiar interpretation of Ezekiel 38 and 39 has been written about, talked about, and repeated so often that it has become an unquestioned tenet of prophetic orthodoxy. The question is, does the Bible teach it?
Ezekiel 38 and 39 has been interpreted in various ways over the centuries. The most popular view is to see the prophecy as a depiction of a future battle that includes an alliance of nations led by modern-day Russia in an attack on Israel. Chuck Missler writes in his book Prophecy 20/20 that “the apparent use of nuclear weapons has made this passage [Ezekiel 38 and 39] appear remarkably timely, and some suspect that it may be on our horizon.”6 Prophecy writers for nearly 2000 years have made similar claims, of course without the reference to “nuclear weapons.” In the fourth and fifth centuries, Gog was thought to refer to the Goths and Moors. In the seventh century, it was the Huns. By the eighth century, the Islamic empire was making a name for itself, so it was a logical candidate. By the tenth century, the Hungarians briefly replaced Islam. But by the sixteenth century, the Turks and Saracens seemed to fit the Gog and Magog profile with the Papacy thrown in for added prophetic juice. In the seventeenth century, Spain and Rome were the end-time bad guys.7 In the nineteenth century, Napoleon was Gog leading the forces of Magog-France.8 For most of the twentieth century, Communist Russia was the logical pick with its military aspirations, its atheistic founding, and its designation of being “far north” of Israel. In a word, identifying Gog and Magog with a specific nation or group of nations in the past is legion.9
As the above brief study shows, when the headlines change, the interpretation of the Bible changes. The failed interpretive history of Ezekiel 38 and 39 is prime evidence that modern-day prophecy writers are not “profiling the future through the lens of Scripture” but through the ever-changing headlines of the evening news.10
A lot has to be read into the Bible in order to make Ezekiel 38 and 39 fit modern-day military realities that include jet planes, “missiles,” and “atomic and explosive” weaponry. Those who claim to interpret the Bible literally have a problem on their hands.
The battle in Ezekiel 38 and 39 is clearly an ancient one or at least one fought with ancient weapons. All the soldiers are riding horses (38:4, 15; 39:20). These horse soldiers are “wielding swords” (38:4), carrying “bows and arrows, war clubs and spears” (39:3, 9). The weapons are made of wood (39:10), and it is these abandoned weapons that serve as fuel for “seven years” (39:9). Tim LaHaye describes a highly technological future when the antichrist rises to power to rule the world. “A wave of technological innovation is sweeping the planet. . . . The future wave has already begun. We cannot stop it. . . . [T]he Antichrist will use some of this technology to control the world.”11 How does this assessment of the near prophetic future square with a supposed tribulation period when Israelites “take wood from the field” and “gather firewood from the forests”? (39:10). There is nothing in the context that would lead the reader to conclude that horses, war clubs, swords, bows and arrows, and spears mean anything other than horses, war clubs, swords, bows and arrows, and spears. And what is the Russian air force after? Gold, silver, cattle, and goods (38:12–13). In what modern war can anyone remember armies going after cattle? How much cattle does Israel have? Certainly not enough to feed the Russians! The latest claim is that Israel will discover oil, and this is what will attract the nations to Israel. Where in the Bible do we find this claim?12
Chuck Missler attempts to get around the description of ancient war implements by claiming that the various Hebrew words “is simply 2,500-year-old language that could be describing a mechanized force.”13 The word translated “horse,” “actually means leaper” that “can also mean bird, or even chariot-rider.” He tells us that the Hebrew word translated “sword” “has become a generic term for any weapon or destroying instrument.” In a similar way, “arrow” means “piercer” and “is occasionally used for thunderbolt” and could be “translated today as a missile.” We are to believe that “‘Bow’ is what launches the [missile].”14 Is Missler trying to tell us that when Ezekiel wrote “bow” and “arrow” he really meant a launching pad for a missile? To follow his interpretive methodology requires us to believe that the meaning of the Bible has been inaccessible to the people of God for nearly 2500 years. Missler, like nearly all end-time prognosticators, breaks all the rules of exegesis.
2. M. R. DeHaan, Signs of the Times and other Prophetic Messages (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1951), 74.
3. Carl G. Johnson, Prophecy Made Plain for Times Like These (Chicago: Moody Press, 1972).
4. Jack Van Impe, The Coming War With Russia (Old Time Gospel Hour Press, n.d.). The quotation is taken from a message that Van Impe gave at Canton Baptist Temple, Canton, Ohio. The talk was recorded and available on a as an LP. Quoted in Johnson, Prophecy Made Plain for Times Like These, 82–83.
5. From an address that Ronald Reagan gave at a dinner with California legislators in 1971. Quoted in Paul Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern Culture (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1992), 162.
6. Chuck Missler, Prophecy 20/20: Profiling the Future Through the Lens of Scripture (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2006), 155.
7. Francis X. Gumerlock, The Day and the Hour: Christianity’s Perennial Fascination with Predicting the End of the World (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision, 2000), 68.
8. T.R., “Commentary on Ezekiel’s Prophecy of Gog and Magog,” The Gentleman’s Magazine (October 1816), 307.
9. Wikipedia
10. Gary DeMar, Islam and Russia in Prophecy: The Problem of Interpreting the Bible Through the Lens of History (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision, 2005).
11. Tim LaHaye, “The Coming Wave,” in Ed Hindson and Lee Fredrickson, Future Wave: End Times, Prophecy, and the Technological Explosion (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2001), 7–8.
12. This claim will be discussed in a later chapter.
13. Missler, Prophecy 20/20, 165.
14. Missler, Prophecy 20/20, 165.
Jesus told us:
15 "Therefore when you see the 'abomination of desolation,' spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place" (whoever reads, let him understand), 16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 17 Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house. 18 And let him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes. 19 But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! 20 And pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath. (Matt. 24)20 "But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near. 21 Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those who are in the midst of her depart, and let not those who are in the country enter her. 22 For these are the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. 23 But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! For there will be great distress in the land and wrath upon this people. 24 And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led away captive into all nations. (Luke 21)
The parallel between the two passages is undeniable. It is the AD70 event. The abomination/Jerusalem surrounded by armies was a localized event in the region of Judea. The "abomination" involved the ultimate desecration and desolation of the temple. This was not some future nuclear holocaust. People had time to gather their belongings and get out of the city. The Christians did just that, as Jesus had warned them to do.
Nor is there any need to rebuilt the temple, resurrect the long decayed Levitical priesthood, or reconstruct the Roman empire, as futurist anticipate.
No, the answer is quite simple, and that generation understood Jesus’ prophecy.
But the Bible says nothing of nuclear waste. The Bible speaks of implements of war then in existence.
There are all kinds of fanciful notions that have been concocted by folks to push the prophecies far into the future. All that just to deny the plain language as interpreted by the rest of the Bible, not Nuclear Waste Monthly.
But Jesus said that the great tribulation would not take place until after the abomination of desolation. When did that take place???
Depends what you mean by that (the A of D, that is). (ooooh, I can do the blue thing too....)
At what point were further sacrifices in the Jerusalem temple an abomination? You're a Pentecostal of some sort, right? Since you won't listen to anyone else, listen to one of your own, Gordon Fee, on the interpretation of Revelation. Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, conference on preaching apocalyptic texts.OOOps. Sorry. That last paragraph was meant for Quix.
And yet that view chooses to ignore Acts 1:
"Until the day in which he was taken up ... being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God ... When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power."
He had just spent 40 days telling them about the kingdom of God and when they all came together, they collectively had but one question: WHEN??? and not just WHEN? but WHEN will you restore the Kingdom to ISRAEL?
And did Jesus rebuke them for asking a stupid question"? --- NO.
He was not above rebuking them other times for asking stupid questions. So why not this time? Because they were not asking a stupid question. It was a logical question on the heels of 40 days of teaching on the kingdom of God which collectively they equated with the "restoration of the kingdom to Israel".
And what was Jesus' response: It is not for you to know the time, but only His Father in heaven knew the time. And Peter follows up later:
"And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began."
When Jesus returns He will restore the kingdom to Israel. The prophets spoke of the dispersal of Israel into all the nations, then the regathering from those nations, followed by the restitution or restoration of the Kingdom to Israel.
Get used to it. The prophets said so. Jesus said so. The apostles said so. It's coming.
EXCELLENT.
INDEED! AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!
Of course, the REPLACEMENTARIANS won’t be able to Biblically touch Luke 21:35 from their perspective, either.
It’s amazing that a notion so WHOLESALE OUT OF TOUCH AND SO WHOLESALE CONTRARY TO THE BIBLICAL AND HISTORICAL RECORDS
can continue for so long and with such fervor.
Another flawed assumption.
Do REPLACEMENTARIANS get automatic PhD’s in FLAWED ASSUMPTIONS?
They seem so chronic and persistent.
The flawed assumption is that I believe all Pentecostals are infallible in their doctrines and Scriptural perspectives.
LOL. ROTFLOL. GTTM.
MOST do SEEM to be better than MOST REPLACEMENTARIANS BY A TRILLION LIGHT YEARS . . . but that’s another issue.
AT least when Pentecostals go off the deep end in their theology, they do so much more interestingly.
Regarding Magog, He is a descendant of Japheth, as is Meshesh and Tubal. Their traditional lands are believed to be somewhere between Northern turkey and present day Georgia. I could accept a Turkish Magog, or any entity northward or even a bit westward of Turkey (like Greek for instance).
The term "Scythian" is a rather inclusive one, encompassing a rather broad group of diverse bands and tribes, although there were also true Scythes as well... Any assumption of who or where Magog may be cannot be defended due to disruption in the general area south of the Caucus Mountains by the Assyrian Empire, The Babylonian Empire, and also the Persian Empire.
These invasions tended to cause inter-allegiance and alliances between the indigenous people, and also had a tendency to drive those people before the invasion force into the Caucus Range and around the northern and southern ends of the Black Sea.
So all of the invasions that have entered Israel from the north have a reasonable qualification to be "Magog", providing the applicant meets the secondary qualifiers of being a multitude, and the armorer who outfits the other nations predicted to be involved.
To my knowledge, none meet that criteria, nor have any been a multitude defeated so decisively and completely as to cause Israel to need to gather their dead for years. There is no Valley of Hammongog, and there is no other time in history wherein Israel was a nation, and all of the parties to be allied against her were in fact allies. That is, no time up until now.
Some years ago . . . I read where the super armor on the Soviet tanks was a major part of a highly speciallized manufactured dense wood product. It was calculated that the plausible number of tanks would provide plenty of burnable wood for 7 years.
God gives lots of hints. Some are more specific than others. The precise exhaustive details of the working out of those literal hints are usually left for the event to display.
Dispys are cool with that. We figure God knows what He’s doing and that He tells us plenty for us to get where He wants us to get with sufficient faith to get there. Therefore, we don’t usually feel as compulsively compelled as REPLACEMENTARIANS to throw things in to stark ALL OR NOTHING OR STRICTLY ALL ENCOMPASSING BLACK/WHITE constructions on reality. Evidently that helps REPLACEMENTARIANS sleep better nights. Everything in tidy little black and white boxes . . . even though the boxes are UNBiblical shams; the logic of the contents is thoroughly irrational and the contenst just really don’t fit at all.
EXCELLENT POINTS, imho.
Thx.
To my knowledge, none meet that criteria, nor have any been a multitude defeated so decisively and completely as to cause Israel to need to gather their dead for years. There is no Valley of Hammongog, and there is no other time in history wherein Israel was a nation, and all of the parties to be allied against her were in fact allies. That is, no time up until now.
= = =
INDEED.
I’ve read a number of supposed tracings of the root tribes of Gog and Magog. The most convincing still left me convined that Russia was smack in the middle of those tribal ancestries.
I don’t think Jesus is saying in Acts 1 what you think He is saying.
There is an argument from silence which claims that Jesus was affirming the disciples’ notion that the kingdom would be restored to national Israel at some time in the future. Jesus never says that it will. Instead, He explain to them how the kingdom will really be established, with power from the Holy Spirit working through the disciples, first in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
You are simply reading your theology into the passage.
When Jesus returns He will restore the kingdom to Israel.
Of course the passage you quoted doesn’t say anything remotely like that, but you can continue to believe it if you wish.
No -- only one of those passages was fulfilled in the months leading up to 70 AD. The other is still future.
The "abomination" involved the ultimate desecration and desolation of the temple.
But just how could that be in your scenario. If they had fled when they saw the armies surrounding Jerusalem, then they wouldn't have been there at all to see the temple destroyed. But those who did see the temple destroyed then were all killed. They never had a chance to flee. It was already too late for them. So the destruction of the temple couldn't possible be that abomination that Jesus spoke of.
Furthermore according to Daniel 9, the abomination of desolation is to occur in the middle of the 70th week of Daniel, which you preterists claim ended in 33 AD. So your abomination of desolation would have been way back there around 30-33 AD. Can you tell us just what event took place then that could be interpreted to be the abomination of desolation???
Another flawed assumption.Do REPLACEMENTARIANS get automatic PhD’s in FLAWED ASSUMPTIONS?
They seem so chronic and persistent.
The flawed assumption is that I believe all Pentecostals are infallible in their doctrines and Scriptural perspectives.
LOL. ROTFLOL. GTTM.
MOST do SEEM to be better than MOST REPLACEMENTARIANS BY A TRILLION LIGHT YEARS . . . but that’s another issue.
AT least when Pentecostals go off the deep end in their theology, they do so much more interestingly.
Right now, Mac, you're just not worth dealing with. Lot's of shouting and slogans, no meaningful interaction.
When you're ready to deal with the texts, let us know.
Really? The prophets described what they saw using the best knowledge of the day they possessed.
"And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire."
Wellllllllllllllllll,
THAT'S
something that REPLACEMENTARIANS are CERTAINLY vastly superior experts on--given their chronic and seemingly addicted familiarity with the practice.
LOL. ROTFLOL. GTTM.
You refuse to deal with umpteen verses that prove the REPLACEMENTARIAN perspective is BIBLICALLY IMPOSSIBLE.
So I don’t feel the slightest compunction to bow to your demands in the slightest.
BTW, I consider the REPLACEMENTARIAN perspective
to be a damnable, super destructive heresy needlessly condemning countless souls to hell by preventing their accurate understanding of Biblical prophecy—particularly in these end times.
I don’t have the capacity to scream loudly enough to register fitting outrage over that travesty . . . even if the forum allowed it.
Nonsense -- He spent 40 days teaching the apostles that He would restore the kingdom to Israel -- thus their question of WHEN??? Are you telling us that He had just wasted 40 days teaching and they all get F's for their listening skills???
Instead, He explain to them how the kingdom will really be established, with power from the Holy Spirit working through the disciples, first in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
Whoa there !!!! You're saying that Jesus just told them that only His Father knows WHEN the kingdom will be restored, but then He turns right around, after telling them that only His Father knows when, and starts to set up the kingdom right then and there??? That makes no sense. Either only His Father knows or He knows too? Which is it???
That makes no sense.
= = =
A common characteristic of the REPLACEMENTARIAN construction on reality.
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