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.
Yeah.
That REPLACEMENTARIAN/DAVID COPPERFIELD SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY
mangles both history and Scripture.
My perspective is that a lot of the Bible believing . . . even prayerful . . . prophetic Scriptures aware dispensationalists are at least half asleep at the switch.
The REPLACEMENTARIANS aren’t even aware there’s a switch to be asleep at.
In a prior post you mentioned calvinism. I just wanted to point out that Post-millinialism is not necessarily the reformed/calvinist/puritan position regarding the “end times”. In fact, nearly all those names you find in any reformation hall of fame (Luther, Calvin, Spurgeon, etc., beleived Rome and the papists were the anti-christ. Hardly consistent with a kingdom now viewpoint.
INDEED.
Have observed myself . . . the last year or so . . .
the REPLACEMENTARIANS hereon have . . . succeeded in leaving me with . . . how to put it . . .
well BEYOND
—incredulous
—shocked
—aghast
—amazed
—flabbergasted
—mystified
—bewildered
at how anyone could remotely rationally mangle Scripture soooooooooooooooooooooooooo horribly and soooooooooooooooooo extensively.
Am somewhat tolerant of trying to facilitate enlightenment for any rare such who still have a shred of an open mind AND A DESIRE to KNOW THE TRUTH about our prophetic era . . . but I mostly just write bouncing off their putrid pontifications for the lurkers.
At some point, their perspective has to be on their own heads. The ridiculousness of most of their Scriptural manglings would have embarrassed most critical thinking 7th graders of my era. It’s as though satan has neutered the logic components of their higher level circuits. I just don’t understand it otherwise.
It’s similar to the incongruent, off-the-wall Marion stuff in the RC camp. There’s not a shred of Scriptural support for it but millions bow at the altar of extensive hogwash with utter devotion. REPLACEMENTARIANS are like that at the altar of MANGLED SCRIPTURE AVOIDING PLAIN SCRIPTURAL TRUTHS.
Sad. Very sad.
I know. Back in the recesses of my memory storage somewhere.
But the Calvinist and Hyper Calvinist contingent hereon are so wholesale lock-step addicted to mangling Scripture in the REPLACEMENTARIAN manner . . . I tend to lump it all together.
These Scriptures effectively shred the silly statements above about the issues involved.
######################################
Revelation 13:14-16 (The Message)
The Message (MSG)
Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson
13-17 This second Beast worked magical signs, dazzling people by making fire come down from Heaven. It used the magic it got from the Beast to dupe earth dwellers, getting them to make an image of the Beast that received the deathblow and lived. It was able to animate the image of the Beast so that it talked, and then arrange that anyone not worshiping the Beast would be killed. It forced all people, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to have a mark on the right hand or forehead. Without the mark of the name of the Beast or the number of its name, it was impossible to buy or sell anything.
######################
Revelation 13:15
And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
Revelation 13:14-16 (in Context) Revelation 13 (Whole Chapter)
Revelation 14:9
And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,
Revelation 14:8-10 (in Context) Revelation 14 (Whole Chapter)
Revelation 14:11
And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.
Revelation 14:10-12 (in Context) Revelation 14 (Whole Chapter)
Revelation 15:2
And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.
Revelation 15:1-3 (in Context) Revelation 15 (Whole Chapter)
Daniel 8:13
Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint which spake, How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot?
Daniel 8:12-14 (in Context) Daniel 8 (Whole Chapter)
Daniel 9:27
And he shall enter into a strong and firm covenant with the many for one week [seven years]. And in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and offering to cease [for the remaining three and one-half years]; and upon the wing or pinnacle of abominations [shall come] one who makes desolate, until the full determined end is poured out on the desolator.
Daniel 9:26-27 (in Context) Daniel 9 (Whole Chapter) AMPLIFIED
Daniel 11:31
And armed forces of his shall appear [in the holy land] and they shall pollute the sanctuary, the [spiritual] stronghold, and shall take away the continual [daily burnt offering]; and they shall set up [in the sanctuary] the abomination that astonishes and makes desolate [probably an altar to a pagan god].
Daniel 11:30-32 (in Context) Daniel 11 (Whole Chapter)
Daniel 12:11
And from the time that the continual burnt offering is taken away and the abomination that makes desolate is set up, there shall be 1,290 days.
Daniel 12:10-12 (in Context) Daniel 12 (Whole Chapter)
Revelation 21:8
But as for the cowards and the ignoble and the contemptible and the cravenly lacking in courage and the cowardly submissive, and as for the unbelieving and faithless, and as for the depraved and defiled with abominations, and as for murderers and the lewd and adulterous and the practicers of magic arts and the idolaters (those who give supreme devotion to anyone or anything other than God)
[HINT to those who over adore Mary!]
and all liars (those who knowingly convey untruth by word or deed)—[all of these shall have] their part in the lake that blazes with fire and brimstone. This is the second death.
Revelation 21:7-9 (in Context) Revelation 21 (Whole Chapter)
What ridiculous nonsense. The Church was the only thing keeping learning and knowledge, and even just plain literacy alive. Read "How the Irish Saved Civilization" for starters.
You've been drinking deeply from the well of "enlightenment" historians who are atheists, not Christians at all.
It isn’t “replacement” theology. The Israel of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were BELIEVING Jews. The gentile BELIEVERS were grafted in later. They are all one in Christ by FAITH.
Romans 9:6: It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.
BTW, you can’t answer my questions, can you? I thought so.
I try to avoid spending time on questions I construe as absurd or worthless.
The REPLACEMENTARIANS chronically fail to see God’s specific and special treatment of the blood children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the end times. It’s plainly visible in prophetic Scriptures . . . but they have no eyes to see it, evidently.
Mangling Scripture to try and shoehorn the blood children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob exclusively into the Christian church at every stage of the end times is a huge UNBiblical pack of utter nonsense.
BTW, I
CAN
do a lot of things I choose not to do. Some things are wiser and some less wise. Some things are fruitful and some are less fruitful.
And some are absurd and worthless from the git-go.
Make that 70 A.D. and you’ve got it right.
***The fact is there are no conditions on the earth that require God’s immediate, apocalyptic intervention. Chicken Little’s sky has been falling for numerous generations of Christians who wish to be dazzled by current events.***
Exactly. It never ceases to amaze me when Dispensationalists act as thought if Jesus doesn’t come back now that somehow the earth will be beyond him to save. It is like they don’t think God is really strong enough to be in charge.
They need to get their eye off of the world and its circumstances and back on God. Do they truly think that, even if a nuclear war would wipe out the earth and move the earth’s orbit (from this very thread) that God would even permit men to “push the button” before he was ready. Take a deep breath; God really is in control and everything is going to be alright. You can unclench and enjoy life.
Does NOT sound like ANY dispensationalists I know well.
Maybe it’s some more REPLACEMENTARIAN FANTASIZING about facts, reality, Biblical truth . . .
They need to get their eye off of the world and its circumstances and back on God. Do they truly think that, even if a nuclear war would wipe out the earth and move the earth’s orbit (from this very thread) that God would even permit men to “push the button” before he was ready. Take a deep breath; God really is in control and everything is going to be alright. You can unclench and enjoy life.
Of course these folks do not really believe their own apocalyptic prognostication. Otherwise they would not be spending tons of their own money, and other’s money, to move thousands of Jews into Israel. Two out of every three Jews they pay to emigrate will end up tasting the wrath of God, according to the dispensationalist theory.
Many of the more consistent, older dispensationalists recognized the folly of trying to read the "signs of the times" (the favorite non-contact sport of pop dispensationalists) precisely because they believed that the “church age” was a parenthetical gap in God’s program for Israel, and so none of the prophecies given to Israel were predictive on the next tick on the prophetic clock, i.e., the secret pre-trib rapture. But even though they give lip service to the biblical admonition that "no man knows the day or hour" most pop dispensationalists speak and act as if they know with relative certain that it will happen "real soon now".
But it’s all just a scam to sell books and get donations. The biblically illiterate are hooked on the "signs of the times" drug. They cannot get enough of it, even when the effect wears off over decades and generations, there are the faithful who look for even more. Another fix -- another prophecy conference or revised book with worn out theories.
It sad to see professing Christians suckered in by this madness. Just look at the low signal-to-noise ratio by most of the dispie proponents in this thread. I suppose they figure "my pastor (or favorite TV personality) believe this so it must be true".
Of course these folks do not really believe their own apocalyptic prognostication. Otherwise they would not be spending tons of their own money, and other’s money, to move thousands of Jews into Israel. Two out of every three Jews they pay to emigrate will end up tasting the wrath of God, according to the dispensationalist theory.
= = =
HOGWASH.
Evidently that perspective has little appreciation for the place of destiny in the lives of individuals and people groups . . . which is rather surprising . . . given Calvinism and all.
I am still keenly interested in The Lord releasing me to return to Asia even though I consider it at least reasonably likely that I’ll end up dying for my faith, there.
Being in the center of God’s will for each individual is more important than comfort or even than life or death.
Evidently this is a principle of the faith that escapes the REPLACEMENTARIAN perspective.
I felt intensely like I was coming home from a 40 year life in the Navy when I rode the bus the first time into Jerusalem from TelAviv.
Should God direct me to be in Jerusalem . . . assuming The Rapture had not yet occurred . . . though I think it will have . . . but assuming God directed me to be in Jerusalem just before those horrors . . . BEING IN HIS WILL WOULD BE SUFFICIENT.
Sad that REPLACEMENTARIANS/CALVINISTS seem to have little appreciation for such truths and principles.
Of course everyone knows Revelation as written in AD95. It’s in the Bible, right? And Peter was the first pope. And Jesus spoke King James English. And God helps those who help themselves. …
But it’s all just a scam to sell books and get donations. The biblically illiterate are hooked on the “signs of the times” drug. They cannot get enough of it, even when the effect wears off over decades and generations, there are the faithful who look for even more. Another fix — another prophecy conference or revised book with worn out theories.
= = =
Welll I suppose a shallowness in perceptiveness toward the BIBLE on such prophetic matters is likely to correlate with a super shallowness in viewing those who simply take the Bible at face value and believe what it says.
Such heart and mind-reading seems chronically to miss the realities I know of such individuals by a trillion light years. Not even in the same galactic cluster.
The Scriptures I posted shredding the REPLACEMENTARIAN perspective about the abomination that makes desolate when the Anti-Christ sets his image up in the rebuilt Jewish Temple’s Holy of Holies have not begun to be dealt with reasonably. No surprise really. Yet we are the flawed ones? We are the crazy ones?
Fascinating.
***Does NOT sound like ANY dispensationalists I know well.***
And, yet, I was making a reference to direct comments on THIS thread.
This thread is absurdly laughable in a way. You Dispensationalists have NO idea just how funny I find most of these comments.
I have never noticed that I’ve had much influence on the reality mangling, distorting tendencies of the perceptiveness of the REPLACEMENTARIANS hereon.
Not surprised that we dispies would be so brazenly misperceived and misconstrued.
Perhaps new glasses would help.
Or maybe a new Bible without so much rubber in it.
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