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.
You are stubbornly persistent. Matthew 24 and Luke 21 teaches the abomination as in AD70. You can argue with Jesus.
You mean scripturally consistent.
Matthew 24 and Luke 21 teaches the abomination as in AD70.
Baloney -- you can't show that in the text anywhere. And by "this generation" Jesus meant the generation that would be around when the times of the Gentiles is fulfilled. Read the context. The abomination of desolation of Daniel is to take place 1290 days after the sacrifices ended:
"And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days."
Just when was the daily sacrifice taken away in your preteral world??? You say 30 AD??? Then it had to occur in 33 AD, right. Not only is your understanding of words flawed but also your mathematical calculations leave people scratching their heads.
one wonders if he was reading the same words that everyone else was.
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Have had that feeling a lot on this thread.
Sorry, but the text does not support that assertion.
“And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.”
When were the times of the Gentiles fulfilled??? in 70 AD?? Is that what preterists claim? There sure is a lot of Gentile foot traffic over there in Jerusalem and has been for some 1937 years. So just when were those times of the Gentiles fulfilled again??? Because Luke says that when the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled:
“And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.”
Have we seen that yet or did that also occur in 70 AD as well??? How did everybody miss it?? Did they have their eyes closed??
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INDEED. PLAIN SCRIPTURE. PLAIN MEANING.
BTW,
How is it that the Replacementarians seem ready to “allow” Christ to be taken up in a cloud at the end of his bodily earthly ministry . . . but NOT to return in the same way though the angels told the disciples HE WOULD RETURN IN LIKE MANNER???
Oh, I know. That old rubber Bible; rubber dictionary trick again.
“And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.”
When were the times of the Gentiles fulfilled??? in 70 AD?? Is that what preterists claim? There sure is a lot of Gentile foot traffic over there in Jerusalem and has been for some 1937 years. So just when were those times of the Gentiles fulfilled again??? Because Luke says that when the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled:
“And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.”
Have we seen that yet or did that also occur in 70 AD as well??? How did everybody miss it?? Did they have their eyes closed??
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This should be interesting . . . Maybe they’ll have to turn their rubber Bibles into silly putty to answer those questions. Well said.
Unless you see Christ entirely in the prophecy, you will miss the boat.
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Really?
I thought unless one saw what the prophecy said about Christ and ahout everlasting righteousness and about sealing of the words of the prophecy and about the anointing of the Most Holy . . . that one would miss the boat.
I didn’t realize that Replacementarians were into Readers Digest Condensed versions of their rubber Bibles.
That’s quite a handy little Bible interpretation construct. Come across any troubling phrases . . . just reduce them to a generalized topic in the passage. Pretty slick.
God must be real impressed. I’m sure He’ll hire those Replacementarian editors next time. Should save a lot of onion skin paper. Let’s see how would that go now . . .
Christ was brought in, in 33AD.
Christ was sealed. [Sounds like there should have been a big ceremony and a lot of hoopla. But the Replacementarians decree no.]
Christ was anointed as the Most Holy. [Goodness—THAT should have REALLY required a big ceremony and a huge amount of hoopla. At least a shaking or two of Heaven and earth. Alas, the Replacementarians decree no. Must have been something Mary merely entered in her private journal.]
/snicker/sigh
In my Bible there’s a bunch of books in between those 2 books and one of the things it says is that Christians will know the ‘times’ and the ‘seasons’ for Jesus return...
That must not be in your bible...
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I think it must be the . . .
RRRFV
The Routinely Revised Rubber Fantasy Version for Replacementarians.
When the truth gets stretched thin enough . . . it has a Cheshire Cat experience and just pops out of this time/space dimension—just quite disappears. Given the Replacementarian’s vast experiences in manufacturing new “truth,” it doesn’t really slow them down much, however.
What in the text makes you think that the disciples did not "get it"??? Did they all not get it??? Because they all asked the same logically pertinent question afterwards.
They asked questions that made sense to them in their limited understanding.
The question made perfect sense to Jesus.
Jesus gives them the answer of how the kingdom will be expanded in Acts 1. I twill start in Jerusalem and Judea and works its way out from there
But, topcat, Jesus had just finished telling them that only the Father knows when the kingdom would be restored to Israel. Did Jesus have an alzheimer's moment? Did He know the time or not know the time??? Did He forget what he had just told his disciples 5 seconds earlier? Or are you saying that at that moment He got a text message from His Father telling Him that it was now time to set up the kingdom? Which was it??? Was it time or not time???
Jesus sets them straight by His teaching.
No -- Jesus sets straight the subsequent preterists, replacement theologians, Marcionites, and all those who would arise to think that He would forget the words of the Old Testament prophets.
As I have mentioned several times on the forum, I personally eschew all the doctrines and traditions of men across the board. Likewise, man's interpretations of Scriptural prophesy have no currency with me. It is nothing personal.
If you are led of the Spirit to a certain understanding of end times prophesy, then you must embrace it.
I am led by God the Father's revelations in 1) Jesus Christ His only begotten Son, 2) the indwelling Holy Spirit, 3) the Scriptures which the Spirit has personally authenticated and 4) the Creation both spiritual and physical.
And in a similar fashion, I must embrace the Spirit's leading in understanding those self same end times prophesies. (Romans 8, John 15-17 et al)
As long as we are both loving God surpassingly above all else, that we do not share the same spiritual understanding of end times prophesies is not at all troubling to me.
God did not make us with a cookie cutter and we are not at the same point in our walk with the Lord. And whereas we are members of the same body of Christ, we have different gifts of the Spirit according to God's will, not our own.
Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.
For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also [is] Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether [we be] Jews or Gentiles, whether [we be] bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.
For the body is not one member, but many. - I Cor 12:1-14
The glory of God revealed in chapters four and five is spiritually illuminating - the harmonious completion in the new heaven and new earth (the Final Cause) in Revelation 21 and 22 brings a peace and understanding which cannot be conveyed by language alone.
And in a similar manner, the individual triumphs and failures of the churches – and Christ’s reaction to them in chapters two and three reveal the oneness which transcends the disputes or resentments within the body of Christ. The Oneness is in Him - no man, no assembly of man, no church possesses such understanding.
And likewise – the part which evidently causes such a difference between us – the wrath of God which shall be poured out on all of this Creation – this heaven and earth, spiritual and physical. Therein His righteousness, His glory, His power is revealed to all. No wonder Revelation contains a blessing for all who hear it.
The wrath begins in chapter five with the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, Who is the only One Who can handle it. And it also ends with Christ in the Great White Throne Judgment.
Truly, even knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
But the wrath of God is not for us because we are dead and our lives are hid with Christ in God.
The Creation longs for this, we His adopted children long for this.
He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. – John 12:48
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life. – John 6:63
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of [things] in heaven, and [things] in earth, and [things] under the earth; And [that] every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ [is] Lord, to the glory of God the Father. – Philippians 2:9-11
These are the leanings I have received in the Spirit. That yours are somewhat different is moot. His will for us is not necessarily the same.
To God be the glory!
From Christ’s answer, as I have stated. He does not say the kingdom will be restored to national Israel. He explains the true, universal nature of the kingdom and how it will be expanded into all the world, beginning in Jerusalem and Judea.
But, topcat, Jesus had just finished telling them that only the Father knows when the kingdom would be restored to Israel.
The text does not say that. You are reading your interpretation into the text.
Did Jesus have an alzheimer's moment?
Someone around here is having one, and it wasn’t Jesus.
Did He know the time or not know the time???
What time? Jesus does not confirm there will be any time when the kingdom will be restored to national Israel. That's your eisegesis of the text.
And you have failed to even acknowledge that nowhere in the NT do the apostles and writers even attempt to state for a fact that the kingdom will eventually be restored to national Israel.
EXCELLENT in all respects, as usual.
Thx.
I do not subscribe to the notion that God gives different "truth" to different folks. Or that He speaks one way to one person and differently to anther. That would make Him truly a God of confusion.
Of course you will claim the Spirit teaches you otherwise. It’s hard to find common ground with such a relativistic viewpoint of truth, or to walk with another "in one accord".
You might find an interesting parallel of that concept in mathematics, i.e. fractals. In particular, the Mandelbrot set.
The link contains an entertaining interactive graphic of the Mandelbrot set, essentially visualizing slices of a complex plane, ever moving to infinity (as if it could be acheived.) MHGinTN, I thought you might enjoy the graphic also - considering your previous posts on the geometry of time.
I apologize for not pinging you to my general posts 650 and 655. Please consider yourself pinged.
Then just what exactly does this verse say:
"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."
The times and seasons are in the Father's own power, no one else's, are they not???
How does your bible translate it???
This is a super key Scripture between the two camps. Misconstruing this Scripture has led to all kinds of illogical, UNBiblical and Unhistorical . . . eternally hazardous theological balderdash.
The deceased DEAN OF BIBLICAL PROPHECY of our era . . . John F Walvoord in his EVERY PROPHECY OF THE BIBLE pp390-391, 392 notes:
In any case, I think the recognized Dean of Prophecy in our era--Walvoord--makes some worthy points. He certainly blows the Replacementarian construction on reality clear out of the water.
I realize that Biblical logic, accuracy along with historical accuracy is not a Replacementarian strong point . . . It is nice to see a scholar such as Walvoord come down on the side of Biblical logic and historical accuracy.
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